McGrady Out

No flower ever bloomed so long or so repeatedly as the rumor that able Edward McGrady was about to resign as Assistant Secretary of Labor. Yet month after month--in the pale shadows cast by the matronly figure of Madam Secretary Perkins--he sweated over the job of settling major strikes. Last week the old rumor of his resignation blossomed once again, perhaps for the last time. For next day, after a conference with the President, Ed McGrady denied for the nth time that he had quit, denied in a way that amounted to a confirmation. Said he: "I have not resigned yet. . . . I'll give you all 48 hours notice."

In 1933, Ed McGrady's career as an honest, efficient two-fisted Washington labor lobbyist caused him to be boomed for Labor Secretary, but Franklin Roosevelt gave the job to his wife's good friend, Frances Perkins. When Postmaster General Farley recommended Ed McGrady as an assistant secretary, Madam Secretary Perkins decided she did not want him. She changed her mind after he, as an NRAdministrator, had settled the 1933 coal strike. Thereafter as her assistant he not only did all the Department's most important field work but got credit for being its ablest member. It was no more than natural if Madam Perkins was nettled when labor leaders who had known Ed McGrady for years turned to him instead of her, when Hugh Johnson said of him: "He is a man." At least once she drew herself up in dignity and said, "Now, now Mr. McGrady, I'm the Secretary of La. bor." Not until last week did Ed McGrady finally get the automobile and chauffeur which are routine perquisites of his office. He promptly turned them over to one of Madam Perkins' favorites, Statistician Isador Lubin.

But baldheaded, energetic Ed McGrady has had more concerns than Madam Perkins. One of them is cash. He started his union career as a pressman on the Boston Herald after he had once acted as a sparring partner for Terence "Terrible Terry" McGovern, and today although he looks 45, he is actually 20 years older. Forty-some years as an organizer and union leader brought him great prestige but little cash, and Ed McGrady felt that he owed it to his family to do better financially than the $9,000 he gets as second-string to Madam Perkins' fiddle. Last spring, he was reported to have declined a $50,000-a-year job with Distilled Spirits Institute partly because he felt that his job would not let him leave and partly because he felt that Madam Secretary Perkins might be going to resign.

At RCA, where he is expected to start sometime after Labor Day, Ed McGrady will receive from $15,000 to $20,000 a year for smoothing over labor difficulties developing in RCA's three fields of radio: communications, broadcasting & manufac-luring. Year ago, RCA paid his friend General Hugh Johnson--who may have suggested the new arrangement to RCA's David Sarnoff--$40,000 to mediate a single strike in the Camden manufacturing plant. Best guess why Ed McGrady did not abruptly quit last week was that he wanted to let the President start the difficult job of picking his successor, a man who, among other things, must be, as Ed McGrady was, acceptable to and trusted by C.I.O.'s John Lewis and A. F. of L.'s William Green.

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