NATION ENTERS UNCERTAIN TIMES

The Middle Class Rises from the Extremes

Reuben surveyed the economic scene with a wary eye. Illinois and the nation had just begun to inch past the darkest days of the Great Recession, but the damage it caused continued to linger. Over the past year the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), its budget gutted 36% by national austerity measures, had curtailed projects like building locks on regional canals and rivers. Soderstrom’s Streator was hit especially hard; the beleaguered city accounted for nearly a quarter of total unemployment in LaSalle County.[1] For Reuben, and the state, the message was clear; federal support could no longer be counted on. If citizens wanted legislative solutions to their economic grief, they’d have to turn to the halls of Springfield, not Washington.

Relief would not come easy. The state house had been rocked by the same political storm that swept the country. 1938 had been a wave election for the Republicans as voters blamed those in power for the Depression’s resurgence. Nationally, FDR’s Democrats lost 72 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate, although they retained the majority. In Illinois, however, Republicans took control of the State House of Representatives after the Democrats lost 11 seats in a wave election. The losses included a sweep in Reuben’s old 39th district, where both Reuben’s Democratic successor and the ISFL-endorsed Republicans lost to J. Ward and Elmer Hitter.[2] In one sudden movement the political pendulum had swung from one extreme to the other.

In so many ways, the close of the 1930s was a time of extremes, of devastating poverty and conspicuous wealth. For nearly a third of the nation, life was defined by bitter misfortune. Floods sunk the fortunes of nearly a million men, women, and children along the Ohio River while dust storms buried the hopes and dreams of entire towns in the American southwest. On the other extreme sat the rise of “Café Society,” populated by glamour girls and men about town like Brenda Frazier and Alfred Vanderbilt. While the former lived “ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished,” the latter reveled in garish nightclubs and balls, downing drinks and filling gossip columns. In fact, the biggest difference between the lavish lifestyles of the Café class and their gilded-era counterparts was the conspicuousness of it. These new “celebutantes” were plastered on everything from the cover of LIFE to soap ads, their every move covered breathlessly.

In between these two extremes, however, rose a new emerging group; a class that was neither high nor low, but in the middle. Empowered by labor’s efforts, this group—which by some estimates was two-thirds of the American populace—had the work, income, and most importantly the leisure time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.[3] They took family trips and indulged in hobbies like bingo and collecting. They spent evenings listening to Benny Goodman’s band and the adventures of Amos ‘n’ Andy. They bought their children Flash Gordon disintegrator guns and Shirley Temple dolls. Neither rich nor poor, they knew enough to want for more and had enough to believe it possible, if not for themselves then at least for their children. They were the laboring, emerging middle class, and they were the people Reub was fighting for.

Soderstrom Finds New Ground with Old Foes

The return of Republican rule was of clear concern for labor. Still, there was reason for Reuben to hope. The Illinois Republican party had won largely by wooing Democratic constituencies rather than opposing them, including labor. The Republican Party platform promised $30 monthly minimum pensions and a raise in occupational disease pay, and Reuben intended to hold them to those commitments. Before the 61st session of the Illinois General Assembly even began, Reub went to the press declaring “the AF of L would support the Republican party platform pledges” as the new majority advanced its agenda.[4] It was a canny move; by swearing to work with the new majority, Reub was likewise leaving no doubt that Illinois labor remembered the promises made to it.

Soderstrom also attempted to strike a conciliatory tone with the CIO. Formally the Committee of Industrial Organization, Lewis’s insurgent unions had formalized their split with the AFL at their 1938 convention, renaming themselves the Congress of Industrial Organization. Despite the national split, Reuben hoped to maintain a working relationship with the state CIO, especially with regard to legislative policy. Although he and Ray Edmundson, State Regional Director and Reuben’s CIO counterpart, did not meet directly, they held a dozen major legislative proposals in common. Those proposals included increased relief for the unemployed, higher old-age pensions, two weeks’ paid vacation, a state wages and hours law, a shorter work week, wage guarantees, an increase in injury compensation, and a “little Wagner” act applying the protections of that national legislation to intrastate commerce.[5]

Most important for Reub, however, was the Government Housing Act. This bill, which would give property tax exemption for government housing projects, was for Reuben a matter of smart policy and social justice. The exemption would make it possible to clear away slums and replace them with public housing, providing affordable homes for the poor while creating new jobs for the building trades in the process. The exemption would also open the state up to over $100,000,000 in federal funds, bringing national dollars into the state when it needed it most. Despite these obvious benefits, many conservative congressmen feared the loss of tax revenue, and were skeptical about any project with “progressive” overtones.

