Under the glaring canopy of lights in Manhattan's 71st Regiment Armory, the 1,500 A.F.L.-C.I.O. delegates bore decorously the immense power and affluence they controlled in the moment of their 15-million-member merger of 141 unions —the greatest assemblage of free labor's many mansions in one house.
Last week's merger of old rivals, amid the peace and plenty of the 1955-model U.S. they helped to forge, had about it a pride in the long way traveled from weakness to strength. Said Walter Reuther, ending the C.I.O.'s 17th and final convention a few days before: "We...
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