Part I Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5 Part6 Part7 Part8 Part9 Part10 Part 11
Part 12
Today is my father’s 103rd birthday and I am in awe of what he accomplished in his short 60 years; artist, war hero, newspaper editor, political cartoonist, radio commentator, a renaissance man. I recently discovered the Typesetter's Union took over the Trentonian in March of 1946, first as a weekly, then three times a week and finally as a daily in August of 1946. Was he writing editorials from the beginning, probably but there is no record of them being saved. Today the Trentonian is the last of the union-owned newspapers birthed during the typographer's strike of 1945-46 still being published. It has changed hands several times over the years but the paper itself has changed little from the days Dad was the managing editor. It is still a community based progressive newspaper, the heart of Trenton, seventy-three years and still going strong is quite a tribute to his vision.
In those days the unions were pretty well split between Progressives and Socialists, I am not sure which my Dad was but the more I read of his editorials the more I lean toward Socialist. He was a big fan of Henry Wallace who himself was a Socialist and trying to wrangle all the Progressives together for the ‘48 election. The object was to move the Democratic Party to the left, and 70 years later it is the same push to the left we need.
Dad came home ready to champion the underdog, take on injustices as disparate as homeless Vets to Black Africans in the gold mines of South Africa striking for more than 45 cents a day pay. He regularly shamed politicians and slumlords, leading the fight for fire safety for the department stores and apartments in Trenton that were fire traps. He had no fear when it came to speaking truth to power. He was given a soapbox and oh my, did he use it.
Dad was a union guy through and through which is interesting to me, because he worked for a few months as a machinist just before he was drafted but his only job up to that point was a starving artist. The Airforce is hardly.a place to learn about unions so not sure where he was exposed or even saw the need, but he certainly embraced everything the unions represented. He saw them as an important part of democracy, the democratization of wealth and opportunity. After WWII about a quarter of America’s workforce was union and it scared the government, their fix was Taft-Hartley.
A Century Destroyed
Controversial as all labor legislation must be due to the many factors and interests to be satisfied, the Taft-Hartley anti-labor bombshell just passed by the House when considered on the company of labor legislation passed during the past decade is a 20th century anachronism as it in one savage blow destroys a century of progress toward labor emancipation and understanding.
Pressure being exerted upon the president to veto the explosive measure peculiarly enough does not emanate entirely from labor quarters. Industrialists engaged in the production of staple consumer goods are alarmed at the effect the bill will have on the hard won mutual understanding and responsibility sharing contracts that they now have with the unions representing their workers. Other businessmen are apprehensive for a variety of reasons, but the most important to the “small fry” is the fact that the measure will create a happy hunting ground for lawyers, because the law only inflames old trouble spots between management and labor but also develops an ominous number of new ones. Prolonged labor disputes and slowdowns, although to proposed law practically outlaws strikes, will prove ruinous to small business. And the little fellows who are now aping “big business” enthusiasm for this changing of Taft’s and Hartley’s will find that they are making their enterprises easy prey for the big monopolists.
Taken point by point the bill contributes nothing to peace on the labor-management front, in truth it does precisely the opposite. The purpose of all legislation designated to effect labor should in fact increase labor’s responsibility to preserve peace with management and to stimulate a desire to maintain and increase production in addition to guaranteeing the security of all union members. The Taft-Hartley measure relieves labor of all responsibility for labor management relations. Labor would be as free as the birds in the air. Labor leaders would no longer be expected to stimulate good relations between management and the worker, and their responsibility toward their rank and file members would be of no importance because they could not be expected to keep promises that the law forbids them to make.
Union leaders would be helpless to prevent open warfare with the bosses. That would be anarchy, the very thing that self-righteous proponents of the measure profess to be fighting. Taft and Hartley are trying to establish a field day for every radical, screwball, hooligan, and gangster, who was told years ago to get out and stay out of the house of labor.
This measure will destroy an entire century of progress aimed at the very heart of American democracy and will attack the security of the majority of the American people.
President Truman should be made so completely aware of the mandate of the people that by the time the measure is placed before him there will be no other course or choice other than VETO!
President Truman listened and vetoed Taft-Hartley and the Congress immediately overrode his veto and so the beginning of the end of unions and the power they once held. Taft-Hartley broke the union's ability through direct action to affect nearly immediate change. For more than 100 years the avenues of power to the people were the vote and unions had changed forever.
So Dad Happy Birthday! And a song that reminds me so much of how I felt when I found you.
Everybody loves the things you do
From the way you talk
To the way you move
Everybody here is watching you
'Cause you feel like home
You're like a dream come true