A FIRST STEP TOWARD UNIFICATION

A Jubilee Celebration

It was a splendid affair. Over 425 union members and their friends had worked hard to make the Golden Jubilee Anniversary of the DeKalb County Trades Unions a celebration not just for labor but for everyone. The event’s organizers wanted to emphasize that the unions’ 50 years of existence had “organized and maintained a stable and continuing good influence in the county,” enriching not only the lives of working men and women but all members of the broader community.[1] To that end they opened the doors of their commemorative feast at the local Masonic Temple to businessmen and industry representatives from the cities of DeKalb, Sycamore and beyond. It was a gala for the record books, full of toasts, tributes, dancing, and more.

At the climax of the feast, the toastmaster rose to introduce the keynote speaker of the evening—Illinois State Federation of Labor President Reuben G. Soderstrom. Amidst the cheers and applause, the “smiling warrior” stood to address his fellow workers and distinguished guests. “I want to convey to you the greetings and good wishes and felicitations of the Illinois State Federation of Labor as well as my personal and official congratulations to the representatives of management,” he began. “To the representatives of industry and the representatives of all other business groups who are joining tonight with the representatives of labor in commemorating 50 years of success of A. F. of L. union activities in the city of DeKalb.”[2] With a voice at once welcoming and commanding, he instructed his audience to take note of those around them, to see the gathering as proof that people of good faith could disagree on economic matters and yet remain friends. To illustrate his point, Reub told the story of Henry Ward Beecher and Bob Ingersoll, two American figures of the 19th century:

Henry Ward Beecher was the greatest defender of the Bible of his period. Bob Ingersoll was probably the ablest opponent, as well as the harshest opponent, of the Bible of the same period. However, Bob Ingersoll and Henry Ward Beecher were great friends. One day, so the story goes, Henry Ward Beecher became very ill and he was about to die. He called his servant to his bed and told him to go out and find Bob Ingersoll, and no matter who was waiting to see him to bring Bob Ingersoll in directly to his bedside.

So the servant went out and found Bob Ingersoll and when they returned to the home of Henry Ward Beecher they found a long line of preachers and church workers standing in line waiting their turn to see Henry Ward Beecher before he passed on.

However, Bob Ingersoll was ushered in directly to the bedside of H. W. Beecher. The greeting between these two great men was very friendly and affectionate, and after it was over Bob Ingersoll stepped back a step or two from the bedside of Henry Ward Beecher and said, “Henry, if you should die now without telling me I would always be wondering—just why did you send for me? It seems to me, Henry, you would rather be spending your last moments on earth with those preachers and church workers, with folks who think the way you do.”

“Well, Bob,” said Henry, “I will tell you I am going to spend all eternity with them out there, but this might be the last five minutes I will ever spend with you.”[3]

Reuben laughed along with his audience, sharing in the joke before adding with a broad grin, “Well, this might be the last opportunity I will ever have to address this particular audience, and I want to make the most of that opportunity.” Over the next several minutes Reub extolled the virtues of unionism, both for workers and their employers. He spoke on the unity of purpose the founders of the AFL shared with the forefathers of the nation—to provide a framework both for freedom and organization. He charted a straight line between the democratic institutions of the republic with the governance of the AFL, drawing direct comparison between the state-national model of U.S. government and the union-federation model of the AFL. Then, with his analogy established, Reub went in for the unexpected attack:

No one would think of advocating that their state should secede from the United States, but we do have union members who advocate that their international unions should disaffiliate with the American Federation of Labor. This condition exists now within the labor movement and we all know nothing can be broken up into smaller pieces and retain its strength. So let’s work and talk for unity…There should be only one national organization and that organization should be the American Federation of Labor.[4]

It was only then that the audience realized who the true target of Reub’s speech was—who was the Bob Ingersoll to his Henry Ward Beecher. It wasn’t the guests of business and industry; it wasn’t the Republican Party or anti-labor politicians; it was the CIO.

Competing Values

The year 1952 marked a landmark change in the relationship between the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Before the year’s end both organizations would experience unprecedented changes in leadership, changes that appeared destined to set these two rival organizations on a path of radical change. What form that change would take, however, remained to be seen.

