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From Labor Rights to the Right to Work: Constituting and Resisting Social Citizenship, 1932–1953

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2022

DOLORES JANIEWSKI*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington

Abstract

The analysis examines the effort to incorporate labor rights into the American conception of civil liberties and the opposition to that endeavor. It focuses on three Senators—Robert Wagner, Robert La Follette, Jr., and Elbert Thomas—and New Deal officials who conceived of the National Labor Relations Act as a cornerstone of the effort to achieve “economic justice” and defended the law against its critics. It examines the opponents, including the National Association of Manufacturers and an anticommunist alliance between southern Democrats and Republicans. An ideological counteroffensive recast the supporters of social rights as un-American opponents of free enterprise and defined civil liberties as protecting the individual from an expansionist state and labor bosses. The analysis demonstrates the multiple causes for the disappearance of ideological space for conceiving that protection from oppressive employers constituted a civil liberty and the displacement of labor rights by the “right to work.”

Type
Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2022

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References

NOTES

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43. John B. Oakes, “Frey Urges Law to Bar Union Cash in Campaigns,” Washington Post, December 15, 1939, 1; “E. S. Smith Clashes with House Group on Boycott ‘Help,’” New York Times, December 16, 1939, 1; “Manufacturers Call NLRB Menace to U.S.,” Washington Post, December 21, 1939, 32; “Green Says Inquiry Shows NLRB Biased,” New York Times, December 21, 1939, 18; Willard Edwards, “NLRB Forces Reds on Unions-Green,” Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1940, 1; John B. Oakes, “NLRB Economist Advocated Revolution, Toland Implies,” Washington Post, February 15, 1940, 2; “NLRB Fosters Reds, Examiner Charges,” New York Times, March 20, 1940, 1; “Real Labor Board Right is on Economics Issue,” Christian Science Monitor, March 23, 1940, 2; “Saposs Denies He is Red,” New York Times, April 19, 1940, 11; “Saposs Asserts He Never Was a Communist,” Washington Post, April 19, 1940, 2; “NLRB Aide Accused of ‘Red’ Teachings,” Christian Science Monitor, April 27, 1940, 2; Willard Edwards, “Bare NLRB Aid’s Memo Smearing Justice Roberts,” Chicago Tribune, April 29, 1940, 18; Louis Stark, “Labor Act Decision Called ‘Surrender,’” New York Times, April 30, 1940, 16; Statement of Heber Blankenhorn, April 29, 1940, National Labor Relations Act, Vol 20, 4254–96; Statement of Heber Blankenhorn, April 30–May 1, 1940, U.S. House, National Labor Relations Act: Hearings by Special Committee to Investigate the NLRA, Vol 21, April 30–May 1, 1940 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1940), 4397–4442; Statement of Edwin S. Smith, May 2–3, 1940, U.S. House, National Labor Relations Act: Hearings by Special Committee to Investigate the NLRA, Vol 22 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1940), 4512–58; Willard Edwards, “C.I.O. Spurred on by NLRB Aid to Organize Steel,” Chicago Tribune, May 2, 1940, 2; “NLRB-C.I.O. Link Seen in Case of Steel,” Christian Science Monitor, May 2, 1940, 9; Louis Stark, “NLRB Aides Linked to Drive on Steel,” New York Times, May 2, 1940, 1; Hedley Donovan, “U.S. Aide Urged C.I.O. Drive, Letter Reveals,” Washington Post, May 2, 1940, 2; “Witness Says Smith, Bridges Met at Night,” Atlanta Constitution, May 7, 1940, 2; “Says Radical Ideas Permeate the NLRB,” New York Times, September 20, 1940, 24; Gross, The Reshaping of the National Labor Relations Board, 109–86; Luft, Commonsense Anticommunism, 188–93.

44. Joseph G. Harrison, “Congress to Speed Defense,” Christian Science Monitor, May 24, 1940, 1; Lewis Wood, “Alien Registering Asked in Defense,” New York Times, May 24, 1940, 1; “Roosevelt Has Dies Data,” New York Times, May 25, 1940, 4; “FBI Creates Unit to War on 5th Columnists,” Washington Post, June 2, 1940, 1; “Miss Perkins Demands Ousting of Reds from Labor Movement,” New York Times, June 1940, 4, 25; “Roosevelt Signs Bill to List Aliens,” New York Times, June 30, 1940, 5; “Communist Prober Benjamin Mandel,” Washington Post, August 10, 1973, C4; Ervin, Home-Grown Liberal, 268–69; Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left, 58–61; Harris and Ewing, “In Spotlight at NLRB Investigation,” December 14, 1939, Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-hec-27819, H & E C, PPD/LC.

