REUB HITS THE GROUND RUNNING

Troubling Times

Carrying a bundle of files in one arm, Reuben could hear his footsteps echo in the hallway as he walked to his new Springfield office as President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor. His heart sank as he opened the creaking door to yet another nearly empty room, the darkness penetrated by a single light emanating from the rear desk of Secretary-Treasurer Victor Olander. The chaos from the miners’ struggle had decimated an ISFL already crippled by the growing economic depression. The unemployment rate had nearly tripled since the crisis began, and the losses had hit union men the hardest.[1] More unemployed workers meant fewer dues-paying members. The Federation had to do more with less. At this point, the ISFL could afford no lawyers or researchers, no secretaries or assistants; the grand Illinois State Federation of Labor was in reality two men sharing a small office inside a half-vacant building.

Although Reub and Vic had known and respected each other for some time, their present circumstance bonded them in an entirely new way. They were now brothers in the trenches, fighting against what must have felt like overwhelming odds. Often they would burn the midnight oil in their tiny shared office, sharing ideas and strategy. With his encyclopedic mind and wealth of experience, Victor acted as both mentor and aid to his new president. As Reuben later recalled:

Victor A. Olander was a great man…He could analyze any situation accurately and evaluate the opposition to labor’s progress in language that needed no translation. His memory was matchless and his judgment of proportions penetrating and entrancingly correct…He was a natural teacher and a dedicated leader of labor of the Samuel Gompers variety. He and I worked together and we always helped each other.[2]

Physically and stylistically, the two of them couldn’t be more different. Victor was a study of the subdued. His ruffled, giant frame would sprawl out comfortably as he lulled the opposition, leading them down a reasoned path to agreement. Many adversaries would enter negotiations with the nearly blind giant set on opposing his agenda, only to leave swearing “I’m damned if we didn’t sit there and agree to the whole darn thing!”[3] He lumbered into the office door every morning with keen insights into the tasks ahead, but with a steady and pensive approach.

The keen-eyed Reuben, in contrast, held his five-foot, nine-inch frame coiled and compact, seemingly ready to strike. Whether addressing an audience or conversing casually, he displayed a theatricality and vigor that inspired friends and intimidated enemies. His sharp intellect and skilled oratory overwhelmed opposing viewpoints, but perhaps most salient was his immense will to win. He willed victory where there was none, converting allies, charming audiences, and chastising opponents. He hustled, he fought, he complained, he solved. If he sat at a table of eight men, he often spoke for half the time while the other seven shared the other half; he addressed every statement and single-handedly steered the discourse from one man to the next and back to himself to approve some ideas and dismiss others. He could drive any debate—compassionate, impatient, frustrating, and funny all in one short exchange. He did not discuss things; instead he held forth. He was a spectacle to absorb, with a torrent of words and opinions on everything and now a tour de force with the agency of his new office. He was poised to sit on the statewide stage for decades as a force that was both enduring and immovable.

But for now, the ISFL office was not powerful but lonely, compounded by the absence of Reuben’s revered friend, John Walker. The State Federation had long operated out of a building owned by District 12 of the United Mine Workers (the most powerful of the UMWA’s mining districts), which made sense when the Miners were the largest union and Walker (a former Illinois UMWA President) was leading the ISFL. The UMA office had always been bursting with action under Walker, cramped with petitioners and alive with energy. Now it was a ghost town. Rebelling against the dictatorial UMWA President John Lewis, Walker and his men had abandoned their former offices while they sued for control of the union in court. And although Lewis lived in Springfield, he elected to work every week out of the national UMWA offices in Indianapolis, which he preferred to staying in Walker’s world.[4] All this left the offices in Springfield a desiccated shell, a mausoleum commemorating times gone by.