While they shared many goals and constituencies in common, the AFL and CIO were very different organizations, even if the original distinction of craft vs. industrial unions had been long since blurred. The AFL (or as Reub still referred to it, the A. F. of L.), the elder organization, claimed a larger membership and longer institutional memory. As Soderstrom frequently noted, it also had a very democratic form of organization, with individual unions enjoying comparatively more autonomy within the Federation than their CIO counterparts. Politically, the AFL was more mixed, and (in theory) upheld a nonpartisan approach to political endorsements, although they largely supported Democratic politicians through their Political Action Committee. By and large, the Federation valued continuity and caution, committed first to the preservation and limited expansion of existing rights, rather than seeking dynamic change or rapid expansion.

The upstart CIO, in contrast, was a hotbed of activism. In some respects, this had propelled the rival organization to the forefront of progressivism, especially with regard to civil rights and minority representation. As noted labor historian Philip Taft details in his history of the AFL, “Although the A. F. of L. was officially opposed to discrimination for reasons of race, creed, or color, discrimination against Negroes and other minority groups was tolerated in practice throughout the years. Only this much can be said for the federation’s policy; the A. F. of L. had no power to compel international unions to obey its pronouncements against racial discrimination.”[5] While many AFL unions actively discriminated with impunity, the CIO sought from the outset to organize workers of color. The large number of black workers in industrial professions, pre-existing policies of the major CIO unions, and the comparatively top-down approach to leadership helped ensure CIO had the motivation and ability to act against discrimination within its ranks. By 1950 nearly 500,000 of the 1.25 million Negroes in the labor movement were from the CIO, despite the organization’s much smaller representation of the labor movement as a whole.[6]

Unfortunately, the CIO tendencies toward leftward political philosophies (and autocratic leadership) also brought their own set of troubles. From its inception, the CIO had been plagued by its associations with Communism. However, in recent years the organization had taken dramatic steps to purge its ranks of foreign influence. In 1949 the CIO expelled its Communist-dominated affiliates, including the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) and the United Farm Equipment and Metal Workers of America (FE) by a direct convention vote. It also revised its constitution to allow the expulsion of any union that consistently promoted Communist or Fascist objectives.[7]

Still, the CIO remained true to its activist roots, pushing the frontiers of labor rights while recruiting on an increasing scale. The AFL, in turn, had escalated its expansion efforts, working harder than it had in a generation to organize workers in a variety of industries. The effort had born considerable fruit; despite the division within organized labor, the AFL had seen an increase of roughly 3.5 million workers through the affiliation of new union shops from 1948-1950 alone.[8]

Illinois Shakeup

Illinois had helped lead this charge. Under President Soderstrom, ISFL membership had swelled from less than 200,000 when he first took office in 1930 to over 800,000 by the start of 1952.[9] He had done this in part by keeping the costs of membership constant, despite increasing inflation. As Reuben proudly announced at the close of 1951:

Last year twenty thousand new members came in to the fold. About 115 new affiliations in the record attained since our convention twelve months ago. The per capita tax has never been raised during the twenty-one years which I have served as president. The increased cost of running the Illinois State Federation of Labor has always been taken care of by a corresponding increase in membership.[10]

Still, the Illinois CIO made substantive advances as well, and used those gains largely to undermine ISFL efforts. They struck an adversarial pose early on, accusing the ISFL collectively and Reuben personally of obstruction and corruption. Ray Edmundson, the group’s first leader in Illinois, had also rebuffed Reub’s offers of cooperation, declaring “As long as Soderstrom retains his post as a protector of racketeers, we don’t want unity with that kind of organization. When the A. F. of L. gets new leadership and gives its rank and file some sort of democracy, then it will be time to sit down and talk unity.”[11] While their membership was comparatively small—roughly 350,000 to the ISFL’s 800,000—by 1952 they claimed outsized influence, and labor’s enemies had taken advantage of the labor split, exploiting intra-labor rivalries to business’s gain. The best example of this was the appointment of a pro-business coal merchant, Francis Murphy, to the powerful post of Director of the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) in 1941. Edmundson, desirous of influence and eager to diminish the ISFL, backed then-Governor Green’s candidate, despite his utter lack of labor experience, primarily to prevent the post from going to an AFL man.

By decade’s end the CIO had graduated from simply denying the IDOL post to the AFL to filling it with its own men. In 1948 the CIO backed Adlai Stevenson in the Governor’s race while Reub (over considerable ISFL objection and to subsequent controversy) backed the incumbent Green, who had by then replaced Murphy with an AFL-affiliated IDOL Director. As a reward for their support, Governor Stevenson appointed CIO Secretary-Treasurer and Political Action Committee head Frank Annunzio to the Directorship, placing a CIO man in the post for the first time ever. Stevenson’s attempt to placate an angry Reuben by appointing Fern Rauch, an ISFL vice-president, as Assistant Director was met only with contempt. The ISFL’s Executive Council instructed Rauch not to accept the post, and removed him from his ISFL leadership post when he took the job anyway.

