Old Men Go West

Day after Samuel Gompers was laid in his grave in Tarrytown, N. Y. in 1924, the executive council of the American Federation of Labor announced his successor as chief of U. S. Labor: William Green. No one was more surprised than inconspicuous Mr. Green. Old Cigarmaker Gompers, who regarded the A. F. of L. as his own personal property, had willed the job to Matthew Woll, head of the little Photo Engravers Union. But having grown restive under long Gompers rule, the individualistic members of the A. F. of L. high command were in no mood to honor the cigarmaker's dying dictates.

Least willing of all was John L. Lewis, who had even dared on one occasion to campaign for the A. F. of L. presidency against Samuel Gompers himself. In that abortive campaign Mr. Woll had bitterly opposed Mr. Lewis--something which Mr. Lewis never forgot or forgave. Therefore with the aid of other rebels against the dead hand, Mr. Lewis pitch-forked into the nation's No. 1 Labor office, the pink-cheeked secretary-treasurer of his United Mine Workers. So William Green, a quiet, cautious character virtually unknown out side his own union, became and still is, president of the A. F. of L.

This coming week in Denver, Bill Green, by now 64, somewhat plumper, a deal more amiable, will gavel to order his 13th annual A. F. of L. convention. There in the big grey municipal auditorium some 600 accredited delegates and a host of other labormen will assemble in what is still Labor's only national congress. The principal item on the agenda is the man who saved Bill Green from innocuous obscurity, and day after day, in the redundant, turgid oratory so dear to old-time labor leaders, John L. Lewis will be damned and double-damned for all the high crimes on the statute books of Labor. For William Green's A. F. of L. and John L. Lewis' C. I. O., are now engaged in the greatest war in Labor history.

Between A. F. of L. and C. I.O. there still exists a thin, technical tie: the rebellious C. I. O. unions were suspended last year but they have not yet been expelled. Theoretically, the Great Schism could be healed if the C. I. O. unions would renounce the heresy of industrial unionism, submit to A. F. of L. rule. But dark hints of expulsion at next week's convention have been emanating from A. F. of L. leaders for months, and John L. Lewis last week summoned his C. I. O. leaders to meet in Atlantic City next fortnight "to canvass the work of organization and consider reports upon its administration affairs and policies." That could mean only one thing: C. I. O. was ready to set itself up permanently as an undisguised A. F. of L. rival.

High Command. In the current undeclared U. S. labor war, C. I. O. has the inestimable advantage of a small, flexible, cohesive general staff. The A. F. of L. high command is jealous, diffused, divided. At the extreme right of the council table, both politically and in their uncompromising attitude toward C. I. O. sit:

John Philip Frey, the bespectacled head of A. F. of L.'s metal trades department--C. I. O.'s best hunting ground. Precise, pedantic, he is traditionally secretary of the convention resolutions committee, awes the delegates with his erudition, is often addressed as "Doctor" Frey. This week as the preliminary metal trades convention opened in Denver, Mr. Frey set the pitch for the chorus of anti-Lewis orators with a resounding hymn of hate.

William L. ("Big Bill") Hutcheson, the ponderous president of the Carpenters Union, biggest in A. F. of L. (300,000 members). Perennial campaign head of the Republican Party's labor committee, he quit the executive council in a huff last year when A. F. of L. plumped for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Today Carpenter Hutcheson's power is on the wane, partly because his Republican affiliations are no longer of great value, partly because he lost face after John L. Lewis punched his jaw at the 1935 convention.

Matthew Woll, Samuel Gompers' short, swart "Crown Prince," a high-tariff Republican who wears wing collars and is as conservative as a life insurance company president, which he is (Union Labor Life). Luxemburg-born, he is more sophisticated than his A. F. of L. colleagues, dislikes Bill Green almost as much as he does John Lewis.

A little further Left politically but still bitter-end craft unionists are such men as:

Arthur Orlando Wharton, hardboiled, hard-driving head of the Machinists Union (180,000 members). When Machinist Wharton was 6, his father froze to death in a blizzard. Part Cherokee Indian, he founded what is now A. F. of L.'s powerful Railway Employes' Department. In the 13 years since he fought his way to presidency of Machinists he has upped his union's membership from 45,000 to 180,000.

On the other side of the A. F. of L. council table are the "moderates" who have so far succeeded in stalling off C. I. O. expulsion. They include:

Frank Morrison, sedate, 7 7-year-old A. F. of L. secretary-treasurer, a member of the International Typographical Union, which has a foot in both camps. The Typographical Union is still an A. F. of L. member in good standing, but its president, Charles P. Howard, is C. I. O.'s able secretary.

Daniel J. Tobin, president of the Teamsters (160,000 members), chairman of the Democratic labor committee in the last two Presidential campaigns. For his party devotion he expected to be made Secretary of Labor in 1933, was bitterly disappointed when the job went to Frances Perkins--which was perhaps one of the reasons why the Secretary of Labor had not been invited last week to speak at next week's convention, an unprecedented slight. In A. F. of L., however, Teamster Tobin's star is still rising, for his loyal men occupy a strategic spot in a sector where a C. I. O-A. F. of L. show-down may develop--the waterfront. Since to all wars there must be a peace, he remains conciliatory toward John L. Lewis.

