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NIXON HAILS LABOR IN A CAPITAL FETE

NIXON HAILS LABOR IN A CAPITAL FETE
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September 8, 1970, Page 1Buy Reprints
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 7— President Nixon received nearly 75 labor leaders and their wives at the White House tonight for dinner, a round of friendly toasts and a torchlit military pageant on the South Lawn. In 89 years of Labor Day observ ances, it was the most elabo rate holiday gesture that a President had made toward labor.

In an informal speech after the dinner, Mr. Nixon stressed what he described as the pa triotism of the labor movement and appeared to thank its lead ers indirectly for their support of his conduct of the war in Vietnam.

When the “great issue” has been whether to support the President and to meet the na tion's responsibilities “for’ de fending and protecting the forces of freedom in the world,” he said, “American labor has never been found wanting. It has always been the first in war and in peace.”

An address that James D. Hodgson, the Secretary of La bor, had made to Republican candidates earlier this summer, which was made available to day for the first time, may have indicated some of the Adminis tration's strategy at tonight's extraordinary event.

“The way the world is turn ing,” Mr. Hodgson had told governorship candidates at party workshop in Missouri last month, “at least some of these unions and certainly many of their people are among the most conservative elements in the country today. They're not a lost cause for the Republican party.

“Steadiness in foreign affairs, firmness with unrest at home, promise of a return to a healthy noninflationary policy and fair ness in treatment is going to bring a lot of them around in November.”

The only occasion that seemed comparable to Mr. Nixon's gesture toward labor was a ceremony in the Rose Garden in 1956 at which Pres ident Eisenhower unveiled postage stamp honoring organ ized working men and women.

In other election years, Dem ocratic presidents have gone to Detroit to join the unions’ cele bration of Labor Day. But this year, when the auto workers in Detroit are preoccupied with contract bargaining, Mr. Nixon invited the traditionally Demo cratic labor movement to mark the day with him.

George Meany, the president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Indus trial Organizations, was a spe cial guest of honor. Mr. Nixon compared him to Vince Lom bardi, the late football coach, as a “man of character.” Mr. Nixon also called Mr. Meany “a distinguished labor states man, a man who stands for the best in free labor.”

The Good Virtues

“In this time of turbulence at home and abroad,” the Pres ident said, “when the old vir tues and the good virtues— many of the good ones—are being brought under question, this man has stood like a pillar in a storm—strong, full of character, devoted to his church, devoted to his family, devoted to his country.”

Mr. Meany, a consistent and vocal supporter of the Presi dent's policy in Indochina, has been critical of the Adminis tration's economic policies. He has said that domestic issues will be decisive when union members go to the polls in November.

In response to Mr. Nixon's toast tonight, Mr. Meany sug tested; in a review or Presi dents he has known, that this President, like the others, was doing “the best he can for the American people.”

He said that no matter how political Presidents have been —“and let me tell you,” he said, “Franklin Roosevelt was just as tricky a politician as anyone who bore the name of ‘Tricky Dick’ could be, and Lyndon was no slouch at poli tics—they have all wanted to be the best President they could be.”

Those in Attendance

The A.F.L.‐C./.0., the na tion's largest union, was heavily represented at the dinner—by most of the constituent union presidents who form its 35‐man executive council and by more than a dozen of the union's key staff members. The Inter national Brotherhood of Team sters, the second‐largest union, was represented by its acting president, Frank E. Fitzsim mons, and its secretary‐treas urer, Thomas Flynn.

Leonard Woodcock, president of the United Automobile Work ers, was invited to the dinner but did not attend.

The White House also in vited 4,000 of the lower‐echelon officials and clerical staff mem bers in the Washington offices of labor organizations to “military torchlight tattoo” on the White House lawn after the dinner. Units from the military district of Washington gave musical and marching re‐en actment of important moments in American history.

Text in Circulation

Mr. Hodgson's speech, the text of which is now being cir culated by the Republican Na tional Committee, argued that the Nixon Administration was less conservative than some have suggested, and that the labor force was less liberal than it once was.

On “two really big things,” Mr. Hodgson had said, labor and the Administration agree: “first, scaling down the war and second, taking a firm approach to crime and unrest at home.”

“The blue‐collar man feels strongly on these things,” he said. “He's with us all the way.”

The Labor Secretary contin ued: “We can't claim to have done much to strengthen un ions, but we can claim we're people‐minded.

“If it turns out that you are talking privately with union of ficials,” he had advised the Re publican candidates, “there is one thing you can point to. The unions thought this Administra‐’ tion would be antiunion. They were wrong; at top levels they'll admit it.

“We haven't sent up any antiunion legislation,” he said. “We havn't jawboned them on wage increases. We haven't given them anything—true but we've been fair. They know It. They're pleasantly sur prised.”

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