THE MAN WHO OWNS THE FORESTS

...Lewis came to Atlantic City that year resolved to make the Federation tackle the problem of the unorganized mass-production industries...

...It said: "Cons gratulations...

...delegates to the conventions...

...The CIO, and some of the livelier AFL affiliates which represent unionism with a social conscience, are a distinct threat to Big Bill's way of life...

...He still likes beefsteaks, beer, and good cigars, and he still dislikes social change...

...His business, by and large, is collecting initiation fees and dues, in return for which he provides jobs and occasional raises...

...Hit him again...

...but Hutcheson, the nation's leading Republican labor leader, joined the Conference and made heavy cash donations to its upkeep...

...In 1935, he was the guiding force behind the Federation's rejection of a demand for constitutional guarantees of social legislation...

...In any case, he is a very tough man in a labor dispute...

...The Carpenters Union, currently worth $12,000,000, is a flourishing enterprise...

...In his own community, he has been an influential campaigner for most of the Republican Presidential candidates since Calvin Coolidge...

...There is no doubt that he is right...

...When he retires—he is now 76—his son Maurice will inherit the business...

...Who should handle wood trimmed with metal—carpenters or sheet-metal workers...

...DANIEL SELIGMAN is an assistant editor of The American Mercury, and his articles have appeared, as well, in The Commonweal, Plain Talk, and The New Leader...

...The following year, he came out against demands for laws to shorten hours of work...

...He still approves of the businessman's psychology among officers of his union...

...Conventions are supposed to be held only once in four years, and in practice there have been gaps of as long as eight years between them...

...Men began drifting back to work early in 1948, and when the dust had cleared it was discovered that Hutcheson's jurisdictional rival, the International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees, was not only intact, but considerably strengthened...

...He writes a regular labor column for the latter...

...Usually, no names were made a»| able...

...The business unionist does not think of himself as a crusader for higher living standards, racial equality, or any of the diverse social reforms that are often associated with the labor movement...

...Big Bill has never specifically claimed divine sanction for his concept of labor relations, though he has frequently pointed out that Jesus Christ was a carpenter...

...His war in the late thirties against "CIO wood" was, on the whole, a success...

...In the natural course of affairs, Big Bill became a Republican, an Odd Fellow, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce...

...In general...

...His opposition to the Act is rooted in practical, rather than ideological considerations: the business in which he has prospered is trade unionism, and Taft-Hartley has definitely cramped his style...

...Dissidents, if there are any left, keep their opinions to themselves...

...The Carpenters have regularly expelled members shown to have Communist connections, and Big Bill has regularly labeled all his opposition—in the union and out of it—as Reds...

...He still wins his arguments by bellowing...

...The Carpenters' ferocity in jurisdictional infighting long ago elicited the classic remark that "God made the forests and He gave them to Bill Hutcheson...

...Instead of putting the workers in heavy industry into large "vertical" units, they proposed to cut them up into hundreds of crafts and parcel them out among the established affiliates of the Federation...

...What about the woodwork connected with stage sets—did it belong to carpenters or theatrical employes...

...As in days gone by, the dues in the Brotherhood are not fixed: there is a minimum of a dollar a month, but locals are encouraged to get as much as the traffic will bear...

...If he has any positive social beliefs," the late Eddie Levinson, one of the keenest labor reporters of our time, remarked, "they have never been discovered...

...When Rep...

...I appeal from your decision," he announced to Big Bill...

...I cannot use those big words that you learn in college," he once said, but intellectual modesty has never prevented him from plunging into the battle of ideas...

...Hutcheson rapped a gavel and gave his answer: "Delegate Mulcahy will be recorded in the Proceedings as no longer a delegate in this convention...

...At other times, Hutcheson has dispensed with roll-call votes on crucial issues, and simply directed those who opposed him to make their names available to the recorder...

...Which, of course, leaves the jurisdictional situation about where it was...

