SODERSTROM BRINGS VETERAN LEADERSHIP TO NATIONAL STAGE

Presidential Lyndon Johnson Visits Peoria

It had been a long day on the campaign trail for President Lyndon Johnson; he’d spent the morning and early afternoon in Des Moines and Springfield respectively, speaking from State Capitols, county courthouses, and even directly from his motorcade, using the newly installed limousine speaker to address the supporters that lined the streets. According to police estimates, over 300,000 supporters had already seen JBJ, from the band members playing “Hello Lyndon” when he emerged from his plane in Iowa to the masses chanting “We Want Lyndon” outside Lincoln’s tomb as he placed a wreath in tribute. By the time he boarded Air Force One at a quarter past four that Wednesday, October 7th, 1964, he must have been eagerly anticipating the more relaxed atmosphere of a sleepy downstate city like Peoria.

But if anything the large crowds in Peoria were even more intense. Over 3,000 fans met him at the airport, pressing against the fence in a near frenzy as LBJ entered his motorcade. Three times the President stopped his motorcade to wave to the crowd. When he arrived downtown, President Johnson moved to an open car, giving the crowds a better view. “He’s so much handsomer in person than he is on TV!” exclaimed one woman as he passed.[1] After giving a brief speech at the Courthouse Square, the President made his way to the evening’s headline event—his address before Reuben Soderstrom’s Illinois AFL-CIO.

As the Motorcade inched its way toward the Peoria Armory, the labor delegates inside began to clamor in a mix of excitement and agitation. The secret service had gone to extreme measures to prepare for the President’s speech. Already they had cleared the entire hall, allowing the attendees back in only after they searched it to their satisfaction. Even then, the agents refused entrance to the galleries, severely limiting the number of guests. No bags or satchels were allowed in the room and photographs were not allowed during the President’s speech (presumably to prevent any confusion between the shooting of a picture and the firing of a weapon). All these precautions, while understandable, had exhausted the assembly. Reuben tried his best to settle their nerves:

Now, you are a wonderful group of delegates, and you have gone through a long, hard day. The President will be here in about eight or nine minutes, maybe less than that. Before he comes, we are going to ask the band to entertain this crowd, to give the audience a chance to relax.[2]

The delegates broke into applause and cheers as Reuben stepped off the platform, gavel still in hand, to receive the President. As Soderstrom approached the side entrance, however, three large secret service agents blocked the doorway. “Sir, you can’t have that here,” one of the agents said, pointing to the gavel.

“Oh, yes I can,” Reub defiantly replied, “I’m the President.”

“You can’t have a club like that around the President,” the agent tersely maintained.

But Reuben refused to relent. He held on the gavel even tighter, telling the President’s protectors that an abundance of caution was all well and good, but if they were so worried he’d use his ceremonial hammer to bludgeon the President of the United States they could drag it out of his 76-year-old hands. They declined, giving way to Soderstrom as he strode out to meet the President.[3]

Reuben greeted Lyndon and his entourage with full affection; all their previous disagreements forgotten. President Soderstrom led President Johnson and his entourage into the hall, eager to introduce his distinguished guest. The band struck up “Rolls and Flourishes” as soon as the doors opened, triggering a raucous chorus of excitement from the crowd. In the words of one eyewitness:

The Delegates of the 7th Annual Illinois State AFL-CIO Convention arose and extended a tremendous and thrilling ovation to President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ovation continued as President Johnson was escorted to the rostrum and the band played “Hail to the Chief,” as the delegates cheered, whistled and applauded at great length…[4]

The cheer was deafening. Knowing when to give way, Reuben forwent his usual elaborate introduction, instead announcing simply “Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States!” The delegates applauded, cheered, whistled, and waved placards as the President of the United States of America took the podium to deliver his message:

Mr. Soderstrom, Governor Kerner, Senator Douglas, Governor Shapiro, Attorney General Clark, State Auditor Howlett, Mr. Paul Powell, secretary of state, my friends:

You and I have a job to do on November 3rd, and we are going to do that job, and we are going to take one thing at a time. But the first job is to get out of convention, get back home, quit our big talk and our bragging, and get down to work and get our friends and our uncles, and our cousins and our aunts to the polls, and elect Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey by the greatest landslide.

Then we are not going to repeal these laws that we have been passing ever since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. We are going to keep them. I wish I had all night to talk to you about them, there are so many of them. But together we have come a long way in 30 years, and there is not a single man or woman in this room that would go back where we came from or would want their children to go back where we came from.

