Third Party?

Cautious and deliberate by nature, A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany has a terrible temper when pressed--and Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield pressed him. Unless businessmen get into politics, Republican Summerfield warned the National Association of Manufacturers fortnight ago, "candidates hand-picked by union bosses and elected by the campaign activities directed by union bosses will come to dominate the halls of Congress and, Heaven forbid, eventually perhaps the White House itself."

Replying amid wild applause ("Pour it on, George!") at the first convention of the merged New York A.F.L.-C.I.O., Meany last week dismissed Summerfield as "a little ward heeler from Detroit." Then he made his threat: "I have always said that we do not want our own political party, but if we have to do that to lick the people who want to drag us back to the past, we will start our own political party and do a good job of it."

As a matter of fact, there is not a ghost of a chance that a third party representing labor will be formed--and Meany knows it. Next day his vice president, Walter Reuther, suggested charitably that Meany was "misunderstood," and then voiced the traditional A.F.L. view: "The American labor movement is committed to work within the framework of the two-party system. A labor party is wrong because it would further fragmentize our society." And, as Republican Summerfield had pointed out, labor did very well for itself in the November elections in the Democratic Party.

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