A CITY ASHAMED

Dave Beck Is on Seattle's Conscience

A man like Dave Beck doesn't just happen," mused Seattle's Episcopal Bishop Stephen Bayne last week.

"He could only arise out of a ruthless disregard of ethics 'and morality by both labor and management. I've never met Beck, and I've seen him only once, but my reaction always has been colored by the way he first came to my attention. It was from a businessman who was so callous about the whole deal, who'd .lent his strength to Beck because Beck could deliver the goods."

Bishop Bayne was only one of thousands of Seattleites talking and thinking about Teamster Boss Dave Beck last week, as the nation's 20th largest city examined its conscience for having let Beck, a longtime resident, use Seattle as his oyster. To be sure, Beck used a bludgeon to crack open his oyster; it was the bludgeon of Teamster power. Equally true, Seattle at first accepted Beck with the greatest reluctance and mostly because it seemed a choice between him and the Red-led waterfront boys of Harry Bridges. But once Seattle did accept Beck, it went on to cloak him with all the dignity and authority of a leading citizen. Few unscrupulous men have woven themselves so tightly into the business, social and civic fabric of a city.

Against the Light. "I'm not making any excuses for Beck," says a Seattle retailer. "But I can remember how, until recently, friends of mine would cross the street in traffic against the light just to be able to greet him because it might come in handy."

Dave Beck, Seattle now knows--and long suspected--decided what Eastern beer the city could or could not drink. The chief editorial writer of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer turned up on the Teamster payroll as Dave Beck's biographer. When Beck was named international president of the Teamsters, Seattle's most influential men gathered at a dinner to cheer him on with a stout hurrah. Some alumni may have winced inwardly when Beck was named president of the University of Washington board of regents--but they did precious little protesting. Beck could walk into the eminently respectable First National Bank and come out with a whopping big loan; after all, he had moved $8,000,000 in Teamster funds from Indianapolis to Seattle banks ("Let Seattle businessmen think of that," cried Beck).

Backers of the Seattle symphony were happy to negotiate with Beck for Teamsters' sponsorship of a radio program featuring Conductor Milton Katims. In return for a $5,000 donation (Teamster money) to Seattle's United Good Neighbors charity drive, Beck's civic leadership was cited as going "a long way toward making our town a good place in which to live and do business."

Under the Umbrella. Now that the McClellan committee has revealed Beck for what he is, a banker expresses a city's thoughts: "What's been brought out makes me feel sick inside." In the exclusive Rainier Club (one of the few places into which Beck could neither beat nor buy his way), a real-estate man says: "I always said that no man should be invested with so much unlimited authority and power. But I must confess that in the past I would always put up the umbrella and add, 'If it has to be, then Beck is the best around, because he understands the business need to make a just profit, and his word is always good.' Well, we can all understand now that what made Beck's excesses possible, here and elsewhere in the country, was business surrender." Says a Seattle psychiatrist: "The Dave Beck affair has had a distinct impress because it has brought to many an uncomfortable scrutiny of their own attitudes. These last weeks I've seen more than one troubled conscience."

Seattle's troubled conscience translates itself in a variety of reactions: anger, chagrin, bewilderment, forced self-justification. The director of the University of Washington Labor Economics Institute, who is no friend of Beck's, mildly suggested that Beck should not be condemned without a jury trial--and a lumberman cried out that the professor should be "investigated." A contractor, who financed a housing development with millions of Teamster dollars, says nervously: "If I'd known then what I know now, I'd never in the world have got into it." Another businessman points out that basic Teamster power continues undiminished. "Sure I'm shocked," he says, "but I'm damned if I'll say anything publicly. That would be dynamite." Says a judge, wondering why Beck was not prosecuted long ago: "If I were the prosecuting attorney, I'd be embarrassed."

Beyond, the Deal. More than anything else, the citizens of Seattle find comfort in the notion that theirs is not a special case, that the problem lies somewhere in the U.S. economic system. Says a realtor: "Seattle has been pinpointed on a wide stage of labor-union activities chiefly because of Dave Beck's residence here. But the status of this city is merely typical of the total national picture."

In a sense Seattle is right in thinking that what happened to it could happen elsewhere. In the same sense what happened in Seattle happened because the important citizenry let it. because they shared in. prospered with--and never really challenged--what Bishop Bayne calls "the whole deal."

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