As founder and for 20 years boss of A.F.L.'s gold-plated Air Line Pilots Association, Chicago's David L. Behncke did well for his 6,000 union members. Once a crack pilot himself (United Air Lines), Behncke helped block airline salary cuts during the depression, reduced pilots' flying time from 140 hours a month to 85, won raises that have brought top pilots' salaries to $15,000, lobbied in Washington for better air-safety regulations.
In the union paper he edited, Behncke never failed to tell his pilots how much he had done for them. "To be perfectly honest," Behncke once said, "I never made...