But in 1952 the ISFL’s fortunes finally began to change for the better. In February, Annunzio became embroiled in a scandal involving his financial entanglement with Alderman John D’Arco of Chicago’s First Ward. As soon as the charge hit the papers, Stevenson acted, reportedly calling on Annuncio for his resignation or face termination.[12] While Annunzio publicly denied wrongdoing, he stepped aside, claiming in his resignation letter to Stevenson that, “I feel that the current politically inspired flurry of newspaper criticism directed against me may unjustly bring adverse effects upon your administration.”[13]

The battle for his replacement began immediately. Joe Germano, head of the Illinois CIO Industrial Council, pushed hard for a CIO replacement, arguing that the vacancy “belongs to the CIO.” Reuben and his Secretary Stanley Johnson, however, saw an opportunity to retake the post. There was no love lost between Reub and Fern, to be sure; Rauch had even considered running against Soderstrom for the ISFL presidency in 1950.[14] Still, Rauch was an ISFL man, and his nomination would give the organization a public advantage in its push against the CIO. As he had done many times before, Reub buried the personal animosity he carried for a political foe for the sake of his beloved Federation, and let it be known in the press through Secretary Johnson that “if Rauch should be given the top labor job he feels that all elements of the AFL will be satisfied.”[15] Days later, Stevenson appointed Rauch as new IDOL Chief.

Soderstrom pressed the advantage. In a string of speeches across the state Reub sang a familiar refrain—that the current system of competing labor organizations could not hold. Reuben sensed weakness in his old opponent; as he declared in an Executive Board missive that year:

The Illinois State Federation of Labor added approximately 25,000 new members since our annual convention in Springfield a year ago…About one hundred new union affiliations have been received during the past twelve months, which matches the record or high peaks of good years in its seventy years of existence.[16]

Future recruitment looked bright as well, especially when compared to competing organizations. Unlike the Illinois CIO, the Illinois State Federation of Labor could look to a large number of AFL unions that had yet to affiliate with the ISFL. One of Soderstrom’s main methods of ISFL recruitment had been to go to these nationally affiliated unions and convince them to join (and pay dues to) his statewide organization. While the ISFL had made great strides over the years, Reuben said, a substantial number of union workers remained unaffiliated:

There are a million A. F. of L. members in Illinois and eight hundred thousand of them are now enrolled in our great state body. While this is regarded by the Executive Board as a good showing, the drive for additional affiliates should continue until every one of the 3,300 Illinois units of the American Federation are brought into the fold.[17]

The message was clear: The ISFL was and would continue to grow at a pace that competing organizations had no hope of matching. At the 70th Annual ISFL Convention that year, Reuben made the AFL vs. CIO divide the focus of his address. He began on a humorous note, connecting the host city of Peoria’s ties to an old AFL–CIO dispute:

A humorous incident occurred in this municipality some years ago when the CIO and the A F of L were engaged in a contest of supremacy at the Caterpillar plant. An election was about to be held to determine which organization was about to become the bargaining agent. One of our A F of L fellows, so the story goes, became ill and decided to see the doctor. He was told by the physician that his case was critical and he would not be with us very long... “In that case,” the A F of L member stated, “I think I will join the CIO.” The doctor said “In Heaven’s name what do you want to do that for?” “Well,” he said, “if anyone is going to die around here it would be a lot better to have one of them pass on than one of us.”[18]

The humorous anecdote belied a deep animosity that had been eating away at labor in Illinois and across the nation for years. Now, Reuben proclaimed, the time had come for that acrimony to end. Launching into remarks he’d been perfecting for weeks, Soderstrom told the crowd:

We all know nothing can be broken up into small pieces and still retain its strength. So during the coming year let’s work and talk for unity and march on together to a brighter and happier tomorrow, to a brighter and happier future! This is a great country, and a big country, but it is not big enough to permit two national governments to function down in Washington D.C. That was tried in 1860 and it resulted in a great civil war between the states. This is a great country, and a big country, but it isn’t big enough, either, to permit two national federations to function within its borders. There should be only one. The CIO, the Railroad Brotherhoods and the independent unions ought to come into the American Federation of Labor and subscribe to the regulations and discipline of the American Federation of Labor![19]

And with that, Reuben renewed the AFL’s call for an end to labor’s “civil war” in Illinois. But this was no olive branch. Just the opposite; by declaring for a peace on AFL terms, with the CIO and others submitting to AFL rules and AFL discipline, Soderstrom made it clear he wasn’t interested in suing for peace; he was ready to accept their surrender.

