red from positions in American Industry."

In Washington, the nation's economists were more cautious in their
views. Yes, it _was_ an unprecedented action. Yes, there would
undoubtedly be repercussions--many industries were having managerial
troubles; but as for long term effects, it was difficult to say just at
present.

On the Robling production lines the workmen blinked at each other, and
at their machines, and wondered vaguely what it was all about.

Yet in all the upheaval, there was very little expression of surprise.
Step by step, through the years, economists had been watching with wary
eyes the growing movement toward union, control of industry. Even as far
back as the '40's and '50's unions, finding themselves oppressed with
the administration of growing sums of money--pension funds, welfare
funds, medical insurance funds, accruing union dues--had begun investing
in corporate stock. It was no news to them that money could make money.
And what stock more logical to buy than stock in their own companies?

At first it had been a quiet movement. One by one the smaller firms had
tottered, bled drier and drier by increasing production costs,
increasing labor demands, and an ever-dwindling margin of profit. One by
one they had seen their stocks tottering as they faced bankruptcy, only
to be gobbled up by the one ready buyer with plenty of funds to buy
with. At first, changes had been small and insignificant: boards of
directors shifted; the men were paid higher wages and worked shorter
hours; there were tighter management policies; and a little less money
was spent on extras like Research and Development.

At first--until that fateful night when Daniel P. Torkleson of TWA and
Jake Squill of Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers spent a long evening with
beer and cigars in a hotel room, and floated the loan that threw steel
to the unions. Oil had followed with hardly a fight, and as the unions
began to feel their oats, the changes grew more radical.

Walter Towne remembered those stormy days well. The gradual undercutting
of the managerial salaries, the tightening up of inter-union collusion
to establish the infamous White list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift
from hourly wage to annual salary for the factory workers, and the
change to the other pole for the managerial staff. And then, with
creeping malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more and
higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily towar