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<div>'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>Historical Essay</font></font> </font>'''<br />
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''by Gerry Jamin''<br />
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[[Image:Members of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union in a hiring hall at 86 Commercial Street June 10 1952 AAD-5676.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Members of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union in a hiring hall at 86 Commercial Street, June 10 1952'''<br />
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''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
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<font size=4>'''1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise'''</font><br />
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A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of American communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
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In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
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'''ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS'''<br />
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For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
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[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
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'''This woodcut from the ''Voice of Action,'' a Seattle weekly published by the Communist Party, shows the anti-racist agenda of the CP in the early 1930s. It accompanied a Feb 12, 1935 article about the Todd bill that would have banned mix-race marriages in Washington State.'''<br />
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''Artwork: Dick Correll''<br />
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But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
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While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
<br />
'''1934: A TURNING POINT '''<br />
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“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
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''—Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco''<br />
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The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco [[The General Strike of 1934|General Strike of 1934]]. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
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[[Image:Marine Cooks and Stewards 19 Main Street nd AAD-5667.jpg]]<br />
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'''Marine Cooks and Stewards at their 19 Main Street hall, n.d.'''<br />
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''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
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It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman [[Fleming on Segregation|Thomas Fleming]] writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
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It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
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Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
'''THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES'''<br />
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The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
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With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
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The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
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The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
<br />
'''COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS'''<br />
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As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
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The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
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Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
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Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
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When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS ''Voice'' attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were [[July 5, 1934: Bloody Thursday|shot down]] in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
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The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union ([[50th Anniversary of 1934 General Strike|ILWU]]), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
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'''ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO''' <br />
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Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerrilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
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[[Image:July 13 1951 natl maritime union anti-communist pickets AAD-5616.jpg]]<br />
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'''July 13, 1951, National Maritime Union anti-communist picket line.'''<br />
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''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
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One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
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As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a red-baited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so), all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in ''MCS Voice'' that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
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'''CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?'''<br />
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The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of red-baiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
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'''Communism'''<br />
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When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
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But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
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MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of,” and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
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“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br><br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br><br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br><br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br><br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br><br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br><br />
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'''Democracy'''<br />
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Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
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It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a ''Business Week'' article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
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The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
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The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
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[[Image:Nov 1948 strike negotiations AAD-5595.jpg]]<br />
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'''"Representatives of both sides in the 1948 dock strike place their signatures to the Roth formula, clearing way for reopening of peace negotiations. Seated around table, from left to right, are Eddy Tangen, CIO Marine Cooks & Stewards Union; Hugh Bryson, president of the same union; [[Harry Bridges|Harry Bridges]], ILWU president; Lou Goldblatt, ILWU secretary-treasurer; Frank P. Foisie, Waterfront Employers Association president; J. B. Bryan, president of the Pacific American Shipowners Association; Almon Roth, president of the San Francisco Employers Council; Allan S. Haywood, CIO vice president and director of reorganization, and R. J. Thomas, CIO assistant director." '''<br />
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''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS ''Voice'', naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
<br />
'''MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY'''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Robeson-et-al-MCS-conf P1010936.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''MCS Convention, San Francisco, probably 1951. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.'''<br />
<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
<br />
At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco ''Spokesman'', a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The ''Western Worker'', resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The ''Spokesman'' went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the [[The Black Press|''Sun-Reporter'']], whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the ''Sun-Reporter'' attacked red-baiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
<br />
The ''Sun-Reporter'' took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
<br />
The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the ''Voice'' and the ''Sun-Reporter'' in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. ''Sun-Reporter'' articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
<br />
Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
'''CONCLUSION'''<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
<br />
These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.<br />
<br />
NOTES<br />
<br />
1 Kelley, Robin D.G. 1994. Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. New York, Free Press.<br />
<br />
2 Among many other testimonials from within MCS itself, the black Alabaman civil rights leader John L. LeFlore (1903-1976) called MCS president Hugh Bryson “a two-fisted fighter for equal justice for everybody” LeFlore, John. L. 1970. [http://www.southalabama.edu/archives/html/manuscript/oralhist/oralhist1b.htm Interview, August 7, McLaurin Oral History Project]. LeFlore had contacted Bryson regarding a “hate strike” vs. a black MCS seaman in Alabama in 1946.<br />
<br />
3 Bellson, Ford. 1939. Labor Gains on the Coast: A report on the integration of Negro workers into the maritime unions of the Pacific Coast states. Opportunity, 17 (May, 1939): 142-143. In Foner (1983), p.128-130.<br />
<br />
4 In addition to the long-range strategic concerns of gainful employment, one must also imagine that the sharpened class antagonism of the moment carried its own motivations, as Thomas Fleming, a freelance black journalist at the time, relates: “I heard there was a truck picking up people who wanted to be scabs. It would arrive one night at 35th Street and San Pablo Avenue in Oakland. So I came down there with a couple of students I knew real well. I felt a little bad about it, but I needed the money. When you've been out of work a long time, you'll take anything where you aren't breaking any laws. A truck came up there all right, but it was the wrong truck. It was loaded with striking workers, and they had baseball bats, which they started swinging. We jumped off that damn truck and took off running. I didn't try any more after that. I saw it was wrong then. Fleming, Thomas. C. 1999. Reflections on Black History [in 86 parts]. [http://www.freepress.org/fleming/fleming.html The Free Press, Columbus, OH. Part 65]<br />
<br />
5 But these positions were also often held by Asians and homosexuals, as reflected in the high percentages of both of these groups among the MCS membership. Fleming recounts that two shipping lines, Matson and Dollar, did not hire black stewards at all before 1934; instead their stewards were mostly Asian. These histories of course deserve more attention. (Fleming, Part 34)<br />
<br />
6 The Colored Marine Benevolent Association, controlled by the Pacific Steamship Company (later Dollar Lines). (Fleming, Part 31)<br />
<br />
7 Weir, Stan. 2004. Singlejack Solidarity. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. p117<br />
<br />
8 Nelson, Bruce. 1988. Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s. University of Illinois, Chicago. p259<br />
<br />
9 Fleming, Part 65<br />
<br />
10 Foner, Philip S. 1974. Organized Labor and the Black Worker: 1619-1973. New York: Praeger. p225<br />
<br />
11 Bellson, 1939<br />
<br />
12 Brecher, Jeremy. 1997. Strike! Cambridge: South End Press. p243<br />
<br />
13 Remarkably, these strikes occurred while the Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act (1943) was in force, allowing government take-overs of strike-bound plants and making it illegal to even advocate striking. Brecher, 1997. p240<br />
<br />
14 Brecher, 240<br />
<br />
15 Brecher 238<br />
<br />
16 Brecher 239<br />
<br />
17 Brecher 246<br />
<br />
18 Brecher 247<br />
<br />
19 Brecher 247<br />
<br />
20 Brecher 158<br />
<br />
21 Brecher 247<br />
<br />
22 Davis,Mike. 1986. Prisoners of the American Dream. London: Verso. p102<br />
<br />
23 Ginger, Ann Fagan and Christiano, David. (eds) 1987. The Cold War Against Labor. <br />
Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, Berkeley. p243<br />
<br />
24 Lipsitz, George. 1994. Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940’s. Chicago: University of Illinois. p157<br />
<br />
25 Lipsitz, p172<br />
<br />
26 Supervisors at this time were not immune to the appeals for labor activism, perhaps spurred on by their unique and difficult position in “bear[ing] the brunt of rank-and-file discontent with work, while serving as the focal point for management anger over inadequate production.” Lipsitz, p173, 174.<br />
<br />
27 Lipsitz 174<br />
<br />
28 MCS 1947c. Taft Bill Passes. MCS Voice. June 26, p.1. Nick Bordoise, one of two maritime workers killed on Bloody Thursday in San Francisco, was an MCS member.<br />
<br />
29 MCS 1947b. The Old Blacklist: Taft Bill Will Bring It Back. MCS Voice. <br />
June 12, p2<br />
<br />
30 MCS 1947f. Members Speak On Slave Measure. MCS Voice. July 10, p3<br />
<br />
31 MCS 1947a. NLRB Is No Longer Labor’s Aid. MCS Voice. May 25, p7<br />
<br />
32 Lipsitz 178<br />
<br />
33 Zinn,Howard. 1980. A People’s History of the United States. San Francisco: Harper & Row. p417<br />
<br />
34 Lipsitz, 201 n8<br />
<br />
35 Ginger, 258<br />
<br />
36 MCS 1947e. Taft Act is Like Hitler’s Early Laws. MCS Voice. July 10, p2<br />
<br />
37 Bryson was sentenced to five years in prison with a ten thousand dollar fine (though the case was appealed and he ended up doing less time).<br />
<br />
38 MCS 1947d. CIO Against Slave Act. MCS Voice. July 10, p1<br />
<br />
39 Stepan-Norris, Judith and Zeitlin, Maurice. 2003. Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p2<br />
<br />
40 Stepan-Norris p33<br />
<br />
41 Stepan-Norris p72<br />
<br />
42 Foner 1974, p232-237<br />
<br />
43 Lipsitz, p200-201<br />
<br />
44 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). 1950. CIO Hearing Before the Committee to Investigate Charges Against the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards. 1 vol. May 22, 1950. Norman Leonard Collection, Sutro Library Labor Archives, San Francisco. p714-715<br />
<br />
45 Stepan-Norris, p94<br />
<br />
46 Stepan-Norris, p87<br />
<br />
47 Lipsitz, p178<br />
<br />
48 Spira, Henry. 1972. The Unambiguity of Labor History. In Hall, Burton H. (ed.) 1972. Autocracy and Insurgency in Organized Labor. New Brunswick: Transaction books. in Hall, p251<br />
<br />
49 Stepan-Norris, p4-7<br />
<br />
50 Spira (in Hall) p251. In an interesting episode that deserves more study, one-time communist Joseph Curran, head of the National Maritime Union (NMU), became “anticommunist” in the name of wresting control of his union from Communist Party control. But, instead of rejecting authoritarianism, he actively maintained it for the sake of organizational expansion and a new-found anticommunist crusade. His new “anticommunist” NMU was one of the principal “raiders” of MCS membership after their expulsion from the CIO. See chapters by Henry Spira, James Morrissey, and James R. Prickett in Hall (1972).<br />
<br />
51 CIO, p692-697<br />
<br />
52 CIO, p708<br />
<br />
53 CIO, p697. MCS 1950.[no title] MCS Voice. May 12. p1<br />
<br />
54 CIO, p693<br />
<br />
55 Watson, Don. 1994. Transcripts of oral interviews by Harvey Schwartz, <br />
March 11-April 21. Sutro Library Labor Archives. San Francisco, p25<br />
<br />
56 Record, Jane Cassels. 1956. The Rise and Fall of a Maritime Union. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 10(1) (October) p91<br />
<br />
57 NYU. 2003. [http://dlib.nyu.edu:8083/tamwagead/servlet/SaxonServletsource=pittman.xml&style=saxon01t2002.xsl Guide to the John Pittman Papers]. Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. <br />
<br />
58 Sun-Reporter 1951a, MC&S Union Nat’l Meeting in Fillmore. April 21, p3. and 1951b. Fillmorians Welcome Marine Union. April 28, p8.<br />
<br />
59 MCS 1951a. The story of screening : a series of articles which appeared in The Sun-Reporter. San Francisco. Sutro Library Labor Archives.<br />
<br />
60 MCS 1951b. MCS Voice, May 11<br />
<br />
61 Watson left the party in 1956, after the Soviet invasion of Hungary<br />
<br />
62 Watson, Don. 2004. The ‘Old Left’ and the Union: Don Watson of Ship Clerks Local 34. ILWU Dispatcher, May, 2004. San Francisco<br />
<br />
63 Watson 1994, p33<br />
<br />
64 As in Levenstein, Harvey A. 1981. Communism, Anticommunism, and the CIO. Westport: Greenwood Press and Stepan-Norris. <br />
<br />
65 Rosen, S.M. 1971. The CIO era, 1935-1955. In John H. Bracey, Black Workers and Organized Labor. p176<br />
<br />
66 Kampelman, Max M. 1971. The Communist Party vs. the CIO: A Study in Power Politics. New York: Praeger. p214. Overall, Kampelman’s contention that the traditions of the U.S. labor movement are hostile to Communism would seem to hold true only to the extent that Kampelman does not distinguish communist ideas from Communist Parties, with all of the elitism and hierarchy that went along with them. His study is also compromised by a focus on union leadership and a lack of consideration of the agency of the rank and file.<br />
<br />
67 Nelson p259<br />
<br />
68 Weir, Stan. 1975. American Labor on the Defensive: A 1940s Odyssey. Radical America, vol9 no4-<br />
5, July/Aug. 1975 p175<br />
<br />
69 As suggested by note 66 above, it is important to recognize that the practices of CP local chapters could vary widely with regard to civil rights (or “the Negro Question”) during this period, and the overall CP stance on this issue has been frequently called into question. See Griffler for the 1918-1938 period: Griffler, Keith P. 1995. What Price Alliance?: Black Radicals Confront White Labor 1918-1938. New York: Garland.<br />
<br />
70 These unions were: Dave Beck’s Teamsters Union, Harry Lundberg’s Sailor’s Union of the Pacific, and Joe Ryan’s AFL Longshoreman’s Union.<br />
<br />
71 Sun-Reporter 1951c. Now is the Time to Stand Firm. September 29, p10. <br />
<br />
72 Record p92<br />
<br />
73 Nelson p259<br />
<br />
74 Foner 1974 p287<br />
<br />
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[[Category:African-American]] [[Category:Labor]] [[Category:Racism]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Sidney_Roger_and_the_Founding_of_the_United_Nations_in_San_Francisco&diff=19266Sidney Roger and the Founding of the United Nations in San Francisco2012-09-24T18:29:59Z<p>Gjamin: fixed a couple of typos and changed wording that referred to longer piece from which this article is excerpted. Changed last sentence, now points directly to two events that should be linked here.</p>
<hr />
<div>'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>Historical Essay</font></font> </font>'''<br />
<br />
''by Gerry Jamin''<br />
<br />
While both the Bay Area Council Against Discrimination (BACAD) and the [[HOWARD THURMAN 1899-1981|Fellowship Church]] contributed to an independent, cosmopolitan, left intellectual climate in 1940s San Francisco, perhaps the most authoritative local voice to adopt anti-fascist and anti-imperialist war aims as part of a popular, internationalist mission was that of radio and print journalist Sidney Roger. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Roger6 shortwave commentator.jpg]]<br />
<br />
''Photo: [http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt1000013q;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=d0e13139&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere Calisphere], University of California''<br />
<br />
In both his “Tokyo Inside Out” series of articles in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' and his broadcasts for KGO and KSFO radio, Roger applied a self-taught expertise on foreign affairs and his experience as broadcaster for the Office of War Information (OWI) to his delivery of what might be called a “people’s internationalist” message to the city’s public-at-large. During the war, in addition to his work as a journalist, Roger was the “Voice of America” for the Far East theater, monitoring Japanese media and producing pro-Allied radio broadcasts from studios in San Francisco’s landmark Mark Hopkins Hotel.(1) But his remaining broadcast transcripts, in addition to his articles and a fascinating oral history recorded in 1989-90, demonstrate that Roger was not simply a mouthpiece for U.S. wartime foreign policy.(2) Even while attacking Japanese rhetoric, he maintained an independent critique of imperialism, fascism and racism that challenged U.S. policymakers and the public at large to confront the inconsistencies of an alliance with the imperial powers of Britain, France and Holland. And, like that of his contemporaries discussed above—some of whom he interviewed for local radio—Roger’s critique was not separate from one of the American color line.(3)<br />
<br />
[[Image:Tendrnob$mark-hopkins-hotel-photo.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''The Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill, mid-1990s.'''<br />
<br />
Born in Paris in 1914 to radical eastern European Jews, Roger immigrated to California as a child and entered the world of broadcasting after being involved in the Federal Theater Project and other Popular Front activities.(4) By the 1930s Roger was a staunch and outspoken antifascist, and he later emphasized that, unlike many of his contemporaries, for him the term “fascist” was not tied to any particular nationality.(5) Even before the U.S. entered the war, Roger was mocking the San Francisco elite who entertained the local Nazi consul (and Hitler’s former commanding officer) Fritz Wiedemann.(6) By the time the U.S. was in the war, OWI Pacific Coast chief Owen Lattimore’s disclosure to Roger that the FBI had designated him “prematurely and excessively anti-fascist” was taken (by both men) as a point of pride.(7) Roger would become an influential figure in the Bay Area left as much for his personality as for his politics. As Jessica Mitford put it, Roger was known for his “ability to get across a thunderously radical left-wing message in a winningly popular style.”(8) <br />
<br />
[[iMAGE:Roger.jpg|right|260px]] In columns written during the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) that took place from April 25 to June 26, 1945, Roger makes a spirited pitch for superceding both the colonial and Jim Crow systems by framing an ideological battle between the Allies and the Japanese government for the hearts and minds of colonial subjects. While the Allies may be aware of “the true nature of Jap Fascism” he wrote, the Japanese were themselves aware of “the general feelings of a billion colonial peoples, and those living on the racial-economic margin of society.” Hinting at the Allies own imperialism, he referred to Japan as “the most predatory imperialist nation.”<br />
<br />
As he later commented on the appeal in colonial Asia of the Japanese slogan “Asia for the Asiatics,” “It was very seductive to people who had been kicked around by the white man.”(9) Reporting on the “Greater East Asia Conference” of Japanese puppet regimes, whose declaration, remarkably, spoke of “eliminating monopolistic practices, despotism, imperialism and racial discrimination,” Roger called on the UNCIO “to come through with something better.”(10)<br />
<br />
Motivated by his own principles, but also carefully playing upon Americans’ impulse to distinguish themselves morally from the Japanese enemy, he warned that “the poverty of real democracy” in the current Allied plan for colonial areas appeared “quite shabby” as depicted on Japanese radio.<br />
<br />
As Roger later recalled, his OWI job of monitoring and countering Japanese propaganda and encouraging anti-Japanese resistance in East Asia put him in an awkward position. Aside from having to discredit Japanese “anti-imperialist” rhetoric while working for an Allied coalition that included imperial powers, he was also faced with Japanese reports of racial confrontations in the United States, such as the 1943 Detroit riots. According to Roger, OWI broadcasters did not attempt to refute these reports, but, thus impelled to offer their own account, just “repeated the straight facts” about what had happened.(11) As Roger later reflected on the contradictions of the wartime colonial issue: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>“What was sticky was that—despite our propaganda for freedom and our stated belief in the right of people to enjoy self-determination—we still wondered if we had a claim on the loyalty of the people there? Why ask them to fight like hell against exploitation by Japanese and then tell them to welcome back exploitation by ‘democratic colonialism?’ A true oxymoron.”(12)</blockquote><br />
<br />
Further complicating Roger’s ethical dilemma was the fact that he was forbidden in OWI broadcasts from making any mention of the Japanese emperor or Japanese industrialists as enemies—the preferred term was “Japanese militarists.”(13) But Roger was able to follow his instincts more fully in his endorsement of indigenous anti-Japanese and anti-colonial forces both as the Voice of America in East Asia and in his Bay Area journalism. He was the first American to report on the Philippines revolutionary movement called the Hukbalahap in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle. He spoke highly of its members, as much for their interest in land reform as for their success against the Japanese and later criticized the U.S.-backed postwar regime for attacking them as communists.(14)<br />
<br />
[[Image:UN Conference 1945 Ethiopian delegates at City Hall aad-8904.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''UN Conference 1945, Ethiopian delegation at City Hall, San Francisco.'''<br />
<br />
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
Roger in fact met and interviewed several Filipino guerrilla fighters along with other partisans who had come to San Francisco for the UNCIO. In a June 1945 interview with two of these fighters, Roger stated that “the Philippines is the number one moral factor in all of Asia…[because] the Filipinos are the only people [who] rose up when they knew it was for independence.”(15) His recollection of meeting Filipino guerrilla leader Tomas Confesor at this time demonstrates both the hopes Roger felt at the time and his bitterness toward the increasingly evident regression towards an Allied sponsored neo-colonial order in Asia. Roger recalled that Confesor was then “on the outs” in the Philippines because he “wanted more for the country than just getting rid of the Japanese army,” and so refused to discourage the underground movement in preparation for American re-occupation. Confesor’s tale of the Japanese collaborators—including future president Manuel Roxas—who regained governmental positions under the Allied occupation completes the picture.(16)<br />
<br />
Roger was a keen observer of the political activity in San Francisco during the UNCIO, both among the delegates and the “little army” of observers and activists. He recalled a Dutch diplomat getting booed by pro-independence Indonesians, the complexities of the “two-China situation,” and a confrontation between Indian independence leader Vijaya Pandit and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.(17) But perhaps his warmest remembrances are of the numerous anti-Axis guerrilla fighters present in San Francisco during the UNCIO, people who Roger called “the conscience of the conference.” Roger recalled not only the Filipinos, but also French maquisards and members of the resistance from Norway, Greece and Yugoslavia. He found it natural that these men were “pretty far to the left” because, as he saw it, “[m]aybe it took those kinds of people to risk staying behind the lines.”(18)<br />
<br />
[[Image:UN Conf apr 25 1945 crowd outside opera house after first meeting aad-8891.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Crowd outside Opera House after first meeting of UN Conference, April 25, 1945.''' <br />
<br />
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
It is Roger’s seamless blending of anti-colonial and anti-fascist impulses, together with an emphasis on the “racial-economic” inequalities in the U.S. itself, that make his thought so compelling and such a distinct example of the kind of radical internationalist and humanist ideas that were heard during World War Two. He expressed the excitement and hopefulness of these ideas when he remembered the Yugoslav partisans, who affirmed for him “the most exciting aspect about the fight against fascism, which was the people rising up.”(19) As the war in Europe ended but the war in the Pacific still raged, Roger broadcast the message that “The war to the very end in Europe proved to be a ‘People’s War,’ with the little people fighting for their own liberation.”(20)<br />
<br />
As the UNCIO wound down, it became clear that Roger’s vision of “a People’s War leading to a people’s peace,” of a United Nations organization that would be “responsive to the needs and desires of the overwhelming masses of people,” and addressed the issues of poverty and inequality—the “real causes of war”— would not become reality.(21) But his broadcasts in the immediate postwar years maintained the same synthesis of world economic and colonial-racial problems, including an analysis of the U.S. movement for ethno-racial democracy in world terms. In a 1946 broadcast, Roger tied the struggle for equal rights in the United States to “a tremendous world-wide upheaval…part of a world trend that is going to change the world.” As Roger put it, “the racial problem at home” reflected the current movements for independence in Indonesia, India, and the Middle East, and “the fierce desire for complete independence in the Philippines.” Addressing his listeners in the language of the Popular Front, he warned, “If we don’t solve these racial problems in the democratic, American way….’with liberty and justice for all’….we will still have hanging over us the knowledge that the Japanese and Nazis won at least one big battle.” Continuing his attempt to hold American leaders accountable to the popular aims of the war, Roger reminded his audience that the message of wartime Japanese propaganda, “heard throughout Asia and down into the Americas…[was] that we do not believe in democracy for all…regardless of race.”(22)<br />
<br />
[[Image:UN 1945 Steamfitters sign aad-8889.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Steamfitters welcome United Nations, 1945.'''<br />
<br />
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
In addition to broadcasting criticism of U.S. policy toward colonial Asia—including an explicit condemnation of U.S. support for Francoists and other collaborators in the Philippines—Roger inveighed against the “great cartel interests” behind U.S. intervention in Greece and defended the American workers who participated in the 1946 strike wave. While Americans found themselves “time after time, too consistently, supporting the very interests abroad which do not represent democracy,” American workers chose strikes as “the last available weapon to fight a deeper condition…low standards of living in the world’s richest nation.” <br />
<br />
In contrast to the gloomy trends of U.S. postwar policy, Roger continued to counterpose the democratic and egalitarian vision that had gained such wide popularity during the war. He looked forward—naively, as he later admitted—to a genuinely progressive U.S. foreign policy, one in which the State Department would “look into the facts and lend support to every movement that desires freedom and democracy…rather than supporting special industrial and financial interests and unpopular monarchies and self-styled leaders who represent trifling minorities.”(23) But, while in the 1940s Roger contented himself with speaking about “American ideals,” in spite of increasing signs of official hypocrisy, he later acknowledged that he and other members of the OWI had “assumed a great deal” about the real goals of U.S. postwar plans. Roger recalled his increasing disappointment as the postwar renewal of the colonial order became clearer, and referred to his optimism during the war as “wishful thinking.” “[W]e tried to emphasize the idea that the world could not go back to its old ways because change was in the air, everywhere.”(24)<br />
<br />
Roger’s faith in antifascism and deep respect for the aims of the “people’s war,” as noted above, implied certain direct criticisms of U.S. policy which did not go unnoticed by the federal government. Roger’s outspokenness on commercial radio broadcasts about the U.S. relationship with the Franco regime prompted the U.S. state Department to withhold his passport, thus canceling his plans to go to the U.S.-occupied Philippines in 1945, where Roger’s voice was well-known to the underground. Roger later also attributed this decision to comments he had made in his Chronicle column which, contrary to OWI protocol, denounced the Japanese industrialists and described the Tojo regime as “capitalism in its most murderous form.”(25) <br />
<br />
Roger’s blending of world anti-fascism, anti-colonialism and working class solidarity would continue in the years that followed, marking a rich but challenging career during the McCarthyist period and beyond.(26) Roger’s philosophy—like that of BACAD, the Fellowship Church, and other California internationalists—is a good example of the kind of left internationalist thinking that found a particularly receptive environment in California in the 1930s and 1940s. This was the intellectual climate of the Bay Area in which world leaders gathered in 1945. And, significantly, it was also the climate in which two significant workplace confrontations occurred, ones that brought into sharp focus the contradictions raised by Roger in his call for ethno-racial democracy : the shipyard civil rights fight and the machinists' dispute with the War Labor Board. <br />
<br />
'''Notes'''<br />
<br />
1. Sidney Roger. 1990. ''A Liberal Journalist On the Air and On the Waterfront: Labor and Political Issues, 1932-1990''. (Interviews by Julie Shearer) University of California. pp. 66, 133, 151-152; The OWI studios were set up with the help of KSFO radio. Its programming was transmitted from antennae on [[Islais Creek wetlands|Islais Creek]]. See Dr. Adrian M. Peterson [http://www.radioworld.com/article/63590 “A Voice Across the Pacific: KWID & KWIX"]. (May 14, 2010)<br><br />
2. Interestingly, Roger notes that even among his colleagues in the OWI there was “a significant group…not a majority but a large group…who were definitely on the left.” Roger, A Liberal Journalist p69<br><br />
3. Roger describes his interviews with Robert Kenny and Carey McWilliams in Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 497-99<br><br />
4. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' pp3, 5-6, 55-56, 160<br><br />
5. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 71, 195; “By the 1931 Mukden incident, in China, I didn’t need to be told that Japanese imperialism was another form of fascism” Roger, A Liberal Journalist 71; It would be interesting to know what Roger thought of the comparisons of British and French imperialism to fascism, but this does not come up in his oral history<br><br />
6. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 63-64<br><br />
7. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 70<br><br />
8. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' introductory materials, no page number<br><br />
9. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 75<br><br />
10. “Tokyo Inside Out,” ''San Francisco Chronicle'', April 30, 1945 p9 and May 21, 1945 p5; Although Roger clearly expresses his internationalism and anti-racism in numerous instances, his Chronicle articles do include the contemporary epithet for Japanese people during the war. His usage seems to be confined to descriptions of the Japanese government. I found no evidence in the materials on Roger of any condemnations of Japanese people in racial terms.<br><br />
11. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 71-72;172<br><br />
12. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 172-173<br><br />
13. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 73, 173, 196<br><br />
14. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 82-83;127, 209<br><br />
15. “Interview with Filipino guerrillas”. Cassette in Sidney Roger Collection, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. [Hereafter LARC, SFSU] This interview is also recalled in Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' p78, p141 and p188-189.<br> <br />
16. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 82-83;128-130<br><br />
17. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 137-138<br><br />
18. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' p85, 126, 133, 487<br><br />
19. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 153<br><br />
20. May 10, 1945 broadcast; Radio Scripts 1940s, Sidney Roger Collection, LARC, SFSU<br />
21. May 10, 1945 transcript, ibid<br><br />
22. March 18, 1946 transcript, ibid<br><br />
23. October 3, 1946 transcript, ibid; March 18, 1946 radio script, ibid.<br><br />
24. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 172-173<br><br />
25. Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' 79-80<br><br />
26. Roger was baited as a communist by the Tenney Committee in 1947. He later said that his red-baiting had “mostly to do with my attitude toward racism.” Roger, ''A Liberal Journalist'' p71<br />
<br />
[[category:Media]] [[category:dissent]] [[category:racism]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:Nob Hill]] [[category:military]] [[category:Power and Money]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13643Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-04-04T03:20:35Z<p>Gjamin: footnotes added. Books still to be italicized and footnote numbers inserted in text.</p>
<hr />
<div>'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>Historical Essay</font></font> </font>'''<br />
<br />
''by Gerry Jamin''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Members of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union in a hiring hall at 86 Commercial Street June 10 1952 AAD-5676.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Members of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union in a hiring hall at 86 Commercial Street, June 10 1952'''<br />
<br />
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
<font size=4>'''1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise'''</font><br />
<br />
A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
<br />
In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
<br />
'''ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS'''<br />
<br />
For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
<br />
[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
<br />
But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
<br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
<br />
'''1934: A TURNING POINT '''<br />
<br />
“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
<br />
''—Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco''<br />
<br />
The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco [[The General Strike of 1934|General Strike of 1934]]. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Marine Cooks and Stewards 19 Main Street nd AAD-5667.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Marine Cooks and Stewards at their 19 Main Street hall, n.d.'''<br />
<br />
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman [[Fleming on Segregation|Thomas Fleming]] writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
<br />
It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
<br />
Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
'''THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES'''<br />
<br />
The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
<br />
With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
<br />
The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
<br />
The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
<br />
'''COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS'''<br />
<br />
As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
<br />
The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
<br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
<br />
Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
<br />
When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS ''Voice'' attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were [[July 5, 1934: Bloody Thursday|shot down]] in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
<br />
The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union ([[50th Anniversary of 1934 General Strike|ILWU]]), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
<br />
'''ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO''' <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerrilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
<br />
[[Image:July 13 1951 natl maritime union anti-communist pickets AAD-5616.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''July 13, 1951, National Maritime Union anti-communist picket line.'''<br />
<br />
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
<br />
As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a red-baited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so), all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in ''MCS Voice'' that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
<br />
'''CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?'''<br />
<br />
The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of red-baiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
<br />
'''Communism'''<br />
<br />
When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
<br />
But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
<br />
MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of,” and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
<br />
“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br><br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br><br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br><br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br><br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br><br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br><br />