NATIONAL MOVES

Changes in Labor Leadership

Reub’s actions weren’t occurring in a vacuum; the astute politician was in fact reading a growing number of signals that a new fight over labor unification was drawing near. The first major sign was the creation in December 1950 of the United Labor Policy Committee. Jointly formed by the AFL, CIO, the Machinists, and the Railway Labor Executives Association in response to the Korean War, the ULPC provided a clear example of how powerful a united labor front could be, particularly when confronting governmental threats and challenges. When the ULPC withdrew all labor representatives from government defense and mobilization agencies to protest what leaders viewed as unfair treatment of labor, the government quickly came to favorable terms. However, by August of 1951 the AFL had already pulled out from the council. “Functional unity, as frequently proposed by CIO representatives, is no substitute and cannot be accepted,” AFL President William Green declared. “Today, there is no reason whatsoever for any bona fide free trade-union organization remaining outside the ranks of the AFL…There is no difference over organizational structure or form.[20]” AFL leaders had brought that message home to affiliates across the country, including in Illinois. “We are concentrating our efforts to bring about not merely shadow unity, functional unity as you might call it,” Green told the delegates of ISFL convention that year, “but are centering our efforts to bring about organic unity; a united labor movement in a united family, all speaking as one and acting as one and walking as one together.”[21] CIO leadership predictably recoiled at the notion that functional unity necessitated structural unity (i.e. returning to the AFL). In his remarks to the convention that year, CIO chief Philip Murray thrashed the AFL’s withdrawal from the Unity Committee and subsequent comments as the product of a “misconception of the AFL executive council…that the CIO is ready to be swallowed by the craft unions which dominated that federation.”[22] As the 1952 CIO convention approached, he prepared remarks without any mention of labor unification, a clear indication that he intended the fight to continue.

Murray never had the chance to give that speech. On November 9, 1952, a mere week before the convention, the CIO leader died of a heart attack. A few weeks after that, AFL President William Green, leader of the Federation for 28 years, passed away as well. In less than a month, the entire world of labor seemed to turn on its head. In the words of then CIO legal counsel Arthur Goldberg:

The leading spokesmen for the two branches of labor—men who had agreed at times, and disagreed at others, in jest or in bitter fury—were stilled by death. Each had fought, with vigor of action and expression, for his beliefs…Yet each was a symbol of a period that was coming to a close…Truly, by the end of 1952, there were few remaining differences in outlook and attitude between most of the AFL and most of the CIO.[23]

Reuben Raises his International Profile

The passing of two powerful figures in labor created a vacuum that men like Reuben were eager to fill. Already, Soderstrom had been building an impressive post-war national profile. In addition to his long-standing service on the all-important AFL Resolutions Committee, Reub was also frequently dispatched by the AFL to represent national leadership at a variety of celebrations, conventions, and political events. He’d been sent to mediate union jurisdictional disputes like the Los Angeles Council Revolt of 1943. He’d been called repeatedly to testify in Washington D.C. on proposed legislation affecting a range of labor issues. Reuben also served on a number of governmental committees, including his recent appointment by U.S. Secretary of Labor Maurice Tobin to the Seventh Region Labor Management Committee, a group created in response to the Korean War that oversaw the allocation of civilian manpower for defense and other essential activities in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana.[24]

As big as his national exposure was, 1952 was a year that saw that presence grow considerably. This was partly due to geography; as America’s Second City, Chicago was a place of national and international importance. Speakers at Chicago events, even those sponsored by local organizations, often found themselves reaching a much broader audience, and Soderstrom was no exception. For example, his 1952 address to the Chicago Federation’s Committee for Human Relations was carried by Voice of America, carrying Reuben’s message to workers in countries across the globe. With his characteristic mix of optimism and energy, Soderstrom declared to a listening world:

