Word: daves
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Minutes later, bellied up to a witness table for two days of testimony before the special Senate committee investigating labor racketeering in general-and Dave Beck in particular-tough Teamster Beck began tapping his black shoes in nervous rhythm, and clasping his soft hands tightly in front of him to conceal their trembling. In an opening statement Committee Chairman John McClellan had said enough to set the toughest nerves to twitching: the committee had information indicating that "the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, the largest and most powerful union in our country...
Pavlov's Dog. At Dave Beck's side was a brown leather briefcase bulging with the personal financial records that the committee had asked him to bring. Ordered to turn them over, the witness unfolded a slip of white paper with the seven lines of large type that he had said earlier would "encompass the whole atmosphere of everything...
During his appearance before the McClellan committee, Dave Beck was to drone out the prepared statement time after time, although his shrill combativeness often brought him perilously close to breaking the routine. "Do you," asked Chairman McClellan at one point, "regard your privileges under the Fifth Amendment as transcending your duty and obligations to the laboring men of this country who belong to your union?" Beck's rare-roast-beef face turned an even deeper shade, his head shot forward, his lips moved as he shaped an outraged reply. Just in time, his sad-faced lawyer, Arthur Condon, drove...
...Dave Beck, the Teamster wagon has been a perfect vehicle for a ride to power. At its first convention in 1903, with Niagara Falls roaring in the background, the 50,000-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters selected as its first president a 295-lb. cutthroat named Cornelius Shea, who eventually was packed off to Sing Sing for stabbing his mistress 27 times (Shea bungled the job -the girl lived). Next, in 1907, came Irish-born Dan Tobin, who was to hold office for 45 astonishing years. Fond of boasting that he ran the union with only two staffers, Tobin came...
Attar of Skunk Juice. A significant share of the credit for the Teamsters' growth went to Dave Beck, the red-haired son of a hard-working carpet cleaner and a laundress, who entered the union's ranks by way of a job as a laundry driver, and became West Coast organizer. The jurisdictional labor wars of the 1930s were groin-kicking, skullcracking, stink-bombing affairs, and Dave Beck's West Coast goon squad was the toughest of the lot. (One of its oldtime mugs last week recalled paying a Northwest trapper $100 a quart for attar...