...His philosophy is "voluntarism," which is the labor equivalent of laissez fake...

...The Jim Careys may make the headlines with their prating about democracy and social welfare, but Hutcheson was in the trade union business before Carey was born, and he sees no need to change his views now...

...Even this, however, seemed to leave room for confusion...

...Don't you think the carpenters have just as much right to defend their avocation [sic] in life as attorneys, doctors, or somebody else...

...The great Hollywood strike, which convulsed the film industry during 1945-47 and threw thousands of men out of work, was launched primarily because Big Bill got the idea that another union was collecting dues from a few hundred of his carpenters...

...Hutcheson is reported to have said, "I'll see Lewis in hell before I see industrial unions...

...There was, of course, no suggestion in these tactics that he was beginning to get radical ideas in his old age...

...The American way of life has been good to him, and he has worked tirelessly to preserve it...

...In some instances, they have completely barred Negroes from work in white neighborhoods...

...His greatest difficulties occurred at the 1935 cons vention, where John L. Lewis gave him what is probably the most wide* ly publicized sock on the nose in labor history...

...This 30-year war was still proceeding merrily in 1943, when Harvey Brown led his International As| sociation of Machinists out of the AFL in disgust...

...At the 1928 convention, a delegate named Mulcahy tried to offer Hutcheson some spirited opposition...

...At present, he pays himself the comfortable salary of $20,000 a year, plus expenses...

...The CSU was run by Communists, and no secret had ever been made of the fact...

...II Hutcheson has fitted beautifully into this scheme of things...

...Landis of Indiana showed some confusion on the details of the arbitration committee's award...

...His role in Hollywood is the tipoff on just how seriously he takes his own repeated strictures against Muscovites in the CIO...

...Many locals have not g^Jfl bothered, in recent years, to sen...

...If the day ever came in which labor leaders had to do more than collect dues, then he and his followers would really have cause for concern...

...While the convention was still in session, Lewis was busy organizing the CIO...

...At the AFL conventions, hows ever, Hutcheson has frequently riuj into stormy sailing...

...The prediction was not fulfilled, of course...

...Business unionism has been variously defined, but essentially it is unionism without salvation...

...During the Congressional hearings on the Hollywood row, Rep...

...Hutcheson has not changed since the time he first took charge of the Carpenters in 1915...

...Who had jurisdiction over wood processed on machines—carpenters or machinists...

...With 2,755 locals and 738,000 members, it forms the fourth largest labor empire in the country...

...And before he left, he showed reporters a telegram he had received from an anonymous carpenter...

...The Carpenters have always maintained Jim Crow locals—and not only in the South...

...Lewis and Hutcheson got into an argument over a point of order, and Big Bill, who is six foot three and weighs almost 300 pounds, was sent sprawling over a table by the miners' chief...

...Big Bill relented against Lewis sufficiently to sponsor his readmis-sion into the AFL in 1943...

...It came as no surprise to anyone when the Liberty League, shortly before its demise in 1936, equated Hutcheson with "the forward, progressive element in the ranks of organized labor...

...A long time ago, Big Bill's formula was, "Once wood, it is always the right of the carpenter to install it...

...More recently, he has opposed every liberal immigration proposal and all versions of the FEPC...

...He has the power to select organizers (a crucial point in labor politics), interpret the Brotherhood's constitution, expel rebellious locals, and suspend officers and convention delegates...

...The same applies to initiation fees...

...It is now 30 years since Samuel Untermeyer, attorney for the Lockwood Committee investigating racketeering in the building trades, wired an AFL convention that "the Federation will also be exceptionally fortunate if the Carpenters Union can rid itself of . . . Hutcheson, who has been an evil influence...

...Delineating the exact boundaries of Hutcheson's territory is a task for a metaphysician rather than a student of labor...

...In any event, they are pretty much a waste of time...

...The campaign to worst the IA led him to join forces with the Stalinist-minded Conference of Studio Unions...