<br />
'''Democracy'''<br />
<br />
Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
<br />
It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a ''Business Week'' article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
<br />
The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
<br />
The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
<br />
[[Image:Nov 1948 strike negotiations AAD-5595.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''"Representatives of both sides in the 1948 dock strike place their signatures to the Roth formula, clearing way for reopening of peace negotiations. Seated around table, from left to right, are Eddy Tangen, CIO Marine Cooks & Stewards Union; Hugh Bryson, president of the same union; [[Harry Bridges|Harry Bridges]], ILWU president; Lou Goldblatt, ILWU secretary-treasurer; Frank P. Foisie, Waterfront Employers Association president; J. B. Bryan, president of the Pacific American Shipowners Association; Almon Roth, president of the San Francisco Employers Council; Allan S. Haywood, CIO vice president and director of reorganization, and R. J. Thomas, CIO assistant director." '''<br />
<br />
''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''<br />
<br />
The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS ''Voice'', naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
<br />
'''MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY'''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Robeson-et-al-MCS-conf P1010936.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''MCS Convention, San Francisco, probably 1951. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.'''<br />
<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
<br />
At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco ''Spokesman'', a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The ''Western Worker'', resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The ''Spokesman'' went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the [[The Black Press|''Sun-Reporter'']], whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the ''Sun-Reporter'' attacked red-baiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
<br />
The ''Sun-Reporter'' took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
<br />
The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the ''Voice'' and the ''Sun-Reporter'' in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. ''Sun-Reporter'' articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
<br />
Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
'''CONCLUSION'''<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
<br />
These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.<br />
<br />
NOTES<br />
<br />
1 Kelley, Robin D.G. 1994. Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. New York, Free Press.<br />
<br />
2 Among many other testimonials from within MCS itself, the black Alabaman civil rights leader John L. LeFlore (1903-1976) called MCS president Hugh Bryson “a two-fisted fighter for equal justice for everybody” LeFlore, John. L. 1970. Interview, August 7. McLaurin Oral History Project. http://www.southalabama.edu/archives/html/manuscript/oralhist/oralhist1b.htm LeFlore had contacted Bryson regarding a “hate strike” vs. a black MCS seaman in Alabama in 1946.<br />
<br />
3 Bellson, Ford. 1939. Labor Gains on the Coast: A report on the integration of Negro workers into the maritime unions of the Pacific Coast states. Opportunity, 17 (May, 1939): 142-143. In Foner (1983), p.128-130.<br />
<br />
4 In addition to the long-range strategic concerns of gainful employment, one must also imagine that the sharpened class antagonism of the moment carried its own motivations, as Thomas Fleming, a freelance black journalist at the time, relates: “I heard there was a truck picking up people who wanted to be scabs. It would arrive one night at 35th Street and San Pablo Avenue in Oakland. So I came down there with a couple of students I knew real well. I felt a little bad about it, but I needed the money. When you've been out of work a long time, you'll take anything where you aren't breaking any laws. A truck came up there all right, but it was the wrong truck. It was loaded with striking workers, and they had baseball bats, which they started swinging. We jumped off that damn truck and took off running. I didn't try any more after that. I saw it was wrong then. Fleming, Thomas. C. 1999. Reflections on Black History [in 86 parts]. The Free Press, Columbus, OH. http://www.freepress.org/fleming/fleming.html<br />
Part 65<br />
<br />
5 But these positions were also often held by Asians and homosexuals, as reflected in the high percentages of both of these groups among the MCS membership. Fleming recounts that two shipping lines, Matson and Dollar, did not hire black stewards at all before 1934; instead their stewards were mostly Asian. These histories of course deserve more attention. (Fleming, Part 34)<br />
<br />
6 The Colored Marine Benevolent Association, controlled by the Pacific Steamship Company (later Dollar Lines). (Fleming, Part 31)<br />
<br />
7 Weir, Stan. 2004. Singlejack Solidarity. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. p117<br />
<br />
8 Nelson, Bruce. 1988. Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s. University of Illinois, Chicago. p259<br />
<br />
9 Fleming, Part 65<br />
<br />
10 Foner, Philip S. 1974. Organized Labor and the Black Worker: 1619-1973. New York: Praeger. p225<br />
<br />
11 Bellson, 1939<br />
<br />
12 Brecher, Jeremy. 1997. Strike! Cambridge: South End Press. p243<br />
<br />
13 Remarkably, these strikes occurred while the Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act (1943) was in force, allowing government take-overs of strike-bound plants and making it illegal to even advocate striking. Brecher, 1997. p240<br />
<br />
14 Brecher, 240<br />
<br />
15 Brecher 238<br />
<br />
16 Brecher 239<br />
<br />
17 Brecher 246<br />
<br />
18 Brecher 247<br />
<br />
19 Brecher 247<br />
<br />
20 Brecher 158<br />
<br />
21 Brecher 247<br />
<br />
22 Davis,Mike. 1986. Prisoners of the American Dream. London: Verso. p102<br />
<br />
23 Ginger, Ann Fagan and Christiano, David. (eds) 1987. The Cold War Against Labor. <br />
Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, Berkeley. p243<br />
<br />
24 Lipsitz, George. 1994. Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940’s. Chicago: University of Illinois. p157<br />
<br />
25 Lipsitz, p172<br />
<br />
26 Supervisors at this time were not immune to the appeals for labor activism, perhaps spurred on by their unique and difficult position in “bear[ing] the brunt of rank-and-file discontent with work, while serving as the focal point for management anger over inadequate production.” Lipsitz, p173, 174.<br />
<br />
27 Lipsitz 174<br />
<br />
28 MCS 1947c. Taft Bill Passes. MCS Voice. June 26, p.1. Nick Bordoise, one of two maritime workers killed on Bloody Thursday in San Francisco, was an MCS member.<br />
<br />
29 MCS 1947b. The Old Blacklist: Taft Bill Will Bring It Back. MCS Voice. <br />
June 12, p2<br />
<br />
30 MCS 1947f. Members Speak On Slave Measure. MCS Voice. July 10, p3<br />
<br />
31 MCS 1947a. NLRB Is No Longer Labor’s Aid. MCS Voice. May 25, p7<br />
<br />
32 Lipsitz 178<br />
<br />
33 Zinn,Howard. 1980. A People’s History of the United States. San Francisco: Harper & Row. p417<br />
<br />
34 Lipsitz, 201 n8<br />
<br />
35 Ginger, 258<br />
<br />
36 MCS 1947e. Taft Act is Like Hitler’s Early Laws. MCS Voice. July 10, p2<br />
<br />
37 Bryson was sentenced to five years in prison with a ten thousand dollar fine (though the case was appealed and he ended up doing less time).<br />
<br />
38 MCS 1947d. CIO Against Slave Act. MCS Voice. July 10, p1<br />
<br />
39 Stepan-Norris, Judith and Zeitlin, Maurice. 2003. Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p2<br />
<br />
40 Stepan-Norris p33<br />
<br />
41 Stepan-Norris p72<br />
<br />
42 Foner 1974, p232-237<br />
<br />
43 Lipsitz, p200-201<br />
<br />
44 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). 1950. CIO Hearing Before the Committee to Investigate Charges Against the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards. 1 vol. May 22, 1950. Norman Leonard Collection, Sutro Library Labor Archives, San Francisco. p714-715<br />
<br />
45 Stepan-Norris, p94<br />
<br />
46 Stepan-Norris, p87<br />
<br />
47 Lipsitz, p178<br />
<br />
48 Spira, Henry. 1972. The Unambiguity of Labor History. In Hall, Burton H. (ed.) 1972. Autocracy and Insurgency in Organized Labor. New Brunswick: Transaction books. in Hall, p251<br />
<br />
49 Stepan-Norris, p4-7<br />
<br />
50 Spira (in Hall) p251. In an interesting episode that deserves more study, one-time communist Joseph Curran, head of the National Maritime Union (NMU), became “anticommunist” in the name of wresting control of his union from Communist Party control. But, instead of rejecting authoritarianism, he actively maintained it for the sake of organizational expansion and a new-found anticommunist crusade. His new “anticommunist” NMU was one of the principal “raiders” of MCS membership after their expulsion from the CIO. See chapters by Henry Spira, James Morrissey, and James R. Prickett in Hall (1972).<br />
<br />
51 CIO, p692-697<br />
<br />
52 CIO, p708<br />
<br />
53 CIO, p697. MCS 1950.[no title] MCS Voice. May 12. p1<br />
<br />
54 CIO, p693<br />
<br />
55 Watson, Don. 1994. Transcripts of oral interviews by Harvey Schwartz, <br />
March 11-April 21. Sutro Library Labor Archives. San Francisco, p25<br />
<br />
56 Record, Jane Cassels. 1956. The Rise and Fall of a Maritime Union. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 10(1) (October) p91<br />
<br />
57 NYU. 2003. Guide to the John Pittman Papers. Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. http://dlib.nyu.edu:8083/tamwagead/servlet/SaxonServletsource=pittman.xml&style=saxon01t2002.xsl<br />
<br />
58 Sun-Reporter 1951a, MC&S Union Nat’l Meeting in Fillmore. April 21, p3. and 1951b. Fillmorians Welcome Marine Union. April 28, p8.<br />
<br />
59 MCS 1951a. The story of screening : a series of articles which appeared in The Sun-Reporter. San Francisco. Sutro Library Labor Archives.<br />
<br />
60 MCS 1951b. MCS Voice, May 11<br />
<br />
61 Watson left the party in 1956, after the Soviet invasion of Hungary<br />
<br />
62 Watson, Don. 2004. The ‘Old Left’ and the Union: Don Watson of Ship Clerks Local 34. ILWU Dispatcher, May, 2004. San Francisco<br />
<br />
63 Watson 1994, p33<br />
<br />
64 As in Levenstein, Harvey A. 1981. Communism, Anticommunism, and the CIO. Westport: Greenwood Press and Stepan-Norris. <br />
<br />
65 Rosen, S.M. 1971. The CIO era, 1935-1955. In John H. Bracey, Black Workers and Organized Labor. p176<br />
<br />
66 Kampelman, Max M. 1971. The Communist Party vs. the CIO: A Study in Power Politics. New York: Praeger. p214. Overall, Kampelman’s contention that the traditions of the U.S. labor movement are hostile to Communism would seem to hold true only to the extent that Kampelman does not distinguish communist ideas from Communist Parties, with all of the elitism and hierarchy that went along with them. His study is also compromised by a focus on union leadership and a lack of consideration of the agency of the rank and file.<br />
<br />
67 Nelson p259<br />
<br />
68 Weir, Stan. 1975. American Labor on the Defensive: A 1940s Odyssey. Radical America, vol9 no4-<br />
5, July/Aug. 1975 p175<br />
<br />
69 As suggested by note 66 above, it is important to recognize that the practices of CP local chapters could vary widely with regard to civil rights (or “the Negro Question”) during this period, and the overall CP stance on this issue has been frequently called into question. See Griffler for the 1918-1938 period: Griffler, Keith P. 1995. What Price Alliance?: Black Radicals Confront White Labor 1918-1938. New York: Garland.<br />
<br />
70 These unions were: Dave Beck’s Teamsters Union, Harry Lundberg’s Sailor’s Union of the Pacific, and Joe Ryan’s AFL Longshoreman’s Union.<br />
<br />
71 Sun-Reporter 1951c. Now is the Time to Stand Firm. September 29, p10. <br />
<br />
72 Record p92<br />
<br />
73 Nelson p259<br />
<br />
74 Foner 1974 p287<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:African-American]] [[Category:Labor]] [[Category:Racism]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13625Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T08:04:07Z<p>Gjamin: italics for newspaper titles</p>
<hr />
<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
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A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
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In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
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ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
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For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
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[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
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But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
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1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
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“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
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- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
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The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
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It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
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It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
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Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
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THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
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The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
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With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
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The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
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The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
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COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
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As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
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The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
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Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
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When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS ''Voice'' attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
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The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
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ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
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Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
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One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
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As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
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CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
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The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
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Communism<br />
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When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
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But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
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MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
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“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
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Democracy<br />
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Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
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It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
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The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
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The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
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The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS ''Voice'', naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
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MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
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[[Image:P1010936.JPG]]<br />
MCS Convention, San Francisco, probably 1951. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
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At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco ''Spokesman'', a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The ''Western Worker'', resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The ''Spokesman'' went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the ''Sun-Reporter'', whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the ''Sun-Reporter'' attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
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The ''Sun-Reporter'' took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
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The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the ''Voice'' and the ''Sun-Reporter'' in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. ''Sun-Reporter'' articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
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Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
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But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
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“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
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CONCLUSION<br />
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Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
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These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.<br />
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[[Category:African-American]] [[Category:Labor]] [[Category:Racism]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13624Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T07:50:06Z<p>Gjamin: </p>
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<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
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A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
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In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
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ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
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For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
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[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
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But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
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1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
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“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
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- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
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The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
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It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
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It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
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Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
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The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
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With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
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The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
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The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
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COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
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As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
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The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
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Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
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When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS Voice attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
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The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
<br />
ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
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Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
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One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
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As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
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CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
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The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
<br />
Communism<br />
<br />
When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
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But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
<br />
MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
<br />
“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
<br />
Democracy<br />
<br />
Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
<br />
It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
<br />
The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
<br />
The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
<br />
The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS Voice, naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
<br />
MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
<br />
[[Image:P1010936.JPG]]<br />
MCS Conference, San Francisco, probably late 1940s. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
<br />
At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco Spokesman, a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The Western Worker, resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The Spokesman went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the Sun-Reporter, whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the Sun-Reporter attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
<br />
The Sun-Reporter took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
<br />
The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the Voice and the Sun-Reporter in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. Sun-Reporter articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
<br />
Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
<br />
These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.<br />
<br />
[[Category:African-American]] [[Category:Labor]] [[Category:Racism]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13623Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T07:48:13Z<p>Gjamin: </p>
<hr />
<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
<br />
A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
<br />
In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
<br />
ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
<br />
For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
<br />
[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
<br />
But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
<br />
<br />
1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
<br />
“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
<br />
- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
<br />
The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
<br />
It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
<br />
It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
<br />
Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
<br />
The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
<br />
With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
<br />
The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
<br />
The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
<br />
COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
<br />
As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
<br />
The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
<br />
Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
<br />
<br />
When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS Voice attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
<br />
The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
<br />
ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
<br />
One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
<br />
As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
<br />
CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
<br />
The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
<br />
Communism<br />
<br />
When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
<br />
But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
<br />
MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
<br />
“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
<br />
Democracy<br />
<br />
Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
<br />
It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
<br />
The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
<br />
The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
<br />
The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS Voice, naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
<br />
MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
<br />
[[Image:P1010936.JPG]]<br />
MCS Conference, San Francisco, probably late 1940s. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
<br />
At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco Spokesman, a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The Western Worker, resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The Spokesman went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the Sun-Reporter, whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the Sun-Reporter attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
<br />
The Sun-Reporter took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
<br />
The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the Voice and the Sun-Reporter in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. Sun-Reporter articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
<br />
Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
<br />
These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.<br />
<br />
[[Special:Categories]] : [[Category:African-American]] | [[Category:Labor]] | [[Category:Racism]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13622Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T07:38:57Z<p>Gjamin: </p>
<hr />
<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
<br />
A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
<br />
In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
<br />
ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
<br />
For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
<br />
[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
<br />
But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
<br />
<br />
1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
<br />
“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
<br />
- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
<br />
The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
<br />
It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
<br />
It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
<br />
Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
<br />
The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
<br />
With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
<br />
The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
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The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
<br />
COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
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As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
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The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
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Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
<br />
<br />
When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS Voice attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
<br />
The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
<br />
ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
<br />
One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
<br />
As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
<br />
CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
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The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
<br />
Communism<br />
<br />
When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
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But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
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MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
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“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
<br />
Democracy<br />
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Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
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It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
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The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
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The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
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The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS Voice, naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
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MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
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[[Image:P1010936.JPG]]<br />
MCS Conference, San Francisco, probably late 1940s. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
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At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco Spokesman, a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The Western Worker, resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The Spokesman went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the Sun-Reporter, whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the Sun-Reporter attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
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The Sun-Reporter took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
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The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the Voice and the Sun-Reporter in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. Sun-Reporter articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
<br />
Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
<br />
These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.<br />
<br />
[[Special:Categories]] : [[Categories:African-American]] | [[Categories:Labor]] | [[Categories:Racism]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13621Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T07:35:49Z<p>Gjamin: added categories</p>
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<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
<br />
A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
<br />
In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
<br />
ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
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For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
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[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
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But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
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1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
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“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
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- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
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The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
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It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
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It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
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Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
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THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
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The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
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With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
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The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
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The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
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COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
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As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
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The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
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Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
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When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS Voice attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
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The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
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ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
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Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
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One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
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As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
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CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
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The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
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Communism<br />
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When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
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But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
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MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
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“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
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Democracy<br />
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Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
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It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
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The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
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The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
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The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS Voice, naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
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MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
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[[Image:P1010936.JPG]]<br />
MCS Conference, San Francisco, probably late 1940s. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
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At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco Spokesman, a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The Western Worker, resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The Spokesman went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the Sun-Reporter, whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the Sun-Reporter attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
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The Sun-Reporter took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
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The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the Voice and the Sun-Reporter in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. Sun-Reporter articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
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Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
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These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.<br />
<br />
[[Categories]] : [[African-American]] | [[Labor]] | [[Racism]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13619Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T07:15:06Z<p>Gjamin: added photo</p>
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<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
<br />
A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
<br />
In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
<br />
ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
<br />
For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
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[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
<br />
But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
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<br />
1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
<br />
“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
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- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
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The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
<br />
It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
<br />
It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
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Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
<br />
The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
<br />
With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
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The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
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The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
<br />
COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
<br />
As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
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The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
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Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
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<br />
When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS Voice attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
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The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
<br />
ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
<br />
One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
<br />
As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
<br />
CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
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The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
<br />
Communism<br />
<br />
When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
<br />
But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
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MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
<br />
“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
<br />
Democracy<br />
<br />
Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
<br />
It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
<br />
The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
<br />
The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
<br />
The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS Voice, naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
<br />
MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
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[[Image:P1010936.JPG]]<br />
MCS Conference, San Francisco, probably late 1940s. At table from left: Paul Robeson, Eugene Burke, Revels Cayton, California Labor School Chorus is seated at far left.<br />
''Photo: Stewart Bryant collection; copy at Labor Archives and Resource Center, SFSU.''<br />
<br />
At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco Spokesman, a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The Western Worker, resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The Spokesman went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the Sun-Reporter, whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the Sun-Reporter attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
<br />
The Sun-Reporter took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
<br />
The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the Voice and the Sun-Reporter in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. Sun-Reporter articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
<br />
Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
<br />
These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13616Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T06:44:57Z<p>Gjamin: </p>
<hr />
<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
<br />
A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
<br />
In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
<br />
ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
<br />
For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
<br />
[[Image:MCS.strikers.jpg]]<br />
<br />
But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
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<br />
