sign in sign up
<<
Home , Ferdinand Lassalle, Friedrich Ebert, Walter Reuther

IMPERIAL GERMAN IN THE LIFE AND WORK OF UAW PRESIDENT WALTER PHILIP REUTHER

n the minds of many Americans socialism appeared in 1861 under the title Das System der I and are doubtless almost syn- erworbenen Rechte in which he proposed a onymous, and for not a few Americans both "scientific legal system for revolution and were long associated with what used to be socialism." In various drafts he also aligned called the "Red Scare."1 To Germans, on the himself with the proponents of a national other hand, socialism has been a clearly iden- state without Austria in the ongoing "Groß- tifiable mode of thought which has seldom deutsch-Kleindeutsch" debate. been confused with communism and Marx- In 1848/49 Lassalle joined the circles of ism. Most Germans are aware that Marx and Marx and Engels with their rallying organ, the Engels, by applying to practical social prob- Neue Rheinische Zeitung. For a time not only did lems the Hegelian idea of dialectics, arrived at he recommend with them the foundation of a a concept of economic socialism which advo- political party of socialists but he also con- cated the destruction of and the doned overthrowing the state, although only take-over of production by the proletariat. through the peaceful means of granting suf- According to Marx, class struggle was inevita- frage to the working classes. Strange as it may ble. The proletariat had acquired an aware- seem in the light of later developments, the ness that the bourgeoisie together with the goals of Lassalle and Marx were at the time state had to be eliminated so that a "dictator- not greatly divergent. Nor were the two men ship of the proletariat" could advance class- ever at odds about their Utopian goals. The less communism in which the exploitation of means, of course, were very different! Instead man would cease. Although many Americans of violence, Lassalle proposed a method of would not be, most Germans are also aware state supports and credits to establish produc- that it was this brand of socialism which Ger- tion associations which the workers would man governments vigorously, and at times eventually own as their share of the process. violently opposed from the time of Kaiser Lassalle's ideas later became the theoretical Wilhelm I through the period of National basis for the American move- Socialism and still reject today. ment, which was in part derived from late 19th As H. Grebling observes, the German labor century immigrants to the United States, prin- movement in the second half of the nine- cipally those from the Scandinavian coun- teenth century was divided between two tries.4 Lasalle rejected class struggle and sim- streams of thought: "Lassalle's ideas of social- ilar ideologies as devices concocted by the democratic reforms advocating the nation- workers merely to help themselves. With faith state, and the international revolutionary in what was to become unionism, Lassalle socialism of Marx and Engels."2 Like Marx founded the Allgemeiner deutscher Arbeiterverein and Engels, , born in Bres- and became its first president in May, 1863. lau on April 11,1825, had also been a student Through his writings, he supplied the theoret- of Hegel, from whose teachings he had dis- ical basis which ever since has served as the tilled his notion of the state, as a "unity of the foundation on which German state social individuals committed to a moral objective."3 politics has been grounded. He further defined his purpose as the educa- The first paragraph of the new workers' tion and development of mankind for a life of union reads: "...the undersigned establish a freedom. Lassalle's primary published work union which, based on the conviction that

-43- only a universal, equal, and direct franchise tinued to give credit for can secure adequate representation of the to the Lassallean Imperial German model. social of the German working class For example, G. A. Kleene writing in 1901 in and genuine abolition of class differences in the Annals of the American Academy of Political society, aims at effecting, by peaceful and law- and Social Science said: ful means... the establishment of a universal, In the same decade, Liebknecht and his young 5 equal, and direct franchise." Because Las- disciple, Bebel, began to preach to the German salle opposed liberalism per se but supported laborer the ideas of , ideas differing in for all people, he was invited as early important respects from those of Lassalle. The lat- as 1863 for talks with Bismarck, who had been ter's aims were idealistic, national and state socialis- tic; the socialism of Karl Marx was based on mate- Prime Minister of since 1862. At this rialism, was international or cosmopolitan, and time, Bismarck was in a position to prevent hostile to the existing state and to . In the abdication of the Prussian king and to the seventies, followers of Marx and Lassalle united obstruct the constitution, even to govern to form the "Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei" as the against it and the diet of Prussia, whenever he German was then called, and the first platform of the party, the so-called chose. Although the visits between Lassalle program, which contains indications of a and Bismarck remained indecisive as far as compromise between the two groups. As time the history of state-directed socialism is con- passed, the doctrine of Marx became predominant.7 cerned, there is little doubt that Lassalle's Because Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I ideas eventually exerted strong influence on falsely concluded that an assassination at- the social legislation which Bismarck initiated tempt on the 81-year-old emperor had been in the early 1880's. perpetrated by members of the Social Demo- At the inauguration of the German Reichs- cratic Party, the SPD was outlawed by the tag in 1881, Kaiser Wilhelm I instructed Bis- Reichstag in October, 1878, and remained marck to read an imperial proclamation set- under interdiction for twelve years until 1890. ting forth the principles of future German Partly because of the martyr image this action social legislation: "To find the proper ways inspired for the delegates remaining in the and means for this is a difficult but a Reichstag and partly because Bismarck was leading task for any community that is based driven by the ideology of Lassalle as un- on the moral foundations of Christian exist- tainted by Marx, Bebel and Liebknecht, in ence. We hope that closer conjunction with 1883 Imperial passed the program the real forces inherent in this social life and for national health insurance. In 1884 acci- their combination in the form of dent insurance, and in 1889 invalid and old under state protection and state assistance age insurance also became law. Thereafter will also make it possible to solve tasks which the German Imperial package became the the state would be unable to accomplish to the model for the progressive nations of the same extent by itself. It will not, however, be world. possible to attain this objective without sub- Lassallean socialism arrived in the United stantial expenditure."6 States in various stages and forms and at dif- Drawing upon the legacy of Lassalle, who ferent times. Sometimes it came with the had died in 1864, the Kaiser proposed almost heavy overtones of Marx, especially as verbatim the kind of socialism that would couched in the doctrines of Lassalle's two result in the world's first social security system. pupils, and . It was, thus, Lassalle's version of socialism In this intellectual climate on both sides of that would influence the policies and actions the Atlantic lived the extended family of Wal- of the German immigrant worker groups in ter Philip Reuther. Born on September 1,1907, the United States, from New York to Chicago in Wheeling, West Virginia, on the eve of with its Haymarket Riots, and to with Labor Day, Walter was raised in a plain-living its immense number of German industrial but high-minded German-American family.8 workers. Until the outbreak of , Walter was the second of four sons and a many theoretical writers on socialism con-

