REUBEN RESPONDS TO NATIONAL VICTORY, LOSS

Soderstrom: “Government Can Accomplish Anything”

The year 1945 began in victory for Reuben and his allies. President Roosevelt, fresh off a successful re-election campaign, took the Oath of Office for an unprecedented fourth time on January 20th alongside his new Vice President, Harry Truman. Speaking to those gathered at the nation’s capital braving the winter cold as well as the countless others listening across the nation, FDR captured the feelings of a war-weary but hopeful nation, telling the country:

As I stand here today, having taken the solemn oath of office in the presence of my fellow countrymen—in the presence of our God—I know that it is America’s purpose that we shall not fail. In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just, an honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war. We can and we will achieve such a peace.[1]

There was strong reason for such optimism. In the past few months the United States and its Allies had seemingly steamrolled across Europe. Allied forces had turned the tide in the famous Battle of the Bulge, beating back Hitler’s last-ditch offensive in the Ardennes. German forces were now in full retreat, abandoning their heavy equipment and armor in their wake. In the Pacific, the Battle in Leyte Gulf left the Japanese Navy hopelessly crippled, its fleet almost completely destroyed. Just two weeks after his swearing-in Roosevelt departed for Yalta to plan the contours of the post-war world.

Across the nation a new feeling, complex and at times contradictory, began to take hold. On the one hand was a growing sense of ease and inevitability, a confidence in things to come. This was certainly true for organized labor, whose Political Action Committee (PAC) had just completed a successful campaign to re-elect not only the President but labor-friendly candidates across the country. Enduring withering attacks, including charges by the House Committee on Un-American Activities that the organization was “a subversive Communist organization” seeking to bring totalitarianism to the Unites States, labor’s PAC could credibly claim responsibility for the election of six governors, seventeen senators, and 120 congressmen. Organized labor “was weathering a war, when it might have expected major setbacks, with most of its New Deal advances intact and in some cases pushed ahead, with its membership and organizational strength increased, and with a political organization tested and not found wanting in several campaigns,” writes labor historian Joseph Rayback. “Never at the close of any war in the nation’s history had labor appeared so powerful.”[2]

This confidence, however, was mixed with a heavy apprehension about the peace to come, particularly among those who had lived through the trying years that followed the end of the last World War. Reuben was among those who worried that the War’s end could bring its own devils, including skyrocketing prices and massive unemployment. He was determined not to see history repeat itself; as a proud progressive, he believed the key to winning the peace was an active and interventionist government ready to do whatever was necessary to steady the country as it made the transition from a wartime economy. The war, he argued, had shown just what government was capable of achieving when it was willing to bring its full power to bear. Now he wanted to see the nation’s politicians and policymakers fight the emerging threats to America’s working class every inch as aggressively as they had the Nazis. As he wrote in his Labor Day address to laborers across Illinois:

Labor has learned some impressive lessons on the First World War of 1918 and in the Second World War of today. The most illustrious lesson is the clear demonstration that government can accomplish anything. Government can do anything. It can take the youth of America and send it to the battle-fronts of the world. It can regulate the amount of food, heat, tires or gasoline that the family might use. It can take over railroads. It can take over coal mines. It can take over Montgomery-Ward or any other obstreperous corporation. When government is properly directed it can defeat the enemies of democracy, it can make things favorable for the people who live under it. This is the proper function of government. Failure to use the government to secure needed legislation is potentially dangerous to the welfare of wage-earners because this would continue to keep things unfavorable to the people of this State.[3]

Reuben was determined not to fail. Through all the momentous and game-changing events of 1945, both foreseen and unexpected, Reuben worked to ensure that Illinois and the nation would have such a government properly directed, with strong laws protecting and supporting hard-working men and women. It would be no easy task.

