A Letter From The Publisher, Feb. 2, 1948

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When James Caesar Petrillo finally agreed to a series of interviews for TIME'S cover story on him in the Jan. 26 issue, he shook a warning finger at our Chicago bureau reporters and boomed: "You do I a cover on Colonel McCormick and he's gotta newspaper and can answer back. You do one on Roosevelt or Truman and they can get on the radio and talk to millions of people. I can't get my story across. If I could have all the People in America in one hall for one hour, I'd have 'em all on my side."

This approach was familiar to Eleanor Steinert, who has covered the Chicago angles of TIME'S Petrillo stories for the last two years. Her first brush with the boss of the musicians' union was a by-product of the press conference at which he said: "We don't want any victories or any rights. All we want to do is live." Western Union transmitted it as "love," and TIME printed it that way. At a later press conference Petrillo leveled a finger at Miss Steinert and hollered: "There's that gal from TIME magazine that said all I wanta do is love!" Miss Steinert advised him that the misquotation wouldn't have occurred if Western Union hadn't been on strike. He beamed, agreed, and observed: "That's right. These damn unions are gonna ruin the country."

Since then, Miss Steinert has been devoted to Petrillo—as a news source. A former member of an opera company, she appreciates a good performance, which he gives, and she has always been able to get a direct answer from him to a direct question. This time Petrillo came through in style on both counts. He had played hard-to-get when he learned that he was to be the cover subject, but the entire Chicago staff descended on him and Petrillo, who can take a production as well as give one, croaked "Ya got me outnumbered" and gave down.

Miss Steinert, who was assigned to do the Petrillo personality, spent four hours with him straightening out such items as his schooling ("I was still in the fourth grade after nine years, so I quit"), his phobia for germs ("Only it's not like Winchell says. I open them doorknobs without the Kleenex now"), etc.

Serrell Hillman, who was assigned to do the union's history, had trouble overcoming a desire to succumb to Petrillo's histrionics. Once, when a flying finger grazed him, he couldn't help smiling. Petrillo paused. "So," he murmured, effectively lowering his voice to match the phrase, "he laughs. Why do you laugh, kid?" Hillman explained that he had been impressed by the dramatic effects. "Oh," said the musicians' boss, "you should see me when I'm really worked up."

During the three-hour interview, a noisy, chugging sound persisted from the bathroom off Petrillo's office, and the desk buzzer that swings open his office door wouldn't work. These annoyances finally burned him up. "Seme days everything goes wrong!" he shouted. "You can't get the damn plumbers here. They don't fix the buzzer. . . ."