We have abolished child labor and the sweatshops, and we don't want to go back to it. We rejected the arguments of those who fought our social security program and said it ought to be voluntary, and we are not about to go back to it. We have made collective bargaining the law of the land and we are going to keep it that way. We have said that we believed a laborer was worthy of his hire, and we have passed minimum wage laws and maximum hours laws, and we are not about to turn our back on them.

Today we have 20 million people living in decency and dignity off their social security checks. And we are going to make the system sounder and more sensible, and improve it and extend it, and not destroy it. We are not going to sit idly by and let a few men defeat us in our attempt to give this Nation a sensible, sane, wise medical care plan under social security.

We believe that every boy and girl in this land ought to be entitled to all the education that he can profitably take, and it doesn't make any difference how long we have to work, or how many speeches we have to make, or how many States we have to cover—we are going to build those schoolhouses and put a teacher in every schoolroom until that job is done.

We believe in equal rights for all Americans and special privileges for none, and we are going to solve our problems just like you workingmen solve them around the council table when you have a difference. We are going to reason them out. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, we are going to come now and let us reason together. We are not going to allow anyone to tear this Nation to pieces.

We don't hate, we don't fear, we don't doubt. We have faith, and we love our country and love its people and each other.[5]

The President continued, discounting the “voices of doom” that attacked such progress and the leaders who brought it. He vowed to fight all the way until Election Day, going “all day long” until every vote was counted. Most importantly, he promised the labor faithful:

If you will give us the mandate, if you, by your vote, will give us your approval, we will go back to that Capital City on the Potomac and we will take the programs that were started by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and carried on by Harry S. Truman, and advanced by John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and we will build a greater America.

During our 4 years it may not be possible for us to enact a program that will make every man a king, but it will be possible to preserve what we have, and to add to it, and to make this land a better place for all of us to live in.

So remember all the things that are at stake. Remember that you have much to preserve and much to protect.

Now, go and do your duty![6]

The hall erupted in applause as President Johnson ended his speech and ceded the stage to Soderstrom, who ended the event with a message of humble praise:

Anything that we might do from now on would be an anti-climax, friends. You have been a wonderful audience, and this has been a wonderful day. I am proud of every delegate to this convention. You did yourselves proud![7]

Reuben had every reason to be proud; President Johnson’s appearance was the highlight of a year marked by labor victories earned despite long odds and difficult circumstance. It was the year of the Freedom Summer and of the Civil Rights Act. It was the year of “the reapportionment,” a political standoff that threw state elections into chaos in Illinois. And it was a year that saw Reuben score unprecedented success for labor in Illinois.

Reub Called to White House Again

There was a reason for Johnson’s visit to Peoria; in the 1960 national election, the Democratic ticket won Illinois by a razor thin margin. Reuben—with a constituency of over 1.2 million voters—was a formidable ally in winning the state again. And likewise, Johnson’s visit was truly a coup for Soderstrom—a national first. US Presidents had frequently addressed national conventions of labor, and Senator John Kennedy (who last spoke at the AFL-CIO convention the week before his assassination) had once given his remarks to the New York State AFL-CIO via telephone, while a Presidential candidate.[8] However, no sitting President in the history of the United States had addressed a State labor convention in person. Moreover, Johnson was widely viewed to be “cool” on organized labor—and the feeling was mutual. Reuben himself had publicly railed against LBJ’s appointment to the Vice Presidency in 1960, going so far as to suggest that labor voters may want to stay home on Election Day in protest.[9]

But a lot had changed. 1964 saw the new President crisscrossing the nation in search of votes, feeling vulnerable about his big Civil Rights push. He was also uniquely cautious with regards to the working vote. His rocky relationship with labor had nearly cost him the last election, with the Democratic ticket struggling in Illinois.[10] Johnson needed to heal his ties with labor broadly and with Illinois labor specifically. Reuben’s invitation to and private tour of the White House the year before had been a part of this effort, with the then-Vice President personally conveying his support of the AFL-CIO and its policies to the Illinois leader. Johnson needed Soderstrom’s support, and Reuben believed he could leverage that need.

Soderstrom also had a new asset in the form of his Secretary-Treasurer Bob Gibson. In addition to his post in the Illinois AFL-CIO, Gibson was National Treasurer of the Young Democratic Club of America, and one of Bob’s fellow members in this organization served as a labor liaison to Johnson. Moreover, Reuben knew Democratic Party officials in Peoria (the site of the 1964 Illinois AFL-CIO convention) were also putting pressure on the White House to make a visit.