A working man of any kind who earns his bread in the sweat of his face has not done his full duty to himself and to his fellow workers and to those depending upon him until he has joined the labor union of his calling, and he becomes one of those who strive for the uplift of the masses. As 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 has the trade union movement. It has educated the working man’s children; it has made the life of the wife and mother happy, and has brought an intelligence into the home which could not and would not have had existed were it not for the movement of labor…

A man who joins the union does so for a noble purpose. The longer he is in the organization the more he sees of its benefits. He does not look for favoritism or privileges over other men, all he asks for is a square deal and an occasional raise in salary in proportion to the rise in prices of the necessities of life. He is invariably proud of his calling and feels every penny he has earned is honestly earned and in many cases more than earned. But I do not believe that the working man should be satisfied until that day arrives when he shall receive all that he is entitled to.[25]

In this and other speeches Reuben clearly articulated a theory of labor and capital that he viewed as essential in combating the threat of international Communism, a “humanized capitalism” in which unionism was not a mere “necessary evil” but the indispensable soul of American economics, the worker’s guardian of rights and guarantor of entitlements. It was this uniquely American relationship between labor and capital, Reuben argued, that would allow the American economic model to spread across the world. As he described in his annual ISFL keynote address:

We have a great economic system in America, made up of capitalism which has been humanized by American trade unionism, and which has made the United States the greatest country in all of this world. Capitalism and Unionism, the American brand, implies mass production, a high standard of living, and a good deal of social welfare… The chain assembly line at Detroit, Michigan, makes it possible for Americans, who represent less than seven percent of the of the world’s population, to own seventy-five percent of the world’s cars. That is capitalism plus unionism. I ask in all fairness what is wrong with an economic system that gives the American people these advantages?[26]

This message soon found resonance abroad, and it wasn’t long before Soderstrom was meeting with heads of state to discuss his ideas. In April of 1952 Tage Erlander, the Prime Minister of Sweden, met with Reuben at a formal breakfast meeting hosted by the ISFL. The event, which included speeches, entourages, and honors, was a high point for Reub, who was extremely proud of his Swedish heritage and still fluent in his father’s native tongue. The delight was evident in his formal address to the PM and assembled guests:

Scandinavians have been identified with the Illinois Sate Federation of Labor during all of these 70 years, and have helped to build up its present wonderful membership of almost 800,000 people. During the last half of its existence labor leaders of Swedish extraction have held the major offices in the Federation—that is the office of President and the office of Secretary-Treasurer. We are very proud of the many nationalities that make up the Illinois State Federation of Labor, but I am particularly proud on this occasion to be able to inform our distinguished visitor the Prime Minister of Sweden that sons and daughters of Sweden and those who are an extract of that nationality, have made a noticeable and worthwhile contribution to advancing labor’s great cause in the State of Illinois…

It now becomes my pleasure and high honor to extend the greetings, felicitations and good wishes of the members of the Illinois State Federation of Labor to our distinguished visitor, Prime Minister Tage Erlander, and through him to the working people of Sweden, and it is also my pleasant duty to welcome him to America and particularly to the State of Illinois. It is my sincere hope he will enjoy our hospitality and that he will enjoy a safe and happy journey back to his home of the ancestors of all those in attendance at this breakfast.[27]

POLITICAL FACE-OFF

Soderstrom Floods Primary

While welcoming the Swedish Prime Minister may have been a personal high point for Reuben, the most important hosting duties Soderstrom assumed in 1952 were undoubtedly those connected with that year’s dueling Presidential conventions. Both the Republican and Democratic parties decided to hold their nominating conventions in Reuben’s backyard of Chicago, and Reuben was determined to make the most of it.

Unlike many labor leaders in the 1950s, Soderstrom worked hard to maintain a nonpartisan approach to ISFL political involvement and endorsements. This was in part pragmatic; as Reuben explained in an essay he wrote that year entitled “Our Non-Partisan Policy”:

There is a sound, practical reason why organized labor must remain non-partisan. It requires a constitutional majority of 77 votes to pass a bill in the Illinois House of Representatives. Neither the Democratic nor Republican party alone has ever given 77 votes to a highly controversial labor measure…The labor movement has had the same kind of experience in the Illinois Senate. There 26 votes are required to pass a bill…Labor, then, like the major political parties, must appeal to both Republicans and Democrats in order to enact legislation, and labor must reward both friendly Republicans and friendly Democrats who ‘stick out their necks’ and vote for our legislation.[28]

