REUBEN WEIGHS IN

1950 began a decade of unprecedented change. No corner of life—from entertainment to politics to (of course) labor—was left untouched. By the start of the decade America was more populous and prosperous than ever before. The post-war baby boom had produced over 30 million babies by the decade’s start. Televisions were rapidly replacing radios as the household entertainment medium of choice; by the start of 1950 Americans were buying 100,000 TVs a week! Those with a preference for the movies (like Reuben) could instead take their car to one of the over 2,000 drive-in movie theatres that had popped up across the country in the last three years to gaze on the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando.[1] Of course, the most frequent drive-in visitors were the newly-named teenagers, young Americans between the ages of 13 to 19 who were being catered (and sold) to in unprecedented fashion. Mechanical marvels like the electric clothes dryer and the garbage disposal became ubiquitous, filling new homes that were being built in suburbs, pre-planned and mass-produced housing complexes complete with their own schools, community halls, and shopping centers. Across the nation, there was a growing sense that an old age was ending and new one was being born.

Accompanying that sensation was the deep desire to record and memorialize the era. Labor was no exception to this impulse. From the 30th Anniversary of Chicago’s Federation News to the mid-century edition of the Illinois Labor Bulletin to the centennial celebration of Samuel Gomper’s birth, labor seemed every inch as eager as the rest of the nation to make 1950 a year of remembrance. It wasn’t long before ISFL President Reuben Soderstrom received requests from across the country to contribute his thoughts and experience. The Illinois State Federation Archives from 1950 are filled with requests from local and national editors, directors, and chairmen asking Reub to write pieces for their paper or speak at their commemorative events.

Soderstrom didn’t hesitate to firmly establish the role he and the ISFL played in bringing legislative and economic rights and gains to the working men and women of Illinois—and, in fact, the nation. The story of the ISFL could, he said, be summed up in one word: progress. As he detailed in his contribution to the Federation News:

For a period of sixty-eight years the Illinois State Federation of Labor has been a progressive leader of organized working men and women in this State. Continued progress marks the history of the Illinois State Federation of Labor since its establishment—progress in its legislative affairs, progress in its fiscal standing, progress in civic consciousness, progress in human relationships. These relationships have been consistently friendly throughout the years. All of its progress comes from public acceptance of our aims and ideals, mutual respect between Illinois management and workers, understanding of each other’s problems, and recognition of a common interest.[2]

It was this mechanism of change, an altering of the public mind and discourse rather than an agenda of revolution, which Reuben was most proud of. He wanted posterity to record the philosophy, policy and political practice of the AFL broadly and his ISFL specifically. As he wrote in one of his many commemorative essays that year:

Over the years the Illinois State Federation of Labor has worked to implement freedom and economic power. A free union is one which is controlled exclusively by its members. It is not dominated by employers, by a political party, nor by the government. This tradition is as old as the American labor movement.

While union members in Illinois have shown little interest in revolutionary philosophies, workers of this State have taken a particular active interest in state and national legislative labor issues; Illinois workers have, and are, vigorously supporting Social Security proposals, Minimum Wage and other Federal labor laws, and opposing, at the same time, the Lea, Hobbs, and Taft-Hartley enactments, which are oppressive and harmful to labor.

While a labor party as such has never commanded their interest or support to any great extent, Illinois unions, through proper labor agencies, endorse or oppose individual candidates for public office, regardless of their party affiliations; they support and lobby for legislation, and maintain legislative agents to represent their interests in Congress and the Illinois legislature. They operate on a non-partisan basis—partisan only to principles.[3]

FIGHTING FOR THE COMMON GOOD

Standing for Welfare, Against Communism

Reuben’s portrayal of a labor movement democratically governed, legislatively focused, and “partisan only to principles” was a visionary statement of what all unions could and should be. Sadly, the country’s press-driven (and manufacturer-funded) impression of labor was a portrait of an organization that was autocratic, pseudo-communist, and wholly owned by the Democratic Party. All too often over the past half-century, unions and their leadership had given substance to such caricatures. John L. Lewis, arguably the nation’s most recognizable face of labor, was famous for his dictatorial style of leadership, while the organization he helped found, the CIO, had long been plagued by its Communist ties.