Despite these advantages, the chances of the President speaking still seemed remote. Both Gibson and Executive Vice President Stanley Johnson thought they had little chance and advised Reub against getting his hopes up. Undeterred, Soderstrom made his request, sending the President a signed formal invitation.[11]

Johnson soon followed up on Reub’s invitation with one of his own. On September 1, 1964, the President staged a labor gathering at the White House with what labor reporter Victor Riesel described as “the kind of skillful personal direction that would make Darryl Zanuck appear an amateur.”[12] It began with a phone call to AFL-CIO President Meany, who was at that moment meeting with Reuben and his fellow members on the General Board to discuss their upcoming Presidential endorsement. LBJ invited the entire board to the East Room to discuss the matter; when they arrived the President surprised them with an address that was both personal and direct. As Riesel described:

[Johnson] strode into the center of this circle of veterans of many political and industrial wars. He told them he and they were allies. He spoke of their own goals as though he has read every resolution ever written by AFL-CIO staffers. It was more than a pep talk. It was a program—though Mr. Johnson did not have a note in his hand.[13]

Reuben was impressed by the President’s sincerity and skill. It was what came next, however, that truly surprised him—a firm commitment to help labor get a 35-hour work week, a pledge that went “far more than the combined promises of all recent Democratic Presidents.”[14] This was music to Reuben’s ears. Soderstrom had been a staunch advocate of such a policy even before it had been adopted by the AFL-CIO. As he had written just days earlier, “35-hour week is the wonder drug of this economic age because it will abolish poverty and wipe out unemployment….Any other scheme is a quack remedy.”[15] This was the type of leader Reuben wanted to have speak at his convention, and during the Scotch and Bourbon social that followed Soderstrom spoke individually with LBJ about presidential politics and a visit to Peoria. Afterwards, Reuben gave an unambiguous and enthusiastic endorsement of the President and his policies to the press.[16] One month later Soderstrom was presenting the US President to the Illinois convention.

REUB SUPPORTS LBJ’S BIG PUSH

Civil Rights and the War on Poverty

Reuben and his allies in labor weren’t the only ones impressed by the new LBJ. Across the nation, citizens responded to the unexpectedly progressive President’s call to action. In his first State of the Union address, Johnson set out a bold, liberal agenda aimed squarely at helping working men and women free themselves from the ravages of poverty and second-class citizenship:

Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined; as the session which enacted the most far-reaching tax cut of our time; as the session which declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States; as the session which finally recognized the health needs of all our older citizens; as the session which reformed our tangled transportation and transit policies; as the session which achieved the most effective, efficient foreign aid program ever; and as the session which helped to build more homes, more schools, more libraries, and more hospitals than any single session of Congress in the history of our Republic.[17]

Two major initiatives sprung from Johnson’s historic address. The first, a “war on poverty” (a phrase earlier articulated by Secretary of Labor Wirtz at the 1962 Illinois State Labor Convention) waged through the Food Stamp and Economic Opportunity Acts, designed to help alleviate the toll of poverty and eliminate its prevalence through government work and training programs. According to the President:

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort. It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it…Poverty is a national problem, requiring improved national organization and support. But this attack, to be effective, must also be organized at the State and the local level and must be supported and directed by State and local efforts. For the war against poverty will not be won here in Washington. It must be won in the field, in every private home, in every public office, from the courthouse to the White House.[18]

Reuben couldn’t agree more. This was the exactly the type of aggressive, wide-ranging government interventionism that Reuben dreamed of since the start of the post-war era. As Soderstrom wrote in his Labor Day Address that year:

In the history of this great Nation, Labor Day, 1964, becomes unique because the President of the United States has declared “War on Poverty.” In the lives of working people and in the onward march of the movement of labor, there comes a time when wage earners must take their side, no one can be neutral in a great war, especially a war on poverty. The President of the United States is leading millions of citizens, who have rallied to him in this economic struggle, because he has convinced them that poverty is a needless thing in the Country of ours.[19]

Soderstrom of course shared LBJ’s conviction and rejected the view of conservative critics that poverty was an inevitable, if unsavory, aspect of society; a necessary cost of civilization. Reuben had steadfastly preached a progressive view of history, convinced that long-standing social ills could and should be eradicated by strong government action. Even in the 1960s, he was still a staunch New Deal progressive:

