Ninth Life

In the lofty ballroom of the Cleveland Auditorium, Vice President Ed Hall of C. I. O.'s United Automobile Workers of America made a speech one day last week. After dwelling upon the factional feuds which had nearly wrecked the most promising of C. I. O.'s newer unions, pot-paunched Brother Hall observed: "I say that this organization must be like a cat with nine lives. . . . Unless you can put men in office and quit . . . sniveling, snitching and jibing at those individuals, you will never have unity, you will never have a constructive, democratic, militant organization."

Ed Hall and some 500 delegates to a special convention were in Cleveland last week to save their union's ninth and last life. Provisional President Roland Jay Thomas, Vice Presidents Hall, Richard Frankensteen and Wyndham Mortimer, Secretary-Treasurer George Addes, many another feudist professed the utmost anxiety to salvage what seceding President Homer Martin had left of their union when he split away last month (TIME, Feb. 6). But not one volunteered to sacrifice his job to that end. One & all were anxious to better themselves, preferably at the expense of fellow officers.

To C. I O. the wrecking of the motor workers union would be a serious matter. John L. Lewis, locked in contest with A. F. of L. over the Wagner Act, jockeying for advantage in peace talks with the Federation and tied up in contract negotiations for his miners with soft-coal operators, did what he had done before: shipped his lieutenants, Philip Murray and Sidney Hillman, to the scene of disruption.

Walter Reuther, a canny little ex-Socialist who controls U. A. W.'s huge West Side Local in Detroit, had fathered a plan to abolish dissension by abolishing four of the five vice-presidencies, leaving one for himself. Messrs. Murray & Hillman got the convention to adopt a more complete cure: do away entirely with vice presidents.

Key man in these maneuvers was silent, saturnine Secretary-Treasurer Addes. Young Mr. Addes was put up for the presidency by Frankensteen, Mortimer & Co., who with the backing of U. A. W.'s small but potent Communist faction hoped to capitalize on his great popularity. After some tough talking by Murray & Hillman, Mr. Addes agreed to step aside if they would publicly indicate another choice. Loath to convict themselves of "dictatorship," Murray & Hillman at last pointed to amiable, amenable Provisional President Thomas, whom they had upped from a vice-presidency after Homer Martin seceded. Result: fewer dogs were left to fight over the bones.

Two things the convention showed: 1) there was still plenty of life in an organization which could take such a beating, 2) factionalism had taken a heavy toll. Its membership was down from a peak 381,000 to a claimed 172,000, money on hand from $428,000 a year and a half ago to $58,000 at last year's end.

Meanwhile in Detroit, Homer Martin, head of U. A. W.'s seceding minority, was unable to meet his headquarters payroll until five days after it was due, had to dismiss 35 organizers. Strained by advance disclosure that he was planning to take his faction into A. F. of L., Mr. Martin's nerves snapped when Detroit Timesman Harry Taylor commented caustically upon the sad state of Mr. Martin's affairs. Homer Martin flared up, fisticuffed for five minutes.

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