1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
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“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
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- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
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The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
<br />
It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
<br />
It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
<br />
Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
<br />
The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
<br />
With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
<br />
The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
<br />
The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
<br />
COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
<br />
As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
<br />
The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
<br />
Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
<br />
<br />
When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS Voice attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
<br />
The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
<br />
ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
<br />
One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
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As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
<br />
CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
<br />
The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
<br />
Communism<br />
<br />
When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
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But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
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MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
<br />
“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
<br />
Democracy<br />
<br />
Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
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It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
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The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
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The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
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The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS Voice, naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
<br />
MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
<br />
At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco Spokesman, a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The Western Worker, resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The Spokesman went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the Sun-Reporter, whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the Sun-Reporter attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
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The Sun-Reporter took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
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The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the Voice and the Sun-Reporter in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. Sun-Reporter articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
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Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
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But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
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“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
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CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
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These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:MCS.strikers.jpg&diff=13615File:MCS.strikers.jpg2009-03-30T06:33:30Z<p>Gjamin: Representation of MCS militants</p>
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<div>Representation of MCS militants</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Marine_Cooks_and_Stewards_Union&diff=13614Marine Cooks and Stewards Union2009-03-30T06:29:11Z<p>Gjamin: New article</p>
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<div>1934-1954: San Francisco General Strike to Cold War Demise<br />
<br />
A good deal has been written about the experiences of left-led unions in the United States at the outbreak of the Cold War, but much less has been written about the origins and mechanics of the radicalism for which individual unions were targeted during the accompanying red scare. In the case of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), one of eleven unions expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for being “communist-dominated” in 1949-50, this absence is more striking when one considers its exceptional multiracial composition and concrete commitment to civil rights, to a degree that was even outstanding among other left unions. The militant stand of the MCS against racial discrimination, the practical nature of which was clearly expressed by the union’s high level of racial diversity (40-50 per cent black, 25 per cent Asian, 25 per cent white) is an added distinction to—and in fact is strongly tied to—its commitment to union democracy and its resistance to the tightening bureaucratization and government restraints that followed the wave of wildcat strike activity during World War Two. The history of America communism and “fellow travelers” is also interlaced with the history of MCS, in ways that point out the relationship between ideas and the people who use them. <br />
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In shaping the character of the MCS, the role of communism—both as a body of ideas and through the practical interpretation of those ideas by the Communist Party (CP)—is far from incidental. The dynamics between “party line” Communists , independent radicals (who may or may not have been influenced by communism) and other non-revolutionary but equally devoted worker-activists for racial equality and participatory democracy were brought into sharp focus in the labor movement during the decades surrounding World War Two. At this time, the possibility of a radical kind of worker self-management, the urgency of anti-fascism, and the palpable weight of black American exclusion and oppression hung in the air together at numerous flashpoints of unrest in an American workplace that was slowly absorbing the black diaspora from the U.S. South and experiencing perhaps to an unprecedented degree the manipulation of a government-business alliance. In this context, the MCS—a labor organization led by communists and composed largely of blacks—can be seen as one of the most dynamic and interesting expressions of this unique nexus of energy in U.S. history. <br />
<br />
ANTI-FASCISM, COMMUNISM, BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS<br />
<br />
For many American workers, the Allied coalition that brought the United States and the Soviet Union together in World War Two was more than just a tactical or political decision. The threat of fascism stirred the hearts of millions in the U.S., and, aside from considerations of the danger to democracy, the fact that communists and trade unions in Europe were fascism’s first targets was not lost on many. The world depression that helped bring about the ideological competition between fascism and communism for the support of desperate workers in Europe also heightened class polarization in the U.S. and contributed to an increase in Communist Party membership. Especially relevant for American blacks, the rise of fascism in Europe included Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and coincided with a period of militant white supremacism in the U.S., one in which the KKK and its splinter groups were riding high, and the waves of black migrants were particularly vulnerable to attack. But while black Americans were no exception to the appeal of anti-fascism, vexing comparisons between the racism of the Nazis and the persistent and violent American racism that blacks contended with (and continue to contend with) in the United States complicated their stance with regard to any “American” efforts as both citizens and workers. It is important to note that the interest in anti-fascism and communism among U.S. blacks was far from simply an expression of patriotism or support for the war effort, but also contained strong elements of a black national consciousness. Robin Kelley has made a compelling connection between black American anti-fascism and the pan-Africanism revived by Marcus Garvey, pointing to the outcry among American blacks against fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and the subsequent participation of American blacks in the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as an effort to defeat the same anti-African forces. <br />
<br />
But, international geopolitics aside, the nature of black support for communist leaders and ideas in the U.S. at this time—however rigid the party line may have been within some left-led unions—is consistent with that of organized workers in general, a support based solidly on a home-grown embrace of class politics and grassroots democracy that had emerged during decades of worker-employer confrontations. Also, for many blacks, this support was won by an active and explicit commitment to civil rights on the part of many communists, such as those in the leadership of MCS, whose dedication to the rank and file in this regard appears to have motivated them more than their loyalty to the party. <br />
While the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (when the CP opposed the U.S. war effort) certainly provoked a great deal of doubt and critique of the Party (along with many outright desertions), class analysis and communist internationalism—which found an expression among U.S. workers as anti-racism—continued to be a major force in the U.S. labor movement during the World War Two era. Few unions expressed these ideals as clearly and consistently as did the Marine Cooks and Stewards, who brought together a maritime tradition of rank-and-file participation and initiative, an unsurpassed dedication to racial equality, and the discipline and ideological commitment of the Communist Party.<br />
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<br />
1934: A TURNING POINT <br />
<br />
“If the Negro’s struggle for liberation is crushed under the hammer blows of American racists, the whole labor movement will go down with it.”<br />
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- Paul Robeson, reporting on the 1951 MCS Convention in San Francisco. <br />
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The labor movement in the U.S. has a justified reputation for being racist and the foundation of the MCS in 1901—as an exclusively white and anti-Chinese union—is no exception to that bleak tendency. But within this movement there have been several watershed moments in which openings were made and interracial solidarity was embraced as both strategic and just. The MCS played a large part in one of these moments: the Pacific Maritime and San Francisco General Strike of 1934. As the labor journalist Fred Bellson related in 1939, 500 black workers who the shipping companies were attempting to recruit as scabs instead joined the picket lines. Later, “as a reward for their help in winning the strike, they were...taken en masse into the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union.” Of course, given the common employer practice of exploiting racial divisions to break strikes, one has good reason to doubt Bellson’s depiction of this mass recruitment as a “reward,” or of the initiative of these black workers as “help” for white unionists. <br />
<br />
It is true that cooks and stewards jobs were among the least lucrative in the maritime trades, and, not accidentally, were often delegated to blacks. Bellson’s tone is far from paternal in his description of the conditions faced by black seamen in the pre-strike period, including 16- hour workdays, penalization for the slightest offenses, forced kickbacks to officials, and various forms of harassment and wage pinching. The black journalist and one time seaman Thomas Fleming writes that “[w]e were something like butlers or maids” for whom “[t]here was no such thing as overtime pay,” and recalls that before the strike, the majority of black maritime workers who were organized at all were in a company union. And Stan Weir, a worker-scholar who spent many years on ships, states bluntly about black and Asian seamen: “they are the cooks, bakers, waiters, and janitors for the rest of us, the lowest paid and the takers of the most crap.” Weir goes on to say that “in ’34, they were some of the hardest fighters we had.”<br />
<br />
It was clear to the more radical union officials and rank-and-file alike that such a two-tiered system was damaging to union goals and that interracial solidarity would be necessary to win the strike and protect its gains. Although such an awareness cannot be limited to communists (whether members of the CP or not), it seems clear that the presence of communists among union members and officials played a large role in this initiative. Harry Bridges, the well-known leader of the longshore workers (who later admitted to sympathizing with communists but not to joining the party), is reported to have gone to black churches on both sides of San Francisco Bay, where “he begged the congregation to join the strikers on the picket line, and promised that when the strike ended, blacks would work on every dock on the West Coast.” Although it is not clear whether MCS officials made any similar outreach during the strike, the stewards union was closely associated with longshoremen from this point on—as maritime workers, as militants, and as communists. <br />
<br />
Soon after the successful strike the MCS constitution was rewritten to demand that “race is no longer pitted against race in the struggle for jobs” and to affirm the “equality of opportunity for work and education and for the essential values of life to all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.” MCS insistence on black and white “checkerboard crews” and vigilance over fair hiring practices and work conditions became known up and down the coast. Black representation among union officials was also advanced. MCS held firm against punitive actions by ship-owners, intending to “demoralize racial unity,” who opposed integrated crews or refused to hire black workers at all. It is no coincidence that by the time of the 1936 strike to protect union hiring halls black workers actively enlisted the help of the entire black community. This kind of solidarity would prove valuable during the turbulent years of World War Two, and even more valuable during the backlash against labor in the war’s aftermath.<br />
<br />
THE WAR YEARS & THE 1946 STRIKES<br />
<br />
The World War Two years were not ones of peace between U.S. labor and business. They were, in fact, among the most militant years in the history of U.S. labor. As Jeremy Brecher recounts, “during the forty-four months from Pearl Harbor to VJ day, there were 14,471 strikes involving 6,774,000 strikers—more than during any period of comparable length in US history.” The last full year of the war, 1944, saw more strikes than any previous year in U.S. history. What is especially remarkable about these actions is that they took place in spite of a “no-strike pledge” that was agreed upon by labor unions—including MCS and almost every other left-led union—and government soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Effectively skirting the constraints of this pledge, most of these wartime strikes were “quickie” or “wildcat” strikes (averaging under six days apiece), conducted by rank-and-file workers independent of and sometimes even against the official union leadership. <br />
<br />
With many industries gaining record profits amidst the urgency of wartime production, and with unemployment near zero, workers saw a unique opportunity to make demands. For many, the much-touted honor of supporting the war effort was not quite enough to compensate for the imposed speed-ups in industry and frozen wage levels resulting from federal “wage stabilization.” With the no-strike pledge proving insufficient against wildcats—and perhaps even promoting such activity by grossly depleting legitimate union arsenals—federal efforts to pacify and gain loyalty from unions intensified during the war years. The principal method at this time was the inclusion of “maintenance of membership” provisions in labor contracts, designed to counteract the declining appeal of dues-paying union membership at a time when workers were asked to work harder even while unions’ most effective weapon, the strike, was officially suppressed. In support of a tendency toward union bureaucratization seen as more amenable and less threatening by the federal government—“making the unions dependent on the government instead of on their members” — these provisions made it illegal for a worker to quit during the duration of the contract. <br />
<br />
The end of the war did not mean an end to strikes. In fact, it precipitated a wave of strikes—both official and wildcat—as workers attempted to compensate for wartime losses in real wages and unions attempted to re-establish rank-and-file support. The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics called the first six months of 1946 “the most concentrated period of labor-management strife in the country’s history.” That year saw major strikes in almost every industry and in many non-industrial sectors, including the single largest strike in U.S. history (750,000 steelworkers) and general strikes that shut down the cities of Rochester, Lancaster, Stamford and Oakland. By the year’s end, 4.6 million workers had been involved in strikes. <br />
<br />
The degree of rank-and-file solidarity demonstrated by this strike wave contrasts sharply with the more disassociated and individualistic responses of most union leaders, who generally made settlements without considering continuing strikes by other unions. This distinction is key to understanding the later persecutions of unions like MCS, who, once the war was over, did not hesitate to wield the strike weapon (as shown in their 1946 pamphlet “The Strike as a Weapon of Labor”) and generally put great value in rank-and-file activity. As business analyst Peter F. Drucker pointed out at the time, “it was on the whole not the leadership which forced the workers into a strike but worker pressure that forced a strike upon the reluctant leadership.” Drucker went on to claim that “most of the leaders knew very well that they could have gained as much by negotiations as they finally gained by striking. And again and again the rank and file of the union membership refused to go back to work.” Whether or not it is true that negotiations would have proven as effective as strikes, it is certain that strikes demonstrate worker’s power in a way that negotiations cannot. Such demonstrations of rank-and-file strength and unity are strategic in themselves, and illustrate a demand for participation in (or even control of) workplace decisions that ran steadily in the tradition of MCS and the CIO’s other left-led unions.<br />
<br />
COUNTERSTRIKES: Taft-Hartley & MCS<br />
<br />
As strikes persisted in the post-war years, often accompanied by local public support, it became clear to business leaders that more had to be done to reign in a considerable threat to corporate profits. Although President Truman, citing a “rebellion against the government,” did not hesitate to employ federal troops to seize refineries, railroads and mines in order to break up strikes, such measures could obviously not be routinely used. As unions could clearly not be eliminated, the corporate-government goal became one of enlisting unions themselves to discipline the labor force. This new attitude was expressed by Henry Ford II at the January 1946 conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit: “We of the Ford Motor Company have no desire to ‘break the unions’, or to turn back the clock... [Instead] we must look to an improved and increasingly responsible leadership for help in solving the human equation in mass production...Industrial relations [should be conducted with] the same technical skill and determination that the engineer brings to mechanical problems.” In line with this approach toward the cultivation of “responsible” union leadership, the next measure taken to reign in worker revolt would prove to be the most effective in accelerating the bureaucratization of unions that took away most of their punch: the Taft-Hartley Act.<br />
<br />
The Taft-Hartley bill was largely written by business representatives. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), representing 16,500 corporations controlling billions of dollars in assets, boasted that it had spent millions of dollars to get it passed by Congress. In short, the goal of the bill was to restrain mass strikes, ensure management control over production, and to prevent rivalries within unions from leading to excessive demands on management. As George Lipsitz puts it, business realized that “labor peace could be won only by restraining the rank and file and by strengthening the institutional power of trade unions. The Taft-Hartley law attempted to achieve both of those objectives.” <br />
Claiming an interest in redressing “imbalances” in the bargaining positions of labor and management, and in protecting workers themselves from the risky ventures of demagogic and irresponsible labor leaders, the bill came down squarely on the side of management, with provisions that effectively outlawed closed shops, sympathy strikes and exclusively union-run hiring halls (one of the biggest gains of 1934). It mandated the publication of union financial statements, giving employers the ability to gauge the probability and potential duration of strikes by glancing at the amounts available for a strike fund. It placed strict limits on the right to strike at all and allowed companies to sue unions engaged in unauthorized (wildcat) strikes—now considered an “unfair labor practice”—as compensation for lost production. Importantly, it denied National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) protections to supervisors or foremen attempting to unionize, thus driving a wedge between rank-and-file workers and generally sympathetic colleagues in lower management positions. One senator, in testimony on behalf of the bill, noted a “growing solidarity and discipline in unions,” and opposed supervisory unions on the grounds that they would “divide the loyalties of management at the critical point where it is in direct contact with day-to-day production.” <br />
<br />
Other provisions of the law prohibited unions from endorsing candidates for public office, imposed mandatory “cooling off” periods (which take away the power of spontaneity of a well-timed strike and give owners time to regroup, find scabs, etc.), banned “jurisdictional” strikes, such as ones conducted in order to protect a union from “raiding” (stealing of membership) by another union, forbade mass picketing (a major means of gaining support from the public and other unions), and granted federal injunctions versus strikes threatening “national paralysis.”<br />
<br />
<br />
When the Taft-Hartley bill became law in 1947 MCS reaffirmed the resistance to it that they had shown ever since the bill was introduced. Calling Taft-Hartley a “slave act” and “the first step toward an American putsch against the unions,” the editors of the MCS Voice attempted to rally MCS members—and all workers—to resist the provisions of the bill and mobilize for its repeal. Referring to the 1934 general strike in San Francisco—one of the major battles of the 1930s that led to the original winning of union hiring halls—the editors proclaimed: “not since 1934 when maritime workers were shot down in defense of their rights has there been such a determination to fight.” In an article before the bill passed, one union leader who’d been through those struggles warns: “some of you good stewards will go aboard, and if you don’t part your hair just right, they will take you off, and there will be nothing you can do about it.” If the Taft-Hartley bill passed, he warns, “friends of the ship-owners” will get the jobs and when you are fired “the ship-owners put you on their blacklist.” After the bill passed, Henry Matzoll, another senior MCS member, recalled the “fink halls”: “I remember the old days before the hiring hall...when if you weren’t a company stooge you had to buy your job from the crimps. Under the Taft-Hartley law they will try to bring those days back again.” <br />
<br />
The important overall effect of most of the law’s provisions was to enforce industrial peace by strengthening union bureaucracies—and their ties to government—at the expense of rank-and-file initiative. But some union leadership, such as that of MCS, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), and other left-led CIO unions, because of their political leanings, were not expected to play ball. Even before the passage of Taft-Hartley, MCS leaders were questioning the legitimacy of the NLRB—the most prominent institutional link between labor and government—as a fair arbiter of labor-management conflicts, pointing to various cases of NLRB foot-dragging in resolving grievances with employers. As George Lipsitz summarizes this problem for the business-government partnership, “centralizing power in the hands of union leaders could backfire if the wrong people led unions.” In order to weaken unions whose class-conscious leadership was not apt to collaborate with business, it was necessary to employ more invidious devices. <br />
<br />
ANTICOMMUNISM AND THE CIO <br />
<br />
Perhaps the most infamous section of the Taft-Hartley Act was section 9(h), which required union officers to sign affidavits swearing that they were not members nor had any affiliations with the Communist Party. Union leaders who refused to sign the oath would thereby annul NLRB representation for their union, making it powerless in conflicts with employers. Taft-Hartley appeared at a time in which anticommunist hysteria was becoming established as the government’s primary psychological tool in pushing through its emerging Cold War policies. With some corporate leaders—ecstatic about wartime profits and fearful of a post-war slump—calling for a “permanent war economy,” and the Soviet Union making a strong industrial comeback, the Truman administration—despite a war-weary public inclined toward demobilization—decided to keep the United States at “code red” by presenting the Soviet Union as “not just a rival but an immediate threat.” When in early 1947 Great Britain asked for U.S. support in putting down a left-wing guerilla movement in Greece—though this movement was receiving no Soviet aid—the administration seized the chance. The Truman Doctrine, with its commitment to help “free peoples...resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” and its request for $400 million in military and economic aid for the right-wing government in Greece (some also went to Turkey), laid out what was to become standard Cold War practice. When Senator Arthur Vandenberg told President Truman that it would be necessary to “scare the hell out of the American people” in order to convince them of the necessity of his doctrine, this advice was taken very seriously. <br />
<br />
One direct outcome of this new stance was Taft-Hartley’s section 9(h). When the bill was introduced, President Truman--who had already mandated the Federal Employees Loyalty Program and “had proposed more drastic anti-union measures himself”--bowed to public pressure (especially that of labor leaders, with whom he sought to keep his dwindling standing) and actually vetoed the bill, saying that the noncommunist oath would “cause strikes and disruptions...which is exactly what the Communists desire.” His veto was overridden. <br />
<br />
As with the law’s other provisions, MCS opposition to the noncommunist affidavits was vocal and sustained. In one article, MCS Voice editors even compared the new law to the early Nazi regime, which had also aimed at communism and attacked trade unions for their strikes that affected “the public.” But what made the affidavits particularly threatening to MCS leadership was the fact that there were Communists among them, even if that did not mean, as a redbaited CIO was soon to accuse, that their union was “dominated” by the Communist Party. MCS President Hugh Bryson was known to express sympathy with communist ideas, but perhaps more importantly was known as a leader who put a high value on worker unity and strikes. During the fight against Taft-Hartley he signed the oath anyway (and was later convicted of perjury for doing so) , all the while seeking solidarity within the increasingly strained CIO. When he wrote in MCS Voice that “workers can’t rely on the NLRB under the new law...[t]hey will have to strike to get union recognition,” this militancy was taken seriously by business and government advocates for “labor peace.” As the Cold War saw its first flash points and anticommunist ideology became entrenched, the political split deepened within the CIO and the stage was set for organized labor’s own show trials: the CIO Hearings against its left-led unions. With these hearings, business and government managed to put another coat of red on their fear of rank-and-file revolt.<br />
<br />
CIO HEARINGS: “Communist domination” or Democracy on Trial?<br />
<br />
The CIO hearings to expel MCS and its other left-led unions are important because they showcase the complex relationship between communism as doctrine and communism as a “fellow traveler” with native working class radicalism. And to better understand this relationship, and the contradictions of redbaiting, it is crucial to look at the evolution and development of this radicalism in organized labor, with a particular focus on the idea of union democracy and the tensions of black/white labor alliances. The history of the CIO reveals much in this regard. <br />
<br />
Communism<br />
<br />
When the CIO originally split from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in November 1935, in the midst of major labor upheavals, it did so as a reaffirmation of a commitment to industrial unionism and class solidarity. In contrast to the AFL, who insisted on organizing only along trade or craft lines, the CIO sought to “organize the unorganized”—without regard to race—in mass production industries. Communists, many of whom had proven themselves effective combatants in the open class war of the 20s and 30s, were soon to be common among its ranks. In the years after the repression and demise of the Wobblies (as members of the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World were called), communists had taken over “as the chief radical element operating within the labor movement” and were “the main carriers of the ideas of militant action and industrial unionism.” But the radical elements of industrial unionism were not defined solely by communist beliefs. As Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin recount, the “insurgent origins” of independent organizers within this movement were revealed and affirmed by a commitment to organizing “from the bottom-up by an independent rank-and-file cadre,” without whom “the CIO could well have been stillborn.” And although the CIO record in living up to its official commitment to racial equality is mixed, even the contingent support of black workers—with urgent hopes for employment and advance, communism or no communism—did much to keep the CIO unions effectual. <br />
<br />
But communism is of course inseparable from a commitment to working-class organizing, and rank-and-file appreciation of this commitment on the part of communist organizers—even during the height of the Red Scare—was durable. Discussing how communists maintained their positions in unions in the early 1950s, Lipsitz states: “In truth, [workers’] loyalty to union leaders or activists associated with past struggles constituted an endorsement of previous militancy and affirmation of that militancy as part of working-class identity. Coupled with an enduring faith in direct action, rank-and-file defense of Communist leaders represented a clear ideology, although it did not involve a choice between abstractions of capitalism or communism.... Even in the face of concentrated repression, workers chose to advance their class interests.” <br />
<br />
MCS member Morris Pinsky perhaps best expressed this agency when he was asked during the expulsion hearings whether there were communists in the MCS. After responding that the union contained “every kind of a political belief that you can think of”, and that such identifications were a worker’s “own personal business,” he was asked by the investigating committee if there were any fascists in the union. He answered “yes” and then was asked whether that was allowed by the MCS constitution:<br />
<br />
“The Fascist is such a minority that he has no following.”<br />
“Do the Communists have a base?”<br />
“I imagine so. I have heard Communists talk, you know. Yes, the membership listens to them.<br />
“I see. The membership listens to them, and at various times carries out—<br />
“Oh, sometimes, you know. You know, a worker is a peculiar person...He makes up his own mind. You can’t make up his mind for him.”<br />
“That’s all I have of this witness.” <br />
<br />
Democracy<br />
<br />
Because of its importance in appealing to unorganized workers—who perhaps above all are seeking a way to control their own lives—and its importance within the class-conscious recognition of the worker as an active and potentially powerful agent in changing the social relations of labor, democracy in left-wing labor unions can be understood as an organic consequence. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin call it “the product of both insurgency and radicalism in the working class.” In their study of CIO unions, they find a stronger commitment to union democracy among communist-led unions (including MCS) than among noncommunist and anticommunist unions. Although there are certainly important exceptions, and without denying that party-line leaders could definitely display authoritarian tendencies, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin locate a distinct democratic tradition within those very unions who were attacked and expelled by the CIO for being “dominated” by an outside organization.<br />
<br />
It is important to note here that actual domination by Communists—including overt policies against rank and file initiative—was far from unknown. Anticommunism, particularly useful in putting labor leaders sympathetic to corporate goals in power—especially in the automobile, electric and maritime trades, where Communists initially held a significant proportion of leadership positions—was not a potent tool against labor when Communist interests coincided with those of “patriotic” Americans. During most of World War II, communist-led unions—including MCS—vigorously enforced the no-strike pledge, and the Communist Party itself, obsessed with winning the war against Hitler after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was the only group within the labor movement in favor of a National Service Act to draft workers. Party factions within unions also pledged aid to the Coast Guard in “weeding out undesirable elements” among maritime workers, an offer taken up by the Coast Guard when an actual “screening” program began. The CP also helped finger unemployed maritime workers for the draft boards. Noting the many zealous compromises with business by “Communist dominated” unions, a Businessweek article (March 18, 1944) observed that such unions had “moved to the extreme right wing position in the American labor movement.” In such a situation, perhaps it is obvious that not all “anticommunists” within labor were coming from the right. As Henry Spira has documented, for leftists attempting to defend union democracy against Stalinists, “fighting to smash the party machine was fighting to defend the membership’s right to control its own union.” <br />
<br />
The struggle between noncommunist union radicals and party-line leaders is in itself an important chapter of labor history, not only because it illustrates organizational tensions and the problems of hierarchy within unions, but also because it points to the larger historical problems concerning class formation, vanguardism and party politics that have emerged with the communist-guided revolutions of the twentieth century. It does not come much into play in the history of the highly democratic Marine Cooks and Stewards. But the reality of this power struggle is important to recognize because—as the CIO hearings illustrate—it gave ammunition to those who used anticommunism to bring unions down.<br />
<br />
The MCS, however, would not go down easily. Countering CIO accusations of being dominated by Communists, MCS “defendants” and rank-and-file witnesses make repeated reference to the level of democracy in their union, both embedded in their constitution and shown in their day to day practice. Secretary-Treasurer Eddie Tangen, who calls MCS “the most democratic union in America,” goes on to describe the ways in which democracy and participation are maintained in the union. Among other examples, he cites the direct election of committee chairman by the membership, member-run arbitration committees, easy recall votes (only one hundred signatures were required to remove the president), and rank-and-file oversight of auditing committees. MCS rank-and-file members affirm this, with one senior member calling MCS “the most democratic union I have ever met up with.” In terms of participation, MCS leaders state proudly how Bryson and Tangen had recently been reelected by a four to one majority, with ninety-nine per cent of members casting votes. And several statements to the committee point out the hypocrisy of CIO officials who would criticize the more integrated MCS leadership for being antidemocratic while failing to scrutinize the “lily white” composition of the officials of other CIO unions. <br />
<br />
The consistent backing of MCS leadership by their rank-and-file members seems also to be a result of the real gains in wages and benefits won by the union during these years. Whether or not an officer was communist, in this regard, mattered little. The MCS Voice, naturally, often contained articles celebrating the high levels of wages and benefits enjoyed by MCS members—but these claims are consistently backed up by statistics comparing favorably the conditions and wages of MCS with those of other maritime unions. This point of pride also comes up in the hearings, and must largely account for the strong loyalty to their leaders—communist or not—that seems to characterize MCS membership. As Don Watson, an MCS member in the early 1950s, stated, “I thought communists were good trade unionists and I felt like I’d like to be working along with them.” As Jane Record states, “the mere fact that [union members’] officers had been adjudged party-line followers was not, for them, a sufficiently compelling reason to overturn the leaders, especially if the latter were ‘delivering’ for them in other respects.” As the next section shows, this sentiment was particularly resonant with black workers, when part of what unions were “delivering” was an active stance against Jim Crow.<br />
<br />
MCS AND THE BAY AREA BLACK COMMUNITY<br />
<br />
At this time of the ’34 strike, one of the most significant newspapers of the black community in the Bay Area was the San Francisco Spokesman, a weekly founded and edited by the black communist John Pittman in 1931. The newspaper vigorously supported the strike, during which its editors lent their printing presses to the Communist Party newspaper, The Western Worker, resulting in their destruction by vigilantes. The Spokesman went under in 1935, but black community support for its workers and for MCS, their most representative union in San Francisco, continued in the decades that followed. In 1943 another prominent black weekly was founded, the Sun-Reporter, whose writers and editors expressed this support consistently. Although not a communist newspaper, the Sun-Reporter attacked redbaiting and the pernicious alliance between anticommunism and white racism that showed itself to workers everywhere from the deep South to the San Francisco waterfront. The newspaper’s editors saw MCS practices as a model for the kind of participation and “democracy in action” that black people were seeking in the larger society, and celebrated MCS members who knew that “to achieve equal rights in their union alone is not enough, and for that reason...are constantly active on community and national issues.” <br />
<br />
The Sun-Reporter took a strong stand against both the federal waterfront screening for “subversives” (initiated by President Truman’s Federal Loyalty Program and codified by the Mangnuson Act in 1950) that fatally weakened MCS after its expulsion from the CIO in 1950 and the raids on MCS membership by anticommunist unions soon after. One screened black seaman told the paper: “Screening is an attempt to drive Negroes from the waterfront and to undermine the unions that have fought for racial equality. I have found that Negroes with key jobs have been the first to be screened.” One member of MCS gave this account: “In the ‘screening’ process, as in the federal governments ‘loyalty’ board hearings for government employees, any activity against Jim Crow was proof of a suspected person’s disloyalty. Black workers were asked: ‘Have you ever had dinner with a mixed group? Have you ever danced with a white girl?’ White workers were asked whether they had ever entertained blacks in their homes. Witnesses were asked: ‘Have you had any conversations that would lead you to believe [the accused] is rather advanced in his thinking on racial matters?’” Don Watson, a communist seaman and civil rights activist who was screened off ship in 1950 and soon became secretary of the Committee Against Waterfront Screening, concurs, stating that “the most active” members would be screened and calling the whole process “an attack on the union itself.” <br />
<br />
The close relationship of anticommunism and opposition to racial equality was also exposed by the Voice and the Sun-Reporter in another of its expressions: membership raids on the MCS and ILWU by anticommunist unions. Sun-Reporter articles during these raids indicate that black ambivalence about communism and CP influence was less important than defending these largely black organizations. These sentiments offer an interesting complement to the literature on the struggle of the CP to maintain its influence in labor unions after the war. It has been suggested that this effort in general depended largely on the degree to which black workers stood by the communist leadership in these unions. This suggestion certainly holds true for the (however brief) post-war survival of the MCS, a fact that even a staunch anticommunist like Max Kampelman—who generally attributes CP success in U.S. trade unions to strong-arm tactics and deception—must grudgingly admit. <br />
<br />
