Mr. Martin's Snuffles

Homer Martin, president of the United Automobile Workers of America, got the snuffles and took to his bed one day last week. They were lucky snuffles, for they enabled Mr. Martin to postpone a meeting of his international executive board, at which he was in a fair way to lose control of U. A. W.

President Martin's low state coincided with the presence in Detroit of C. I. O. Vice Chairmen Philip Murray and Sidney Hillman. With them at the Hotel Statler was swart young Lee Pressman, C. I. O. general counsel, who is so thoroughly allergic to Homer Martin that the two were kept apart. Boss John L. Lewis had sent the visitors to save C.I.O.'s third largest union from dismemberment at the hands of Mr. Martin and feuding fellow officers (TIME, June 20). Mr. Lewis was aboard ship, coasting home from a union conference in Mexico City, but his absence lessened neither the fact of his intervention in an autonomous affiliate's affairs nor Homer Martin's conviction that U. A. W. was in danger of "dictatorship by Lewis and the C. I. O."

Having expelled four rebellious union officers (Vice Presidents Richard Frankensteen, Wyndham Mortimer, Ed Hall; Secretary-Treasurer George Addes) and suspended a fifth (Vice President Walter Wells), Mr. Martin was faced by the unpleasant discovery that a majority of U. A. W.'s 375,000 claimed members supported the punished five. U. A. W. was ready to split in two. A sample of how costly jurisdictional strikes could prove in the automobile industry at the start of the 1939 production season was meanwhile provided in Detroit: soon after workers struck in Briggs Manufacturing Co. (against "speedup"), 7,000 employes in Chrysler's Plymouth division had to be laid off because they could not work without Briggs bodies.

Grey-topped, placid Mr. Murray and blacktopped, jumpy Mr. Hillman proposed to save U. A. W. by reinstating the expelled officers and having future disputes settled by C. I. O. executives (meaning Lewis, Murray, Hillman). Rather than lose face, Homer Martin rejected "the Lewis plan," called upon his majority of twelve supposedly loyal boardmen to back him up.

At battle heat, Scotsman Murray's burred goddams can be softly terrible, Lithuanian-born Sidney Hillman's dat-for-that accent becomes a cracking sputter. Murray & Hillman burred and sputtered to good effect. Several of Martin's dozen boardmen began to waver. One night Messrs. Murray & Hillman added up their gains, convinced Homer Martin that he might as well convene his board and get it over. He capitulated.

President Martin was allowed to keep his face and office. Messrs. Murray & Hillman were empowered: 1) to "review" the expulsions, decide whether they still think the ousted officers should be reinstated; 2) with Homer Martin and one other board member, to settle future disputes. This arrangement is to continue until next year, when at the union's biennial convention Messrs, Frankensteen, Mortimer, et al. will have a chance to complete the demolition of Homer Martin. C. I. O. having thus taken U. A. W. out of Homer Martin's hands, Murray & Hillman graciously announced that U. A. W. was still autonomous, promised to help eradicate "outside influences."

With that, Murray & Hillman touched the core of U. A. W.'s and Homer Martin's troubles. Such good Communists as shrewd, persuasive William ("Bill") Gebert and William Weinstone. encamped in Detroit, have played a potent role in U. A. W. affairs, have been constantly at hand to guide some of Mr. Martin's foes. For his part, he has welcomed the advice of ex-Communist Jay Lovestone, has placed several good Lovestoneites in Detroit headquarters. Murray & Hillman were saying publicly they wanted no> truck with their group, that both Mr. Martin and his enemies should mend their councils. Having said so without calling names, Hillman & Murray smiled for the cameras with bravely smiling Homer Martin (see cut), last weekend bade him good-by for the while.

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