SHELTER FROM THE STORM

It had been a brutal summer for Matthew Brandon. The heat was bad enough; temperatures had already topped 100˚ in Chicago by June—20˚ hotter than normal—and August was proving to be the worst month yet. The weather, however, was the least of Matthew’s worries. When he first brought his English war bride and their first child home to America, the world seemed full of hope and opportunity. For a brief while it was. But now, with recession of 1953 in full swing, the former soldier turned freelance photographer couldn’t sell a single picture. He was working as a cab driver to make ends meet, but rent was killing him. Earning less than $65 a week, and now the father of four, he could barely afford their overcrowded one-bedroom apartment.

Life was little better for Randall Savage. When the war veteran, now an Illinois State employee, and his wife were both working, they could afford the $100 a month it cost to stay in their two-room unit in an apartment hotel (the only quarters they could find). But when Mrs. Savage was forced to quit her job as the birth of their first child neared, Randy found himself unable to make the rent. Before long the Savages and their newborn baby were homeless. His brother had taken in the struggling family, but he had no room to spare; sleeping on a sweaty makeshift cot in the apartment’s main room, Randy fell into despair, unsure of how he’d ever make a life for his wife and child.[1]

On August 18, 1953, hope came to the Brandon and Savage families in the form of the Victor A. Olander Homes, a new south-side public housing project that opened its doors for the first time on that warm summer day. This complex and those like it were the fruition of a long, hard struggle led in part by Illinois labor. Illinois Federation Secretary Olander and President Soderstrom had spent years pushing for bills that would bring relief to Illinois families like the Brandons and Savages, comprised of hard-working men and women who, after serving their communities and country, needed and deserved some help in achieving the American Dream. From their first successful housing legislative drive in the 1933 Illinois General Assembly to their national efforts in support of the Federal Housing Act of 1949, Reub and Vic directed millions of federal dollars to Illinois for low-income housing. It was little surprise, then, that when the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) decided to christen the newest round of housing projects, which provided safe and sanitary homes for low-income families at rents at least 20% below privately constructed housing, they chose to honor the late labor giant by dedicating the Oakwood Boulevard and Lake Park Avenue complex in his name.

The building was as ambitious in design as it was in mission, an imposing structure that Victor’s best friend and closest companion Reuben G. Soderstrom described approvingly in his speech at the building’s dedication ceremony:

This 15-story Y-shaped structure rears its head skyward, towering over adjacent buildings. This edifice will be a fitting memorial—it stands on the edge of Lake Michigan on Chicago’s great south side, facing the waters on which Victor A. Olander sailed when employed as a sailor, and will become a symbol and monument to his quality…I am proud of the Victor A. Olander Homes and proud to be here to dedicate this housing project to his memory. He deserves this tribute. Victor A. Olander is the greatest labor leader Illinois has yet produced.[2]

While the accomplishment was substantial, Reub was just getting started. There were still far too many in need with far too little done on their behalf. The Housing Act was a small first step at best; worse still, Congress had cut back on HA construction with the start of the Korean War. The result was a dearth in defense area housing, driving up working and middle-class housing costs alike. Congress, Reuben declared, needed to support legislation providing long-term, low-interest loans for middle income families. Americans expected action from their government; instead, he ruefully noted:

The members of Congress must think that if you just ignore a problem long enough—if you just look the other way whenever it crops up—it will somehow solve itself. That seems to be the way Congress has been handling the problem, because Congress has gone home without doing the adequate thing to provide housing for millions of families living in dilapidated, unsanitary slums and for the tens of thousands of workers in defense areas who are living, often with their families, in shacks, huts, tents, and trailers. The trouble with this do-nothing or do-very-little approach is that in this world problems just don’t solve themselves. It takes positive and responsible action to solve problems.[3]

Reuben, along with his Secretary Stanley Johnson and son Carl, would spend 1953 taking that action, not just on housing but on a range of legislation and issues. From workmen’s compensation to workplace safety, from equal pay for women to protections for those of any race, color, or creed, they fought the forces of intolerance and indifference. They fought to defend the jobs, homes, and futures of those they represented. They fought the uncertainty, discrimination, and unfairness that still plagued the American workplace. They fought for shelter, for the safety and security of workers across Illinois and beyond, so they too could share in the burgeoning American Dream.