The Philadelphia Charter and the AFL Bill of Rights

One of the central tenets of Soderstrom’s vision was the conviction that change had to happen not just on a state or even national level; labor had the opportunity and responsibility to re-fashion the world. Earlier Reub had reported to the workers of Illinois on international efforts to reform global labor policy. Nearly a year had passed since the International Labor office of the League of Nations had called on member states to take “all necessary steps” to “promote improvement in such fields as public health, housing, nutrition, education, the welfare of children, the status of women, conditions of employment, the remuneration of wage earners and independent producers, social security, standards of public services and general production.”[4] As editor of the Illinois Federation’s Weekly Newsletter, Soderstrom committed several issues to highlighting the meeting of the International Labor Conference at Philadelphia, where a post-war international agenda for Labor was being set. The declaration they produced, the “Philadelphia Charter,” was to Reuben a meaningful and promising start to expanding abroad American principles of labor—principles he as President of the ISFL had long championed. As he wrote:

The Conference declaration represents a great stride towards the freedom of the workers of all nations. The Illinois State Federation of Labor has long insisted that “The freedom of the individual person from enforced service in the field of labor is the basic freedom from which all other liberties flow and without which they are of no avail.” The Declaration of Philadelphia recognizes the validity of the principle thus set forth by the Illinois trade unionists through the Illinois State Federation of Labor.[5]

As 1945 dawned, Reub and labor looked forward not only to the end of the war but the creation of a new peace built on labor principles. As AFL President Green wrote in his 1945 New Year Message:

As we enter our fourth year of war, American workers are determined that it shall be the last. Labor issues this New Year warning to the enemy—that in the months ahead the soldiers of production will back up the fighting forces of the United Nations with the greatest output of planes, thanks, guns and ships in history…Victory over Hitler and Hirohito will not, however, end labor’s responsibilities to the cause of freedom. We will not consider this war won until our chief post-war objectives are won. They are (1) Establishment of permanent peace under world democracy and (2) Jobs for all in peace-time America…Great opportunities lie ahead of us after the war ends.[6]

This call for the creation of a lasting peace built on worker freedom and security was soon codified in an “AFL Bill of Rights.” Published in the spring of 1945, the International Bill of Rights proposed by the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor called for:

1. Freedom of belief and worship
2. Freedom of speech and the press
3. Freedom of Assembly
4. Freedom of Association
5. Freedom from interference with personal privacy of person, home, and property
6. Freedom from involuntary servitude
7. Right of individuals to a fair public trial when accused of crime
8. Right of individuals to speedy determination of criminal charges prior to detention.[7]

As a member of the American Federation of Labor Peace and Postwar Problems Committee, Reuben had played a substantial role in developing this Bill of Rights, and several of the specific protections enumerated had personal resonance. The rights to a fair public trial and speedy determination of charges before detention were not just lofty ideals but direct responses to the injunction orders that had long plagued labor leaders, including Reub himself. Soderstrom had often been sanctioned by these judicial decrees, issued without trial or formal charges, barring him from speaking to or assembling with striking workers; often his movement in his hometown of Streator was so restricted that he became a virtual prisoner in his own home, denied the right to even make a visit to friends and family. Since these orders could stand against him for months on end without any legal proceeding, organized labor had no way to challenge these laws by fiat, which typically stayed in place until a given strike was broken by management. Reuben had long held these injunctions to be a gross violation of his personal rights, and now that he had the opportunity he was intent on codifying such orders as not only immoral but illegal.

The condemnation of involuntary servitude was also an issue dear to Reuben’s heart. Throughout the war, he and Secretary Victor Olander had opposed any and all attempts to prevent by force workers leaving their jobs, compelling them to work in the name of national emergency. To Soderstrom and Olander, forcing men and women to serve their employers without consent was expressly forbidden by the 13th amendment of the constitution which declared “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”[8] As Olander pronounced at the Principia Conference on Employer-Employee Relations that February, with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment:

The American workers then attained the full status of personal freedom under the constitution. This change in legal status was revolutionary. They then, and not until then, came under the beneficent shelter of the Bill of Rights. The United States of America thereupon became the only great nation in the world to inscribe in a written constitution not subject to suspension a declaration of the complete personal freedom of all individuals in the field of civilian labor. The government thereby declared it would no longer endow the “master” with the power to hold the “servant.”[9]

Now, with the war fast coming to a close, America had the opportunity and responsibility to honor this right for its own citizenry as an example to nations around the globe. Olander continued:

Why hide our great virtue of personal freedom even from our own people? Why not proclaim it from the housetops until every man woman and child under our flag becomes fully aware of the great truth that we are a completely free people, the only free people the world has ever known! When someone would point to our mistakes, our errors, or our sins, we can truthfully say that we have not fully known ourselves, that we have failed to make the best use of our great liberty because we have been largely ignorant of its true nature…In a very real sense, our Republic has been true to its destiny from the very beginning. There are irresistible forces within the very nature of our national life that will continue to carry us forward. We would do well to explore them. There is, indeed, something very great ’hidden beyond the ranges’ within our national being which we shall eventually find.[10]

For Reuben, Victor, and countless others, the country—the world even—appeared on the verge of a new promised land, and in this uniquely malleable moment the American principles of freedom and justice, as defined in the constitution and safeguarded by workers united, would be the key to ending the long exile of oppression and war.

Roosevelt Dies, Truman Ascends to Presidency

On April 12, 1945, Franklin D Roosevelt died in the living room of his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia. For the nation that he had led through both the Great Depression and the Second World War, it was more than losing a President—it was more akin to the death of a family member. As Reuben wrote in the days following the death of a man he had often called a friend:

The death of President Roosevelt is a tragic event for all mankind. In every land the peoples of the earth were looking towards him as the great humanitarian who, while leading the United Nations to victory in the great war, was earnestly and energetically seeking the means of assuring permanent peace for the future. He had become recognized everywhere as the very personification of the spirit of America. The great labor movement of the country will feel his loss keenly.[11]

Yet, labor could take comfort in the fact that his successor, Harry Truman, was a man they had come to trust. In the lead up to the 1944 election, President Roosevelt had preferred his head of the offices of Economic Stabilization and War Mobilization, James Byrnes, to be his Vice President. Labor, however, was strongly opposed to the man popularly known as the “Assistant President.” Byrnes was firm believer in compulsory labor, and as Director had repeatedly sought to freeze workers to their jobs, a move opposed by organized labor and employers alike.

Truman, in contrast, had earned labor’s trust during the course of the war. As head of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, the then-Senator led a successful investigation of war production that rooted out waste, inefficiency, and war profiteering. The Truman Committee (as it was popularly known) soon developed a reputation for honesty and integrity, and was popular in labor circles. In part through labor’s support, Roosevelt was persuaded to accept Truman as his Vice Presidential candidate. Soderstrom said, in the wake of the President’s passing:

All eyes turn hopefully towards his successor, the new President, Harry S. Truman. Mourning the loss of the old great leader, the people of the nation, as if one voice, are calling for a full measure of support for the man who now is at the helm of the Ship of State. Any who fails to respond will encounter public resentment. In its sadness, America is now more united than ever before in its history.[12]

Victory and Cautious Optimism

Such unity was soon rewarded. Less than one month after the President’s passing, the German High Command signed an unconditional surrender of all German forces, officially ending the war in Europe. The news was greeted with cheers across the nation. As now President Truman proclaimed to the jubilant nation:

The allied armies, through sacrifice and devotion and with God’s help, have won from Germany a final and unconditional surrender. The western world has been freed of the evil forces which for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of millions upon millions of freeborn men. They have violated their churches, destroyed their homes, corrupted their children, and murdered their loved ones. Our armies of liberation have restored freedom to those suffering peoples, whose spirit and will the oppressors could never enslave.[13]

While thankful for the “solemn but glorious” hour of peace, the President urged the country not to forget or shrink from the task still at hand:

Much remains to be done. The victory won in the West must now be won in the East. The whole world must be cleansed of the evil from which half the world has been freed. United, the peace-loving nations have demonstrated in the West that their arms are stronger by far than the might of dictators or the tyranny of military cliques that once called us soft and weak. The power of our people to defend themselves against all enemies will be proved in the Pacific war as it has been proved in Europe.[14]

Reuben, for his part, did not linger on the victory. While he reproduced the President’s Proclamation in full, he did not issue any accompanying statement or speech. In fact, save for Truman’s remarks, Soderstrom’s Weekly Newsletter makes no further mention of Germany’s surrender. The pages are instead filled with news on the Illinois and federal legislative sessions and court cases; updates on Federal school legislation receive more ink than all words related to VE-day combined.

