Old Home Week

For an old labor leader, Atlantic City was filled with memories. In the President Hotel, John Lewis and his followers had plotted their great rebellion in 1935 against the A.F.L. and laid the foundation of a rival C.I.O. In the tarnished ballroom of the Chelsea Hotel, John had given the carpenters' Bill Hutcheson a punch on the jaw (1935). In the same room, in 1940, John resigned the presidency of C.I.O. and Phil Murray mournfully became his successor. Murray had no reason now to feel any happier about his job.

This week the seashore city was the scene of new crises as C.I.O. met for its eighth annual convention. An aging, anxious, pensive man, Phil Murray walked among these old scenes. He was more than a little tired; and more than a little tired of crises.

Fish for the Right. As usual, a big problem was the Reds. Communism had always plagued the C.I.O., infesting many of its unions, dominating some. Right-wingers like the autoworkers' Walter Reuther hollered for the radicals' heads, but Murray managed to quell any Red-hunt. Not that he was in sympathy with Communism. But he was afraid that an open attack on them would upset everything. As he said to a meeting of his sub-chieftains, Communist-dominated unions make up 20% of C.I.O. membership. The Communists are in all unions, he said, and they have to be lived with. Now, more than ever, C.I.O. must present a united front.

Phil Murray threw the right-wingers a fish. Last week, in the warmup before the 630 delegates convened, he got the national executive board to change the rules governing state & city industrial councils. Many of these councils are riddled with Reds and have embarrassed C.I.O. with their pro-Communist trumpetings. Under the new rules they will be under strict censorship and surveillance by the executive board (dominated by Murray).

Jolt for the Left. But the Reutherites were still not satisfied. Murray made a diplomat's gambit. He appointed a committee to draw up a resolution which would satisfy the right wing and not offend the left. The six-man committee was delicately balanced. From the right wing: Reuther; Milton Murray* of the Newspaper Guild; onetime Socialist Emil Rieve of the textile workers; from the left: the furriers' Communist boss, Ben Gold; red-hot Michael Quill of the transport workers, who has been denying for years that he is a Communist; the white-collar workers' pink Abram Flaxer. All that weary Phil Murray hoped to get from such a committee was a formula for peace.

He got more than he bargained for. After a three-day battle the right-wingers emerged with a resolution stating that the committee members "resent and reject efforts of the Communist Party or other political parties and their adherents to interfere in the affairs of the C.I.O. This convention serves notice that we will not tolerate such interference."

Many an accused would find it easy to duck out of range by denying, as usual, that Communism motivated his policy. But the resolution, unanimously accepted by the convention, will be a weapon of sorts for right-wingers. The first quarry they expected to use it on: Reid Robinson, of the miners & smelters, leftist vice president of C.I.O.

Time for a Statesman. But the biggest crisis of all was one of life & death. Over the noisy, squabbling conventioneers who packed the ancient, wooden Chelsea and gathered in little secret groups on the windswept boardwalk, hung the shadow of history. A period of conservatism and two depressions between 1920 and 1933 had sent American trade unionism running for cover. Now conservatism was resurgent. Recession, if not depression, was a threat implicit in the dark view industrialists took of the future, and in soaring costs and prices (see BUSINESS).

In this ominous climate, what should a labor statesman do? Pressure was strong for a militant policy. The time had come to go after higher wages again. Old John Lewis--it was always Lewis--had started trouble again (see The Nation). Other labor leaders had to make a show. The rank & file chafed under the rising prices. And yet higher wages would mean still higher prices. And a belligerent labor would solidify the antagonism of the new Congress. It was a question whether organized labor could stand a showdown.

Phil Murray, anxious to be a leader and a statesman, paced the boardwalk with his memories and fears.

* Who was censured by the Representative Assembly of the New York Guild (a leftist island in a predominantly rightist union) for taking the affirmative in a debate with Earl Browder over: "Are American Communists a Threat to Labor Unions?"

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