However, Reuben didn’t hold to nonpartisanship out of simple necessity. He believed in this political approach as foundational to labor’s legislative philosophy. He continued:

Samuel Gompers knew what he was doing when he created labor’s non-partisan policy and slogan “elect your friends and defeat your enemies, regardless of their political party affiliation”…It would be fatal for the labor movement to tie up or unite with either political party…The time honored policy of disregarding political parties and supporting candidates who are friendly to labor, no matter what party they belong to, is not only right in principle, but also definitely practical and workable. It has proved eminently successful in Illinois and should be continued.[29]

To that end, Reuben directed considerable time, attention, and effort toward primary races, particularly the Republican primary elections. In 1952, those elections took on an added urgency due to the ambitions of one Republican Presidential candidate in particular: Robert Taft, labor’s arch-nemesis. Taft had made two previous runs for the Republican nod for President, losing each time by decreasing margins. This year, however, Taft appeared to be the likely nominee. General Eisenhower had declared his intention to run in January, but his comparatively late entrance, newness to national politics, and physical absence (he was serving as commander of NATO forces in Europe) gave Taft a heavy advantage.

Reuben was terrified. Most political observers, including Soderstrom, expected a Republican Presidential win in 1952, regardless of who they chose. Therefore, Reub decided to direct all Illinois labor political effort to denying Taft the nomination. The first step was to defeat Taft in the Illinois Preferential Presidential Primary. Unfortunately, Eisenhower’s late entry meant that he would not be on the ballot; former Minnesota Governor Stassen, however, would be, and Reub wanted to drum up all the support he could to at least reduce the size of Taft’s expected win in the non-binding vote. As he wrote to James McDevitt, Director of the AFL’s Labor League for Political Education, that February:

Stassen and Taft will battle it out in the Illinois Preferential Presidential Primary. Unless something is done to discredit Taft he will carry Illinois by a margin of 5 to 1. He is running way ahead in all the straw votes. In the event that Taft comes through as popular as it looks the results of the Illinois Presidential Primary will be used to popularize his candidacy in the coming Republican convention, which will also be held in Illinois. Using victories in Ohio and a smashing new victory in Illinois there wouldn’t be any convincing argument left that he was unacceptable to labor. Something should be done in Illinois to discredit Taft and silence his army of boosters.[30]

How could labor hope to defeat Taft in the primary? Reuben’s answer was simple: flood the primary with labor voters. By 1952 most labor voters in Illinois were Democrats. However, the Democratic contest was of little consequence. Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson had Illinois if he chose to run, but he hadn’t declared yet, making the perfectly acceptable Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver the almost certain winner of the Illinois primary. Therefore, Reuben reasoned, all voters currently registered as Democrats, including labor voters, should switch party affiliation in this primary and cast their votes for Stassen. “There is no contest in which labor is interested on the Democratic side in the coming April 8 primary,” he wrote. “Therefore, all the Democrats, who profess to be friendly to labor, and certainly all trade unionists, ought to be invited to come into the Republican primary and vote against Taft.”[31]

Reuben confirmed with Illinois Attorney General Ivan Elliott that such a switch was legal. According to Illinois law voters were confined to a party primary only 23 months in Illinois, meaning that anyone whose last primary vote was in the 1950 primary election (24 months ago) was permitted by law to vote in any primary they desired.[32] To Soderstrom, such a move was not only legally permissible but strategically imperative. As he told McDevitt:

Organized labor should be non-partisan. Political parties are designed, somehow, to divide working people against themselves and thus make good people hate each other. Wage-earners should be free to invade en masse either the Democratic or Republican party to defeat bad candidates if the situation warrants such invasion. In Illinois they are.[33]

That February Soderstrom led his ISFL Weekly Newsletter with a full, front-page story title “Changing Parties Permissible.” While not specifically instructing labor voters to do so, Reuben published his correspondence with the Attorney General in full, leaving no doubt as to the legality of such action.[34]

Unfortunately, the call for labor to “go Republican” had little effect on the Presidential primary; Taft had too strong a base of support, Stassen was too weak a candidate, and Eisenhower support could be write-in only. It did, however, have a noticeable effect down-ticket; pro-labor Republicans like State Senator R.G. Crisenberry and State Representative August Grebe enjoyed strong shows of support.