That was beginning to change, however. In November of 1949, the CIO decided to definitively deal with the issue, beginning with two Communist-dominated affiliates: The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) and the United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers of America (FE). As Arthur Goldberg details in his book AFL-CIO: Labor United:

The 1949 convention of the CIO took two decisive steps. First, it expelled the UE and the FE by direct vote of the convention. It took this direct action against them because of their open defiance of CIO principles and policies and their open and notorious adherence to the Communist party line. Second, the convention created a new procedure for the expulsion of affiliates. This was done by adding to the constitution a new section (Article VI, Section 10) authorizing the executive board, by a two-thirds vote, to expel any union “the policies and activities of which are consistently directed toward the achievement of the program or the purposes of the Communist Party, any Fascist organization, or other totalitarian movement, rather than the objectives and policies set forth in the constitution of the CIO.[4]

These actions weren’t occurring in a vacuum. In October of 1949, the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong defeated the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek and declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China. News of Mao’s success in the populous country shocked the American public and sparked fears that the fall of China was only the beginning of a broader Communist advance. Those fears were seemingly realized on June 25, 1950, when Communist North Korea, a proxy of the Chinese Communists, invaded their democratic Southern counterpart. By early July, U.S. troops were on the ground fighting on South Korea’s behalf.

This aggressive action reverberated throughout the world of work. Soderstrom immediately issued a statement and subsequent articles placing Illinois labor squarely in support of US action. As he declared in his essay unambiguously entitled “Labor supports Uncle Sam”:

The end of the “cold war” came early in July of this year when the United States of America decided to intervene in the Korean civil conflict, between the Communists in the North and those who were trying to maintain a democratic form of government to the South, in that troubled country. Both nationally and internationally nothing is more vital to advance the principles of democracy and freedom than the work of our labor movement. It is especially important to let the world see its operation in time of war.

In Korea wage earners have been the object of infiltration and communistic propaganda and something concrete should be done in the field of American propaganda to counteract this evil program. The free trade unions of America, better than any other group, can demonstrate to these peoples of the earth, that totalitarianism is not interested in their welfare. The entire American labor movement is a living, breathing, fighting protest against the communistic philosophy of absolutism which makes human beings slaves of an all-powerful state.[5]

The article highlights a key component of Reub’s philosophy on the connection between unionism and democracy. Unions weren’t just noncommunist, but America’s best weapon against it. Anti-Communists, Soderstrom argued, needed strong, healthy unions to lift up as an example to the world how a democratic nation cares for its working poor. As Reuben wrote in the Illinois Labor Bulletin that same month:

We believe the way to defeat communism, or any other extremism, is to give the people, including the workers, something better. Through trade union freedom, the mid-century edition of the Illinois Labor Bulletin finds the American worker better off than any other wage earner in the world.[6]

Of course, if America hoped to provide such an example to the workers of the world, it had to do more than pay lip service to laborers. A strong and democratic America, according to Soderstrom, was one that provided for its citizens’ welfare through progressive policies. Week after week, Reuben featured articles and authors in his Weekly Newsletter calling for national responsibility with regards to the common good. Federal Security Administrator Oscar Ewing, whose article “Who Is Afraid of the Welfare State” Reub featured in July of that year, was one such example:

Last fall we heard a good deal of talk about the so-called Welfare State. The idea seemed to be that there was something wrong about being interested in the general welfare. You don’t hear that talk any more. The reactionaries did such a good job of advertising the aims of the New Deal that they quickly discovered, to their horror, that the American people were pretty much in favor of these aims. Nobody is scared of the Welfare State except a few selfish, near-sighted reactionaries.