For Reub, the absence of war was not victory, and mistaking it for such was a dangerous exercise. The fight was still going, and neither the surrender of Germany nor Japan would mark its end. War itself, he maintained, was the enemy, one that had to be fought as fiercely at home as it was abroad. As he wrote on Labor Day of that year:

Enlightened people everywhere are beginning to understand that there should be some better way of settling international questions and issues than to shoot it out. Even victorious peoples have misgivings about the efficacy of war. Grave doubts are often expressed with respect to the good attained through force and violence, through war and killing. People of good will become finer, it is true, under the stress and emergency of conflict and struggle. Those who do not possess these fine qualities, however, are caught in war hatreds, become resentful and grow progressively coarser and spiteful. For the common man no permanent good has come out of warfare during our time and now the backwash of international conflict threatens to create more and greater economic problems than those of the past.[15]

REUBEN’S LEGISLATIVE FIGHT

Calls for Labor College, Ambitious Agenda against Strong Opposition

Soderstrom may have despised war, but he still spoiled for an intellectual tussle about policy. This was especially true in the Illinois statehouse, where he hoped to reverse the losses labor had suffered in the 1943 session. Republican control of both the House and Senate did not bode well, however; as Reuben wrote at the year’s start:

While much could be done for wage-earners nothing really startlingly beneficial or progressive is expected from the coming session of the Illinois Legislature. The prevailing platform pledge, made by the dominant political party to the effect that elected members of this party would ‘safeguard and protect all legislative gains which Illinois labor has heretofore won’ does not advocate needed new legislation for working people.[16]

Still, long odds had never stopped Soderstrom before and he showed no indication that they would now. The moment was too crucial and the stakes too high, he said, to turn away or back down:

There is much to do on the home front. A multiplicity of problems growing out of reconversion from a war economy to a peace economy will confront the lawmakers. Employment for demobilized soldiers and re-employment for workers thrown out of jobs in war plants are among the adjustments which must be made. Unless admittedly needed post-war legislation is enacted during the war in all likelihood it will never be passed.[17]

Despite facing fierce resistance Reuben unveiled an ambitious and wide-ranging legislative agenda. He wanted to improve existing laws on unemployment insurance, workman’s compensation and occupational disease, old age assistance, child labor, and equal pay for women. He also sought to bring Illinois labor laws governing intrastate industries up to the standards that employees of interstate industries enjoyed under federal protections with a new anti-injunction law, a wage and hour law, and a “little Wagner” act that would forbid unfair labor practices.

Reuben also sought a bevy of new bills aimed at helping state employees, from wage increases, semi-monthly pay and a minimum wage for teachers to universal access to civil service exams so those without a high school or college degree could apply for public service. As someone whose schooling ended in the 7th grade, Reuben knew very well that a lack of formal education did not mean a lack of intelligence or ability, and he wanted to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background or wealth, could serve their government.

While moving to ease education requirements for public service, Soderstrom also called for the establishment of a new Labor College at the University of Illinois. As a former chairman of the House Education Committee, and twice during his 16-year tenure as a state representative and a member of the Non-Alumni Advisory committee for the University of Illinois, his voice carried considerable weight. A Labor College made common sense, he declared, arguing:

The Labor College will have a real trade union division which will supply labor experts, labor analysts and labor economists to look after the needs of those working to advance labor’s great cause. The Labor College will be set up to serve the working people of Illinois just as the College of Agriculture in the University of Illinois serves the farmers of this state.[18]

Lastly, Reuben called for voter reform. Secret primaries would allow voters to cast their ballots according to their conscience, he reasoned, while extending polling hours would make voting possible for the thousands of Illinois laboring men and women who were otherwise unable to vote during the working day.

Manufacturers’ Men Use Dirty Tricks to Cheat Women, Children

The fight was every inch as treacherous as Reuben had anticipated. As they had in years passed, Soderstrom and Olander made sure to attend every bill hearing, pushing their bills through often hostile committees. That March Victor took point on the anti-injunction bill, facing off against Otto Jaburek of the Associated Employers of Illinois and David Clarke of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association before the Senate judiciary committee.[19] With the help of Senator John Lee of Chicago, Victor was able to get the proposed act, designed to bring Illinois law into conformity with the federal Norris-La Guardia Act, reported out of committee.[20] Reuben, meanwhile, worked the House Committee on Civil Service on behalf of the Civil Service legislation, getting his bills reported with unanimous recommendation.[21] They both also worked with Lottie Holman O’Neill, a veteran legislator and longtime friend and ally of Soderstrom’s, to hold a hearing on a new Equal Pay for Equal Work Bill. Unlike the Act that had passed in the previous session, this bill would make employees who discriminate on account of gender liable for both lost wages and damages.[22]

