HOUSING: Mr. Bedaux’s Friends

When Edward VIII less than a year ago abdicated the throne of England to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, it was clear that almost anything he did thereafter would be a painful anticlimax. Last week, the activities of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor attained a crescendo of anticlimax that was almost as newsworthy as the abdication. The crescendo started with the arrival in the U. S. last fortnight of a Mephistophelean little Franco-American efficiency expert, named Charles E. Bedaux, as advance agent for the proposed Windsor tour of the U. S. to study housing and industry, scheduled to start this week (TIME, Nov. 8).

Bedaux Week. To most of the U. S., Efficiency Expert Bedaux has long been a mysterious figure known only as the proprietor of the Chateau de Cande where the Duke and Duchess were married last June and as the inventor of something called the “Bedaux hour.”* To U. S. Labor, Efficiency Expert Bedaux is not mysterious at all. Labor regards the Bedaux hour as synonymous with the “stretch-out” and “speed-up,” considers Efficiency Expert Bedaux, whose system is used in 1,000 plants throughout the world, one of its bitterest enemies. Arrival of Efficiency Expert Bedaux caused an immediate blast from the labor press which Efficiency Expert Bedaux began by ignoring. Apparently concerned mostly with the fact that the most gala entertainments arranged for the Windsors were a dinner at the home of the British Ambassador in Washington and a luncheon at the White House while Mrs. Roosevelt was away on a lecture tour, he set off for Washington to persuade the State Department to help put the Windsor tour on a more appropriate footing. By this time, he had informed the U. S. that the correct way to address the couple—whom he punctiliously avoided calling by name, referred to them as “my friends”—was “Sir for him, Ma’am for her.”

In Washington, where he arrived with a representative of the New York advertising firm of Arthur Kudner, Inc., thus giving the Windsor tour an unfortunate commercial air, Efficiency Expert Bedaux’s reception at the State Department was cool. Even cooler was his reception by a group of reporters invited to cocktails at the Mayflower Hotel, which hoped to accommodate Mr. Bedaux’s friends when they arrived. Efficiency Expert Bedaux failed to improve matters when, asked whether he was paying for the Windsor tour, he gave a noncommittal answer indicating that he was.

Manifesto— Last year Baltimore’s sage, Henry L. Mencken, stated the opinion of a large portion of the English-speaking world when he called the abdication the “greatest story since the Resurrection.” Last week Baltimore’s most noteworthy response to the Windsor housing tour came not from Sage Mencken but from an American Federation of Labor leader named Joseph P. McCurdy in the form of a resolution unanimously adopted by a meeting of the Baltimore Federation. Excerpts :

“Immediately preceding this visit [to the United States] the former King and his wife .. . visited Nazi Germany. . . .

“[They] have announced that they will study labor in this country under the guidance of Charles Bedaux. . . .

“Whereas . . . the wife of the Duke of Windsor . . . while resident here in no way showed the slightest concern nor sympathy for the problems of labor or the poor and needy:

“Therefore be it resolved, that the Baltimore Federation of Labor warns all Baltimore trade unionists of the potential threat. …”

That the Baltimore resolution was merely the first gun in a bombardment from the whole U. S. labor front was indicated by prompt applause from both of U. S. Labor’s bitterly warring factions. President William Green of A. F. of L. said it “fairly represented the attitude of American labor.” President Francis J. Gorman of C. I. O.’s United Textile Workers “reminded” the Windsors that Efficiency Expert Bedaux “made his money from the sweat of the textile workers.”

“Sire.” By the time U. S. Labor had made plain its opinion of the Windsor tour, the Efficiency Expert began to feel that he was not the ideal person to insure the Duke of Windsor the kind of reception he got when he visited the U. S. as Prince of Wales in 1924. He announced that he had telephoned the Duke of Windsor to offer to resign in favor of a less unpopular guide. The Duke’s reply was “Charles, pay no attention to these low accusations. Go right ahead.” Trying to obey, Efficiency Expert Bedaux encountered more obstacles. Said he the next afternoon: “Up to 1 o’clock I was very gay. Since then something has happened. . . .” Whether or not the something was a refusal by the State Department to accord royal status to the Duchess of Windsor, Efficiency Expert Bedaux would not say.

Tail of Efficiency Expert Bedaux’s meteoric career across U. S. front pages last week was a cablegram couched in politely medieval salutations and released to the press by Arthur Kudner, Inc. Said the cablegram: “Sire: I respectfully sug gest and in your behalf implore that you relieve me completely from all my duties in connection with your American tour. I remain, Sire, your devoted friend, Charles E. Bedaux.”

In Paris last week, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor began to weaken about their U. S. tour after their first telephone conversation with Charles Bedaux. Next day, they decided to go ahead with it anyway. Day before the Bremen — chosen for the voyage because, unlike American and French liners, she does not call at ports in England — was to sail, the Windsors lunched at the British Embassy, went back to the Hotel Meurice to finish packing their 20 trunks and 50 suitcases. Late that afternoon, the Windsor Housing Tour of the U. S. reached its final anticlimax. This was a statement issued by the Duke’s equerry, Sir Dudley Forwood:

“It was announced tonight on behalf of the Duke of Windsor that he has decided to postpone his visit to America.

“His Royal Highness arrived at this decision with great reluctance and after much deliberation, but he feels that owing to the grave misconceptions which have arisen, and the misstatements which have appeared regarding the motives and purpose of his industrial tour there is no alternative but to defer it for the present.”

Best guess as to the determining reason why the Windsor tour was finally abandoned last week was that the British Government had convinced the Duke that for a member of the British royal family to pay a visit to the U. S. inspired, arranged, or aided by Efficiency Expert Bedaux might have had unpleasant diplomatic consequences.

While the Duke and Duchess spent the day on which they were to have sailed for the U. S. shopping in Paris and wondering what to do next, the U. S. press, which had been looking forward to a royal circus that would have made the 1926 tour of Queen Marie of Rumania look pale by comparison, consoled itself with the hope that it might still occur later in the year. Final word on the whole affair came from London. In a chorus of congratulations to the Duke for giving up the tour, the liberal evening Star politely expressed the view that it was increasingly apparent that the Duke of Windsor was “as much in need of wise and experienced counsellors as … when he was King.” By this time the Windsors, who had just unpacked their trunks, were considering repacking them and coming to the U. S. after all.

—Basis of the Bedaux system is the B (for Be-daux) unit, representing a given quantity of production varying for different tasks in different plants. When Bedaux analysts have determined how many B-units the average worker produces per hour, a basic wage rate is established, bonuses granted to workers who produce more than the average number of B’s. U. S. Labor’s complaint against the Bedaux system is that employers—who pay Charles Bedaux royalties for using it—often set the basic Brate too high, raise it unfairly as an incentive to speed production.