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Not Even Coffee. Jimmy's personal life is, in fact, simple and unassuming. Money, for its own sake, is apparently unimportant. He still lives in a nondescript northwest neighborhood in Detroit, in a plain brick house that he bought in 1939 for $6,800. A man of simple tastes, he always wears white socks because colored ones "make my feet sweat." Says Harold Gibbons: "Remember, Jimmy doesn't smoke, drink or chase women." As a matter of fact, he doesn't even drink coffee.
Chugging along like a twelve-cylinder diesel, Hoffa devotes his bottomless energies to his panoramic job. He paces his office floor in Detroit's Teamsters building, barks orders into one of four telephones, pounds his fist hard in his hand. "The future of labor-management relations," he insists, "is big labor and big business. There is no room for the small business or the small union." Neither, if he had his way, would there be room for education. Snarls Hoffa: "I don't have a man working for me who don't come off a truck or off the dock. I don't have any college boys, and I don't need them."
For his critics, Hoffa claims only contempt. "I don't give a damn what they say," he says. "Jimmy Hoffa can take care of himself. Why don't the newspapers go out and ask my members what they think of Jimmy Hoffa? They can't prove I've misused my union power."
Indifference & Fear. For the most part, rank-and-file Teamsters across the nation —the men who pay their $2-to-$6 monthly dues—are content to keep their eyes on the road and not on union affairs. They roll into the city platforms to unload produce and furniture, autos and chickens. They drive cabs, deliver flowers, department-store merchandise and groceries, cart off garbage. They are strong and competent. But as Teamsters, they are either uninformed, indifferent or scared.
They do not have, and do not expect to have, a voice in union business, which is run by the labor bosses' hand-picked agents. A few, like the driver in Pittsburgh, will blurt out "Hang the son of a bitch." But a more common reaction is that of the Boston milkwagon driver who said: "The court didn't find him guilty [of bribery]. For my dough he's a go-through guy." More ominous and often just beneath the surface was the reaction of a Philadelphia truck driver when asked what he thought of Hoffa: "I'd rather look at that river over there than float in it."
Some knowing assessment of Hoffa comes from his longtime foe, August ("Gus") Scholle, president of the Michigan C.I.O. Council. "Hoffa," says Scholle, "figures he can always buy what he wants." Adds a West Coast lawyer: "Jimmy Hoffa believes that anything can be accomplished and will seize a way to do it. You could count Dave Beck as being tough, but he's an angel alongside of Hoffa. Hoffa is just plain ruthless. Beck rants and snorts. As a last resort, he would use group physical violence, but he wouldn't have anyone bumped off. Hoffa wouldn't stop at anything."