"Leeches"

Subjects already worn thin from talk were talked over again at length last week by the executive council of the American Federation of Labor before it closed its fortnight's session at Atlantic City. Rehashed were the six-hour day, the five-day week, more jobs to be made by Congress, the Government's payless furlough plan. The council flayed both Republican and Democratic platforms for being "vague and extremely disappointing" to Labor but, always nonpartisan, endorsed no nominee for the Presidency.

What saved the Atlantic City meeting from being altogether colorless and routine was a sudden A. F. of L. interest in unionized racketeering. Before the council, by Investigator Edward F. McGrady, was laid the specific case of President Sam Kaplan of Motion Picture Machine Operators Union Local 306, New York City. The council referred the Kaplan matter to President William C. Elliott of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employes who promised "special attention immediately." Then easy-going William Green, A. F. of L. president, came out with a public statement which, for him, sounded like a trumpet blast:

"The A. F. of L. is not an organization in itself but an affiliation. . . . Each international union is an independent entity. . . . When charges were recently made concerning alleged acts of members and officers of local unions we decided these charges involved the honor and integrity of the Federation. . . . The Federation itself cannot take affirmative action against a local union officer but .... The Federation is pledged to go the limit in purging itself of racketeering. . . . Our policy is to protect members from racketeering in any form, even to the extent of suspending an international union which has failed to act on proof of wrongdoing.

"Racketeering has manifested itself in many lines. There are no doubt some who have fastened themselves upon the Ameri can labor movement and are exploiting hardworking, honest members. Upon these leeches we will have no mercy."

Notorious in New York is Sam Kaplan's rule over cinema theatres. He and 24 other officers of Local 306 are under criminal conspiracy indictments as the result of a rebellion by eight members who object to his methods. Local 306 has also been charged with operating the forbidden "permit system" whereby President Kap lan allows operators outside the union to work in return for 20% of their wages. His strongarm man, one Greenberg, has served a six-month jail sentence for as sault.

Besides running the union. President Kaplan heads a firm which sells projection equipment. The wise theatre owner knows that by patronizing the Kaplan firm he will have no labor troubles in his cinema house.

Kaplan's known income is $21,800 per year -- $1,800 as union president, $20,000 as its chief organizer. What he makes from his equipment company is unrevealed. In 1930 his henchmen, organized as the Sam Kaplan Protection Society, voted him a $25,000 gift.

To break his autocracy three rebel members of Local 306 went to court, sought an injunction restraining President Kaplan from directing its affairs. His henchmen thereupon hired Lawyer Max D. Steuer, slick crook defender, to represent him and the other indicted officers. To pay the Steuer fee ($25,000) the local voted an assessment of $21 on each of its 1,200 members. Last week in Manhattan eight rebels sought another injunction to nullify the local's assessment, make Sam Kaplan pay his own lawyer's bill.

Sam Kaplan ignored the A. F. of L. manifesto against racketeering. But Theodore M. Brandle, New Jersey's unsavory labor "boss," did not. Turning up at Atlantic City, he demanded from the council "a clean bill of health." He did not get it.

"Boss" Brandle is the Jersey City organizer for the International Association of Bridge, Structural & Ornamental Iron Workers. He is also president of the New Jersey Building Trades Council. He organized a truck owners' association, operates a bonding company. His summer home is at Deal. N. J. He owns two homes in Jersey City where he also runs the Labor National Bank. For his good friend Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City in 1930 he paid a $60,000 fine for evading the Federal income tax. Two years later he paid a similar fine of $96,000 for himself and his bonding company partner.

Typically descriptive of "Boss" Brandie's methods was a telegram from the Newark Iron Workers Union to the A. F. of L. executive council:

"We have been forced to sit idly by and see our work in our own territory done by men from Brandle's local, while our men from Newark are not allowed to work in Brandle's territory without being threatened or actually attacked. More than 100 men from Brandle's local with iron bars, baseball bats, etc. attacked six Newark men on the Medical Center job in Jersey City. This same thing happened on a job in Hackensack and a repetition happened again in Bayonne. We have tried every way possible to get adequate support from our general officers and have failed, even to the extent of having our meetings suspended."

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