Whether or not the Communist Party represented a real vanguard for civil rights, as some contend, or merely used the presence of blacks in their unions to “cover” their conservatism (especially during the war and the no-strike pledge) in other disputes with owners, as others claim, a study of the local black press leaves little doubt that black seamen and their community at large viewed MCS, communists and all, as a fair and effective advocate of their material interests. Their support for the MCS during the 1951 membership raids by a trio of anticommunist unions is well expressed by a Sun-Reporter editorial entitled “Now Is the Time to Stand Firm.” Decrying the Jim Crow policies and corrupt practices of the raiding unions “long before it became fashionable to save America from Communism,” the editors state that “minority people have fared better in the ILWU under Bridges, and in the MC&S under Bryson, than they have in any other labor union in the United States.” From the “commonsense point of view” of the editors, “the issue on the waterfront is not necessarily one of Communist infiltration as much as it is a movement of labor power politics. The issue which means most to the waterfront workers is one of ‘pork chops.’” <br />
<br />
But while the record of the MCS on these “pork chop” issues compares favorably with that of other maritime unions—as statistics on wages and working conditions in the union newspaper never fail to point out—it would be a mistake to assume that only material interests were considered in the black community’s support of MCS and its communists. As one black MCS worker in San Francisco stated: “Sure, the union leaders follow the party line. But I let white folks worry about Communism. Bryson has given us colored guys a fair shake. Why should we want to swap over to an outfit where we’ll be associating with unions that don’t even let Negroes belong?” Black workers did not forget that the “MCS was one of the very few organizations that accepted them fully when they migrated to the West Coast during the war.” In addition to the sense of justice fostered by the MCS emphasis on civil rights and participation, the union played a significant role in the successful resettlements of the black diaspora from the U.S. South—in the very creation of cohesive black communities on the West Coast—not only through employment but also through the development of friendships and solidarity. This dramatic testimony from a black MCS member in Seattle who had migrated from the South sums up a lot:<br />
<br />
“The union is my father and my mother and I am the son who will give my life for it. The union has put bread in the mouths of my children. It has given me a home, it has straightened my back so I don’t bend to any man. It took me by the hand and said ‘Learn to read,” and I learned to read. Big words, words they never had in those chicken coop schools. In the union I learned a trade. What would I be down in that country—an ignorant cotton picker? Wherever the union sees wrong, it points it out. It stands up and says, ‘That’s wrong. Do right. Do like we do. Treat your brother right.’ I been in MC and S a long time, I lost my prejudices. I had them. But I met real brothers here. I met big men who mean what they say. If my brothers sleeps in the foc’sles, I sleep with them. My white brothers, my black brothers, my brown brothers, all of them. We the children of the union, we all together.” <br />
<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
<br />
Whatever “labor power politics” may have been pursued by anticommunists and party-liners alike, a study of the labor and local black press, the transcripts of the CIO expulsion hearings, as well as a survey of the secondary literature regarding maritime and other left-led unions of the time, reveals that the highly diverse MCS rank and file maintained an independent and progressive disposition that served both their moral and material interests. Without denying the ideological rigidity, opportunism, and deception of both Communist Party members and their opponents in American trade unions, the discipline, democracy and interracial solidarity seen in the MCS is a reminder of the best historical currents of the U.S. working class.<br />
<br />
These qualities were not enough to resist the forces of anti-communism and corporate-government collaboration that followed World War Two. When the MCS, along with ten other left-led unions, were expelled from a red-baited and increasingly collaborative CIO, it marked not only a recognition of the real danger of communist ideas to the profits of U.S. businesses, but also a recognition that a significant group of independent-minded workers, informed and inspired by decades of grassroots labor militancy, could not be integrated into the growing corporate-government-union consensus that has dominated U.S. labor relations since then.</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=ROCK_%27n_ROLL_LANDMARKS&diff=5781ROCK 'n ROLL LANDMARKS2008-06-24T07:53:36Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links; needs more photos</p>
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<div>[[Image:hashbury$112-lyon-st.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Janis Joplin lived here at 112 Lyon, between Page and Oak (the house with the white railing on the steps).''' photo: Chris Carlsson<br />
<br />
Janis lived here at the height of her career. As Myra Friedman puts it in ''Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin'': Janis's Lyon Street apartment had a quaintly curved balcony that soaked up the rays of the afternoon sun ... A tiny kitchen jagged off to one side of a long entry hall, and in the back was Janis's bedroom, all dark and draped with the emblems of seduction, the final enrichment to Janis's image. Velvet and satin swathed her bed; her windows were veiled with lace and silk. With her appetite for men (and sometimes women) matched only by her thirst for Southern Comfort, Janis's boudoir must have been put to very good use. <br />
<br />
'''Grateful Dead House '''<br />
<br />
710 Ashbury Street at Waller. America's first and longest-lived purveyors of musical psychedelia reportedly experimented with mind-expanding substances while living here.<br />
<br />
'''Jefferson Airplane/Starship Mansion 2400 Fulton St. at Willard North. '''<br />
<br />
The site of legendary parties, where chemical and sexual excess was legion. (Drug-war brainwashees, take note: It was alcohol, a vastly more dangerous drug than LSD, marijuana, cocaine, opiates, or just about anything else except tobacco, that nearly killed lead singer Grace Slick.)<br />
<br />
''--Dr. Weirde''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Manson's Mansion | Prev. Document]] [[Buena Vista History | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Manson%27s_Mansion&diff=5780Manson's Mansion2008-06-24T07:49:57Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links; needs source for quotation</p>
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<div>[[Image:hashbury$636-cole-st.jpg]]<br />
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'''636 Cole Street was Charles Manson's place in the Haight. It's the building with scaffolding in fron of it, second from the right.''' photo: Chris Carlsson<br />
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636 Cole St. at Haight. This was the Haight Ashbury pad of California's most notorious hippie. In ''Manson in His Own Words'', Charlie describes his San Francisco hippie days: panhandling, hustling pot and LSD for small-time dealers, dropping acid at Grateful Dead shows, bedding fifteen-year-old girls, playing guitar for spare change:<br />
<br />
"Before I actually realized what I was doing, I was out there on the floor innovating to the beat of the Grateful Dead. I was wild and I was loose; I attracted attention and applause from the other dancers. The acid, the music and the loss of inhibitions opened up a new world for me. I was experiencing rebirth. Finally, in the middle of one of my dances, I collapsed on the floor... When I awoke the next morning, I was in a room with several other people. My fifteen-year-old friend had taken care of me." (p.82)<br />
<br />
A few years later, Charlie's young friends took care of Sharon Tate and Rosemary La Bianca. Manson was sentenced to life in prison. Though he became eligible for parole years ago, for some reason the parole board keeps turning him down. (Sara Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme, the Manson family girls who took potshots at President Gerald Ford in the mid-70's, didn't enhance his chances.) Charlie spent many years in Soledad Prison; he has since been transferred to Vacaville.<br />
<br />
''-- Dr. Weirde''<br />
<br />
[[Bound Together: An Anarchist Collective Bookstore | Prev. Document]] [[ROCK 'n ROLL LANDMARKS | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Bound_Together:_An_Anarchist_Collective_Bookstore&diff=5779Bound Together: An Anarchist Collective Bookstore2008-06-24T07:45:26Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links</p>
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<div>[[Image:hashbury$bound-together-mural.jpg]]<br />
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'''Mural at Bound Together Books on Haight Street.''' photo: Susan Greene<br />
<br />
1369 Haight Street, SF 94117. In 1976, during the heyday of the collective and cooperative movement here in San Francisco, a group of people who wanted to provide books that could be used to remake and transform the urban landscape into a more human place came together and pooled their resources to start Bound Together Bookstore. Each one chipped in $50 and with the money rented a former drug store at Hayes and Ashbury Street and began stocking it with books of poetry, urban survival, social criticism, vegetarianism, holistic health and small press titles. Couches and chairs were provided for people to hang out. Soon the store became a nexus for a radical, visionary community here in San Francisco. After a few years the old and new members of the store began to realize that there was a name, history and practice for what they were trying to do as a collective bookstore: Anarchism. With its emphasis on non-authoritarian collective action, a radical critique of economic, sexual and social relations and the idea of remaking a new society in the ruins of the old, Anarchism became a collectively held idea of what we were trying to achieve. In 1983, when the store moved to Haight Street, we agreed to change our name to Bound Together: An Anarchist Collective Bookstore.<br />
<br />
Today, 20 years later, we are still an all volunteer, consensus-based collective of friends. We carry printed material covering queer culture, feminism, fiction, alternative culture, international and national politics, poetry, drugs, spirit and of course Anarchism. We plan to be around a long time making available books, records, and magazines that challenge and question the current forms of domination and inspire and provoke people to create a new society.<br />
<br />
''-- Bound Together Books''<br />
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[[The Panhandle | Prev. Document]] [[Manson's Mansion | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Panhandle&diff=5778The Panhandle2008-06-24T07:42:02Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links</p>
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<div>[[Image:hashbury$panhandle-road-1931.jpg]]<br />
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'''Cars drive up the Panhandle to enter Golden Gate Park, circa 1931.''' photo: Gaar Collection, San Francisco, CA<br />
<br />
You can't tell the history of the Haight Ashbury without addressing the development of Golden Gate Park, especially of the Panhandle. The Panhandle is actually the oldest of the parks; at one time it was John McLaren's arboretum. Every bush, every tree, even the Eucalyptus (now politically incorrect non-native species) were first planted in the Panhandle to see how they survived. Thus the Panhandle has the oldest trees in Golden Gate Park and 21 varieties of Eucalyptus.<br />
<br />
''- Calvin Welch from a lecture at New College in Fall, 1994. ''<br />
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[[Image:hashbury$panhandle-1996.jpg]]<br />
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'''Former roadway through the Panhandle is now a series of grassy meadows approaching the park.''' photo: Chris Carlsson<br />
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[[Hip Capitalism Fails | Prev. Document]] [[Bound Together: An Anarchist Collective Bookstore | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Hip_Capitalism_Fails&diff=5777Hip Capitalism Fails2008-06-24T07:38:19Z<p>Gjamin: </p>
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<div>[[Image:hashbury$counter-culture.jpg]]<br />
<br />
"'''The basic problem of hippie culture was that it had no economic base. It was based upon selling dope to one another, ripping one another off, and cashing checks from back home." '''<br />
<br />
-- Calvin Welch<br />
<br />
== Hip capitalism fails to overcome hippie culture's lack of an economic base. ==<br />
<br />
[[Image:hashbury$failure-of-hip.jpg]]<br />
<br />
Hip Capitalism Fails<br />
<br />
[[Image:hashbury$failure-of-hip.jpg]]<br />
<br />
By 1971 the original 1967 ambivalence among one element of hippie culture with the urban setting manifested itself in what I call the Long March to Tennessee, led by Steve Gaskin. Steve Gaskin was a philosopher-guru who held meetings at the beach and was associated with Family Dog Production Company, the producer for many of the early rock and roll bands in the Haight Ashbury.<br />
<br />
Gaskin and his followers, which grew to several thousand people, increasingly found it impossible to pursue their version of spirituality in an urban setting and developed an ideology of the countryside. In a dramatic event, they formed a caravan of buses and vehicles of all sizes and shapes and drove to Tennessee, leaving the urban hippie in the Haight Ashbury.<br />
<br />
This was a period of great disease in the Haight, overlapping with the [[Drugs, the Free Clinic, Haight Ashbury Dealers' Assoc. | heroin war]]. The basic problem of hippie culture was that it had no economic base. It was based upon selling dope to one another, ripping one another off, and cashing checks from home. That was about it. There was an attempt in 1968 by a group of headshop owners and poster shop owners to articulate a concept of hip capitalism, but it too was based on the kids using the checks from home to buy posters or cigarette papers or whatever. The hip merchants didn't make it, hip capitalism fell on its Levi-ed ass, and never got off the ground.<br />
<br />
''- Calvin Welch, from a lecture at New College in Fall 1994. ''<br />
<br />
''-Adam Cornford, Artist''<br />
<br />
[[Drugs, the Free Clinic, Haight Ashbury Dealers' Assoc. | Prev. Document]] [[The Panhandle | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Hip_Capitalism_Fails&diff=5776Hip Capitalism Fails2008-06-24T07:37:43Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links</p>
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<div>[[Image:hashbury$counter-culture.jpg]]<br />
<br />
"'''The basic problem of hippie culture was that it had no economic base. It was based upon selling dope to one another, ripping one another off, and cashing checks from back home." '''<br />
<br />
-- Calvin Welch<br />
<br />
== Hip capitalism fails to overcome hippie culture's lack of an economic base. ==<br />
<br />
[[Image:hashbury$failure-of-hip.jpg]]<br />
<br />
Hip Capitalism Fails<br />
<br />
[[Image:hashbury$failure-of-hip.jpg]]<br />
<br />
By 1971 the original 1967 ambivalence among one element of hippie culture with the urban setting manifested itself in what I call the Long March to Tennessee, led by Steve Gaskin. Steve Gaskin was a philosopher-guru who held meetings at the beach and was associated with Family Dog Production Company, the producer for many of the early rock and roll bands in the Haight Ashbury.<br />
<br />
Gaskin and his followers, which grew to several thousand people, increasingly found it impossible to pursue their version of spirituality in an urban setting and developed an ideology of the countryside. In a dramatic event, they formed a caravan of buses and vehicles of all sizes and shapes and drove to Tennessee, leaving the urban hippie in the Haight Ashbury.<br />
<br />
This was a period of great disease in the Haight, overlapping with the [[Drugs, the Free Clinic, Haight Ashbury Dealers' Assoc. | heroin war]]. The basic problem of hippie culture was that it had no economic base. It was based upon selling dope to one another, ripping one another off, and cashing checks from home. That was about it. There was an attempt in 1968 by a group of headshop owners and poster shop owners to articulate a concept of hip capitalism, but it too was based on the kids using the checks from home to buy posters or cigarette papers or whatever. The hip merchants didn't make it, hip capitalism fell on its Levi-ed ass, and never got off the ground.<br />
<br />
''- Calvin Welch, from a lecture at New College in Fall 1994. ''<br />
''-Adam Cornford, Artist''<br />
<br />
[[Drugs, the Free Clinic, Haight Ashbury Dealers' Assoc. | Prev. Document]] [[The Panhandle | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Maltese_Falcon&diff=5775Maltese Falcon2008-06-24T07:23:15Z<p>Gjamin: credit</p>
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<div>[[Image:litersf1$maltese-falcon-photo.jpg]]<br />
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'''Maltese Falcon'''<br />
<br />
The Maltese Falcon, a creation of San Francisco-based detective novelist Dashiell Hammett, is one of the great Weird Icons of American pop culture. Some occultists claim that Hammett's novel is an esoteric allegory of the quest for magical powers. According to them, the Falcon represents Horus, the Egyptian hawk-headed god of magick. Conspiracy theorists point out that Hammett's jeweled falcon was supposedly once owned by the Knights of Malta, a Catholic quasi-secret society which allegedly controls certain corrupt factions within the CIA and the Italian mafia.<br />
<br />
- Dr. Weirde<br />
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[[The Howl Obscenity Trial |Prev. Document]] [[Joanne Hotchkiss, co-editor: |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Howl_Obscenity_Trial&diff=5774The Howl Obscenity Trial2008-06-24T07:21:12Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits</p>
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<div>[[Image:litersf1$the-howl-trial.jpg]]<br />
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'''The Howl trial, 1957, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Shigeyoshi Murao were defendants.'''<br />
photo: San Francisco Public Library<br />
<br />
Allen Ginsberg's ''Howl ''was written in the summer of 1955 in an apartment at 1010 Montgomery Street. His first public reading of ''Howl'' was in October, 1955 at the Six Gallery in North Beach. After this eventful performance, publisher and fellow poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, borrowing from Emerson's message to Whitman a century earlier, wired Ginsberg: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career. Please send manuscript." [http://shapingsf.org/wiki/popup_orvid?.html City Lights] published ''Howl'' in 1956 and soon the poem, the poet, and the San Francisco Rennaisance, or the Beats, were known throughout the country.<br />
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When U.S. Customs released the paperback version of ''Howl'' that had been printed in London, Ferlinghetti and his partner, Shigeyosi Murao, were arrested by San Francisco police on obscenity charges. One newspaper headline read: "Cops Don't Allow No Renaissance Here." After a long trial (covered in a ''Life Magazine'' picture story) in which poets, critics, and academics testified to the redeeming social value of ''Howl'', it was ruled not obscene and City Lights was exonerated. The decision that was handed down in the ''Howl'' obscenity trial led to the American publication of the previously censored ''Tropic of Cancer'' by Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence's'' Lady Chatterly's Lover.'' The trials publicity brought the San Francisco Beat Movement into the national spotlight and inspired many would-be poets and seekers to make their way out to the West Coast.<br />
<br />
''Howl'' is a poem that embodied the state of America and of the individual as Ginsberg saw it. It is divided into three sections. The first has been described as a sometimes hysterical lament about the political and cultural conservatism that has destroyed the best minds of the poet's generation. The second is a poetic tirade against Moloch, the symbol of human avarice that creates a society of dehumanized, desensitized, mechanized conformists. Ginsberg claims to have seen the image of Moloch in the silhouette of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel at Union Square. (Whether drugs were involved is uncertain.) The third part of the poem is addressed to his friend in a mental institution--a victim of the mad society around him.<br />
<br />
In ''Howl ''the sacred and the profane are weighed equally. Lines such as "The asshole is holy!" probably had something to do with people taking offense. But they just didn't get it. Ginsberg, in fact, exalts the perceptions of the irrational visionary immersed in an insane world. ''Howl'' is a rage against conformity, inhibition, censorship, puritanism, and everything else that restricts and limits the realization of one's true self. It is both a howl of defeat from a living hell and a howl of defiant laughter.<br />
<br />
''- James Sederberg''<br />
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[[Allen Ginsberg |Prev. Document]] [[Maltese Falcon |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Allen_Ginsberg&diff=5773Allen Ginsberg2008-06-24T07:10:31Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links; what did _____ Serrano do?</p>
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<div>[[Image:litersf1$allen-ginsberg_s-business-card.jpg]]<br />
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'''Alan Ginsberg's business card, c. 1966'''<br />
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Allen Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926 in Patterson, New Jersey. His mother was a Russian emigre and his father a school teacher and poet. Ginsberg, in a brief autobiographical sketch, wrote: "High School in Patterson til 17, Columbia College, merchant marine, Texas and Denver, copyboy, Times Square, amigos in jail, dishwashing, book reviews, Mexico City, market research, Satori in Harlem, Yucatan and Chiapas in 1954, West Coast 3 years..."<br />
<br />
After [[Publishers as Enemies of the State: City Lights Books | City Lights]] published his epic poem, ''Howl'', in the Fall of 1956, the ensuing obscenity trial made Ginsberg (in the minds of most Americans) into the quintessential Beat Poet. With his black-rimmed glasses and long black beard, Ginsberg became the face of the Beats as well. His wild readings that were immortalized in Jack [http://shapingsf.org/wiki/popup_orvid?.html Kerouac]'s semi-autobiographical novels firmly established Ginsberg as a living San Francisco legend.<br />
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As the late 1950s moved into the mid 1960s, Ginsberg--unlike his protege Kerouac--transformed with the times. He was on stage at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park on February 14, 1967. Along with a psychedelicized crowd of over 10,000 people, Ginsberg, LSD guru Timothy Leary, and other hippy visionaries chanted, danced, sang and tuned-in. According to poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg turned to him in the middle of this blissed-out love-fest and asked, "What if we're all wrong?"<br />
<br />
Since then Ginsberg continued to be politically active in support of Migrant Labor Organizations and Gay Rights. Although Ginsberg never duplicated the success that he enjoyed with [[The Howl Obscenity Trial | Howl]] (over 500,000 copies in print), he continued to write, to give readings, and to lecture.<br />
<br />
''-- James Sederberg''<br />
<br />
[[Image:litersf1$ginsberg-business-card-back.jpg]]<br />
<br />
Back of '''Ginsberg's business card'''<br />
<br />
Contributors to this page include:<br />
<br />
''Serrano - Publisher or Photographer ''<br />
<br />
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[[JOAQUIN MILLER |Prev. Document]] [[The Howl Obscenity Trial |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=JOAQUIN_MILLER&diff=5772JOAQUIN MILLER2008-06-24T06:55:40Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links, changed position of images</p>
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<div>[[Image:litersf1$joaquin-miller-portrait.jpg]]<br />
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'''Joaquin Miller'''<br />
<br />
"''[Miller] shouted platitudes at the top of his voice. His lines boomed with the pomposity of a brass band; floods, fires, hurricanes, extravagantly blazing sunsets, the thunder of a herd of buffaloes''----''all were unmercifully piled up. And yet, even in its most blatant'' fortissimos'', Miller's poetry occasionally captured the grandeur of his surroundings, the spread of the Sierras, the lavish energy of the Western World''." ----Louis Untermeyer, ''Modern American Poetry''; 1930. <br />
<br />
Recalling Joaquin Miller, the erstwhile judge, horse-thief and argonaut of Grant County, Oregon, a local miner remarked briefly: "He used to write verses and read them to us----we thought he was a little cracked." The man who was to inspire Buffalo Bill to sport sombreros, buckskin and spurs is also noted for rhyming "teeth" with "Goethe," and for claiming to have been born on the Indiana plains "in a covered wagon, pointing west." Not the only deliberate fiction of his life, Miller also boasted to have lived among the Modoc Indian tribe, to have accompanied William Walker on a revolutionary trip to Nicaragua, and to have been rescued from a Shasta City prison by an Indian princess.<br />
<br />
Yet for all his posturing, Joaquin Miller, who took the name "Joaquin" in a fit of indignity over San Francisco's mockery of his poem "Joaquin Marietta," was the most forceful literary personality to emerge in 19th century California. Ironically, this poet so widely regarded as a fraud is frequently acknowledged as the first authentically Western voice; as a writer whose bullish attempts to body forth the spirit of the Sierras prefigured many great Californian writers to follow, including [[The Hetch Hetchy Story, Part I: John Muir, Preservationists vs. Conservationists | John Muir]], John Steinbeck, Mary Austin, Gary Snyder and Robinson Jeffers. In his study ''Archetype West'', the Bay Area poet William Everson cites Miller's autobiographical fiction, ''Unwritten History: Life Among the Modocs'', as the "inception point to the Western archetype," claiming that in its ambitious fusion of myth, fact and nature, Miller "emerges permanently as the West's first literary autochthon."<br />
<br />
For a brief period in the late 1860s, Miller was associated with the literary group surrounding the San Francisco journals ''The Golden Era ''and ''The Overland Monthly'', though the relation was largely attributable to his own tireless self-promotion. Editors such as Bret Harte, Ina Coolbrith and Joseph E. Lawrence received pages of unsolicited manuscript from the Oregon judge, who seemed undaunted by rejection. (One note from Bret Harte assesses Miller's verse as exhibiting "a certain theatrical tendency and feverish exultation, which would be better kept under restraint.") In the dedication to his second book of verse, ''Joaquin et al.'', Miller includes a forthright address, "To the Bards of the San Francisco Bay," which failed to elicit much response. Nonetheless, it was at this time that Miller entered into friendships with poets Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Coolbrith, the latter of whom agreed to care for his daughter when Miller, determined to find fame across the Atlantic, abandoned San Francisco for London in 1870.<br />
<br />
It was in England, after setting a wreath fashioned by Coolbrith on the grave of Lord Byron, that Miller blustered into a critical reversal among "the most startling of all of literature." After failing to find a publisher for his poems, Miller pawned his watch, scraped together the last of his savings, and anonymously printed one hundred copies of his ''Pacific Poems''. The reviewers for the London press swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Here at last was a poet with "the supreme independence, the spontaneity, the all-pervading passion, and the prodigal wealth of imagery" of a bona-fide bard of the frontier. With the help of friends, Miller immediately arranged for a second printing, changing the title to the more masculine ''Songs of the Sierras''----and this time including his name. Up until this second edition, one London critic was of the opinion that the poet of ''Pacific Poems'' was Robert Browning, albeit in a sort of pioneer mood.<br />
<br />
Almost overnight Miller was transformed from a virtually unknown poet to the representative bard of the West. He attended dinner parties with Tennyson, Arnold and the Pre-Raphaelites, reputedly even running around on all fours at one formal dinner attended by two mortified San Francisco expatriates, [[MARK TWAIN | Mark Twain]] and [[The Wickedest Man in San Francisco: Ambrose Bierce | Ambrose Bierce]]. To the London literati, Miller became the incarnation of the frontier, the "great interpreter of America." Yet back in San Francisco his reputation hardly changed: critics still refused to take him seriously, though indeed there was more attention devoted to debunking him than before. Bierce, always leading public opinion with an insult, asserted early on that Miller was guilty of "rewriting his life by reading dime novels."<br />
<br />
Apart from his outlandish dress, perhaps the most publicized of Miller's eccentricities was his preference for a quill pen, which he said "fitted his mood" because it made "a big, broad track." Unfortunately, he often failed to sharpen the instrument, rendering his script unreadable. Many recipients of his letters, including Walt Whitman, simply refused to respond. According to the San Francisco poet [[GEORGE STERLING | George Sterling,]] the handwriting was another carefully maintained pose. Sterling's uncle managed a few acres in the Oakland Hills bordering on Miller's land, and whenever there was business requiring written communication, such as the hiring of guards to block hikers from cutting Christmas trees on their property, Miller's script was as legible as a bookkeeper's.<br />
<br />
It was on this property in the Oakland Hills that Miller spent the final decades of his life. Planting eucalyptus trees around his acreage, which he called the "Hights" (his own spelling), he tended to his widowed mother, consumed vast amounts of whiskey, hailed passing girls as "the One Fair Woman!" and managed to produce several novels and plays before his death in 1913. On a porch overlooking San Francisco, Miller regularly entertained members of a younger generation of San Francisco writers, including Jack London, Mary Austin, George Sterling and Isabel Fraser. He had become a kind of mentor, the "grand old poet" of the turn-of-the-century Piedmont crowd. It was a unique triumph, perhaps all the more remarkable in that Miller's literary admirers----as revealed in posthumous appreciations written by Sterling, London and others----remained skeptical to the end of Miller's strictly literary merits.<br />
<br />
''- Jim Fisher ''<br />
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'''FURTHER READING: '''<br />
<br />
Untermeyer, Louis. ''Modern American Poetry'', 4th rev. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace; 1930.<br />
<br />
Everson, William. ''Archetype West''. Oyez Press, 1976.<br />
<br />
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence and Nancy Peters. Literary San Francisco. Harper and Row, 1980.<br />
<br />
Miller, Joaquin. ''Unwritten History: Life Among the Modocs''. Orion Press, 1972.<br />
<br />
[[GEORGE STERLING | Sterling, George]]. "Joaquin Miller." ''American Mercury''. February, 1926; p. 220.<br />
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[[Image:litersf1$joaquin-miller-gravestone.jpg]]<br />
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'''Joaquin Miller Gravestone'''<br />
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[[Publishers as Enemies of the State: City Lights Books |Prev. Document]] [[Allen Ginsberg |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Beat_Generation_and_San_Francisco%27s_Culture_of_Dissent&diff=5771Beat Generation and San Francisco's Culture of Dissent2008-06-24T03:25:12Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links</p>
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<div>[[Image:litersf1$office-1940s.jpg]]<br />
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'''Office workers of the 1940s.''' photo: San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco History Room<br />
<br />
'''INTRODUCTION '''<br />
<br />
San Francisco has always been a breeding ground for bohemian countercultures; its cosmopolitan population, its tolerance of eccentricity, and its provincialism and distance from the centers of national culture and political power have long made it an ideal place for nonconformist writers, artists, and utopian dreamers. An outsider literary lineage originated with the Gold Rush satirists, continuing on through such mavericks as Frank Norris, John Muir, Ambrose Bierce, [[JACK LONDON | Jack London]], and the San Francisco Renaissance writers of the 1940s. The beat phenomenon that took shape in San Francisco in the mid-fifties not only dislodged American poetry from the academic literary establishment, it invigorated a democratic popular culture that was to proliferate in many directions: the antiwar and ecology movements, the fight against censorship, the pursuit of gay, lesbian, minority, and women's rights. Drawing on Whitman's ecstatic populism, the prophetic radicalism of William Blake, and the performance heritage of oral literatures, the beats created a style of poetic intervention that inspired following generations to challenge oppressive political and cultural authority.<br />
<br />
''- Nancy J. Peters, excerpted from "The Beat Generation and San Francisco's Culture of Dissent" in ''Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture'' (San Francisco: City Lights Books)''<br />
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[[Chicano Gay Poets |Prev. Document]] [[Literary SF menu |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=JACK_LONDON&diff=5770JACK LONDON2008-06-24T03:22:28Z<p>Gjamin: </p>
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<div>[[Image:litersf1$jack-london-portrait.jpg]]<br />
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'''Jack London, the aspiring ranchero, 1902''' photo: Bancroft Library,Berkeley,CA<br />
<br />
"To mark the birthplace of the noted author, Jack London, January 12, 1876." This plaque on the Wells Fargo building at 3rd Street and Brannan in San Francisco is one of the few reminders in San Francisco of one of America's great writers. London, a life-long socialist, would find it ironic that his birthplace is now a bank, but then his own life was full of contradictions.<br />
<br />
Shortly after Jack was born, his family moved to Bernal Heights, then to a two-story house at 920 Natoma Street, then to a flat on Folsom Street. With his family extremely poor and his father sickly and unable to make much money, the search for cheaper accommodations was constant. The family soon moved across the Bay to Oakland, where the young London grew up. Two things shaped London's youth--the constant struggle to help support his family and the world of books. He was a newsboy, street kid picking up pennies sweeping out saloons on Broadway between Sixth and Seventh in Oakland, working on an ice wagon, setting up pins in a bowling alley.<br />
<br />
But he also discovered the Oakland Public Library and became a voracious reader. He found a friend here, Ina Coolbrith--later to become California's first Poet Laureate--who guided his reading. He read in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening.<br />
<br />
But his family's fortunes turned even worse and he was forced to get a job in a cannery. He worked twelve to eighteen hour days for ten cents an hour and had little time to read. He began to brood over a system that would let six and seven year old children work such long hours and their families live in shacks while the factory owners lived in splendor and their children went to finishing school. He decided anything was better than this life and became an "oyster pirate," stealing oysters from tidewaters owned by the Southern Pacific Railway. When he was seventeen he shipped out on the Sophia Sutherland for Japan, beginning a life-long love of the sea. Returning later in the year, he entered a writing contest sponsored by the ''San Francisco Morning Call'' and won the contest with his "Story of a Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan."<br />
<br />
But he still had to make a living. He talked the superintendent at a power plant into giving him a job as a coal heaver. The superintendent projected a great future by starting at the bottom and working hard. London soon learned that he had displaced the work of two men and was getting paid less than half of what they made together. Experiences like this hardened London's class perspective. He would later write, "I think it is apparent that my rampant individualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me, and something else as effectively hammered in. But, just as I had been an individualist without knowing it, I was now a Socialist without knowing it, withal, an unscientific one. I had been reborn, but not renamed, and I was running around to find out what manner of thing I was."<br />
<br />
London was able to go back to school, and at Oakland High School began writing articles for the student literary magazine, ''The Aegis''. In one article, he charged "The powers that be" with creating a program of "long hours, sweating systems and steadily decreasing wages" leading "to naught but social and moral degradation." Chosen as one of the debaters at the graduating exercises, he launched into a blistering oration calling for the destruction of the existing social order and declaring that he was personally prepared to use any means to bring this about. The Board of Education called for disciplinary action, but London was moving on to other worlds.<br />
<br />
He joined the Socialist Labor Party and was soon giving speeches in Oakland's City Hall Park. The January 16, 1896 San Francisco ''Chronicle'' reported: "Jack London, who is known as the boy socialist in Oakland, is holding forth nightly to the crowds that throng City Hall park. There are other speakers in plenty, but London always draws the biggest crowd and the most respectful attention."<br />
<br />
London prepared himself extensively to enter the University of California at Berkeley, doing in four months the preparation and reading that took most students two years to complete. He hoped to find a world of intellectual challenge and bright ideas and vitality. Instead he found complacent professors and little concern about the outside world. He determined that he would be better off continuing to educate himself.<br />
<br />
Gold was discovered in the Klondike in Alaska and in 1897 Jack joined thousands of others seeking their fortune. He found no gold but listened to stories of scores of miners and took careful notes on these and on his own observations. From this lode, he was later to find his fortune.<br />
<br />
When he returned he began writing prolifically. He sent out countless manuscripts; countless manuscripts soon came back with rejection slips. Finally, one of his stories was accepted, for the princely sum of five dollars. In 1899, he sold a few more articles, but collected 266 rejection slips. He joined local literary circles, and was one of the charter members of the Risking Club of Oakland along with [[GEORGE STERLING | George Sterling]] who was to become one of his closest friends.<br />
<br />
His first book, ''The Son of the Wolf '' was well received and began to make his reputation. He continued his socialist agitation, to less applause from the local press. In 1901, London ran for mayor of Oakland as a member of the newly-organized Socialist Party, running on the Social Democrat ticket. The January 26, 1901 ''Evening Post'' of San Francisco noted, "I don't know what a Social Democrat is, but if it is anything like some of Jack London's stories, it must be something awful.<br />
<br />
But it was in 1903 with the publication of his novel, ''The Call of the Wild,'' based on his Yukon experiences, that London's reputation as a writer was made. The book became an instant classic and he was in demand as a writer for most of the rest of his life. ''The Sea Wolf'' (1904) also was published to great acclaim. However, fellow Californian [http://shapingsf.org/wiki/litersf1$a_bierce.html Ambrose Bierce] noted caustically in a letter to George Sterling: "It is a most disagreeable book, as a whole. London has a pretty bad style and no sense of proportion."<br />
<br />
In 1905, London moved to a ranch in Glen Ellen in Sonoma County north of San Francisco, "living a self-indulgent life attended by an obsequious Korean valet," according to one commentator. Mark Twain, for one, had a jaundiced view of the contrast between London's continued support for socialism--he always signed his letters "Yours for the Revolution"--and his increasingly comfortable life-style in Glen Ellen. "It would serve this man London right to have the working class get control of things," said Twain. "He would have to call out the militia to collect his royalties." London would counter such criticisms by arguing that he made all his money by his own labor.<br />
<br />
Also, all the while he was a socialist, London accepted and even proselytised the widely held view of the time of the superiority of "the Anglo-Saxon race" and the inferiority of other races. Much of the Socialist Party of the time had similar views, but he was still criticized by the more progressive people in the party.<br />
<br />
His speeches continued to arouse the ire of the press. The ''San Francisco Newsletter ''of March 25, 1905 reported: "He [London] is a firebrand and red-flag anarchist, by his own confession, [in speeches] made in Oakland and Stockton, and he should be arrested and prosecuted for Treason." In the ''Saturday Evening Post ''of May 22, 1909 he published an article "South of the Slot," about a University of California professor who assumes a working class identity to investigate social conditions South of the Slot--south of Market Street in San Francisco (the area where London was born). The climax of the story occurs when the two personalities come into conflict. The professor, seeing a pitched battle between strikers and police South of the Slot, throws himself into the fight on the side of the workers. In 1908, his novel ''The Iron Heel'' presaged the rise of fascism later in the century.<br />
<br />
In 1913 London was diagnosed with a fatal kidney condition and knew he only had a few years to live. But he continued to live a high life style, drinking and eating rich foods. On November 21, 1916 he took most of a bottle of morphine to ease his pain. Whether he intended to kill himself with the morphine is still subject to debate, however, he was dead the next day. He was 40 years old. Earlier he had written, "I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."<br />
<br />
''- John Trinkl ''<br />
<br />
'''FURTHER READING: '''<br />
<br />
Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Peters. ''Literary San Francisco''. Harper and Row, 1980.<br />
<br />