The reason, of course, is that Americans have more faith in themselves than the reactionaries have. We are not afraid of using government as a servant of the people. We are not afraid of pooling our resources in order to protect one another from the hazards of daily life.[7]

Truman Proposes National Health Insurance

Of all the hazards that working men and women faced, none were more perilous or potentially destructive than those of injury and illness. These threats to health were ones that Reuben had spent a lifetime fighting, working as recently as the last legislative session to increase benefits paid to workers through Illinois’s Occupational Disease and Workplace Compensation laws. Still, Soderstrom believed, such efforts didn’t go far enough. When President Truman called for a National Health Insurance funded by payroll deductions, Reuben came out strongly in support, stating unequivocally:

National Health Insurance has the support of the labor movement. It is the only constructive answer to the crisis in American health. Thousands of Americans are suffering ill health, or risking death, because they cannot afford to pay for the medical and hospital care that might make them well. The only way to solve this problem is to establish an insurance system that would let people help pay for medical care when they are well and working, so that they would not have to face the nightmare of huge bills when they are sick in bed.[8]

President Truman made a strong case for National Health Insurance, contending that there were “certain rights which ought to be assured to every American citizen [including] the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health [and] the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of sickness.”[9] Despite this demonstrated need and the President’s best efforts, Truman had been unable to budge the Congress. Frustrated supporters placed the blame for this failure on many different quarters, from moneyed special interests to the President’s desegregation of the Army, which cost him Southern Democratic support.

Reuben tended to discount such arguments, believing the core problem to be a lack of popular, rather than legislative, support. Laser-focused on public opinion and its influencers, he placed the blame squarely on doctors and their professional organizations. In 1949 and 1950, the American Medical Association (AMA) made an unprecedented push against Truman’s plan, throwing their support behind an alternative bill introduced by Senator Taft (author of labor’s hated Taft-Hartley law) that would instead provide workers with coupons (subsidies) to purchase private insurance. Fearing their financial interests were at stake, doctors spent over $1.5 million, more than any lobbying effort to date, to destroy any hope of national insurance. Instead of reasoned arguments about the benefits of costs of national health insurance, the AMA ran expensive, full-page ads smearing the President’s plan as a Communist plot. As Melissa Stone of the University of Miami’s Humanities in Medicine writes:

In the 1950s the AMA went to unprecedented lengths and used extreme measures to insure the defeat of Truman’s health care bill, and many historians believed that it worked. During the course of the campaign, the AMA contradicted and condemned the government. The campaign encroached on the public’s lives by telling them what they should do and believe, and if they didn’t listen to the AMA, they would be un-American—something that was greatly feared during this time.[10]

Soderstrom was deeply angered by these attacks. He fumed that the AMA’s opposition came from deep-seated anti-union bias. Such AMA attacks were not only unprofessional and dishonest, Reub claimed, but hypocritical as well. As he wrote in 1950:

The attitude of the medical profession, as an association, is hostile to labor unions. There are, of course, notable exceptions to this generalized statement. There are many individual doctors who are friendly to the labor movement. But the spokesmen of the medical profession are unfriendly to the unions of workmen. This is a historic reputation that has been built up through many years of critical union opposition.

In this attitude towards the labor union the medical profession is in a very poor position because it has copied or adopted many of the tactics and practices of organized labor. In this respect nowhere are the union activities more evident than in the organization field. The doctors have closely organized their profession into “associations” that cover the members in counties, states, and nation…The doctors, instead of calling their organizations “unions,” classify them as “associations.” Otherwise they are close-knit organizations which guard what they believe to be the interests of members more closely than the unions ever dared to do. Far be it from the medics to ever admit this resemblance to unions. Talk about closed shop!

The American Medical Association, supported by every reactionary in America, has smeared this proposal as socialized medicine which would regiment doctors and patients. This is a plain lie, and the only reason they are getting away with it is that too many people don’t have the facts about what National Health Insurance would really do. It’s time the people got the facts in this great health plan, so that we can begin to solve the financial problem of health care.[11]

Fighting Racial Discrimination

Health reform, while important, was far from the only progressive fight Reuben took on in 1950. In a period defined by deep racial divides and legalized discrimination, Soderstrom stood out as a strong supporter of minority rights. While Reuben had long been against racial discrimination, 1950 did seem to mark a turning point, with Reuben speaking out more often and in starker language than he had previously. The death of Victor Olander, who was much cooler on the subject than Reuben, may have played a part in this change. Whatever the reason, as the 1950s began Soderstrom called on labor to support anti-discrimination legislation. In an early address to those within unions skeptical of minority rights, Reub reasoned:

A lot of thoughtless people are asking today “Why all this clamor for rights? Don’t minority groups know they are well off?” But—have you noticed how many of the people who say that are those who have never met with discrimination? They have never moved outside of their own particular orbit, but the barrier that has kept them back has not been that of “restriction” or “discrimination.” Instead it has been a lack of money, or desire, that restrained them. As individuals they knew they were acceptable anywhere. Before you condemn minority pleadings, just think how you would feel if you weren’t wanted—not after having had a chance to prove your worth, but before and regardless!

