Bridges Uncrossed

The first move to deport Harry Bridges started in 1934. That was about the same time that the long-faced, long-nosed, Australian-born longshoreman emerged as the militant leader of the West Coast maritime strike. The charge: he was a Communist.

Through two long hearings and bales of newspaper editorials, the campaign never let up. Once it reached such heights that hot-headed Congressmen wanted to impeach Labor Secretary Frances Perkins for ordering a stay in the proceedings. In 1942, with the country at war and Red-loving Harry Bridges furiously loading ships for Russia and the Allies, the case seemed finally washed out. Then suddenly, inexplicably, Attorney General Francis Biddle opened it again, ordered Harry Bridges deported.

Last week, in a 5-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court wrote finis to the deportation proceedings. Said Justice Douglas, in his best legalese: "Inference must be piled on inference to impute belief in Harry Bridges of the revolutionary aims of the groups whose aid and assistance he employed." Wrote Justice Murphy: "The record in this case will stand forever as a monument to man's intolerance of man."

Mild and Mellow. In San Francisco, lean Harry Bridges, in sardonic good humor, sat back and read his congratulatory messages (some from employers). Both West Coast business and labor heaved a sigh of relief. Employers who would never learn to love Harry Bridges had learned how to live with him and like it. The case against him had become a nuisance and a bore.

The war and middle age (he is 44) had mellowed Harry. Grinning, he said: "The capitalist system is going to be around for a long time, and we have to shape a labor program to fit the system." Last week, after 25 years, he applied for his final U.S. citizenship papers. But his troubles were not over. And again they lay in the courts. Seeking a divorce, his wife charged that he is the father of a New York dancer's illegitimate child. Harry denied it.

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