Evening star., 1953-01-12

!. Curtis Mathews.
would get along with the engi-
neerS. (The engineers always
accuse the stylists, or designers,
of not leaving enough room for
the motor) Mr.. Wilson's answer
was, when we find a blond who
can cook"
He is a little pathetic-not
that he has worked so hard, he
has enjoyed that-but because
he has tried to play without
much success. He was interested
in breeding hunters and he used
to ride in the Bloomfield Open
Hunt near his home north of
Detroit. But he had bad fall,
dislocating a shoulder and he
doesn't ride any more. He had
the same bad luck about skating.
He fell and broke a hip and
was laid up in Harper Hospital
for five weeks. He gave that up.
"Take my picture with my
glasses" he once told a photog-
rapher. Nobody would know
me without them. I bought my
first pair of glasses when I was
working as an Office boy at So
a week. I put in 10 hours a day,
60 hours a week, working with
an indelible pencil and the only
light was from "a 16-candle-
power carbon electric lamp. That
put my eyes on the blink for
good.
"Sure the hours were long,
but compared with the hours I
work now, let me go back to
that 60-hour week."
In Second Generation.
He is of the second genera
ton of the automobile industry
(not that his parents were in
volved in it; they were school
teachers). He came into power
after the day of the great in
dividualists, Henry Ford. the
Dodge brothers, Walter Chrys-
Ter and Mr.. Knudsen, when all
the cars were streamlined into
looking alike and the executives
so much of type that they were
similarly in danger of losing
their identity. He is going to
enjoy being a national figure in
his own right.
Mr.. Godfrey's story about their
first meeting is:
1T was at General Motors
cocktail party in New York. I
looked at this little guy and I
saw that he didn't like cocktail
parties any more than I did.
I said to myself, there's a guy
I'd like to know, so when I was
introduced to him, I said: Mr..
Wilson, I'm having a debate
on my program tomorrow morn
ing on whether the automobile
is here to stay and I'm taking
the negative
Mr.. Wilson appeared in the
Godfrey show the next day, won
the debate and they have been
fast friends ever since.
General Motors people credit
Mr.. Wilson in large measure for
the peace that has come over the
automobile industry. The pas
sage of time probably had more
to do with it. The two forces
had to learn to live together.
The first generation Of the in
duStry was outraged by the
drive to organize the industry
in the first years of the New
Deal. Harry Benefits men beat
up the CIO organizers at the
Ford gates. A small minority Of
workers tied up General Motors
by causing bottlenecks at strate-
gic production points with their
sit down strikes while an ex-
evangelist named Homer Martin
| harangued the idle workers into
joining the union. Time and
again Cadillac Square filled with
more than 100000 people pro-
testing police brutality" or gen.
| eral layoffs which had an unfor-
tunate way of happening the
same time as the distribution Of
dividends. Detroiters had reason
to believe that the revolution was
at hand.
Things Became Quiet.
Things had quieted down when
Mr.. Wilson came into the preSi-
dency but he was Immediately
faced with another threat. Hit
ler'S blitzkrieg had reached the
English Channel. A state Of
emergency had been declared
here giving Washington wartime
powers. The United States was
to be "the arsenal of democracy"
People thought that Detroit
ought to stop making automo-
biles and turn to airplanes and
tanks. It did not matter that
the Army was not ready to con-
tract for specific types Of planes
or tanks. Something should be
done. a