Phil Murray did it at last. For a long time, his right-wing followers have been demanding that he rid the C.I.O. of Reds. During the 1946 convention, the right-wingers rammed through a resolution formally damning all Communistic activities. A sick and uncertain Murray gave only cautious approval. A few months later he called labor agents who peddled the Communist line "goddam traitors," and kicked Harvard-bred Lee Pressman, a notorious Communist-liner, out of the job of C.I.O. counsel. From that point on, Phil Murray grew bolder. Some believe that he even helped push that old bibber of Red propaganda, Michael Quill, boss of the transport workers, into taking the pledge.
Then last week, at the loth annual C.I.O. convention in Portland, Ore., a rejuvenated, shouting Murray sent the Reds scampering for cover like scared rats. Lee Pressman was in town, but as far as most of the delegates knew, he might have spent the time hiding under a bed. It looked as if the C.I.O. was free at last to put up an honest, strictly trade-unionist front.
Counted Like Men. Before the convention even opened in Portland's massive Masonic Temple, Murray warmed up by attacking the Red-run New York C.I.O. Council. His executive board ordered the council dissolved because of its "slavish adherence" to the Communist Party line. The council, once a power in New York politics, would be reorganized by the right wing and probably headed by the reformed Mike Quill.
When a brash minority objected to a C.I.O. endorsement of the Marshall Plan, Murray let fly at them. The dissenters included James Durkin, boss of the office workers' union, Donald Henderson, boss of the tobacco workers, and Abe Feinglass, an officer of the fur workers. "I do not say that everyone who is opposed to the Marshall Plan is a Communist," said Murray, "but I do say that every Communist is opposed to the Marshall Plan."
To loud cheers and the great glee of right-wing leaders, James Carey and Walter Reuther, Murray added: "Let these apostles of Communism ... stand up and be counted like men." Feinglass and Henderson made squeaks of protest, defending their right to think as they pleased, attacking U.S. policy as giving aid to fascists and Nazis.
No Purge. Murray's attack was not to be taken as a purge, he said. It was simply in the interests of good trade unionism. He pointed an accusing finger at three unions which he said were falling down on the job of organizing the unorganized. They were Durkin's (office workers), Abram Flaxer's (federal workers), both left wing, and Samuel Wolchok's unruly department-store workers' union. Murray's denunciation was taken as a demand that the three union presidents resign. Said a surprised Wolchok, who has bitterly fought the Communists but has been unable to control them in his union: "He was not talking about me." But obviously he was. Murray had not only declared war on Reds, he had served notice that he wanted more vigorous union leadership and more militant unionism.