Blow the Man Down

It was the eighth day of the year's fourth big maritime strike, and too much for lean, sobersided Hanson W. Baldwin, military and naval expert of the New York Times. An old Annapolis man himself, Baldwin got to musing over the good old days of wooden ships, iron men--and no unions. When he had worked up a full head of steam, he blew his top, in a scalding column. Excerpts:

"When unionism took to blue water, the death knell of an efficient maritime carrying trade was sounded. . . . Where now are the bucko mates of yesteryear? Where the hardhearted, hardfisted, leather-lunged 'sundowners' who could spit into the teeth of a gale? . . .There were giants in those days. . . . Today 'master mariners' carry union placards . . . skippers pace the picket line instead of the bridge. . .

"When the unions went to sea, the deep-sea sailor man was doomed. There was and is a right and proper place for maritime unions, for many American shipowners have been backward and blind. But that place is shoreside and not beyond the pierheads. . . . The vital issue is simply whether or not the captain is master of his ship--whether the union organizer or the master mariner is to rule the kingdom of blue water." Maritime unions, said Baldwin, were putting the U.S. in peril.

Boarding Party. Next day, the Times Building off Times Square was an island surrounded by irate seamen. Three thousand men (the Times's estimate; PM guessed 5,000, the Daily Worker, 8,000) formed an endless, circling picket line that crowded pedestrians into the streets. While 80 cops tried to keep traffic unsnarled, the pickets--C.I.O., A.F.L. and independents--sang Solidarity Forever and chanted "Down with Baldwin." Then a dozen went inside to confront burly

Managing Editor Edwin L. James in his third-floor office.

Editor James, a quick-tempered and blunt-spoken man, is rarely accessible to casual callers. But this delegation was admitted to his sanctum. The seamen stated their case: either the Times would take back what it had said and print a satisfactory story, or those pickets outside would keep marching from then on.

In such a situation, many an editor has told a mob to go to hell. Many another editor has agreed to print the complainants' side, followed it with an editorial deploring the use of mass pressure to sway him. Editor James did neither. He agreed to run a letter from the seamen, and a disavowal of Baldwin's article; the seamen accepted his terms, the pickets were called off.

It was to the credit of the Times that next morning it printed the whole story of the affair--and a picture of the picket line--as calmly as if it had happened to someone else. But it was not to the credit of the Times that it failed to defend Hanson Baldwin's right to have his say, or his paper's right to print what he wrote. Crowed the Communist Daily Worker, rephrasing the Times's proud slogan: "All the Words that are Fit to Eat."

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