Thick Hide, Good Heart

In choosing their Secretaries of Labor, Republican Presidents have followed Woodrow Wilson's precedent by appointing union men, while Democratic Presidents have chosen nonunion men. * When he selected his Secretary of Labor last December, Dwight Eisenhower tried the Republican way, named Martin Durkin, president of the A.F.L.'s plumbers and pipefitters union. It did not work. Durkin, angry because his proposals for amending the Taft-Hartley law had been stalled, quit last month.

Last week President Eisenhower turned his back on the G.O.P. pattern. He appointed a nonunion man, James P. Mitchell, to succeed Durkin. Mitchell, on leave from his job as vice president in charge of personnel and service at Manhattan's Bloomingdale's, has been the Army's assistant secretary for manpower and reserve forces since last April. Big (6 ft., 205 Ibs.) Jim Mitchell has spent most of his life in labor relations, has ironed out serious labor and personnel problems at two of the nation's biggest department stores (see box). Said C.I.O. President Walter Reuther: "Mr. Mitchell enjoys a good reputation among the labor people who have dealt with him." Said a presidential aide: "Besides his other qualifications, he has two more I think will help: a thick hide and a good heart."

* As the first Secretary of Labor, Wilson named William B. Wilson (no kin), who had been secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers. Warren Harding appointed James J. ("Puddler Jim") Davis, who had been president of an Iron, Steel & Tin Workers local. Herbert Hoover named William N. Doak, who had been vice president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. Franklin Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins, and Harry Truman chose Lewis Schwelenbach and Maurice Tobin.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.