With this tension and dwindling funds, Reuben wearily sat down to work. In his first two years as President of the ISFL, one gets the sense that Soderstrom was rowing a boat without the benefit of a paddle; it’s not until the formidable winds of the FDR administration rolled across the Midwest that the Illinois labor movement accelerated forward at full sail. But until then, Reuben paddled hard and fast with the ready tools at his disposal: local speeches, crafty alliances and the dogged, familiar battles of the statehouse. Despite these turbulent conditions, he and Vic clearly navigated in the right direction and made some valuable headway. Reub later recounted:

The membership of the Illinois State Federation of Labor had dwindled until we had less than 200,000 members. As President of the State Federation I felt that my first duty was to build up and strengthen the organization. A tremendous amount of time was devoted to this activity. It entailed visiting local unions, meeting labor officials on all levels—national, state, and municipal—pointing out that through an effective state federation of labor in Illinois we could work together unitedly and in closer unity than ever before.[5]

All throughout 1931 Reuben flung himself headlong into this mission, criss-crossing the state to rally his troops. The year started with an address to the apprentices of Typographical Local 16 in Chicago, soon followed by several trips to smaller communities such as Joliet and Murphysboro. All year long the new 42-year-old ISFL president rode the rails across Illinois to connect with his constituents. The Great Depression had robbed unions of much of their influence. Few had the stomach to strike in such desperate times and the ISFL was largely unable to offer financial support to strikers’ families as it had done in the past. Times were bleak. Reuben later reflected, “I concentrated on legislative work; addressed endless meetings; encouraged the membership to personally contact their lawmakers on needed legislation; intensified the work in the Illinois General Assembly by calling upon religious leaders, social welfare leaders and educational leaders to publicly support labor bills.”[6]

Still, Reuben moved boldly forward. On January 6, he called to order the meeting of his Executive Board for the first time, laying out ambitious plans to re-introduce the longstanding proposed Woman’s Eight Hour, Old Age Pension, One Day Rest in Seven, and Anti-Yellow Dog Contract bills, as well as improvements to the Workman’s Compensation Act. He also planned to propose new legislation, including a Prevailing Rate of Wage bill and a bill to create a new Division of Statistics—the latter to counter the IMA’s relentless drumbeat of cheery economic news.[7]

GETTING TO WORK

Soderstrom Continues as State Representative

It may be surprising to remember that up to this point Reuben had continued to work part-time in Streator as a linotype operator, proudly carrying his ITU card and paying his dues even though h e didn’t have to.[8] But with his new duties as the new President of the ISFL, he had to quit operating the oily linotype machine for good. One job he firmly held onto, however, was that as a legislator. As he later explained:

I sat in that Assembly as the President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor…And I wanted to do that because there was always a sort of a feeling that a labor official couldn’t carry on that type of work and still be a labor official but I wanted to demonstrate that that’s possible. A person elected to public office, if he bankrolls himself, pays his own expenses, and he’s obligated to no one, then he’s free to serve whomever he pleases after he’s elected to public office. I bankrolled my own campaigns, every one of them. I wouldn’t accept a penny.[9]

To Reuben, the dual roles of legislator and ISFL President weren’t contradictory; quite the opposite, they facilitated the efficient movement of a pro-labor legislative agenda. There was also no public conflict; as a state representative Rueben was expected to have a full-time job for the 18 out of 24 months the Assembly wasn’t in session, and he had no state-funded staff. Reuben could act in both positions with a clean conscience. So it is with remarkable durability and agency that Reuben Soderstrom set forth into the 1930’s as both legislator and ISFL president.

For years Reuben had learned to live out of a suitcase during the six-month legislative season, traveling up to Springfield on the first train leaving Streator in the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning, returning home on Friday afternoon for the weekend. Now, that schedule would continue for the better part of the year, with frequent trips to Chicago included. Despite this hectic schedule, Reub remained devoted to his family. During a contentious debate in the spring session of the 1931 general assembly, Soderstrom remained at home in Streator for several days when his son Carl was hospitalized for appendicitis. Reuben stayed by his son’s bedside at St. Mary’s Hospital for four days until he was assured Carl recovered. Only then did he return to Springfield to resume the fight. And what a fight it was.

The 57th General Assembly and the Fight for Workman’s Compensation

As the legislative season began, James Donnelly of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association pushed two messages: first, the worst of the economic crisis had passed; and second, Illinois manufacturers were taking every means possible to help workers. They promoted the use of alternating and split shifts to give employment to the greatest number of workers possible, and promised not to lay off workers except “in extreme cases of business pressure.”[10] Given these efforts and the abating nature of the crisis, the IMA claimed, none of Reuben’s proposed legislation was necessary.

