Little Redhead

A woman delegate stepped to a microphone and screamed: "I'm for that swell little redhead Walter Reuther."

On the flag-draped stage in Atlantic City's Convention Hall, the object of her devotion grinned like a schoolboy, chomped his gum. For redheaded Walter Reuther this was a climax to years of labor wars, to sit-down strikes and bloody noses, to his noisy emergence as a New Day labor-statesman and labor-economist, to the strike at General Motors which had closed that company tight for 113 days. Last week 38-year-old Walter Reuther made his grab for the presidency of the C.I.O.'s United Auto Workers. On the floor of the cavernous, smoky hall, 2,000 delegates fought their way to the mikes and voted.

"This Great Big Guy." Four furious days & nights of campaigning had gone before. Reuther had arrived in Atlantic City ready to pry fat-bottomed R. J.

Thomas from his presidential swivel chair. Thomas had the support of U.A.W.'s Communists (not that they loved Thomas so much as that they hated Reuther more), of Secretary-Treasurer George Addes, of everyone else who disliked or feared bumptious, ambitious Walter Reuther.

The attacks on Reuther had come from all sides. Cried Thomas, in between chaws of Mail Pouch: "If Reuther is elected president I think he will try to lead the U.A.W. into the American Federation of Labor. . . . The auto workers can look forward to the finest dictatorship the union has ever seen." Reuther dismissed this as "the ranting of a desperate man."

But Phil Murray, sensing a challenge to his control of C.I.O., made a speech to his loyal auto workers, deliberately brushed off the shocked and furious Reuther while he saluted the beaming Thomas as "this great big guy for whom I have a distinct fondness." Then Murray got out of town.

By a Hair. But Reutherites were not dismayed. They buttonholed delegates along the Boardwalk, in restaurants, bars, hotel rooms. So did Thomasites. In the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel Reutherites and Thomasites came to blows. In the Ambassador Hotel, half a dozen mixed-up Reutherites fell upon one another, upsetting a mammoth potted palm. Three delegates from South Bend bounded from bar to bar, doing a buck & wing and chanting "Reuther, -Reuther, rah, rah, rah!" Boardwalk concessionaires, who had never seen anything quite like it, consoled themselves by clipping delegates 75^ for a bottle of beer, 15-20^ for a hot dog.

In an atmosphere of tension and hysteria Reuther at last went to Convention Hall to hear the decision. With sideline fist fights, near-riots, shouts of "quack, quack" (the auto workers' way of saluting Communist colleagues), with threats and pleas for order from the chair--and with most of the 60 lady delegates voting for Reuther--labor's most democratic union elected its leader. Reuther squeaked in by a hair (4,444 to 4,320). R. J. Thomas wept and stumbled off the stage.

My Place, Our Burden. Flushed and triumphant, Reuther faced the delegates. "The great captains of industry and anti-labor forces of America realize," he declared, "that the auto workers can come here and disagree, but when they leave here they leave as a united organization to fight the common fight. ... I want to take my place at the side of Philip Murray and help carry part of the burden which he has to carry as the President of our great C.I.O."

In the wings of the stage Reuther told newsmen his program, which included Reuther drives for i) a minimum national wage, 2) conversion of war plants to prefabricated housing ($2,500 houses, 2,000,-ooo people at work), 3) his theory that ability to pay should be a heavy factor in determining wages.

Said a misery-laden Thomas to his union: "Maybe I didn't do a good enough job, but believe me I tried."

The Thomas-Addes faction found comfort in one thing. After weeping over the telephone to Phil Murray, Thomas pulled himself together and, with the help of Murray agents, got himself elected a vice president. George Addes held onto his secretary-treasurer job and Richard Leonard, an in & out Thomas-Addes man, won the second vice-presidency. On top of that, the perverse and unpredictable U.A.W. elected a majority of Thomas-Addes directors. This would be Reuther's executive board. Then the delegates howled down a proposal to give their officers a salary raise and went home.

Reuther's election "is not a catastrophe," Phil Murray decided. He added hopefully: "I would say that Walter Reuther has been contained." U.A.W.'s cocky new president had not yet taken his place at Murray's side. But he was embarrassingly close behind. It would take a lot to contain him.

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