THE STRUGGLE FROM THE LEGISLATIVE FLOOR

An Organized Attack

Following the successful 1922 election, the Illinois Joint Labor Legislative Board met to discuss labor’s agenda for the coming term. Comprised of 20 points in all, the core of the agenda had four key acts: “Improvements to the Workmen’s Compensation Law…an eight-hour law for women employees…bill(s) limiting the injunctive power of the courts…. (and) a bill providing for one day rest in seven for all industrial employees.”[1]

On the House floor, Reuben personally lead the battle on each of these issues. In his first week in office, the returning Representative introduced a resolution for a “gateway amendment” making it easier to amend the constitution, a necessary step in overcoming the hostile courts. He quickly followed this with a proposed One Day Rest in Seven bill, which guaranteed every worker at least one day off each week. An ISFL article that March took note of Reub’s tenacity, reporting that “Representative RG Soderstrom of Streator, introducer of the bill, is prepared to make vigorous effort to secure its passage.”[2] To help his cause, Reuben secured support not only from labor but religious leaders and even the theatre community (whom opponents falsely claimed would be barred from performing matinees under the act). “The measure…is fostered by the Illinois State Federation of Labor, the Joint Labor Legislative Board of Illinois, the Chicago Church Federation, the Catholic Welfare Union, the Actors’ Equity Association and other organizations…The Soderstrom bill in Illinois has the full support of the progressive organizations throughout the state.”[3]

Building on this momentum, young Reuben soon struck again, this time introducing amendments to the Workman’s Compensation Act. And he didn’t stop there. Securing a seat on the Industrial Affairs Committee, Reuben ensured that the body recommend the Women’s Eight Hour bill by a vote of 21 to 3 to the House after employer associations bragged they would “talk the bill to death” in a joint Senate/House committee.[4] He achieved this by working together with Representatives Lottie Holman O’Neill and Frank McCarty, who introduced the women’s eight hour and injunction limitation bills, respectively.

On April 11, that same committee also considered Reub’s One Day Rest in Seven bill, hearing a remarkable number of high profile figures invited by Reuben to speak including Victor Olander and John Walker of the ISFL, Dr. Fleming and Dr. Quale of the Chicago Church Federation, Rev. Father Maguire of the Catholic Welfare Council, Frank Dare of the Actors’ Equity Association, and many others representing over a dozen different unions and organizations. The One Day Rest in Seven bill passed the House by a vote of eighty-eight to thirty-one after Reuben made a “vigorous plea for passage” on the House floor.[5] His Compensation bill passed in the House by a vote of eighty-four to six.[6]

Reuben was 35 years old and four months into his second term, and was perhaps the most prodigious legislator in the Illinois House. Challenging the Senate would prove to be a different matter.

The “Senatorial Jungle at Midnight”

While Reuben moved quickly and proficiently in the House, JM Glenn exercised steady and powerful influence over the Senate, creating a sticky spider web awaiting the arrival of pro-labor bills from the other chamber. One of Glenn’s men, Senator John Turnbaugh, introduced bills to prohibit strikes and to increase the liability of voluntary associations, acts designed to undermine workers’ rights. To advance their cause, the manufacturers backed the so-called “League for Industrial Rights,” which through its spokesman EH Cassells devoted considerable time and energy on and off the Senate floor to undermine unions.

On April 18, Glenn personally campaigned against Reub’s One Day Rest in Seven Bill, stating that it was a “threat to the economic integrity of society,” and also unnecessary because “the self-interest of the businessman automatically eliminates evil practices from industry.”[7] Glenn also denounced pro-labor religious men as “silly ministers who believed that they could legislate God’s Kingdom onto the earth.”[8]

Despite Reub’s multiple victories in the House, the Illinois Senate did not pass a single bill, save for a minor co-operative rights bill.[9] In the end, the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association collaborated with their influential Senate allies to kill all of Reuben’s bills by postponement. As the ISFL Weekly News Letter ruefully detailed in its article “The Senatorial Jungle at Midnight,” Judiciary Committee Chair Senator Dailey conspired with fellow Senators Mills and Kessinger to engage in a series of delaying tactics that included scheduling “phantom” committee meetings, “forgetting” to record committee reports, and engaging in “sham battles” proposing amendments that the sponsoring senators themselves did not support. Glenn’s Senators ran out the clock on labor legislation, killing it without actually having to vote against the popular bills.[10]

Across the hallway, the triumphant Reub was quickly cut down to size. But still, he had much to celebrate. Largely through his efforts, the Illinois House was able to promote a clear and coordinated agenda that demonstrated wide-ranging, overwhelming popular support for labor. They unified the powerful religious community with labor leaders to undercut the Manufacturers’ laissez faire ideology. Anti-union legislators like Ole Benson, who once proudly cast their votes against unions, were now reduced to relying on procedural tricks in the Senate to cover their cowardice.