Luckily, labor received a boost from an unexpected source. The Illinois State Supreme Court, which so often ruled against progressive legislation, found in February of 1939 that the city of Peoria’s proposed $2,500,000 housing project was of a charitable nature, and was hence exempt from taxation. This ruling made additional legislation unnecessary. Reuben was jubilant, proclaiming at the time that the decision “clears the road for housing authorities to go ahead with projects all over Illinois.”[6] In the months to come, Reuben and Olander worked to make sure those housing projects became a reality, with Chicago, Springfield, and East St. Louis all pursuing grants to knock down slums and build low-income housing. “We were successful indeed, in the matter of twisting huge sums of additional money out of government agencies to help working people.” Reuben proudly told the Illinois delegates later that year. “Just think, $100,000,000 for housing projects… will mean steady work for a whole year for approximately 120,000 people who make their livelihood in the building industry and industries related thereto.”[7]

In addition to the Republicans, the CIO, and the courts, Soderstrom was also able to work with employer alliances, at least on some issues. By now, Reuben and his legislative team had developed a clear, constructive path for introducing and passing legislation. As Soderstrom later explained to historian Milton Derber:

We worked out a procedure of having representatives of labor sort of get together and incorporate in what I term a very stiff bill all of the things desired by the representatives of labor in the State of Illinois. This rather stiff bill is presented to the General Assembly. We know it cannot be enacted but it’s referred, usually to the Committee of the Judiciary, and the employers, they appear before that committee and the representatives of labor appear before the committee and they charge of course that type of legislation can’t be passed, that it would be too costly for industry to try to meet the demands provided for in such legislation; and they themselves usually are agreeable to have a committee from the judiciary committee appointed to take charge of the conferences between the representatives of labor and the representatives of the employer.[8]

This “joint committee” process allowed Reuben to negotiate directly with employers, and it had already led to pioneering legislation on several fronts. It had also helped unite labor and manufacturing against a common enemy: insurance companies. For years, Reub argued, these hugely profitable and largely unaccountable organizations had extracted huge sums from business owners for occupational disease and workman’s compensation, yet the workers these payments were meant to protect received only a tiny fraction of this money. What if instead of arguing with each other, the ISFL and IMA teamed up on legislation that increased employee payouts by limiting what insurance companies can charge business? This proposition had helped pass unemployment compensation two years ago, and in 1939 the two opponents teamed up again to increase workman’s compensation and occupational disease payouts. Soderstrom did his part, publicly supporting Illinois business in their efforts to lower insurance rates. “Illinois employers paid $22,000,000 for workman’s compensation insurance last year while only $9,000,000 was paid as benefits to workmen,” he told reporters in a story that made front-page news. “It would seem that insurance companies could pay twice the awards they pay now and still make millions. The increase in compensation awards could be made without increasing the rates to employers.”[9] The IMA, meanwhile, helped Soderstrom increase worker compensation payouts from 50% to 66% of a worker’s wage – all without burdening business.

It was a major success, and it augured well for Reub. By early spring two of his most important policy goals were already accomplished, albeit through unusual channels and with unlikely allies. Soderstrom had reasoned with his rivals, relying on mutual self-interest to overcome animosity.

