Chicago Revisited

The last time it convened in Chicago, Sam Gompers' earnest little American Federation of Labor was twelve years old, had about 250,000 members and $7,000 in the bank. Most of the delegates had bummed into town on the rods.

Last week, 53 years later, Bill Green's mighty A.F.L. came back for its second convention in Chicago. It had 7,151,808 members and a kitty of some $250,000,000. It bristled with beefy, big-salaried chieftains like the Miners' John L. Lewis,/- the Musicians' Caesar Petrillo, the Teamsters' Dan Tobin and the Carpenters' Bill Hutcheson--men who ran their unions as though they owned them, who could defy the Government and shut down whole industries at a grunt. Many of the delegates traveled by plane or in extra-fare trains. They rated a big greeting from Illinois Governor Dwight Green when they arrived. As they bellied around in the Loop's drab old Morrison Hotel, it was clear from their cigars, girth, dress and talk that the cautious, conciliatory Gompers had wrought wonders indeed.

In his speeches, President Green was all self-assurance. He spanked Labor Secretary Schwellenbach by dropping his name from the speakers' list. He cracked out against labor's Communists and flayed OPA. An underling attacked the Administration's Lea Act and Hobbs Bill.

In committee meetings, delegates picked up the smug boredom of their bosses, passed cut & dried resolutions in a perfunctory way, wrangled over such matters as changing the name of the "United

Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters of the U.S. and Canada" to the "United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the U.S. and Canada." Even Screen Actors' Guild President Robert Montgomery, who had rushed to Chicago to ask protection against Hollywood's recurring jurisdictional scrimmages, could not rouse the delegates from their thoughts of health and welfare funds.

A.F.L. leaders, once numbered among democracy's loudest champions, could now listen to 71-year-old Dan Tobin's warning to the U.S. against admitting immigrant Jews. They could also conveniently overlook the racketeers who still run some A.F.L. locals. The real business of the year would be transacted at the Executive Council sessions to be held when the convention ends. Until then, the machine would run itself.

/-Lewis, still convalescing from an appendectomy, was kept from the convention only by the stern "No!" of his doctors.

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