While Reub and his allies were able to get some bills reported out of committee early, the Equal Pay bill fell victim to the “quorum conundrum,” with opponents motioning for a committee roll call any time a pro-labor legislator voted to move a bill out of committee. As Reuben explained to his supporters:

Due to the fact that practically all members of both branches of the Illinois legislature serve on several committees, and hearings are going on constantly when the houses are not in session, it is rarely ever that a quorum of a committee sits through an entire hearing, and frequently bills are reported out with but a few members of the committee present, the question of ‘Quorum’ being rarely ever raised—excepting on bills introduced on behalf of labor.[23]

These quorum calls weren’t reserved for the Equal Pay Act. Anti-labor legislators also used quorum delays to hold back unemployment compensation amendments, labor relations bills, and more. Before long the Industrial Affairs Committee, where the quorum delay was invoked at nearly every meeting, became a carnival act. Reuben reported:

The Industrial Affairs Committee of the Illinois House of Representatives has not been permitted to function properly at any time during the present session of the legislature. At almost every meeting of this committee, some member of the committee, friendly to the Manufacturers’ Association and unfriendly to the common people, has raised the question of ‘quorum.’

When the question of “quorum” was raised last Wednesday, Representative Allison, who was in attendance at the hearing, arose to his feet and asked Representative George A. Williston, chairman of the committee, “How many bills have been considered by this committee and reported out this session?” The Chairman answered, “None.” Representative Allison then remarked, “This committee ought to be disbanded. I intend to start a move to wipe out this utterly useless misnamed Committee on Industrial Affairs.”[24]

Of all the disgraceful acts of the Industrial Affairs Committee, perhaps none was more shocking than its treatment of the Women and Minors Bill. This proposed act, meant to reenact minimum wage standards for women and children, was put before the senate committee on June 28. Reuben and Victor both attended to argue for the bill, alongside President Agnes Nestor of the Chicago Women’s Trade Union League and Director Gordon of the State Department of Labor. In preparation, it was decided that Reuben should follow the bill’s sponsor to open arguments in support, while Olander would act as the closer, saving his speech for rebuttal.

After Reuben and the others had spoken in support and the Illinois Manufactures’ Association finished their argument in opposition, Victor got up to speak. During the transition, Senator Ray Paddock walked out for a moment (presumably to use the facilities), allowing Senator Hugh Luckey to cut Victor off mid-sentence and call quorum. The Chairman quickly announced there was no quorum present, closed the hearing, and darted out of the room before Paddock could make it back from the bathroom. Meanwhile, an army of lobbyists from the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association formed a human blockade outside the committee room door to prevent other committee members from getting in before the Chairman could escape.

Supporters of the bill were nearly apoplectic with rage, Reub included. “Dirty ball” was nothing new in Springfield, but this seemed to be a new low. Not in the recent memory of the Senate had a gang of lobbyists (described by one Senator as a “Hindenburg Line”) physically barred Senators from entering their own committee meetings! When the Senate gathered later that afternoon, Senator Clyde Trager went before the full assembly to describe what had happened. When it became clear that he was going to ask the Senate to remove the bill from the Chairman’s grasp and put it to a full vote, Lieutenant Governor Cross, presiding over the Senate, quickly recognized anti-labor Senator Ed Laughlin, who moved to adjourn before the Senate could act.

The Senators, however, had had enough. Whether they supported or opposed the bill, they could no longer tolerate efforts to prevent their fellow legislators from even putting it up for a vote. Laughlin’s motion to adjourn was rejected by a vote of 32 to 0, and the Women and Minors Minimum Wage Bill was discharged from the Industrial Affairs Committee and put to a full vote. Free from the hands of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association and its stooges, the bill passed with several votes to spare.[25]

Soderstrom to Con-Con Supporters: “Tell It to Hitler!”

