National Affairs: Comeuppance

For years (1927-53), burly Joseph Patrick Ryan ruled the New York waterfront as boss of the International Longshoremen’s Association. With the connivance of wharf racketeers, Ryan cowed shipowners and decent dockworkers alike, and defied the forces of law. Last week in a Manhattan court Joe Ryan finally got his comeuppance, on the charge that he had accepted $2,500 in gratuities from a trucking company. “The defendant was not a union leader,” said Prosecutor Arnold Bauman. “He was a racketeer. The I.L.A. was a racket, which perpetuated itself by a reign of terror, by brutal beatings, in some cases murder . . .”

Judge Edmund L. Palmieri chose to hand down a relatively mild sentence—six months in prison, $2,500 in fines—because Ryan was already suffering from another kind of retribution. At 70, the ex-boss is physically broken and rapidly becoming senile. His longshoremen’s union, uncleansed, continues to dominate the New York waterfront.