AN ACTIVE FAMILY IN STREATOR

It was a “zestful event,” according to the local press. Months of harsh Midwestern winter had briefly relented, and the residents of Streator wasted no time taking advantage of the late February sunshine by touring the new springtime store fronts. It was no meager occasion; ever since L. Frank Baum (the clever salesman who later authored the fantastical Wizard of Oz) first transformed the practice at the turn of the century, the reveal of elaborate and expansive window dressings had become a fanciful affair, a heady mix of celebration and show for every local community. Reuben’s home was no exception, and the bustling town which inspired “Streator on Saturday Night” marked the mercantile holiday in style. As the Streator Times-Press reported:

Lured to the downtown area by the promise of a glimpse into Spring, men, women, and children literally thronged the streets Friday evening for the unveiling of the store windows. Each window reflected an artisanship, in which a touch of Hollywood atmosphere gave a colorful tone to the opening of a week-long salute to the gay season, anxiously anticipated by all. Mother Nature co-operated by providing a lovely spring-like Friday afternoon and a clear, brisk evening which stimulated shoppers to get to town early in anticipation of a preview of spring finery as well as new ideas for home furnishings and interior and exterior decorating. Merchants added floral displays to their window trims which provided that extra special touch which whets the viewers’ appetites for the sparkling new and lovely merchandise which is always associated with springtime and Easter. Store interiors were equally inviting and many took the opportunity to study the lovely wares with the idea of planning Spring wardrobes as well as additions to the home. Potential car-buyers were also in the viewing group. Streator merchants are to be congratulated for their effort to grapple with the winter blues and to provide that mental mood for the “Swing into Spring.”[1]

Reuben joined the boisterous crowd, shaking hands and enjoying the storefront art with his daughter Jeannie, the Merriners, Carl and Virginia, and the whole mess of grandkids, Carl Jr, Ginny, Bob, Jane and Bill. It was a happy time. Jeannie, who began her teaching career in a one-room county schoolhouse, had risen to a position of prominence in the Streator school system. After more than a decade teaching at the Grant and Garfield elementary schools and serving as art supervisor for the entire elementary system, she had accepted a post as girls’ counselor and teacher of social studies at the Streator Township High School.[2] Already possessing a Master of Arts, she had begun to pursue a second Masters in Counseling.[3] All the while, “Sister” (as the family called her) had become Reuben’s homemaker and constant companion, helping to fill the loneliness he’d felt since his wife’s death.

It was in this role that Jeannie accompanied her father to the reception held in honor of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at the Conrad Hilton on July 6 of that year. After a “proud, tumultuous” visit to Chicago’s “lusty metropolis” with over a half-million cheering fans and spectators lining the streets, the royal couple retreated to a private state dinner with 1,400 hand-picked guests, including Reub.[4] They were a dynamic couple, the Queen “radiant in a stunning evening gown and wearing a diamond tiara” and the Prince “a glamour boy—tall, trim, blond and handsome.”[5] As the dinner wound to a close, the Prince—who had earned a reputation as a “sponge for information, especially on details of technical operations,” took Reuben aside and spoke with him at length, a conversation that did not go unnoticed by the press. As the labor leader left the dining hall, reporters crowded around him, clamoring to know what the two had talked about. Reub, however, refused to give comment, keeping the details of their conversation private.[6]

Reub’s son Carl Sr., continued serving as a Representative in Illinois’s 39th district. He was the recognized voice for labor in the House, a Republican respected on both sides of the aisle. Reuben’s grandson, Carl Jr., now a High School junior, also proved a font of pride and promise, earning high honors that year for his academic achievements in addition to working late shifts at the A&P grocery store.[7] 17-year-old Carl also shared his grandfather’s affinity for boxing, delighting in their trips to the local Armory, which Reub had financed as a legislator, to watch the Golden Gloves amid the fans’ heavy cigar smoke. Together that summer the Soderstrom men thrilled at the exploits of Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson, the famed “Hammer of Thor,” as he took on heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson in the fight of a lifetime. The three huddled in Reub’s living room with rapt attention, ears pealed to the radio as Johansson, after spending the first two rounds in retreat, drilled Patterson with a short, powerful right to the chin, sending the 5-1 favorite to the ground for the first of six times as Ingemar took the title in a stunning upset victory. The Soderstroms celebrated with cheers and a feast of sardines; as Carl Jr. later described, “It was like the Vikings had invaded America!”[8]