AFL RAPPROCHEMENT WITH THE CIO

Unification Talks Begin

The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations had been flirting with the possibility of unification for some time. However, old grudges and recurring arguments always appeared to undermine attempts to repair the rift. With the passing of AFL President William Green and CIO chief Philip Murray at the end of 1952, however, it seemed for the first time that real reconciliation was possible. To be sure, Reuben mourned the loss of Green—a man he considered both a leader and friend. Green had in many ways been a mentor to Soderstrom. He cultivated Reuben’s leadership skills, naming him to a number of national AFL committees, including the influential Committee on Resolutions. He trusted him to represent the Federation on several joint regional, national, and international bodies, from wartime planning committees to the State War Council.[4] He utilized Reub’s negotiating talent as an AFL arbiter, dispatching him to resolve intra-labor arguments ranging from national jurisdictional disputes to Central Body power struggles.[5] Through the years he repeatedly came to the ISFL leader for support and counsel. Reuben likewise admired the man whom he described in a stirring eulogy:

A symbol to the entire world, a symbol of the American way of life, a symbol of a great experiment whose sole purpose was the uplifting and betterment of the common man… He was a humanitarian, crusading against the evils and injustices of a modern system. He learned about social justice the hard way as a boy working in the coal mines of Ohio… he was honored with the highest office the labor movement could provide… to spend the rest of his life never faltering or wavering in carrying out his youthful dream of building a strong and respected American labor movement… When future histories of the United States are written the name of William Green will stand as a shining example not only as the foremost labor leader of his time, but also as a great American and outstanding servant of the working people which he loved so well.[6]

Still, Green’s passing meant the passing of the torch to George Meany, a leader who was tested (the long-serving AFL Secretary had been overseeing day-to-day operations since 1951), confident, and willing to compromise. He assumed the Presidency on November 25, 1952, without opposition, and immediately pursued the reunification of labor. He reinstated the nine-man committee formed to explore the possibility of an AFL-CIO merger. He proclaimed in press interviews that he was “ready, willing, and anxious” to bring labor unity. Most importantly, unlike Green, Meany framed the pursuit of unity as a melding of two equals, rather than a reabsorption of the “wayward unions” of the CIO by the “legitimate” AFL—an approach that allowed for what then-CIO legal counsel Arthur Golderberg described as a “labor peace with honor.” As one New York Times reporter put it, Meany “consigned to the history book the approach of ‘come back to the house of labor.’”[7]

Meanwhile, new CIO President Walter Reuther (who faced a tougher succession than his AFL counterpart) also indicated a willingness to explore a merger. In his convention speech, Reuther promised delegates that he would not allow any “vested right in an office”—i.e. the politics of personal power or pride—to stand in the way of unification. For the first time in decades, green shoots of hope began to grow on both sides of labor’s long-divided field. That fall, both labor groups’ national conventions passed and agreed to sign a sensible no-raid pledge. Committed and cautiously optimistic, the revived joint committee stated “This agreement and its faithful observance is the first and essential step toward the achievement of organic unity between the AFL and CIO, a goal which both organizations wholeheartedly subscribe. It is the intention of both parties to continue their joint meetings in an endeavor to achieve this objective.”[8] As AFL Secretary-Treasurer William F. Schnitzler, a member of the nine-man group, described to the ISFL convention delegates:

In every conference… there has been a harmonious atmosphere, and a seeming desire on the part of each one who participated in the conference to work towards organic unity... certainly there are many, many trade union reasons why we ought to be together.[9]