In the statehouse, Donnelly and his cohorts aggressively pushed back against labor’s position that the depression was actually worsening and required legislative intervention. Despite their supposed support of alternating and split shifts, the IMA actively opposed proposed laws that prevented owners forcing women to work more than eight hours per shift. Donnelly called such protections “experimental,” potentially yielding unforeseen negative consequences. Reub responded with characteristic wit:

To hear the hue and cry raised by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association against the Woman’s Eight Hour Bill one would think that these opponents never did try out anything new…In fact, these employers have displayed no hesitation to enter into mergers, consolidations, to institute speed-up, efficiency and mass production systems calculated to improve profits and business conditions for themselves. They do not hesitate to install new machinery, modern equipment, labor saving devices—so-called––that release working men from steady jobs…The eight-hour day for women is far less a radical solution for the unemployment growing out of the installation of modern machinery than the radical changes in the modern way of operating plants where women are employed.[11]

Despite Reuben’s efforts, the IMA succeeded and the Women’s Eight Hour Work Bill again went down in defeat. Buoyed by this win, the Association fought tooth and nail on every bill that followed. From old-age pensions to workman’s compensation, the IMA sent in lawyers, lobbyists, and pet legislators to kill labor’s bills.

Reuben countered, turning to his allies to open new fronts in the fight. He re-introduced his Old Age Pension bill, and worked with representatives Truman A. Snell and Sen. Earl B. Searcy to introduce Prevailing Rate of Wage bills in each chamber of the assembly.[12] The bills, which would require state contractors to pay the wage prevailing in the community in which the work was occurring, was central to Soderstrom’s plan to stop local wages from sliding. All too often, outside companies would import cheap labor after winning a contract, lowering the standard of living in the community—a phenomenon Reuben experienced firsthand in Streator during the open-shop war. The bills likewise prevented contractors from requiring employees to work more than eight hours a day, except in cases of emergency.[13]

Reuben also advanced legislation establishing a division of statistics for the state’s Department of Labor, a move he viewed as instrumental to labor’s survival.[14] For two years the IMA had been publishing “scientific reports” claiming to prove the worst of the economic storm had passed, using their dubious studies to silence calls legislative relief. Reub realized that he could never win the argument as long as his opponents insisted on their own set of facts; creating a credible agency to produce reliable and accurate data that was crucial in his struggle against the depression-deniers of the IMA.

The most contentious legislative battle, however, centered on Soderstrom’s proposed improvements to the Workman’s Compensation Act. Of all the proposed legislation, none was desired more fervently or despised as thoroughly as this bill. As the legislative season stretched into its fourth month, the Carbondale Daily Free Press set the scene:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill, April 11—Manufacturers and organized labor of Illinois will be arrayed against each other here next Wednesday to do battle over proposed amendments to the Workmen’s compensation act which would increase payments made to injured workmen from 30 to 50 percent.

The amendments to the compensation law were asked for in the lower house of the general assembly by Rep. R.G. Soderstrom, president of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, which is standing behind the bill. Chief opposition to the measure has been organized by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association...

Representative Soderstrom said that the amendments are designed to raise the Illinois standard to the New York level. The Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, on the other hand, contends that the proposed amendments are not needed. Officials of the organization have issued a statement saying that the Soderstrom changes would increase the cost of accidental injuries in manufacturing plants by 83 percent……

In letters sent throughout the state, opponents of the proposed compensation increases said that “passage of a bill of this kind at this time when industry is so seriously depressed would simply tend to increase production costs, increase unemployment, force employers of all kinds to decrease wages, and tend to stifle and arrest business and thus further retard our economic recovery.”

Representative Soderstrom, on the other hand, argues that further protection of the workman is necessary if industry is to continue developing. “Modern life is a complex thing and requires a liberal application of cooperation,” Rep. Soderstrom said. “Modern life requires that many work together, and that all groups cooperate with each other. Legislation is the only medium through which justice for employees can be obtained in accidental injury and other phases of our equalizing problem. Yet when organized labor proposes remedial legislation, the employers raise the cry that we are trying to ‘drive industry out of the state.’ That cry has been raised against almost every piece of labor legislation proposed by labor, introduced in the Illinois general assembly as far back as most of us are able to remember. This battle-cry was particularly in evidence, used most liberally by the manufacturers’ association, when the Injunction Limitation bill was pending back in 1925. This law was enacted and industry did not leave the state. Instead it continued to grow and the huge industrial machine is more efficient, more powerful today than ever before.”[15]

Reuben continued, accusing the IMA of “spreading propaganda” around the capitol building and intentionally misleading the public. The conversation became even more acrimonious as the hearing progressed, with accusations of deceit and false testimony on both sides. The heated rhetoric underscored the amount of distrust between Soderstrom’s ISFL and Donnelly’s IMA; both men were committed to their cause and certain of the unscrupulous nature of the other.

