Business: A Year's Vacation

As president of the biggest local of the A.F.L.'s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Frank Darling has mixed leadership with showmanship. The showmanship display began in 1947 when a left-wing group among the 34,000 members of Local 1031 threatened to take over at union meetings because the attendance was so small. Darling met the challenge by importing topflight entertainers, e.g., Jimmy Durante. Eddie Cantor, Jack Carson, and Sophie Tucker, to perform at meetings, soon had the 3,500-seat auditorium filled to overflowing. The union now spends $10,000 a month on show's, which include its own chorus of union girls, "the 1031 Dancing...

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