IMA and CIO Stab at Labor’s Back

It wasn’t long, however, before his opponents reminded Reub how limited this partnership was. The Illinois Manufacturer’s Association, now under the leadership of Legislative Director Allan Gordon, fiercely opposed the Wages and Hours law, a bipartisan piece of legislation limiting hours and setting minimum wages in an attempt to “eliminate sweat shops, long hours, and insufficient pay.”[10] Gordon had a predictably different take; in a speech before the Illinois Automotive Trade Association, he hysterically warned Soderstrom’s legislation would “make the director of labor a dictator over business….If there is to be a ceiling on hours there is apt to be a ceiling on profits.”[11]

Such dire predictions and hyperbolic threats didn’t surprise anyone, least of all Reuben. He expected such behavior from the IMA. What he hadn’t anticipated, however, were the attacks he received next. When Rep. Joseph Perry introduced labor’s “little Wagner” bill, anti-union forces responded with a deadly alternative of their own which would effectively end labor’s ability to strike. IMA Senator Simon Lantz proposed what he called an “Employment Peace” bill. This act, which Reuben thrashed as “reactionary,” created a state version of the National Labor Relations Board just as Perry’s bill did. However, it also introduced unprecedented restrictions meant to strangle union efforts. In this bill, unions had to file an “intention to strike” notice at least 10 days in advance, then wait until the state labor board formed an “acceptable” bargaining unit before stopping their labor. As Reub explained:

The Lanz bill is the most insidiously dangerous labor proposal ever submitted for consideration in the Illinois legislature…The requirement of the bill for a ten-day notice before a strike is a trick clause…when examined in the light of other provisions prohibiting strike activities until after an alleged ‘bargaining unit’ satisfactory to the proposed labor board is set up. This is (a) procedure which in some instances has required a year or more under the national labor relations act.[12]

Lantz knew he couldn’t get his bill passed out of the normal senatorial committees, so instead he turned to the agricultural committee to move his bill to the senate floor. When questioned why the senator was pushing a labor bill through a farming committee, he told the press that “the agricultural interests of Illinois believe this measure to be of utmost importance as a means of affording both employer and employee the opportunity to insure prosperity and a continuation of that buying power which is based on friendly industrial relations.”[13] Reuben, incredulous, replied that the only connection this bill had to farming was that it would “hog tie labor.”[14] Still, Lantz was able to marshal several elements of the farming community behind him, including the Illinois Agricultural Association, by arguing that being anti-labor was the best way to keep farming costs low.

Faced with such an existential threat, Reuben turned to the CIO for support. He and Edmundson issued a joint statement declaring that it was time the rival groups provided a “solid front” on the issue.[15] The Lantz bill, they warned, was “designed to support company unions” and “would arouse misunderstanding, fear, suspicion, distrust and hatred on all sides.”[16] Though it favorably passed the agricultural committee, Soderstrom was able to rob the bill of enough support to prevent it from winning a full floor vote.

With the bill defeated, Reub returned to Perry’s bill, only to be stabbed in the back by his supposed ally. In a last-minute maneuver, Edmundson announced the CIO would oppose the “little Wagner” bill. Jealous of Soderstrom’s influence with the Assembly and especially the Governor (who would appoint the state labor board members), Edmundson declared that his organization would not support any “little NLRB” that may favor the AFL.[17] The move infuriated Reuben, who could scarcely believe that a group supposedly representing labor would declare it better to leave workers without legal protection than give them a board which might be friendly to the AFL.

By the close of the session, the turbulent legislative environment had produced decidedly mixed results. The ISFL was able to increase injury compensation, old age pensions and unemployment compensation. It also passed a state employees’ annuity and benefit system, without any CIO support. However, the five-day week, two weeks paid vacation, wages and hours bill, and the “little Wagner” act all failed to become law. Reuben couldn’t afford to linger on those losses, however; not too long after the session’s close he would be called to Washington to help fix labor’s apprenticeship system.

REUBEN TACKLES MODERNIZATION AND EDUCATION

As he had done before, Governor Horner sent Reuben Soderstrom to represent Illinois at the Conference on Labor Legislation in Washington, D.C. Secretary of Labor Francis Perkens, who hosted the event, turned to Reub to help solve labor’s education crisis, appointing him Chairman of the Committee on Training and Re-Training of Skilled Workers. Undaunted, Reuben took head-on one of the most contentious issues of the day within labor: mechanization.