But then something remarkable happened. The newly elected president of the ISFL and the IMA president agreed to meet, with Reub stating, “(a)s long as they will meet with us, if they’ll meet often enough with us so they understand our problems and our difficulties, we can make some progress.”[16] So, for the first time since the Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909, the head of the IMA and organized labor reached a negotiated end to a legislative standoff. While he never abandoned his principles, Reub was not afraid to accept compromise, and with the passage of the Workman’s Compensation Law he announced “The representatives of labor are well satisfied, because the conference has resulted in substantial improvement in the law and nothing of importance has been sacrificed to secure these gains.”[17]

By the close of the legislative session, Reub was able to credibly claim the fifty-seventh General Assembly “One of the most successful sessions in history…Organized labor had 29 bills in this session and 14 were passed. That’s the best record labor ever had in an Illinois legislature. Previous to this year labor was able to obtain favorable action on only six bills in 14 years.”[18] While unable to pass legislation on a women’s eight-hour bill or anti-yellow dog contract bill, Soderstrom was able to secure an old-age pension commission bill establishing the creation of a two-year commission (to which he got himself appointed as a member).[19] He also secured passage for his bills regarding prevailing wages and creation of a research and statistics agency. Alongside these accomplishments, Reub also secured legislation for wage collections and garnishment exemptions, as well as a law barring the use of convict labor.[20] Soderstrom attributed the success to the members of organized labor. “The credit for this unusual record of achievement belongs to the affiliated unions who furnished the means which make it possible for the Illinois State federation of Labor to carry on its work,” he wrote that summer. “The interests of all men, women and children of Illinois require constant activity on the part of our great state labor movement. This is particularly important during periods of business depression, such as is being experienced at the present time.”[21]

With the state’s most able and reliable pro-labor legislator now acting as president of the ISFL, labor finally held an advantage in its negotiations with business and manufacturing interests. Soderstrom had an intimate knowledge of the Assembly that his opponents lacked, and could quickly build coalitions and solicit support from legislative allies, who in turn could credibly believe that Reuben spoke with the full authority of labor. While Reuben savored his success against John Donnelly’s IMA, however, another often antagonistic figure who loomed large in Soderstrom’s professional life waited for him inside the halls of labor itself.

Alliances: John L. Lewis and Others

Reub’s next alliance was an unlikely and often contentious one; John L. Lewis. Lewis was an enemy of Reub’s predecessor and friend, John Walker. Like Reub, he knew the power of presentation. In contrast to Soderstrom’s clean-cut image, however, Lewis possessed a ruffled, intimidating look characterized by big, bushy eyebrows and a permanently etched scowl, a visage that gave him a “singularly sensuous and mysterious appearance.”[22] Whereas Reuben’s family and community were central to his character, Lewis clearly separated his professional and personal personas, leading one biographer to note “Lewis drew a sharp line between home and career, family and business. It was as if the two aspects of Lewis’s life required totally different personalities and to intermingle them would diminish his dual roles as father-husband and union leader. The union role necessitated public presence, cunning excessive selfishness, and low ethics; proper family life demanded privacy, personal warmth, cooperative effort, and a firm moral code.”[23]

Reub distrusted the unscrupulous and dictatorial UMWA leader, while Lewis had little time for the newcomer he dismissed as squatting in his unused lot. Despite these personal distastes, however, the two needed one another. The UMWA was still a force within the ISFL, and after Judge Harry Edwards ruled in favor of Lewis over Walker as the legal head of Illinois District 12, Reuben knew he had little choice but to work with him. Reuben, too, was central to Lewis’s agenda. While legally vindicated, Lewis had very little actual leverage; many of the miners in Illinois had defected from the UMWA in the wake of the court’s decision, leaving Lewis the master of an empty (and penniless) house. Any victories Lewis could secure for his men would have to come through the legislature, which meant going through Reuben. The two engaged tentatively at first, with Reub asking the elder Lewis for advice, Lewis reciprocating as best he could. Both gifted writers and orators, they occasionally collaborated on addresses. Although mostly incidental in the opening years of the 1930s, the connection between Lewis and Soderstrom would eventually come to knit the two together in many ways, forging an alliance that was personally cool but politically necessary.