Numerous regional unions also began working across boundaries. Meat Cutter and Butcher Workers (AFL) and the Packinghouse Workers (CIO), for example, signed a “mutual assistance” pact, as did the International Association of Machinists (AFL) and the United Auto Workers (CIO). Soon the Bakery and Confectionery Workers and Teamsters also signed a 10-year “mutual assistance” pact, which included close cooperation for organizing activities and negotiations, an exchange of information and statistics, and a joint effort to meet common problems.[10]

Rooting out Corruption

Before both organizations could truly come together, however, they had to clean their respective houses. The CIO, plagued from its inception with charges of Communist influence, had already begun the process of reform. In 1949 the organization expelled its most notorious Communist-dominated unions, altering its constitution to allow the Executive Board to expel any other union that engaged in pro-communist policies or activities. These efforts were largely successful; as labor historian Professor Seidman testified before a Senate Committee in 1952, “So far as the present strength of the Communist Party movement in the trade-union field is concerned, it has come to the lowest ebb since about 1935…Both within the AFL and within the CIO, Communist union strength is negligible today, except for a few scattered locals.”[11]

The AFL’s problems with corruption, in contrast, were still on full public display in 1953. Charges of racketeering had tarnished the national AFL’s public image for decades, with the chaos and graft engendered by prohibition and war only deepened by organized crime’s infiltration. The most infamous example of systemic corruption was the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), whose seedy activities investigative journalist Malcom Johnson described in depressing detail in his 24-part New York Sun Pulitzer Prize-winning series Crime on the Labor Front:

Organized criminal activity at these piers includes such varied enterprises as smuggling, traffic in narcotics, payroll padding, systematic theft of cargo, extortion, bookmarking, the numbers game, wage kickbacks, and loansharking…Both the union and the employers are jointly responsible for the conditions on the waterfront, each being governed by selfish interests operating against the welfare of the worker, against law, order, and efficiency in the port, and against the general public.[12]

The national AFL leadership, while vocally critical of such activities, remained largely impotent, claiming their affiliates’ autonomy left the national organization powerless to take meaningful action. Public anger over this failure, many labor leaders privately admitted, was a major reason why anti-labor congressmen were to pass restrictive laws like Taft-Hartley without general outcry, even from many workers themselves. In the words of Reuben’s future Secretary-Treasurer Bob Gibson, “We hadn’t done enough to clean our own house, so they did it for us.”[13]

That began to change slowly in 1953, when the AFL finally began to take action against the Longshoremen’s Association. Several factors likely played into the decision. First, media attention—beginning with Johnson’s expose and exploding after a blistering investigation of the ILA by the New York State Crime Commission—had focused a white-hot spotlight on labor corruption. By the time Elia Kazan’s film On the Waterfront, inspired by Johnson’s reporting, was released the following year, the public equated longshore unions with crime and corruption. Secondly, the CIO—which had gone to considerable lengths to purge itself of Communist influence—insisted that the AFL take action if it was serious about a merger. Reuther went so far as to list the removal of racketeering elements as one of his “four principles” upon which the CIO could not compromise (alongside the preservation of industrial organization, a system for resolving jurisdictional conflicts, and an end to any discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color).[14]

Finally, the change in AFL leadership also likely played a role. While both leaders abhorred corruption, Meany had a more expansive view of his authority than Green had, allowing him to do what his predecessor believed he couldn’t. Ultimately, this allowed Meany to take actions for the sake of discipline and unity that the mild-mannered Green, who fervently observed the limitations of his own office, would never consider.