At one time it was normal to be poor. They were always with us and outnumbered all our other groups combined. This is no longer true. The Labor Movement has toppled over the old ideas and oppressive situations which produced and perpetuated poverty. Today only 20 per cent of our people can be classified as poor or exposed to incomes below decent living standards. Under the direction and compulsion of governmental guidance and Presidential leadership, poverty can be driven out of our economy.[20]

This idea of government directing and compelling action was crucial in Soderstrom’s understanding of how to tackle social ills. Ardently opposed to the conservative philosophy that “As government expands, liberty contracts,” Reuben had argued passionately that a strong, empowered government was not only good but essential:

Over the years it has become increasingly clear that the government can get this job done. Government can do anything. Government can take over railroads. Government can take over coal mines—we have seen these things done. Government can take our citizens and put them in uniforms and send them to the battle fronts of the world. Government can do anything!

Government can also make things favorable for the people, and that is the duty of government. Government can wipe out poverty, and the time is now upon us when this grand and thrilling possibility may become a reality.[21]

Reuben was also strongly supportive of the President’s legendary Civil Rights Act, signed that summer to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, or nationality. “All of us who are interested in equality for the American Negro were made happy by the enactment of a Federal Civil Rights Law,” he said in response to the bill’s passage. “While it was not entirely satisfactory to organized labor, it is recognized as a first step in the right direction.[22]” Soderstrom’s only critique of the Civil Rights Act was that it didn’t go far enough, especially in regards to enforcement of fair employment practices like those he helped pass in Illinois. Other labor leaders shared his concerns; as William Pollard, staff representative of the AFL-CIO Department of Civil Rights, told the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners that September:

[The Civil Rights Act’s goals] cannot be reached by a magic wand—they must be woven, strand by strand, throughout the fabric of American society. The fair employment practices laws we seek should include conciliation and enforcement powers. We want unions covered by such fair employment practices legislation. This has always been our official position…It seems plain (to organized labor) that most of the rights we seek to insure for our minority groups depend on our ability, first, to create jobs, and second, to assure their availability.[23]

Still, the passage of the act was cause for celebration. In Illinois, Senate approval of the bill was greeted the following day with a rally in Chicago’s Soldier Field, led by none other than Martin Luther King Jr. himself. The Illinois Rally for Civil Rights was a massive affair, sponsored by nearly 200 Illinois civic and religious organizations, including Soderstrom’s Illinois AFL-CIO.[24] Reuben served as an Honorary Chairman, working alongside University of Notre Dame President Rev. Theodore Hesburgh and the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Chicago Board of Education, Chicago Board of Rabbis, the Illinois Department of Labor and others.

On the morning of June 21, he proudly escorted his daughter Jeanne to the Conrad Hilton Hotel to meet Dr. King in person before departing in official cars for the rally.[25] Ascending the platform to sit beside her father as the four-hour affair unfolded, Jeanne must have been overwhelmed by the sight before her. More than 57,000 people had braved the morning rain to lend their voices in support. The crowd grew as the day continued, undeterred by the afternoon heat. Reub and Jeanne joined in the applause as Dr. King rose to the podium, listening intently as the reverend called on all citizens who believed in the cause of civil rights to continue the fight:

We must continue to engage in demonstrations, boycotts, and rent strikes, and to use all the resources at our disposal. We must go to the ballot box and vote in large numbers. But nonviolence is the most total weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for human dignity…passage of the civil rights bill does not mean that we have reached the end of the civil rights struggle. It was merely a step in a 1,000-mile journey. We have come a long way in our journey, but we have a long, long way to go.[26]

Dr. King’s sentiment was shared by organized labor. Not willing to simply wait idly by, unions launched their own wide-scale drives to apply the Civil Rights Act to their own administrations. In November of 1964, the Steelworkers began a series of institutes that reached in to each of the USWA’s 30 districts to suggest implementation techniques. “We intend to use all of the means at our command to make meaningful the civil rights law which we and so many others fought so long and so hard to have enacted,” USWA President David McDonald announced. “Nothing less than full compliance will suffice.”[27]

Reuben was very proud of the role that Illinois labor played in the Civil Rights struggle, particularly with regards to training and education. To many in labor, the biggest barrier to African-Americans with regards to work was not outright discrimination but a lack of opportunity for training and education. To combat this, the Illinois State Department of Labor worked with the unions of Illinois to establish apprenticeship programs to provide training to all workers, regardless of color or creed. These efforts, particularly the Chicago Apprenticeship Information Center, drew national attention and the support of the U.S. Department of Labor.[28]