-44-

A group ofReuther relatives in Ruit or Schamhausen, 1933. Courtesy The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, considerably younger daughter of Valentine Stocker, a German wagon maker who had left Reuther, who had come to the United States Germany. In a grimy, soot-laden section of as an eleven-year-old boy with his father, Wheeling which was sandwiched between the Jacob Reuther, and his mother, Christine Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks on one Fuchs Reuther, in 1892. The family first side, and factories intermingled with dirty settled in the small village of Effingham, coal mines on the other, Walter, like his Illinois. siblings Theodore (1905), Walter (1907), Roy Jacob Reuther was always non-conformist. (1909), Victor (1912), and finally Christine He stood against the local Lutheran church (1923),9 was born. and against Prussian militarism. But Jacob In addition to the hardships typical of the was also very Christian — the Reuthers were times for an immigrant family, the Reuther Christian Socialists by their own designation. family has been characterized by biographer Rather than attending church, Jacob usually Victor as one in which "the Old World per- conducted services at home every Sunday sisted... prayer before every meal; music that morning. Later Lutheran pastors in Illinois goes wherever Germans go. Mother loved to tried to recruitjacob's son Valentine (Walter's sing Swabian folk songs and my father father) for the ministry because he was well enjoyed both his Rhineland songs and the versed in the Bible and Christian ethics, but classical music he had learned in the formal without success. Instead, caught in a seeming male chorus of the Beethoven Gesangverein. dead-end job working on the farm in Illinois, ...According to my mother, some of their Valentine joined his older brother, Jacob, most pleasant hours in those early days were who had already gone to live in Wheeling, spent sitting on the stoop, making music while West Virginia, where steel industries were the neighbors either joined in or expressed mushrooming in the Ohio Valley. their appreciation" (16). Victor also recounts In Wheeling, Valentine met and eventually the outings with the Turnverein in Mozart married Anna Stocker, the daughter of Jacob Park.

-45- The Reuther family was especially taken of other union representatives. Weak in lan- with Philip Reuther, whom Valentine had guage skills, be it English or German, Val helped bring over from Germany and who immediately afterwards (in 1909) enrolled in "introduced my father to the Socialist move- correspondence courses to expand his speak- ment" (17). Although Valentine had been ing and writing skills in both languages. He active in the steel mill union, he had not also read extensively the works of Goethe, formally known Socialist literature and it was Schiller and other classicists and in time Philip who brought it with him from Imperial became an expert who was Germany. Valentine had formed his ideas by called to all parts of the state to assist the reading avidly the materials he got from the fledgling movement. Eugene Debs organization and from the Kan- When Eugene V. Debs became a candidate sas Socialist publishing houses.10 for the presidency, Val often travelled with In the process the Reuthers became avid him on the famous "Red Special," going to unionists. Valentine already had established a workers' rallies and to meetings of ethnic chapter of the International Brewery Workers Germans to make speeches and elicit their Federation, though subsequently he ran into support for Debs as President on the Socialist conflict with the International Brotherhood ticket. Three times he campaigned all over of Teamsters because the latter claimed juris- West Virginia for Debs, in 1904, 1908, and diction for the drivers of beer wagons. Valen- 1912.11 So vigorous was the elder Reuther's tine fought against separating skilled from support for Debs, the Socialist candidate, that menial laborers. When the Schmulbach when Debs was imprisoned during World War brewery later organized, Val Reuther was I for violation of the Espionage Act, Val elected the union's delegate to the Ohio Val- Reuther visited him often in the Moundsville ley Assembly where he soon learned the ideas penitentiary south of Wheeling. Walter and

A home in the village ofRuit or Schamhausen, 1933. Courtesy The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

-46- Victor accompanied their father on one such schools, closed down the Beethoven Gesang- visit in 1919, just before Debs was transferred verein along with other German organiza- to Atlanta penitentiary, and prior to his run tions, and heaped opprobrium on the Ger- for the presidency from prison in 1920. Victor man newspapers published in the area.14 Reuther describes the encounter in his Meanwhile far out west in Detroit, Henry biography: Ford had since 1908 been building his famous "Tin Lizzie" Model T, a horseless carriage When the heavy iron gate slammed shut with a clang, I saw tears running down my father's cheeks. that almost any American could afford. I had never seen him weep before. On the way back Before the T, an automobile had been a rich to Wheeling there was no conversation, until my man's toy, prompting Woodrow Wilson to father broke the silence, shaking his head and say- remark ironically that it was the most impor- ing over and over again, "How can they imprison so tant single thing that was turning the resentful kind and gentle a man!"12 common people to Socialism.15 Until the More than from any other direct source, it 1920s, when competitors began gaining on was from his father that Walter Reuther was him, was synonymous with car- conditioned to be a mediator of Imperial making. As a result of the competition, Ford German Socialism to the American labor reluctantly decided, in 1927, to stop producing movement. Summarizing the career of Valen- the Model T, still virtually unchanged from tine Reuther, Evelyn Harris and Frank J. the 1908 model, and to bring out a new series, Krebs in their history of the West Virginia the Model A. The had State Federation of Labor, From Humble been shut down for months for retooling, Beginnings, write: when in February, 1927 Walter Reuther Valentine Reuther, whose son Walter P. arrived in Detroit to find work.16 Reuther became president of the United To everyone's surprise given his youthful Automobile Workers and vice-president of the AFL-CIO, was a leader of the labor movement age, Walter was quickly hired at the Briggs in Wheeling__ Val Reuther lived in the days Manufacturing Company, a major supplier of when it took courage to act publicly as a labor bodies to Ford. Briggs was, however, . It took double courage in Valentine's industry's worst employer. Long hours and case because in politics he was linked with the rapid pace of machines left workers Debs and the Socialists. Val Reuther had run unsuccessfully for the State Legislature, from exhausted and suffering from so many acci- the Wheeling district, on the Socialist ticket. dents that the factory had become known as "Socialism in American politics has been most "the butcher shop." Dissatisfied with the thoroughly under German influence," ac- working conditions, Reuther quit and after a cording to one writer. Wheeling had a strong short time succeeded in persuading a fore- German element. This German influence reached back to the founding of the state of man at Ford to hire him as a skilled tool and West Virginia.... Sixteen delegates at the 1912 tie maker for $1.05 an hour in an industry State Federation had German names, includ- where the average was 50 cents. ing the three delegates Reuther, Reiber and During those early years in Detroit, Walter Seidler, who introduced the "unity of pursued a course of self-improvement. He workers" resolution." was now past his twenty-first birthday and had During World War I, there was no question not yet finished high school.17 When joining whatever about the loyalty of the Reuther the YMCA he had filled out a questionnaire family to the United States, but whether for about his career ambitions stating that he unjustified suspicions .or for his pro-Socialist wanted to be either a labor organizer or a stance, Val Reuther suffered many personal chicken farmer. (Many years later automobile and political attacks. At one point vigilantes industry negotiators told him he would have painted the front door of the family home made an excellent chicken farmer.)18 He also yellow. Others sent anonymous diatribes enrolled in where he through the mail. Following the example of could attend classes because his daytime shift the rest of the country, the citizens of Wheel- at Ford did not begin until late in the ing discontinued teaching German in the afternoon.

