Newspapermen's Fight

Many U.S. newspapermen, plain citizens without Communist leanings, have long believed that their union was run by a Red clique, and last week a big enough group got together to make that clique fight for its political life. At the eighth annual convention of the American News paper Guild in Detroit's Book-Cadillac Hotel, the Milton Kaufman-Nat Einhorn-Victor Pasche group, baited as Reds, saved its neck by a few votes, but got only a reprieve till Nov. 1.

That meeting was the cold-soberest convention the Guild had ever held. Through five sweltering, grueling days, from early morning till after the bars closed, wilted, red-eyed delegates hustled from smoke-filled caucus rooms to committee meetings, to corridor corners, to tense, bitter floor debate in the grand ballroom.

The opposition to the administration was formidable both in numbers and in strategy, besides containing a good share of first-rate newspapermen: Detroit's 36-year-old Milton Murray (Detroit Times assistant city editor) ; San Francisco's Sam Eubanks; Washington's Bill Rodgers; Twin Cities' Kenneth Grouse (Pioneer Press telegraph editor) ; Memphis' Harry Martin (Commercial Appeal columnist).

Solid anti-administration blocs came from Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Twin Cities, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle.

The issue of Communism had been dramatized a fortnight earlier, when Ex ecutive Vice President Milton Kaufman defied C.I.O. President Philip Murray and United Automobile Workers President R. J. Thomas in giving Guild support to the army-settled strike at North American Aviation.

Defeated by only 11 votes out of 171 cast was a minority report characterizing the Guild Reporter as "concerned definitely with the promulgation of Communist Par ty line." By only 12 votes was Executive Vice President Milton Kaufman saved from having to apologize to U.A.W. President Thomas for butting into the North American strike. By only 10 1/4 votes was the Kaufman-Einhorn-Pasche machine allowed to stay in office.

The big battle came far toward dawn of the fifth day. The anti-administration group produced a bombshell in the form of an affidavit, signed by Ferdinand Lundberg (America's 60 Families), declaring that Milton Kaufman had been a Communist Party member for eight years, had written for the Daily Worker under the name "Milton Kay." Kaufman flatly denied the charge. The big New York Guild, which contains 4,000 of the Guild's claimed 17,000 present members, voted solidly, giving him an official vote of confidence and a noisy demonstration.

"We got licked, but we're the only ones who are happy," chortled anti-Communist leaders.-- Reason: the Convention voted to elect officers henceforth by referendum instead of at conventions and they expect the rank & file to defeat the administration in a referendum on Nov. 1.

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