Foner, Philip S., ed.. ''The Social Writings of Jack London''. Citadel Press, 1964.<br />
<br />
Kingman, Russ. ''A Pictorial Biography of Jack London''. Jack London Research Center, 1979.<br />
<br />
London, Jack. ''War of the Classes''. Star Rover House, 1982.<br />
<br />
[[Image:litersf1$jack-london-aboard-the-snark.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''London aboard the Snark, c. 1907''' photo: Bancroft Library,Berkeley,CA<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Literary SF Introduction | Prev. Document]] [[LENORE KANDEL |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=JACK_LONDON&diff=5769JACK LONDON2008-06-24T03:20:10Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:litersf1$jack-london-portrait.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Jack London, the aspiring ranchero, 1902''' photo: Bancroft Library,Berkeley,CA<br />
<br />
"To mark the birthplace of the noted author, Jack London, January 12, 1876." This plaque on the Wells Fargo building at 3rd Street and Brannan in San Francisco is one of the few reminders in San Francisco of one of America's great writers. London, a life-long socialist, would find it ironic that his birthplace is now a bank, but then his own life was full of contradictions.<br />
<br />
Shortly after Jack was born, his family moved to Bernal Heights, then to a two-story house at 920 Natoma Street, then to a flat on Folsom Street. With his family extremely poor and his father sickly and unable to make much money, the search for cheaper accommodations was constant. The family soon moved across the Bay to Oakland, where the young London grew up. Two things shaped London's youth--the constant struggle to help support his family and the world of books. He was a newsboy, street kid picking up pennies sweeping out saloons on Broadway between Sixth and Seventh in Oakland, working on an ice wagon, setting up pins in a bowling alley.<br />
<br />
But he also discovered the Oakland Public Library and became a voracious reader. He found a friend here, Ina Coolbrith--later to become California's first Poet Laureate--who guided his reading. He read in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening.<br />
<br />
But his family's fortunes turned even worse and he was forced to get a job in a cannery. He worked twelve to eighteen hour days for ten cents an hour and had little time to read. He began to brood over a system that would let six and seven year old children work such long hours and their families live in shacks while the factory owners lived in splendor and their children went to finishing school. He decided anything was better than this life and became an "oyster pirate," stealing oysters from tidewaters owned by the Southern Pacific Railway. When he was seventeen he shipped out on the Sophia Sutherland for Japan, beginning a life-long love of the sea. Returning later in the year, he entered a writing contest sponsored by the ''San Francisco Morning Call'' and won the contest with his "Story of a Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan."<br />
<br />
But he still had to make a living. He talked the superintendent at a power plant into giving him a job as a coal heaver. The superintendent projected a great future by starting at the bottom and working hard. London soon learned that he had displaced the work of two men and was getting paid less than half of what they made together. Experiences like this hardened London's class perspective. He would later write, "I think it is apparent that my rampant individualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me, and something else as effectively hammered in. But, just as I had been an individualist without knowing it, I was now a Socialist without knowing it, withal, an unscientific one. I had been reborn, but not renamed, and I was running around to find out what manner of thing I was."<br />
<br />
London was able to go back to school, and at Oakland High School began writing articles for the student literary magazine, ''The Aegis''. In one article, he charged "The powers that be" with creating a program of "long hours, sweating systems and steadily decreasing wages" leading "to naught but social and moral degradation." Chosen as one of the debaters at the graduating exercises, he launched into a blistering oration calling for the destruction of the existing social order and declaring that he was personally prepared to use any means to bring this about. The Board of Education called for disciplinary action, but London was moving on to other worlds.<br />
<br />
He joined the Socialist Labor Party and was soon giving speeches in Oakland's City Hall Park. The January 16, 1896 San Francisco ''Chronicle'' reported: "Jack London, who is known as the boy socialist in Oakland, is holding forth nightly to the crowds that throng City Hall park. There are other speakers in plenty, but London always draws the biggest crowd and the most respectful attention."<br />
<br />
London prepared himself extensively to enter the University of California at Berkeley, doing in four months the preparation and reading that took most students two years to complete. He hoped to find a world of intellectual challenge and bright ideas and vitality. Instead he found complacent professors and little concern about the outside world. He determined that he would be better off continuing to educate himself.<br />
<br />
Gold was discovered in the Klondike in Alaska and in 1897 Jack joined thousands of others seeking their fortune. He found no gold but listened to stories of scores of miners and took careful notes on these and on his own observations. From this lode, he was later to find his fortune.<br />
<br />
When he returned he began writing prolifically. He sent out countless manuscripts; countless manuscripts soon came back with rejection slips. Finally, one of his stories was accepted, for the princely sum of five dollars. In 1899, he sold a few more articles, but collected 266 rejection slips. He joined local literary circles, and was one of the charter members of the Risking Club of Oakland along with [[GEORGE STERLING | George Sterling]] who was to become one of his closest friends.<br />
<br />
His first book, ''The Son of the Wolf '' was well received and began to make his reputation. He continued his socialist agitation, to less applause from the local press. In 1901, London ran for mayor of Oakland as a member of the newly-organized Socialist Party, running on the Social Democrat ticket. The January 26, 1901 ''Evening Post'' of San Francisco noted, "I don't know what a Social Democrat is, but if it is anything like some of Jack London's stories, it must be something awful.<br />
<br />
But it was in 1903 with the publication of his novel, ''The Call of the Wild,'' based on his Yukon experiences, that London's reputation as a writer was made. The book became an instant classic and he was in demand as a writer for most of the rest of his life. ''The Sea Wolf'' (1904) also was published to great acclaim. However, fellow Californian [http://shapingsf.org/wiki/litersf1$a_bierce.html Ambrose Bierce] noted caustically in a letter to George Sterling: "It is a most disagreeable book, as a whole. London has a pretty bad style and no sense of proportion."<br />
<br />
In 1905, London moved to a ranch in Glen Ellen in Sonoma County north of San Francisco, "living a self-indulgent life attended by an obsequious Korean valet," according to one commentator. Mark Twain, for one, had a jaundiced view of the contrast between London's continued support for socialism--he always signed his letters "Yours for the Revolution"--and his increasingly comfortable life-style in Glen Ellen. "It would serve this man London right to have the working class get control of things," said Twain. "He would have to call out the militia to collect his royalties." London would counter such criticisms by arguing that he made all his money by his own labor.<br />
<br />
Also, all the while he was a socialist, London accepted and even proselytised the widely held view of the time of the superiority of "the Anglo-Saxon race" and the inferiority of other races. Much of the Socialist Party of the time had similar views, but he was still criticized by the more progressive people in the party.<br />
<br />
His speeches continued to arouse the ire of the press. The ''San Francisco Newsletter ''of March 25, 1905 reported: "He [London] is a firebrand and red-flag anarchist, by his own confession, [in speeches] made in Oakland and Stockton, and he should be arrested and prosecuted for Treason." In the ''Saturday Evening Post ''of May 22, 1909 he published an article "South of the Slot," about a University of California professor who assumes a working class identity to investigate social conditions South of the Slot--south of Market Street in San Francisco (the area where London was born). The climax of the story occurs when the two personalities come into conflict. The professor, seeing a pitched battle between strikers and police South of the Slot, throws himself into the fight on the side of the workers. In 1908, his novel ''The Iron Heel'' presaged the rise of fascism later in the century.<br />
<br />
In 1913 London was diagnosed with a fatal kidney condition and knew he only had a few years to live. But he continued to live a high life style, drinking and eating rich foods. On November 21, 1916 he took most of a bottle of morphine to ease his pain. Whether he intended to kill himself with the morphine is still subject to debate, however, he was dead the next day. He was 40 years old. Earlier he had written, "I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."<br />
<br />
''- John Trinkl ''<br />
<br />
'''FURTHER READING: '''<br />
<br />
Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy J. Peters. ''Literary San Francisco''. Harper and Row, 1980.<br />
<br />
Foner, Philip S., ed.. ''The Social Writings of Jack London''. Citadel Press, 1964.<br />
<br />
Kingman, Russ. ''A Pictorial Biography of Jack London''. Jack London Research Center, 1979.<br />
<br />
London, Jack. ''War of the Classes''. Star Rover House, 1982.<br />
<br />
[[Image:litersf1$jack-london-aboard-the-snark.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''London aboard the Snark, c. 1907''' photo: Bancroft Library,Berkeley,CA<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Literary SF menu | Prev. Document]] [[LENORE KANDEL |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=LENORE_KANDEL&diff=5768LENORE KANDEL2008-06-24T03:15:42Z<p>Gjamin: credit</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:litersf1$love-book-press-conference.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''1967 press conference with Lenore Kandel, 2nd from right'''<br />
<br />
In 1971, Professors Howard S. Becker and Irving L. Horowitz suggested that San Francisco fostered a "culture of civility,"1 a culture which provided greater acceptance of "deviant groups" and cultures, such as the Beats, the hippies, and the growing gay community. Countercultural groups were allowed greater freedom in San Francisco than in any other city in the United States. On the other hand, in 1993 journalist Mark Dowie wrote an essay in which he dubbed the century between the 1860s and the 1960s as the "Catholic century" in San Francisco.2 While Dowie's essay is overstated, and marred by several factual errors, his essential contention is correct--the Catholic Church in San Francisco exerted enormous influence in defining the contours of San Francisco culture and society, though they were not the only group to do so. Regardless of the reality, Catholics in San Francisco considered themselves the cultural guardians of the City. As such, the Catholic culture contributed to the culture of civility; at the same time it often found itself in conflict with that culture.3 One such instance of conflict was generated by the publication of Lenore Kandel's paean to love, the 825 word poem entitled simply "The Love Book."<br />
<br />
In November 1966, police inspectors Sol Wiener and Peter Maloney arrested Jay Thelen and Allen Cohen of the Psychedelic Book Shop in the Haight Ashbury and Ron Muszalski of City Lights Bookstore in North Beach for "knowingly possessing obscene matter [i.e. 'The Love Book'] with the intent to sell." What ensued was the longest Municipal Court trial in San Francisco history, pitting the City's past and present countercultures against the City's cultural mainstream. [A decade earlier City Lights was at the center of another obscenity trial for having published Allen Ginsberg's classic, ''Howl''.] The trial, begun in late April 1967, on the eve of the Summer of Love, became a showcase for different visions of the City. The proceedings reflected the pre-eminent position of the Catholic Church as cultural authority within San Francisco. The composition of witnesses led defense attorney Marshall Krause of the American Civil Liberties Union to complain that the trial was more a "heresy trial" than an "obscenity trial." Krause complained further, "I am distressed, for the prosecution seems to have taken a religious emphasis, with Catholics trying to apply their doctrine to the rest of the world. And I don't think the testimony at this case is based on sound Catholic doctrine"4 What Krause failed to understand was that the witnesses were not merely projecting the Catholic party line; they were expressing the attitudes of a significant portion of the San Francisco populace, Catholic and non-Catholic. What had begun as a simple obscenity trial had now become a trial with much larger cultural ramifications. At odds were (1) the emerging counterculture and mainstream San Francisco culture and (2) old notions of Catholic morality versus new conceptions inspired by the recently completed Second Vatican Council.<br />
<br />
What was exceptionally objectionable about the poem, beyond its description of a sexual encounter between a man and a woman, was its frequent use of several unmentionable four-letter words. The description of "gods" engaging in sexual acts also upset many. But the poem could be quite lyrical, as suggested by the following section:<br />
<br />
''I kiss your shoulder and it reeks of lust ''<br />
<br />
the lust of hermaphroditic deities doing<br />
<br />
inconceivable things to each other and<br />
<br />
SCREAMING DELIGHT over the entire<br />
<br />
universe and beyond<br />
<br />
and we lie together... and<br />
<br />
we WEEP we WEEP we WEEP<br />
<br />
the incredible tears<br />
<br />
that saints and holy men shed in the presence<br />
<br />
of their own incandescent gods...<br />
<br />
And it concludes:<br />
<br />
''we are transmuting ''<br />
<br />
we are as soft and warm and trembling<br />
<br />
as a new gold butterfly<br />
<br />
the energy<br />
<br />
indescribable<br />
<br />
almost unendurable<br />
<br />
at night sometimes I see our bodies glow.<br />
<br />
Lenore Kandel herself expressed her intent in the most noble terms: "I believe when humans can be so close together to become one flesh, or spirit, they transcend the human into the divine. Unfortunately for Kandel, not everyone saw her poem in the same light.<br />
<br />
From the moment of the initial arrests, the events surrounding "The Love Book" and its subsequent trial had a slightly comic quality about them, and suggest some of the excesses of the era. Mayor John F. Shelley immediately condemned the poem as "hard core pornography," and opined, "I certainly wouldn't want my kids to read it." Police inspector Peter Maloney added, "I'm no prude... but where is the redeeming social importance in this book?"5 Typical of San Francisco, a group of professors from San Francisco State leapt to the poems defense. Professors Leonard Wolf, Mark Linenthal, James Scheville, and Jack Gilbert were hired by the City Lights Bookstore with wages of one dollar a day to sell the poem. The professors then sponsored a public reading at San Francisco State. A crowd of more than three hundred persons listened to the poem in "defiance" of the "City's police censorship squad,"6 though the police were noticeably absent from the reading. The reasons the professors gave for supporting the poem were something less than sublime. One observed, "The book makes me want to make love--and I think that's good." And another added, "It seems to me it is a good thing for society to maintain a high degree of sexual excitability...'' [Prosecuting attorney Frank Shane countered during the trial, "If 'The Love Book' is so exciting, would it not cause hundreds of college students to rush into bed together after readings of the poem, such as been held in the Bay Area?"]7<br />
<br />
The actual trial began in late April with the prosecution attempting to fashion a jury that "had little or nothing to do with the hippies."8 The jury selected consisted primarily of married women.<br />
<br />
The high point for the defense came with their initial witness -- the poet herself, Lenore Kandel. Ms. Kandel added a theatrical dimension to the proceedings, appearing in "a brilliant orange turtleneck sweater, burgundy jacket, and vivid orange stockings." She then read her poem to the jury in tones "more reverent than passionate." In addition, she read selections from the "erotic" poetry of Brother Antoninus (William Everson) and St. John of the Cross. She defended her poem in language quintessential to the 1960s: "Love is a four-letter word," she noted, observing that the really obscene words were "hate," "bomb," and "war'''". '''"If we can recognize our own beauty, it will be impossible for any human being to bring harm to any other human being. We owe each other loving responsibility." Finally, when asked if the poem was religious, she responded, "Yes, and everyone who makes love is religious."9 <br />
<br />
The encounter between Prosecutor Shaw and Ms. Kandel also had its comic moments, and some not quite so comic, as the clash of world views became personalized. One reporter described Shaw in the following manner: "His voice shook with anger much of the time and he used the four-letter words with inflections of disgust for them. Ms. Kandel maintained her composure as Shaw threw "various Anglo Saxon shock words at Kandel and found himself being called beautiful by her." Shaw was not converted. He accused Kandel of subverting fundamental moral values and attempting to "condition us into a new type of morality."10 <br />
<br />
The rest of the defense witnesses defended the poem in a variety of ways. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti defended the poem's artistic merit.<br />
<br />
Professor Thomas F. Parkinson of the University of California at Berkeley was presented as a distinguished literary scholar, and "gave a whole day's testimony on the nature of poetry and the poet's call to truth."11 Parkinson observed: "The sexual mysticism of the 'Love Book' is an attempt to show that through an abandon to the senses one may achieve a kind of spiritual revelation."12 Two women, Mrs. Nina Beggs, the wife of a Congregational minister, and Mrs. Margaret Krebs, testified that the poem was a beautiful expression of sexuality from the "woman's point of view."13 Mrs. Krebs testified, "The general theme is love and it discusses the beauty and the spiritual heights possible in intercourse between man and woman, primarily from a woman's point of view. I am a woman and I identify with it."14 The testimony of both women encountered problems. Mrs. Beggs's testimony was undercut by her statement that she "had never heard of two of the disputed words," and Mrs. Krebs's testimony was disallowed because the court determined that she could not be considered "an ordinary woman."15 Several other witnesses, including G.W. Smith, a professional marriage counselor, Dr. J. M. Stubblebine, director of San Francisco's Mental Health Services, and Rabbi Joseph Glaser, testified that the poem improved the City's mental health by dealing directly and openly with the issue of sexuality. More harmful, they claimed, were the repressive notions of sexuality which had dominated society for too long and resulted in a variety of unhealthy manifestations.<br />
<br />
After ten hours of deliberation, the jury found the defendants guilty. They concluded that "The Love Book" was obscene and had "no redeeming social value." In 1971, however, the verdict was overturned.<br />
<br />
The trial had two immediate results besides the fines imposed on the sales clerks. First, sales of "The Love Book" skyrocketed. Prior to the trial less than 100 copies had been sold; after the trial sales soared to 20,000 plus. In appreciation, Ms. Kandel donated one percent of the profits to the Police Retirement Association.16<br />
<br />
While the trial of "The Love Book" may have little significance in itself, it does provide an interesting window to view several of the basic conflicts in San Francisco in the 1960s. First, despite the culture of civility, San Francisco was racked by the cultural conflicts of the times. Often, in romanticizing the 1960s and the Love Generation, we tend to overlook the profound trauma the counterculture generated for more traditional San Franciscans. On one level, the "Love Book" trial can be interpreted as an attempt to assert the basic values of mainstream San Francisco; values that were increasingly and vigorously being called into question. Historian Charles Perry has suggested that the trial was not about obscenity at all but was a direct attack on the psychedelic counterculture of the Haight-Ashbury. The two defendants from the Psychedelic Shop were Allen Cohen, editor of ''The Oracle, ''the most significant paper of the Haight, and Jay Thelen, its publisher. It is noteworthy that the two stores singled out for violating the community's obscenity standards represented the old counterculture (the Beats) and the new counterculture (the hippies). San Francisco, being a port town, always had a rather high tolerance for "vice." At the time of "The Love Book" trial, topless night clubs were opening up in the City with little harassment from the courts. Perhaps the City was making a distinction between acknowledged vice--few would argue topless dancing had any socially redeeming value--and "vice" which presented itself as virtue. What was dangerous about "The Love Book" was that it was perceived to be presenting a new moral ethic without apology, and the new moral ethic ran counter to the accepted ethic of mainstream San Francisco. As such the trial was a manifestation of the public anxiety generated by the enormous cultural shocks and transitions of the 1960s.<br />
<br />
Second, the "Love Book" trial brought to public awareness the conflict that was occurring within the Catholic Church. Catholic squabbling at the trial broke the united Catholic front on moral issues. And with the public squabbling came an erosion of the Church's moral authority within the City. Increasingly it seemed there was no one Catholic voice in the City, but a variety of competing voices. As such, the Catholic influence on the life of the City began to dissipate. What was occurring within the Church, and within the culture at large, was a relentless questioning of the validity of authority at every level. And too often the response of the cultural authority was so muddled or ill-considered that the response served only to undercut further the authority of the challenged institution. In the case of the "Love Book" trial, well meaning Catholics attempted to reassert their position as cultural authority within the Cityhowever, the result was disastrous. The complex story of the cultural transformation wrought by the 1960s in San Francisco is still to be written. One conclusion is certain, howeverthe "Catholic century" had come to an end.<br />
<br />
''- Jeffrey M. Burns, published originally in'' The Argonaut'', Vol. V, No. 1, Spring 1994 ''<br />
<br />
<br />
Notes:<br />
<br />
1. Howard S. Becker and Irving L. Horowitz, "The Culture of Civility," in Howard Becker, ed., ''Culture and Civility in San Francisco'' (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1971).<br />
<br />
2. Mark Dowie, "Holy Smoke," ''SF Weekly'' 24 February 1993, II.<br />
<br />
3. For an interesting discussion on the Catholic influence on Labor in the city see William Issel, "Business Power and Political Culture in SAn Francisco, 1900-1940," ''Journal of Urban History 16'' (November 1989), 52-77.<br />
<br />
4. Anne Marie Ferrairis, "Local Testimony on 'Love Book' Trial," ''San Francisco Monitor'', 11 May 1967,3.<br />
<br />
5. From the ''Oregon Journal'', 26 November 1966, City Lights Bookstore Collection, Clippings File, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA.<br />
<br />
6. From the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', 24 November 1966. ''Ibid. ''<br />
<br />
7. Donovan Bess, "Witness Explains His Reactions After Reading 'Love Book'," ''San Francisco Chronicle ''12 May 1967, 3.<br />
<br />
8. ''San Franicsco Chronicle,'' 25 April 1967.<br />
<br />
9. Donovan Bess, "Lenore Defends the Love Book," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', 6 May 1967, 3; Donovan Bess, "Love Book Poet Keeps Her Cool," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', 9 May 1967,3; Anne Marie Fertaris, "Local Testimony..."<br />
<br />
10. Bess, "Love Book Poet Keeps Her Cool,"3.<br />
<br />
11. Robert Brophy. "Brophy and the Love Book" (unpublished manuscript, 1993) Copy in the Archives for the Archdocese of San Francisco (AASF).<br />
<br />
12. Donovan Bess, "Scholar's Plea for the Love Book," ''San Francisco Chronicle'', 10 May 1967, 2.<br />
<br />
13. Donovan Bess, "A Minister's Wife Praises the Love Book," ''San Francisco Chronicle,'' 13 May 1967, 2.<br />
<br />
14. Sam Blumenfeld, "My Husband's Birthday Gift," ''San Franicsco Examiner'', 19 May 1967.<br />
<br />
15.'' Ibid. ''<br />
<br />
16. Charles Perry, ''The Haight Ashbury: A History ''(NY: Vintage Books, 1984), 195.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[JACK LONDON |Prev. Document]] [[David Meltzer on MUSIC AND POETRY |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=David_Meltzer_on_MUSIC_AND_POETRY&diff=5767David Meltzer on MUSIC AND POETRY2008-06-24T03:11:02Z<p>Gjamin: changed captions, credits</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:litersf1$north-beach-jazz-session.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''North Beach outdoor jazz session.'''<br />
<br />
''Excerpted from an interview with David Meltzer (M), conducted by Marina Lazzara (L) and Steven Jones (J). ''<br />
<br />
M: [During the '50s] I was doing a lot of readings at the Jazz Cellar. I was probably the youngest one doing it at the time. All these other people were middle aged (laughter).<br />
<br />
L: How old were you?<br />
<br />
M: Twenty. Twenty-one. And I was pretty good at it because I felt closer to the music than people like Rexroth or Ferlinghetti, who were basically just reciting poetry against musical background. I was doing more improvisation, trying to treat it as part of the structure of the Jazz performance where you have a band and ensemble, then an arrangement, then people take solos.<br />
<br />
L: You're also a musician. Do you think this is why your interpretation was different?<br />
<br />
M: Yes, I think so. I also think I identified more with the music. Especially the music of BeBop and post-BeBop, which I listened to a lot as a kid in New York. In fact, I actually belonged to BirdLand and Bop City in the late '40s and early 50's. When I was little I lived with my father in this hotel on 8th Ave. and 48th Street, right near the old Madison Square Garden, where the lobby, depending upon what time of year it was, would be filled with either cowboys or midgets. So I'd just walk down there and listen. And I identified very much with that culture---I suppose you'd call it a Hipster type of culture. Not so much the Beatnik, which was another development.<br />
<br />
I brought that sensibility, that relationship to language to the jazz poem. I liked the idea of doing it on the spot. They were always standing there with the mic in front of their face, trying to look cool, but it really worked because they weren't connected to the music particularly. Invariably, they couldn't tell the musicians what to do, so it put this double burden on the musicians.<br />
<br />
L: Wasn't there a BopCity here on Fillmore?<br />
<br />
M: Yes there was, and I was there too, and that was pretty great. That was an after hours place. Jimbo's.<br />
<br />
One of the great things about Beat poetry was the populist aspect of it. It did indeed bring to poetry more of a public presence than it had enjoyed up to that point. It had been strictly formalist in the academy. T.S. Eliot ruled, you know. And New Criticism rocked.<br />
<br />
L: I want that on my shirt.<br />
<br />
M: New Crit Rocks.<br />
<br />
J: Or pebbles or something.<br />
<br />
M: It made the performance of poetry a public event that ultimately within a few years period was dethroned by the opening up of Rock concerts.<br />
<br />
J: But poetry was still being read before bands, right?<br />
<br />
M: That's right. But up to that point the poetry reading was a great social unifier, or cultural unifier in San Francisco. I was in that drift over to the other. I was working for the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Ferlinghetti and myself were intermission poets for the Mime Troupe. We alternated. Graham was managing Mime Troupe at that point. It was during that moment of tenure there that he put together the first concert which was a benefit concert. That pulled in the poetry audience. It was possible to have a poetry reading in a huge auditorium and literally fill it with a couple of thousand people.<br />
<br />
L: Even with their names not recognized.<br />
<br />
M: With recognized and unrecognized names. Invariably, the very fact that someone reading for an hour in a downtown auditorium in San Francisco shows you the kind of cultural unifying power these kinds of events had. But then they were replaced by the Rock Concert. Because then you had to put your body into it. The body was activated. The other readings like the soul was activated, they were very emotional, they were politically charged. But it was passive in a sense.<br />
<br />
J: Depending on the state of mind, passivity is hard to do.<br />
<br />
M: So that's what happened. I remember after doing those kinds of things, [Graham] came back to the Mime Troupe and said, "I don't know, you guys just won't do what I want you to do. I think there's something else out there I want to get involved in."<br />
<br />
In any case, in both Southern and Northern California, up to the mid-60s it was just a general umbrella of artists, so there was much more interest between the arts. I'm talking about on all levels of music. Jazz musicians were very interested in poetry. They would go to those kinds of artists, and it would give them a kind of regard.<br />
<br />
L: I bet the level of competition wasn't there.<br />
<br />
M: Well, there's always competition honing your craft, but there's also regard for accomplishment -- know it when you see it. There was much more cross over. It was always important for painters to have poets as friends. Poets were great in terms of just writing about the painting. Or writing about the music in ways that was equally a work of art. Luckily in North Beach during that Beat period, there was Tom Albright, who wrote the major book on the SF Bay Area art scene. He was working for the Chronicle at that time. To me he was the first example of a peer who was a cultural critic, who was comfortable with culture as a whole.<br />
<br />
Kerouac was the only one in that group, by the way, who read poetry with a Jazz flavor and the only one who was very good actually at reading poetry with Jazz as far as I was concerned. He was the only one who really had that panache, that innate awareness of what was going on, because he was a part of that culture. He was again the Hipster and not a Beat. It was like Freud wasn't a Freudian, and Marx wasn't a Marxist. And Kerouac wasn't a Beatnik.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[LENORE KANDEL |Prev. Document]] [[The Roots of Bohemia |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Kenneth_Rexroth_and_Barcelona_by_the_Bay&diff=5765Kenneth Rexroth and Barcelona by the Bay2008-06-24T03:01:23Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links, added quotation marks</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:litersf1$kenneth-rexroth-caricature.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Kenneth Rexroth Caricature'''<br />
<br />
By the time 22 year-old Kenneth Rexroth arrived in San Francisco in 1927, he had already developed a career as a professional bohemian and radical. Orphaned at a young age, he'd been living happily among the seedier elements of Chicago's underground as a modernist painter, stage performer and poet, and using his natural born oratorical skills to soapbox for the IWW.<br />
<br />
Rexroth and his new wife, Marthe, had arrived in San Francisco penniless and with no contacts whatsoever. The couple had just hitchhiked, backpacked and bummed their way west, expecting to find $500 waiting for them at the post office--money which had never arrived. As they scuffled down Market Street, broke and homeless, they happened to spot some furniture Marthe had designed back in Chicago in a shop window. The shopkeeper offered them jobs, and the two decided to stay, thus beginning Kenneth Rexroth's long relationship with the city of San Francisco.<br />
<br />
Kenneth and Marthe found the city to be somewhat provincial. Kenneth liked to cite the fact that everyone he met in those early days considered the conservative, 19th century-style poet [[GEORGE STERLING | George Sterling]] to be the only poet worth mentioning. As far as literary radicalism went, [[JACK LONDON | Jack London]] was as wild as it got, which didn't impress those who had been experimenting with Dadaist theatre and reading the latest poetry from Paris. But the two had a great love of the outdoors, and the culture of San Francisco seemed perfect for a pair of literary rebels they felt right at home amid the loose morals and natural beauty of the Bay Area, and ended up permanent residents.<br />
<br />
As Rexroth relates in his autobiography: "San Francisco was not just a wide-open town. It is the only city in the United States which was not settled overland by the westward-spreading puritan tradition, or by the Walter Scott fake-cavalier tradition of the South. It had been settled mostly, in spite of all the romances of the overland migration, by gamblers, prostitutes, rascals, and fortune seekers who came across the Isthmus and around the Horn. They had their faults, but they were not influenced by Cotton Mather."<br />
<br />
Rexroth immediately set about involving himself in the intellectual and political affairs of the city, introducing himself to anyone with any literary or political interests. Soon he had insinuated himself into the cultural life of the Bay Area, giving readings, starting magazines, writing articles, hosting (with Marthe's assistance) soirees at his home, and generally engaging himself with every political battle that caught his eye, from organizing maritime unions to being a conscientious objector during World War II to open support for the Japanese during their internment in concentration camps.<br />
<br />
Rexroth was one of the few Americans to speak out against the internments. At great personal risk, he held meetings, organized committees, hid people, and concocted scams whereby Japanese-Americans were smuggled to the Midwest as part of a "correspondence course." It was Rexroth's efforts that rescued Japanese-Americans libraries, which he arranged to be absorbed by the State Library system and thus available to be checked out by internees.<br />
<br />
In Rexroth's circle the Postwar Era was not as dull or cautious as the popular notion of the '40s and '50s might suggest. While films and television reflected a period of conservatism, withdrawal and reaction following World War II, there was simultaneously a new wave a dissidence developing all over the country. Rexroth's home at 250 Scott Street, above Jack's Record Cellar, became a magnet for this rapidly spreading mood of disaffection from American society, as all sorts of poets, artists, radicals, and notably conscientious objectors began to find each other and develop a common language and lifestyle in the Bay Area.<br />
<br />
The meetings in Rexroth's home soon came to be called the Libertarian Circle, meeting weekly to discuss radical theory and history in an attempt to redefine and rejuvenate the radical movement after the defeats of the previous half century. Subjects included:<br />
<br />
"...the Andalusian Agricultural Communes, the Shop Stewards' Movement in revolutionary Germany, communalist groups in the United States, the Kronstadt revolt, Nestor Makhno and his Anarchist society and army in the Russian Civil War, the I.W.W., Mutualist Anarchism in America, and individuals: Babeuf, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre and the Anarchist Woman's Movement ... There was no aspect of Anarchist history or theory that was not presented by a qualified person and then thrown open to spontaneous discussion ... Our objective was to refound the radical movement after its destruction by the Bolsheviks and to rethink all the basic principles, i.e., in other words to subject to searching criticism all the ideologists from Marx to Malatesta."<br />
<br />
Eventually, Rexroth came to be regarded as something of a San Francisco institution. Out of the community that gathered around him developed several magazines, a left-wing community radio station (KPFA, the first listener-sponsored station in the U.S.), and, of course, the San Francisco Renaissance. By the 1950s the loose-knit crowd of anti-authoritarian intellectuals Rexroth had done so much to bring together began to gel into a genuine movement, embodying most of the themes Rexroth had been writing about for the past three decades: Contempt for the academic and political establishment, intimate familiarity with Eastern (particularly Buddhist) philosophy and literature, and celebration of urban life combined with a profound appreciation for nature and the outdoors. Writers who were associated with the San Francisco Renaissance (also known affectionately as the "bear-shit-on-the-trail" school of poetry) included Phillip Whalen, Phillip Lamantia, Michael McClure and Gary Snyder.<br />
<br />
Today, Rexroth is usually mentioned as a precursor or "father-figure" to the Beat Generation, or, in a phrase the aging anarchist despised, "elder-statesman" of the Beats. Rexroth did have an impact on the writers such as Gary Snyder and [[The Howl Obscenity Trial | Allen Ginsberg]]--notably influencing Ginsberg to abandon the formality and metered lines of his early work--but Rexroth was actually quite ambivalent about the Beat writers. He praised their anti-establishment approach and commitment to direct, un-mediated communication, but distanced himself from their more conservative elements. In particular, he held Jack Kerouac in disdain, considering him a not very charming drunken reactionary.<br />
<br />
"... I will not take those would-be allies which Madison Avenue has carefully manufactured and is now trying to foist on me. If the only significant revolt against what the French call the ''hallucination publicitaire'' is heroin and Zen Buddhism, nobody will ever be able to escape from the lot of this tenth-rate Russian movie called 'The Collapse of Capitalist Civilization' onto which somehow we all seem to have stumbled."<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the connection remains, either because Rexroth prefigured the Beats, or because the Beats modeled themselves after him and others like him. Certainly, Ginsberg's great poem "Howl" wouldn't have been possible without advice like that he received from Rexroth. And of course, Rexroth's poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill," often read to jazz in a club called The Cellar, is a direct forerunner to "Howl." Composed in one sitting after Rexroth heard the news of Dylan Thomas' death, the poem is a powerful denunciation of the materialistic, technocratic society that devours creativity and is "killing all the young men."<br />
<br />
''How many stopped writing at thirty? ''<br />
<br />
How many went to work for Time?<br />
<br />
How many died of prefrontal<br />
<br />
Lobotomies in the Communist Party?<br />
<br />
How many are lost in the back wards<br />
<br />
Of provincial mad houses?<br />
<br />
How many on the advice of<br />
<br />
Their psychoanalysts, decided<br />
<br />
A business career was best after all?<br />
<br />
How many are hopeless alcoholics?<br />
<br />
The fact that so many of the themes of the larger-scale rebellion of the 1960s were embraced by Rexroth as early as the 1920s makes it surprising that his name does not come up more. From his early interest in ecology and defense of the local environment, to his (secular) Buddhism, to his commitment to radical, direct action, Rexroth was far ahead of his time. (It can also be argued that, as Ken Knabb wrote in his excellent short critique, "The Relevance of Rexroth," that Rexroth did not cope well with the wider interest in his previously obscure pursuits. He failed to effectively articulate a libertarian alternative as statist-revolutionary dogma took hold in the '60s, and withdrew into an avant- gardist view of individual revolt at precisely the moment that collective action held the most promise.)<br />
<br />
If San Francisco is no longer the provincial backwoods it once was; if it is now, as Rexroth liked to say, "to the arts what Barcelona was to Spanish Anarchism," then in large part we have Rexroth to thank.<br />
<br />
''- Hugh D'Andrade''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:litersf1$kenneth-rexroth-reciting.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Kenneth Rexroth reading with music.'''<br />
<br />
[[The Roots of Bohemia |Prev. Document]] [[Robert Duncan Milne |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=LONE_MOUNTAIN&diff=5763LONE MOUNTAIN2008-06-24T02:35:46Z<p>Gjamin: changed captions, credits</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:westaddi$buena-vista-and-lone-mtn.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Lone Mountain looms behind men (left of the center figure)standing on Buena Vista Heights, with the Golden Gate in distance behind that, October 31, 1886. ''' photo: Gaar Collection, San Francisco, CA<br />
<br />
<br />
The last of the wooden crosses was torn down from the top of Lone Mountain in 1930. And in 1932 construction began on the Spanish Gothic style building for the San Francisco College for Women, Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. A beautiful garden stairway, called the "Spanish Steps" after those in Rome, marks the entrance on Turk Street. This property was acquired by the University of San Francisco in 1978 as an extension to its campus next to St. Ignatius Church.<br />
<br />
After the third St. Ignatius Church on Hayes and Van Ness was destroyed by fire in 1906, a new church was begun "as a Jesuit act of faith" on former Masonic Cemetery land at Parker and Fulton. The Neo-Baroque style structure was built between 1910 and 1914 with a tin roof, steel frame, engaged fluted columns of terra cotta, pressed brick walls containing over 250,000 bricks, and 128 clerestory windows. Its twin towers could be seen by ships at sea. The 5,824-pound bell in the campanile had been saved from the church on Hayes and Van Ness.26 Today St. Ignatius is illuminated in the evenings and sits golden in the moonlight on its hill.<br />
<br />