45. “President Speeds Defense Program,” New York Times, May 2, 1940, 1; Headley Donovan, “NLRB Dismisses Saposs Division,” Washington Post, October 13, 1940, 5; Arthur Sears Henning, “Naming Millis to NLRB Deals Radicals Blow,” Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1940, 2; Gross, Reshaping the National Labor Relations Board, 226–44; James A. Gross, “Economics, Politics, and the Law: The NLRB’s Division of Economic Research, 1935-1940,” Cornell Law Review 55, no. 3 (February 1970): 321–47, 341–42; John B. Oakes, “3 Officials Quit NLRB after Millis is Appointed,” Washington Post, November 16, 1940, 1; Julius Cohen and Lillian Cohen, “The National Labor Relations Board in Retrospect,” ILR Review 1, no. 4 (July 1948): 648–56, 650, 656; H. Blankenhorn, “A Labor Adviser,” New York Times, January 2, 1956, 21.

46. Oscar Van Cott to Senator Elbert Thomas, April 28, 1943, calls Lewis a “traitor”; Citizens of Wetumka and Elmore County, Petition, January 20, 1943; Textile Workers of America, C.I.O., “Toward a New Day,” c. 1943, 14; folder: War Department, box 52, Elbert D. Thomas Papers, Utah Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter Thomas/UHS); Schickler and Caughey, “Public Opinion, Organized Labor, and the Limits of New Deal Liberalism, 1936-1945,” 173–74, 176; Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 16–23; Gilbert J. Gall, “Constant Vigilance: The Heritage of the AFL’s Response to Right to Work Legislation, 1943-1949,” Labor Studies Journal 9, no. 2 (Fall 1984): 190–202; Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, “Statement of Principles,” 1944, folder 5, box 1146, Cecil B. Demille Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; Gibert J. Gall, Pursuing Justice: Lee Pressman, the New Deal, and the CIO (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 206; Cecil B. DeMille, “Statement of Cecil B. DeMille, March 17, 1945, Omaha, Nebraska, 12, 14, folder: Labor 1947, box 120, Thomas/UHS.

47. “President Speeds Defense Program,” New York Times, May 2, 1940, 1; Headley Donovan, “NLRB Dismisses Saposs Division,” Washington Post, October 13, 1940, 5; Arthur Sears Henning, “Naming Millis to NLRB Deals Radicals Blow,” Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1940, 2; Gross, Reshaping the National Labor Relations Board, 226–44; James A. Gross, “Economics, Politics, and the Law: The NLRB’s Division of Economic Research, 1935-1940,” Cornell Law Review 55, no. 3 (February 1970): 321–47, 341–42; John B. Oakes, “3 Officials Quit NLRB after Millis is Appointed,” Washington Post, November 16, 1940, 1; Julius Cohen and Lillian Cohen, “The National Labor Relations Board in Retrospect,” ILR Review 1, no. 4 (July 1948): 648–56, 650, 656; H. Blankenhorn, “A Labor Adviser,” New York Times, January 2, 1956, 21.

48. Schickler and Caughey, “Public Opinion, Organized Labor, and the Limits of New Deal Liberalism, 1936-1945, 178; Rosenfarb, Joseph, “Protection of Basic Rights,” in The Wagner Act: After Ten Years, ed. Silverberg, Louis G. (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs, 1945), 9199, 92, 93, 94, 96–97Google Scholar. Edwin Amenta and Theda Skockpol, “Redefining the New Deal: World War II and the Development of Social Provision in the United States,” in The Politics of Social Policy in the United States, eds. Margaret Weir, Ann Shola Orloff, and Theda Skocpol (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 81–122, 122.

49. Robert M. La Follette, Jr., “Turn the Light on Communism,” Collier’s Weekly, February 8, 1947, 22, 73–74; Marquis Child, “Wisconsin’s Name: La Follette and McCarthy,” Washington Post, May 3, 1950, 13; Gall, Pursuing Justice, 207–15; E. W. Kenworthy, “In the Shadow of the President,” New York Times, August 5, 1956, BR2; Howard Seelye, “Voorhis Recalls Nixon’s Entry into Politics,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1971, 1; Richard Pearson, “Ex-Rep Jerry Voorhis Dies, Lost Race to Nixon in 1946,” Washington Post, September 12, 1984, C7.

