NATE FEINSINGER CLOSES OUT ONE CAREER-Will DEVOTE FULL TIME TO ANOTHER ONE

For over forty years, it hasbeen Nate Feinsinger-the Teach-er, along with Nate Feinsinger theDeputy Sheriff, the Mediator, theUmpire, the Troubleshooter. Thisyear ends his teaching career. Hewill continue, along with his col-league, Eleanore Roe, to direct theCenter for Teaching and Researchin Disputes Settlements.

The definitive work on the Lifeof Nathan P. Feinsinger is yet tobe written, and is clearly beyondthe scope of the Gargoyle. Evenhis teaching is so various that itcannot be easily described-allaspects of labor relations: laborlaw, mediation, arbitration; plusfamily law, bills and notes, ad-miralty. He has been an admiredteacher in each, largely because ofhis broad and profound prepara-tion in each course. His textbooksinclude Suretyship, Labor Law,Partnerships. His articles are nu-merous and varied. He has taughtand pub l ishe d, and performedenough public service to fill sever-al useful lifetimes, all the whileadding luster and distinction tohis academic home.

Incidentally, the alma mater ofhis youth, the University of Michi-gan, awarded him an honoraryLLD on May 5,1973.

Gargoyle readers will rememberProfessor Willard Hurst's fullsometribute to Nate Feinsinger, at thetime of the Alumni Award in 1972,and published here a year ago.

THE GARGOYLE

Brief recollections by three ofProfessor Feinsinger's admirersfollow:

Chancellor H. Edwin Young:

Then Governor Gaylord Nelsonasked Nate, Arvid Anderson andme to mediate a very serious dis-pute between the J. 1. Case Com-pany and the Auto Workers. Eachside had an absolutely firm posi-tion with no give whatsoever, andArvid and I were convinced thatthere was nothing we could do.But Nate kept working at it. Heasked each side endlessly abouttheir positions-and they had aposition on everything-and final-ly he thought of something thatnobody had a position on andsaid "With this broad area (actu-ally about as broad as yourfinger) not discussed, we must getdown to work and get on with thenegotiations." I have a nice ashtray from the Governor as a tokenof our success.

In another dispute I recall Iused to play straight man forNate. I'd tell whichever party wasin the room that the public wasn'tgoing to stand for this any longer,that their behavior was outrageousand could no longer be tolerated.Each party thought I was a parti-san for the other side, and aftermy strong statements Nate wouldcome in and say to whicheverparty was present, "I know you'renot as bad as Young says butafter all he does have a sense ofthe public feeling," and this wouldfrequently break the ice and wewould get down to cases. Needlessto say, it didn't make me verypopular with either managementor labor at the time.

In quite a different context, Iremember Nate's being at the the-sis examination of a student whohad written in labor economics.The thesis waf? about 560 pageslong, Nate was busy arbitratingfor General Motors, teaching inthe Law School, and flying allover the country, and so everyoneassumed that he probably hadn'tread the thesis. When it came histurn to ask a question, he said tothe candidate, "I think there is amisspelling in the footnote on page337." We all opened our copies,and there was a misspelling in thefootnote on page 337.

Anthony DeLorenzo, vice-presi-dent, GeneralMotors Corporation:

Mr. Feinsinger's record as aGeneral Motors-UAW umpirespeaks for itself, and although yousaid you were not seeking tributes,I think his record is one.

As you may know, under theGM-UAW umpire procedure, theumpire is selected by both partiesto serve as the final arbitratorof disputes arising through themanagement-union g r i e van c eprocedure.

Mr. Feinsinger was the seventhof nine GM-UAW umpires In the33 years that the umpire systemhas been in effect. He served asan umpire from June 1, 1954,until September 30, 1966. Hismore than _12 year tenure was thelongest of any umpire in the his-tory of the GM-UAW umpire sys-tem and truly attested to his abilityand imp artiality in renderingdecisions.

The task was not an easy one,and travel was a necessary part ofhis life. The UAW in those yearsrepresented some 400,000 GMhourly employes in more than 120plants in about 60 cities in theUnited States. During his yearsas an umpire, he rendered 377separate decisions totaling 944pages.

Continuedpage 12

IX

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF

President and Emergency Board in Railroad dispute involving firemen on Diesellocomotives.International Conference on I,.abor Economics, Hawaii, 1963.With HSTand Wage Stabilization Board, 1951.All-night session on the eve of the steel strike, 1952.Settlement of dispute in Pacific Maritime industry, 1946.Investigation of safety conditions on ships and docks, West Coast, 1947.

NATHAN P. FEINSINGER

PROCL::..l.1i1.Tlon

'HH:~::.AS, a c ont rover-ey of lone standing has existed

between the I.1.W.U. (C.I.O.) Local No. 152 and the Hawaiian Pd no •..

apple Producers' As soo te t t on ; and

WHERE.&S,all efforts for a settlement through negotiation,

mediation and conciliation previous to July 8th, 1947. had failed; and

WHEREAS. a strike was begun on Thursday, Juk y lOth, which,

if continued indefinitely, would result in the Leas of a sixty

million dollar {$60,aOO,OOO) crop and thus seriously impair the

economic structure of this Territory, interfere with such government

functions as education, health, public welfare, public institutions,

and road construction; and

'NHERE.A.S, Dr. Nathan P. Feinsinger came to Hawaii on July

8th, 1947. at the request of tho Secretary of' t.hev En te r-Lo r-, the Secre-

tary of Labor and the aeo r-e te rv of' A£;ricu1ture, to take over nego-

tiations; and

WHEREAS, a settlement of the strike we e effected as of

midnight July 15th, 1947. thus e s eur mg the continued e oo Lc.I and economic

growth of Hawai i; now,

THEREFORE, I, OREN 'E. LONG, Acting Governor of Hawa f I , do

hereby proclaim wednesdev , July 16th, 1947, NAT!:IANI'.FEINSINGERDhY in

Hawaii and in behalf of the people I expr eae to him our deep r-ospe c t

and appreciation and extend to him the warmest Aloha of the r-e at de.nt.e

and citizens or this American community.

