Battle of the Statler

After Franklin Roosevelt’s crashing speech to the Teamsters’ union fortnight ago, happy Teamsters streamed out of the Statler Hotel’s Presidential Room, full of good food and high enthusiasm. On the hotel’s mezzanine, some of the Teamsters met two naval officers, bound for a Navy dance.

What happened then was suppressed for a week. This week Cissy Patterson’s Times-Herald, which likes neither Franklin Roosevelt nor unions, disclosed that the result had been a first-class brawl.

First reports of the fracas definitely identified only one participant. He was Lieut. Randolph Dickins Jr., of Bradenton, Fla., 6 ft. 2 in., a hero of the Battle of Midway, who had been a combat-fatigue patient at the Navy’s Bethesda for ten weeks, after 42 months’ service. After the story had broken, Navy superiors permitted Lieut. Dickins to tell his side:

“While we were on the mezzanine lounge a group of men accosted us, telling us that they were members of the Teamsters’ union and that the President had just made a fine speech. They then asked my friend and I what political party we belonged to and who we would like to see get elected in November.

“We retorted that it was none of their business; that it wasn’t their affair. They then seemed to get rather angry at the fact that we didn’t come out and state we were for our Commander in Chief. . .. We were surrounded by an increasing number at about their Commander in Chief. We reiterated we didn’t know and it was still none of their business. . . . Several of them accused us of being disloyal. . . . My friend and I attempted to leave. . . .”

But before they could leave, Lieut. Dickins said, a fight had begun. His friend was pinioned in a chair and slugged by a bystander. Going to his friend’s help, he himself was hit, and he hit back. Lieut. Dickins, onetime footballer at the University of Miami, said he “knocked down four or five.” Then a flying wedge of bell hops stopped the fight.

Lieut. Dickins continued: “A man shouldered his way in. He apparently was the hotel manager. He then proceeded to tell my friend and I that he couldn’t expect much more than this from the Navy and that this was a typical gesture of gratitude by the armed services. He then threatened to call the shore patrol. . . .”

The shore patrol came, and escorted the two officers out. One of the attackers stopped him, Lieut. Dickins said, told him he had “beaten up a personal friend of the President,” said that “severe punishment” would follow.

The Times-Herald account said “it was believed” that the Teamsters’ greying, pink-cheeked president, “Uncle Dan” Tobin himself, had been one of the participants in the fight. It said further that Uncle Dan had promptly called Presidential Secretary Steve Early and demanded that the news of the brawl be suppressed.

Steve Early hotly denied having had a call from Dan Tobin, said he knew nothing of the brawl until called by newsmen. Lieut. Dickins, shown a picture of Dan Tobin, was unable to identify him as one of the brawlers.

In New York, Dan Tobin called the whole thing “a criminal falsehood.” Cried he: “This is a dastardly attempt to turn the services’ vote against Mr. Roosevelt.”