CIO ‘free vote’ seen by Bricker
Members will refuse dictation, he says
Santa Barbara, California (UP) –
Ohio Governor John W. Bricker said today that on Election Day, many CIO members would “smite down” the “brazen effrontery” of their union’s Political Action Committee in trying to dictate how they should vote.
Governor Bricker’s speech here today reviewed what he said he had learned on the first 7,500 miles of his nationwide campaign.
He said:
Many members of the CIO have told me in no uncertain terms that they will show the PAC on Nov. 7 that they have not given up their right to exercise a free choice when they cast their ballots…
The laboring man, “regardless of union affiliations,” Governor Bricker added, “deeply resents” being told whom to vote for and “rebels at being forced to contribute to a campaign for candidates of whom many of them do not approve.”
Governor Bricker speaks tonight at San Bernardino.
‘Silent’ John L. working for GOP
Washington (UP) –
John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, who staked – and lost – the presidency of the CIO four years ago on the election of the late Wendell L. Willkie, probably will take no public stand in the 1944 presidential contest, reliable sources said today.
Associates emphasized, however, that Mr. Lewis’ silence does not mean he is remaining on the political sideline. He and his top aides will do all they can, it was stated, to swing the nation’s 400,000 unionized miners to Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey.
UMW officials will not hazard a guess as to the number that might foreswear a 12-year allegiance to the New Deal, but it was pointed out that the miners are im a strategic position to make their influence felt 1n the election results. This is particularly true in two important states – Pennsylvania and West Virginia – where the UMW has a large membership.
The UMW adopted a resolution in convention last month in which the record of the Roosevelt administration was denounced as one of “studied disruption” of the mine union, and Governor Dewey was praised as a firm believer in “equal justice and fearless and courageous action.”