-47- After earning his diploma at age 22, Walter and newspapers for beds. The garbage itself enrolled in Detroit's municipal university — was their only food. The Reuthers com- now Wayne State University — where he mented further about the barracks furnished helped organize the Social Problems Club, workers in the American mines of West then affiliated with the League for Industrial Virginia: . This organization included char- The American coal fields have been the scene ter members like Upton Sinclair, Clarence of capitalism's most vicious exploitation. The Darrow, Jack London, Walter Lippmann and coal barons own the shacks the miners live in. Ralph Bunche.19 In reality, the Social Club The barons own the schools their children was little more than a campus front for the attend. They own the church they worship in, the store they must buy from, the roads and which previously had been railroads over which they must travel. The known as the Intercollegiate Socialist League barons own the judge, the sheriff and the and which in the 1960s would spawn the Stu- courtroom where the miners seek justice, and dents for a Democratic Society. As a true acti- last of all the coal barons own the miners vist in the Social Problems Club, Walter organ- because they own the only jobs upon which the miners depend for their existence. The ized a protest over the exclusion of Negro miners and their families are forged to these students from a local hotel swimming pool hovels and the exploitation they symbolize. and led the fight to remove ROTC from the They cannot leave because the company pays University. With other members, he also them in scrip. That is only good at the com- plunged into the 1932 presidential campaign, pany store and the company always sees to it that the grocery bill and the rent are higher not in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt to be than the paycheck....21 sure, but of , the new candi- All of this activity on the part of Reuther date on the Socialist Party ticket. In spite of all took place in the name of the Socialist Prob- their efforts, including the support generated lems Club which attracted ever larger public by the depression then raging in American audiences. Soon Walter built the rumble-seat cities, Thomas polled fewer than 40,000 votes section of his Model A into a platform that from . could be unfolded for speech making. During During the same period Walter and Victor this period, too, there were Soviet technicians also exhibited skills as photographers by jux- at the Ford River Rouge plant learning how to taposing pictures of homes in impoverished transfer Ford's technology to the Gorky plant Hooverville with mansions of corporation in Russia where Walter and Victor would members and auto industry executives in eventually work. It puzzled these Soviets Grosse Pointe. They took their text for a bro- when, periodically, workers would fire rocks chure from Lincoln's Gettysburg address: through the windows. Wary of all union Fourscore and seven years ago our forefath- organizers during the 1932 campaign, the ers brought forth on this continent a new Detroit police watched for their chance to rid , conceived in the policies of "laissez faire" and dedicated to the proposi- the city of both the Soviets and the Reuthers, tion that private profit is the sole incentive to but without success. progress. Now we are engaged in a great eco- As the 1932 electioneering came to a close, nomic struggle testing whether this nation or the tired boys on the campaign trail received any nation so deceived and so dedicated to the following letter from their father: rugged individualism can long endure.20 Next to the pictures were equally clever Your decision to join and work for the estab- lishment of the socialist society does not sur- captions "Where wealth accumulates and prise me. On the contrary, unless all of you men decay" for the Grosse Pointe houses; and boys would at least by the time you reach for the Hooverville hovels "Homes that a maturity recognize the existence of a class dying social order is providing for its unem- struggle and take your place on the side of ployed workers." At the time Detroit's unem- labor politically, I should be keenly disap- pointed. To me socialism is the star of hope ployed were living in dugouts in the city dump that lights the way, leading the workers from where they were using discarded dump truck wage slavery to and to know that bodies for shelter, lard cans for stoves, rags you boys have joined the movement and are