These minorities want to belong. They want the same rights we possess—the right to work and be useful, the right to economic security, the right to freedom from want for their families, and—most important of all—the right to participate on equal terms in our common life.[12]

Reuben’s support for laborers of color wasn’t just restricted to speeches. As the new decade dawned, Reub renewed his advocacy for bills designed to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry. He also supported the creation of an Illinois Fair Employment Practice Commission to enforce such protections. Within the ISFL, Soderstrom used his power and influence to make sure workers of color weren’t discriminated against by Illinois Locals. When he learned from Charles Jenkins, a black state representative, that one of Jenkins’s constituents believed he was being barred from union membership because of his color, Soderstrom immediately set things straight. He wrote to the ISFL’s chief attorney, Dan Carmell, telling him:

State Representative Charles J. Jenkins, who has a very good labor voting record, has been trying to secure an appointment for Mr. Otho Hammond as a blacksmith’s helper at the Calumet Plant of the Sanitary District…The job is still open and Mr. Hammond gave up a perfectly good position in the County Treasurer’s office to take it but is denied the privilege of doing so because Local Union No. 5 will not permit him to become a member. Is there anything you can do to open the door of this Union so that Mr. Hammond can become a blacksmith’s helper? Representative Jenkins insists that the job is still open and that Mr. Hammond is denied union membership and the appointment because his skin is black.[13]

In using his office to force a local union to open its ranks to members of color, Reuben was taking an unprecedented step, one Olander had previously viewed as a violation of a union’s right of voluntary association. More so than any other action, Soderstrom’s efforts at the start of the 1950s to end union discrimination marked a clear departure from the policies of the past and signaled Reuben’s coming into his own on this issue.

THE ELECTION OF 1950

Carl W. Soderstrom on the Ticket

The election of 1950 marked the second time Labor would put to the test its new election machinery, the Labor League for Political Education. Reuben chaired the organization in Illinois. As in the 1948 election, he favored a nonpartisan approach, fundraising early and spending heavily in Republican primary elections. The decision was both principled and tactical. “Perhaps the best place to beat [US Representative Robert] Chiperfield is in the Republican primary,” Reub wrote to John DeYoung, Secretary of the Tri-City Federation of Labor in Rockford during a conversation on how to best to beat the anti-labor Republican. “At any rate a good hot primary fight on the Republican side might ball up the situation enough to assure the election in November of a friendly Democrat.”[14]

There was one Republican primary that mattered considerably more to Reuben than the rest, however. In the 39th district a young lawyer by the name Carl W. Soderstrom was running in the Republican primary for state representative. The 35-year-old Carl, who, along with wife Virginia and their four young children, lived with Reuben in his Streator home, sought to continue his father’s legacy. Under the Illinois constitution elections operated under a policy called minority representation, meaning each district elected three representatives, only two of which could be of the same party (ensuring the minority party in each district would be represented in the General Assembly). It made for complicated electoral math—one that Reub knew well. In his first successful run for the House in the conservative 39th, Reub won by running as a progressive in the Republican primary. This way, he didn’t have to defeat a “real” Republican or entrenched Democrat; as long as he came in second in the primary he was virtually guaranteed a seat. As the elder Soderstrom later shared:

Two or three times the Republican Party up there, they read me out of the party with their resolutions, their motions, so something of that kind, because they said that I wasn’t a real Republican, which was true. I was running on the Republican ticket.[15]

When Fred Hart, a Republican from the Soderstroms’ hometown of Streator, decided to make a run for the Illinois Senate, Carl decided to seize the moment and make his father’s play. However, by 1950 the field was much more crowded than when Reub first ran. At the start of 1950 Carl was in a four-way heat for the two available Republican general election posts.[16] Two more candidates announced their candidacy in the following months, making a six-person race by primary day. Soderstrom’s political skill proved more than equal to the task, however. As the Bloomington Pantagraph reported in the wake of the primary:

J. Ward Smith, incumbent of Ottawa, and Carl W. Soderstrom, Streator, left opponents far behind in the race for Republican nominations . . . Smith received 16,941 (votes), and Soderstrom, 11,997 . . . Behind the Republican winners were Terrence S. Martin with 6,736, Elmer E. Armstrong with 6,686, Joseph Marchesi with 4,167 and Robert J. Kacinski with 887.[17]

Carl’s primary victory did not ensure a seat, however. In the general election, the Democrats decided to field two candidates, incumbent Joe Stremlau and Streator native Leo Doran. The Democrats’ confidence was not unwarranted; although a traditionally conservative stronghold, the 39th could swing Democratic as well.

Suddenly, Carl found himself fighting a war on two fronts. On the right, he faced anti-labor reactionaries—the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association in particular—who would sooner see a Democrat take the seat than Soderstrom; as Reuben confided to friend and Oglesby labor official Martin Pietrzek in a handwritten letter:

The Manufacturers’ Association, and other enemies of labor, are not concerned about who is elected to the legislature from La Salle County—just so Carl W. Soderstrom stays at home. In fact, my information is they are supporting the other three candidates in an effort to defeat Carl. These evil elements are aware that Carl Soderstrom will use his training and know-how to be helpful to the Illinois State Federation of Labor. There is only one way to successfully combat this kind of opposition and that is to urge all of those who understand the situation, and know what it means, to give Carl Soderstrom their three legislative votes.[18]

As Reuben noted, under the Illinois constitution each voter had three votes to cast for state representative (one for each open seat), and they could spread them across the candidates as they chose—one vote for three candidates, three votes for one candidate, or in a two-to-one split. The elder Soderstrom believed the surest path to a victory was to convince labor voters to cast all their votes for Carl, and he didn’t hesitate to tell them so. In an official letter sent to all labor officials in La Salle County that October, Reub advised:

Dear Sirs and Brothers:

The political campaign is warming up. I am reliably informed the Manufacturers’ Association, and other enemies of labor, are supporting every candidate for the Legislature in the 39th Senatorial District except Carl W. Soderstrom. They want him defeated because he is not only for the things the wage-earners need and want but because he is especially trained to effectively fight for working people…

Please distribute the campaign cards enclosed. I will deeply appreciate it if all of you will not only vote for Carl W. Soderstrom but work hard for him until the polls close on November 7.[19]

Some LaSalle County labor officials did not approve of Reuben speaking in his capacity as ISFL President to endorse his son, Carl. There was tension amongst members of the Streator Trades and Labor Council over the idea of supporting the Republican Soderstrom over the Democratic Doran, who like Carl was a Streator native. There was also some lingering doubt concerning Carl’s ties to former Governor Green. In an expose the previous year, the St. Louis Dispatch released the names of 19 people—including Carl, who was a private attorney at the time—who had received undocumented payments of $300 to $1,000 from the Governor’s office. While not illegal, this “secret payroll” had shocked labor, causing the ISFL delegates to implement constitutional reforms barring such activity in the future (overruling their resolution committee for the first time in their 67-year history). The revelation may have even contributed to the resignation of Earl McMahon as ISFL Secretary-Treasurer. Stanley Johnson, McMahon’s replacement (so new that his name did not yet appear on the ISFL stationary) wrote to Reuben concerning the protest. Johnson’s letter no longer exists, so we cannot know his sentiment; Reuben’s response, however, was retained, and portrays a man clearly furious at any hint of impropriety:

Friend Stanley:

Replying to yours of the 23rd inst.

The Joint Labor Legislative Board of Illinois recommended Carl W. Soderstrom for the Legislature. These Joint Board endorsements or recommendations were printed in the Weekly News Letter October 7th 1950. These endorsements are not a secret and the Federation supports all candidates with this kind and other publicity, all of which is consistent with effective legislative work but, of course, no financial aid is ever given.

