Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET Dear Old Golden Rule Days Help Resolve Labor Difficulty By BILLY ROSE The following story was passed on to me by one of the field men of the national labor relations board Im I'm running it not be because because because be- be cause Im I'm jumble-brained jumble enough to think it proves anything but because its it's an interesting yarn If you find any moral or message in it it well well remember youre you're strictly on your own In December of ot 1947 a strike was called in a textile plant In New England and when the picket lines first appeared everybody thought they were only part of the usual bluff and bluster that went with contract re newal time But as the days added up to weeks and the weeks to months the e townspeople began to worry The strike as far as anyone could make out had nothing to do with wages and working working working work work- o ing conditions but seemed to be c based on the in inability inability in in- ir ability of labor a and n d management management manage manage- ment to sit at atthe r t. t ir the thc same table jJ 1 f without throwIng throwing throw throw- ing four letter kl r words at each other A Al Albert I b e r t Billy Rose Hanson president president dent of the textile company had one meeting with Burt Murphy recently recently recently re re- re- re elected head of the union but after a few minutes of invective and thumping table-thumping both men had stomped out and from then on had refused to talk to each other except through local headlines And when a national labor relations man had offered his services as mediator he had been told to peddle his papers papers papers pa pa- pers elsewhere S S S STO TO A FEW insiders however the animosity between Hanson and Murphy was nothing new in fact it had been going on since they were kids in a village 60 miles north of the mill town They had competed for the same position op oJ the school baseball team Albert had gotten it iU and pulled the pigtails of ot the I same junior miss Burt had married mar mar- ried nod her And they had continued to dog cat it during the years when Hanson was fighting his way up from salesman to plant presIdent president pros pros- dent and Murphy vas was vas organizing the workers One day as at the strike was going going go go- ing into its fourth month th the textile lel man iian got a note from old schoolteacher Dear Albert it il read I 1 haven't seen you OU in in almost al al- most 40 years and ad Id I'd appreciate it if il you yon would l come by Ih the schoolhouse at 10 Sincerely Anne Peck Hanson chuckled at the precise handwriting but he remembered the old lady kindly and so on Saturday he got up early and drove the thc CO 60 miles to his home town The schoolhouse looked much as ashe ashe ashe he remembered it it and so did the room inside with its neat rows of ot desks But the thing that hit him right In the nostalgia was the thc sight of Miss 1 Peck herself still sitting behind her desk on the thc raised platform platform platform plat plat- form in front of ot the blackboard Its been a long time Albert she said Not so long as I thought said her old pupil Lets see Seems I used to sit right over there He walked to a desk near the window and wedged his bulk into the seat scat right said Miss Peck Helen Brennon used to sit in front of ot you and Burt Murphy had the desk on your right Now just excuse ex ex- cuse me until I finish correcting this paper |