Legislative shenanigans weren’t limited to the Senators and Representatives in Springfield, however. At the start of 1945 many in Illinois began clamoring for a new constitution convention, or “Con Con” for short, an issue that would bedevil Soderstrom for years to come. Those who remembered the last failed Con Con, held in the wake of the First World War, largely opposed such a move. Reuben thought it was a particularly daft idea, and he didn’t mince words about it. That January, Soderstrom made headlines with his vocal opposition, saying:

An attempt is now being made to provide for the calling of a constitutional convention to revamp the basic law of Illinois. Those engaged in this campaign say that the present state of the constitution is ‘a horse and buggy affair’ fit only for the pioneer days. The plain implication is that they believe that constitutions deteriorate with the mere passage of time. In effect they allege, unwittingly perhaps, that the American form of government, in its federal and state constitutions, is a wobbly structure, the foundations of which must always be insecure at some point. ‘Tell it to Hitler!’ is sufficient reply for the moment.[26]

This wasn’t to say that Reuben rejected the idea of a revised constitution outright; there were some changes he supported. But his prior experience led him to the firm conviction that such revisions should not be attempted during or immediately after a war. As he wrote to legislators considering the Con Con:

Calm consideration, even tempered deliberation, is difficulty in time of peace, and every thoughtful person knows that it is impossible in time of war. Constitutions should not be written in stirred-up war-time atmosphere. Writing of a new constitution ought not to be attempted during even the immediate post-war years. At least five years ought to elapse after the shooting stops. Less than five years is likely to produce a proposed new constitution similar to the one of 25 years ago. In all likelihood, it would not, and ought not, survive the wrath of the people.[27]

Soderstrom faced stiff opposition from all sides, however. Liberal politicians, including the powerful Chicago Mayor Kelly, were eager to change congressional reapportionment to favor the more heavily Democratic north, while the Republican Governor Green was equally excited by the idea of strengthening the power of his office.[28] Even the usually friendly Chicago Sun attacked Reuben. In an editorial entitled “Facts for Mr. Soderstrom,” the newspaper attacked Reub as a reactionary, holding back the state from the “liberal” changes constitutional conventions had brought other states, using neighboring Missouri as an example.

Reuben threw the Sun’s example back in their faces, noting that the new Missouri constitution employed clever language to make segregated education the law of the land, unalterable by any legislature. He sarcastically forgave the editors of the Sun for their sloppy research, writing:

Well, constitutions make dry reading. They are difficult to interpret. A good deal of thought is necessary to a complete understanding of the terms used. Newspaper editors are busy men—very busy! Editorial rooms are noisy, bustling places. The ‘news’ must be rushed to print. There is little time or opportunity for concentrated study on such a heavy subject as constitutional law![29]

The Sun, wounded by Reub’s jousting, returned with more personal and vicious attacks. Soderstrom, meanwhile, received many words of support, including more than a few from some unlikely sources. Even industrialists like Harold McLain, president of The Railways Ice Company of Chicago, sent letters to Reuben reading:

I observe with some disgust and anger the article in The Chicago Sun yesterday captioned: “United Against the People” and which indulges in a typical, vile smear against you because you happen to differ with the Sun’s editorial viewpoint…I am sure a great many good citizens, in addition to your friends, experienced only a sensation of gratitude for your courage and adherence to principle when they saw this unfair article in the Sun.[30]

Ultimately, Reuben prevailed. Despite enormous political pressure, the Illinois House of Representatives voted 81 to 65 against calling a convention. Reuben had prevailed against some of the state’s most adept politicians, further strengthening his hand in Springfield.[31]

Counts Legislative Wins, Attacks Opposition

The defeat of the dreaded Con Con was only the start. As the 1945 legislative session wound to a close, it became clear that labor was about to enjoy an unexpectedly fruitful year. In all, over forty pro-labor bills were passed. From education to health care to environmental protection, there seemed to be no corner of public life Reub and the ISFL left untouched. Thanks to ISFL legislation passed in the 1945 session, physicians and hospitals could no longer refuse emergency care just because patients were unable to pay. Slums were cleared and replaced with new, affordable housing. Rural communities were given the resources necessary to construct public libraries for their citizens. Public positions were opened to people from all walks of life, along with better salaries and benefits. And of course there were improvements to unemployment compensation, workmen’s compensation, women’s rights, the rights of minors, and veterans’ benefits. Perhaps most importantly, Reuben’s Labor College also became a reality. The University of Illinois received $150,000 for the purpose of inaugurating labor courses.