Automation was one of the most troubling issues facing labor. It was, many believed, a primary reason for the Great Depression’s persistence. As stated at the ISFL convention a few years earlier:

You know, friends, this business depression is over for the people on the other side. It is over for the great corporations and the great industries…And this depression ought to be over for the men and women of labor, too. It would have been over for them had it not been for the installation of so many speed-up systems and labor-saving devices. Why, friends, even if full-fledged prosperity should return, not more than half the eleven million people no unemployed would be able to find jobs because of the installation of these labor-saving devices.[18]

But while mechanization ended some jobs, it created others—whole new professions, even. Soderstrom had experienced this firsthand; as a linotype operator, his profession was one created by mechanization when complex machinery replaced the practice of hand-setting type. The key, Reub knew, lay in affordable, effective education. Current workers had to be trained on new technologies. To this end his committee urged the formation of apprenticeship programs at the state level. They also formulated a set of guidelines for apprenticeship programs, such as hours of instruction and on the job training.[19]

Of course, all this was something Reub had been working on in Illinois for years. For this very purpose, union building trades had already helped establish the Washburn Trade School of Chicago, where unemployed workers could learn new skills under the supervision of skilled mechanics from the union trades, with the federal government providing half the revenue. Nationally, labor had overseen the introduction of apprenticeship laws in 11 states, apprentice councils in another 23 states and the formation of 400 joint labor and management apprenticeship programs, all thanks to the craft unions.[20] Reuben didn’t stop there, however. Such efforts were, in his opinion, “A step in the right direction, but does not solve the problem. It merely points one way to a solution.”[21] It wasn’t enough to re-train workers; Soderstrom wanted to actively end employment in obsolete occupations. He encouraged all employees under the age of 40 in a threatened trade or industry to switch careers. At the ISFL Executive Board Meeting later that year, he further adopted a resolution encouraging efforts to prevent young workers from entering a trade or industry “on its way out.”[22] Soderstrom was determined to turn Illinois into a state on the cutting edge of labor, and that meant modernizing the workforce as well as the machinery.

SPRINGFIELD HOLDS CONVENTION FOR THE AGES

Soderstrom Denounces Fascism, Communism, and War

While Reuben was working hard improving labor in DC, darker events were unfolding abroad. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, one week after signing a nonaggression pact with Moscow. Two days later France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, but it was already too late. The Nazis and the Soviets divided the beleaguered Polish nation between them, and another World War began.

In the United States, the vast majority of citizens opposed direct involvement. Although they sympathized with the Allies and despised the Fascist and Communist regimes, the general public—made wary by the experience of the last Great War—were loath to involve themselves in yet another European conflict. Speaking just days after these events at the Illinois State Federation of Labor Conference in Springfield, Reuben unambiguously denounced the hostile nations which brought this war as well as the ideologies they represented:

The American Federation of Labor stands four-square for Americanism against all dangers which threaten it. In our union halls, at every meeting, our membership is schooled in patriotic devotion to the Stars and Stripes and all that our flag typifies among the nations of the world…No true American, no true member of the American Federation of Labor will support either Communism or Fascism. When Fascism or Communism menaces the government of the United States it becomes the duty of the American Federation of Labor to rally to the support of our government.[23] Soderstrom made clear his contempt for how these regimes treated their own citizens. He particularly singled out Nazi treatment of the Jewish community as especially hateful. “We have the natural feeling of sympathy today for the Jews,” he said. “We would like to stop persecution of the Hebrews, not merely because they are Hebrews, but because persecution is wrong.”[24]

“We don’t want fascism, we don’t want communism, we don’t want war!” he told the assembled crowd. Peace, he argued, was itself a moral good, and Germany’s and Russia’s belligerent actions were an indictment of their respective ideologies, proof of their corrosive and corrupt nature. “These subversive forces are today causing international complications precipitating war between nations across the sea,” he told the crowd. “Germany has fascism and is at war. Soviet Russia has communism and the representatives of communism entered into an alliance with Hitler, which became a factor in starting this new world war.”[25]

