National Affairs: Defeat in Detroit

Last week, in a record turn-out for a purely municipal election, Detroit demonstrated its preference for the city clerk over the onetime attorney general 261,957-to-154,048. That was no surprise. What confounded virtually all the political prophets was the complete rout of the C. I. O. candidates for seats on the nine-man city council.

In the non-partisan primaries last month Maurice Sugar, counsel to the United Automobile Workers, and Richard Frankensteen, U. A. W. vice president and hero of the Ford “Battle of the Overpass.” both placed among the first nine of the 18 councilmanic candidates named for the run-off election (TIME, Oct. 18). Three other U. A. W. candidates earned places on the councilmanic ballot.

Two other C. I. O. unions also went down to defeat in two Ohio cities, where they backed the Democratic tickets. In Akron the United Rubber Workers saw their candidate, G. L. Patterson, nosed out by Republican Mayor Lee D. Schroy, 35,000-to-29,000. In Canton, one of the hottest salients in the “Little Steel” strike last summer, the Labor candidate, Darrell D. Smith, though backed by both C. I. O. and A. F. of L., was roundly trounced by Mayor James Seccombe, 24,000-to-11,000.

In Pennsylvania the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee wrote a different story. In smoky Pittsburgh, Democratic Mayor Cornelius D. Scully polled 122,400 votes to the 92,800 for Robert N. Waddell, onetime Carnegie Tech football coach. S. W. O. C. mayors and burgesses were swept into office in the historic steel towns of Ambridge, Brackenridge, Clairton, Donora, Duquesne, Monessen, Rankin. Even in Aliquippa, where Tom Girdler made his name as a Jones & Loughlin executive and where until four years ago there were only eight registered Democrats, the S. W. O. C. candidate, George L. Kiefer, defeated Republican Mayor Morgan H. Sohn 4,000-to-3,500.