Turkey Talk

Of 45,000 automobile dealers in the U. S., 10,000 are Chrysler dealers. No body of businessmen in the nation worked harder in the past seven weeks; no group more anxiously read the daily papers.

They had been reading only bad news for a long time. For other dealers, the news was fine. Preliminary field reports showed that deliveries of eleven leading makes were 40% above last year, same period. But those reports did not include the four Chrysler cars--their distribution had been hamstrung for seven weeks by the Chrysler strike.

Last week the strike of the United Automobile Workers (C. I. O.) had easily broken the Abie's Irish Rose record held by General Motors' strike (44 days in 1937), and gloomy Chrysler dealers were wondering if it would run as long as Tobacco Road. Adamant sat big Tough Guy Herman L. Weckler, 49, almost six feet, almost 200 pounds, Chrysler's formidable, nimble-minded operating vice president. Adamant too sat bigger Tough Guy Richard T. Frankensteen, 6-feet-1, 220 pounds, onetime University of Dayton tackle, aggressive, teddybear chief of U. A. W. (C. I. O.).

Meanwhile, the 10,000 dealers sat helpless ; helpless sat middle-sized Homer Martin, the spectacled "Leaping Parson from Leeds" (Missouri),* loud-lunged chief of the American Federation of Labor's U. A. W.

By last week 58,000 Chrysler men were out of work. "Locked out," said Frankensteen. "Walked out," said Weckler. "Go back to work," bellowed Martin, echoed by the Rev. Charles E. Coughlin (somehow managing to misquote an encyclical of the late Pope Pius XI), echoed also by the U. S. press. In plants supplying Chrysler with parts, jigs, tools, dies, thousands more were idle--probably 150,000 in all.

Net result of the back-to-work bellowing: 700 men showed up at the plants, sheepishly left for home an hour later.

Long since abandoned was the union's first objective--the closed shop. What Mr. Frankensteen wanted now was a change in bargaining procedure, asking that the procedure be tightened up, provision be made for arbitration of disputes not settled by earlier steps. Mr. Weckler said ho, arbitration was impossible; that it meant, in the final analysis, the handing-over of plant operation to outsiders. Neither side disclosed what kind of arbitration plan was discussed. Mr. Frankensteen straightway produced a 1933 Chrysler agreement, in which arbitration was a major provision of Walter Percy Chrysler's company-union plan.

Said Mr. Frankensteen: "If it was okay in 1933, why isn't it okay in 1939?"

Mr. Weckler stalled for time. Next day he said O. K. on arbitration, if the union would accept in toto the 1933 company-union plan. Now it was Mr. Frankensteen's turn to take time out.

But turkey talk seemed a little nearer. Imminent was 1939's Thanksgiving I, and a striking workman is just as fond of turkey dressing as any time-card puncher. Labor Department Trouble Shooter James F. Dewey perked up, indicated the strike might be settled in time to get workmen back to plants this week; later unperked, once more got gloomy. Big union hope: to get men back to work soon enough for them to get the price of turkeys. Big company hope: to get production started again so that Chrysler executives can eat their turkeys with good appetite.

As grace before meat, the Michigan Catholic, official newspaper of the Detroit Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, said a few words: it basted the three Detroit papers (News, Free Press, Times), lambasted Father Coughlin (though not by name). Father Coughlin was also ticked off by two high-ranking priests, the Rev. Fr. Raymond C. Clancy and the Rt. Rev. John S. Mies.

* Martin in 1924-25 was national A. A. U. hop-skip-jump champion.

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