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DEADLOCK ON COAL STRIKE NEW YORK, N. Y., "April 26— Despite the action of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins in sending Dr. John R. Steelman to New York to mediate the dispute between John L. Lewis and the bituminous coal operators over a new contract, it was stated on excellent authority today that no progress has been made in the efforts to end the deadlock. Steelman, head of the labor departments conciliation service, has run into as stiff a deadlock as can be imagined. Neither side at-the conference table budged an inch when Steelman took over the job of bringing the conflicting parties together. The operators, headed by W. L. Robison, were just as adamant as the heavy-set, poker-faced Lewis, whose committee represents 320,000 members of the United Mine Workers of America, who have been idle since the old contract c::pired on March 31. Dr. Steelman ca 2 into the picture after the operators and miners had been battling across a big, green table for several weeks without getting anywhere on the two issues left to be solved, Lewis demand for a closed shop and Lewis demand for the elimination of the penalty clause, which the operators contend would amount virtually to the same thing as a closed shop.