-48- doing all in your power to spread a doctrine of that during these years of European, espe- equal opportunities for all mankind, only cially German, crisis, the leadership, whether 22 tends to increase my love.... moderate or extreme, was dominated entirely Socialism was the Reuther ideal, an alterna- by the socialist party.24 tive to a government dominated by large The socialist party in the United States was financial interests. Communism, though still a German movement too. It was launched masked during the 1930s, was never touted by exclusively by and for German immigrants in the Reuther family. They understood clearly the 1870s and was essentially a foreign lan- the devastating difference between guage organization.25 One need only think of and Socialism as few living Americans did, Viktor Berger in Wisconsin and many others then or now. Of course the Reuthers in the German-American labor movement.26 rethought their attitude towards Franklin During the early years of the twentieth cen- Roosevelt when, as president, he pushed tury the socialist movement in the United through the very reforms that Norman Tho- States was gradually Americanized but it flour- mas had stood for —Social Security, child ished only in those areas where densely eth- labor laws and unemployment compensation nic German enclaves persisted, such as Mil- among them. This teamwork between govern- waukee, Detroit and Cincinnati. Until the First ment and capitalism along the model imple- World War, the American socialist movement mented by Economics Minister Ludwig was authentically German and a pheno- Erhard in the Federal Republic Germany menon with which the German-American beginning in 1948 was conceived already in worker was extremely comfortable. Rather the Bismarckian era and was proposed by than posing some kind of threat to democracy 23 Walter Reuther in his 1941 "Reuther Plan." in the United States, the Most scholars acknowledge that, up to the was but a loose organization of socialist par- October Revolution in 1917, international ties of the world whose members met dutifully socialism was decidedly a German movement. for May Day parades, picnics with beer, Wurst The German Social Democratic Party was the and potato salad, all accompanied by some largest in the world. By the time of the First labor hymns and perhaps a few theoretical World War, however, the ideas of Karl Marx political resolutions.27 and predominated, and Rather than promoting open rebellion and their successors had largely assumed control struggle between the bourgeois and the pro- of the entire movement, especially following letariat, the socialist movement before World the success of Bismarck in incorporating Las- War I had in fact rejected war and militarism, sallean tenets into his 1880s legislation. Wil- as articulated by the resolutions passed at the helm Liebknecht, , August Bebel, meeting in Stuttgart in and later Wilhelm Liebknecht's son Karl, 1907. In the view of German socialists, wars along with , , were brought on by the rivalries of capitalists and others were among the for markets and raw materials as well as the Germans promoting Soviet-style revolution investment opportunities they presented. The and the socialism it promised. In the early proletariat had neither fatherland nor busi- period from 1919 to about 1925, there ness, and therefore no need for wars to gain were various factions of the Socialist party in or protect their property and interests. If war Germany, the "Mehrheits Sozialistische Par- broke out, then it was the duty of all socialists tei Deutschlands" which was home to the likes to withhold support of the war and to counter of Philip Scheidemann and . the efforts of the countries engaging in war. In the critical early years of the Weimar This approach was followed deliberately by Republic, the Socialist Party of Germany was German-American socialists even though the opposed by the "Unabhängige Sozialistische United States decided to remain neutral when Partei Deutschlands," the faction supported the First World War broke out. Within two by those of the Liebknecht and Luxemburg weeks after the August 1914 outbreak, the variety. The important point to remember is socialists had already organized their Inter-

-49- national Anti-War and Peace Demonstration connections with a Communist Party member in America. Two days following the American and fellow automobile worker in Detroit, declaration of war against Germany in April John Rushton, to get a job promise in the 1917, the German-American socialists once Soviet Union at the new Molotov Automobile more took up the cudgel, this time more Works in Gorki, which Henry Ford had deliberately, with their militant anti-war helped establish through a Russian trading statement, which pledged "continuous action company called Amtorg. On February 16,1933 and public opposition to the war through the boys set sail on a German ship from New demonstrations, mass petitions and all other York to Hamburg and arrived in in means within our power." It was written at the time to tour the smoldering ruins of the St. Louis convention and remained the offi- Reichstag. Here they found out that Amtorg cial position of the American socialists was delaying them because construction of its throughout the war.28 So essentially German barracks to house foreign workers had been and Bismarckian was the notion of the Social- hopelessly retarded. For nearly a year, there- ist movement that , the prac- fore, the boys travelled about Germany, visit- tical leader of the American Federation of ing their cousins and becoming especially Labor, claimed during the First World War impressed by their uncles, Ernst in Ruit and that the whole international socialist move- Adolph in Scharnhausen near Stuttgart. Inci- ment had been invented by Chancellor Bis- dents provoked by brown shirts happened marck of Imperial Germany as a device for with some frequency to the brothers' uncle softening up the world for German conquest.29 Peter, who on several occasions was nearly Following the October Revolution, it was arrested for his socialist stance on local the , that is, the Communists of politics. Soviet Russia, rather than the German Social Having given their uncle Ernst the head- Democratic Party which provided leadership quarters of the Social Democratic Party as for the . Following their forwarding address in Vienna, the boys World War I, the Soviet Communist party was experienced first hand the sense of high emo- in charge rather than the ideologues of Ger- tion in Austria when the brown shirts paraded many. When Walter Reuther was developing and bullied outside the entrance.31 Here as his leadership skills in the 1930s, as a matter of well as in Germany the boys were impressed fact, the Communists referred to his brand of with the pluralities the socialists could acquire socialism as "Social Fascism," led by men who in elections, around the 70% mark, which they had betrayed the workers. There is little evi- found logical given the fact that costs for dence, however, that Walter was ever really cooperative housing programs, health cen- called upon to defend his socialist tradition ters, libraries, laundries, kindergartens, day either from the Communists or the Fascists. care facilities and other services were all Rather, Reuther was a product of the Uni- scaled to a worker's wage. If only they could ted States Depression, and more specifically duplicate something similar for the United of the year 1933. In that year Paul von Hin- States! In England later that year they met denburg appointed Hitler Chancellor. On Oswald Moseley, the black-shirt fascist leader 4 of this same year, Franklin D. Roose- of the Nazi party in England. velt took the oath of office. And in the Soviet Finally in December, 1933, they returned to Union during that year, Joseph Stalin fin- Berlin where they were able to get their visas ished consolidating his power over arch for their trip east to the city of Gorki, Nizi- rivals, completed his first Five Year Plan, and Novgorod. Here they resided in a two-story launched a second. Finally, in January, 1933, army-style building named Commune Ruth- Walter Reuther at the age of 25 was fired form enberg after an early leader of the American his job at the Ford Motor Company.30 Communist Party, which was unofficially Almost immediately Walter and Victor known as "the American village" because of decided that this presented the opportunity of the many workers from the United States who their lifetimes. They therefore used their were housed there. Both young men received

