Petrillo v. the Boys & Girls

LABOR Petrillo v. the Boys & Girls

The boys & girls who study orchestra and composition each summer among the trees of the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Mich., pay no dues to the American Federation of Musicians. Hence they had every reason to expect trouble from A.F. of M.'s squat, owl-eyed Czar James Caesar Petrillo.

By July 1942 Petrillo decided he had better get moving against the menace to unionism at Interlochen. He ordered the cancellation of broadcasts by Interlochen's National High School Orchestra over the NBC chain. The boys & girls were displacing professional musicians, said Petrillo. The boys & girls were forthwith banned. Last week Little Caesar Petrillo tried to close up Interlochen altogether. He put it on the union's "unfair" list.

This meant that faculty members who teach there would forthwith be suspended from the union, could get no paying job anywhere in Petrillo's empire--which is the entire musical U.S. -- until he lifted his ban. Since the camp is open only two months of the year, most of its teachers depend on commercial engagements for their main income.

Quick to defy A.F. of M.'s boss was Dr. Joseph Edgar Maddy, president of the camp and professor of music at the University of Michigan. He said he would fight Petrillo in the courts, meanwhile would carry on the camp this summer with non-union teachers, if necessary. Musicians thought Dr. Maddy, member of the A.F. of M. for 35 years, a brave man. Among the great ones Petrillo has successfully defied is the President of the U.S., who was rebuffed by the Czar when he publicly appealed to Little Caesar to lift his ban on making recordings.

Jove is Sore. There was apparently some personal animus in Petrillo's war against Interlochen. Dr. Maddy had persuaded the U.S. Senate to pass a bill prohibiting interference with the broadcasting of noncommercial, educational or cultural programs.

Sponsored by Michigan's Vandenberg, the bill is now before the. Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee of the House, has a good chance of becoming law. Said Arthur Vandenberg last week: "I know nothing about the details of this latest episode in Mr. Petrillo's battle with the school children of America . . . [but] if the House agrees, I expect to see the law enforced."

The Interlochen camp -- founded by enthusiastic high school students--opened in the summer of 1928. Last summer it had 650 full-time pupils, two-thirds from high schools and one-third from the University of Michigan. Of the faculty of 50, half are members of symphony orchestras and hold union cards. The school consists of a camp for boys, on the shore of Lake Wahbekaness, and another for girls, a half mile away on Lake Wahbekanetta. Sunday concerts draw large audiences from northern Michigan.

Petrillo contends that Interlochen is a commercial proposition, because the boys & girls pay a fee. Dr. Maddy says it is a non-profit educational corporation, but that tuition is necessary for expenses. The broadcasts were non-commercial except for the 1930 season, when Dr. Maddy got permission for a commercial program. The sponsor then had been Petrillo's union.

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