The Lone Mountain, Laurel Hill, Jordan Park area has changed dramatically over the past 150 years. The sand dunes have disappeared, and the cemeteries are gone. Today the neighborhood is a vibrant residential, commercial, and university community. Although its character will continue to change as time goes on, such monuments as the Pioneer's Memorial Plaque (at the entrance to U.C.'s Laurel Hill campus) and the green-domed Columbarium, if they are preserved, will continue to serve as tangible reminders of the area's past.<br />
<br />
''- Deanna L. Kastler, excerpted from "Lone Mountain & Laurel Hill: From Necropolis to Residential, Commercial, & University Neighborhoods", originally published in ''The Argonaut'', Vol. 3, No. 1, Winter 1992''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Old Cemeteries in the City |Prev. Document]] [[Harry Bridges Memorial Bldg. |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=BARBARY_COAST&diff=5761BARBARY COAST2008-04-10T07:33:44Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links; were two links to "Shanghaiing text box" now only "Next doc" links there</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:downtwn1$hippodrome-by-day.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''The Hippodrome by day'''<br />
<br />
'''1849: '''Badly drawn paintings of nude women adorn the walls of the best cafes in the city. Prostitutes begin to arrive from the east. They are frequently auctioned off from the decks of the arriving ships. Cafe owners often hire them to pose nude in displays in the dining halls. Gambling houses were everywhere. At the El Dorado it was reported that $80,000 once changed hands on the turn of a single card. Liquor and female companionship were often provided free of charge by the house as an incentive to frequent patrons.<br />
<br />
'''1860-1880: '''It was in the mid-1860s that the term Barbary Coast came into being. It derived its name from its similarity to the notorious Barbary Coast in Africa, and stretched from Montgomery to Stockton along Pacific Street, with branches off into Kearny and Grant Ave. The area had already been cleaned out twice before by the Vigilantes, but once again it began to grow with dives gambling halls, and houses of prostitution. One particularly dangerous block on Pacific between Kearny and Montgomery was known as Terrific Street. A writer in 1876 described the area:<br />
<br />
'' ''''The Barbary Coast is the haunt of the low and the vile of every kind. The petty thief, the house burglar, the tramp, the whore monger, lewd women, cut-throats, murderers, are all found here. Dance halls and concert-saloons, where blear-eyed men and faded women drink vile liquor, smoke offensive tobacco, engage in vulgar conduct, sing obscene songs and say and do everything to heap upon themselves more degradation, are numerous. Low gambling houses, thronged with riot-loving rowdies, in all stages of intoxication, are there. Opium dens, where heathen Chinese and God-forsaken men and women are sprawled in miscellaneous confusion, disgustingly drowsy or completely overcome, are there. Licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, loathsome disease, insanity from dissipation, misery, poverty, wealth, profanity, blasphemy, and death, are there. And Hell, yawning to receive the putrid mass, is there also. ''<br />
<br />
from ''Lights and Shades of San Francisco'' by<br />
<br />
Benjamin Estelle Lloyd,<br />
<br />
1876.<br />
<br />
One of the more colorful and memorable characters of the Barbary Coast was a one-time actor whose only name was Oofty Goofty. Oofty Goofty's great claim to fame was his insensitivity to pain. For many years he made his living along the Barbary Coast by being the willing victim of physical abuse. For ten cents a man might kick Oofty Goofty as hard as he pleased; for a quarter he would let himself be hit with a walking stick; and for fifty cents he would take a blow from a baseball bat.<br />
<br />
Those who escaped the clutches of the crimps and runners trying to ''''''shanghai them frequented the dance halls of the Barbary Coast, where dancing with a woman could take any form or degree the patron wished. Those who desired serious drinking could choose from a variety of establishments, the most dangerous of which was The Whaleas tough a bar-room as San Francisco ever boasted. The most famous criminals of the time could frequently be found there, as for the most part, even the police were afraid to enter. Another famous drinking establishment was the Cobweb Palace, run by Abe Warner, a lover of spiders, who let them spin their webs without interference. The webs hung were festooned across the ceiling and down the walls. Liquor was especially cheap at Martin and Horton's, where one of its most infamous patrons was a shy little man who tended to sit unobtrusively at the back of the room. He was in fact, Black Bart, the highway bandit who held up stages with an unloaded gun and always left behind a bit of poetry signed Black Bart the PO8.<br />
<br />
The primary industry of the Barbary Coast was prostitution. Three particular types of brothels were to be found: the cow-yard, which served as both apartment building and brothel; the crib, the lowest and most disreputable of the houses; and the parlor house, whose employees were considered the aristocracy of San Francisco's red-light district.<br />
<br />
The women who worked in the dives, regardless of their age, were called pretty waiter girls. They were usually paid $15 to $25 a week to serve as waitresses, entertainers and prostitutes. For a small fee a man could view any pretty waiter girl free of her clothing. During the 1870s one Mexican fandango den dressed its girls in no more than red jackets, black stockings, garters and slippers. This dress code was abandoned in a few weeks due to overwhelming and uncontrollable crowds.<br />
<br />
More often than not the owners of these brothels, regardless of what kind of house they operated, came away with great fortunes. The more frequented parlor houses seemed each to have its own speciality. Madame Bertha, who ran a parlor house located in Sacramento Street, in addition to the usual activities of such an establishment, gave organ recitals on Sunday afternoons to specially invited guests. The prostitutes sang popular songs while Madame Bertha accompanied.<br />
<br />
Madame Johanna employed three French girls who gave erotic exhibitions and were known as the Three Lively Fleas. She was also the originator of direct mail advertising for brothels, sending pictures of the naked girls to specially procured mailing lists.<br />
<br />
The bagnio owned by Madame Gabrielle at Geary and Stockton featured a weekly show in which the participants were black men and white women. Frequently a parlor house had its own particular motto which could be found framed in every room. The motto of a California street house was What is Home Without Mother? Each of the parlor houses in Commercial Street boasted a chamber called the Virgin Room, where a gullible customer could be accommodated at double or triple the usual price. Usually the room was staffed with a girl young enough, and enough of an actress to simulate fright and bewilderment. She was usually paid slightly more than the other prostitutes.<br />
<br />
A frequent patron of these house was San Francisco's most notorious murderer of the time, Theodore Durrant. When not frequenting prostitutes or murdering them, Durrant spent his time as a medical student and an assistant superintendent of Sunday school, prominent in the work of the Christian Endeavor Society. His ''modus operandi'' was to bring a small bird to the parlor house and at some time during the evening slit its throat and let the blood drip over his body.<br />
<br />
In the cribs and cow-yards, customers were not permitted to remove their shoes, or often any garments at all--except for their hats. Only a specific kind of crib, called a creep joint permitted the removal of clothing, and the reason for that was in order that an accomplice could steal all his money and valuables. It was, however, customary to leave a shiny new dime in the customer's pocket. The origin of the custom is unknown--perhaps it was left as car-fare.<br />
<br />
Cribs were located throughout the Barbary Coast, but black and Hispanic establishments were concentrated on Broadway between Grant and Stockton. The French houses could be found primarily in Commercial Street.<br />
<br />
'''1900: '''Three blocks of dance halls with the loudest possible music blasting forth from orchestras, steam pianos and gramophones in such establish-ments as The Living Flea, The Sign of the Red Rooster, Ye Olde Whore Shop. Extended from the foot of Telegraph Hill to the shoreline, largely along Pacific Street and Broadway. The Dew Drop Inn, Canterbury Hall and Opera Comique all specialize in erotica of a high order. Dead Man's Alley, Murder Point and Bull Run form a secret network of tunnels through which people as well as booty were smuggled. The area takes in Chinatown, and Asians are often blamed for this blight on the city.<br />
<br />
The ''San Francisco Examiner'', the newspaper owned by William Randolph Hearst, is nicknamed The Whore's Daily Guide and Handy Compendium due to the thinly disguised ads for prostitutes in the classified section.<br />
<br />
The worst of cribs were to be found on Morton Street (now ironically enough called Maiden Lane). The most notorious was the Nymphia on Pacific Street, the Marsicania on Dupont Street (Grant Ave.), and the Municipal Brothel on Jackson Street near Kearny. On a slow night the pimps might sell the privilege of touching a prostitute's breasts for the fee of ten cents. On a good night a prostitutes might service as many as a hundred men.<br />
<br />
The Nymphia, a three-story building with about a hundred and fifty cubicles on each floor, was erected in 1899. The intention of the owners was to name the place the Hotel Nympho-mania and to stock it with women suffering from that condition. When the police refused to permit that name, the owners compromised, calling it the Nymphia. Each female resident was required to remain naked at all times and was obliged to entertain any man who called. For a dime a customer would view the activities in any room through a narrow slit in the door. The place was first raided by police in 1900 and after several legal battles, finally closed down in 1903.<br />
<br />
The ''San Francisco Call'' described the Marsicania as one of the vilest dens ever operated in San Francisco. Its population was about 100 prostitutes, each of whom paid $5 a night rental cost. It was opened in 1902 and enjoyed a period of prosperity when the police were legally restrained from blockading or entering the premises except under extreme emergencies. This decision was overturned in 1905 and the Marsicania was forced to close.<br />
<br />
On Jackson Street the Municipal Brothel or the Municipal Crib was called so due to the fact that most of its profits went into the pockets of city officials and prominent politicians. It was build in 1904 on the site of the underground Chinese tenement known as the Devil's Kitchen, or (with great sarcasm) the Palace Hotel. The women were graded by floors with the Mexican prostitutes in the basement, and the black women on the fourth floor. In between a variety of nationalities were represented. The Municipal Crib was protected from police raids until the prosecution of former Mayor Eugene Schmitz and Abe Ruef, who had received regular payments from the profits.<br />
<br />
When it was at last closed in 1907, the Municipal Crib was the last significant cow-yard to operate in San Francisco. For all intents and purposes the flesh-pits that were the Barbary Coast were wiped off the face of the map by the great earthquake and fire of 1906.<br />
<br />
The opium dives, slave-dens, cowyards, parlorhouses, cribs, deadfalls, dance-halls, bar-rooms, melodeons and concert saloons were all turned to ash. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, it was called by the clergymen. The day following the great fire, men lined up for blocks in order to patronize the brothels of Oakland. The slave-trade of Chinatown came to an end and the opium dens were never rebuilt. But the entrepeneurs of the Barbary Coast were determined to rebuild the quarter upon the ruins of the old. By 1907 it was once again in full operation.<br />
<br />
While the city of San Francisco officially disdained the goings-on of the Barbary Coast, it took a secret pride in this area widely proclaimed as the wickedest town in the U.S.A. After the great earthquake and fire, the Barbary Coast became more of a tourist attraction than its predecessor. Such luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt and ballet dancer Anna Pavlova were known to frequent the area. British poet John Masefield is to have said immediately after disembarking, Take me to see the Barbary Coast. Dance-floors and variety shows designed to shock the tourists replaced prostitution as the chief business. Indeed, many of the dance crazes that swept America during this period were originated in this section of San Francisco: the turkey trot; the bunny hug; the chicken glide; the Texas Tommy, the pony prance, the grizzly bear, and other varieties of semi-acrobatic dancing. Among the many dance halls on the Barbary Coast, the Thalia, on Pacific between Kearny and Montgomery, remained the most popular. It usually featured a Salome dancer or strip-tease artist.<br />
<br />
The number of women working on the Barbary Coast during this period ranged from 800 to 3,000. They were paid from $12 to $20 a week to dance and drink with the customers and to appear on stage in ensemble choruses. Many engaged in prostitution but usually in their after hours. Their dress was described as of the cheapest fabric, many of them torn and stained, none reaching below the knees, and here and there hooks missing and bodices yawning in the back, but always the silk stocking as the inevitable mark of caste. [''San Francisco Call,'' 1911] Often the girls were barely in their teens, and the dance-halls frequently served as recruiting agents for the brothels.<br />
<br />
'''Barbary Coast after '''<br />
<br />
the '06 quake<br />
<br />
The first dive to open after the earthquake, and perhaps the most notorious establishment on the Barbary Coast of the post-earthquake period, was the Seattle Saloon and Dance Hall, in Pacific St. near Kearny. The women employed there were paid from $15 to $20 a week, and following the custom of an earlier deadfall, they were forbidden from wearing underwear. Advertisements of this feature were discretely passed around the saloons of the city. The women were also paid a slight percentage of the drinks they sold and entitled to half of whatever they might pick from the pockets of their dance partners. (The proprietors often complained that the girls were dishonest in reporting the true amounts they had stolen.) But the women of the Seattle soon developed another source of income by supposedly selling their housekeys to drunken patrons who would pay from $1 to $5 each for a key. The keys of course were bogus, and the police soon put an end to this practice after receiving numerous complaints from homeowners about drunken men searching hopelessly in the middle of the night for locks their keys might open.<br />
<br />
When the Seattle was sold in 1908, its name was changed to the Dash. The waitresses were replaced by male cross-dressers who for $1 would perform whatever sex act was requested. It was soon revealed that the new managers were two officers of the Superior Court under Judge Carroll Cook. The place was closed six months after it had opened.<br />
<br />
'''1910-1920: ''' In 1911 the Board of Health established a Municipal Clinic which compelled every prostitute to submit to examination and necessary treatment for disease. Prostitutes were required to carry a booklet listing her record of medical examinations, and no woman was permitted inside a brothel without a medical certificate. The Clinic existed for only two years, but in that time reduced venereal disease in the red-light district by 66 percent. The Clinic was fought bitterly by nearly every clergyman in the city. [[Mayor "Sunny Jim" Rolph | Mayor James Rolph, Jr.,]] who had gone on record as supporting the work of the clinic, eventually succumbed to the political pressure brought to bear by the clergymen and ordered police protection withdrawn from the clinic. Soon afterward the Clinic closed its doors and diseases once again raged unhindered throughout the red-light district.<br />
<br />
The defeat of the Union Labor Party in 1911 marked the beginning of the end of the Barbary Coast. Gone was the general feeling of Gold Rush days that San Francisco must remain a wide-open city. In 1912 the new Police Commissioner Jesse B. Cook launched a direct attack on the Barbary Coast publishing his plans in the newspapers:<br />
<br />
1) All dance-halls and resorts patronized by women in Montgomery Avenue (now Columbus) west of Kearny Street and on both sides of Kearny Street to be abolished.<br />
<br />
2) Barkers in front of the dance-halls in Pacific Street to be done away with and glaring electric signs forbidden.<br />
<br />
3) No new saloon licenses to be issued until the number had been reduced to 1500 which was to be the limit in future.<br />
<br />
4) Raids to be made against the blind pigs.<br />
<br />
In February of 1913 another resolution was adopted: Resolved, That no female shall be employed to sell or solicit the sale of liquor in any premises where liquor is sold at retail to which female visitors or patrons are allowed admittance. The enforcement of this resolution proved completely futile, but it did send out the message that the Barbary Coast of old was not to be tolerated. But it was the ''San Francisco Examiner'' under the leadership of William Randolph Hearst which led the crusade that eventually brought down the Coast. Many churches and welfare organizations promptly jumped on the ''Examiner'''s bandwagon, and on September 22, 1913, the Police Commission adopted the following resolution: Resolved, That after September 30, 1913, no dancing shall be permitted in any cafe, restaurant, or saloon where liquor is sold within the district bounded on the north and east by the Bay, on the south by Clay street, and on the west by Stockton Street. Further Resolved, That no women patrons or women employees shall be permitted in any saloon in the said district. Further Resolved, That no license shall hereafter be renewed upon Pacific Street between Kearny and Sansome Streets, excepting for a straight saloon.<br />
<br />
In September of 1913 the Thalia displayed the following sign:<br />
<br />
THIS IS A CLEAN PLACE FOR CLEAN PEOPLE -- NO MINORS ALLOWED.<br />
<br />
This sign perhaps more than any other signalled the end of the Barbary Coast. Even the most notorious of the dance halls now had trouble attracting enough customers to stay in business.<br />
<br />
In '''1914 '''the Red-Light Abatement Act gave the city authorities the right to impose civil court actions against any property used for purposes of prostitution. Also during this same time a young Methodist clergyman, Reverend Paul Smith, took it upon himself to launch a tireless campaign against whatever sin and vice yet remained on the Barbary Coast. (It was reported that his sermons were so provocative that prostitutes flocked to the vicinity of his church after the services, where they found eagerly aroused customers). Rev. Smith's campaign against immorality came to a head on a January morning when more than 300 prostitutes dressed and perfumed in their finest marched to the Central Methodist Church to confront the minister. When admitted to the church they posed the question, How are we to make a living when all the brothels have closed? The Rev. is said to have replied that he would work tirelessly to establish a minimum-wage law and would assist the women in finding new employment. He claimed that a virtuous woman with children could live on $10 a week. That's why there's prostitution! came the reply, at which point the ensemble left the church in disgust.<br />
<br />
In '''1917''' the Supreme Court rendered its final decision on the Red-Light Abatement Act. Dancing was now prohibited in all cafes and restaurants anywhere in the vicinity bordered by Larkin, O'Farrell, Mason and Market; all private booths were removed in establishments where liquor was sold; and unescorted women were to be ejected from such premises. These regulations effectively closed down such notorious Barbary Coast establishments as the Black Cat, the Panama, the Pup, Stack's, Maxim's, the Portola, the Louvre, the Odeon and the Bucket of Blood.<br />
<br />
'''1920s: '''In one final gasp at life, the Barbary Coast recalling its former glory as the most notorious section of San Francisco, once again attempted to resurrect itself in 1921. The Neptune, Palace, Elko and Olympia again opened their doors, selling near beer and featuring a few dancing girls. But the watchful eye of Mrs. W. B. Hamilton, Chairman of the Clubwomen's Vigilante Committee, soon saw to it these newly opened dens of iniquity were not to be endured. She reported to the newspapers, I have visited dancing places in Honolulu, Tahiti and various islands of the South Pacific, but I saw nothing in those places more obscene and morally degrading than I saw in the Neptune Palace. The police took immediate action and the Barbary Coast was at last closed down for all time.<br />
<br />
'''1940s: '''U.S. military insists on shutting down brothels and bars around the city as tens of thousands of soldiers pour through San Francisco en route to and from the Pacific Theatre of War.<br />
<br />
'''1950s: [[Mayor George Christopher | Mayor George Christopher]]''' appoints a beat cop as police chief and Chief Ahern instigates a crackdown on police corruption and vice tolerance.<br />
<br />
'''1960s: '''Carol Doda takes off her top at the Condor Club at Broadway and Columbus. She becomes a big celebrity and contributes mightily to San Francisco's now-restored reputation as a town where anything goes.<br />
<br />
'''1970s: '''Pornography industry gets a big boost by the entry of two Bay Area brothers, the infamous Mitchell Brothers. Their first feature porn film, '' Behind the Green Door'', brings hardcore pornography into wide circulation. Their club on O'Farrell endures hundreds of raids by SFPD Vice officers, but is never shut down. Lap Dancing and other forms of nude entertainment are accepted in the City.<br />
<br />
''- Terry Hawkins''<br />
<br />
[[Image:downtwn1$hippodrome.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''The Hippodrome in 1890'''<br />
<br />
<br />
''photos: San Francisco Public Library<br />
<br />
[[San Francisco's Sleaziest Street - Yesterday and Today | Prev. Document]] [[Shanghai_text_box | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=MANILATOWN&diff=5760MANILATOWN2008-04-10T07:24:08Z<p>Gjamin: replaced prev document link, was: "The Battle for the International Hotel" (doesn't exist), now: "I-Hotel Eviction Summary"</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:filipin1$filipino-banquet-1960.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Family banquet, c. 1960''' ''photo: Mortel''<br />
<br />
The 20 percent of early 20th century Filipino immigrants that remained in San Francisco formed a bachelor community in a 3-block radius around Kearney Street and Jackson, next to Chinatown. These "San Franciscan" Filipinos worked in restaurants as cooks and waiters and in hotels as bell-hops and "elevator boys." Others worked in the domestic service sector as house servants, cleaners, and chauffeurs. Some even started their own businesses that catered to a primarily Filipino clientele. Filipinos owned and operated pool halls, lunch counters, restaurants, coffee shops, clothing and grocery stores and gambling establishments. They had names like the "Manila Cafe," the "New Luneta Cafe," the "Bataan Lunch," the "Sampagita Restaurant," "Mango's Smoke Shop," "Blanco's Bar," and "Teno's Barber Shop."<br />
<br />
One such business establishment was the New Luneta Cafe, located right in the middle of "Manilatown" on Jackson and Pacific. In the front it was a lunch counter that served Filipino food: chicken adobo (stew), pancit (noodles), and rice, the Filipino's staple. But behind the lunch counter was another business enterprise: tables that supported card games of rummy and poker. Gambling was one of the means by which some Filipinos supported themselves during the off-season in the San Joaquin-Sacramento farms and Alaska salmon canneries. The pool halls and lunch counters also served as information centers and mailing addresses for migrant Filipino workers. Employment opportunities were posted on chalk boards with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of prospective employers. It was also a good source of information for finding one's relatives and friends: someone would inevitably know where a certain Filipino was living and working.<br />
<br />
The Kearney Street Filipino community, known as "Manilatown" to its inhabitants, was a migratory community that provided temporary employment and supported Filipinos during the off-season in the farm fields and the salmon canneries. Ordinary San Franciscans avoided Manilatown, and thought that the Filipinos living there were dangerous and socially undesirable. They were described as pickpockets and "trouble-making Filipinos."<br />
<br />
Surprisingly, the Hall of Justice and the San Francisco Police Station were located only a block away from Manilatown, but the police never shut down Manilatown's gambling operations, except for the carefully orchestrated police raids to calm the fears of City residents. Filipino business owners would be warned by the police that a raid was about to occur, and be advised to lay low. Afterwards, it was back to business as usual. At its height, over 1,000 residents, mostly Filipino bachelors, lived in San Francisco's Manilatown. The community's migrant population lived in places such as the International Hotel, the Palm Hotel and the Columbia Hotel.<br />
<br />
This Kearney Street Filipino community lasted until the late 1950s and early 1960s when the development of San Francisco's "Financial District" increased leases and property taxes. When the International Hotel closed down in 1977, the last Filipino residents from San Francisco's Manilatown were forcibly evicted by the police -- an event that made national headlines. Today, the only reminder that a once thriving Filipino community exited along Kearney Street and Jackson is an empty parking lot where the [[The Battle for the International Hotel | International Hotel]] once stood.<br />
<br />
--''James Sobredo''<br />
<br />
[[I-Hotel Eviction Summary | Prev. Document]] [[DALY CITY: THE NEW FILIPINOTOWN | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=MANILATOWN&diff=5759MANILATOWN2008-04-10T07:18:43Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, one link fixt</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:filipin1$filipino-banquet-1960.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Family banquet, c. 1960''' ''photo: Mortel''<br />
<br />
The 20 percent of early 20th century Filipino immigrants that remained in San Francisco formed a bachelor community in a 3-block radius around Kearney Street and Jackson, next to Chinatown. These "San Franciscan" Filipinos worked in restaurants as cooks and waiters and in hotels as bell-hops and "elevator boys." Others worked in the domestic service sector as house servants, cleaners, and chauffeurs. Some even started their own businesses that catered to a primarily Filipino clientele. Filipinos owned and operated pool halls, lunch counters, restaurants, coffee shops, clothing and grocery stores and gambling establishments. They had names like the "Manila Cafe," the "New Luneta Cafe," the "Bataan Lunch," the "Sampagita Restaurant," "Mango's Smoke Shop," "Blanco's Bar," and "Teno's Barber Shop."<br />
<br />
One such business establishment was the New Luneta Cafe, located right in the middle of "Manilatown" on Jackson and Pacific. In the front it was a lunch counter that served Filipino food: chicken adobo (stew), pancit (noodles), and rice, the Filipino's staple. But behind the lunch counter was another business enterprise: tables that supported card games of rummy and poker. Gambling was one of the means by which some Filipinos supported themselves during the off-season in the San Joaquin-Sacramento farms and Alaska salmon canneries. The pool halls and lunch counters also served as information centers and mailing addresses for migrant Filipino workers. Employment opportunities were posted on chalk boards with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of prospective employers. It was also a good source of information for finding one's relatives and friends: someone would inevitably know where a certain Filipino was living and working.<br />
<br />
The Kearney Street Filipino community, known as "Manilatown" to its inhabitants, was a migratory community that provided temporary employment and supported Filipinos during the off-season in the farm fields and the salmon canneries. Ordinary San Franciscans avoided Manilatown, and thought that the Filipinos living there were dangerous and socially undesirable. They were described as pickpockets and "trouble-making Filipinos."<br />
<br />
Surprisingly, the Hall of Justice and the San Francisco Police Station were located only a block away from Manilatown, but the police never shut down Manilatown's gambling operations, except for the carefully orchestrated police raids to calm the fears of City residents. Filipino business owners would be warned by the police that a raid was about to occur, and be advised to lay low. Afterwards, it was back to business as usual. At its height, over 1,000 residents, mostly Filipino bachelors, lived in San Francisco's Manilatown. The community's migrant population lived in places such as the International Hotel, the Palm Hotel and the Columbia Hotel.<br />
<br />
This Kearney Street Filipino community lasted until the late 1950s and early 1960s when the development of San Francisco's "Financial District" increased leases and property taxes. When the International Hotel closed down in 1977, the last Filipino residents from San Francisco's Manilatown were forcibly evicted by the police -- an event that made national headlines. Today, the only reminder that a once thriving Filipino community exited along Kearney Street and Jackson is an empty parking lot where the [[The Battle for the International Hotel | International Hotel]] once stood.<br />
<br />
--''James Sobredo''<br />
<br />
[[The Battle for the International Hotel | Prev. Document]] [[DALY CITY: THE NEW FILIPINOTOWN | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=DALY_CITY:_THE_NEW_FILIPINOTOWN&diff=5758DALY CITY: THE NEW FILIPINOTOWN2008-04-10T07:15:30Z<p>Gjamin: credits, captions, links</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:filipin1$manila-express.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Manila Express, one of many Filipino stores in Daly City'''<br />
<br />
Fred Basconcillo, a retired member of the Iron Workers Union (AFL-CIO), sits by a large window in his Daly City home and describes himself as a "Filipino American." Born in the South of Market district in downtown San Francisco in the late 1930s, he grew up in the Fillmore District and has vivid memories of visiting the former "Manilatown" community on Kearny Street. Basconcillo eventually became the president of the Iron Workers Union and represented more than 40,000 iron workers from the Pacific west coast states. Today, as a "Lolo" (grandfather), he plays the role of a benevolent Filipino patriarch, helps in taking care of his grand-daughters, and drives them to school daily. Down the hill from Basconcillo's house is St. Francis Square, a mini-mall filled with Filipino delis, video shops, and grocery stores where one can shop for the latest cassette tapes, CDs and videos coming out of Manila. It also has Tito Rey's Restaurant, a very popular restaurant and nightclub for upscale Filipinos. Dining at Tito Rey's is just like dining at a fashionable Makati restaurant in Manila's financial district.<br />
<br />
This is today's Daly City, the "New Filipinotown" and dubbed by ''Asianweek'' as the "Capital" of the Filipino American community. At 27 percent of the population (1990 census), Filipinos comprise the largest ethnic group in Daly City. It is home to the highest concentration of Filipinos in the United States and a sister city of Metro Manila's Quezon City. It is also a place where Filipinos can pick up several newspaper copies of the ''Philippine News, Manila Bulletin, Manila Mail,'' and the nationally distributed ''Filipinas Magazine''. Filipinos can watch Philippine cable television broadcasts on The Filipino Channel, or on public broadcasts such as "Manila-Manila" TV, "Pinoy Pa Rin!", and the Manila weekly news program "TV Patrol." The "capitol" of this Filipinotown is Serramonte Mall, where nearly everyone you meet is a Filipino and speaks Tagalog, Visayan or Ilocano. Westlake Mall is another popular spot, which also holds a Filipino festival in June. But it is the restaurants and nightclubs that really give the flavor and beat to the New Filipinotown: restaurants such as Goldilocks, Three Bears, Manila Bay Express, and Manila Bay Cuisine, where you can eat chicken adobo, pancit noodles, beef kare-kare with bagoong, and halo-halo ice cream shakes and turon (fried bananas wrapped in crepes) for dessert; and restaurant/nightclubs such as Tito Rey's, Solita's, and Pinay's. On weekends after midnight, after an evening of dancing, Filipinos would form long lines outside the very popular Ling-nam restaurant on Gellert Square and endure a 20-minute wait for a late-night Filipino meal.<br />
<br />
Incorporated as a city in 1911, Daly City citizens were worried of being swallowed up and incorporated into the expanding City of San Francisco. Named after John D. Daly, one of the City's original settlers and owner of the San Mateo Dairy, Daly City was nicknamed "the Gateway to the Peninsula." Originally settled by Irish immigrants, the City eventually became known for its numerous pig and dairy farms, as well as drinking saloons and gambling establishments. In the 1906 Earthquake, John Daly gained popularity when he donated dairy products and provided shelter to San Franciscans fleeing from the disaster.<br />
<br />
After World War II, Daly City experienced a massive construction boom and suburbanization: the famed developer Henry Doelger built Westlake Mall and subdivision, and the brothers Carl and Fred Gellert built Serramonte Mall and subdivision. It was within this context that Filipinos moved into Daly City in the 1970s: the 1968 Civil Rights "fair housing" act was passed and affordable suburban homes were now available to Filipinos.<br />
<br />
Filled with all the familiar reminders of their Filipino culture and lifestyle, Daly City is an ideal community for Filipinos. Breaking the stereotype of Filipinos as being complacent and apolitical, Filipinos had enough of a critical mass and political influence in the 1990s to elect a Filipino mayor. In 1995, Michael Guingona, a second-generation Filipino American and practicing attorney, became Daly City's first Filipino mayor.<br />
<br />
Daly City is nationally known as the Filipino community in America. Right next door to Daly City's borders, however, lies the little-known Fort Funston Park, named after Col. [[A Defense of General Funston Frederick Funston]], the American soldier who captured Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, who led the Philippine Revolutionary Army against the American military forces in the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). Today, while Fort Funston is a park known only to hang gliders, hikers, and dog walkers, Daly City is featured in the front pages of Asianweek as the "capital" of Filipino America and nationally recognized as the new "Filipinotown."<br />
<br />
''-- James Sobredo, 1996''<br />
<br />
[[Image:filipin1$serramonte.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Serramonte Mall in Daly City is sometimes called the "capitol" of Filipinotown.'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:filipin1$manila-bay-cuisine.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Manila Bay Cuisine in Daly City'''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:filipin1$manila-mail.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Newsbox selling the ''Manila Mail'' in Daly City.'''<br />
<br />
<br />
''photos: James Sobredo''<br />
<br />
[[MANILATOWN | Prev. Document]] [[I-Hotel Eviction Summary | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=SOMA_Transformed&diff=5757SOMA Transformed2008-04-10T07:11:05Z<p>Gjamin: credit, links; photo from 1990s? photog's first name?</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:filipin1$filipino-youth.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Filipino youths in the SOMA, 1990s''' ''photo: Liwanag ''<br />
<br />
After the passage of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, many more Filipino immigrants continued to settle in the South of Market. As a result of this huge immigrant influx, [[SOUTH OF MARKET | St. Patrick's]] Catholic Church on Mission Street became predominantly Filipino, and so did Bessie Carmichael Elementary School. By the early-1970s, the Filipino population reached a critical mass and were able to convince San Francisco and the Federal government to fund programs that will serve the needs of newly arrived immigrants and elderly Filipinos. The Dimas Alang House, a retirement home for Filipinos and other San Franciscans, was built with HUD funding. The streets around the Dimas Alang were also named after Filipino heroes: street names such as Lapu-lapu, Bonifacio, Mabini, and Rizal. Indeed, the South of Market is the only area in San Francisco where the streets have Filipino names. To take care of the educational needs of newly arrived Filipino immigrants, the Filipino Educational Center was built and staffed by predominantly Filipino teachers.<br />
<br />
"These days most of the Filipino immigrants are not even from Manila," explains M.C. Canlas, founder and director of Teen Center, a federally funded program that serves young people. "They're mostly from the provinces, especially Pangasinan, where I'm from." Canlas, who left his teaching job in 1984 at the University of the Philippines during the Marcos martial-law era, is one of many Filipino service providers who help keep the South of Market community healthy. Instead of engaging in high risk activities -- for instance, drug abuse, gangs -- young Filipinos now fill their leisure time participating in basketball games and tournaments, arts projects, festivals, and other productive activities. Organizations such as West Bay Multi-Service Inc. help Filipinos find employment, housing and medical services. The leadership provided by women such as "Bullet X" Marasigan of West Bay and Juliet Valerio of the South of Market Health Center has helped in keeping the Filipino community healthy and intact -- no small task in the light of the general public's perception of SOMA as dangerous, drug-infested, and filled with homeless people. Jovito "Jovy" Angat, 24 years old and the activities coordinator at Teen Center, recalls how a group of "activist" students came to visit the Center: "People were scared when they came here. You can see it in their eyes, and we were like, what? You think we're going to mug you?"<br />
<br />
''-- James Sobredo''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Rebuilding of International Hotel Encounters Problems | Prev. Document]] [[José Rizal's Quarantine and the Nightmare of Imperialism | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=SOUTH_OF_MARKET&diff=5756SOUTH OF MARKET2008-04-10T06:58:08Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:filipin1$delta-hotel-and-fil-am-center.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Fil-Am Senior Center in the Delta Hotel at 6th and Mission Streets.'''<br />
<br />
When people think of the Filipino community in San Francisco, the area around Kearny Street and Jackson usually comes to mind. This was especially true in the early-1920s and 1930s when numerous Filipino restaurants, lunch counters, barbershops, pool-halls, and coffee shops were located around the Kearny Street area. This "Manilatown," however, was occupied mostly by Filipino bachelors and migrant workers. Filipinos who had families did not live in "Manilatown." Married Filipinos lived with their wives and families in the South of Market area ("SOMA").<br />
<br />
"I remember that there were lots of Filipinos living in the South of Market," recalls Rudy Delphino, a 62 year-old Filipino American who now works as an employment specialist at West Bay Pilipino Multi-Service Inc.. Delphino's family started out living in North Beach. "Then a lot of Filipinos moved to the South of Market, and we wanted to go where there were people we knew, so we just followed along." Filipino families lived on streets such as Natoma, Tehama, Russ, and Minna. Eventually many Filipino families moved further out to [[fillmore filipinos | the Fillmore District]], the Mission, and [[DALY CITY: THE NEW FILIPINOTOWN | Daly City]].<br />
<br />
But the Filipino community never completely disappeared.<br />
<br />
''-- James Sobredo''<br />
<br />
[[Image:filipin1$filam-veterans-center.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Closeup of the "FilAm Veterans Center" sign on the Delta Hotel, 6th and Mission.'''<br />
<br />
<br />
''photos: James Sobredo<br />
<br />
<br />
[[José Rizal's Quarantine and the Nightmare of Imperialism | Prev. Document]] [[Galleons and Indios | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Rincon_Hill&diff=5755Rincon Hill2008-04-10T06:51:54Z<p>Gjamin: credit</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:soma1$2nd-street-before-cut.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''2nd Street from Market, looking south, 1866, Rincon Hill rises at end.'''<br />
<br />
The word "Rincon" means "inside corner" in Spanish. Before the 1860s the area surrounding Rincon Center was a cove that extended to what is now First Street. Rincon is the name that was given to the hill at the inside corner of the cove. In the early 1850s, wealthy pioneers built large homes on the crest of Rincon Hill, chosen for its views of the city. Noted author Bret Harte lived on Silver Street. Recent excavations in the area also provide evidence of Chinese entrepreneurship in the 1880s when they set up small businesses, including laundries, and small supply stories to serve the needs of the boarding house residents and others working at the docks on the South side of the Hill. Some of these artifacts can be seen in the Rincon Center display cases. The Chinese also had a small fishing village in this area. This village disappeared along with South Beach when the area was filled in the late 1860s. In 1868, they cut Second Street across the hill, which made it no longer a desirable place for the wealthy, who moved to Nob Hill and other neighborhoods to the north. Homes were turned into rooming houses, and many warehouses and hospitals, including Irish, German, French, British, Italian and Swiss hospitals, were built. With the development of the city, however, parts of Rincon Hill were cut down and much of this property was lost. The fire of 1906 wiped out the remaining vestiges of the formerly wealthy neighborhood. What still exists of the hill is largely hidden beneath the entrance to the Bay Bridge.<br />
<br />
Rincon Hill had also been the bastion of the industrial and shipping bosses. As they began to move out and maritime unions became increasingly strong, union leaders began to live in that area and SOMA in general. In their successful heyday, the built several large union halls, and then sadly, over time, began to watch their influence start to fade in the 1950's until today, when there is largely no maritime industry at all.<br />