Presidential Conventions

Undeterred by Taft’s primary success, Reuben continued his attacks throughout 1952. While he refrained from attacking Taft as a Presidential candidate, he renewed labor’s attack on his signature piece of legislation. In speeches, essays, and articles, Reuben cast the election as a fight to overturn Taft-Hartley, which he denounced with renewed vigor as an infringement of basic liberty. As he proclaimed:

The Taft-Hartley law is designed to penalize labor and give advantages to the employer. It has worked to the disadvantage of both. The rights of workers to organize for their own protection, to bargain freely on equal terms with the employer and to strike, are implicit in the American Bill of Rights and are now so recognized. The Taft-Hartley law disregards the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution by providing for injunctions to establish forced labor during so-called cooling-off periods. It is unconstitutional in America to keep citizens at work by injunction power. Legislation affecting these rights should be replaced.[35]

In a pitch to more conservative voters, Reuben cast a vote against Taft-Hartley as a vote for government deregulation, arguing:

To me it seems very clear that the absence of the Act, or the repeal of the Act, would result in more serious and sincere efforts at collective bargaining. What is needed now is less and not more of labor-management legislation. The rock bottom truth is no legislation can be passed which would stop all strikes… so long as men are free, strikes will continue, because both parties honestly disagree and are more than willing to take temporary losses in order to try for long-term gains. The only alternative is an arbitrary, undemocratic governmental fixing of wages and working conditions. This should not be tolerated by the employers and certainly would not be tolerated by labor.[36]

Reub’s efforts were this time met with greater success; in what was one of the closest convention struggles in American history, Dwight Eisenhower was able to defeat the despised Taft. Still, the platform agreed upon at the Chicago convention left much to be desired. The Republican Party officially favored the retention of Taft-Hartley, came out against inflation stabilization controls, and was largely silent on issues like housing, tax fairness, and the minimum wage.[37]

The Democratic Chicago Convention, in contrast, invited labor and largely adopted its principles. As President of the hosting state’s Labor Federation, Reuben enjoyed considerable access and influence. He was invited as guest of his good friend, Senator Paul Douglas, to the National Democratic Convention sessions, where he was proud to witness the nomination of Illinois’s own Adlai Stevenson as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.[38] Although Reuben had endorsed Stevenson’s opponent in 1948, the Governor’s pro-labor record had endeared him to the ISFL leader. While at the convention Reuben also took meetings with Democratic political operatives, including George Harrison, Chairman of the DNC’s Labor Division. Later that October, in the heat of the political campaign, Harrison arranged for a personal meeting between Reuben and President Truman himself.[39] Despite his professed nonpartisanship, by the conventions’ close there was no question that Reuben’s star was ascendant in Democratic politics.

Mixed Results

While Reuben was busy courting Democrats, his son Carl concentrated on the other side of the aisle. By 1952 the freshman representative had consolidated a firm base of support. He ran without opposition in the Republican primary that year, garnering praise from both sides of the aisle. Although a firm labor vote, Carl took pains to publicly endorse the Republican Party and its platform. The day after Reuben met with President Truman, Carl rapped Stevenson’s record. “In Streator, State Rep. Carl Soderstrom (R-Streator) said a Republican administration would be friendly to labor,” the Edwardsville Intelligencer reported. “Soderstrom pointed to the labor legislation record of the 1951 state legislature, controlled by Republicans in both houses.”[40] Carl’s efforts paid off. He garnered a “heavy complimentary vote” in the general election, solidifying his status as a newly powerful player in the Illinois Republican party.[41] It was a status that would become vitally important in the coming legislative year, as Republicans scored an impressive swath of victories nationally and across the state. Republicans not only retook the governor’s mansion (Democrats lost the advantage of the incumbency when Stevenson decided to run for President) but dominated in state Senate and House races as well. By the end of Election Day, Republicans had claimed 38 of 50 Senate seats and 86 House seats to the Democrats’ 67. It was a tough defeat for labor; the best Reuben could hope for was that the candidates he’d supported in the Republican primaries would maintain their resolve in the coming session. Still, Reuben remained undeterred; labor had persevered against worse odds, as he reminded the labor faithful:

Neither depressions, nor wars, nor political setbacks, have been able to destroy (the AFL), or stop its progress or growth… it has written a history replete with courage and determination on the part of the plain people… we are facing many complex and difficult problems, but we are facing them with a quiet confidence that they will be solved. Just as the pioneers of unionism conquered their difficulties, performed their duties and solved their problems, so we, in our day, will overcome our modern difficulties; we will perform our duties and we will solve our problems.[42]

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