With all eyes on the waterfront, Meany issued an ultimatum to ILA leadership: clean up or clear out. As Soderstrom’s Weekly News Letter reported that February:

The American Federation of Labor, in a sweeping and unprecedented statement that sets principles applying to all affiliates, ordered the International Longshoremen’s Association to clean house by April 30 or face expulsion from the federation. The Executive Council of the A. F. of L., meeting in Miami, said that the A. F. of L. is a voluntary association, and that each affiliate has autonomy…”However,’ the statement went on, ‘no one should make the mistake of concluding that the American Federation of Labor will sit by and allow abuse of autonomy on the part of any of the affiliates to bring injury to the entire movement…No affiliate of the A. F. of L. has any right to expect to remain an affiliate on the grounds of organizational autonomy if its conduct is such as to bring the entire movement into disrepute.[15]

When the ILA failed to reform, Meany kept his word. At the 1953 AFL Convention in St. Louis, the Committee on Resolutions, including Reuben, recommended the revocation of the ILA’s charter. The vote was overwhelming, with 72,362 in favor of expulsion, handily defeating the 765 votes against it. Soderstrom clearly supported the move and spoke highly of Meany for his bold, decisive action. In his report to the ISFL, Reuben spoke of the new AFL chief in glowing terms, writing:

Meany is destined to become the greatest labor leader that these wonderful United States has yet produced—and ten million members of the American Federation of Labor, with all their hearts, are hoping he will attain that goal! Though he has a flair for diplomacy, President Meany favors blunt talk, forthright action. He has never been found straddling an issue or off balance in debate or discussion. The A. F. of L. is in good hands.[16]

Of course, it would be difficult not to notice that the traits that Reuben extols in Meany—diplomatic ability paired with blunt talk, a predilection for action over patience, a black-and-white view of the issues—are characteristics that could easily be attributed to Reub himself. It is perhaps unsurprising that Soderstrom saw in Meany a kind of kindred spirit. Like the AFL leader, Reuben was unafraid to wield the authority of his office, bending entire conventions to his will if necessary. While instinctively inclined to work with those possessing competing interests, he could (and frequently did) rain down hellfire on those he considered underhanded or self-serving. And, just as Meany took on the ILA, Reuben had spent years fighting off extortionists and criminal attempts to infiltrate the ISFL, enduring everything from threats to intimidation to actual attempts on his life. Soderstrom’s response to such efforts was always the same: “You can kill me, that’s for sure, but as long as I’m alive and President of this great labor organization, you’ll never get control of Labor in the State of Illinois.”[17]

Sadly, Reuben and Meany’s fight against racketeering was just beginning. The ILA stubbornly refused to go away quietly. For years the expelled union remained the chosen representative of organized longshoremen, while the AFL-chartered International Brotherhood of Longshoremen lost repeated elections (although intimidation was thought to play a deciding roll in such events). Reuben, meanwhile, would spend years battling the corruption that festered in his own backyard. That year alone, Soderstrom’s native Streator Daily Times-Press ran multiple stories breathlessly reporting on labor abuses uncovered in St. Louis, the regional hub city located on Illinois’s southern border that once served as Reuben’s stomping ground, not to mention the host of that year’s AFL convention. “’Self-seeking labor leaders have extorted money from building contractors and union members and made the St. Louis area the worst in the nation,” the paper said, quoting a federal grand jury report.[18] The article went on to paint an all-too-familiar picture of thuggish union bosses who ruled by intimidation, some of whom “carried revolvers with impunity, and on many occasions arranged it so that workers who might complain were able to see such a weapon.”[19]

Later that year the paper reported on a Kansas City labor probe that indicted five union men. Orville Ring, president of Teamsters Local 541 and ringleader of the group, was charged with two counts of embezzlement and two counts of second degree robbery. One of Ring’s men, a former vice president of teamsters local 838, was indicted on charges of assault with intent to kill and two charges of carrying concealed weapons.[20] To their credit, the AFL put the offending unions in trusteeship soon after the indictments were handed down, but the damage was already done.

One can only imagine how the seemingly never-ending drip of such stories affected Reub. They filled the pages of his hometown paper. Unfortunately, labor’s darkest days were yet to come; it wouldn’t be long before Teamsters Union President David Beck—1953’s addition to the Executive Council—put the Federation through its most sordid, agonizing affair yet: the McClellan Committee investigation.