As to the matter of the Green affair, Reub turned the very charges back on Carl’s accusers, contesting that their objections were more manufactured then genuine:

Political parties place Central Body people on their payrolls. Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have been guilty of this practice not only in the Streator Trades and Labor Council but in a vast number of other Central Bodies through the state…I think this is some more payroll politics which probably can be traced, also, to the Manufacturers’ Association of this highly industrialized section of Illinois. The 39th Senatorial District is wholly within LaSalle County. The protest is a little on the insulting side and deserves merely a curt reply of the facts…[20]

Reuben did not back down an inch. As he saw it, his position as President was not being used to unfair advantage. Just the opposite—the entire reason the IMA opposed Carl was because in their view “his Father is too damn strong in the legislative activities of Illinois as it is.[21]” Reuben reasoned he would have supported a candidate of Carl’s caliber no matter his relation, so why should he further handicap labor by staying silent only because of his last name?

Election Results: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In the end, neither Soderstrom needed to worry. Carl crushed his opponents in the general election, accomplishing a feat even his father was never able to achieve—he won more votes than any other candidate. As Reuben wrote to his niece Esther:

Carl won handily in the election contest. He was high man, which surprised everybody. He is a very conscientious young man and a very good lawyer, so he should make a success of lawmaking. Politics and law are closely related so he’ll feel at home in the General Assembly.[22]

While Carl’s election was a resounding success, labor’s overall result in the 1950 election was disappointing, to say the least. In Illinois and across the nation, pro-labor candidates went down to stinging defeat, including Illinois Senator Scott Lucas. Much of this had little to do with labor issues. The Korean War had deeply hurt the President’s and the Democrats’ popularity, as had key economic conditions. As Soderstrom wrote in his election autopsy:

Failure on the part of the political party in power to attain peace between nations, and this national situation seemingly resulting in endless war, undoubtedly contributed to the 1950 election defeat. High prices, high taxes and the administration’s failure to establish controls granted by Congress were other factors.[23]

Fears of the Communist “Red Menace” also played a major role in the 1950 campaign, especially with regard to the Lucas race. Senator Lucas, who also served as Senate Majority Leader, was personally targeted by a freshman Senator Joe McCarthy, who was fast gaining popularity by adeptly exploiting fears that the US Government was captured by Communist infiltrators.[24] Conservative interests also greatly outspent their labor counterparts. The Labor League, which relied on voluntary donations, raised $592,222.40 for political activity in 1950, relying mainly on $2 contributions from 5% of its membership[25] The AMA alone, in contrast, raised triple that amount through mandatory contributions of $25 per member.[26]

Still, Soderstrom and labor could not escape the fact that their message had failed to make an impact. “In many states candidates opposed by labor polled strong votes in heavily industrial centers,” Reuben noted. “That was particularly true in Ohio. Taft piled up big margins in industrial counties where unions worked hardest to defeat him.”[27]

Why did this happen? To some extent, labor unions were a victim of their own success. As Secretary Stanley Johnson wrote, “attendance at local union meetings has been small, due to good employment at wages which each group constantly seeks to improve.”[28] While unions had delivered, the politicians they supported hadn’t. “Groups of workers were peeved,” Reuben explained, “Because the Democratic Party, nationally…was unable to redeem its pledge to repeal the Lea, Hobbs and Taft-Hartley Acts, and the Knowland Amendment, all of them repressive enactments.”[29] Why would working men and women waste their votes on candidates who couldn’t deliver?

In the end, Reub agreed with the analysis of LLPE Director and fellow Illinois laborer Joe Keenan, who wrote to Reuben and other state presidents:

We have lost some good friends in both Houses of Congress and some of our enemies have returned. In short, we were not as successful as we had hoped to be…The returns also show that we cannot relax but rather that we should intensify our efforts to bring a true discussion of the issues confronting the working people of this country to our members, their family, and friends.[30]