Reuben’s mother, the family matriarch Anna Soderstrom, had been in declining health for the last several years, living with Reuben’s sister Olga in Kankakee. Recently, Olga had placed her mother in the care of Mrs. Hermling, who ran a local nursing home capable of providing proper support for the now invalid Anna. Despite receiving excellent treatment, their mother’s health continued to deteriorate. To make matters worse, the Soderstroms faced increasing legal troubles regarding her care. In early 1958 the Illinois Department of Public Health tried to withhold licensing from Mrs. Hermling until she completed a series of home upgrades, but refused to confirm whether the expensive work would in fact secure a license. Reuben went to the department’s director on her behalf, writing in part:

Mrs. Hermling…has consulted with contractors but is waiting for assurances from the State Department that the license will be issued to her when the work is done…Please know I drop over to Kankakee every Sunday afternoon to visit with my Mother. She is 92 years of age and her doctors have informed me that she could not have survived this long if it wasn’t for the devoted care given her by Mrs. Hermling and provided for her by the attendants in this nursing home…Mrs. Hermling is a high-grade person and her nursing home is giving eminent satisfaction to both the patients and those who are concerned about her patients. I am addressing this letter to you in the hope you will find it agreeable and consistent to issue Mrs. Hermling with a license when the alterations and improvements which are contemplated are complete.[9]

Even more troubling were the problems Reuben faced with the Internal Revenue Service. Reub assumed the full cost of care for his mother—$250 per month for housing, medicines and doctor bills—and it wasn’t long before the IRS began harassing him over the expense. Year after year they issued audits of Soderstrom’s finances, with one agent after another checking his returns (“they must not have trusted their own agents,” Reub joked to his sister).[10] After five years of this, Reuben had learned to endure the constant mistrust and suspicion, carefully keeping receipts for every dollar. With a modest income and modest home, he had nothing to hide.

CORRUPTION, CONVENTION AND LEGISLATION

Protecting Labor’s Image

The withering government scrutiny directed at Reuben likely had to do with a now widespread suspicion of labor leaders like himself, who were relentlessly portrayed in the media as racketeers. The Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management (commonly known as the McClellan Committee) had recently uncovered real corruption that only served to further this narrative, giving cover to labor’s enemies and forcing even its friends to keep their distance. At the Illinois AFL-CIO convention that year, Soderstrom ally and U.S. Senator Paul Douglas spoke at length about how labor must purge corruption from its ranks. He admonished the crowd:

We of organized labor have got to clean house. Don’t let the Becks, Hoffas and Glimcos wrap the flag of decent unionism around them and drag you down to destruction...There has been a mistaken attitude expressed by some unionists that, so long as this kind of leadership gets good contracts from employers, it is of little concern what kind of ethics the leaders have—they’re all right if they can “bring home the bacon.” That kind of an attitude already has hurt the cause of labor, and if persisted in can hurt a lot more.[11]

Of course, the Senator also denounced efforts to attack unions that simply used such scandals for cover, warning “In the guise of fighting corruption, non-union forces in the country are making a drive against unions in general.” Still, the papers the following morning focused on the Senator’s “tough talk” with headlines like “Unions Must Eliminate Hoodlums.”[12]

Even the delegates themselves made removing the stain of corruption a focal point of the convention. During the week-long meeting that September, the Illinois AFL-CIO voted to request that the national Executive Council make any readmission of the Teamsters, Bakery and Confectionery Workers, or the Laundry Cleaning and Dye House Workers—unions that had all been expelled for corrupt practices in 1957—contingent upon proof of an end to their “corrupt influences.”[13] The tenor of the entire conference was subdued. Reuben described it as a “working conference,” with money normally spent on dinners and entertainment instead going to striking steelworkers.[14] These efforts won some positive press; columnist O.T. Banton praised Illinois unions’ work, writing “the Teamsters Union will not be invited back into the fold of the AFL-CIO until it cleans house of its bad leadership, if the national labor convention follows the advice of the Illinois membership.”[15] Still, none of these actions challenged the idea that organized labor was rife with corruption and in desperate need of reform.

