The outcome of matters at Emerson proved invaluable in a looming battle when Century Electric struck for the third time since 1934, a strike that lasted more than four months and tested the union's strategies and indicated growing factionalism in the CIO.

Workers at Century Electric struck over a long list of demands and grievances but, above all, because Century management had not accepted the union.

When Henry Fiering left the local to become a national UE organizer, management tried to "wear down" workers by attempting to keep stewards from policing the contract. But workers were ready for a showdown by March 1940

What Logsdon described as CIO officials' "complete lack of unity" contributed to the problems during the strike. Logsdon claimed that the "strike [wa]s supported by the rank and file of the CIO, even if not so much by the leaders of some of the local unions who yearn for peace and quiet."

UAW and steelworkers' union officials in the CIO "prefer to associate with city officials and police officials than with us," Logsdon commented. In early September, CIO district director John Doherty, apparently at the direction of national CIO leader Van Bittner, arranged a meeting with Century officers in Chicago to settle the strike.

When negotiations collapsed Doherty confessed to Logsdon, who wrote that "Doherty is badly scared at what is happening to the CIO unions in St. Louis and does not know what the hell to do.

The UE's relationship with the St. Louis police continued its downward slide in the Century strike, as the St. Louis Red Squad targeted labor activists and restricted mass picketing designed to prevent strikebreakers from entering. Police refused to allow strikers to stand on corners near the plant to disseminate information.

A pamphlet issued by a citizens group in conjunction with the "St. Louis league of Women Shoppers" noted: "They have restricted freedom of assembly, refusing to allow picketing in excess of a number decreed by the Captain on duty. The chairman of the board of police commissioners has let it be known that the believes that in this time of national emergency, the people have been stoo sensitive about their civil rights. ". This kind of community support gave continued leverage to the workers in the face of the company's determination to break the union morale.

"The Century company, aided by attacks on civil rights by police is conducting an offensive against collective bargaining and the American way of life" the union argued.

But the right-wing activists made missteps. George Apel earned the enmity of a large section of Wagner workers, especially women who had been "particularly left out," for neglecting grievances.

Then, by early January, Sentner wrote to Matles, "We have the good[s] on George Apel." Apel had gone to the police station "and spilled his guts to Dies Committee finks, two dicks and one F.B.I. guy--labelling a bunch of good guys in the CIO movement here as reds. Watch the smoke."

Apel and Luther Slinkard of the UAW painted too many with the brush of Communist affiliation and for all but the most reactionary they had committed a cardinal sin against the CIO by working with Dies, "the father of all anti-labor bills." By March, the left claimed to have evidence revealing that Apel was always a spy. Apel vanished from the Local, taking a job with the Department of Labor.

Click allied with Local 1102 executive board member Ernie Stuebinger, Catholics and other conservatives.

Sentner observed that the "boys who nominated Stuebinger” had become aligned with America First, the isolationist group chaired by Sears CEO Robert Wood but popularized by St. Louisan Charles Lindbergh, whose association lent the group a strong anti-Semitic tinge.

Sentner won the election by a three-to-one ratio, though Local 1102 cast most of their votes for Stuebinger, a harbinger of the future role of that local as the base of the anticommunist movement in the district.