The Pittsburgh Press (February 12, 1946)
All business stops in New York City
All non-vital activities banned to save fuel; tug strikes drags on
NEW YORK (UP) – New York was a grim ghost town today, its overwater fuel lifeline cut by a tugboat stoppage.
An emergency order had stilled all activities except those necessary to sustain life.
The big town’s industries, theaters, places of amusement, department stores, business houses, schools, libraries and museums were closed. Managers were directed to maintain building temperatures sufficient only to prevent loss of life and damage to property.
Only “public utilities, transportation and communication services, hospitals, clinics, institutions caring for infants, the aged and the infirm” and milk and food plants were permitted to operate.
A Disaster Control Board had virtually martial law powers to enforce the emergency order.
Fuel acute problem
Police Commissioner Arthur W. Wallander, virtual czar of the city in his post of chairman of the 22-man board, said as the board met that “the main problem is to get fuel into this city – the tugs are going to be manned.” He added: “This is the governing body of the city – as much so as if, under military circumstances, we were being governed by martial law.”
Commissioner Wallander said the supply of fuel oil was “very low” and that there was a “severe shortage of bituminous coal and very little anthracite.”
The shutdown order, issued by Health Commissioner Ernest L. Stebbins last night and signed by Mayor William O’Dwyer, said the fuel shortage in this city of seven million “has now reached an acute and dangerous stage.”
Nine-day strike
The mayor, who proclaimed a state of emergency last week after the federal government had seized 92 struck towboat companies which serve the Port of New York, worked desperately to effect a settlement in the nine-day strike which has tied up 400 harbor-vital tugs, towboats, and motorized barges.
These craft nose ocean-going ships in and out of docks, dispose of garbage, bring in 80 percent of the city’s fuel and 50 percent of its food. They are the handymen of the world’s greatest and busiest port.
The United Marine Division of the International Longshoremen’s Association (AFL) called out 3,500 members of its Local 333 – captains, mates, deckhands and other licensed and unlicensed personnel – February 4 on demands for higher wages, a 40-hour week, and improved working conditions.
Voted to go back
The union twice voted down return-to-work proposals but yesterday voted to go back while submitting the dispute to an arbitrator. The offer was contingent on the operating companies’ also agreeing to arbitration.
The operators – 52 representatives of companies which run 75 percent of the tugs – refused last night to place the strike in an arbitrator’s hands.
At that point, Mayor O’Dwyer clamped on the fuel-saving emergency shutdown, an action unprecedented in any American city even during the war.
The office of Federal Administration Lawrence C. Turner said it would have 56 tugboats plying the harbor today, manned by Navy personnel and by city employees.
‘Back to bed’
The impact of the shutdown did not reach most New Yorkers until they started to work this morning. Police details at subway entrances informed them that only employees of priority industries need report for work. They advised the others to go back to bed. Subway service was 20 percent curtailed.
Placards at subway entrances read: “Reduced service until further notice – On account of coal shortage.”
Many businesses were closed because of Lincoln’s birthday holiday, but those who normally were off work had no place to go to celebrate the holiday. All sports events in the city were canceled or postponed. Bowling alleys were closed. Movies and bars were locked.
Newspapers exempt
Newspapers and radio stations were exempt from the closing.
Mayor O’Dwyer told everyone to stay off public transportation vehicles unless their movement was necessary to the welfare of others.
Closed by the order were all places of assembly and all amusement places including theaters, bars and nightclubs. Schools had been closed Friday.
The disaster control board met at 8 a.m. to ferret out any unauthorized drain on fuel and electrical power – from steam generators eating up coal stocks. It was backed by a city ordinance providing for a $300 fine and a year in jail for willful violation of its orders.
Churches were allowed to remain open as places of worship but not as places of assembly.
Places serving food and liquor continued to feed their customers but were forced to close their bars.
If the crisis continues the Federal Reserve Bank will be the only financial house to open tomorrow. All banking houses were closed today because of Lincoln’s Birthday. The Stock Exchange also will be closed.
Subway service was reduced 20 percent.
Employers reject plan
The emergency order was issued at 10 p.m. last night, a few hours after the tug operators rejected a union-approved proposal to submit the dispute to Edward F. McGrady, former assistant secretary of labor, as the sole arbitrator.
The strikers previously had accepted the proposal which had stipulated that any pay increase would be retroactive until January 1.
The operators, it was reported, rejected the arbitration proposal because they did not wish to submit the dispute to a lone arbitrator.
The union early today agreed to a larger board composed of three members, one selected by the employers, one by the union and the third to be Mr. McGrady, who would act as chairman, Joseph P. Ryan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association (AFL) reported.