George McGregor Harrison, president of the Railway Clerks, president of the all-powerful Railway Labor Executives Association, has been frequently mentioned as an eventual compromise A. F. of L. president who might pull the entire U. S. labor movement together once more. He is chairman of the standing A. F. of L. committee appointed to negotiate with C. I. O. whenever C. I. O. feels like negotiating.

Coshocton Boy. Headquarters of the A. F. of L. is a seven-story brick-&-limestone building in an unpretentious section of Washington at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 9th Street. The slow elevators, the middle-aged employes give the place the atmosphere of an old government bureau. Outside in the sun on benches flanking the entrance sit visiting unionists waiting to buttonhole their leaders as they leave the building. On the top floor in a corner office protected by two women secretaries sits William Green. Among his books are such correspondence school volumes as Training of the Voice, Analysis of Oratorical Style, Selected Speeches for Practice.

Mr. Green's principal role in A. F. of L. is that of mediary between the warring factions of his high command. It is a thankless job.

Born in Coshocton, Ohio, in 1873, he followed his British father into the coal mines at 18, soon spied a shorter road to success in the new United Mine Workers. By the Century's turn he was a sub-district president, later Ohio district president, by 1912 Union secretary-treasurer. Meantime he had served two terms in the Ohio Senate, where, as Democratic floor leader, he gained a reputation as a labor liberal. Up to the time John L. Lewis helped boost him into the A. F. of L. presidency, the most conspicuous ability he had demonstrated was the ability to avoid making enemies.

Suddenly paunchy, peace-loving Bill Green, who might physically have been mistaken for a respectable smalltown bank president, found himself at the helm of an organization whose constitutional preamble starts: "Whereas, a struggle is going on in all the nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer, . . ."

Like Samuel Gompers in his later years, Mr. Green was not greatly oppressed nor did he struggle very hard. Unions thrive during periods of recovery but his first nine years in office were a period of first boom and then depression, and A. F. of L. memberships shrank steadily from 2,800,000 to 2,100,000. During that era corruption and abuse permeated several craft unions but Labor politics made it hard for Bill Green to take action even against known A. F. of L. racketeers. His crowning ineptness was that unlike John L. Lewis, he never learned how to handle the Press.

The day had to come, and it did, when Mr. Green would receive a jolt. A Baptist who never smoked or drank, he has lately begun to take a dry Martini or two before dinner, a definite concession to good fellowship with newshawks, few of whom are teetotalers. After resolutely refusing for 13 years to let any one take press relations out of his stiffening fingers, last August he hired a new press agent--Philip Pearl, an experienced reporter with a wide acquaintance among Washington correspondents.

In Washington Mr. Green lives in a suite at the Hotel Hamilton, though his home is still in Coshocton, where he weekends with his wife and family (five daughters, one son). His friends are largely labormen, and he has been deeply hurt by the names he has been called by his old friend, John Lewis.

Today he is looking for new friends, openly bidding for employer support in the war with C. I.O., and getting it--to an extent that makes C. I. O. howl that A. F. of L. is chartering company unions. Last week in Manhattan he asked the American Legion (see p. 12) for aid & comfort, declaring : "It is my well-considered opinion that the call of the hour is for a closer and stronger relationship between the American Federation of Labor and the American Legion. . . ."

The House of Labor, There can be no head of a divided house and probably Bill Green will never again be sole head of the House of Labor. Certainly John L. Lewis, daily rallying new members about him, is very far from beaten. Curiously, it is a matter of almost equal certainty that William Green is also far from being beaten. Although about 1,000,000 workers broke away to form C.I.O., although A. F. of L. organizers have made little headway compared to John L. Lewis' go-getting staff, the strength of A. F. of L. has not been seriously shaken. Today John L. Lewis has political power in his own name, but William Green has greater power in the name of a nation's politicians, the majority of whom still regard the A. F. of L. as the head & front of Labor.

From two dangers besetting C. I. O., the A. F. of L. is safe: the danger of an untrained army's disintegration and the danger of political defeat that might be brought on by following a too adventurous leader. Not even in numbers has the A F. of L. yet become the lesser half of the House of Labor. The C. I. O. vaingloriously claims 3,700,000 members, many of whom, however, are only members insofar as they have signed an application blank. The A. F. of L. after losing 1,000,000 members to C. I. O., claims 3,600,000 members, approximately the same number it had before the schism. Impartial estimates place the membership of the two rival labor groups at about 3,200,000 each.

William Green goes to Denver only as a corps commander in the army of organized labor, but as such he is a more potent figure than he was ten years ago as commander-in-chief. For that Army, far greater than ever before, today numbers--including railroad labor with C. L O. and A. F. of L.--some 7,000,000 men, and Labor divided is far from Labor defeated.

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