KEEPING LABOR SAFE

The Sixty-Eighth General Assembly

While the national labor movement fluctuated between unity talks and anti-corruption efforts, Soderstrom kept his organization focused on the coming legislative session. Without question, Reub knew, this would be a difficult session; Democrats had taken a beating at the polls in Illinois and across the nation, and Republicans held heavy majorities in both the Illinois House and Senate. They also controlled the governor’s mansion with the election of William Stratton.

Still, Reub had reason to hope. While his ISFL had endorsed Stratton’s opponent, Sherwood Dixon, based on its tradition of supporting the incumbent if he or she had a favorable labor record (Dixon, as Adlai Stevenson’s Lieutenant Governor, was considered to share in the administration’s record), they had largely avoided any heated rhetoric or acrimony. Just the opposite; throughout the ’52 election cycle Soderstrom had held his Federation to its non-partisan policy, promoting pro-labor politicians regardless of party affiliation. “Labor must reward both friendly Republicans and Democrats who ‘stick out their necks’ and vote for our legislation,” he wrote in the pages of the ISFL’s Weekly Newsletter. “The labor movement, as such, has no desire to control either party and, as a matter of policy, does not attempt to do so.”[21]

This non-partisan approach was soon rewarded by the new governor when he named two AFL men, Roy Cummins and Joseph Hodges, as Illinois Director of Labor and Assistant Director, respectively.[22] This was a pleasant turn of events for Reuben, who under the previous Democratic governor was forced to accept first a CIO man and then a political AFL opponent as IDOL Director. For the first time in years, Reub saw his access to the IDOL fully restored.

Of course, Reuben’s greatest asset in the coming session was his son, Carl. After running unopposed in his native 39th District, the younger Soderstrom was now in his sophomore year as an Illinois House Representative. Carl was ready to lead and he didn’t waste any time; on January 27, the first day of mass bill introduction, he co-sponsored the very first bill introduced—a measure combining the Workman’s Compensation and Occupational Disease Acts, increasing disability awards by 25%. He also entered H.B. 20, a measure to establish safety programs in all businesses employing 25 workers or more. The bill would require employers to promote a safety program, administered by the Illinois Department of Labor, educating employees on how to prevent injury.[23] He soon followed those bills with another, co-sponsored with fellow Republican James Atkins, to provide compensation of $10 to $25 weekly for 26 weeks to ill or injured workers. The proposed law, whose benefits roughly matched those provided by unemployment compensation, was designed to fix a quirk in the existing unemployment compensation law that provided benefits to unemployed persons as long as they were healthy but cut them off if or when they got sick, as all recipients were required to be “ready, willing and able to work.”[24]

It wasn’t long before industry went on the attack. Their biggest target, it soon became clear, was HB 20, the Education Safety Proposal. Reuben was seemingly at a loss. Opposition to such a bill seemed bizarre to him. According to the National Safety Council, over 17,000 people were killed on the job in industry in 1951.[25] Illinois alone had seen a total of 52,068 compensable work injuries the previous year, including 428 fatal accidents.[26] These injuries hurt laborer and employer alike, Reub reasoned, and it was in both their interests to reduce such accidents. In this spirit he had spent the last year working with 26 AFL Central Bodies in a drive to produce best safety practices. He appointed John Fewkes of the Chicago Teachers union to act as liaison between the Federation and the Department of Labor, collecting and giving data and material to Major Charles Cannon, the Department’s Industrial Safety Expert. The sole purpose of HB 20 was to disseminate this information, through a $25,000 appropriation agreed upon by the Governor, in order to prevent workplace injuries.[27] It was a simple education bill; there were no penalties for businesses, no additional personnel to hire or expenses to incur. To Reub, it seemed like a surefire win-win.

But what he hadn’t anticipated was the emerging ideology within industry, a purist theory of economics that was attempting to replace the cooperative tripartite model of the 1940s (labor, management, and government working in conjunction) with the anti-labor, anti-government laissez-faire economics of the pre-depression era. This time the business community, led by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, was committed to defeating HB 20 on principle; they wanted to make the statement that any government interference, no matter how beneficial or benign, would be met with total protest.