In the end only a handful of laws Reuben pushed for didn’t pass. The injunction limitation bill and the wages and hours bill Soderstrom had sought to bring Illinois protections in line with federal law failed to receive enough votes. Reub’s voter protection and extended polling hours bills also failed to pass. The legislative failure that angered Soderstrom the most, however, was that of the Equal Pay Bill, which after such a hard fought victory in the Senate never got the chance for a floor vote in the House. In his closing legislative review that year, Reub bitterly wrote:

The House Committee on Industrial Affairs is notoriously the burying place for Illinois labor legislation. Its members are, figuratively, merely legislative grave-diggers and pallbearers, some even with sneers of contempt for Illinois labor, and others with sincere tears of sympathy for the workers, but all participants in the burial process. The officers of the Illinois State Federation of Labor publicly characterized the situation as “unconscionable.”[32]

Unfortunately, the Committee on Industrial Affairs wasn’t labor’s greatest foe that session. Governor Green, long an opponent of Illinois labor, vetoed two of Reuben’s hardest-won pieces of legislation. The first, an environmental protection bill Soderstrom had been advocating for years, would have placed a small tax of four cents per ton on companies that strip-mined coal, with the funds collected used to restore land devastated by the strip-mining process.

As stunning as that veto was, Green’s second veto was an even bigger body blow. Out of all the favorable labor bills enacted, Soderstrom was proudest of the union recognition law. This bill gave Illinois trade unions direct and official recognition, and allowed state and local governments to collectively bargain with public employees. While Governor Green cited constitutional concerns in his veto message, according to ISFL attorney Dan Carmell the weakness of such claims indicated to him that “the import of what the Governor says is that he does not want labor unions to have the results of their bargaining put into writing.”[33]

Despite these setbacks, Soderstrom was greatly pleased with the overall result the ISFL had achieved. Later that year at the Illinois Federation’s Annual Convention, he boasted:

There wasn’t a single legislative proposal which was dangerous or harmful to the welfare of the workers enacted into law… I am very happy and very proud to be able to report to you that the work of the Illinois State Federation of Labor in the last session of the general assembly can again be chalked up as a great success.[34]

PLANNING FOR A POST-WAR NATION

Leads National Response to Unemployment Compensation Problems

While Soderstrom’s victories in the Illinois legislature were impressive, Reuben’s finest hour in 1945 came on the national stage – almost by accident. The surrender of the Japanese on August 10, one day after the bombing of Nagasaki, took American post-war planners by surprise. Most officials preparing for the transition to peacetime had expected the war to go on for at least another year. This left many government services and security programs overwhelmed, including unemployment compensation. Those responsible for delivering services likewise often took out their frustrations about being overwhelmed and underfunded on the very people they were supposed to help. Before long Reuben’s tiny Springfield office was overwhelmed with letters detailing abuse and humiliation at the hands of unemployment administrators. That winter Reub wrote to Illinois Director of Labor Robert Gordon seeking relief:

Dear Friend Gordon,

Numerous complaints have come to me against the officious and dictatorial attitude of those administering the Unemployment Compensation law in LaSalle County…The personnel in the Streator division act as if the funds were coming out of their personal reserves and are charged with saying many sharp things to unemployed people in the presence of others, which has proven embarrassing. This type of conduct is not only an unnecessary display of bad manners but is very harmful to Governor Green’s administration.[35]

Many seeking benefits in the months following V-J day shared similar experiences, and it was with these stories in hand that Reuben embarked for Washington to address the issue. For the last twelve years, the US Department of Labor had held an annual National Labor Conference on Labor Legislation, and Reuben had traditionally attended as an Illinois representative. These conferences had historically been rather one-sided; “In the past,” explained the ISFL Weekly Newsletter, “A.F. of L. participation was limited pretty much to a policy of going along quietly, with polite watchfulness.”[36] This time, however, Reuben was preparing for an altogether different affair. On the evening of December 4, the night before the general Legislative Conference was scheduled to begin, Soderstrom met with Washington AFL officials to discuss using the Conference to craft a national plan on Unemployment Compensation policy to address the abuse and humiliation so many unemployed workers faced. They decided to request the US Secretary of Labor to appoint a special committee to craft an official stance. Lewis Schwellenbach, who had replaced Francis Perkens as Secretary of Labor, honored the request, and the following day a committee was formed. It wasn’t long before Reuben, who had opened the Conference with a fiery speech that had stirred the delegation, was named Chairman, presiding over a vast group including representatives of not only the AFL but the Railroad Brotherhood and the CIO, as well as Labor Commissioners. Familiar with the problems at hand and firm in what he wanted done, Reub ran the committee like a well oiled machine, and before the day’s end his committee completed a full report that called for:

1. State Unemployment Compensation agencies to interpret and administer their laws in a liberal manner and to stop trying to humiliate and embarrass both workers and veterans registering for unemployment.
2. President Truman to veto bills returning employment offices to the States (making them less accountable and harder to oversee).
3. An increase in the weekly benefits to at least $25 and an extension to at least 26 weeks.

When the plan was presented to the full Conference the following day it met stiff resistance from conservative members. According to a later account of the event (most likely written by Olander):

Sharp clashing developed all through the debate as President Soderstrom and his steering committee defended the report. The defense was able—referred to by those who watched it—as brilliant! The report was finally adopted by an overwhelming vote of 78 to 8….

It was a great victory for the AF of L because the leadership offered by the American Federation of Labor representatives was wholeheartedly subscribed to and accepted not only by Railroad Brotherhood delegates, but also unanimously approved by the representatives of the CIO. President Soderstrom was showered with congratulations on every side. For him it was a breathtaking personal triumph and he was smilingly happy about it all. Without planning to do so he had given the national representatives of the American labor movement a sample of the aggressive and militant leadership which has made the reputation of the Illinois State Federation of Labor singularly outstanding throughout the United States.[37]

Calls for Reconciliation between Workers, Veterans

While Reuben’s victory in Washington set a high standard, many veterans returning from war found increasing difficulty returning to civilian life. Many of the laborers who had worked so hard to help build the engines of war likewise found themselves out of a job, searching desperately for new work. This of course led to rising tension between wage earners and veterans, a pressure eagerly fed by the popular media. As 1945 came to a close, Reuben saw the convergence of veteran and wage-earner interests as the single most important goal of organized labor. That Labor Day, Reub took the opportunity to deliver not a defense of labor or a listing of accomplishments, but a message of goodwill, a call for reconciliation between those who fought the war and those who built the tools to wage it:

Various attempts are being made through publicity channels, in industry and in Congress and other governmental places, to pit the veteran against the wage-earner, and particularly against the union worker. These tendencies are dangerous and should be cried down - nipped in the bud - before they develop into class antagonisms that could produce dire divisions between fine groups of veterans and workers—Real Americans—who need to be united through this post-war period.[38]

For Reuben, these groups were not wholly separate classes. Just the opposite—they were, at the end of the day, one and the same:

When the member of the armed forces is returned to civilian life he starts looking for employment. He wants useful and remunerative work. He joins the ranks of wage-earners. If he belongs to a union, the path to his job is straight and direct because he is protected by his union agreement, which goes much further than any law designed to protect job rights of veterans.

Over seventy percent of our soldiers and sailors come from the homes of wage-earners. Hundreds of thousands of them are union members. Those who do not belong to unions will be cordially invited to become members when they come in to industry at the end of the war. Labor unions are conscious of the necessity of maintaining good wages, decent hours of work, and proper and comfortable conditions and should be given full credit for preserving these features and advantages at home while those in the Army and Navy were wearing the uniform of the United States.[39]

In the end, according to Soderstrom, workers and veterans must be united to overcome the mistakes of the past and build the future that seemed so possible, if so fragile:

Workers respect our veterans. And the majority of veterans do respect our workers. The common people must not be divided against themselves through the maneuvering of war-worshipping Tories who are attempting control of government, nor by reactionaries, who can be classified as dictators or industrial overlords. The majority of the veterans, union wage-earners, and the public officials are good, wholesome people, and should not be tricked into hating each other.[40]

By war’s end, there was little doubt that the key to winning the peace lay in making the veteran a union worker, and in helping union workers see veterans as brothers.

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