Reuben struck other relationships in his first year as ISFL president that would prove to be important in the years to come. Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) President John Fitzpatrick soon became a close ally. An able reformer, Fitzpatrick had ushered in a new era for the CFL by rooting out corruption and increasing organizational autonomy. Fitzpatrick had advised Reub prior to the latter’s assent to the presidency, and the two shared a vision of organized labor that made them fast friends.

Soderstrom’s work on the old age pension law also brought him into contact with a broad range of notable supporters. When in Chicago he would often consult with members of the Illinois Committee on Old Age Security. Jane Addams from the Hull House had been named Chair of the committee, while the group’s Secretary, Harvey Kailin, maintained an office at the ISFL Chicago headquarters. University of Chicago Economics Professor Paul H. Douglas served on the board as well. Kailin and Douglas soon became friends of Reub, who both sponsored and spoke at a mass lecture the committee held in Chicago in February of that year.[24]

Reuben also expanded appeals to religious organizations in an effort to broaden support for his legislation. One of Reuben’s most stalwart advocates was the Father JWR Maguire of St. Viator College in Kankakee, IL. The outspoken cleric became a close friend of both Reuben and labor, calling Reub’s old age bill “not only heroic, it is also important and indispensable…its heroes deserve well of industry and of the nation.”[25] The Churches of Christ in America also provided support for Reub’s policies, stating in their Labor Sunday message in 1931:

During the past year we have seen millions of men and women tramping the streets looking for jobs, seeking help in churches and police stations, standing in breadlines, and waiting in the vestibules of relief societies…The facts of the situation themselves constitute a challenge to the churches to assume their rightful place of ethical leadership, to demand fundamental changes in present economic conditions, to protest against the selfish desire for wealth as the principle motive of industry; to insist upon the creation of an industrial society which shall have as its purpose economic security and freedom for the masses of mankind, ‘even these least, my brethren’; to seek the development of a social order which shall be based upon Jesus’ principles of love and brotherhood.[26]

Reuben made important national connections as well, particularly through his work at the American Federation of Labor conventions. In 1931, he was appointed to the AFL’s Committee on Education. He was a natural choice; as a state legislator Soderstrom already served on the Illinois House Education Committee, and had successfully fought for issues such as increased funding for schools and free textbooks for children. He brought his signature passion to the committee’s work, declaring through its report:

One of the most notable contributions of the American Federation of Labor to the public welfare during the fifty years of its existence has been its unwavering support of the extension of education for all the people. Indeed, labor’s contribution to the widening of educational opportunities for the entire citizenship would alone justify its existence and merit a generous measure of public approbation…Your Committee on Education is firmly of the opinion that there is no clearer trend of labor development for the past fifty years than the utilization and extension of both educational methods and objectives for the labor movement. Educational methods have been stamped upon hundreds of Labor’s proclaimed policies. It is the rule of a wide variety of labor practices. It is the prophecy of Labor’s future development and service to the public welfare. Your Committee is accordingly of one mind in feeling that the development can no more fittingly signalize its past trend and its future direction than to make education one of its foremost working policies.[27]

Reuben would spend the next several years working to advance such policies, particularly through the founding of educational institutes—joint endeavors by the AFL, Workers’ Education Bureau, and institutions of higher learning to provide training and education programs for workers. The following year, Soderstrom’s Illinois received national recognition at the national AFL convention for its plans to create such an institute on the University of Illinois’ Champaign-Urbana campus.[28]

These efforts and alliances would prove to be enduring and fruitful. And as the green president of an ISFL decimated by depression, Reuben needed support everywhere he could find it.