-50-

Victor Reuther (back, second from left) and Walter Reuther (front, second from right) with relatives in Ruit or Schamhausen, Germany, 1933. Courtesy The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

regular awards for their efficiency and pro- Soviet Union at this time too, some 6,000 Aus- ductivity because they repeatedly surpassed trian socialist workers at the Gorki plant the standards established in the first Five alone. Year Plan, not always an easy feat in a plant When Walter learned about an English that was completely unheated, even in language newspaper being printed in Mos- temperatures of minus twenty-five Celsius. cow, he began contributing articles, in one of Most Americans enjoyed respect in the which he criticized the inefficiency of man- Soviet Union at that time, not because they agement in the Molotov works at Gorki. For were thought to be sympathetic to socialism or this he and his foreman were sternly repri- Soviet Communism, but because of their skills manded. The boys also met Russian girls, and and capabilities as industrial workers. The 150 Walter for a time was serious about a girl or so Soviet technicians, who had been named Lucy.33 He did not, however, end up trained at the River Rouge plan in Detroit to marrying her. Before leaving home the boys produce the equivalent of the Model A during had made a mutual promise that they would the time when Walter was working there, were not become emotionally entangled and marry so enamored of American mass-production abroad! Filled with idealism, they were antici- techniques that at the time in the Soviet pating a tough struggle within the labor union Union Henry Ford was regarded perhaps movement they intended to lead upon their more highly than Marx or Lenin.32 To be sure return. Nevertheless stir was created in 1959 the Ford company was not the sole American when , visiting the United enterprise in the Soviet Union. By the end of States met Walter Reuther at a dinner party 1930 the Radio Corporation of America, and charged the labor leader with bigamy DuPont, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, involving a woman known in the Russian Westinghouse and many other large corpora- press as "N". Of course Walter denied it. tions operated factories there. Germans and However, Lucy, the young woman, had con- Austrians (with their factories) were in the fided to the Soviet newspaper

-51- Trud that she and Walter had been married. porated in the National Industrial Recovery But after Walter's departure, she never heard Act (NIRA), of which Section A reads: from him again, typical of the Social Demo- Employees shall have the right to organize crats, she said, all of whom were unreliable. and bargain collectively, through representa- During the 1959 Khrushchev visit, even the tives of their own choosing, and shall be free Detroit News (not exactly a Reuther enthusi- from the interference, restraint or coercion of ast) came to his defense.34 employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self- During his contract work-year in Gorki, organization or in other concerted activities.36 Walter had also written a fateful letter to his Even though the NIRA was struck down by friend Merlin Bishop in Detroit. Later the the Supreme Court in 1935, John L. Lewis had letter went through various versions as detrac- already begun his massive organizational tors published differing versions inside and drive for the United Mine Workers under the outside the United Automobile Workers hyperbolic slogan, "The President wants you Union. Allegedly the letter ends with a salute, to join the Union." More importantly, Senator "Carry on the fight for a Soviet America. Vic Robert Wagner of New York, another and Wal." Walter never quite shook the scan- German-born American in the Bismarckian dal as the opprobrious letter, from 1937 on- socialist tradition, chose to rescue the ward, kept sweeping the country during sit- Supreme Court defeat by introducing a bill down strikes, then appeared in the records of calling for a National Labor Relations Act, the National Labor Relations Board hearings, commonly called the Wagner Act, to prohibit and in 1941 in the Detroit Press, the Saturday "unfair labor practices."37 This new law Evening Post, and in reports of the Committee expressly forbade the use of retaliatory mea- on Un-American Activities under Martin Dies. sures against employees and provided for a During the McCarthy era of the 1950s, of national committee, the National Labor Rela- course, the phrase "a Soviet America" was tions Board, to arbitrate disputes. Although politically extremely dangerous, but from the most industries believed the Supreme Court perspective of the 1930s, such words from an would once again strike down such a law, in ecumenical socialist visiting and working in 1937 the court supported it, causing opposi- the land of radical socialism, even if true, tion in Congress to collapse. seem less than shocking. Robert Ferdinand Wagner was born in After having left the Soviet Union, the boys Hessian Nastätten in 1877. In 1886, as the travelled eastward across the Soviet Union to youngest of seven children, he immigrated Japan. Here they boarded as deck hands the with his parents to America and grew up in S.S. Hoover for Los Angeles where they New York City. Disappointed with the citadel arrived late in 1935, almost three years after of capitalism as they had experienced it, his their departure. Back in Detroit in 1936 and parents in 1896 returned to Germany but without work, they attended a socialist party Robert stayed to study law, and at the age of 23 meeting in Flint where Walter met a physical was admitted to the bar. Four years later his education teacher named May Wolf. She had gift of rhetoric led to a seat in the state legisla- been an organizer for the American Federa- ture. Ten years thereafter he became a judge tion of Teachers and was active in the Prole- of the Supreme Court of New York and after tarian Party of Michigan. The daughter of seven years on the bench was elected to the Jewish immigrants from Russia, the red- United States Senate, where he served for the haired May had many suitors, and therefore next 21 years as a Democrat. baffled her parents when, after a brief court- In his own words, Wagner claimed his ship, she chose to marry the penniless Walter 35 career was "fulfilling our social obligations" in a civil ceremony on March 13, 1936. in the German tradition. Probably due to his During this time in particular, Walter efforts, the state of New York well before Reuther was anathema in Detroit automobile World War I had the best laws in the nation circles. Yet he was now better armed because for the protection of the working people. In of new Roosevelt legislation which was incor- the U. S. Senate, Wagner year after year