DONEat Iolani Palace, Honor.ut.u ,

Territory of HewuH , tJlis

16th day of' JulS, 1947.

Quarter mile, Michigan vs, Illinois, 1927.With Greathouse (UAW.CIO), and Ohrman (Allis Chalmers), settlement of strike,1959.Always - a Professor.Big Ten Championship relay team, University of Michigan, 1926.Governor's Proclamation, Nathan P. Feinsinger Day. Hawaii, 1947.

DeLorenzo Continued

course I never asked them directlyabout him-this was another thinga Dean was not supposed to do-but I'd hear comments and theywere always glowing.

Nate Feinsinger as I do, I knowthat he so rewarded those whowere fortunate enough to take hiscourses.

I might point out that his abili-ties sometimes caused GM and theVAW to agree to requests that heserve as an arbitrator or mediatorin disputes outside of our industryduring the years that he servedas an umpire.

Among our labor relations peo-ple, Mr. Feinsinger was respectedfor many abilities, including afantastic sense of humor. Hisunusual wit gave him an abilityto relax a difficult hearing eventh 0 ugh both sides were underintense pressure.

This, of course, imposed a tre-mendous work burden on him.Our labor relations people recallan occasion when he was holdinga GM-VAW umpire hearing inKansas City while an airplanewaited-irrespective of the time ofday or night-to take him toWashington to serve as a mediatorin an important case involvingthe public welfare.

* * *

Moreover, in addition to laborlaw, partnerships and agency, hetaught a big four-credit course inBills and Notes, and he managedto make it interesting, which in myopinion (having groaned underits dullness at Harvard) was aremarkable feat. He accomplishedthis not by oratorical acts or byhis ever-present wit-one couldn'tbe either dramatic or funny inexpounding Bills and Notes-butby the sheer mastery of his subjectand the pleasure he took-andconveyed-in making the studentscome to grips with its maddeningintricacies. He had that rare com-bination of a sparkling personalityand a scholar's conscience andlove of law in all its twistings andturnings. To him the law was anintensely human process, evolvedout of experience and felt needs,and since he was so intenselyhuman himself he made it all comealive.

The second thing I wanted tosay was that he was a teacher notonly of law students but of themultitude of laymen who battledbefore him in the turbulent arenaof labor disputes. As mediator andas arbitrator he taught them, slow-ly but surely, and without seemingto do so, the need of moderationand honesty in dealing with oneanother, and the courage to con-fess error as well as to assertrights. And he thus taught notonly the participants but all thosewho observed him in this process,as I did in our War Labor Boarddays. For this and much else Ishall never cease to be gratefulto him.

INSTITUTIONALLIBRARIANSWORKSHOP

Lloyd K. Garrison, New Yorklawyer, former Dean, formerChairman of the War LaborBoard.

I don't know anything at first-hand about Nate Feinsinger as ateacher because I never visited hisclasses. Law School Deans aren'tsupposed to listen in on professors.I only know of one who did. Hewas the head and owner of a pro-prietary night law school, at thattime the largest law school in thecountry and, I dare say, in theworld. He had a pipe-line to everyclassroom and he would sit in hisoffice, listen to his teachers teach,and fire any who didn't suit him.But though I never heard NateFeinsinger teach, I knew from thestudents that he was tops. Of

XII

There are only two other thingsI can say about his teaching. First,Justice Holmes once remarkedthat the highest function of educa-tion was not intellectual but moral.If, he said, you can make someonesee that another way of looking atthings is truer and more profound-if you can really make him seeand feel this to be so-the verynature of man is such that he willembrace it. This observation ispeculiarly relevant to law teaching.For law is not merely a practicaltool but an ethical system distilledfrom a myriad of judgments aboutright and wrong, "between whoseendless jars," as Ulysses said inTroilus and Cressida, "justice re-sides." He whose sense of justiceis the most delicately attuned willbest convey that sense to his stu-dents, and this is the highest gifthe can confer on them. Knowing

A workshop on the provisionof legal research materials forprison inmates was conductedat the Law School under thesponsorship of the state Divi-sion of Corrections, the stateDivision of Library Servicesand the Law School on April 6,1973. Ten librarians from theprison at Waupun, the GreenBay Reformatory, the Fox LakeCorrectional Ins t itu tion andthe Home for Women at Tay-cheedah participated. ProfessorMaurice Leon, Law Schoollibrarian, lectured on legalbibliography and legal citation.Professor Volker Knoppke-Wetzel of the Extension Lawdepartment, and Martin Mil-grim, Class of 1972, discussedcriminal justice procedures andlegal help available to inmates.

TH'E GARGOYLE