(See Cover)
The glass transom was covered with cardboard. Outside the grey-enameled door stood three husky sergeants at arms. Newsmen, bored yet anxious, lounged on the chintz-covered sofas, listening for sounds from behind the guarded door. Occasionally there were voices, strident and angry; then long stretches of muffled buzz-buzz. Finally there came a burst of applause and then, to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, a full-throated rendition of Solidarity Forever!
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel could turn;
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.
The newsmen knew what that meant. It meant the first big postwar strike. Behind the door on the mezzanine of Detroit's Barium Hotel, 200 representatives of the C.I.O.'s United Automobile Workers had voted to stop all production at giant General Motors Corp. the next morning.
They seemed exhilarated by what they had done. Slapped on the back by a wellwisher, the U.A.W.'s tack-sharp Vice President Walter Reuther replied: "Just like old times, isn't it?"
Stop the Line. In many ways it was. Next day at 11 o'clock, at the great Cadillac plant on Detroit's Clark Street, workmen laid down their tools. They had turned out 35 finished cars that morning, but at the appointed hour they picked up their coats and hats and walked off the job.
It was the same story, at the same hour, in other sections of Detroit, at Fleetwood Plant, at Chevrolet Gear & Axle. It was the same at the iron foundry in Saginaw, at Fisher Body Plant in Flint, at Delco-Remy in Muncie, Ind., at Delco Radio in Kokomo. It was the same at the warehouses in Los Angeles and Denver, at 80 G.M. plants in more than 50 cities in 19 states. A button had been pushed in Detroit and 175,000 U.S. men & women laid down their tools. Reconversion would have to wait.
In Detroit, red-haired Walter Reuther, scorning a hat but bundled up in overcoat and muffler, mounted a sound truck and went out to hearten the strikers. He did not try to paint a rosy picture. He reminded them that no strike benefits would be paid by the union, but in time there would be soup kitchens and the union would send a doctor to any member who needed him.
"We will travel the road to the bitter end," cried Walter Reuther, "because we know we are right and are willing to fight for what is right."
That certainly sounded like old times. And Reuther assured the strikers again & again that it was just "an old-fashioned strike."
But was it?
Frame the Case. As much as a strike of 175,000 men & women could be said to be the work of one man, it was the work of Walter Reuther. As director of the U.A.W.'s General Motors division, he had planned it, and worked out the moves. He phrased the declaration of war, devised the arguments, the headline-making statements, and also—like any general—left the way open for strategic retreat. He had called the strike even though the U.A.W. president, bumbling R. J. Thomas, thought it should be postponed.