Johnson Out

He founded the American League of professional baseball clubs. He was the dominating factor in the control of organized baseball from 1900 to 1927. Last week he--President Byron Bancroft Johnson of the American League--turned in an obviously dictated resignation to close ingloriously a notable career. His defeat left Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis (who occupies in baseball a position analagous to that of Will H. Hays in the cinema industry) unchallenged as baseball's dictator. Ever after Commissioner Landis' appointment (in 1920, following bribery in the World's Series of 1919) there was rivalry, warfare between the new baseball head and the old. The conflict had apparently come to an end as far back as January, 1927, when after an undisguised Landis-Johnson falling out, President Johnson's indefinite vacation was announced--his health, which was undoubtedly bad, being given as the reason (TIME, Jan. 31). With the opening of the present baseball season (in April), President Johnson attempted to resume active control of his league's affairs. Evidently he found the task tasteless. His resignation last week was unexpected for there were no fresh battles in the air.