That, however, was exactly the fight Reub was eager to wage. While he detested corruption in any form, he was fed up with the intense focus on labor’s sins, paired with a blind eye towards corrupt practices in business. In a series of speeches throughout the state that year, Soderstrom pounded the press for their unfair and unbalanced coverage. By the time of the convention, the formidable orator had refined this call to near perfection, declaring to the delegates, press, and public alike in his presidential address:

I wish to say a word about the criticism leveled at organized labor. A good deal has been said in the public press about what is wrong in the world of labor. Corruption in the labor-management field has been dramatized with unions receiving most of the bad newspaper publicity. For every crook in the labor world, there is at least one crooked employer. The public press has deliberately exposed the corruption in some unions but have at the same time shielded the employer whose money and tampering with labor officials caused the corruption.

On this occasion, I wish to say a word to the whole wide world about what is right in the activities of our unions. I want to emphasize what decent, honorable, dedicated men of labor are doing day and night, week after week and months on end for their members, for their fellow citizens, for these United States and the cause of freedom throughout a dangerously troubled world.

One admirable feature about the labor movement is the fact that it has provided for tens of thousands of inarticulate wage-earners an agency in which to pound out policies and programs for human betterment. Unions have made the word “Democracy” mean something worthwhile. They have made citizenship and the use of the ballot in our country a badge of honor; their teachings have made the right to petition for reform, for a better day, and a better world not only a public function but a public duty which must not be disregarded. Labor unions of Illinois have pooled their efforts through the State AFL-CIO and have used their combined strength in the legislative halls in pursuit of the general welfare of both the organized and unorganized alike…

…In our legislative halls, the labor movement has attained an enormous prestige. It has taken the lead in securing laws beneficial to all of our citizens—such as pensions for the blind, pensions for widowed mothers and orphans, assistance for the aged, for the injured in industry, for the unemployed. It has supported health benefits for retired people, eight-hour laws, public housing and slum clearance, aid to education, civil rights for all, and dozens of other progressive measures and objectives.

That’s why on this occasion wage-earners should all be proud to be a part of this great movement of labor. By displaying pride and loyalty to ourselves it will attract others to us who will become pro-labor. All men and women of good will are needed on our side. We want those who believe in liberty, world peace and the Great Ruler above to become pro-labor and join with us in establishing equality, peace on earth and a perfect triumph of the Brotherhood of all mankind.

There may be a few things wrong with organized labor but there are a million things that are right and we must not let newspapers or any other enemy of labor interfere with the progress the labor movement can make in the future – progress which really should surpass the advancement we have made in days gone by![16]

Reuben’s message was clear: unions didn’t need to hide or hang their heads in shame; labor should hold its head high! He had little time for those who sought to attack hard-working men and women, and even less respect for those who did so using what he considered to be unearned gains. As he wrote in his Weekly Newsletter that year:

To read the statements of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers you’d think that American workingmen and women have been riding the gravy train through “soft” wage boosts for the past twenty years while the investor has been starving. But how about this “gravy train?” Barrons, the financial interests’ Bible, is currently boasting that if you had followed its advice and invested $51,000 on certain stocks in 1925, this is how you would have profited: Your $51,000 would now be worth $381,000 for a gain of more than 600 percent. Your average annual income for the entire 34 years would have been more than $8,000 for a total of $262,000. And your 1958 income would have been $13,729. All without having to lift a finger![17]

These wealthy manufacturers and financiers could never understand labor, Soderstrom continued, because they failed to understand that unionism was not fundamentally about money or wages; it was about dignity:

