Fired by the Army

For the first time since the defense program began, the U.S. Government last week kicked out the management of a private business enterprise because of a labor dispute.

At the Army's behest, the directors of Air Associates, Inc. fired President F. Leroy Hill, Vice President Harold I. Crow. This was a condition set up by the Army for return of the company's plant at Bendix, N.J., taken over by the Army last October after a bitter, months-long strike.

This action looked to many a citizen like a dangerous precedent. Said the Wall Street Journal, demanding to know by what authority of law the Army acted: "It exhales a distinctly arbitrary flavor. . . . The matter is of vital importance in a country [whose] civil system ... is founded on law." Jersey Congressman J. Parnell Thomas sent a telegram to President Roosevelt asking why, if Air Associates' management was deposed, John L. Lewis should not be removed as head of United Mine Workers.

To these criticisms the War Department, not even admitting that it had forced the Hill-Crow resignations, remained officially mum. But its position was clear. The Army considered the Hill management responsible for the long strike and its effect on defense production. (Said one Army spokesman: "They didn't know what year it was.") The Government has the power to take over such a plant and buy it if necessary. Therefore the Army believed that it also had the right to negotiate with directors and stockholders for a management that would please it better.

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