Good actors, in contrast, could be identified by their dedication to peace, even when it was hard. This did not mean inaction; Soderstrom called on the United States to be “vigilant and active that the fascist-communist menace may be definitively stopped while there is still time to cope with them by peaceful means.” In the end, though, Reuben declared that “the best way for labor to preserve peace is to follow the leadership of the American Federation of Labor, which is advocating a national policy of strict neutrality in the hope that such a policy will keep our country out of this war.”[26]

Though Reuben hewed to the present AFL party line of neutrality, he also prepared his audience for the possibility of war. He encouraged a renewed patriotism among the labor faithful. “Our allegiance, as pledged anew in these presidential addresses at every convention, cannot be too often repeated and emphasized,” he declared before Illinois labor. “Let us make the patriotic influence of the American Federation of Labor felt more and more throughout the length and breadth of the land.”[27] He also called for increased urgency. “This is no time for star gazing,” he chastised. “This is the time for action.”[28] If peace did fail despite all efforts, Reub did not rule out military action. As he told the audience in his closing remarks, “Not a single foreign soldier should ever be permitted to set foot on American soil. If they do come to our shores for the purpose of military invasion, I know the men of labor would meet them… and flock to the colors and would help drive such invaders out of our country.”[29] Still, the tenor of his message was unmistakably clear. Newspapers throughout the state carried the similar headlines the following day: “Soderstrom Says American Labor Desires Peace.”[30]

The CIO: “Counterfeit Industrial Organization”

While subversive forces attempted to menace the peace abroad, domestic organizations attempting to do likewise at home were, to Reuben, no less destructive than their foreign counterparts. Speaking to the convention delegates, Soderstrom didn’t hesitate to link Hitler’s actions to those of Lantz, Edmundson and John L. Lewis. For him, these men, working through organizations like the Illinois Agricultural Association and the Congress for Industrial Organization were bomb-throwers, more interested in sowing conflict than engaging in the hard work of peace. “The Illinois Agricultural Association is interested in having a row with organized labor, in having the farmer fight the worker,” Reub bemoaned. “The Congress for Industrial Organization is even worse because it is interested in having working people fight working people.”[31] Still smarting from the CIO’s betrayal earlier that year, Reuben singled out the CIO for particular condemnation and ridicule:

Last year the CIO was known as the Committee for Industrial Organization. This year it is known as the Congress of Industrial Organization. They have changed their name. Had John L. Lewis asked me how to rename the Committee… and retain the letter ‘C’ in the abbreviation ‘CIO’ I would have suggested substituting the word ‘counterfeit’ for the word ‘committee’ and name it the great ‘Counterfeit Industrial Organization.’ The American Federation of Labor is the only real labor movement in America.[32]

If he wanted, Reub could have gone even further (as many others did) and claim the “C” stood for communist. The well-known connection of the CIO to the Communist Party had spurred a flurry of resignations and revolt within the organization. Communist influence in the National Maritime Union (NMU), a prominent CIO union, had become so pervasive that two New Orleans officials quit in protest. Arthur Thomas, the district executive committee chairman of the Gulf District, opposed the “bureaucratic dictatorship” set up by the “top officialdom in New York” and the union having its “policies formed by the Communist Party.” F.P. O’Donohue, business agent for the Houston branch of the NMU, left due to his conviction that “all the officials in the union who do not go down the line with the Communist Party clique are being hampered at every turn.”[33]

Homer Martin, president of the United Automobile Workers Union of America, formerly affiliated with the CIO and now back with the AFL, called the rival federation’s first-ever convention “a fiasco.” He also charged that John L. Lewis made a deal with the Communist Party to destroy the AFL. Martin claimed to know from first-hand experience that the CIO representatives were instructed to secretly carry on character assassination campaigns against “all sincere leaders” of the AFL.[34] To Reub, CIO stories like these only served to reinforce what he’d already learned during the legislative session—the CIO, in its current form, was more interested in hurting the AFL than it was in serving the workers it claimed to represent.