Research students who sought to learn why workers joined a union often found that the desire to get higher wages and shorter hours sometimes was secondary to the worker’s desire for recognition, for what is called status. Over two decades ago, the organizers of the United Auto Workers Union soon learned that the resentment engendered by the oppressiveness of the supervision and close surveillance which was exercised at a certain plant at that time was more conducive to joining the union than expectation of wage increases. Another persuasive reason why workers joined a union was protection against favoritism by management. Through the union they knew they would get a square deal, that their seniority would be protected and that they would not have to worry when they went to work whether they would have a job because the employer wanted a younger man or a friend for the job...[18]

Increased wages and benefits, while important, were only means to an end. Those unable to understand this, Soderstrom maintained, failed to grasp the meaning of organized labor. It was the pursuit of recognition, community, and fairness—the pursuit of dignity—that gave unionism its essential character and mission.

Anti-Picketing, Round Two

Anti-union forces, however, continued their march. The National Association of Manufacturers and its allies made gains in Washington with the passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act. This bill, ostensibly created to lessen coercion of union members by, among other things, requiring secret elections of labor officials, was laced with poison pills meant to tie-up labor. According to Senator Douglas, a “coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats who want to keep unions from becoming strong in the South and the plains states” had forced into the bill provisions “aimed at the weak and struggling unions, and at the legitimate activities of stronger unions.”[19] While the worst of these, Douglas claimed, were largely limited and/or modified by Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy’s conference committee, Reuben was far from pleased with the outcome. As he told the Carpenters at their annual conference:

In Washington, D.C. on the national level, labor was hurt badly and much bad legislation has been enacted. 156 Democrats in Congress voted for the Griffin-Landrum Bill and 147 Republicans voted for this anti-union legislation. What labor believed to be the most liberal Congress in 23 years has turned out to be the most reactionary . . . I don’t know what is wrong in Washington. Perhaps the lobbying was poorly handled. At any rate, I know that the same type of anti-union legislation was introduced in the General Assembly of Illinois and we met the situation by presenting constitutional arguments.[20]

The legislation to which Reuben was referring was actually a series of eight bills introduced by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, Illinois Retailers Association, and more. These proposed acts called for a wide range of anti-labor measures, from the creation of a “Little McClellan Commission” to forced union litigation facilitation to the reduction in compulsory school age.[21] Without a doubt, however, the worst of these was the anti-picketing bill.

Originally introduced in the 1957 General Assembly, the offensive effort to outlaw peaceful organizational picketing first met ignominious defeat in a rowdy series of hearings orchestrated by Reuben, who defeated it both in committee and in the broader House. Soderstrom assumed that he’d seen the last of the bill after such a humiliating loss, and for most of the 1959 legislative session the proposed act remained far from sight. That May, however, representative Widmer (the bill’s author) worked closely with the Illinois Chamber of Commerce to coordinate a slick media-savvy re-introduction of the bill in the General Assembly. On May 9, Widmer re-introduced his bill with less than two months to go in the session; the following day, news stories began to appear describing a grassroots campaign headed by the 84-organization strong “Inter-Organization Council for Anti-Racket Picketing Legislation.” This group clamored to bypass the normal legislative process, claiming there was no time to get bogged down in committee. In a meeting orchestrated by the State Chamber of Commerce at the Galesburg Hotel Custer on Thursday, May 14, the organization called on businessmen across the state to “contact their representatives and to be present in Springfield Tuesday May 19” when Widmer planned to enter a motion in the full House to fast-track the bill out of the Industry and Labor Relations Committee and on to a general vote[22] The plan was to pack the galleries in a show of force that would intimidate their opponents and demonstrate broad support.