Wrestling with Illinois Reapportionment

Labor secured several landmark policy achievements in 1964. However, it still faced several significant hurdles in the electoral arena, specifically in regards to apportionment. In many states, districts were unfairly drawn, favoring less-populated rural districts over cities and other urban areas. This effectively meant that farmers’ and rural citizens’ votes counted more than labor votes; as Reuben noted in his Weekly Newsletter, “The rural minority—some 30 per cent of the population—still controls most state legislatures and has disproportionate influence in the U.S. House of Representatives.”[29]

Illinois was one of the greatest offenders. Under the 1955 apportionment, Illinois House districts ranged in size from 104,349 to 313,459, according to 1960 census figures. This meant that 40% of the state’s population could elect a majority of the Illinois House, despite the fact that the House was supposed to be based on population.[30] In the wake of that census, the Illinois legislature underwent a prolonged battle to reapportion the state fairly, to no avail. A map drawn and passed by a special session of the 1963 Republican-controlled legislature was vetoed by the Governor, a move that was upheld by the courts in January of 1964.

All this meant that the 1964 Illinois State House Elections would be conducted on an “at-large” basis, meaning every voter would vote for every single member of the Illinois House. This result had two major effects on political candidates. First, they would lose the regional advantage they typically enjoyed. Second, the complex ballot would almost certainly encourage straight-ticket voting, resulting in increased partisanship.

This was a major challenge for Reuben’s son, Carl Soderstrom. As a Republican representative from Streator, he had traditionally relied on his constituents’ personal knowledge of him and his record. Now, however, his political life was in the hands of voters who barely knew him. It was a heavily Democratic year, and Carl rightly worried that many voters who would normally be sympathetic to his pro-labor positions would vote against him simply because he had an “R” next to his name. Conversely, he was concerned that many of his opponents in the Republican Party would take to opportunity to drive him out of power.

Luckily, many local papers had noted Rep. Soderstrom’s record over the years and took pains to encourage their readership to vote for him. The Freeport Journal-Standard listed him as one of 26 bipartisan candidates (13 Democrats and 13 Republicans) who they believed deserved the people’s vote.[31] The Alton Evening Telegraph soon followed suit, naming him a “Republican to mark.”[32] Even Democratic leaders supported the Republican Soderstrom; that fall the Illinois Democratic Forum named him one of 12 Republicans to vote for.[33] Of course, subsequent records also show Reuben’s strong hand in some of this, particularly with regards to Carl’s Democratic support. He wrote to Governor Kerner that October requesting Democratic support for his son, for labor’s sake:

Labor needs Carl in the House of Representatives…Please request LaSalle, Winnebago, Will, Peoria and Sangamon Democratic County Chairmen to urge voters to put an ‘X’ in the Democratic circle and in the square in front of Carl’s name. His defeat would be a tragic blow to liberal legislative support in Illinois as well as to me personally.[34]

However it was achieved, this broad support resulted in a landslide win for Carl. In 1964 he actually led the Republican ticket with 1,012,933 votes, an unprecedented win.[35]

Labor also won big at the poles. The people of Illinois handed an astounding 118 seats to the Democrats, while the Republicans won barely half that number.[36] National labor leaders wrote to Reub to commend the performance. “Congratulations on your magnificent victory in Illinois,” AFL-CIO Department of Legislation Director Andrew Biemiller wrote after the win. “Obviously, a great deal of constructive work was done.”[37] The election success was certain to strengthen both Soderstroms’ hands in the legislative season ahead.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Competition within the Illinois AFL-CIO

While Reuben and his new team succeeded professionally, however, old tensions soon boiled to the surface. Most prominent was the agitation between Reub’s new Secretary Treasurer, Bob Gibson, and his long-serving Executive Vice President, Stanley Johnson. Stanley and Bob had shared a tenuous relationship ever since the merger, when Johnson wanted to eliminate Gibson’s post entirely, on the grounds that the merged organization could not afford him. There certainly was enduring tension between the downstate CIO man Gibson and the Chicago-based, AFL man Johnson, impatiently waiting in the wings to succeed the 76 year-old Soderstrom. A downstate man himself, it was rumored that Reuben favored the style of Gibson, and further harbored skepticism about Stanley’s leadership ability. For that reason, Soderstrom may have found himself in a position where he could not retire: he could not lobby for Gibson to take the reins without suffering the wrath of Chicago labor (and the AFL’s lingering doubts about their unskilled CIO brethren); on the other hand, he did not feel that Stanley was the man to take leadership during such turbulent times. The three men were in something of a stalemate and Reuben continued—probably quite happily—being the executive in charge.

