MICHIGAN: Prodigy's Progress

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At the outset of the 1948 campaign, Griffiths took on the job of wresting party control away from the conservative Democratic Old Guard. He and his wife Martha beat the bushes through upstate Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, stopping where no old-line Democrat had ventured for years. Along their trail they left scores of new party outposts. The outposts did not count much in general elections, but they could send delegates to the state Democratic conventions—and seizing control of the party was the coalition's first objective.

Goon Politics. The C.I.O. went to work in Wayne County, the heavily industrial base of the state. Into every Detroit precinct C.I.O.-P.A.C. threw its paid and unpaid political workers in order to get their candidates elected precinct captains. They caught the Old Guard Democrats napping, and the coalition wound up in the 1948 state convention with a two-thirds control of the delegate vote. The regulars fought back in 1950, sometimes with nominating petitions salted with forged names. Then the going got rough.

To maintain control of the 1950 district conventions, the C.I.O. equipped important Wayne County meeting places with goons. The Fifteenth Congressional District convention, for example, was held in the headquarters of a U.A.W. local. Delegates were received in a small anteroom where half a dozen factory workers watched while credentials were checked. If a delegate passed, he was allowed to proceed through a gantlet of guards, one of whom was armed with something resembling a baseball bat. If the delegate was considered unfriendly, he might be seated on the convention floor with a husky C.I.O. "guardian" on either side. With the aid of such tactics the Williams coalition carried the day. By the 1950 state convention they owned the Democratic Party of Michigan, lock, stock, policy and patronage.

In all of this organization activity Williams was the indispensable man. His handshaking and backslapping helped to arouse the enthusiasm of precinct and outpost alike. And above all, he beat the Republicans. The pundits give Soapy little credit for winning in 1948, because the G.O.P.'s Kim Sigler was an overconfident pushover. But they marvel at the off-year victory in 1950. It was so close that it took five weeks to determine that Soapy had beaten ex-Governor Harry Kelly.

The Trusty. The current Republican charge in Michigan—abetted by Detroit's anti-Williams newspapers—is that Soapy is the prisoner of labor. Both Soapy and the C.I.O. protest that this is not so. But there is plenty of evidence that, if Soapy is not labor's unhappy prisoner, he is at least the C.I.O.'s happy trusty. And the C.I.O.-P.A.C. has been able to get, during his administration, just about everything it wants from the executive.