National Affairs: Collision of Stars

A year ago the United Automobile Workers, their youthful ex-preacher president, Homer Martin, their strapping and scrappy organizer, Richard Frankensteen, were stars in the drama of renascent U. S. Labor and in the crown of John L. Lewis’ C.I.O. Since then nearly half of U.A.W.’s 400,000 members have been laid off and U.A.W.’s high command has been riven by a bitter political feud. If John L. Lewis could do nothing about the first difficulty, he could try to mend the second. So last week he welcomed both parties, which had split half-&-half on U.A.W.’s 24-man executive board, to lay their troubles before him in Washington.

Heart of U.A.W.’s difficulties is the struggle between the Martin Progressive faction, which believes in strong centralized authority, and the Unity faction headed by Vice President Mortimer and Mr. Frankensteen, which believes in greater local autonomy. That, in Mr. Martin’s opinion, has led to U.A.W.’s “wildcat” strikes. Crux of last week’s row was clever, self-assertive Fred C. Pieper, board member from Atlanta and chairman of U.A.W.’s newly created finance committee. According to President Martin’s enemies, Mr. Pieper had pre-empted most of the executive authority at Detroit headquarters with no sanction except Mr. Martin’s personal blessing. According to President Martin, U.A.W.’s trouble was that Mr. Frankensteen, whom he demoted from assistant president to vice president two months ago, had been conspiring with U.A.W. “Communists” like Mr. Mortimer to get Mr. Martin’s job.

The rival delegations stayed at different hotels last week in Washington. But John Lewis insisted on seeing them together at his palatial new United Mine Workers headquarters. There he gave them a stiff six-hour talking to. Grim and tired, Leader Lewis emerged to announce that all parties would go to Capitol Hill next day to lobby for an important labor bill, an amendment to the Walsh-Healey Act making compliance with the Wagner Act a prerequisite for firms awarded Government contracts. After that, the factions were to reconvene at the Lewis headquarters.

When they met again, hotheaded Homer Martin had obviously failed to be converted. Standing on his rights as U.A.W.’s elected president and cocking a rebellious snook at John L. Lewis himself, Mr. Martin summarily dismissed four of his vice presidents, including the Messrs. Frankensteen and Mortimer, and Secretary-Treasurer George Addes. He told six restive board members they would lay themselves “wide open to suspension” if they left the meeting. As one, the six walked out, leaving President Martin & friends in command of a union now publicly split.

On John L. Lewis’ hands then lay the ticklish problem of whether to risk shaky U.A.W.’s equilibrium further by encouraging a convention that might either affirm or break Homer Martin’s authority, or blast U.A.W. permanently.