<br />
''- Northern Calif. Coalition on Immigrant Rights ''<br />
<br />
[[2nd St. Cut |Prev. Document]] [[SOUTH OF MARKET |Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Botanical_Reminiscences_of_South_of_Market,_1896&diff=5754Botanical Reminiscences of South of Market, 18962008-04-10T06:48:54Z<p>Gjamin: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:soma1$south-of-market-1857.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''1857 Map of the South of Market area. The red rectangle outlines the area discussed in "Botanical Reminiscences". Second Street runs from center bottom to the righ side of the map, hitting Marker Street where the word "street" is printed. The Second Street cut is right where the vertical line intersects Second.'''<br />
<br />
The landscape which extended in the years 1850 to 1860 from Mission Creek to the range of hills at present split by the econd Street cut, was in its greater part filled by swamp and bog and Salicornia flat. A turfy fresh-water formation, inland, gradually merged into the Salicornia flat and was crossed by the serpentine courses of the tide creeks.<br />
<br />
This formation was the basis for a system of sand downs overgrown by shrubbery, or occasionally arborescent vegetation. The downs were mostly arranged in parallel ridges, the ridges being most numerous and frequently confluent towards the mouth of Mission Creek. There were no sand downs on the other side, and its vegetation exhibited an entirely different character, depending on hills of serpentine rock and its debris.<br />
<br />
In the direction of the range, now crossed by the Second Street cut, the sand hills diminished in number and size, the ridges became gradually isolated and stopped entirely at a wide flat, in a locality which is now bordered by Sixth and Third Streets, and entered in a very deep, boggy branch, the sand down region, beyond what is now Mission Street.<br />
<br />
The ridges which enclosed this branch were higher than the rest and reached in considerable elevation the line of Howard Street, where they formed a very abrupt boundary between sand and bog.<br />
<br />
The deep, boggy branch that crossed Mission Street, where the swamp formed a valley encircled by deep downs, was the seat of a peculiar, now almost extinct Flora, at least as regards the neighborhood of San Francisco. This locality was the only one inhabited by the now extinct ''Arenaria palustris'', which grew there in company with ''Bides chrysanthemoides, Cicuta californica, Oenanthe californica, Hydrocotyle, Nuphar polysepalum, Typha latifolia. ''<br />
<br />
An arm of this swamp, then inaccessible, even to cows, followed the side of Howard Street, down, bordering the flat as far as what is now Fifth Street, where it became overgrown by arborescent vegetation and ended in a thicket of ''Myrica californica, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, Garrya elliptica, Salix sp., Woodwardia radicans, Asplenium filix-femina, Aspidium aculeatum'', and ''Aspidium munitum'', the latter with almost arborescent trunk.<br />
<br />
As a curiosity, we have to mention several shrubby specimens of ''Cornus nuttallii'', now entirely extinct in this region, its nearest habitat being Bolinas Ridge in Marin County, and even there it is not common.<br />
<br />
There were several valleys beyond the steep ridge which bordered the swamp towards the West. Their chief direction was parallel to the ridge and they were dry and grassy. Their vegetation was about the same as that found now on spots where it has been protected in the cemeteries and Golden Gate Park.<br />
<br />
It was in this region where a few specimens of ''Botrychium ternatum'' grew, a plant of the Sierras, now entirely extinct in our vicinity. The chief difference between the vegetation of this region and that of the sand downs and vales, similar to those now protected by the enclosure of Golden Gate Park was the great abundance of annuals, most of them strictly vernal. I recollect chiefly the different species of ''Erythroea'', then frequently collected and much thought of by the old inhabitants, who used all the species, under the name Conchalagua, against the intermittent fevers, dyspepsia, etc.<br />
<br />
[[Image:soma1$soma-botanical-past-1896$rosilla_itm$rosilla.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Rosilla ('''Helenium puberulum''')'''<br />
<br />
This vegetation disappeared in summer without leaving any trace, and, only where subterranean water courses approached the surface, luxuriant branches of ''Baccharis douglasii, Erigeron philadelphicus'', ''Aster chamissonis'', and Helenium puberulum covered the ground, occasionally overspread by the flowering Twin-berry, Lonicera involucrata with its shining black berries in their dark red involucres, or ''Sambucus glauca'' and ''Ribes glutinosum''.<br />
<br />
[[Image:soma1$soma-botanical-past-1896$twin-berry_itm$twin-berry.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Twin-berry ('''Lonicera involucrata''')'''<br />
<br />
These moist spots became confluent towards the North but towards the South the steep declivity of the ridge separated, in a very decided way, dry sand and inaccessible bog without any intervening transitional formation.<br />
<br />
The bog itself was perceptibly lower at the foot of the hills than towards its center, which was occupied by a characteristic swelling of the turf, which gave origin to a net of interwoven little water-courses, permeating a kind of meadow and themselves covered by a moss-like carpet of an ''Azolla''. The water seemed remarkably clear, but nevertheless deposited on the stems and lower leaves of grasses and herbs a thick ochraceous crust.<br />
<br />
The vegetation of this locality was exceedingly characteristic. It was a kind of Arctic oasis amidst a vegetation of California type.<br />
<br />
Where the water collected into small rivulets, it became hidden under the dense, mossy, and very deceiving carpet of ''Azolla''. The turf consisted to a great extent of ''Cyperaceae'', especially ''Scirpus, Carex'', and, in one locality, even an Eriophorum. Out of this turf emerged the fragrant ''Habenaria leucostachys'' and ''Menyanthes trifoliata'' and, in one locality, ''Epipactis gigantea'', with ''Sisyrinchium bellum''. These were the most conspicuous and at the same time the most frequent plants of the formation.<br />
<br />
Where the rivulets approached and extended to the serpentine course of the tide water creek, the formation changed; the ''Azolla'' carpet dissolved into floating islands before disappearing entirely, the grasses and ''Cyperaceae'' lost their dense turfy appearance and developed higher stems with more conspicuous inflorescence and fewer leaves. Only on the margin of the creeks was developed the characteristic luxuriant turf of ''Distichlis maritima'', frequently grown over by ''Grindelia robusta''.<br />
<br />
Then followed the Salicornia flat, here and there ornamented by ''Cordylanthus maritimus'' and ''Frankenia grandifolia'', abruptly ending in a boggy marsh without any vegetation. Here was the mouth of the serpentine creek, the receptacle of all the watercourses of the flat.<br />
<br />
The mouth of the creek was bordered on its left side by a flat ridge of coarse, dry sand without grass, but sparsely overgrown by ''Frankenia'', ''Statice limonium var. californica'' and ''Heliotropium curassavicum''.<br />
<br />
Species entirely extinct in this region and not found elsewhere: ''Arenaria palustris'', Watson. (This may, some day, be rediscovered in Alaska).<br />
<br />
Species extinct in this region but found in other parts of California:<br />
<br />
''Menyanthes trifoliata, L. ''<br />
<br />
Heliotropium curassavicum, L.<br />
<br />
Cornus nuttallii, Audubon.<br />
<br />
Epipactis gigantea, Dougl.<br />
<br />
Fimbristylis miliacea, Vahl.<br />
<br />
Botrychium ternatum, Swartz.<br />
<br />
Eriophorum (species unknown).<br />
<br />
''Arbutus menziesii Pursh''. This consisted of a single specimen at the brim of one of the ridges, about twenty feet above the turfy level of the swamp, in a locality now covered by Seventh Street, between Harrison and Folsom. It was a straggling tree growing amidst shrubby Quercus agrifolia and Ceanothus thyrsiflorus only to be distinguished from Heteromeles when in flower.<br />
<br />
''--Hans Herman Behr, 1896 ''<br />
<br />
[[Botanical Reminiscences, 1891 | More Reminscences, 1891]]<br />
<br />
''photos: Margo Bors''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[SOMA Lofts |Prev. Document]] [[Rincon Hill label; Aerial 1939 |Next Document]]<br />
<br />
[[category:Neighb:SOMA]] [[category:Decade 1850s-1890s]] [[category:Ecology]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Mechanization_on_the_Waterfront&diff=5751Mechanization on the Waterfront2008-04-10T06:40:19Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links; no B Men page?</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:ilwu2$pier-80-1997.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Pier 80 along Islais Creek in 1997: site of the city's unused container facilities.'''<br />
''photo: Chris Carlsson''<br />
<br />
San Francisco was primarily a maritime port during its first century as a city. The famous Barbary Coast of the 1800s and its associated saloons, boarding houses, and gambling parlors was the home to a shifting population of stevedores, sailors, merchant marines, etc. In 1921 a five-year push by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce to break union power was finally consolidated when a longshore strike was violently suppressed and a company union (known as The Blue Book) came to dominate the waterfront workers. The famous General Strike of 1934 led to a new wave of working class militancy. Three years later, west coast longshoremen left the International Longshore Association, based on the east coast, and created the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), cementing a foundation for a new era of worker strength in San Francisco.<br />
<br />
While the government brought case after case against union president [http://shapingsf.org/wiki/ilwu2$harry_bridges.html Harry Bridges] from the 1930s to the 1950s, trying to nail him as a communist, to deport him, and so on, the workers in the ILWU firmly controlled the labor process along the waterfront and managed to establish some comfortable practices. The men had struck again and again to prevent slingloads from exceeding 2,100 lbs., and by the late '30s were under much less pressure to increase productivity. Eight-men crews were the norm, even though most situations didn't need more than two or four men at a time, so the work crews developed the 4-on, 4-off system, wherein at any given moment during the workday, four men would be sitting around drinking coffee and playing cards while the other four actually worked.<br />
<br />
By the early 1950s the union itself had agreed to discourage such feather-bedding, but larger pressures were beginning to make themselves felt. Shippers were demanding lower costs from the shipowners and the unions. Shippers without sufficiently large loads were beginning to use intermediate freight stations, which soon established the methods of large-scale containerization, a technological change which drastically altered the relationship of living human labor to the quantity of goods being shipped.<br />
<br />
Bridges and the other ILWU leaders began to openly discuss an about-face on mechanization, a process that had been resisted consistently until then. A union investigation into the situation in 1957 concluded Presently it seems possible for the union to negotiate a contract embracing the full use of labor-saving machinery with maximum protection for the welfare of the workers. They sought a contract which would ensure no speed-up when a new machine was introduced; that machines would not create safety hazards; that dock-workers wouldn't be thrown out of the industry; that the workday would be cut while take-home pay stayed the same; that pensions and other benefits would be improved; and that if mechanization reduced the amount of available work, dockworkers would be guaranteed their weekly take-home pay nevertheless.<br />
<br />
From 1958 to its conclusion in 1960, the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association negotiated intensively over the terms of what came to be known as the M&M Agreement (Mechanization & Modernization). Bridges and his colleagues had realized that they could only resist technological changes through guerrilla warfare for so long, and that ultimately it would lead to a showdown. Isolated from a larger labor movement, ignored or harassed by the government, and pressured by the rank-and-file to acquire health benefits, pensions, etc., the ILWU leaders concluded an historic agreement that saved shippers and the industry approximately $200 million during the 1960-66 contract period, and guaranteed longshoremen of that time wage increases, job security, increased benefits and pensions, and a large retirement bonus, equalling approximately $29 million in additional wealth for the workers.<br />
<br />
In fact, under the M&M, longshoremen increased their wages, men over 62 were given early retirement bonuses of $7,920, and all medical, dental and pension benefits increased. But younger workers were sharply critical, with over a third voting against the deal. The writer Eric Hoffer, who was then a longshoreman, said This generation has no right to give away, or sell for money, conditions that were handed on to us by a previous generation. A common complaint graffitied in piers and waterfront warehouses was that the speed-up was back with the M&M as slingloads increased dramatically -- [[B Men and Automation: A Mid-60s Analysis Bridges Loads]] they were called.<br />
<br />
One San Francisco longshoreman even got up in a 1963 union meeting and said:<br />
<br />
Brother Bridges has been saying for years that when the newspapers begin saying good things about him, it's time to get the recall machinery in motion. Brothers! That time has come!<br />
<br />
The speaker was censured by the local's executive board at the next meeting, and when that was in turn reported to the rank-and-file, they hooted down the board's move derisively.<br />
<br />
With the port doing a booming business throughout the early 60s, in large part due to the Vietnam War, the longshoremen found an accumulation of $13 million in their M&M fund by the 1966 end of the contract. After a few proposals were kicked around, the union voted to pay out $1,200 bonuses to all 10,000 full-time longshoremen on the Pacific Coast. A new agreement dumped the 35-hour week guarantee, but increased lump sum retirement bonuses to $13,000, increased wages and benefits. Meanwhile the Port of Oakland across the bay invested heavily in the new container cranes. Oakland also had the space to accommodate large storage areas and was conveniently served by direct rail and road lines from the Central Valley and all points north, south and east. By the mid-1970s, the San Francisco waterfront had been largely abandoned as too little, too slow, and too inefficient. A brief flurry of old-style longshoring accompanied the earliest days of consumer goods from China, but that, too, was soon supplanted by containerized shipping to Oakland to Long Beach and Los Angeles in southern California, and Seattle in the north.<br />
<br />
In hindsight we can see that the M&M deal struck by the ILWU was the essence of an arrangement between capital and labor in the 20th century U.S. The union bargained away control over technological change in exchange for payment to the existing workforce and its retirees. Ultimately it agreed to become a much smaller labor aristocracy, although one could argue that the union had no choice under capitalist modernization.<br />
<br />
This agreement was the turning point in San Francisco's economic history. After a hundred years of maritime, trading, and manufacturing in the city, San Francisco began its turn in becoming a headquarters city, a popular tourist destination, and a service sector capital. Regional planning, begun in earnest during WWII, led to new transportation grids and decentralization of blue collar industries. The ILWU's formal agreement to cooperate with a great technological leap in their work killed the San Francisco port and its jobs, and led to thousands fewer jobs in the large ports of today. It also signaled a willingness to submit by San Francisco's last bastion of serious labor resistance, the strikers of 1934. When the ILWU supported Joe Alioto for mayor in 1967, and went on to have leaders appointed to the Redevelopment Agency by Mayor Alioto, they completed their transition from ''acquiescing'' to ''enforcing'' the plans of the local and national elite.<br />
<br />
ILWU representative Wilbur Hamilton was appointed to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency in 1968 and soon after got the job of project manager for the Western Addition A-2 project, the SFRA's largest neighborhood clearance plan. Hamilton gave a black , pro-labor face to the essentially white racist slum clearance plan devised in the boardrooms of downtown San Francisco.<br />
<br />
Hamilton became the Executive Director of the SFRA in 1977. An ILWU organizer, Rick Sorro, was appointed to Mayor George Moscone's Select Committee on Yerba Buena Center in March, 1976. The ILWU, while less ardent than the SF Building Trades Council, the SF Central Labor Council, and the Teamsters Joint Council, had been supporting the South of Market redevelopment project called [[TOOR (Tenants and Owners in Opposition to Redevelopment) | Yerba Buena Center]], which was to include a new Convention Center. Ironically, this redevelopment plan came largely at the expense of retired longshoremen and other port workers who inhabited the old neighborhoods which were designated blighted in order to facilitate eminent domain clearance by the Redevelopment Agency. (See [[Fillmore Redevelopment | Western Addition Blues]])<br />
<br />
''--Chris Carlsson''<br />
<br />
[http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php Containers]<br />
<br />
<br />
[[A Community That Fights | Prev. Document]] [[B Men and Automation: A Mid-60s Analysis | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=A_Community_That_Fights&diff=5750A Community That Fights2008-04-10T06:29:33Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:ilwu2$longshore-scrap-demo-1937.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Demo against scrap metal to Japan, 1937 '''<br />
<br />
By the late 1930s, San Francisco longshoremen could walk the Embarcadero and work the docks and ships with a very considerable dignity. The most concrete expression of that dignity. . . was a quite extraordinary on-the-job militancy.<br />
<br />
There were three distinct, yet frequently interrelated components to this militancy: (1) the enforcement of the contract, (2) an insistence upon safety, and (3) an insistence that the work proceed sensibly. Broadly speaking, an effective militancy could be exercised by the men simply because their employer was fundamentally dependent upon their initiative and good will. . . Because of the experience, skills and innovative talent which he brought to the job, the good longshoreman could routinely exercise a very effective job control when in his judgement that seemed necessary. . . The men upon whom the employer could most readily rely for a really first class stevedoring job and a very conscientious performance of the work were men who were viewed by their fellow workers as the very best of union men and the most militant of their union brothers.<br />
<br />
The ability and willingness to undertake disciplined and well-planned job action, i.e., work-stoppages or mini-strikes of limited scope and short duration, became the very hallmark of the San Francisco longshoremen. . . While the men were destined to evolve a great number of ways of collectively expressing and, therefore, experiencing their community with one another, job action was for years ''the'' mass, democratic form. It was also the most direct, immediate and vibrant. As a collective expression and experience of community, job action was a veritable fountainhead of organizational lan and individual verve. By concretely reminding the men of the nature of their struggle and of the means whereby disputes and grievances might be resolved to their satisfaction, it was also destined to play a vital role in their evolution and self-education as a community. Hence, the militancy of these men was . . . the most complete expression and embodiment of their occupational satisfaction.<br />
<br />
- Herb Mills, ''The San Francisco Waterfront: The Social Consequences of Industrial Modernization, Part One: The Good Old Days''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Image:ilwu2$longshore-job-action-1943.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Quick job-action against new no smoking policy, 1943. '''<br />
<br />
''photos: San Francisco Public Library ''<br />
<br />
[[50th Anniversary of 1934 General Strike | Prev. Document]] [[ Mechanization on the Waterfront | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=50th_Anniversary_of_1934_General_Strike&diff=574950th Anniversary of 1934 General Strike2008-04-10T06:26:22Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:ilwu2$marching-longshoreman.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Marching Longshoremen 1934'''<br />
<br />
"The 1934 strike was the beginning. Once you had organized the waterfront you could begin thinking about changing the whole fabric of California's political and social life.<br />
<br />
So 1984's the anniversary of that, and that had been an event that was just, in our union, it's like the birth of Jesus in a church. It's like this is when it all started, this is our whole spiritual center. This is what when a younger member comes we beat him or her up with, and it becomes a little empty at some point, it's "oh yeah, tell me something new. "<br />
<br />
In 1984, we attempted to make something out of it. We hired some artists in the Mission who put up a beautiful [[ILWU mural mural]] down on Steuart and Mission, and we had a great party down at Fort Mason. Everybody came and looked at pictures and heard a few speeches, listened to music, and it was a really nice event. We also did some writing."<br />
<br />
''- Danny Beagle, former ILWU staffer''<br />
<br />
<br />
"The fiftieth anniversary celebration has many meanings. It is first of all a solemn memorial for the union men [''and they were all men''], who gave their lives on this coast in the summer of 1934, so that those who came after could achieve through unionism a greater measure of security and dignity. It is also a time to remember the men and women who paid their dues on countless picket lines, who were beaten, jailed, harassed by their employers. It is a time to remember all those leaders sprung from the rank and file and poured their life's energy into this union. ''[You know as I read this to you it sounds like such potboiler, but it's really true. There were generations and generations of people for whom the union was the center of their life, into which they poured everything in there, in a way I don't think we can understand.]'' We can look back at the past half century with enormous pride. Hundreds of thousands of working men and women got a better shake out of life because of what we have been able to do together. The group of essentially casual laborers welded themselves into an effective and disciplined fighting force, won a decent way of life and respect in the communities in which they lived. They laid the basis for a democratic and progressive labor movement for the whole coast.<br />
<br />
More than anything else, it's a celebration of a rich and varied history. Many crimes have been committed against working people over the years, not the least of which is the destruction of our past. Educators and politicians have paid little attention to labor's contributions, and we as union members are not blameless. We have not really educated our younger members, we have not made the past come alive for them, and therefore we have denied them an honest and wholesome perspective on the present or the future. We can no longer afford the luxury of indifference or ignorance.<br />
<br />
Over the past few years the labor movement has taken a series of body blows which have sapped its strength and have put it on the defensive. These attacks originate in the White House and trickle down to the lowest regional office of the National Labor Relations Board. They begin in corporate offices of companies like Louisiana-Pacific and Phelps Dodge ''[that was the enemy that month]'' and work their way down to even the smallest employers. We are concerned about the future of our jobs, the industries in which we work, the world that our children will inherit. We are therefore inclined more and more to look in the past for some sort of anchor to discover our roots. We don't want just a few names and dates, but a living, ongoing story in which we can see ourselves as actors as well as spectators.<br />
<br />
So as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the General Strike of 1934, it's time for a fresh look. Young workers in particular must look at 1934, and ask what relevance it has for them. For the generation of west coast workers who went through the Depression the answers are self-evident. The '34 Strike was the main event, their passage into first-class citizenship, by establishing a solid union presence on the west coast waterfronts. By doing away with the humiliation of the shape-up, the fink hall and the company union, the '34 Strike changed the face of the waterfront forever. The same might be said for the generation which came on during and after WWII. They may not have participated in the actual events of the strike, but their fathers and uncles did. As kids growing up in the 1930s they had seen the changes, whether it was the growing stability of their family life, the increased self-respect of the adults around them or a little more meat on the table. The generation of the '50s and '60s, the generation who put together the first pension and health and welfare programs, also understood that they were enjoying the payoff of the sacrifice of 1934. The Big Strike remained a vivid memory and was clearly responsible for their being able to enjoy a degree of comfort and security undreamed of by their parents.<br />
<br />
But what are we to say to the young people of today, people who are separated from the '30s by the tremendous changes which have taken place in those years? For them, 1934 is a heroic dream, a golden age, when the labor movement was fresh and young, when things were simpler, a matter of right and wrong. What was so unique and so instructive about 1934 and in fact about the whole CIO experience, was that it was a creative response to change in society. Over the 50 years preceding the '34 strike, American industrial life had changed dramatically. The village blacksmith became a steelworker in a huge plant, the assembly line diluted craft skills. But we in the labor movement were still acting as if it were 1870 or thereabouts. Our little craft unions, jealous about our own spheres of control, only about maintaining our jurisdiction, our burial societies, the world was passing us by. So here we are again.<br />
<br />
The creative part of the CIO ideas expressed on the waterfront was the unity of all workers. That meant the end of the competition between the skilled man and the casual. It meant the hiring hall and equal work opportunity. It meant a coast-wide contract so that ports couldn't be played off one against the other. It meant unity with the sailors. Industrial unionism on the west coast succeeded so well because it fitted the circumstances of corporate development so well."<br />
<br />
''-- Jim Herman, ILWU president in 1934''<br />
<br />
[[The Dialogue | Prev. Document]] [[A Community That Fights | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Dialogue&diff=5748The Dialogue2008-04-10T06:21:14Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits, links</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:ilwu2$ships-hold.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Longshoreman working in a ship's hold.'''<br />
<br />
A centralized sign-in and dispatch for work and the physical existence of a hiring hall meant that over a period of time the hall men became very well acquainted. Their acquaintance was also reinforced when they were dispatched to the same gang, ship or dock. Since hall men were dispatched to fill out the gangs with needed men, acquaintances between the hall and gang men also developed over time. The men of different gangs were likewise destined to become acquainted by being dispatched to the same ship and, not infrequently, by having been assigned to opposite ends of the same hatch. With the passage of time, then, most of the San Francisco longshoremen had developed at least some acquaintanceship with all of their union brothers. The average longshoreman was also destined to become very well acquainted with a considerable number of those men. For most men, such acquaintanceships frequently grew into a real and lasting friendship. Friendships were also spawned and strengthened over breakfast at the many waterfront cafes, at the coffee break, with a deck of cards at lunch, and when the men were sent to supper prior to finishing a vessel (this continued until 1966). Then, too, some of the brothers were not adverse to getting together for a drink or two following the end of their shift.<br />
<br />
Endless conversation thus ensued. As might be supposed, such conversation frequently drifted to the work and to union matters. But the men were also known to discuss such diverse topics as women, baseball, gambling and horse racing, capitalistic exploitation and the profit motive, fascism, and, of course, the great depression -- that unforgettable fountain of experience from which they had all been obliged to drink. There emerged a quite extraordinary world of discussion, reflection and debate.<br />
<br />
The opportunity for conversation did in no way end when the men went to work at the beginning of their shift or when they returned from lunch or supper. There was little machine noise (and no sustained machine noise) either on the dock or in the cargo sheds. This was also true aboard ship, except when older Johnson-bar steam winches were being used, but even then the cycle of the cargo hook meant that the clattering of the hoisting gear was at least intermittent. Then, too, the pace and cycle of the work between the inshore and offshore sides of the hold invariably allowed the holdmen to converse while the hook kept moving and the work proceeded.<br />
<br />
There were two sets of circumstances, however, in which a longshoreman would invariably terminate an on-the-job conversation. First, when he felt that a man with whom he was working was intentionally failing to do his share; and second, the silent treatment was administered when a man refused to work in a safe and sensible manner. To put the matter simply, one did not converse with a man who failed to reflect a sense of pride and community in accomplishing the work at hand. At this point, then, the discussion comes full circle -- the nature and structure of the work was such that it could give rise to a community and brotherhood of men who took pride in its performance.<br />
<br />
-- Herb Mills, ''The San Francisco Waterfront: The Social Consequences of Industrial Modernization, Part One: The Good Old Days''<br />
<br />
[[Image:ilwu2$dock-workers.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Dock Workers'''<br />
<br />
''photos: San Francisco Public Library ''<br />
<br />
[[The Hiring Hall | Prev. Document]] [[50th Anniversary of 1934 General Strike | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Hiring_Hall&diff=5747The Hiring Hall2008-04-10T06:17:45Z<p>Gjamin: fixed linx</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:ilwu2$hiring-hall.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''ILWU Hiring Hall'''<br />
<br />
The central demand of the long and bitter West Coast longshore strike of 1934 focused upon the "shape-up" -- the practice of hiring men from amongst those who showed up each morning at one or another of the pierheads. The union sought -- and won a hiring hall jointly administered and operated by the employers and union through a labor relations committee. As countless union publications subsequently put it, the ILWU is the hiring hall.<br />
<br />
The reasons for this demand were simple enough -- the shape-up was riddled with favoritism, discrimination, corruption, and pay-offs in the hiring of men. On the job it was distinguished by a relentless, exhausting and hazardous speed-up which was in turn very effectively enforced by capricious and arbitrary firings. By contrast, the hiring hall meant the preferential dispatch of union men. While promoting union membership directly, this also reduced the number of firings simply because the man who was fired was almost always replaced by another union man.<br />
<br />
The second basic and fundamentally important feature of the hall was its low-man-out system of job dispatch. This meant that, in any given job category, the man who had worked the least number of hours during the current quarter had the ''right'' to be dispatched first. The hiring hall also meant a centralized and scheduled dispatch, thus obviating the need to travel from pier to pier in an oftentimes endless search for work. In these ways, the degrading evils of the shape-up were to be precluded.<br />
<br />
By equalizing their work opportunity, the low-man-out system also helped to equalize the income of the men in each job category. Another source of explosive competition was eliminated when the principle of seniority was firmly incorporated into the employer-union machinery for promoting men from one job category to another. Eventually, the dispatch of gangs was also based upon a low-gang-out system. While this, too, eliminated an historic source of favoritism, it also tended to equalize the income of the gang men. Constant attention was paid to the relative work opportunity of hall and gang men, but an equalization was in large measure maintained simply by the men exercising their option of working either in a gang or from the hall.<br />
<br />
The hiring hall was indeed the union. It was ''the'' institution whereby the reality of community could be fashioned and maintained by men who had agreed to structure and divide their work on a fair and equal basis and who, through great strife and conflict, had won the right to do so. As for the on-going fairness of the dispatch system, that was to be insured by the men annually electing their representatives to the joint Labor Relations and Promotions committees from their own ranks. An annual election of dispatchers by and from the ranks was also to assure the honesty and fairness of its day-to-day operation.<br />
<br />
-- Herb Mills, ''The San Francisco Waterfront: The Social Consequences of Industrial Modernization, Part One: The Good Old Days''<br />
<br />
[Herb Mills interview: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22herb%20mills%22]<br />
<br />
''photo: San Francisco Public Library''<br />
<br />
[[Harry Bridges | Prev. Document]] [[The Dialogue | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Hiring_Hall&diff=5746The Hiring Hall2008-04-10T06:15:17Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits; attempt at fixing external link</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:ilwu2$hiring-hall.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''ILWU Hiring Hall'''<br />
<br />
The central demand of the long and bitter West Coast longshore strike of 1934 focused upon the "shape-up" -- the practice of hiring men from amongst those who showed up each morning at one or another of the pierheads. The union sought -- and won a hiring hall jointly administered and operated by the employers and union through a labor relations committee. As countless union publications subsequently put it, the ILWU is the hiring hall.<br />
<br />
The reasons for this demand were simple enough -- the shape-up was riddled with favoritism, discrimination, corruption, and pay-offs in the hiring of men. On the job it was distinguished by a relentless, exhausting and hazardous speed-up which was in turn very effectively enforced by capricious and arbitrary firings. By contrast, the hiring hall meant the preferential dispatch of union men. While promoting union membership directly, this also reduced the number of firings simply because the man who was fired was almost always replaced by another union man.<br />
<br />
The second basic and fundamentally important feature of the hall was its low-man-out system of job dispatch. This meant that, in any given job category, the man who had worked the least number of hours during the current quarter had the ''right'' to be dispatched first. The hiring hall also meant a centralized and scheduled dispatch, thus obviating the need to travel from pier to pier in an oftentimes endless search for work. In these ways, the degrading evils of the shape-up were to be precluded.<br />
<br />
By equalizing their work opportunity, the low-man-out system also helped to equalize the income of the men in each job category. Another source of explosive competition was eliminated when the principle of seniority was firmly incorporated into the employer-union machinery for promoting men from one job category to another. Eventually, the dispatch of gangs was also based upon a low-gang-out system. While this, too, eliminated an historic source of favoritism, it also tended to equalize the income of the gang men. Constant attention was paid to the relative work opportunity of hall and gang men, but an equalization was in large measure maintained simply by the men exercising their option of working either in a gang or from the hall.<br />
<br />
The hiring hall was indeed the union. It was ''the'' institution whereby the reality of community could be fashioned and maintained by men who had agreed to structure and divide their work on a fair and equal basis and who, through great strife and conflict, had won the right to do so. As for the on-going fairness of the dispatch system, that was to be insured by the men annually electing their representatives to the joint Labor Relations and Promotions committees from their own ranks. An annual election of dispatchers by and from the ranks was also to assure the honesty and fairness of its day-to-day operation.<br />
<br />
-- Herb Mills, ''The San Francisco Waterfront: The Social Consequences of Industrial Modernization, Part One: The Good Old Days''<br />
<br />
[Herb Mills interview: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22herb%20mills%22]<br />
<br />
''photo: San Francisco Public Library''<br />
<br />
[[Harry Bridges Prev. Document]] [[The Dialogue Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Candlestick_Before_and_After_Stadium_Built&diff=5745Candlestick Before and After Stadium Built2008-04-07T04:25:32Z<p>Gjamin: changed captions, credits</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:basebnew$candlestick-aerial-1950.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Candlestick Point, 1950'''<br />
<br />
This view look generally south towards San Bruno Mountain and the town of Brisbane.<br />
<br />
''photo: Greg Gaar Collection,San Francisco,CA ''<br />
<br />
[[Remembering Nostalgia: SF's Downtown Stadium | Prev. Document]] [[Baseball Menu Text | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Remembering_Nostalgia:_SF%27s_Downtown_Stadium&diff=5744Remembering Nostalgia: SF's Downtown Stadium2008-04-07T04:23:04Z<p>Gjamin: changed captions, credits</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:basebnew$tilden_s-baseball-player.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Douglas Tilden's 1899 statue of a baseball player, Golden Gate Park '''<br />
<br />
The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, children scampering through the stands, cigar smoke wafting amid the suds and peanut shells, "HOT DOG! RED HOT HOT DOG!" bellows a vendor, "COLD BEEEEER" chimes in another . . . Ah, baseball. Baseball's popularity is on the rise again, capitalizing on the middle-aging baby boomers' desire for those elusive qualities of human society: history, continuity, community.<br />
<br />
Baseball is a beautiful game. I've been a fan since I was five years old in the early '60s, and through nearly three decades I've followed the nuances of its subtle, timeless dramas. Growing up with baseball guarantees it a place in my emotional life. Regardless of any specific success or failure of a team or a player, I can always find interest in a given baseball situation. A sense of the game's history along with the endless variations produced in the course of the game make it fresh over and over.<br />
<br />
And this year we Bay Area baseball junkies are getting as much of the good stuff as we can stand: not one, but TWO contenders, and a really good chance for the long-dreamed-of Bay Bridge World Series. For Giants' owner Bob Lurie and the Spectacor Corporation which has the inside track to build the new stadium, should it be approved by SF voters in the fall, conditions could hardly be better. The enthusiasm generated by a winning team is the key requirement to winning the hearts and votes of the city's fans.<br />
<br />
The campaign to "save" the Giants is already in high gear, with Mayor Agnos diving into it with the full weight of his office and his opportunistic instincts. This campaign relies on perpetuating a basic confusion, a vague association between building a new stadium and somehow creating the kind of intimate, warm, idiosyncratic environment we tend to associate with "real" old-fashioned baseball parks like Chicago's Wrigley Field or Boston's Fenway Park. This confusion mixes up a downtown stadium with the history of ''neighborhood'' ballparks, like the aforementioned diamonds, or Pittsburgh's Forbes Field, Cincinnati's Crosly Field, Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, and so on.<br />
<br />
Here in San Francisco we had such a neighborhood ballpark at 16th and Bryant (now the home of the SF Auto Center and Safeway), from 1931-1960 called Seals Stadium. It was an open grandstand facing east and south, seating about 25,000, and it was considered the finest in the United States when it was first built. A number of bars and diners lined Bryant Street across from the park (the Double Play is still at the corner of 16th and Bryant). Workers on the waterfront, or in the many warehouses and small factories around the South of Market and Mission districts could hop an H-line streetcar, among a half dozen transit lines running near the stadium, to catch a game after work or on a weekend. The Giants played their first two seasons at Seals Stadium before moving to the "best, most modern baseball stadium in the U.S." --[[Candlestick_Swindle | Candlestick Park]]-- in 1960, built by Mayor Christopher to lure the Giants to San Francisco.<br />
<br />
As an avid baseball fan I have to confess I have mixed feelings about a plan to build a new stadium. My baseball heart wants a comfortable, warm, intimate ballpark in which to idle away the lazy summer evenings and afternoons of the baseball season. But in my rational mind, I can't begin to justify this profligate waste of money. Moreover, no park, possibly excepting a domed stadium, can bring warm summer evenings to San Francisco, rendering "real" baseball an elusive goal. Beyond that, the neighborhood groups that oppose any new stadium plan area absolutely right when they decry the numerous traffic problems that will accompany any plan. Even with a new light rail line going right to the front gates of a new stadium, Bay Area residents are unlikely to abandon their cars for public transit.<br />
