Ununanimous Stand

At a breakfast for 500 leading Los Angeles Republicans last week, President Eisenhower remarked: "I am going to appear before another audience who are not going to be nearly so friendly." Then he drove out Wilshire Boulevard to address the American Federation of Labor convention, which had just taken a roundhouse swing at his Administration.

First, the 750 A.F.L. delegates had brushed off Ike's Labor Secretary, James Mitchell, an invited guest. Mitchell was kept waiting nearly an hour, and his speech, when it came, could hardly be heard amidst the noisy shuffling and talk (but not applause). Jim Mitchell, who felt that "it was time to have it out," chided the A.F.L. for attacking the Administration "unfairly" and giving "only grudging praise" for progressive actions like this year's major social-security extension.

Annoyed, A.F.L. President George Meany answered Mitchell the next day with a lecture on courtesy: "You don't flip your cigar ashes on the floor when you are visiting friends, as you do when you are at home." Just before Ike's visit, out of a long list of pending resolutions, the convention unanimously passed No. 126: an all-out attack on the Administration ("government of, by and for big business").

By the time President Eisenhower arrived in the Ambassador Hotel's mirrored ballroom, the A.F.L. stand was official; its 10.2 million members were asked to donate $1 each for the fall campaign -- to help Democratic candidates. Introducing Eisenhower, George Meany said just three words: "Gentlemen, the President."

"Possibly you are a bit wrong occasionally," said the President, speaking off the cuff and off his chest, "just as you think I am wrong." Grinning, he continued: "I understand that by tradition, by history, you are completely and absolutely nonpolitical. I can't tell you what a relief it is to me to address an audience where nothing political is expected of me one way or the other." The convention delegates roared with laughter.

The President praised the A.F.L.'s "absolute opposition to Communism," promised to push his Taft-Hartley Act amendments and noted that they were killed this year "by a solid Democratic vote in the Senate." The delegates cheered the 18-minute speech, gave Ike a standing ovation at the end. He was the third President to come personally before the A.F.L. in its 73 years (the other two: Wilson in 1917, Hoover in 1930), and afterward even Meany noted "a lot of nice things" about the Eisenhower Administration. Obviously, the A.F.L.'s condemnation was neither unanimous nor strongly felt.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.