Business: Let Them Eat Cake

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When Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell promised last April to eat his hat on the steps of the Labor Department if unemployment did not drop below 3,000,000 in October, he thought he was making a sure bet. But last week the Labor Department announced that although employment was higher than in any previous October—66,831 000—unemployment stood at 3,272,000. Just before the figures wene officially announced, Mitchell appeared on the Department of Labor steps to keep his part of the bargain—or almost. Said Mitchell: "I am off by several hundred thousand entirely due to the steel strike. If there had been no steel strike, unemployment would be off 600,000 from what it is. Now I am going to eat my hat."

Mitchell lifted the lid off a black hatbox, revealed a yellow cake shaped like a fedora, with a dark chocolate hatband and the initials J.P.M. in white. Said he: "The first piece I'm going to cut I will send to R. Conrad Cooper, who is the management negotiator for the steel companies and certainly responsible in part for this performance. The second piece I will send to David McDonald, the president of the Steelworkers, who shares responsibility. The third I will eat myself." And he did.