1936 - I Was Twenty-two
©by Jack Ragsdale
I hated looking for a job. I was not then nor am I now a “self-starter.” I realized that I needed to save, but saving on such miserable pay was out of the question. School had little attraction. How would I live? I didn’t like my life. Like Paul Robeson in Ol Man River, I was tired o’ livin' an' skeered o’ dy in'.
The modern workingman evolved out of the slave whose remuneration for his service was the coarse food he ate and the rags that covered his nakedness. Through the ages, the “owning” class set the workman’s wages. Before 1935, employers set the living standard for members of the disrespected labor force so low that money from the children’s labor was required to maintain the family. College education was difficult for a workingman’s children; indeed, college was not intended for them. To make sure their will would prevail over that of the motley unsophisticated herd, employers bought outright and came to own the people’s representatives.
With a liberal government in Washington after 1933, there was a revival of the spirit of unionism. The moribund American Federation of Labor was roused in its slumber but insufficiently to be moved to action. John L. Lewis, iron-jawed, out-spoken leader of the United Mine Workers was of a different ilk. Out of that union’s spirit and money grew the militant labor associations that became the basis for the Congress of Industrial Organizations—the CIO. In a few short years they built up a membership of millions, forcing a living wage on reluctant American industry that cried ANTI-AMERICAN and COMMUNISM at every turn. The Wagner Act of 1935 afforded a voice in law to this formerly voiceless segment of American society.
In the previous century, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher stated in clear terms the business community’s view of its workers: People who work with their hands should have limited expectations, and not have access to money beyond bare essentials—loutish food and education only enough to read and write; nothing more. That ideal remained their mind-set into the twentieth century. For all preceding time, it had been a given that excess money in the pocket of a workingman only led to irresponsible radicalism, drunkenness and wife beating. Many in the clergy were happy to affirm capitalism’s opinion in that widely accepted view. Reverend Beecher of Brooklyn Heights’ Plymouth Church said: “God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ... The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at night!”
The seemingly non-violent transition I present here has little relation to the actual battle waged for decent pay. It was a war with many people shot down in cold blood. To understand that side of American life, one may taste it in the history of the Pennsylvania Coal and Iron Police force whose men were accused of assault, kidnapping, rape and murder; or in the 1914 Ludlow, Colorado massacre of striking coal miners--the same year of my birth.
Thanks to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, American labor had a share in political power with American Business at last. Nevertheless, the playing field was not leveled by an action so needed and so just. Business has access to money in amounts unions and working people can never expect to equal. Relentlessly, business puts its money to work in the wholesale purchase of politicians, and in the control of public opinion. There is no better example of this process than today’s insidious television advertising removing control of children’s diets from their parents, certainly a giant factor in the present epidemic of obesity in children.
Every politician enters office deeply obligated to men of great wealth, many of whom have the morality of Ken Lay—the corrupt “Kenny Boy” friend of President Bush.
When John L. Lewis and Sidney Hillman launched a drive to organize workers on a broad scale, they were kicked out of the A Fof L. The seaman’s union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor was a slumbering paper entity that only awakened to counter the new militant CIO-aligned National Maritime Union. When I saw a return to the sea as momentary relief from my direst poverty, I joined that union. Some of the indignities of job-seeking were immediately swept away. When I was still far from the top of the list to ship out, I spent most of my time across the street in the Seaman’s House YMCA reading New York’s newspapers. For those of us who have an inadequate education, newspapers are the most convenient substitute, which statement must immediately be dampened by this caveat: “Newspapers are the natural ally of business, and the spokesperson for private interests as opposed to democracy. They are one of the many shills voicing industry’s point of view, urging us to shun unions and go it alone.”
Only a fool can see fairness in such a stacked contest.
I hated looking for a job. I was not then nor am I now a “self-starter.” I realized that I needed to save, but saving on such miserable pay was out of the question. School had little attraction. How would I live? I didn’t like my life. Like Paul Robeson in Ol Man River, I was tired o’ livin' an' skeered o’ dy in'.
The modern workingman evolved out of the slave whose remuneration for his service was the coarse food he ate and the rags that covered his nakedness. Through the ages, the “owning” class set the workman’s wages. Before 1935, employers set the living standard for members of the disrespected labor force so low that money from the children’s labor was required to maintain the family. College education was difficult for a workingman’s children; indeed, college was not intended for them. To make sure their will would prevail over that of the motley unsophisticated herd, employers bought outright and came to own the people’s representatives.
With a liberal government in Washington after 1933, there was a revival of the spirit of unionism. The moribund American Federation of Labor was roused in its slumber but insufficiently to be moved to action. John L. Lewis, iron-jawed, out-spoken leader of the United Mine Workers was of a different ilk. Out of that union’s spirit and money grew the militant labor associations that became the basis for the Congress of Industrial Organizations—the CIO. In a few short years they built up a membership of millions, forcing a living wage on reluctant American industry that cried ANTI-AMERICAN and COMMUNISM at every turn. The Wagner Act of 1935 afforded a voice in law to this formerly voiceless segment of American society.
In the previous century, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher stated in clear terms the business community’s view of its workers: People who work with their hands should have limited expectations, and not have access to money beyond bare essentials—loutish food and education only enough to read and write; nothing more. That ideal remained their mind-set into the twentieth century. For all preceding time, it had been a given that excess money in the pocket of a workingman only led to irresponsible radicalism, drunkenness and wife beating. Many in the clergy were happy to affirm capitalism’s opinion in that widely accepted view. Reverend Beecher of Brooklyn Heights’ Plymouth Church said: “God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ... The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at night!”
The seemingly non-violent transition I present here has little relation to the actual battle waged for decent pay. It was a war with many people shot down in cold blood. To understand that side of American life, one may taste it in the history of the Pennsylvania Coal and Iron Police force whose men were accused of assault, kidnapping, rape and murder; or in the 1914 Ludlow, Colorado massacre of striking coal miners--the same year of my birth.
Thanks to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, American labor had a share in political power with American Business at last. Nevertheless, the playing field was not leveled by an action so needed and so just. Business has access to money in amounts unions and working people can never expect to equal. Relentlessly, business puts its money to work in the wholesale purchase of politicians, and in the control of public opinion. There is no better example of this process than today’s insidious television advertising removing control of children’s diets from their parents, certainly a giant factor in the present epidemic of obesity in children.
Every politician enters office deeply obligated to men of great wealth, many of whom have the morality of Ken Lay—the corrupt “Kenny Boy” friend of President Bush.
When John L. Lewis and Sidney Hillman launched a drive to organize workers on a broad scale, they were kicked out of the A Fof L. The seaman’s union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor was a slumbering paper entity that only awakened to counter the new militant CIO-aligned National Maritime Union. When I saw a return to the sea as momentary relief from my direst poverty, I joined that union. Some of the indignities of job-seeking were immediately swept away. When I was still far from the top of the list to ship out, I spent most of my time across the street in the Seaman’s House YMCA reading New York’s newspapers. For those of us who have an inadequate education, newspapers are the most convenient substitute, which statement must immediately be dampened by this caveat: “Newspapers are the natural ally of business, and the spokesperson for private interests as opposed to democracy. They are one of the many shills voicing industry’s point of view, urging us to shun unions and go it alone.”
Only a fool can see fairness in such a stacked contest.
posted by Jack Ragsdale @ 7:50 PM
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