-52-

Walter Reuther (center, front) and Victor Reuther (standing, far right) with other workers at the automobile factory at Gorky in the Soviet Union, 1934. Courtesy The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University offered legislative proposals for security in tory. Flushed with triumph, the United Auto the job place, unemployment compensation, Workers took on Ford in the same year. How- and social security for the aged along the ever, suspecting the worst, Ford had hired German Imperial model. Already in 1932 he , a former boxer, to head up his was instrumental in passing the Relief Con- Ford Service Bureau, a private army com- struction Act. Frequently Roosevelt referred posed of some 3,000 armed security guards, to Wagner as his legislative captain of the New spies, undercover agents and strikebreakers.39 Deal. In 1939 Wagner offered the nation's first Within the feudal organization that was the solid proposal for a national health care plan, Ford Motor Company, only Henry Ford him- which, however, did not pass and in fact is still self could question actions taken by Bennett being debated. Most of the social laws dealing and his thugs. with child labor, the Social Security Act, and Reuther was catapulted to fame therefore, laws establishing standards for fair perfor- not from his victory but from mance — all derive from the initiatives of the so-called "" at Ford. Robert Wagner, of whom President Roosevelt The UAW wanted to hand out leaflets at the said in 1944, "Your name is indelibly asso- River Rouge plant and to do so stationed sixty ciated with America's second Bill of Rights."38 UAW organizers, forty of them women auxil- Not able to assume direct leadership in the iaries, on the pedestrian overpass that led 1937 Flint sit-in strike at General Motors from the parking lot to the gates of the huge because he was not officially employed in the plant. Most of the women were wives whose automobile industry, Reuther and his broth- husbands were sympathetic to the union but ers nevertheless did provide the primary initi- were too afraid to be publicly identified for ative during that encounter which led to vic- fear of losing their jobs. Refusing to be intim-

-53- idated because he held a permit to distribute me up and began to kick me down the total leaflets from the Dearborn City Council, Wal- flight of steps... ter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen led There were about 150 men standing the contingent of petitioners to the bridge. around—They started to hit me again at the Almost immediately, the Ford Service Bureau bottom of the stairs, slugging me, driving me before them, never letting me get away. led by Bennett turned Reuther's efforts into a ...While I was being driven down I had bloody rout. Both men and women suffered glimpses of women being kicked and other bruised heads, broken bones and mangled men being kicked and when I got to the end of bodies. Luckily for them and the labor move- the fence, I found Dick ment, cameramen and reporters, in spite of In the meantime some newspaper photo- graphers came along and they picked us up belligerent warnings from Ford, did come out and we managed to get away from the thugs by to cover the melee. Even though many came- getting into the car—It is the only way we ras were smashed, notes seized and the truth could have escaped. Bob Kanter was also with badly tarnished, Time and newspapers across us. And all the time I had the permit to distrib- the country managed to publish the appalling ute the leaflets in my pocket, but no one would look at that. I might add, the police standing pictures. Outraged at Henry Luce's UAW- around did nothing to prevent the slugging.42 favorable editorial, Henry Ford withheld advertisements from Time, Life and Fortune Even before the brutality had stopped, 40 Harry Bennett had issued a press release for the next seventy weeks. claiming innocence of any involvement, The walkway was at Gate 4 through which though at the hearing of the National Labor most of the workers entered River Rouge but Relations Board, Reverend Raymond San- the bridge over Miller Road enabled not just workers coming in by street cars to cross the ford, chairman of the Committee for Church highway, but also provided other pedestrians and Industry of the Chicago Church Federa- a viaduct over the highway even if they had no tion, an observer of the affair, told board members that he saw Walter Reuther connection with Ford. It is true that Ford had "crouched down with arms shielding his face. built the walkway but then had leased it to the His face was bleached__ Blood was trickling Detroit Railway Commission for public use. About this violent incident of , 1937 all over his face— Eventually he was thrown down three flights of stairs with men attacking Walter has written: him from all sides." Walter Reuther also testi- I got out of the car on the public highway, fied at the hearings of the NLRB. After it Miller Road, near Gate 4. Dick Frankensteen and I walked together over to the stairs. I got concluded, Ford was officially accused of up the stairs and walked over near the center unfair labor practices under terms of the of the bridge. I was there a couple of minutes Wagner Act. At the hearings Ford's lawyer, and then all of a sudden about 35 or 40 men Louis J. Colombo, cross-examined Walter surrounded us and started to beat us up. I using the "Vic and Wal" letter to suggest that didn't fight back. I merely tried to guard my Walter was an un-American revolutionary. face. The men...picked me up about eight different times and threw me down on my Among the 3,000 pages of testimony is the back on the concrete and while I was on the following exchange: ground, they kicked me in the face, head and Q. One of the purposes of going there [to other parts of my body. After they kicked me a while, one fellow would yell "All right, let him Russia] was to study the Soviet system of go now." Then they would raise me up, hold government? my arms behind me and begin to hit me some A. We went to Russia to study conditions more. They picked my feet up and my there the same as we did in Germany. shoulders and slammed me down on the con- Q. What conditions: political conditions crete and while I was on the ground, they kicked me again in the face, head and other and economic conditions? parts of my body.... Finally they got me next to A. Social and economic conditions. Dick who was lying on the bridge and with After hours of time-killing cross-examina- both of us together they kicked me again and tion, the NLRB found the Ford Motor Com- then picked me up and threw me down the first flight of stairs. I lay there and they picked pany at fault. Three months later the UAW