<br />
But ''the idea'' of a new downtown stadium sparks all sorts of fantasies, rooted in a false nostalgia, among many people who ought to know better.<br />
<br />
They dream: Imagine ''walking'' to a game after another empty day at work in an impersonal office high-rise . . .<br />
<br />
Imagine an intimate red brick park with irregular outfield walls and generally asymmetrical dimensions, real grass and the stands extending down very close to the action . . .<br />
<br />
Imagine all the great baseball moments that can happen, that we can all witness!<br />
<br />
''Without ''fans so alienated that they have to be shown fans having fun on a giant TV screen to reassure them that they too are having a good time at the ol' ballpark. . .<br />
<br />
''Without'' electronic scoreboards acting as cheerleaders . . .<br />
<br />
''Without'' exorbitantly priced stale food . . .<br />
<br />
Kind of hard to imagine, isn't it?<br />
<br />
I have a few questions for the nostalgic stadium --OOPS, I mean ''ballpark'' -- boosters out there, which if answered in the affirmative might encourage this hardcore ballfan to reconsider my resolute opposition to providing any public resources or scarce land to yet another stadium:<br />
<br />
Is building a new stadium going to<br />
<br />
* promote a purer, less cluttered, less commercialized form of baseball in San Francisco?<br />
<br />
* challenge our obsession with private cars?<br />
<br />
* bring warmer weather, less fog and cold wind to San Francisco evenings?<br />
<br />
* anchor a new neighborhood with genuine community growing around it? (And I don't mean the fake community of transient lawyers, stockbrokers, and salespeople for whom Mission Bay is being groomed as a safe enclave in a hostile city.)<br />
<br />
* bring ballpark "cuisine" back from the dead?<br />
<br />
I've been to Candlestick in beautiful hot sunny weather and found it a perfectly fine place to see a ballgame. I've been there when there were just a few thousand shivering fans watching balls disappear into the swirling fog and garbage, and realized we've already got a fantastically idiosyncratic ballpark! With a good-sized crowd and meaningful games, even foggy, windy weather is pretty tolerable. And with a classy, winning team like this year's, the Giants are likely to break the 2 million attendance mark --so what's the beef? A losing team will play to an empty ''new'' stadium, with fog and wind-swirled garbage, just like Candlestick.<br />
<br />
Finally, the park is not the real issue. The real beef is owner Bob Lurie's promise to play the Giants anywhere but Candlestick after the lease expires in '94. This multi-millionaire real estate magnate has the gall to blackmail the city of SF, trying to force the city and its business and political leaders to provide yet another white elephant real estate project, as if we didn't have enough already! As a big developer, Lurie is obviously biased in favor of more development for its own sake. But I don't really think Lurie is in this for the money. No, he wants to be a civic hero, the man who "saved" the Giants for San Francisco.<br />
<br />
Bob, be a ''real civic hero'': GIVE OWNERSHIP OF THE GIANTS TO THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO! Then, and only then, will the City have a real stake in the team, and Lurie can properly assuage his guilty real estate-speculating conscience. <br />
<br />
To get an idea of what we'll have if a new stadium gets built, rather than ahistorical fantasies based on Fenway or Wrigley, look at all the downtown stadiums built in the past 20 years: Riverfront in Cincinnati, Three Rivers in Pittsburgh, Veterans in Philadelphia (built by SF stadium developer Spectacor), Busch in St. Louis and so onbig, symmetrical, synthetic, corporateironically, Candlestick was the first of this generation of ugly stadiums.<br />
<br />
Instead, why not put $100 million into something useful like a ''serious'' upgrade in public transportation, bicycle routes, and recreational facilities (like neighborhood ball fields!) for the citizens of SF? Or expand the community health clinic system? The needs of SF's residents far exceed what is being provided by public or private sectors, and it's high time that such grandiose expenditures be put toward those needs rather than satisfying blackmail demands from millionaires. Vote no on blackmail. See you at the 'Stick for the World Series in October!<br />
<br />
''- Chris Carlsson ''(1989)<br />
<br />
''photo: Chris Carlsson''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Candlestick Swindle | Prev. Document]] [[Candlestick Aerial View 1950 | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Candlestick_Swindle&diff=5743Candlestick Swindle2008-04-07T04:18:44Z<p>Gjamin: changed captions, credits</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:basebnew$candlestick-outside-1996.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''Candlestick Park 1996, outside view (looking generally north)'''<br />
<br />
San Francisco has its quota of great untold stories, but few can match the Candlestick Park Swindle in the extent of financial hanky-panky, the wide involvement of political and business leaders and the consuming myopia of the local press.<br />
<br />
Here, on the eve of another move to build another ballpark, is the first complete account of how our first baseball stadium came to be generally acknowledged in just 10 years as the wrong building, built in the wrong place, with more money than was involved in the 1906 graft prosecutions:<br />
<br />
A ball park, billed as costing the taxpayers $5 million, skyrocketed to $15 million in the year of its construction.<br />
<br />
Henry E. North, foreman of the San Francisco grand jury at the time, conducted an investigation and called it a scandal. His grand jury issued a scathing report.<br />
<br />
The local press doctored, then buried the story for good.<br />
<br />
Critics who warned of calamity in the choice of the cold, windy, distant location were hooted down by Mayor Christopher's administration.<br />
<br />
North was pressured unmercifully until he called off his attack on the swindle. He died a broken man.<br />
<br />
Today, as City Hall, the Chamber of Commerce and the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR) begin to thrash the thickets for support for a new $40 million downtown stadium, the fact remains that Candlestick costs have rocketed to more than $20 million (''The Guardian'' defies anyone to get the exact total cost from city hall, custodian of one set of bonds, or from the Bank of America, custodian of the other) and the needed Candlestick expansion and repairs to an estimated $10 million or so.<br />
<br />
There is but one previous authoritative account of the Candlestick swindle: written by free lance writer Lewis Lindsay and published in the June, 1960 edition of Wolfe's new defunct magazine, ''The Californian''. This issue is missing from an otherwise complete collection of ''Californians'' in the main library.<br />
<br />
It all began early in 1953. Mayor Elmer Robinson's administration--and local businessmen--decided to import big league baseball for San Francisco's economic and recreational benefit. A downtown stadium was adequate for San Francisco's AAA minor league club, the Seals, but not for major league fare.<br />
<br />
Hence, Robinson asked the Board of Supervisors to approve a $5 million bond proposition to construct a new stadium. Among the supervisors in approval: George Christopher, soon to become mayor; Gene McAteer, headed for the state senate; Francis McCarty, a future judge; Harold Dobbs, restaurateur and budding Republican candidate for mayor, and John Jay Ferdon, future district attorney.<br />
<br />
In July of that same year, 1953, a local multi-millionaire contractor named Charles Harney purchased 65 acres of land at Candlestick Point from the city of San Francisco for $2,100 an acre.<br />
<br />
Next year, a band of publicists headed by Curley Grieve, ''S.F. Examiner'' sports editor, beat the drums and called the natives to pass this bond issue proposition:<br />
<br />
"To incur a bonded indebtedness in the sum of $5 million for the acquisition, construction and completion of buildings, lands and other works and properties to be used for baseball, football, other sports, dramatic productions and other lawful uses as a recreation center."<br />
<br />
Major league baseball, they proclaimed, would bring untold wealth to the city for a mere $5 million, a price that would be returned many times. After voters approved this in November, 1954, the search began for a site. If there were any doubts the stadium would cost more than $5 million, they were dispelled in a personal meeting between Robinson's successor, Mayor Christopher, and the owner of the New York Giants, Horace Stoneham.<br />
<br />
In April, 1957, Christopher and McCarty flew to New York to talk Stoneham into bringing the Giants to San Francisco. The Giants were losing money in New York, and scouting the country for a new home base.<br />
<br />
To prove San Francisco's support for professional baseball, Christopher waved the $5 million stadium bond issue at Stoneham. According to testimony reported by the 1968 grand jury investigation, Stoneham replied contemptuously:<br />
<br />
"Any figure other than 10 or 11 million dollars shouldn't even be discussed because there would be no possibility or probability of a major club moving to that particular community."<br />
<br />
Back in San Francisco, Christopher reported the need for more money to other city leaders and businessmen. Since the proposition suddenly to double the original bond issue might run into trouble with the voters, they decided to create a non-profit corporation called Stadium, Inc., as a legal arm of the city.<br />
<br />
'''Bypassing the Voters '''<br />
<br />
Operating through this dummy corporation, the Christopher administration could bypass the voters to raise more money.<br />
<br />
Harney and two of his employees were selected as the first board of directors of Stadium, Inc. Christopher told Harney that he would be the contractor to build the new stadium, and his 41 acres of Candlestick land would be the heart of the 77-acre location.<br />
<br />
In 1957, Harney sold back 41 acres of the parcel he had purchased from the city in 1953 at $2,100 an acre. The 1957 price the city paid to Harney for its own former land was $65,853 an acre. That's a crisp total of $2.7 million.<br />
<br />
The city's Real Estate Department approved the deal even though other land adjacent to Harney's was bought at about the same time for just $6,540 an acre. Harney made a profit of $2.6 million on the four-year land ownership switch.<br />
<br />
Not so, Christopher and Harney later contended. Harney had graded and filled the land, and so naturally he was paid for his improvements. One fact raised doubts about that explanation: a $7 million fee awarded to Harney to construct the new stadium included $2 million for stadium construction, $2 million for grading and filling and $2.7 million for real estate.<br />
<br />
Had it not been for the creation of Stadium, Inc., the Christopher administration would have been required to hold open, competitive bidding for the contract, and voters would have seen the price tags.<br />
<br />
By operating through Stadium, Inc., Christopher was able to evade the city charter and arrange the contract in a privately negotiated deal.<br />
<br />
Through the same apparatus, his administration was able to float another $5.5 million bond issue without voter approval. The interest rate on these bonds was set at 5% whereas the interest on the original $5 million bond issue was only 2.4%, a difference that would eventually cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.<br />
<br />
'''Evading an Investigation '''<br />
<br />
In February, 1958, Harney and his employees were removed from the board of Stadium, Inc., after, as the grand jury report later pointed out, "Three influential men then were substituted to represent the city's interest--Alan K. Brown, W.P. Fuller Brawne and Frederic P. Whitman."<br />
<br />
The maneuver came too late to prevent North from instigating a Grand Jury investigation into the strange transactions.<br />
<br />
North, like Christopher, was a Republican and a conservative member of the San Francisco business community. Until his retirement, at 70, he had been executive vice-president of one of the largest property owners in the city: the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He had a strong sense of civic duty, however, and the Candlestick Park deal smelled to him of garbage.<br />
<br />
The report North issued, as the result of the Grand Jury investigation, was potential dynamite. It showed that, shortly before the city purchased Harney's land at $65,853 an acre, adjacent pieces of tideland were sold by the city for less that $4,000 an acre. It did not make sense that Harney's land, partly under water, should have brought $61,000 more from city coffers.<br />
<br />
On Dec. 2, 1958, the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' carried partial coverage of the Grand Jury report. On page 5, the year Harney purchased the city land was stated as 1933 rather than 1953. Of course, the 20-year difference would provide a reason for the tremendous increase in value, because the initial purchase price would have been at depression levels.<br />
<br />
Undoubtedly, it was a typographical error. And no doubt it was by unintentional omission that other salient features of the Grand Jury report were omitted altogether and never printed by the ''Chronicle'' or any other major newspaper.<br />
<br />
North charged that all bond issues negotiated by Stadium, Inc. were illegal evasions of the city charter. Bond payments had to be made from city funds, not the dummy nonprofit corporation, and so the whole deal amounted to legal subterfuge; a way to make taxpayers foot the bill without letting them vote on it.<br />
<br />
The report, drafted by North and signed by 18 other citizens, estimated annual payments on the bonds of $990,000 for the first 15 years of the debt period. Against that, the city was to draw $225,000 a year in rent from the Giants and $225,000 a year from advertising and parking revenues, leaving a balance of $640,000 to be paid annually from taxes or city funds. It was estimated that the city could make up the balance by commanding the juicy television rights; instead, Christopher arranged for rights to go exlusively to the Giants.<br />
<br />
Altogether, it was a marvelous deal for the Giants. In their last New York season, attendance at the Polo Grounds plummeted to 684,000. The club had gone broke and it was almost impossible to give away its stock. After the Giants first season in San Francisco in 1958, attendance tripled over its last year in New York, and their stock soared to $1,000 a share. In terms of revenue, the increase in gate receipts alone meant $3 million the first year.<br />
<br />
While the Giants were reaping enormous profits at taxpayers expense, City Hall and the local newspapers were trying to make it appear that San Francisco, too, was earning money. The ''News-Call Bulletin'', the now defunct Hearst paper, once stated that when all returns are in, the season just ended (1960) will have yielded the city about $530,000. The fact was that the sole revenue to the city was $50,000 received to maintain buildings and grounds.<br />
<br />
The other Hearst paper, the ''Examiner'', stated, on the other hand: City Hall officials said $375,000 of the revenue figure will be used to pay the annual cost of the city's $5 million bond issue. The'' Chronicle'' published this figure: Of the remaining $527,000, the first $375,000 must go toward payment of the city's $5 million stadium bond issue.<br />
<br />
The fact was that all revenues from the ball park and its parking lot had to be used to pay off the $5.5 million worth of bonds issued by Stadium, Inc., with the exception of the $50,000 maintenance income. The other $5 million worth, issued by the city, had to be paid off through real and personal or property taxes collected by the city.<br />
<br />
The result: a projected loss, not profit, of $640,000 the city must pay from taxes or other general city revenues (according to the Grand Jury report), and a loss this year of at least $360,000 (according to figures supplied to ''The Guardian'' by the city controller's office and Mike Barrett, the Bank of America executive who handles Stadium, Inc.'s trustee account.)<br />
<br />
Some annual loss on Candlestick Park will continue until 1993, when the stadium will finally be free of debt and owned completely by the city--unless, it is torn down before then or reconstructed, which will add more debt.<br />
<br />
There was another interesting development at Candlestick: Stevens California Enterprises, which got the food and beverage concession at the ball park, bought all its milk until two seasons ago from Christopher's milk company, Christopher Dairy Farms. The Borden Co. now has the lucrative contract.<br />
<br />
Even though City Hall and the newspapers were misstating facts about the Candlestick story, San Francisco restauranteurs, hotel owners and shopkeepers at least began to realize that they were not making any money from the ball park, as promised by the ballyhooers. Only the Giants, Harney, and Christopher were making money. The Giants were attracting few additional tourists to San Francisco, and area fans who journeyed to isolated Candlestick Point, several miles away, did not stop to patronize downtown establishments. Some downtown business men were angry, and if North's crusade were given time and publicity, they might cause an uncomfortable controversy.<br />
<br />
Christopher sent emissaries to North, but he would not be wooed or pressured from his stand. To the contrary, he made even more vigorous attacks on Christopher and the ball park deal. The lives of future generations had been mortgaged by this shoddy piece of business, he maintained. Christopher was diverting city funds from various departments$1.4 million from street improvement bonds, $1.2 million from state gasoline taxes given to the city for road improvements, $1.5 million from sewer bonds for services to the Giants ball park.<br />
<br />
'''A Hidden Payoff? '''<br />
<br />
Already the cost was $15 million, and it might exceed $20 million when various exits, entrances, widened access streets and the like were built to handle the anticipated large crowds. Privately, North informed civic and business leaders that there was an underhanded payoff in the deal, and he intended to expose it.<br />
<br />
Christopher reacted viscerally to North's charges. With newspapermen present, he asserted North was drunk, incoherent, and fixable. The description was published in the newspapers.<br />
<br />
North went to Nate Cohn, one of the foremost criminal lawyers in California, and they filed a $2 million libel suit against Christopher. In a pre-trial hearing, Christopher's attorney filed a thick brief with 45 motions for dismissal of the suit, hoping to tie up the case inextricably. In just an hour and a half, Superior Court judge Preston Devine threw out all 45 motions, indicating clearly that Cohn and North had a good case.<br />
<br />
'''Breaking Down North '''<br />
<br />
Christopher's friends in the business community went to work on North. The publisher of one of the three daily newspapers, North told me, called on him and said: "Henry, why don't you play ball? You're giving the city a bad name, stirring things up like this."<br />
<br />
At the Pacific Union Club across the street from the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill, where North was already in disfavor for bringing Jewish guests despite the no-Jews-allowed policy, fellow Republican business executives started a snub-North routine. One day, for example, an old business friend greeted North:<br />
<br />
"Say, Henry, I see in the papers there's some fellow named Henry North filing a suit against the mayor and stirring things up. Must be another Henry North in this town, huh?"<br />
<br />
"No, that's me," North told him.<br />
<br />
"Is that so?" the old friend said. He turned his back on North and never spoke to him again.<br />
<br />
I talked to North several times during the siege because I was publishing articles about Candlestick Park in my magazine, ''The Californian'' (now defunct). In those days he was full of fight, willing to take on City Hall and the entire business establishement even if it meant losing every friend he had. He promised to tell me the names of the men involved in the payoff, and he excoriated Christopher.<br />
<br />
"You know what I call men like George Christopher? Black Republicans. Men who never did anything in their lives for the good of the common people. They've never realized that this country as a whole is no better off than the great masses of its people."<br />
<br />
'''The Fateful Fifth '''<br />
<br />
Then they went to work on his wife. Unlike Henry, she was not involved in politics and her life revolved around her friends and social affairs. Her friends snubbed her and she no longer received invitations. She cried, she pleaded, she begged Henry to call off the ball park investigation and the lawsuit, when that did not move him, she threatened him with divorce. Henry began hitting the bottle.<br />
<br />
On June 2, 1960, shortly after I published a detailed article by Lewis Lindsay called "The Giants Ball Park: A $15 Million Swindle," the press broke the story that North had buried the hatchet with Christopher. In its first edition, the ''Chronicle'' correctly reported that North and Christopher had drunk a fifth and a half of Scotch together at Christopher's home, and praised each other for publication"He's a great mayor," North saidand agreed that legal entanglements were finished. The ''Chronicle'' dropped mention of the Scotch in later editions that went to most of its readers.<br />
<br />
Cohn was outraged. "We had this suit won," he told me. "North assured me he was going through with this no matter what happened. But they got to him through his wife, the poor old bastard. You see how they do things in this city? It's so goddamned rotten you can't believe it."<br />
<br />
When I called on North again, I found a complete transformation in his appearance. The look of a peppery fighter with ruddy cheeks had given way to a physical wreck; a baggy-eyed, tired, meek looking man weighed down by defeat.<br />
<br />
The saddest part of the story was that his wife divorced him anyway. Not long afterward, North died of a heart attack. Harney died in December, 1962.<br />
<br />
With North out of the way, with the daily newspapers blacking out the most important parts of the Candlestick Park story, with ''The Californian'' reaching only a few thousand citizens, it looked as though the scandal would never be investigated. In an effort to stir up something, I personally appeared before the Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors and urged their help. One committee member, Al Zirpoli, had said before that he would favor an investigation.<br />
<br />
No committee member challenged any facts I presented. When I finished, John Jay Ferdon, Committee Chairman, said only that he would not favor an investigation. He did not say why. (Six years later, when he had become District Attorney, he told me I was right about Candlestick.) Zirpoli, later to become a federal judge and the judge to hear draft resistance cases, said, "I agree with what Mr. Ferdon says." He suggested, "If there is wrongdoing, your best course of action is a taxpayers' suit."<br />
<br />
I went looking for wealthy liberals to finance a taxpayers suit, but none were in season. Cohn would have taken the suit if I could have found somebody to pay him for his time. All that he could do now was take me to business friends and introduce me.<br />
<br />
The typical reaction came from Sam Cohen, owner of a plush restaurant on Maiden Lane said:<br />
<br />
"Sorry, Burton, I cant get involved. Do you know what Christopher can do to me with his power at City Hall? A Health Department inspector can find something wrong with this restaurant any time he wants. A door is too narrow, my stove does not meet regulations, anything to run me out of business. That's how they do it. You can't fight them."<br />
<br />
Since nobody in the city would fight, I asked Sen. Estes Kefauver, chairman of the Antitrust and Monopoly Sub-Committee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, to investigate. He replied: "As interesting as a study of how the San Francisco ball park deal took place would be, I do not conclude that it is a matter that should be gone into on the federal level. I think that it is entirely a local or state matter, and that the Subcommittee would perhaps be criticized if it moved into this area."<br />
<br />
'''Now Another Ballpark '''<br />
<br />
Here we are eight years later, with a Candlestick Park that enrages so many people that a new mayor, Joe Alioto, wants to scrap it for a new stadium. His announced philosophy is that great public projects should not be waylaid just because all of the people aren't getting enough spaghetti and zucchini. And no doubt many San Franciscans believe that a ball park is a great public project, greater than a school, housing complex or a modern transportation system. That attitude could be the most tragic part of this story.<br />
<br />
''- Burton Wolfe, originally published in the ''San Francisco Bay Guardian, ''March 1972''<br />
<br />
''photo: Chris Carlsson''<br />
<br />
<br />
[[1958-1994: The Giant Years | Prev. Document]] [[Remembering Nostalgia: SF's Downtown Stadium | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=1958-1994:_The_Giant_Years&diff=57421958-1994: The Giant Years2008-04-07T04:13:52Z<p>Gjamin: changed captions, credits; added 1999, title needs update</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Image:basebnew$candlestick-inside-1993.jpg]]<br />
<br />
'''The Giants at Candlestick Park 1993'''<br />
<br />
<br />
'''April 15, 1958''' First game of the San Francisco Giants, played in Seals Stadium. Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 8 to 0. San Francisco embraced its new major league team. Lon Simmons, then a first-year announcer, describes the city's transformation: On the street, at the opera, people would have plugs from transistor radios in their ears, listening to the games... Women would go into the supermarket and ask what the Giants' score was. For the first two years the Giants played at Seals Stadium, seating just under 22,000 at full capacity. That first year in San Francisco, the Giants started four rookies: Orlanda Cepeda (the baby bull) at first base, Jimmy Davenport at 3rd base, Bob Schmidt at catcher, and Willie Kirkland in right field, and by mid-season Willie McCovey joined the team. Willie Mays, already established as one of the greatest players of all time, was less happy with the move to San Francisco. Not only did the fans expect him to prove himself anew, but his initial attempt to [[Blacks in Baseball | buy a home]] in the posh St. Francis Wood neighborhood met with racist restrictions. Orlando Cepeda won the Rookie of the Year award for 1958, and was voted Most Valuable Giant by the local fans: I loved San Francisco. I lived in the city, I went out to night clubs. Herb Caen called me the Cha-cha Kid. (source: A Giant Success, by Glenn Dickey, ''San Francisco Chronicle'', April 2, 1997)<br />
<br />
'''1959'''--Giants lead the league with eight games remaining, but are swept by Dodgers at Seals Stadium, then lose four of the next five games. Rookie Willie McCovey joins team in July and in his first game hits 4 for 4 against Robin Roberts.<br />
<br />
'''1960'''--Opening day in the new home of the Giants, Candlestick Park. Former San Francisco Seals' manager Lefty O'Doul calls the park" ...the most ridiculous site for a ball park I've ever seen. When I was a child, the wind would blow the sheep I was herding off Candlestick Hill. The park proves to have the worst weather of any major league stadium.<br />
<br />
'''1962'''--The Giants win the pennant but lose the World Series to the New York Yankees in seven games. In the final game with the Giants trailing 1-0 and runners on second and third with two outs, Willie McCovey lines sharply to second baseman Bobby Richardson, ending the game.<br />
<br />
'''1971'''--The San Francisco Giants win the National League West on the last day of the season as Juan Marichal beats the Padres 5-1, edging out the Dodgers by one game.<br />
<br />
'''1975'''--The Giants are almost sold to Toronto, until Bob Lurie buys the team and keeps it in San Francisco.<br />
<br />
'''1978'''--The Giants are in first place in August but finish third, with players such as Jack Clark, Darrell Evans, Bill Madlock and Vida Blue.<br />
<br />
'''1981'''--Frank Robinson becomes the first black manager in the National League, taking over the reins of the San Francisco Giants.<br />
<br />
'''1986'''--Roger Craig, former Mets pitcher, and former pitching coach of the World Champion Detroit Tigers, takes over as manager of Giants. Will Clark plays in his first major league game, hitting a home run off Nolan Ryan in his first at bat. Second baseman Robbie Thompson is Rookie of the Year.<br />
<br />
'''1987'''--Giants win the National League West with several important players acquired in mid-season trades. They lose to the Cardinals in the playoffs.<br />
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'''1989'''--The San Francisco Giants advance to the World Series against their across-the-bay rivals the Oakland Athletics, in the first ever Bay Area World Series. Moments before Game 3, the Loma Prieta earthquake rocks the area and the series is suspended for 10 days. When finally resumed, the series becomes anticlimactic to the natural disaster. The Giants lose all four games to the Athletics. A bond issue to build a new stadium is defeated after the earthquake.<br />
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'''1992'''--The Giants are sold to St. Petersburg, Florida, but at the last minute, before the deal can go through, a San Francisco coalition buys the team, keeping it in San Francisco. Barry Bonds is purchased as a free-agent for the 1993 season.<br />
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'''1993'''--Free-agent Barry Bonds and new manager Dusty Baker along with Will Clark, Robbie Thompson, Matt Williams, and pitchers John Burkett, Bill Swift and stopper Rod Beck lead the Giants to one of their best seasons ever, going into the final game of the season tied with Atlanta, each with records of 103-58. The Giants lose the final game to their old nemesis, the Dodgers.<br />
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'''1994'''--Matt Williams has 43 home runs in August when a strike ends baseball for the rest of the year.<br />
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'''1999''' -- The Giants' last season at Candlestick Park. The following seasons are played at newly-opened Pacific Bell (now AT&T) Park<br />
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''- Terry Hawkins''<br />
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''photo: Kit Miller''<br />
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[[Lefty O'Doul | Prev. Document]] [[Candlestick Swindle | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Lefty_O%27Doul&diff=5741Lefty O'Doul2008-04-07T04:05:05Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits</p>
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<div>[[Image:basebnew$o_doul-opening-day.jpg]]<br />
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'''Mayor Elmer Robinson throws out the first ball of the 1948 season at Seals Stadium under the watchful eye of Seals Manager Lefty O'Doul and others...'''<br />
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One of San Francisco's most famous and enduring baseball legends was Francis "Lefty" O'Doul. His name graces the [[3rd St Bridge 1990s |3rd Street Drawbridge]] which crosses Mission Creek next to the site proposed for the new Giants ballpark. His restaurant is still open on Geary Street near Union Square.<br />
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O'Doul was born in 1897 in old [[Hunters Point Mid-1990s | Butchertown]] on the edge of the Islais Creek marshes. He starred for the San Francisco Seals in their heyday, and went on to a respectable 11-year major league career for the Phillies, Dodgers, Yankees and Giants, posting a lifetime batting average of .349, fourth best in history (his fielding was always suspect). After his playing days were over, he managed the SF Seals in the '40s and '50s, dominating San Francisco baseball like no one else ever has. As a San Francisco native, O'Doul had a nonconformist streak which led him to always dress in all green: green suits, ties, socks, even a green Cadillac.<br />
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He died in 1969 and his tombstone says: "He was here at a good time and he had a good time when he was here."<br />
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- ''Chris Carlsson''<br />
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[[Image:basebnew$odoul_itm.jpg]]<br />
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'''Lefty O'Doul'''<br />
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''photos: Greg Gaar Collection, San Francisco, CA''<br />
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[[Post WWII Demise | Prev. Document]] [[1958-1994: The Giant Years | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Post_WWII_Demise&diff=5740Post WWII Demise2008-04-07T04:01:29Z<p>Gjamin: caption, credits</p>
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<div>[[Image:basebnew$seals-stadium-1948.jpg]]<br />
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'''Seals Stadium''', [[16th and Potrero-Seals Stadium | 16th & Bryant]]''', c. 1948'''<br />
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'''1945'''--President Roosevelt dies while writing his speech to the UN Conference in San Francisco. The conference takes all hotel space, forcing visiting players to sleep at the ballpark. Seals' attendance that year eclipses that of many major league clubs.<br />
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'''1946'''--Seals Stadium undergoes needed improvements, and a variety of amenities, making it once again one of the finest parks in the nation. The ugly advertisements on the outfield walls are replaced with solid green. Seals' new owner Paul Fagan attempt to put the Pacific Coast League on a par with the major leagues, paying his players at least the major league minimum. Seals win the pennant with a record of 115-68. Manager Lefty O'Doul is triumphant over rival Oakland Oaks manager Casey Stengel.<br />
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'''1946'''--Formation of the San Francisco Sea Lions, the city's first professional black baseball team. The league in which they played folded after four months.<br />
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'''1947'''--The Pacific Coast League makes a bid to be granted major league status, but is turned down despite favorable response from Commissioner Happy Chandler. As a concession the PCL is given a status above Triple A league, but somewhat short of the Major Leagues. Seals' first baseman Ferris Fain is drafted by the Philadelphia Athletics.<br />
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'''1948'''--The Seals lose the pennant to Casey Stengel's Oakland Oaks, featuring a brash, young, Berkeley kid by the name of Billy Martin. (One particular note: one inning during a Seals/Oaks game was protested and later replayed as Oaks pitcher Buxton was found to have too much pine tar on his glove).<br />
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'''1952'''--The Major Leagues rescind the rule that prevents them from broadcasting games in minor league cities. Dropping attendance in 1953 squelches any hopes of the Pacific Coast League becoming a Major League.<br />
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'''1953-57''' represents the lowest point in San Francisco baseball, with few fans attending games.<br />
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'''1956'''--The Seals become minor league franchise of Boston Red Sox.<br />
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'''1957'''--In a final flash of glory the San Francisco Seals win the Pacific Coast League pennant.<br />
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-'' Terry Hawkins''<br />
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''photo: Greg Gaar Collection, San Francisco, CA'' <br />
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[[1931-WWII: The Seals | Prev. Document]] [[Lefty O'Doul | Next Document]]</div>Gjaminhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=LOS_SIETE_DE_LA_RAZA&diff=5739LOS SIETE DE LA RAZA2008-04-06T05:41:13Z<p>Gjamin: bold caption, needs credits</p>
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<div>[[Image:bastaya$los-siete-cover.jpg]]<br />
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'''Los Siete cover of Basta Ya (1969)'''<br />
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WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED ON MAY 1, 1969, the day that Joe Brodnik died and his partner Paul McGoran was wounded, will probably never come out. But long before any trial began, the newspapers, the other mass media, Mayor and the police, had already accused and convicted seven young men of murder.<br />
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"Hoodlums" and "Latin hippie" types, the ''Chronicle'' called the seven. "A bunch of punks," the Mayor said. As far as most readers were concerned it seemed to be an open and shut case: A gang of young thieves attacked two brave and "idealistic" cops, killing one. The widow of the dead policeman has been campaigning for the death penalty for the seven "killers," and most of the jurors have undoubtedly been affected by this publicity. But a growing number of people deny that Los Siete de la Raza (the Seven of the Race) are murderers.<br />
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Many in San Francisco's largely Latino Mission district knew these young men, knew them as students at the College of San Mateo, as organizers for its outstanding "College Readiness Program," and as "brothers on the block" who had decided to go back to school to develop the skills to serve their people. Los Siete had personally convinced dozens of Latin street youths to go to college, but the newspapers had their own reasons for ignoring these facts, so they painted Los Siete as evil-doers and the police as all good.<br />
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DID THEY DO IT? A fair trial is supposed to answer this question. But the atmosphere of presumed guilt created by the newspapers condemns the seven already on the basis of circumstantial or irrelevant evidence.<br />
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The ''San Francisco Chronicle'''s coverage of Los Siete actually began one week before Joe Brodnik's death. A front page story on April 24, 1969, described "A Gang's Terror in the Mission" -- "A loose-knit gang of idlers and Mission District neighborhood hoodlums are slowly closing a fist of fear around the business life of a once bustling Mission District neighborhood. . ."<br />
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The story was a complete fiction. Five days later another story in the ''Chronicle'' ran saying that business was never better, and that there was no "reign of terror." Some of the merchants personally apologized to Nelson Rodriguez, one of the so-called hoodlums and now one of Los Siete.<br />
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But it didn't matter that the story was a lie. It had accomplished its purpose. There was now an excuse for Alioto to form the new squad of 150 cops "to deal with these punks." The police now had a blank check for terror in the community.<br />
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These extra cops, in the week before Brodnik's death, intensified the police occupation of the Mission district in order to force young people off the streets. Any time two or more young Latinos were spotted together, the police would shove them up against wall and see if they could find an excuse for arresting them. As the ''Chronicle'' explained it, "their job centers around stopping suspicious characters and making sure they are not involved in illegal activity."<br />
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In the eyes of a cop, who is suspicious? "I would stop any suspicious looking person," McGoran told a Grand Jury recently, "Latino, Black or Chinese."<br />
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For black and brown people, being stopped by the police is a terrifying situation, because there is no telling what a cop will do. In the last year, a half-dozen black or brown people have been injured by police gunfire. George Baskett was killed by "Officer" O'Brien during an argument after a minor traffic accident. O'Brien had been drinking. A Chinese woman was shot in the head when a sleepy, drunk cop who lived nearby shot at a howling cat. And recently, a black man, who (police say) had tried to pass a bad check, was shot in the back and killed by a cop. Needless to say, none of these cops was punished.<br />
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Black and brown people know that even a minor encounter with the police can result in death.<br />
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McGoran and Brodnik (and the two-foot rubber hose Brodnik carried with him) were notorious in the community for their harassment of brothers. They were among the most brutal cops, beating and arresting strikers at San Francisco State College and at Mission High. The night before Brodnik's death, Brodnik and McGoran broke into the home of a Latino active in the Mission and threatened him and his family.<br />
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WHAT HAPPENED ON MAY 1ST? Everyone agrees on a bare outline of facts. Brodnik and McGoran were dressed in plainclothes and they were driving an old, battered, unmarked car. They came upon a few young Latinos. One, police claim, was transferring a television set into a car from the home of Jose Bios, 18, one of their friends. The cops stopped and questioned them. Scuffling broke out. Shots were fired and seconds later Brodnik lay dead on the sidewalk, with a bullet from McGoran's gun in him. McGoran was injured. A week later, six of the seven were captured. The seventh, Gio Lopez, remains free.<br />
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Beyond these facts, the police story falls apart. Not a single witness even claims to have seen the fatal shot fired. No evidence links all seven with the scuffle that came before Brodnik's death. And at least one of the seven is proven innocent by McGoran's testimony!<br />
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Seven Latino brothers have been charged with murder. Four of them were not even on the street when the incident occurred. According to McGoran himself, two were upstairs in the house when the shooting took place. Nelson Rodriguez and Tony Martinez were not even in the city at the time. Nelson was in San Mateo, and Tony was in class at the College of San Mateo.<br />
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[[Los Siete Prev. Document]] [[from BASTA YA! April 1970 STRIKE ENDS Next Document]]</div>Gjamin