With the top-level labor leadership of Walter P. Reuther a six-months established fact, it is hardly surprising that Walter P. Reuther the effective political figure should start coming of age. Wednesday afternoon at Baker Library the President of the United Auto Workers completely conveyed the integrity of his stance to an audience that might have been hostile: members of Advanced Management and Labor Policy Seminars together with curious Business School onlookers. They peppered Reuther with questions on specific petty gimmicks of UAW policy. The Red Head simply cocked jauntily backward and the Redhead triumphantly established a controlling rapport. "Walter's learned not to get mad at them," remarked a Nieman Fellow who has long covered labor in the Midwest.

During the months ahead Walter P. Reuther the effective political figure will need his new-found ability to win and influence people not on the production line. His role will be worth watching in Election Year, 1948. The "independent" voters within trade unions and without, who were formerly solid behind the Roosevelt symbol, currently divide into two camps of confused citizens sharing only restlessness and concern. Some intend to back Wallace to register a squawk; others may dislike Truman policies but will support him or, in greater likelihood, work for a better Democratic nominee, in the belief that a protest vote assuring Republican success is too-great a luxury today. Heading up the latter are the major officers of U. S. labor in company with old New Dealers such as Eleanor Roosevelt and upcoming politicians such as Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey. When this coalition assembled at the February Convention of Americans for Democratic Action, it was conspicuous that both the personality and drive-for-the-feature of Reuther dominated and captivated the common consciousness.

In the face of a continuing pattern of Administration ineptitude and the emotional tug of the Wallace candidacy, how does Reuther orient his strategy? His chief emphasis must rest with positive assurance that there will emerge a politically successful alternative to conservative weighting of the Democratic Party. On March 3 the UAW consequently proclaimed its alternative: "formation after the 1948 national elections of a genuine progressive political party." Harsh charges are made against the Wallace move: that "this third party is...a Communist Party maneuver to advance the foreign policy interests of the Soviet Union"; that "this party has neither the organizational structure, basic philosophy, nor support of organized labor"; and that historical record dooms to failure "all attempts to build a political party from the top around a particular individual." Reuther holds out hopes and dramatizes them with consummate skill. The results are limited only by the extent of his access to the public.

Persistent jockeying for position looms ahead for now until November and especially for the year following. What if Wallace piles up 5,000,000 votes? How does the founding convention of the new progressive party crack that? Wednesday afternoon Reuther did not think these were issues. "We didn't necessarily mean a 'fourth party,'" he commented, "but we did mean realignment." Wallace's backing isn't going to hold and "in any event when the Communist Party gets through using him, they'll drop him like an old shoe." Reuther disclosed that the CIO will "very shortly" speak up on foreign policy after re-evaluating its general political position in terms of the President's armament proposals. When or if Truman is junked by labor, the flux period that follows may well become Koy Chapter in the growth to stature of a bright young man and the latest "bright new promise."