"These Vultures"

In the huge cream & green arena of Milwaukee's auditorium a voice shouted: "I want to call a spade a spade and tell this convention I am a Communist." He was a delegate to the meeting of the C.I.O.'s United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers. As photographers rushed for their cameras, press-shy President Albert Fitzgerald grabbed for his microphone: "You boys behave. These vultures are about to take pictures."

Actually, most of the 3,500 delegates sat quietly patient through the vicious wranglings of right-and left-wing leaders. Everyone knew that the C.I.O.'s biggest Communist-dominated union was going to stay dominated.

Even slim Jim Carey, onetime U.E. president and now secretary-treasurer of the C.I.O., knew that his fight to oust the Communist-line triumvirate could never amount to more than a test of strength for future battles. On the second day Carey made his bid: a resolution to bar Communists from union office. It never came to a vote. By a landslide majority of 2,827 to 679, U.E. delegates substituted a plank guaranteeing "every member all rights and privileges . . . including the right to hold any position . . . regardless of craft, age, sex, nationality, race, creed or political belief."

Next day, by just about the same ratio, they voted back into office U.E.'s Big Three: waspish Albert Fitzgerald, no Red himself, as U.E.'s figurehead president; Communist-wired James J. Matles and Julius Emspak, U.E.'s real bosses, as top organizer and secretary-treasurer.

As the smoothly disciplined convention rolled to a close, delegates rose to their feet for a minute of silence in honor of two departed friends of labor. For Sidney Hillman the minute shrank unaccountably to 20 seconds, as clocked by newsmen. For Franklin D. Roosevelt it was extended to 65 by sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued President Fitzgerald. He growled afterwards to press-table timekeepers: "Was that one long enough for you, you bastards?"

The A.F.L. last week had its own comments on the issue of Communism-in-labor:

P: Cautious A.F.L. Boss William Green gave the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters a straight-talking guide to Communist doubletalk. Sample: "They are willing to promise you the moon to convert you into tools and catspaws. . . . The Communists do not want to see the anti-poll tax bill and the fair employment bill adopted. By placing themselves in the forefront of these measures, they knew they were helping to defeat them."

P: In Chicago, the A.F.L.'s Upholsterers' International Union gleefully announced the acquisition of 5,000 disgruntled, anti-Communist members of the C.I.O.'s Red-upholstered United Furniture Workers.

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