LABOR: Headed East

Seattle’s well-tailored Dave Beck, overlord of the West’s teamsters, has been acting like a bull in the A.F.L. china shop. He has raided other A.F.L. unions. He has even scared the wits out of roaring Dan Tobin, the teamsters’ international president and Beck’s boss. Recently Beck demanded that Tobin fire Lester Hunt, editor of the union paper and Tobin’s ally. Meekly old Dan complied. This week, writing in the Washington Post, Hunt wigwagged a frantic warning:

“Beck is not satisfied with his vast feudal barony beyond the Rockies. He is reversing the historic admonition of Horace Greeley. He is coming East. Already he has left large footprints in the Indiana cornfields and on the seat of Dan Tobin’s pants.”

Hunt saw Beck finally locking horns with the C.I.O.’s Walter Reuther “for control of American labor.” If Beck won the fight, Hunt predicted, the U.S. might be in for something: “Beck abhors regimentation by government. He favors it by Beck. Beck’s philosophy of labor relations envisages one big man in labor sitting down with one big man in industry to write the ticket.”