And protest they did. On the day the bill was to be considered by the Industrial Affairs Committee, more than 50 business and industry spokesmen lined the committee room halls, eager to put the bill down. John Barkley of the Illinois Manufacturers Association led the charge, accusing Carl and the ISFL of crafting a bill meant to “obtain an unwarranted power over industry, giving the department of labor another club over the heads of employers.”[28] In testimony, Barkley ominously warned that requiring employers to set up safety education programs would “drive industry out of Illinois.”[29]

Reuben was disgusted. “An astoundingly callous attitude, with respect to creating an effective safety education campaign in Illinois factories and other places of employment, was displayed by representatives of the employer” the ISFL Weekly Newsletter read the following day.[30] In the end, the show of force worked; the Industrial Affairs Committee gave the bill an unfavorable recommendation by a vote of six to ten. Carl tried his best to resurrect the legislation, asking the House to non-concur and place the bill back on the calendar, arguing that “a bill dealing with such an important matter as safety should be considered by the whole house.”[31] His motion received 70 votes, far outnumbering the 51 no votes but 7 shy of the absolute majority needed to win. Carl was apoplectic, telling reporters after the vote, “I’m amazed at the opposition that has appeared to this bill. Its sole purpose was to save lives, and since no penalty was provided for violation it would have been entirely harmless.”[32]

Out of options, Carl withdrew HB 20 and replaced it with HB 547, which created a commission of six legislators charged with ascertaining the best methods of preventing industrial accidents and saving lives. For Reub, it was a bitter pill. In his front-page essay entitled “A Tragic Defeat,” Reuben unloaded on what he referred to as the “reactionary opposition:”

Instead of subscribing to safety legislation controlled and guided by the State Department of Labor, or some other governmental agency, the employers prefer to set up industrial safety councils. Officers of the safety councils collect revenue from industry, but function inefficiently and half-heartedly, much the same as company unions, and they are just as phony, or as counterfeit.

This is the age-old position of reactionary employers. Their position was much the same with respect to hours of labor for women workers, proper care for aged people, benefits for injured workmen. All down through the years their hue and cry has been, “We don’t need any legislation,” that industry will take care of these urgent matters without law or governmental supervision. As a matter of fact, however, nothing worthwhile was done about shortening the work week for women until the Women’s Eight Hour law was passed. Nothing worthwhile was done for aged people until Old Age Assistance and the Social Security pension law was passed and certainly nothing was done for injured workers on a voluntary or any other kind of basis, until the Workmen’s Compensation Act was enacted.

This writer is wondering how many more working people must lose their lives in industrial accidents before industry is willing to accept some guidance, supervision and direction from governmental safety experts.[33] By the end of the legislative session most of labor’s agenda shared the fate of H.B. 20. Reub and Carl had managed to pass a few minor bills, including a State Employees’ Widows Pension and a Policeman’s Minimum Wage Bill, but in truth the best thing the Soderstroms could say about the 68th session was that it was at an end.

Struggle in Streator

The hits didn’t stop with the end of the legislative session, however. Days after returning from Springfield, Reub and Carl witnessed their tiny town get torn apart by a tornado, the first to hit Streator in over a quarter-century. According to local accounts, the twister “struck a devastating blow to the southeastern section of the city…causing inestimable property damage at two industrial plants.”[34] It blew apart the G& D company warehouse, leased by the Thatcher Glass Manufacturing Company, and tore the roof off the Streator Manufacturing Company plant. Winds ripped through the streets at over 50 miles an hour, carrying a torrential downpour and doing damage to everything in their wake. Miraculously, no one was injured.[35]

The storm couldn’t have come at a worse time. By the summer of 1953 the U.S. economy was in a deep recession, and the storm’s impact only amplified its effects. It soon became clear that the second half of 1953 was going to be a subdued, lean time. Unlike most years, there would be no city parades to celebrate Labor Day. As the Streator Daily Press-Times sadly noted, “It will be the first time in years that the various labor bodies, which have sponsored the celebration in the past, allow the day to go by without a street parade, free acts, and other attractions which have made it an outstanding event in this section of the state.”[36]