...became an executive in 1912, and has been the boss since 1915...

...In short, it is always like old times in the Carpenters Union...

...This was the convention at which the issue of industrial unionism was brought to a head...

...But he has never relented against the CIO...

...Well, of course, when you get down to really analyzing it, you wake up to the fact that it is not so—that you just have a dumb conception of it...

...At present, the Brotherhood claims that "its jurisdiction covers the milling, fastening, and dismantling of all material made in whole or in part of wood or wood substitute, and includes in such operation the handling of woodworking machinery, where the skill, knowledge, and training of a carpenter are required...

...A monthly magazine published by him devotes a great deal of space to attacking subversive influences like immigrants and the CIO...

...He once expressed the opinion that if "all workers were organized on an industrial basis it would mean the elimination of our organization...

...This fight, the first on the floor of an AFL convention in 50 years, symbolized the final split in the Federation...

...The Hollywood strike was especially interesting for what it showed about Hutcheson's unconcern over ideologies...

...Hutcheson's defense of his many jurisdictional rows is extraordinarily simple...

...or, to be more specific, that it belonged to men who were properly paying dues to his union...

...Big Bill is, of course, a law unto himself...

...Hutcheson's answer, in these cases and a good many like them, was that the work belonged to carpenters...

...Owens, an Illinois Republican, attempted to debate the issue with him, with the following unhappy results: Owens: . . . Surely, you do not have any sympathy with jurisdictional strikes, do you...

...indeed, if Alf Landon or Wendell Willkie had won, Hutcheson might well have entered the Cabinet...

...Industrial unionism is still to him the unforgivable sin, and he has been a belligerent opponent of all talk about "labor unity...

...Later, the formula was amended to "wood or wood substitute...

...Hutcheson: Well, you agree with me, then: thank God for that, Owens: But the point is this— Hutcheson: Maybe we could do some teamwork here yet...

...The right-wingers, led by Hutcheson, were adamant against industrial unionism...

...Hutcheson: I do to this extent, that when someone takes the time to learn a trade . . . don't you think they are justified in rejecting and objecting to someone coming along and saying, "That is our ¦work, we are going to do that," who never had been a carpenter...

...Hutcheson never yielded an inch, but in the end he lost the strike anyway...

...Not to be overly coy about it, Bill Hutcheson is the president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America, a leading member of the AFL Executive Council, and the country's foremost exponent of business unionism...

...His union, ordinarily a craft outfit, is one of "the business organizations of labor...

...Nor did the new threat force Hutcheson to patch up his ancient dispute with the AFL machinists...

...And when he was requested to mend his ways and "do your best to end the situation that exists out there," he replied, "I have lived so long, Congressman, I do not have time left in life to change...

...He was beaten badly enough to be sent to bed, but returned to the convention and quarreled briefly with the administration...

...thousands of woodworkers who had enlisted in the CIO during its early years came flocking back to the Carpenters...

...That such regulations are a stimulus to labor racketeering has never concerned Big Bill, who has been in and out of several racketeering scandals himself without suffering any appreciable damage...

...Owens : There is no question about it...

...and savagely combating other unions when they try to muscle in on his territory...

...The rise of the CIO created a whole new area of jurisdictional strikes for Big Bill, but he has come out of most of these fights in good shape...

...Big Bill was harsh with him: "Sometimes, we, representing labor, get it in our heads that people like yourselves know just as much about that procedure as we do...

...In the name of voluntarism, he has frequently led attacks in AFL conventions against reform...

...But when it seemed to be to his advantage to play ball with the Stalinists, he played ball...

...Big Bill has rounded up this enormous army of dues-payers by adhering closely to two principles: ignoring any outside agency, whether it be the AFL or Webster's Dictionary, when it defines "carpenter" contrary to his wishes...

...On only one issue of importance, the Taft-Hartley Act, does Big Bill part company with other members of the Midwestern business community...

...Ill Within his own union...