THE WAR IN STREATOR

Keep Away From Streator!

With the legislative season winding down, Reub returned his attention to the battle being waged in his hometown—the Manufacturers’ Open Shop campaign against the unions of Streator, which was grinding into its second year and devastating the city’s economy. Seven local companies had signed Glenn’s Open Shop Pledge to refuse to recognize any union-represented workers. As the ISFL Weekly News Letter reported that year:

The great struggle of trade unionists at Streator, Illinois, to maintain their organization continues unabated. Despite their long struggle the strikers are standing firm. The “open shop” manufacturers headed by the brick companies of the city are making frequent efforts to import strikebreakers with little success. Injunctions, conspiracy charges and other court proceedings utilized by the employers have failed to damper the ardor of the strikers. Trade unionists in other localities, especially those engaged in building work, will do well to remember that all Streator brick and tile is strikebound and that any brick shipped from Streator plants is the product of strikebreakers.[11]

Week after week, loyal unionists were urged to “keep away from Streator” and contribute to the striking workers fund. Unions from across the state filled the coffers with all they had, especially mining locals that shared deep roots with the Streator community. The AFL likewise gave all it could to the cause. By the summer of 1923 it had donated over $29,000, along with promises of continued support.[12] When AFL President Samuel Gompers came to Chicago that June, he was met by a delegation (which may have included Reuben) from Streator, which had come to discuss their increasingly desperate situation with him. Moved by their testimony, Gompers replied:

As [the delegates] rightly said, the struggle there [in Streator] has been going on for over two years, and the American Federation of Labor had several, and has several, local unions in Streator…notwithstanding the fact that the American Federation of Labor, as such, is not a financial institution, it has gone further in trying to aid financially and morally the men engaged in that struggle at Streator than in any other instance of which I know. My compliments to the splendid spirit of the men in Streator!

In connection with that…I called a conference of international unions affected in the industries in Streator, to take place beginning tomorrow, and there is hope that out of it there may be further cemented the mind and spirit, the unity and solidarity of those engaged in this struggle to bring it to a speedy and triumphant conclusion.[13]

Three days later Gompers met personally with Streator labor officials and the IMA leadership in hopes of settling the conflict.[14] But it was no avail; month after month, the conflict dragged on as the businesses involved sank ever deeper into decline. Several plants ceased production altogether. Eventually the secretary of the Streator Manufacturers’ Association (Glenn’s local counterpart) quit, as did his successor, who had been brought in as a “strikebreaker expert.” By the summer of 1923, the manager of the Streator Drain Tile Company and the superintendent of the Streator Brick Company had also resigned, and the Bar Clay Company was forced out of business. By fall, two companies finally signed agreements with labor.[15] Still, times were tough for the strikers of Streator. As JN St. Clair, the treasurer of the Streator Trades and Labor Council, wrote:

I think the outlook is better. The scabs are leaving and the union men are in pretty good spirits, working at odd jobs. The younger men are about all working away from home. In two years about the best any company has been able to reach is about fifty percent of normal, some only twenty-five percent. We are going to win this fight but may have to go through this winter and will need money, as we will have between fifty and sixty families to feed and furnish coal for. These are older men who cannot go away from home, and two years have brought their finances to a low mark. We are in need of money badly, as our bills have to be met. Many of the members have sunk all their savings of years in this fight and are still one hundred percent fighting for a principle. We have seventeen cases in court and need defense. We cannot desert them and will go to the last ditch. I was in the Appellate Court on my case all day yesterday. Have not been given a decision as yet. Will let you know as soon as they are kind enough to notify me.[16]

The laborers of Streator were holding on, but barely.

