Experiment Querulous

One afternoon last week, a grey, stocky major general strode briskly along the eighth-floor corridor of Montgomery Ward & Co.'s shining white Chicago store. He opened a door, smiled broadly, and walked in with outstretched hand. Sewell Lee Avery beamed back, rose to shake hands. Said General David McCoach Jr. to the chairman of the board of Montgomery Ward & Co.: on the order of Secretary of War Patterson, the Army was turning the property back to its owners.

In this aura of affability, a fumbling, inept experiment ended.

But the good cheer was superficial. The seizure had been caused by Ward's refusal to obey a National War Labor Board order for maintenance-of-membership and dues check-off for the C.I.O.'s United Retail Employes Union. When the U.S. Army marched in and literally carried Sewell Avery out, it put the order into effect. Last week Sewell Avery promptly rescinded the order. Said one War Department official: "Hell, Ward's would have stopped the check-off and maintenance if we'd stayed here until the Second Coming. That's why the whole business was such a farce. We haven't accomplished a damned thing."

The Army Loses. No one contradicted him. The Army's occupation had been a failure from almost everybody's point of view. The union, hopping mad because it was right back where it started from, was ready to strike. The Army, which paid out cash over & above collections, said it was $1,200,000 out of pocket.

Ward's, well pleased with the way the Army had built up Ward stocks for Christmas, handed the Army a check for $719,320. But it does not intend to pay the other $480,680. This is the amount claimed by Ward's for damages during Army occupation: loss of good will, extra recordkeeping, wage raises.

The Army is out another $450,000 for expenses of the occupation, chiefly for the salaries and subsistence of the 75 officers, 50 enlisted men and WACs, and 15 civilians who ran it. Ward's has no intention of paying this either.

The Employes Gain. Only ones who gained were Ward employes who got raises from the Army. Sewell Avery magnanimously announced that there would be no pay cuts. The question whether Ward's will be forced to pay the $800,000 in retroactive pay raises which WLB also ordered is still undecided. The Army hoped it could pay them out of its operations--but it never made enough money.

Actually, since the Army took over only ten of the 640 retail stores, it had little chance of even making enough money to break even on all of its operations. But it had run the stores so well that probably even irascible old Sewell Avery could find little to carp about. Said one Ward official: "It's hard for me to believe that Ward's won or lost anything by the seizure. I doubt if people either bought or stopped buying because the Army was in. Things just don't happen that way."

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