-54- was once again ready to resume its attack. no-strike policy for the duration of the war.45 Reuther found himself in the middle of a incorporated his proposal factional fight in the UAW. Charges that var- in her column "My Day."46 Reuther is also ious genuine Communists were vying for con- credited for having persuaded Harry S. Tru- trol of the union movement at that time were man to abandon the Henry Morgenthau Plan legitimate but Walter was never one of them.41 for the agriculturalization of Germany after There were over 1,000 arrests for violations of the Second World War. Past UAW president various kinds. Intimidation by the automobile Thomas had agreed with the policy of indus- industry also continued unabated for months trial demontage in Germany. On May 10, and years until finally in 1940 the tide gradu- 1948, Walter sent the following letter to Presi- ally began to turn. The Supreme Court helped dent Harry S. Truman spelling out how Ger- by refusing to hear the NLRB's 1937 rebuff of man industry should be rehabilitated: Ford. Dear. Mr. President: Though not automatic, victory was eventu- I am writing you in hopes that through use ally achieved when UAW campaigners openly of the great prestige and authority of your proselytized at the gates of Ford. As a result, office and of the United States Government you will be able to avert the senseless destruc- on April 10,1941, Henry Ford finally approved tion of industrial capacity in Germany. an election allowing union representation at I am writing specifically with regard to six the bargaining table. The next month — five steel and three chemical plants found by the years after GM and had been union- ECA to be necessary for European recovery. I ized — some 85,000 Ford workers in three hope, however, that the proposal which I shall outline in relation to these plants can be Detroit plants voted by secret ballot: less than extended to cover all the non-munitions 3% wanted no union, 25% wanted the AFL plants now scheduled to be destroyed under and more than 70% voted for the UAW. Within the reparations program. the next year the UAW negotiated a $52 mil- The six steel and three chemical plants lion contract in additional wages for its referred to were recommended for retention workers. by Mr. Paul Hoffman _ Despite that recom- mendation, the Three Power agreement In 1946 Walter Reuther rose to the presid- recently concluded in Washington earmarked ency of the United Automobile Workers. A those plants for reparations. In the normal mere two years later he was severely wounded course this would mean dismantlement. The by an unknown assailant (as was his brother nature of these plants, however, makes dis- Victor in 1949). In 1952, Walter was elected mantlement equivalent to destruction__ The destruction of these plants would, in my opin- president of the CIO following which he ion, be in direct conflict with the domestic and merged his organization into the AFL-CIO foreign objectives of your administration. (American Federation of Labor and the Con- You have called for expansion of steel gress of Industrial Organizations).42 Because capacity in the United States to relieve a short- Reuther often clashed with the more conser- age that is world-wide in scope. Dismantle- ment of German steel mills would intensify vative , he took the UAW out of 43 that shortage. . . . and deprive American the federation in 1968. workers in the automobile and other steel- Walter has been credited for his important consuming industries of opportunities for full political advice to Democratic presidential and regular employment.... Destruction of candidates since 1937, including especially German plants able to supply these needs thrusts an unnecessary additional burden on Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. the American taxpayer and diminishes the Kennedy. Shortly after the fall of France in effectiveness of the funds which we are spend- 1940, for instance, Reuther advised Roosevelt ing in Europe's behalf. about the standardization of tank production A major goal of your foreign policy is to that could be implemented in the automobile prevent the spread of Communist totalitarian- 44 ism and to preserve and strengthen democ- factories. To avoid excess profits, Reuther racy throughout the world. Establishment of a also successfully persuaded Roosevelt to vital democracy in Western Germany is crucial implement a policy that no individual in the to that goal. Needless dismantlement of Ger- automobile industry could be paid more than man plants will deprive German workers of $25,000 per year in exchange for a union employment and will drive them, out of des- peration, into the arms of the Communists.... -55-

A photograph of and Walter Reuther inscribed by Senator Humphrey, c.1965. Courtesy The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

-56- We must recognize, of course, that fears still exist many following World War II, and which was with respect to restoring German industrial power implemented in the new Federal Republic of because of its military potential. But the security Germany under the leadership of Ludwig which Germany's neighbors desire can be assured Erhard and others. Clearly, this concept of by controls which will promote the purposes of the European Recovery Program rather than by des- labor and industry teaming up with the silent truction of Germany's productive capacity.... but interested referee-partner of government I suggest, in brief, that the plants in question be to enact principles, e.g. of co-determination, left intact at their present locations, operated has generated the under the Law 75 trusteeship of the Western which in , and now in the Uni- occupying nations; and that nations entitled to reparations be assigned the output of these plants ted Germany, has become the envy of the up to the value which they would have received world. By his letter to President Truman, through dismantling....47 Reuther in a significant way aided in giving In his 1946 "un-mailed" letter to Walter P. the a chance to Reuther, J. B. S. Hardman congratulates operate in West Germany beginning in 1948. Reuther for coming to the head of the UAW. Walter Reuther also played a major role in Given the misunderstanding of socialist bringing a slice of that Lassallean socialist ideology vs. the then threatening communist approach to the economy into the United ideology, Hardman asserts "your socialist, or States tradition. 'socialistic', or whatever else one may call your —La Vern J. general has nothing to do with it. Rippley ...As I see it, in you emerges the social- St. Olaf College engineering type of leader, whereas the established group represents the bargaining and political types.... Labor is divided into two rival, contending national centers. Can statesmanship bring about unity?...Can we Notes perhaps develop something comparable to a 1Marvin Wachmann, History of the Social-Democratic United Nations, if not 'world government' for Party of Milwaukee 1897-1910 (Urbana: University of Illi- common action?...Government is in collec- nois Press, 1945), Errol W. Stevens, "Heartland Socialism: The Socialist Party of America in Four Midwestern Com- tive bargaining to stay. That 'Reuther Plan' of munities unpublished," Ph.D. diss., 1978, Indiana Univer- yours — you remember? — suggesting and sity, esp. Chapter 2, pp. 26-59. telling how to bring about a rapid conversion 2Bertold Spangenberg, German Cultural History from of the auto industry to mass-production of 1860 to the Present Day (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlag, war-essential aircraft, shocked a good many 1983), p. 13. 3Meyers Konversationslexikon "Lassalle," pp. 362-3. people back in 1941 but moved to action See also , Lassalle. Zwischen Marx und neither auto industrialists nor politicians, nor Bismarck (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1966). fellow-laborites... .The 'Reuther Plan' was to 4Stuart Dean Brandes, "Nils Haugen and the Wiscon- me 'engineering' leadership and not because sin Progressive Movement." M.A. Thesis, University of it dealt with an engineering problem but Wisconsin, 1965. 5Spangenberg, German Cultural History, p. 39. because it constructively emphasized and 6Wolfgang Bethge, Geschichte im Überblick (Ber- dramatized the link between labor's concern lin: Gebrüder Holzapfel, 1987), p. 66.- but not the quote. ...and the broad, national issues of defense 7Vol. 18 (November, 1901), p. 391. and production."48 8Among several good sources about the early life of Although it would take another paper of Walter Reuther is the book by Victor G. Reuther, The this length to present the arguments convinc- Brothers Reuther and the Story of the UAW: A Memoir (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979), in German, Die Brüder Reuther, ingly, the case should be made here that the eine Autobiographie sowie die Geschichte der amerikanischen Imperial German socialist ideas that Walter Automobilarbeitergewerkschaft UAW (Cologne: Bund, 1989). Reuther and his father brought to America Also useful are R. L. Tyler, Walter Reuther (Grand Rapid, were quite parallel to the ideology about the MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1973), and John Barnard, Walter government-labor-industrial cooperation that Reuther and the Rise of the Auto Workers (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1983). See also in general Lynn A. emerged from the Freiburg School in Ger- Bonfield, "Archival Collections for Labor His- tory," California History, 66 (1987) 286-299.

