Labor: Of Course

Organized labor won the New Deal’s blessings as the innovative counterforce to the entrenched power of big industry; as both sides have matured, however, it is big labor that has become the more resistant to internal change. A demonstration of unionism’s adherence to the status quo came last week from the United Automobile Workers, which convened in Long Beach, Calif., and ritualistically bestowed on Walter Philip Reuther, 58, an eleventh two-year term as its president. By acclamation, of course.