President Green Addresses Illinois Delegates

The month leading up to the 1939 Illinois Labor Convention had been a chaotic time, to say the least. In that short period the world had witnessed the Nazi invasion of Poland, the British and French declaration of war, the US declaration of neutrality, and—the day before the convention’s start—the Soviet invasion of Poland from the east. Reuben was now used to sleepless nights spent conferring with his advisors, crafting official responses to the latest geopolitical events. By the convention’s eve, he felt no news could faze him; his biggest surprise, however, was yet to come.

The night before the convention was to begin, Reuben received word that William Green, the President of the American Federation of Labor, had decided to leave immediately for Springfield to address the delegates the following day. Reuben was ecstatic. Throughout his entire presidency he’d tried to bring the AFL leader to the ISFL convention, always to be politely turned down at the last minute. Finally, his Federation would not only receive the national organization’s president—a great honor in its own right—but it would do so on the eve of major world events, turning the eyes of the nation to Illinois. With mere hours to plan, the meticulous leader still left nothing to chance. He mapped out the route from the Chicago and Alton Railroad station to the convention hall and positioned every one of his 1,000 delegates to welcome the president as he arrived. They all followed as the Springfield band led the precession to the convention hall, with cabs carrying those unable to walk.[35] Once everyone had settled inside, Reuben took to the podium to introduce the illustrious guest:

We have a great labor leader in America, a man whose voice rings loudly and clearly in this great labor movement, whose words appeal to the minds and hearts of the people…He is animated, not by considerations of sordid gain nor self-aggrandizement, but by a desire to help raise the standards of the working people of the country. That man is William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor. For nine long years I have awaited the pleasure and privilege of presenting to the convention of the Illinois State Federation of Labor the President of the American federation of Labor. Today that pleasure and privilege has arrived, and I now present to you William Green, the greatest trade unionist in America, the President of the American Federation of Labor![36]

As Green appeared on stage to wild applause, he took care to stress how important Illinois had become to the labor movement as a whole. “I came all the way from Washington for the special purpose of bringing the greetings of the officers and members of the American Federation of Labor to this wonderful convention,” he told the crowd, “And I ask you to interpret my presence here this afternoon as evidence of the very deep interest which I hold, officially and personally, in the economic, social and industrial welfare of the great constituency which you have the honor to represent.”[37]

Green continued with a few more customary remarks and platitudes before turning to the heart of his speech: the war in Europe. Like Soderstrom had earlier that day, Green advocated for US neutrality in what he considered a “European conflict.” He went much further than Reuben did, however, in calling for strict enforcement of that neutrality. While Reuben “hoped” for peace, he was clearly preparing labor for war, going so far as to tell the delegates “God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always willing to guard and defend it.”[38] Green, in contrast, was adamantly against US involvement, willing to punish politicians who threatened it. “We must look to congress to save us and protect us from participating in European war,” he declared. “Congressmen who vote to send our young men to war across the sea will hear from us when they come up for re-election.”[39] It was a subtle difference, but one that would matter more as the conflict grew.

Still, despite their disagreements, Reuben was filled with pride as he watched President Green deliver his address. For the first time in his nine-year leadership, he had finally succeeded in bringing an AFL President to the Illinois convention, a huge honor for his state and a major accomplishment for his presidency. It was a success that augured well for the decade to come.

Honors Labor’s Faithful Past, Road Ahead

The real highlight of the convention for Reuben, however, wasn’t the AFL president’s appearance but the honoring of his old friend and colleague, Victor Olander. That year the Executive board presented the Secretary-Treasurer with an engraved gold wrist watch in honor of his years of service. Now just shy of 66, Victor was clearly beginning to show signs of age. He was no longer associated with the International Seamen’s Union, and had resigned from all his other posts and positions. He rarely had the energy to travel outside the state. But all this did little to diminish Soderstrom’s respect or affection for him; he beamed with adoration as he placed the watch on his old friend’s wrist.[40]