This image of a wide-ranging, grassroots campaign was mostly smoke and mirrors. The 84 organizations that Widmer touted were almost all local chapters of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce—the same organization that had arranged the hotel meeting and bankrolled the blitz—along with the usual short list of labor enemies. Reuben wasted no time mounting a counter-campaign, talking to the press and denouncing Widmer’s House Bill 1202 as tyrannical legislation:

Oppressive and restrictive laws have no place in the United States. Ours is a constitutional democracy and our basic document binds and guides and controls our laws and protects our citizens. This is not true in communistic or dictatorship autocracies. Peaceful picketing is denied in East Berlin, Hungary and Russia…

House Bill 1202 is definitely an anti-labor bill. It is designed to clothe tyranny in the forms of law and legality. Peaceful picketing is legal, constitutional, and an established form of free speech. It is a proper exercise of American liberty, freedom and equality. This is the position of the Supreme Court of the United States.[23]

Soderstrom wasn’t about to let Widmer get his way. He worked the representatives with his trademark mix of charm and threat, reminding them that the last election “clearly demonstrated that kicking labor in the teeth does not pay off in votes. There are fewer enemies of labor in the Illinois General Assembly today than there were before the General Election of 1958.”[24] When Widmer made his motion the following Tuesday, his son Carl led the fight from the floor, calling the bill “the product of reactionary elements in the Republican Party…‘racket picketing’ is a phrase dreamed up by an advertising man.” If you outlaw peaceful picketing, he warned, then you “might as well outlaw the whole labor movement.” When his comments met with jeers from the Chamber of Commerce men packing the room, Carl took them head on, shaking his head in mock surprise and responding with a pitch-perfect mixture of shame and anger that “it shocks me to see so many so willing to try to take this right away from a great segment of society.”[25] Widmer’s motion failed by a vote of 84-79.

It was a victory, but a narrow one, and the toughest battle was yet to come. While the House had refused to fast-track the bill, the Committee still had to rule on the measure itself, and Reuben was far from certain about the outcome. As he wrote to friend and ally Representative Warren Wood:

The test vote on H.B. No. 1202 indicates it can be stopped on the House floor. The proponents were ten votes short last Tuesday, May 19, and that margin will be greater when, and if, the House members are called upon to vote again directly upon the bill itself. However, the Labor and Industrial Relations Committee is about evenly divided. Labor may, or may not, succeed in defeating this proposal at the hearing on the afternoon of May 26.[26]

Reuben knew how to count votes, and he realized that he was at the end of his influence. As it stood, he couldn’t secure a majority of the full committee. The wily Soderstrom, however, had a trick up his sleeve. He knew that he didn’t need a majority of the committee on his side; he simply required a majority of the members present. That’s where Wood, a member of the Republican leadership, came in. Wood and several of his colleagues didn’t want an open vote on the House floor any more than Reuben; many Republicans still hailed from labor-friendly districts, and such a vote would force them to act against the majority of their party (and face the Chamber’s wrath) or vote against the working men and women who put them into office. Reuben pressed his advantage, telling Wood:

Because you displayed concern about the utterly unjustifiable Chamber of Commerce procedure of putting yourself and all other Republicans in the embarrassing position of fighting to weaken the Bill of Rights, it occurred to me that a suggestion might be helpful. One solution would be to prevail upon at least two leading Republican members of the Committee on Industry and Labor Relations to stay away from the hearing. I think it should be the two ex-officio members. This would kill H.B. No. 1202 in Committee. If this does not occur, then of course, it will come out for anther House floor roll call. I don’t think it can pass the House and I don’t think such frenzied anti-union conduct will do the Republicans any good. It couldn’t do the Republican Party anything but harm even if it was enacted.

This is a sub-rosa suggestion from one friend to another. It seems a shame that political rejects, like Joe Meek and his ilk, should be permitted to continue to crucify the great party of Abraham Lincoln by shoving its legislative leaders into meaningless conflicts with wage-earners.[27]

Such backroom “sub-rosa suggestions” were Reuben’s specialty. Soderstrom wasn’t shy about the fact that it was his understanding of the legislature’s procedure as well as the men and women who occupied it that made him so effective. In the words of Lieutenant Governor John W. Chapman, spoken to the delegates of the 1959 Illinois AFL-CIO Convention: Let me tell you how your president operates. He calls me from time to time, along with many others he calls upon. We exchange a few words of friendly greeting, a word or two about the weather, and some more on how busy the legislature is. Then he will tell me in that friendly way of his that he has a little problem. He is sure he can work the problem out if I will just refrain from calling a certain bill for a short while. He makes you feel you are doing him a real favor, when actually what he asks you, you are only too glad to do in order to help facilitate the legislative process. I assure him I will try to postpone the calling of the bill, and usually I find that in a few weeks he and his associates have worked out a satisfactory understanding with those who are either opposing a bill they are for, or are supporting a bill they are against. He has performed a service for labor; he has performed a service for the legislature; and he has performed a service for the public.[28]

