Monday, Aug. 29, 1949

The Embarrassment of Riches

It had been as nice a part-time job as a man could imagine. The hours were easy and the pay was fat--$35,000 a year. But after word of the luscious salaries got out, Ezra Van Horn and Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire found less enjoyment in their pay and duties as trustees of the United Mine Workers' Welfare and Retirement Fund (TIME, Aug. 15).

With an air of pained surprise, northern and western soft-coal operators fired crusty, aging Ezra Van Horn, an executive of the Ohio Coal Association, from his six-year-old job as the operators' chief labor negotiator. They also tied a new demand to the contract they are negotiating with John L. Lewis. If Van Horn was not relieved of his trustee's job, they would not sign a new contract with the union.

Republican Senator Bridges was having his troubles, too. He had made many a speech demanding economy and cast many a vote against labor in the Senate, but he was now finding it difficult to explain his own acceptance of John L. Lewis' hearty bounty while drawing $15,000 from the U.S. Government as Senator. At first Bridges tried to argue that most of his trustee's salary went to lawyers, accountants, and other expenses of the job. But last week a report made public by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee showed that Bridges had actually drawn $12,000 extra from the fund to pay for professional advice. Some time next month, said the embarrassed Senator, he would tell the "full story" and maybe he would quit the union job, to boot.

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