Still, the Soderstroms did all they could to make the best of the situation. Reub’s daughter Jeannie, whom everyone called “sister,” had moved back home to care for her father after her mother’s passing, and after two years she had become his homemaker and companion.[37] She was a gentle soul who loved her work as a guidance counselor at Streator High School. She spent nearly all her time tending to the needs of others, including her Grandma Soderstrom, who lived in a small three-room apartment a block away. Although nearly blind from glaucoma and cataracts, she still possessed her signature energy and stubbornness—traits she’d clearly imparted to her son.

Despite the setbacks of summer, life in Streator hummed along quietly until Carl learned that their neighbors, who owned the lot at the corner of Bloomington Street and Lincoln Avenue, intended to tear down their apartment complex and replace it with a gas station. He immediately set out to stop the construction before it could start, canvassing the neighborhood and gathering signatures for petition asking that the property in question be reclassified from commercial to residential. Acting as spokesman for the neighborhood, he took the community’s collective grievances to the city council, making an impassioned and well-reasoned case as to why the construction of a gas station on the corner lot could and should be prevented. Then, in an inspired move, he convinced the council to write and pass, on the spot, an ordinance requiring the consent of two-thirds of the property owners within 300 feet of a site before a station could be built in a residential section of the city. It was hastily drawn and clearly at odds with local zoning law, but it prevented construction while the classification issue was settled.[38]

The lot owners, naturally, were furious. As soon as they heard what happened they marched into the next city council meeting to demand that their rights be respected. The land was zoned appropriately, they asserted, and they could do with it whatever they pleased. Carl shot back that what they wanted to do would be a “blight to the neighborhood,” and, as a homeowner whose property value would be impacted by their actions, he had every right to intervene. Things quickly deteriorated from there; accusations and eventually insults flew as Carl and the would-be gas station owners went back and forth. The local papers covered the fight as it progressed from the City Council to the Commissioner to the City Planning Commission.[39] What began as keen (or at least curious) interest turned into seeming exhaustion, however, as the fighting dragged on; weeks turned into months, months turned into seasons. All the while, Carl fought tooth and nail to keep the gas station out of his neighborhood, refusing to budge an inch, even when the Planning Council rejected his argument and issued a recommendation in favor of the would-be gas station owners. Carl redoubled his efforts, returning to the City Council to convince them they should reject the Planning Council’s recommendation. Finally, by mid-November Carl got what he wanted; while he failed to get the land re-zoned, the City Council upheld the local ordinance they’d drawn up on the spur of the moment nearly four months earlier, effectively preventing the lot owners from building their gas station.[40] Carl celebrated Christmas in 1953 a clear winner, with nary a gas station in sight.

CELEBRATION

While Carl could clearly claim his share of success in 1953, the highlight of the year for the Soderstrom family was, without question, the gala testimonial dinner tendered to Reuben that year by the Jewish Labor Committee of Chicago at the stately Sherman Hotel. Following World War II, the formation and independence of Israel led to the emergence of a nascent Jewish Labor Federation, Histadrut, which had chosen Reub to chair their fundraising effort in Illinois. President Soderstrom helped raise desperately needed start-up funds, welcoming and eagerly embracing those in the movement as brothers and sisters. As he put it, “The trade union movement has made important gains for all workers, white and black, Christian and Jewish.”[41]

In appreciation for all Reuben’s tireless efforts, the Jewish Labor Committee of Chicago chose to honor him with a testimonial dinner, a grand affair in his honor given “in recognition of the work that Soderstrom, as legislative head of the trade unionists of Illinois, has done in establishing equality of opportunity for all people.”[42] It was an event Reub and his loved ones would never forget. Sharing the excitement of the evening with his mother Anna, son Carl, daughter Jeanne, sister Olga, and two of his five grandchildren, the typically boisterous Reuben was briefly reduced to a humble silence, overcome by the emotion and pageantry of the moment. As his sister Olga, an honored guest that night at the banquet, fondly remembered, “Reub was given a beautiful citation. Civic leaders, the clergy, political spokesmen and labor people gathered to pay homage to the achievements in this field which had been made by a real champion of justice.”[43]

