National Affairs: Big Bill Retires

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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¢ 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."