51�Թ�

From his emergency headquarters in Detroit, burly, bent-nosed N.M.U.

President Joe Curran predicted that the N.M.U. drive for a 40-hour-week, pay boosts and a Union hiring hall would paralyze lake shipping in 10 days.

The 70 ships manned by members of the A.F.L.'s Seafarer's International Union sailed as usual�despite one furious fist fight with N.M.U. picketers.

But more & more freighters owned by the 24 operators with whom neither the N.M.U. nor the S.I.U. have contracts were tied up in sympathy strikes by their crews as they came to port.

The N.M.U., which is required to give a 30-day strike notice, had jumped the gun by eight days on operators of Great Lakes tankers�much to the discomfiture of other C.I.O. leaders who want to keep the strike threat as a Sunday punch against rising prices.