FAMILY MATTERS

The year 1950 had brought joy to the Soderstrom household with Carl’s smashing success, but it delivered devastating losses as well. Reuben’s wife Jeanne, who had never been in the best of health, had recently begun to deteriorate. At the same time, Reub’s last living brother, Paul, died on February 17. Throughout his legislative career, Reuben had counted on Paul to serve as a trusted set of eyes and ears on the ground among workers. Still, Paul had his demons, compounded by wartime injury and the death of his beloved wife Clara. Together, Paul and Clara had a little girl named Lorraine, and after her mother’s death Lorraine was raised by Reuben’s mother. Although Paul later remarried, the young girl stayed with her grandmother, and Reuben remained especially close to his niece. Despite their estrangement, Lorraine took her father’s death very hard, suffering depression the following year. Although exactly what happened was not recorded, she appeared to temporarily depart for New Orleans to recover. It clearly worried the family patriarch, who wrote to her:

Dear Lorraine:

Your recent letter came through. I am glad you are feeling better and on the way back to a comfortable recovery. We are beginning to have bright sunshiny days in Illinois. April is a nice spring month and we do have quite a large number of nice April days. Of course the month of May has Glorious weather and the summers in Illinois are gloriously attractive, with all the warm weather and wondrous beauty.

Almost everyone feels weak and depressed at times, especially when they are worried about their health. One should postpone worry until morning. Strange as it may seem, it is almost impossible to feel depressed and to do any worrying in the morning – so all worry should be postponed until then…

I do hope the weather will be agreeable during your visit to New Orleans and that warmer weather in Illinois will make an early trip back home attractive. It’s always nice to do one’s convalescing at home with the family—and after all, there is no place like home.[31]

Lorraine wasn’t the only niece Reuben watched over. Ten years earlier, Reuben’s kid brother Lafe, his closest confidant and ally, had died tragically in a car accident. Ever since Reub had watched over his daughter Esther, helping whenever and however he could. That November he reached out to her again, inviting her to come home:

Dear Esther,

It was nice to hear from you. The snapshot photograph was indeed interesting. You most certainly have a peach of a family. I haven’t seen the littlest lady as yet but I’ll be around one of these days to meet her. The boy I have met and he surely is some boy.

Now that you have two beautiful children why don’t you come down to Streator and show them off? It would do all of you a lot of good, including your splendid husband, to strut around a little. Especially when you have so well balanced a family to display.

Flats are hard to find but if you want me to I’ll ask the officers of the Flat Janitor’s Union to be on the lookout for a reasonably priced place to live. Sometimes they know about vacancies even before the people move out. Let me know the neighborhood you would like to live in and I’ll ask them to check…

Have a big time throughout the coming holiday. Christmas is the outstanding family day of the year, and since I like all my relatives I do like to see them during the Christmas season. It may be that I will be able to find the time to see all of you before the first of the year.[32]

As the “outstanding family day” approached, Reuben received quite an unanticipated gift from a spectacular source. As the Western Catholic Edition of Our Sunday Visitor reported on Christmas Eve:

R. G. Soderstrom of Streator and Springfield, president of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, a few days ago received a rare Christmas gift of which he is very proud. It is a document from Rome from His Holiness Pope Pius XII bestowing the Holy Father’s apostolic blessing upon Mr. and Mrs. Soderstrom[33]

To be sure, Reub, though not a Catholic, had certainly proven himself a friend to the Church. Father Donahue, who had beseeched the Holy See on Soderstrom’s behalf, was elated to honor his friend with the engraved Blessing of the Holy Father Pope Pius XII. As he had told the ISFL convention delegates gathered in Peoria that year:

Openly I thank Mister Soderstrom, my dear and cherished friend… for the visions and dreams that slowly and gradually reared a state federation that is the most active, most alert, and most progressive in these United States…Because in my way of thinking you have the greatest of leaders, you have a man at the top of your fold, who, when the history of this great state of ours is written, shall find his name at the top of the list among those who have contributed toward the advancement of humanity in this, our prairie state.[34]

As the year came to a close, Reub could breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Despite a difficult start, with his brother’s death and the viability of his son’s candidacy in doubt, it had ended in fine fashion. The trials and tribulations of the 1940’s had been vanquished, and a bright future lit the horizon. The 1950’s held great optimism as well as responsibility. As he wrote in the annual Executive Board report that year:

The world is looking to us for an example of what free men can achieve. We dare not fail. The destiny of generations to come is in our hands—we are making history. This is our challenge, and our opportunity.[35]

Onward, into the future.

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