Healy Out

"Don't worry about me. I'll get something to do. I'll have to if I want to live. But no matter what work I am doing I will always be ready to help this organization." So last week said Timothy ("Honest Tim") Healy,* defeated for re-election to the presidency of the Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen, Oilers, Helpers, Roundhouse and Railroad Shop Laborers, in convention assembled at Cleveland.

Mr. Healy had been president since 1903, his reelection was generally predicted by a comfortable margin. But he quarreled with the Chicago delegation which then combined with the Boston delegation with the result that John E. Mc-Namara of Boston won the election by a vote of 74 to 66. Tears rolled down many a cheek as the result was announced. Mr. Healy felt that he had been unjustly treated in thus suddenly losing his position after almost a quarter century of service, but pledged support to the new administration. "All I ask," said he, "is that you do not elect McNamara and then at some future time slaughter him. Such action harms an organization far more than it does the individual."

Following Mr. Healy's defeat, it developed that the organization owed him some $14,000 back salary. When a motion was made that the Brotherhood pay up this sum at the rate of $1,000 a month, Mr. Healy said that such a monthly payment would be too heavy a drain on the organization's finances, moved to amend the payments to $500 a month. In this form the motion carried unanimously.

*Not to be confused with Governor-General Timothy Healy of the Irish Free State (see p. 15).