National Affairs: Satrapies

The Presidents of the U. S. for many years had a good method of getting rid of any inconvenient politician: to make him Governor-General of the Philippines. Like a cat looking at a President, Homer Martin, whom John L. Lewis still tolerates as head of the United Automobile Workers, last week gave jobs to five U. A. W. vice presidents.

He continued his friend R. J. Thomas as supervisor of relations with Chrysler Corp. Ed Hall was assigned to General Motors and to unorganized Ford. To Walter Wells fell parts, tool & die plants. Mr. Martin’s two chief rivals—his quarrel with whom almost disrupted the motor workers’ union (TIME, Oct. 3)—got special satrapies: Wyndham Mortimer was sent from Detroit to “work with and assist” WPA auxiliaries and aircraft factory locals in the East; and barrel-chested young Richard Frankensteen was given an identical task in California.

Thus consigned to Coventry, far from the Michigan battleground for votes in the union elections next year, Richard Frankensteen sighed: “There never was any question of whether I would go. There is work to be done out there.”