A Fateful Encounter with Samuel Gompers

Despite all Reuben and his compatriots had done, it seemed they had nothing to show for it. None of his major bills had been passed. He had been exonerated in court, but his friends faced new charges by the day. The Open Shop struggle had ground to a bitter stalemate with no victor in sight, and the city he loved was badly damaged. Families were going cold and hungry as the holiday season approached. Two years in, it became increasingly clear that the devastation Glenn and the IMA had brought to Streator would last a long time. Later in life, Reuben would reflect on the episode; “The whole town developed into a sort of Civil War. They tied up every plant in that community, don’t you see, and over 700 people had to move out of Streator…It took the town about 15 years to get over that fight.”[17]

It was at that moment that Sam Gompers, President and founder of the American Federation of Labor, met personally with Reuben. The exact circumstances of the encounter are not entirely clear; Olga remembers Gompers calling on Reuben at his home.[18] Gompers’s travel schedule, however, indicates that the meeting more likely took place at the Morrison hotel in Chicago, where the AFL president met with the Streator delegation.[19] Regardless of where the meeting occurred, it had a profound impact on Reuben. In a candid and heartfelt conversation, Gompers told the young man he saw “marvelous material for the Labor Movement” in Reub, and encouraged him in his efforts.[20] Soderstrom thanked the president for the compliment, but quickly turned the conversation to the urgency of his city’s needs, their battles, and his frustrations. Gompers gave him the pep talk he needed, as Reub later described:

One of the things that influenced my early activities was the contact that I was fortunate to have with Samuel Gompers. Sam told me at one time when we needed money to help people that were locked out in 1921 to 1923 in the city of Streator, that he felt that we were going to make progress. Gompers said that we would make progress day by day and step by step, and he turned to me and looked at me rather sharply, and he said, “Young man, you know you can climb the highest mountain if you’ve got the patience to do it one step at a time.” That philosophy had a lot to do with guiding the activities that I’ve been engaged in.[21]

Reuben would never forget that meeting, nor the words of encouragement and instruction. After that encounter, Reuben remembered, “I also—in line with what he suggested young labor leaders ought to do—I made a study of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, because Samuel Gompers believed that labor officials ought to be thoroughly familiar with these documents and if they allow these documents to guide them, that they wouldn’t go far wrong in the labor field.”[22]

Gompers died the following year, in December 1924.

1924: FAMILY AND ELECTION

On Hearth and Home

While Reub’s public life may have been full of conflict and chaos, his private life in these years was comparatively tranquil. Little Carl and Jeanne filled the Soderstrom household with vitality and happiness, enchanting Reub each day as he returned from Andy’s print shop, where he continued to work three days a week. During the legislative season, Reub took his family to Springfield for three days in April. Young Carl, who would return to Streator and tell the other students at Grant School about his adventures, even served as a page in the House when he wasn’t riding the elevator.

In September of 1924 Reub’s sister Olga, who had been working as a nurse, and her husband Frank moved to Kankakee. Reub may have been busy, but he always took time on Sunday to escort mother Anna and family on the train to see Olga’s home. While Reub missed his sister, the move was toughest on Anna and Lorraine, who’d come to depend on her in so many ways. Olga and Reub worked together to support their mother. “When we came to Kankakee, Reub and I agreed to each contribute $15.00 a month to mother for expenses, and rooms would be rented again,” Olga writes. “At Christmas I would go home, get a tree, trim it, rig Lorraine out with clothes and always give mother money, as I did on all special occasions, such as Mother’s day, birthdays and always when I went home for a few days I’d give extra money or buy all the groceries.”[23] Despite these changes, life in the Soderstrom house continued on an even, upbeat pace; a quiet refuge for Reub from the political storms raging outside.

The Election of 1924

Reub won re-election in a landslide. With 31,129 certified votes, the local paper declared “Labor’s candidate received 7,000 more votes on November 4th than he had ever received before in any campaign—making the results a new and notable victory for those who work for a living. RG Soderstrom’s labor record, made in two stormy sessions of the General Assembly, was the thing that attracted votes.”[24] In contrast, manufacturers’ candidate Ole Benson failed to win in both the Republican primary and general election, earning only 8,500 votes as an independent candidate in the general election.[25] Benson quickly faded from Streator’s political scene while Soderstrom stormed to the front of it.

Reuben had proven himself a strong defender of worker’s rights in both Springfield and Streator, giving him a clear majority of support in his home town. He was, in the words of the ISFL Weekly News Letter, “An outstanding progressive leader of the house, a champion of the peoples’ rights…who ably and forcibly supported all labor and progressive legislation.” Just as important, the open shop fight had rallied the outlying rural areas of the district to Reuben’s side. They blamed the uncompromising Manufacturers’ Association for the economic devastation they’d suffered, and took their frustrations straight to the ballot box.

However, Reub’s work was far from done. Although Glenn and the IMA had prevented labor from scoring a touchdown, Reuben was beginning to win the battle of field position. In the coming term, Reub would take them head on…in what would prove to be the biggest political fight of the decade.

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