For George F.

Through New York's Susquehanna Valley, from Endicott to Binghamton to Johnson City to Owego, the word passed last Dec. 24 that George F. was ill. None who heard the news needed to be told that George F. was George Francis Johnson, 82, a unique shoe manufacturer whose intelligent paternalism for 36 years has been paying off in money and rare good will.

The good will is that of big Endicott Johnson Corp.'s 18,000 employes for their boss. The oldest among them have known him since the company was a pup. They all call him "George F." They share profits with E. J. stockholders, since 1938 have shared losses as well (via 15% pay cuts). They dance in the great George F. Pavilion at Johnson City, worship in churches to which George F. generously contributes, get free treatment from George F.'s doctors at George F.'s hospitals, swim in George F.'s public pools. Many live in houses which George F. built cheaply and well, sold at terms in tune with E. J. wages (average: $25 per week in normal times).

The news that pneumonia had laid big, bustling George F. low was sad indeed to most dwellers in the Valley. It was bitter beer of another brew to A. F. of L. and C. I. 0. organizers, who arrived in the Valley two years ago to spread the gospel of the Wagner Act. Their sermons seemed to make no sense: they said that what George F.'s workers needed was a union to protect them from George F.

Coming up at long last was an election called by the National Labor Relations Board to find out: 1) whether the workers in 30 E. J. plants wanted a union, and 2) if so, which one. The organizers, pointing out that votes against George F. would be harder than ever to get while he lay ill, vainly begged NLRB to postpone the balloting. A. F. of L.'s President William Green did not help either union when he declaimed at Binghamton last fortnight, telling George F.'s flock that C. I. O. was a Communist hotbed.

Unlike many another industrial paternalist, George F. never foisted any form of company union on his workers. So in last week's election they simply had to vote for one union or none. One day 8,000 of them suddenly quit their machines, bowled past a few protesting foremen, paraded through the shops and streets with placards reading: "We're for George F."; "George F. Can't Be Wrong"; "Join Up--No Union." Protestant preachers, Catholic priests, Salvation Army chaplains had special prayer meetings for George F.'s recovery. Two days before election, word came that George F. was feeling better. Election day, after George F.'s workers had voted from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., NLRB tellers counted the ballots in the George F. Pavilion. That night good news went to the old man's yellow frame house on the hill: 1,612 had voted for the A. F. of L. union, 1,079 for C. I. O., 12,693 for George F. and no union.

Victorious George F. would be the last to maintain that employers generally could take much comfort from his triumph. "Labor conditions have improved," said he not long ago. "But they have not improved because of the willingness of capital. ... I have always believed in [unions] where needed, and they have been needed almost everywhere." Quoting these words, New York Post Columnist Samuel Grafton added on his own: "Those who are op posed to unions must at once accept the leadership of Mr. George F. Johnson, for his way has worked. But the trouble is, they have to take all of him."

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