Vic was not the only friend that Reub honored that year. In December Father John Maguire, a nationally prominent labor advocate and a close friend of Reuben’s, was honored with a testimonial dinner in Chicago. Reuben was among the list of speakers for the event, a group that included Director John Ryan of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly, US Senator James Slattery, and CFL President John Fitzpatrick.[41] In his speech, Reuben spoke warmly of the man who had fought by his side for over 20 years. “His thorough understanding of labor and labor problems, coupled with a strong personal sympathy for his fellowmen, has endeared him to all who know him, and his work,” Reuben said. “One out of a lifetime, such as he, walks amongst us. He can ill be spared.”[42]

Events like these were opportunities for Reuben to reflect on the long, often bloody road and those he’d traveled it with. By now, he had been the President of the ISFL for nine years; years which had seen the onslaught of the Great Depression, the division of the CIO, and now the start of new world war. Still, despite it all, Soderstrom not only held the organization together but grew it, enhancing its fundamental relevance in Illinois and beyond. As he accepted his ninth gavel at the federation’s annual convention, President RG Soderstrom again reaffirmed his commitment to workers, saying with pride:

This is a sufficient number of gavels so that I could lend one to each member of the United States Supreme Court, so that these justices might not only conduct their court properly, but these union-made gavels might serve as a gentle reminder that they should act fairly and impartially when considering the constitutionality of labor legislation. I say I have a significant number of gavels now to lend one to each member of the Supreme Court. Certainly I would not give one of them away. I would not allow these gavels to leave my possession permanently. I treasure them all too highly for that.[43]

What made Reuben such an inspirational leader was not just his management of labor but his vision for it. To him, labor was not just an organization; it was a calling:

A man or woman who joins the union does so for a noble purpose. The longer they are in the organization, the more they see its benefits. They do not look for favoritism nor privileges over their fellow-workers or co-workers. All that they ask for is a square deal, and an occasional raise in salary, in proportion to the raise in the price of the necessities of life. They are invariably proud of their calling, feel that every penny they get is honestly earned, and in many cases, more than earned, and moreover recognize that they have no right to be satisfied—completely satisfied—until every evil and injustice besetting toilers has been swept from the face of the earth…

A working-man who earns his bread in the sweat of his face, has not done his full duty to himself, to his fellow-workers and to those depending upon him until he has joined the labor union of his calling, and has become one of those who strive for the uplift of mankind. So far as this world is concerned, there has been nothing, no movement, reform or otherwise, in the whole history of the world, that has brought as much happiness into the home as the trade union movement. It has educated the working-man’s children; it has made the life of the wife and the mother cheerful, and has brought an independence into the home which could not, and would not, exist were it not for the trade union movement. A working-man today, who does not belong to the union, would be about as helpless as a new born babe were it not for the men around him who do belong to a union…

Organized labor has been on the firing line, has been a courageous warrior in the field of industrial sanitation and industrial safety and to it belongs the credit for securing the enactment and enforcement of labor laws providing for the installation of safety devices and for regular inspection of factories, and every other place where wage-earners are employed. Children have been taken out of mills, mines and factories and placed in schools where they are given the opportunity to grow up into strong, healthy, fine young men and women with sufficient training and intelligence to organize and protect themselves against the brutalities of a pernicious industrial system. It is carrying on a magnificent struggle today with stubborn and obstinate wealth to insure wage-earners against the tragedy of unemployment as well as protect them against the helplessness of old age.[44]

As the 1930s came to a close, Reuben looked back upon his long tenure at the helm of organized labor in Illinois. As he did in his first speech as president, Reub once again pledged at the Convention his utmost integrity to all members:

I have been your presiding officer for nine years, and in relation to my own faithfulness to the fundamental principles and the highest aspirations of the labor movement I want to here, voluntarily, on the rostrum of our Springfield convention, pledge to you and through you to the men of labor, the women of labor and to the children who will take our places, that I will remain faithful to them. There will be no dishonorable act on my part which will detract from the triumph that will come to labor as long as I remain your presiding officer.[45]

A new decade was about to begin—one which held more surprises in store than even Reuben could imagine.

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