Although Soderstrom had done all he could to prepare the field in his favor, the battle itself was a long, tough slog. For over five hours, officials on both sides gave testimony and took questions from committee members. Widmer brought in a bevy of experts from the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. Their testimonies were uniformly long on hyperbole and short on facts. Thomas Meek, failed politician and founder of the IRMA, lamented that small businesses were forced to pay tribute to union organizers who “use fear as a weapon.”[29] The State Chamber trotted out Carl Eckhardt, a service station operator in Morton Grove, who testified that he’d been picketed for three years because he refused to sign a union contract.[30] The most inflammatory remarks came from Widmer himself, who charged that labor had had two years to “clean their own skirts” and failed. “Nothing has been done about it. In fact, racket picketing has become even more detrimental.”[31]

Reuben again led the forces against the bill. In answer to Widmer’s assault he defiantly pointed to a detailed list of AFL-CIO actions taken to curb corruption, including the expulsion of the Teamsters, the Laundry Workers, the Bakers, and the Longshoremen’s unions, contemptuously replying “I submit that is housecleaning.”[32] He accused his opponents of making a direct attack on the freedom of the Illinois worker, testifying that:

The members of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce in their trusts and in their combinations and seventy-eight other interlocking financial institutions, have declared war upon the wage earners of Illinois in an effort to drive back and kill the spirit of freedom which flames in the hearts and minds of the working people of this great state. We want to continue to speak for the poor and the needy, for a better minimum wage, for better housing, and for racial equality. It seems to me that House Bill 1202 would interfere with our right to do so. It interferes with our civil liberties, as well as our constitutional guarantees and is therefore a thoroughly bad bill. It ought to be defeated.[33]

Soderstrom continued, warning that the passage of such legislation could “touch off a wave of wildcat sit down and slowdown strikes” and would “disturb the splendid relations between labor and management.”[34] As for the poor, put-upon Carl Eckhardt, Reuben’s attorney Lester Asher revealed in his testimony that the Master-in-Chancery had found that the service station operator had repeatedly threatened his employees, promising retaliation if they joined a union.[35] In the end Reuben and his allies defeated the bill by a vote of 22-18, with a crucial six Republicans absent or abstaining from the vote.[36]

While Soderstrom won decisively in the General Assembly, he took a beating for his efforts in the press. News coverage of the session was notoriously one-sided; many papers gave detailed accounts of Eckhardt’s testimony, for example, but few of them reported the findings of intimidation. The Alton Telegraph editorial board came out in favor of a renewed push for Widmer’s law just days after its defeat, declaring “The strength behind (the anti-picketing bill) is growing from session to session.”[37] The Chicago Sun, meanwhile, ran an editorial accusing President Soderstrom of “pulling a Hoffa,” i.e. threatening a statewide strike. Executive Vice President Stanley Johnson defended Reub against the ridiculous charge, noting that in 78 years the state federation had never called a strike, nor encouraged any affiliate to engage in strike action. Johnson went on to write:

Anyone active in civic, labor, education and welfare work in Illinois, knows the attributes and dedication to the ideals of America which the man has lived during his lifetime. Certainly he is recognized as a fighter with courage when volatile criticism circled about him in the midst of controversy. But no one has ever charged him with a lack of integrity. A leader worthy of the name is always a lonely target. The writer will place President Soderstrom alongside any newspaperman and legislator of this state and “Reub” will not suffer by comparison.[38]