-57- 9Victor Reuther, p. 16. 27Tyler, p. 15. See also David A. Shannon, The Socialist 10Sidney Lens, The Crisis of American Labor (New York: Party of America. A History (New York: MacMillan, 1955, Barnes and Co., A Perpetual Book, 1961), pp. 158 ff. deals Quadrangle paperbacks, 1967), esp. pp. 2,21 ff., 109 and, with this period in Walter Reuther's biography. in general, Irving Howe, Socialism and America (New York: 11Victor Reuther, p. 20. Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1985). Concerning socialism 12Victor Reuther, p. 21. See also the biographical sum- and social reformers in a specific community see Stanley mary of Walter Reuther by Sidney Kelman, "Reuther. 'A Nadel, Little Germany. Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in New Called' Labor Leader," Michigan History, 73 (1989), 12-19. York City, 1845-80 (Urbana and Chicago: University of 13Quoted in Victor Reuther, p. 22. Illinois Press, 1990), pp. 121 ff. 14Victor Reuther, p. 23. 28See Rippley, Immigrant Wisconsin, p. 100 and Robert C. 1SR. L. Tyler, Reuther, p. 11. Reinders, "Daniel W. Hoan and the Milwaukee Socialist 16For a historical sketch of the Detroit in which Reuther Party during the First World War," Wisconsin Magazine of found himself during this period, see Irving Howe and B. History, 36 (Autumn 1952), 48-55. J. Widick, The UAWand WalterReuther (New York: Random 29Tyler, p. 14. House, 1949). 30Tyler, p. 19 17In her small book, A Political Biography of Walter 31Victor Reuther, p. 77. Reuther; the Record of an Opportunist (New York: Merit 32Victor Reuther, p. 91. Publishers, 1969), Beatrice Hansen attempts to present a 33Victor Reuther, p. 107; 113, ff. negative biography of Reuther by asserting his socialism 34Tyler, p. 24. which she says he denied. While he was careful about his 35Victor Reuther, p. 127. Socialist Party affiliations during the McCarthyite 1950s, 36Tyler p. 26. Walter, and especially Victor in his memoir, proudly 37Tyler, p. 27. admit to the beliefs Hansen accuses Walter of. Walter 38Fritz Kurrek, Die Geschichte der Deutschen in Michigan remained a member of the Socialist Party until at least (Detroit: Schenk Printing, 1981), p. 151. Robert F. Wagner 1940. died in 1953. His son, Robert F. Wagner Jr. served as 18Tyler, p. 13. Mayor of New York in the 1960s. 19Victor Reuther, p. 59. 39For a picture of the Harry Bennett psychology, see 20Victor Reuther, p. 62. Irving Howe and B.J. Widick, UAWand Reuther, pp. 91 ff. 21Victor Reuther, pp. 62-63. 40Tyler, pp. 39-40, Victor Reuther, pp. 200 ff. See also, in 22Victor Reuther, p. 64. John Barnard, Walter Reuther general, Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man. The Social and the Rise of the Auto Workers p. 9. Bases of Politics (Garden City: Anchor Doubleday, 1963), 23J. B. S. Hardman outlines this broad definition of esp. pp. 418 ff. socialistic, rather than communistic, leadership for the 41See in general Sidney Lens, The Crisis of American union movement in the United States in "Dear Walter: An Labor, pp. 160 ff. Un-Mailed Letter to Walter P. Reuther," Labor and Nation. 42Sympathetic throughout his lifetime with the socialist Independent National Labor Magazine, 1, No. 5 (April-May, movement, Walter Reuther often backed third-party can- 1946), 5-8. Two key figures in the development and didates beginning, with Norman Thomas. He supported implementation of this concept of socialism in the post- the Farmer-Labor Party in 1936, and ran unsuccessfully war Federal Republic of Germany were Joseph Alois on the Unity faction for the Detroit Common Council in Schumpeter and Alfred Müller-Armack, e. g. in the latter's 1937. See the study by Marvin Persky, "Walter Reuther, the book Studien zur sozialen Marktwirtschaft (1960). UAW-CIO, and Third Party Politics," unpublished Ph.D. 24Wolfgang Bethge, Berlins Geschichte im Überblick (Ber- diss. Michigan State University, 1974. lin: Gebrüder Holzapfel, 1987) pp. 90-112. 43See Cathy L. Hennen, "Campaigning Against Com- 25See Dirk Hoerder, ed., Struggle a Hard Battle: Essays on munism: The Rhetoric of Walter P. Reuther 1946-1948," Working-Class Immigrants (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois unpublished Ph.D. diss. University of Pittsburgh, 1986. University Press, 1986), especially Hanmut Keil, "German 44C. Wright Mills, with Helen Schneider, TheNewMen of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States from the Power. America's Labor Leaders (NewYork: Harcourt, Brace 1870s to World War I." See also German Workers in Chicago. and Co., 1948), pp. 107 ff. 208 ff. A Documentary History of Working-Class Culture from 1850 to 45Irving Howe and Burdick, pp. 107 ff. World War I, ed., Hartmut Keil and John B. Jentz, (Chi- 46Tyler, p. 62. cago: University of Illinois Press 1988). 47Quoted in Victor Reuther, pp. 341-2. 26Sally M. Miller, Victor Berger and the Promise of Construc- 48Hardman, pp. 5, 7. tive Socialism, 1910-1920 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973), about the German press in the labor movement See also La Vern J. Rippley, The Immigrant Experience in Wisconsin (Boston: Twayne, 1985), pp. 101 ff., and Bayrd Still, Milwaukee: The History of a City (Madison: State His- torical Society of Wisconsin, 1948), pp. 289-295, 303.

-58-