The ISFL Presidency

Reuben maintained a hectic traveling schedule after the close of the legislative session. In the summer of 1931, Reuben attended both the Wisconsin and Indiana Federation of Labor Conferences.[29] Relishing in his roots, he also spoke at an immense gathering of Swedish Societies supporting the Old People’s Home at Evanston, Illinois.[30] His efforts kept him constantly engaged; a typical week included a trip to Chicago to meet with the CFL on the heels of a speech downstate, followed by a train ride to Springfield the next day before returning home to Streator for the weekend. By year’s end, Reub’s new salary enabled him make a purchase to help him in his travels, one he’d dreamed of since childhood—a 1931 Buick. But much to his happy chagrin, his playful son Carl had beaten him to the punch with a purchase of his own car two years earlier!

For Labor Day, Reub traveled to Peoria, where he addressed a joyous crowd of over 3,000 at Water Park, whose celebration included a picnic, baseball game, and free dancing at the Grandview Park pavilion. Standing before them in the withering heat, Reuben gave his first-ever Labor Day Presidential Address. His twin messages of optimism and urgency were in full force as he warned the crowd:

Organized labor is facing a painful transition period. Labor Day this year has but little of the usual celebration spirit. Deep and serious meditation, however, is arousing in the hearts and minds of trades unionists a desire to mobilize the necessary courage to cope with and solve the problems ahead...

For many months the public press tried to minimize the seriousness of unemployment, but all lines of business have been affected by it and they cannot any longer treat it as if it did not exist and are admitting to the crisis at hand. As the depression continues to drag and menace our people, the danger of slashing wages increases...

Wage cuts will not bring back prosperity…Those who employ labor cannot continue and will not continue to produce without customers—without consumers—and six million people unemployed and deprived of their weekly paycheck does not stimulate consumption.

The labor movement is charged with a grave responsibility. To point out, speak out, and lead the way…Shorter hours and the five day week will not come by accident. Only through the pressure of the workers’ movement can this step be made. There is no other solution for unemployment and it is high time we cease to hide our heads in the sand and courageously announce to the world that before another Labor Day arrives the organized laborers of Illinois will have reduced the number of hours per day and the number of days per week in proportion to the increase in the number of people who are now permanently unemployed…

We want higher wages. The surest way to get them is to reduce the work day; demand a shorter week. It will bring the blessing of employment for all and larger pay. It is a simple remedy for what ails industry, and labor history proves that it actually works when all other remedies have failed. Let’s Go![31]

At the ISFL Convention that year at Galesburg, Illinois, Reub received his first-ever gavel as the presiding president of the ISFL convention, a beautifully hand-carved wooden work of art. The audience rose to its feet in applause as Soderstrom accepted the handsome hammer, the cheers increasing as Reub took to the podium. The response both embarrassed and emboldened the man who had taken charge in the organization’s darkest hour. Reuben spoke as the crowd finally settled, telling those assembled:

I am not sure that I deserve this rather spontaneous demonstration. I know that through a combination of circumstances I have been assigned the wondrous honor of presiding over this convention, and if I live to be a hundred years old I shall never forget the acclaim, the spontaneous welcome that has just been extended to me… This labor convention of the Illinois State Federation of Labor has become an annual event, and I believe that it is well that it is so, because on this occasion those of us who are organized and have an opportunity to get together and discuss questions that are of special interest to us, and also to emphasize before the world that there is nothing dishonorable in earning our bread by the sweat of our faces. And I am proud to stand here, friends, with this gavel, I am proud to stand in the presence of some of those whom this state is so indebted for all that it has been, for all that it is now, and for all that it can hope to be![32]

Reuben had faced a series of staggering challenges in his first year as ISFL; following in the wake of a popular president, leading an organization gutted by mass defection and wounded by economic depression, attacked on all sides by foes and supposed friends alike. He proved more than equal to the challenge. He re-oriented the Federation’s focus and re-energized its base. He carefully picked his battles, winning where he could and settling when he must. Demonstrating an ability to learn from friends and talk to enemies, he proved a cagey and pragmatic leader able to achieve results, with successes resulting in an overwhelming acceptance by the men he led. As he told the delegates at the convention’s close, “we have as a convention served notice upon our employers that the human element in industry is the most important thing and entitled to the greatest consideration.”[33]

It was a good start.

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