Galoola Bird

For twelve months lean, hard-bitten Charles M. White, president of Republic Steel Corp., has been playing two-handed poker for gigantic stakes. His opponent: War Assets Administrator Jess Larson. The stakes: the Government's $28 million Cleveland blast furnace and coke plant, one of the world's largest.

During the war Republic operated the plant for the Defense Plant Corp., after the war continued to operate it under an interim lease. The WAA plant supplied iron for Republic's Cleveland mills and that, in turn, made it possible for Republic to sell pig iron from its other blast furnaces to hundreds of Northeastern foundries. With a defense program on, White did not think that the Government would disturb this complex setup.

Ante & Ace. Last winter, when Larson asked Republic and other would-be operators to ante up, White offered to rent the 450,000-ton blast furnace and 382,000-ton coke plant for a minimum rental of $300,000 a year. "Not enough," snapped Larson. Charlie White decided to stand pat. Larson offered the plant to Republic for $2,500,000 a year and White turned him down flat. Larson then offered to arbitrate the price but White refused. Then, early this month, White played some aces. With only a few weeks for his interim lease to run, he threatened to shut off production unless "satisfactory arrangements" were made by the Aug. 31 expiration date.

Larson had some good cards in his hand, too. Last week, he abruptly stopped haggling with Republic, turned to Henry Kaiser, who had once shown an interest in the plant. Asked Larson: Would Kaiser be willing to pay a minimum rent of $800,000 a year? Kaiser, who needs steel for his Kaiser-Frazer automobiles and knows that he can swap pig iron for it, jumped at the offer.

Pot & Pro. Charlie White's anger was as incandescent as molten steel. He fired a sizzling telegram to Larson protesting his "clandestine negotiations" as contrary to "good morals." White claimed that, including tonnage royalties, his offer would have netted the Government $1,275,000 compared with $1,248,000 from Kaiser. (WAA said Kaiser's rental would exceed $1,500,000.) White also wired 403 of his foundry customers that Republic was "going out of the pig iron business." By week's end, the frightened foundries were deluging WAA with protests.

Unperturbed, WAA's Larson curtly wired White to turn everything over to Kaiser-Frazer. Then Edgar Kaiser, Henry's son, dropped in at Republic to take over. Poker Player White felt like the Eastern tenderfoot who started to take in the pot on a royal flush, only to have a Western pro lay down a pair of deuces and announce that he had a Galoola Bird. The Westerner pointed to a sign on the wall:

HOUSE RULE -- A GALOOLA* BIRD BEATS EVERYTHING.-

*When the tenderfoot later drew a Galoola Bird of his own, the Westerner pointed to a sec ond sign: HOUSE RULE -- ONLY ONE GALOOLA BIRD ALLOWED IN AN EVENING.

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