Little Caesar

James Caesar Petrillo, swarthy son of a ditchdigger, profane boss of the American Federation of Musicians, has been the Mussolini of Music in the U.S. for 20 years. His 130,000 dues-paying union fledglings pay him an annual salary of $46,000-plus, to be "protected" from the competition of amateurs. (Once, when eight Chinese Boy Scouts wanted to hail the arrival of a giant panda in Chicago with a fanfare of bugle blasts, Tsar Petrillo insisted that eight paid union musicians be hired as well.)

Last week Protector Petrillo--who spent nine years in getting through four grades in a Chicago grammar school--perpetrated his newest outrage in the name of labor. Twenty-two hours before the National High School Orchestra was to begin its thirteenth season of NBC concerts from Interlochen, Mich., Dictator Petrillo ordered NBC to cancel the broadcasts. The 160 boys & girls in the orchestra, who had asked their parents in 40 States to listen in on their radio debut, are not professional musicians, hence cannot play "in competition" with professionals, ruled Caesar Petrillo.

Dr. Joseph E. Maddy, president of Interlochen's National Music Camp, was shocked but helpless. The camp, a nonprofit organization, accepts many pupils on scholarships, has, in its 14 years, furnished competent musicians to many symphony orchestras. The weekly summer broadcasts have been a sustaining feature for twelve years. Dr. Maddy, who boasts an A.F.M. membership for 33 years, "longer than Caesar Petrillo," argued that the high-school musicians, even if they wanted to join the A.F.M., would be ineligible because of youth. Said Dr. Maddy: "The broadcasts have created thousands of new listeners to classical music."

Next week, or soon after July 31, the U.S. would begin to suffer from another Petrillo edict: henceforth musicians may make no recordings for juke boxes--a move which might well stop the recording of all popular music (TIME, June 22).

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