Purge & Pistol

Homer Martin, slim, bespectacled head of the United Automobile Workers, is a preacher by training, and after he won the national hop, step & jump championship at 22 he was invariably called the "Leaping Parson." From the Leeds Baptist Church on the outskirts of Kansas City, where the deacons thought his labor gospel somewhat apocryphal, he leaped to a Chevrolet assembly line, then to leadership of a Kansas City local and finally in one tremendous leap to the front of C.I.O.'s noisiest, most turbulent union. Last week President Martin found himself in a spot from which he could not leap, much as he would have liked to, without immediate risk of mortal injury--Room No. 408 in Detroit's Hotel Eddystone.

The Leaping Parson's congregation of 375,000 motor workers has never been noted for its spirit of brotherly love. Indeed, rampant factionalism waxed so bitter at the union's Milwaukee convention last August that John L. Lewis had to arrange a paternal compromise between the Martin faction and the militant "unity" leaders (TIME, Sept. 6). Since that compromise settled almost nothing, President Martin proceeded to settle the squabble in his own fashion.

He snubbed Wyndham Mortimer, veteran first vice president and leader of the opposition, by upping young Richard Frankensteen, hero of the "Battle of the Overpass" at the Ford plait, to a new job as assistant president. He ordered Robert Travis transferred from the powerful Flint (Mich.) local, prepared to split that local's 30,000 members into five groups. He fired Frank Winn, U.A.W.'s able press agent. He fired an organizer who called a strike vote in a General Motors plant. By this time it was apparent that President Martin's long-awaited purge was in full flower. Also fired at one crack were more than a dozen other organizers including such potent veterans of last spring's strikes as Robert Kanter and Victor Reuther, brother of Walter Reuther. leader of the strong Detroit West Side local.

Outraged delegations speedily called on President Martin to explain the dismissal of the men largely responsible for the union's triumph over General Motors. Mr. Martin took refuge in the Eddystone Hotel. The delegations swarmed through the lobby, picketed the entrances. Telephone appeals for an audience were rebuffed with reports that Mr. Martin was out. Finally a group commanded by a unionist named Robert Gallagher penetrated to the fourth floor, started to pound and kick at Room No. 408.

Suddenly the door opened to reveal Homer Martin's evangelical features looking like those of a cornered gangster. He had a cigaret between his lips, a pistol in his fist. Stepping back from the pistol pointed at his midriff, Leader Gallagher said icily: "That's a hell of a way to greet a union man!"

Embarrassed, Mr. Martin put his gun away, promising to meet the delegations later. But as word spread swiftly throughout the city that Homer Martin had pulled a pistol on his own men, the milling crowd outside the hotel grew so big that police were called to disperse it. Rumors spread that Homer Martin was setting the police on his own men--a more heinous labor crime than pulling a pistol.

As night fell Mr. Martin emerged at last, marching two blocks to union headquarters with the crowd at his heels. Before he abandoned his room, he stormed: "In my opinion this is the action of a lot of irresponsible individuals. . . ." The session at union headquarters was behind closed doors but newshawks heard loud yells and the ominous sound of falling chairs. Next day Mr. Martin flew to Manhattan to address the Women's Trade Union League.

At first Mr. Martin denied that he pulled a pistol, later tried to laugh it off, declaring that his life had been threatened on 500 different occasions. Said he: "Intelligent and decent citizens don't come to one's hotel room and try to break the door down. Only thugs and gangsters do that."

Behind the comedy last week was a serious split in U.A.W.'s ranks--one so serious that John L. Lewis, who is reported to have no great faith in the Leaping Parson, may eventually intervene. President Martin is trying desperately to live down the union's reputation for irresponsibility. He has not only promised to discipline sit-downers but has also conceded to General Motors, as a condition to further negotiations on renewal of the union's contract, the right of the company to fire unauthorized sit-downers without recourse. Militant leaders know that in a growing union members want action, and if there was any truth in the rumor that members of U.A.W. are failing wholesale to pay their dues, trouble for Mr. Martin was certainly brewing.

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