50. Nelson Lichtenstein, “Politicized Unions and the New Deal Model: Labor, Business and Taft-Hartley,” in Milkis and Mileur, The New Deal and the Triumph of Liberalism (Cambridge: University of Massachusetts Press), 135–65, 151–59; NLRB, “1947 Taft-Hartley Passage and NLRB Structural Changes” and “Our History,” NLRB, accessed May 11, 2018, from https://www.nlrb.gov/who-we-are/our-history/1947-taft-hartley-passage-and-nlrb-structural-changes; “Senate Kills Veto; Labor Act Law,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1947, 1; H. Blankenhorn, “A Labor Adviser”; “NLRB Counsel Resigns,” New York Times, June 24, 1947, 2; “Glushien Quits NLRB,” New York Times, July 1, 1947, 15; “Ex-NLRB Counsel Assails Labor Act,” New York Times, July 17, 1947, 11; “NLRB Legal Aide Quits,” New York Times, August 7, 1947, 19; Nelson Lichtenstein, Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 238–41; Louis Stark, “Compromise Fails in C.I.O. War,” New York Times, October 31, 1949, 1; Louis Stark, “Two Leftist Unions Expelled by C.I.O.,” New York Times, November 3, 1949, 1.

51. “Confidential Data withheld in Loyalty Case Inquiry,” Christian Science Monitor, August 3, 1948, 7; Willard Edwards, “New Deal Red Coverup Told,” Chicago Tribune, August 4, 1948, 1; “Four New Dealers Linked to a Spy Ring by Ex-Red,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1948, 1; C. P. Trussell, “Red ‘Underground’ in Federal Posts Alleged by Editor,” New York Times, August 4, 1948, 1; Mary Spargo, “List Includes Nathan Witt, Alger Hiss, and Lee Pressman,” Washington Post, August 4, 1948, 1; John D. Morris, “Passer of Secrets of U.S. to Red Aide,” New York Times, December 5, 1948, 1; “Spy Documents,” Washington Post, December 5, 1948, M28; “Hiss-Chambers,” Washington Post, June 2, 1949, 10; Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 173–74.

52. William R. Conklin, “Hiss Guilty on Both Perjury Counts,” New York Times, 22, 1950, 1; “GOP Presses War against Communism,” Christian Science Monitor, February 13, 1950, 12; “Choice for Republicans,” Christian Science Monitor, March 28, 1950, 20; Joseph A. Luftus, “C.I.O. Expels 3 More Unions,” New York Times, February 16, 1950, 1; C. P. Trussell, “Abt, Witt, Kramer Defy House Group,” New York Times, September 2, 1950, 6; “The Story of the Plot to Communize America,” Detroit Free Press, editorial, Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1950, A5; folder: 1950 Campaign Clippings, box 199, Thomas/UHS; Marquis Childs, “Pepper vs. Smathers: Red Label in Florida,” Washington Post, April 25, 1950, 8; “Pepper Defeat Hailed as a Loss for Socialism,” Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1950, 4; W; Folders 4366–69: Campaign General Series, Frank Porter Graham Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; folder: Research—Lonigan Files, “Helen G. Douglas,” folder: Research—Lonnigan-Helen Gahagan Douglas Speeches; Series 1: Campaign 1950, box 1, Richard Nixon Pre-Presidential Papers Series, Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, CA; Richard L. Strout, “Trend Set by Mc’Carthy,” Christian Science Monitor, November 8, 1950, 1; Ewen, PR!, 366–67, 369.

53. Whittaker Chambers, Witness (New York: Random House, 1952), 344–50; Murray Marder, “Four Ex-Reds Give Advice to Senators,” Washington Post, May 30, 1952, 7; Heber Blankenhorn to Robert Wolhforth, May 7, 1952, Robert La Follette, Jr., “An Affidavit,” February 6, 1953, folder: Correspondence “B,” box 1, Wohlforth/TL; “Former Senator La Follette Takes Own Life,” Los Angeles Times, February 25, 1953, 1; “Ex-Senator La Follette Ends Life with a Gun in Washington Home,” New York Times, February 25, 1953, 1.

54. Ira Katznelson, Kim Geiger, and Daniel Kryder, “Limiting Liberalism: The Southern Veto in Congress, 1933-1950,” Political Science Quarterly 108, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 283–306; Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-60 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1994), 37–38, 54; Marc Dixon, “Limiting Labor: Business Political Mobilization and Union Setback in the States,” Journal of Policy History 19, no. 3 (2007): 313–44; Amenta and Skocpol, “Redefining the New Deal,” 122; Ellen Dannin, “NLRA Values, Labor Values, American Values,” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 26, no. 2 (2005): 223–74; Nelson Lichtenstein, “From Corporatism to Collective Bargaining: Organized Labor and the Eclipse of Social Democracy in the Postwar Era,” in The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980, eds. Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 122–52, 140–45; Roosevelt, State of the Union Message to Congress, January 11, 1944.