Even after the merger in the late 1950s, Johnson tried to fire Gibson in the new organization’s first meeting. After that attempt, Johnson called Gibson, who had been waiting outside the meeting room, into his office. “You know what happened in the board meeting?” Johnson sourly asked.

“No, I don’t know what happened,” Gibson nervously replied.

“Well I made a motion to let you go, you know, because the CIO is not gonna pay their fair share. Now they’ve assigned you to me.” “Well sounds to me like you lost the motion then,” Gibson wryly noted.

“Yeah, but don’t take it personal.”

“What do you mean don’t take it personal?” Gibson asked incredulously. “You’re gonna fire me and I don’t take that personal? The hell I don’t! I’m a part of that agreement, the way Germano explained it to me, and if you want to stay at odds with me that’s ok with me.” “I said don’t take it personal,” Stanley repeated in a condescending tone. “I’m just figuring out where the money’s coming from to pay for all of this. Come in here next week at this time and bring me a mission statement for your job, ‘cause I don’t know what the hell a community services director does.”[38]

Stanley and Bob worked out an uneasy peace in the years that followed. Bob’s elevation to Secretary, however, threatened to reopen some of those old wounds. Stanley was wary of the younger Gibson, who could now pose a threat to Johnson’s election as President after Reub’s retirement.

Just exactly when that retirement might be, meanwhile, was another source of conflict—this time between Stanley and Reub. A lunch encounter that year, later recounted by Gibson, perfectly illustrated Stanley’s growing frustration:

I’ll always remember Reub and I and Stanley going to lunch in Mirena City, and he (Reuben)says, “Does anybody got anything on their mind? You know I come in here to see you fellas, if you’ve got anything on your mind feel free to talk to me. So Stanley says, “Well there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Reub.”

“Well, Stanley, now’s your time, we’re just relaxing, so tell me.”

“Well Reub, I’ve been here now for 15 years. Do you remember when you came over and talked to me about taking this job?”

“I sure do,” Reub said, “Just like it was yesterday, Stanley.”

“Well, remember what you told me that day Reub?”

“I don’t remember everything I said,” he says.

“I offered you this job and you’ve done a good job at it.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but Reub, you told me you were 65 years old and you were only going to be here about 4 or 5 more years and then I would be the President. Do you remember telling me that?”

Reub says, “Well I don’t remember phrasing it exactly that way Stanley but I just got to tell you something. Honestly Stanley, you ain’t ready for the job yet.”[39]

Johnson was slowly coming to understand that Reuben not only had no intention of stepping down anytime soon, and that he was more than a little reluctant to endorse Stanley as his successor. It was a realization that would begin to take its toll, creating further friction with Illinois labor.

Closing Out a Good Year

Despite these troubles, Soderstrom was able to end 1964 in celebration. Over the last year he had witnessed gains he once never thought he’d see in his lifetime—a Federal Civil Rights Act, a War on Poverty, and a Presidential commitment to a 35-hour week. He’d had the President of the United States at his podium. He’d celebrated his son’s unprecedented electoral win in a statewide election. That December, Soderstrom was honored by the Fraternal Order of Eagles with the prestigious Grand Aerie Green-Murray Award in an impressive dinner in the Eagles’ Hall in Streator, Illinois. An account of the event reported both the honors bestowed and their impact:

President Soderstrom was praised by those who spoke for the groups present as one of the Nation’s great labor leaders and as one who had attained an unbroken record of humanitarian service for others in what is regarded by the fraternal Order of Eagles as a most difficult field of bewildering economic endeavor.

At the close of the speaking program the Eagles Green-Murray Plaque, suitable engraved, was presented to the misty-eyed President of our State Organization who was deeply touched by the accolades and tributes he received. Though understandably emotionally shaken, President Soderstrom succeeded in rising to the occasion, and after expressing his gratitude, pride and humility, entertained the audience with a review of labor’s accomplishments in the legislative field which drew applause, shouts of approval and a standing ovation at the close of an address which, no doubt, will be long remembered.[40] It was a wonderful end to an accomplished year.

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