Guest in the House

The 3,000 delegates to the 60th Congress of the National Association of Manufacturers in Manhattan last week could not have picked a happier time to gather.

They were in the closing days of their best year in history, and on the verge of one that might, as Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks said, be even better (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). The increases in capital spending planned by some industries were eye-popping: railroads would spend 55% more in the first quarter of '56, durable-goods manufacturers 25% more, nondurable-goods makers 12% more.

High Optimism. Other speakers added to the mood of high optimism. There seemed little concern about any unsettling effects on business of the '56 presidential campaign. Most delegates hoped President Eisenhower would run again; if not, their choice seemed to be Vice President Richard Nixon.

But in their happiest hours last week, members were not allowed to forget that even under a Republican Administration there are dangers. Newly installed President Cola G. Parker told the delegates that "creeping socialism is now walking. A hundred years ago Karl Marx set down ten ways to Communism, e.g., from abolition of property in land to free education for all in public schools. When you check them off, you'll find we're already well on our way to the achievement of the Communist State as blueprinted by Marx."

The real fireworks, however, came the next day. In a rare gesture, the N.A.M.

invited George Meany to come over from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. merger meeting (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) 16 blocks away to tell members, "What Organized Labor Expects of Management." Meany made clear that he expected the hand of friendship. U.S. labor and management, he said, "have much in common and httle, really, that they can take a different attitude about." He listed points of mutual agreement: devotion to the profit system, recognition of management's right to manage, dislike of Government interference, hostility toward Communism.

Meany even conceded that the Wagner Act, which labor regards as its Magna Carta, "perhaps went too far one way just as I think the Taft-Hartley Act goes' too far the other way. I never went on strike in my life, never ordered anyone else to run a strike in my life, never had anything to do with a picket line." The audience applauded, but the spirit of comradeship lasted only a moment.

Hot Argument. The next speaker, N.A.M. Board Chairman Charles R. Sligh Jr., minced no words about "What Industry Expects from Organized Labor." As Meany sat stoically, Sligh laced into unions for "irresponsible strikes," and "lawless incidents that bring disgrace and shame to every sincere American." Asked Sligh : "Is it the primary purpose of this organization [A.F.L.-C.I.O.] to seize political control of the country?" Suggesting a five-point code of conduct for labor and management, Sligh called for a return to the open shop and an end to labor's organized political activities.

As Sligh concluded -- and the meeting ended -- Meany and Sligh ran into each other in the emptying hotel ballroom, and began to argue angrily. Sligh said that the merged union might "pull strings behind the scenes and direct the destinies of the nation" through a "ghost government." Indignantly Meany shot back: "No chance of that. I thought it was [Treasury Secretary George] Humphrey, [Commerce Secretary Sinclair] Weeks and [Defense Secretary Charles] Wilson who were doing that. If the N.A.M. philosophy is to disfranchise unions, then there is no answer but to start a labor party." The closed shop, the union boss snapped, "involves no coercion. It is simply an exercise of our right not to work with a man who is not in a union." Sligh managed to interject: "Do you believe in segregation?" Meany replied: "This is not segregation." Persisted Sligh: "Then it is discrimination." Retorted Meany: "We belong to a union on exactly the same basis as you belong to the N.A.M." Sligh said: "It's not the same thing. In a union you can't leave and still eat." Back came Meany: "There are more nonunion men eating in America than union men." On that note of sweet unreasonableness, the meeting ended.

New N.A.M. Chief Cola G. Parker, 65, retired president and board chairman of papermakers Kimberly-Clark (Kleenex) is Wisconsin-born, Indiana-reared. He first made good as a New York corporation lawyer; at 47 he went back to Wisconsin to make good all over again as an industrialist. He joined Kimberly-Clark of Neenah, Wis. in 1937 as financial vice president, became its president in 1942. chairman in 1953, and quadrupled the corporation's sales. Parker served the Eisenhower Administration as a member of the Commission on Foreign Economic Policy and as adviser to the U.S. delegation at the GATT negotiations in Geneva last winter. A friend and supporter of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Parker told newsmen last week he would not support the Senator as a presidential candidate because McCarthy lacks "sufficient experience."

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