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As Murray's attacks mounted in fervency, some old party-liners did some curious flip-flops. Albert Fitzgerald, roly-poly head of the United Electrical Workers,, almost broke his neck. A few months ago "Fitz" waggishly told the House Education and Labor Committee: "I know nothing of the policies of the Soviet Union. I'm just a poor guy in the U.S." Since then his union had been Red-listed by the Atomic Energy Commission, and he had become national co-chairman of Wallace's Progressive Party. Now Fitz shouted from the convention floor: "I don't give a damn about Russia. I think Vishinsky and Molotov are warmongering." If President Truman carried out his campaign promises, Fitz promised, he would "tell the Progressive Party to go to hell."
In a Corner. In a final triumph for the right wing, the C.I.O. executive board ordered the little, leftist Farm Equipment Union to affiliate itself within the next 60 days with Walter Reuther's gigantic auto workers' union. By no means all right-v.-left conflicts in C.I.O. unions had been settled. The Reds would "still fight. But they would have to fight now from cornered positions, or go underground to save their skins. Muttered the Communist Daily Worker: "Murray was really smart to shift the onus from his own administration for a state of decay, stagnation."
At the end of their most raucous convention in history, the satisfied delegates re-elected Phil Murray, 62, as their president. When Jacob Potofsky, of the clothing workers, called Murray "God's gift to this generation of Americans," the 650 delegates (except for sulking leftists) rose, snake-danced around the hall, broke chairs and china ash trays, tore up paper tablecloths, and yelled for 34 minutes.