Never Say Die

Organized labor is no sacred cow to Thurman Arnold, mustachioed, bag-eyed, bellicose Assistant Attorney General whose special province (and obsession) is trust busting. Like all good New Dealers Mr. Arnold believes labor's rights are sacred. But he has a reservation: their sanctity vanishes the moment labor tramples on other people's rights. Holding this standard high, he campaigned against corrupt unions, corrupt labor bosses, ran up a fine fat set of newspaper clippings, suddenly fell into a hole and disappeared from sight.

The hole was a lack in the law. Justice Felix Frankfurter on Feb. 3 handed down the Supreme Court's 6-to-2 opinion in the Hutcheson case. Effect of the ruling was that labor unions, except in exceptional cases, may not be prosecuted under antitrust laws, i.e., may freely continue practices ranging from restraints of trade to outright racketeering. The Hutcheson decision stamped an O.K. on such labor-union restraints of trade as these:

> Restraints preventing the use of cheaper material and more efficient methods;

> Those compelling the hiring of unnecessary labor;

> Those designed to enforce systems of graft and extortion;

> Those designed to enforce illegally fixed prices;

> Those tending to destroy honest collective bargaining, such as some jurisdictional disputes.

A.F. of L.'s beaming, bumbling, balding President William Green hailed the Hutcheson decision, which so clearly made possible continuation of corruption and racketeering rampant in some A.F. of L. unions. But Trust Buster Arnold merely fitted another cigar into his mustache and went to work. Deciding that labor's new Siegfried Line could not be carried by assault, he moved underground. He had to go there. No one else in the New Deal wanted to sponsor a measure which attacked labor's rights even if they were wrongs.

Last week baggy, tobacco-strewn Mr. Arnold had nearly finished laying his subterranean mines under the Hutcheson case. First explosion was scheduled for the next fortnight, when the House of Representatives officially returns to work.

Then the House Judiciary Committee is expected to consider two bills: 1) one sponsored by Oklahoma's young middle-roader Mike Monroney, 2) one sponsored by Pennsylvania's youngish conservative Francis Walter. The Monroney bill is Arnold's baby, would specifically permit prosecution of labor racketeers, would let the Justice Department move in on cutthroat jurisdictional strikes, would outlaw many a nefarious-but-usual labor practice. The Walter bill, even tougher, would permit injunction suits by any person "affected, injured, or threatened with injury" by objectionable union practices.

Mr. Arnold's war will be no Blitzkrieg. Molasses-slow is the Judiciary Committee, headed by foxy old Hatton Sumners of Texas (who has the Confucian viewpoint that none-of-this-will-matter-in-a-thousand-years), and composed of 25 other lawyers, who know all the ins-&-outs of legal obfuscation. Some members of the committee are of Arnold's mind, some are frankly antilabor; and Arnold's basic underground work has been effective. Oklahoma's Monroney can be expected to steer a middle course between the Congressmen who want to coerce labor at the bayonet point and those who are rubber stamps for union politicians.

The Arnold approach is smooth and apparently surefire: an appeal to Congressional disgust with labor irresponsibility, especially if such irresponsibility results in halting defense. He is prepared to make the committeemen's ears ring with true horror stories of corrupt labor activity, sanctified by the Hutcheson decision, and now blocking defense production.

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