Big Bill Retires

Through three turbulent decades of labor history, Big Bill Hutcheson has been as unchanging a symbol of U.S. labor as the claw-hammer and the cross-cut saw. Through old and New Deal, his faith in old grass-roots Republicanism never wavered, and his ruthless dictatorship over the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America never faltered.

Last week Big Bill Hutcheson, bald, ruddy, bejowled and 77, summoned reporters to his fourth-floor offices in the yellow brick headquarters in Indianapolis. He met them in his shirt sleeves, and announced that he was feeling as fit as ever. But he could feel a few twinges that told him "old age is creeping up." Therefore, he had decided to give up the presidency he had occupied since 1915. Then, in a fitting climax to his roaring, dictatorial career, he announced the founding of U.S. labor's first big-time dynasty. His successor: son Maurice Hutcheson, 54, the carpenters' first vice president.

Walking Delegate. Big Bill Hutcheson first swaggered out of the Michigan woods in 1902 to join up with the old A.F.L. carpenters' union and go to work in nearby Midland at 20-c- an hour. A bull-shouldered 220-pounder, he soon bruised and fought his way into local prominence, four years later got a job as walking delegate, or business agent, of the carpenters' local. His full-time job was to patrol building jobs, call strikes when necessary and keep a sharp watch on employers. He also kept a sharp watch on union politics, got himself named as a delegate to the 1910 national convention. By 1915 he had fought his way to the presidency, had joined the Odd Fellows, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, the Masons (York and Scottish rites) and Indianapolis' Highland Golf & Country Club.

Once in office, he made it clear that he intended to stay there for life. He was ruthless with rivals. When a rebellion flared in the 1920s, he expelled the opposition leader and his entire local. In 1916, Big Bill settled a strike over the heads of 17,000 New York carpenters with a contract less favorable than one the employers had already conceded. When the carpenters protested, Hutcheson suspended 65 of their locals, and barred their delegates from the convention by putting cops at the door.

Evil Influence. Big Bill was never a stickler for the rules of labor etiquette. He never boggled when one of his agents, Robert Brindell, turned to full-scale labor racketeering in New York, sold "strike insurance" to contractors, peddled "privilege to work" cards to non-unionists, and cleared a cool million dollars. Brindell ultimately was jailed for extortion after a special state investigation. Investigator Samuel Untermeyer formally urged the A.F.L. convention of 1922 to get rid of "Brindell's crony, Hutcheson, who has been an evil influence."

But the A.F.L. was too busy fending off Big Bill's savage jurisdictional attacks on rival unions. He revised the carpenters' constitution to admit any member with the remotest connection with a hammer and nails, e.g., ship caulkers, floor layers, furniture workers, and millwrights. He waded happily into the carpenters' ancient fight with metal workers over who should install metal trimming. When the Building Trades Council suspended the carpenters, Hutcheson roared: "The Brotherhood is not looking for a fight, but if they have to fight ... the sooner it is started the sooner it will be over." It ended in a settlement in 1928, and Big Bill won most of the points.

Until he cooled slightly on the G.O.P.'s congressional leaders after the Taft-Hartley Act, Big Bill also kept the pot boiling as the champion of Republicanism in labor. He was chairman of the Hoover and Landon labor committees, was mentioned in 1944 as a possible Republican vice-presidential candidate. A good twenty-five years ago, he revised the Brotherhood's entrance ritual to exclude Communists.

Tight Monopoly. Over the years, Big Bill's sledgehammer tactics raised carpenters' wages (current range: $1.75 to $3 per hour) and got them jobs they might otherwise have lost to rival trades. He clung with fierce determination to the tight little monopoly of the A.F.L.'s building-trade unions; he restricted membership, encouraged featherbedding, refused to recognize new building methods and materials. But during the Depression, he lost thousands of members to the C.I.O., did not recoup his losses until the boom years of World War II.

Hutcheson will leave his 803,000 carpenters with an antiquated $15-a-month pension system and a treasury worth $15 million. He also leaves his pet project, a luxurious $4,000,000 home for retired carpenters at Lakeland, Fla. The home was finished in 1928 on Big Bill's private whim, cost each carpenter an assessment of $6, now houses only 350 retired members, who are too feeble to play much golf on the adjoining Hutcheson golf links. Near by is Big Bill's own private residence where, in fitting surroundings, he plans to spend the winters of his retirement.

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