One after another, guest after guest stood to say a few words about the guest of honor. Chicago Mayor Martin H. Kennelly told the assembly, “It’s always a pleasure to pay tribute where tribute is due. Few citizens have contributed so much to the human relations of this city and this state as Reub Soderstrom. In saluting Reub, we salute the enlightened labor leadership he symbolizes.”[44] Chicago Federation President Bill Lee, although called away to Washington on business, still offered congratulations in a letter read at the dinner. “In the field of labor legislation, there is no more outstanding leader than Reuben Soderstrom,” he wrote. “Not only have the members of organized labor benefited from his activities, but he has brought a measure of security to the aged, the disabled, and to the unorganized worker.”[45] One of the evening’s highlights was William Schnitzler, the new secretary-treasurer of the AFL, who flew in from Washington, D.C. to deliver the keynote address. He began by relaying a warm message of congratulations from AFL President George Meany, which read in part:

To strengthen the position of the United States in its current role of world leader, to carry out the ideals set down in our Declaration of Independence and to attain fulfillment of the basic precepts of our Judeo-Christian civilization, one of the most important tasks is to recognize and act upon the principle that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Reub Soderstrom has been one of the foremost workers toward these ends. He well deserves a testimonial such as you are according him tonight. Let this dinner serve to honor him and also to spur the rest of us to continued efforts in extending equal opportunities for all men, no matter what their race, their creed, or their color. The job is by no means finished. Let this occasion serve to dedicate all of us to renewed effort, emulating what Soderstrom has so well begun.[46]

Many of the speakers cited Reuben’s work on behalf of those of different faiths, backgrounds, and ethnicities; as a reporter for the Peoria Labor Temple News later wrote, “It was evident from the many speakers’ expressions that equality and anti-discrimination because of race, creed or color, was the theme of the night, woven in and out of the life work of Mr. Soderstrom.”[47]

Reub’s Secretary-Treasurer Stanley Johnson then rose to address the crowd. Reminding them that today was also, fortunately enough, Reub’s birthday, he began to give a special toast to the 65-year-old Soderstrom. He praised his friend’s energy and ingenuity, marveling that “in every conversation Reub brings up some new idea to help the worker, the aged and the needy. His enthusiasm for his work is contagious, and he has the respect of all who know him because he has selflessly devoted himself to the cause of labor. We say he is not 65 years old, but 65 years young.”[48] And on those words, the room went dark as a beautiful birthday cake was brought into the dining room by waiters with flaming torches. “It was a beautiful sight!” Olga recounted. “This was a well-deserved tribute to a man who’d fought for 23 years for the cause of humanity and organized labor.”[49]

Finally, Reub gave his prepared remarks. As always, he spoke from memory, every word and intonation utilized to full effect. Thanking all in attendance and those who spoke on his behalf, Reub reiterated that simple affirmation of common humanity that had brought him there that night:

Unity between races, a fraternal brotherhood, is the essence of trade unionism…We, of the American Federation of Labor, are in an organization founded by a Jew and named by a Negro. While we may be Jews, and Negroes, we may be French, Swedish, British, Italian or German, we are also union members…We, each of us, stand as individuals, jealous of the rights and determined for the freedoms of every individual both here and across the sea. We, each of us, stand united, too, knowing that there is no greater strength than that of union brothers and sisters, working against intolerance and discrimination, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder. Unionism and the fight against evil and prejudice are a necessity fifty-two weeks each year. What we preach here tonight we must practice every day throughout the year, and the years ahead…We will never halt our struggle until discrimination is banished.[50]

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