While they had little effect on the immediate outcome, the mischaracterization and slander that Soderstrom endured in the press over the anti-picketing fight was indicative of the larger struggle unions faced in the popular media, and only further confirmed Reuben’s conviction that organized labor had to view the press as potentially as hostile as the organizations representing manufacturing and retail interests. He concluded in his Labor Day address that year, “We must not let biased newspapers or any other enemy of labor interfere with the progress the labor movement can make in the future—progress which really should surpass the advancement we have made in days gone by.”[39]

REUBEN’S MOTHER DIES AT AGE 94

With the burden of the 1959 legislative season finally behind him, Reuben began to prepare for the year’s end with the usual lightness that typically affected him after a rough session. Together with his daughter he departed on their customary summer trip to Duluth, Minnesota, both to visit the home of his youth and to escape the Illinois hay fever season. On the drive up (and it was always a drive, as Reuben refused to fly on a vacation) he would practice his convention speech with Sister, who would help him refine the rhetorical details.[40] It was a ritual he treasured, a certainty that kept him sane during the long days in Springfield.

After the convention that September, Reuben was given a special assignment. AFL-CIO President Meany wanted to hold a Nationwide State Organization Meeting at the start of 1960 to discuss “methods for strengthening the existing cooperation between the national AFL-CIO and its central bodies...(and) explore areas and techniques for expansion of our mutual efforts.”[41] It would be a massive and inherently complicated affair, with presidents and secretaries of state and central bodies across the nation descending on the AFL-CIO’s Washington, D.C. headquarters. Meany immediately called upon Soderstrom, the most respected of all state organization presidents, to help him plan and prepare for it. That first week of December, Reuben left for Washington, handing off his normal duties and planned appearances to his Executive Vice President Stanley Johnston.[42]

The day after he arrived, however, Reuben received sad news: his mother, Anna Soderstrom, had passed in the night at the age of 94. Reuben was heartbroken; upon returning to Illinois he quickly made his way to Kankakee to grieve with the family. Father Donahue raced to Reuben’s side, giving him spiritual support and comfort. Once more, Reuben took up his pen to write the obituary of a loved one, a family member who had meant the world to him:

The beloved Mother of President Reuben G. Soderstrom passed away on Saturday, December 5, 1959.

Mrs. Anna G. Soderstrom was active in community and civic affairs in the city of Streator, Illinois, until she became ill at the age of 89. Her particular interest was in the American Legion Auxiliary – Leslie G. Wood, Post 217. Her interest and devotion in helping people and her community were continued up until the time when illness prevented her active participation. For the past five years she had been confined to either her home or the hospital. She lived ninety-four years.

Her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can well be proud of this great woman who devoted herself to her family and the needs of others for three-quarters of a century. The Soderstrom family was blessed in enjoying and being guided by such an example of family and community life as embodied in Mrs. Soderstrom for so many years. We know that her children and all of her family will have the blow of her passing softened by the remembrance of such a dedicated Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother.[43]

Letters of sympathy and support quickly came in from all corners. The handwritten note from Mr. Aaron Aronin, Field Direct of the Jewish Labor Committee, was a fine example:

Dear Rube:

I read about the passing of your beloved mother. While she lived a long, wonderful life, I know how difficult it is for even adult children to understand and accept this act of God. God blessed her with wonderful children and grandchildren. I know from Stan that you were always a most devoted son. My sympathy to all the bereaved.

In fraternity,
Archie[44]

After losing so many that were so dear to him—baby brother Alexander, his father, his infant son Robert, brothers Lafe and Paul, and his dear wife Jeanne—Reuben now said goodbye to his mother.

Despite this loss, by year’s end, Reuben was looking not behind but forward. There was much left to accomplish, and the successes he’d already wrought filled him with the unbounded optimism that defined both him and the age he occupied. He truly believed in the possibility of industrial peace, and he remained committed to seeing it through in his lifetime. As he wrote in his remarks for the University of Illinois Industrial Relations Institute Central Body Conference that December:

The legislative role of labor in Illinois, in a word, is to build a land without oppression, a land without tyrannical legislation, a land without greedy industrial overlords, a land radiant and resplendent—a perfect triumph of the brotherhood of all mankind. Through organized labor that day will come, and I pray to the Great Ruler Above that it will come in our time.[45]

* * *