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KEEPING MINNEAPOLIS an OPEN SHOP TOWN the Citizens' Alliance in the 1930S

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KEEPING MINNEAPOLIS an OPEN SHOP TOWN the Citizens' Alliance in the 1930S KEEPING MINNEAPOLIS AN OPEN SHOP TOWN The Citizens' Alliance in the 1930s Lois Quam and Peter J. Rachleff SINCE the Industrial Revolution, workers have organ­ forces—it relied on various "carrots"—pensions, vaca­ ized to build unions. Maintaining and expanding these tions, insurance, and even company unions. At the unions, however, has called for even greater organ­ same time, employer organization itself was strength­ ization. Employers responded to solidarity in kind, but ened, ranging in size and power from trade associations they united in order to resist and repel unionization. that worked with Secretary of Commerce (and later Usually, the two parties' strengths have been in inverse President) Herbert C. Hoover to locally based organi­ relation: a period in which employers have been well zations committed to keeping their communities and organized has typically found workers' groups to be their industries nonunion.' weak, and vice versa. When both sides were well orga­ No local employers' group achieved greater notoriety nized the consequences were dramatic. than the Minneapolis Citizens' Alliance (CA). Class- By the early 20th century, opposition to unions took conscious industrialists, merchants, and lawyers had on increasingly organized form. A nationwide "open worked together in the City of Lakes during the 1917-18 shop drive" between 1902 and I9I7 threatened unions trolley strikes. Over the course of the 1920s, they from the building trades to the metal shops. After a strengthened their organization and assumed the lead­ brief truce during World War I, employers introduced ership of the entire Minneapolis business community. the "American Plan," geared both to driving out exist­ By the early 1930s they had gained nationwide atten­ ing unions and to forestalling any new efforts. This tion through their success at turning Minneapolis into plan was more sophisticated than the open-shop drive; an open-shop town. Amidst the great labor upheaval of in addition to the typical "sticks"—yellow-dog (indi­ the mid-I930s, this organization caught the interest of vidual) contracts, industrial spies, and private security the prominent Yale sociologist, Charles R. Walker, who ' David Montgomery, Workers' Control in America, Stud­ ies in the history oj work, technology, and labor struggles Lois Quam, a graduate oj Macalester College, St. Paul, and a (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 48- Rhodes .scholar, 1983-84, is currently working on her Ph.D. 90; David Brody, Workers in Industrial America, Essays on in history at Oxjord University. England. the Twentieth Century Struggle (New York; Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1980), 48-81; Gabriel Kolko, Main Currents in Peter J. Rachlejj. assistant projessor oj American history at Modern American History (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), Macalester College, is the author oj Black Labor in the 100-156. South: Richmond, Virginia, 1865-1890 (1984). Fall 1986 105 noted that the alliance "appeared to all observers to be principles or expressed beliefs are in opposition to the one of the most powerful and efficiently organized em­ Constitution of the United States of America or the ployers' associations in the United States ."2 American principles of government."^ By the early 1930s, the CA had "a permanent and The alliance called the closed shop "an invasion of well-paid staff, a corps of undercover informers, and a the constitutional rights of the American workman." In membership of eight hundred business men." Most a publication entitled "The Real Menace to Industrial were small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, hit hard Peace in Minneapolis," CA president F. E. McNally by the Great Depression. At the core, however, was a claimed that the alliance was formed "to protect every network of financial power provided by wealthy bank­ man and woman in their right to pursue their occupa­ ers, grain millers, and department store owners, such tion without interference regardless of how they vote, as George D. Dayton, O. P. Briggs, president of the worship, or whether they belong to a labor union." Minneapolis Foundry Company, E. J. Phelps, an in­ McNally wove together the themes of suffrage, reli­ vestment banker, and Frederick R. Salisbury of Salis­ gious expression, and the open shop to argue that the bury and Satterlee Company, manufacturers of bed­ closed shop was a violation of First Amendment rights.^ ding. Later leaders included C. C. Webber of Invocation of religious authority was a cornerstone Deere-Webber Company and attorney James Shearer. 3 of the Citizens' Alliance's appeal to its members. This "[F]or nearly a generation," Walker noted, the alli­ strategy provided leaders with a moral rationale for ance had "successfully fought and broken every major their actions and an argument that their motives were strike in Minneapolis." WhUe the 1934 truckers' strikes not selfish and profit-oriented, but altruistic and prin­ dealt a major blow to the Citizens' Alliance, it was cipled. Religious arguments were presented with reli­ hardly fatal. Although unions had established a foot­ gious fervor. Charles Walker had an opportunity to size hold in Minneapolis, the CA, shored up by its ideology and organizational structure, continued to limit the 2 William Millikan, "Defenders of Business; The Minne­ growth of organized labor. The 1935-36 Strutwear apolis Civic and Commerce Association Versus Labor During Knitting Company strike provides a case study of the World War I," Minnesota History 50(Spring, 1986);2-17; Citizens' Alliance after the 1934 truckers' strikes.^ Charles R. Walker, American City: A Rank-and-File History (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937), 87. 3 Walker, American City, 87; George D. Tselos, "The THE CITIZENS' ALLIANCE had one practical goal: Minneapolis Labor Movement in the 1930s," (Ph.D. diss.. to keep Minneapolis an open-shop town. Large em­ University of Minnesota, 1970), 13, 23; "What the Citizens' ployers, above all others, were the chief beneficiaries of Alliance and Open Shop Have Done for Minneapolis," Min­ this strategy. Yet, to remain successful, the alliance neapolis Sunday Tribune, AprU 17, 1921, sec. 6, p. 8; "Top needed to enlist the aid of smaller employers, profes­ Business Leaders among Founders of First Organization— 1903," undated, typewritten list. Citizens' Alliance (CA) Pa­ sionals, shopkeepers, even workers. After all, members pers, Minnesota Historical Society (MHS), St. Paul. called their organization the Citizens', not the Employ­ "* Walker, American City, 87. This book remains one of ers', Alliance. Leaders frequently invoked religious mo­ the best available studies of the truckers" strikes of 1934; Tse- rality and the American Constitution to legitimate los's dissertation is another good source. For some partici­ their authority. The group, for instance, claimed to be pants' accounts, see FarreU Dobbs, Teamster Rebellion (New motivated by a desire "to secure for every employer and York: Monad Press, 1972); Steven Trimble, "Interviews with Strikers" (Pauline and Harry DeBoer and Jake Cooper), Red employee freedom of contract in the manner of em­ Bujjalo (Buffalo, N.Y) 2-3 ([1971?]):69-90. The tapes from ployment." In its constitution, these principles were which this edited transcript is derived are available in the voiced in three primary goals: "To promote, on a fair MHS audio-visual library. For a previously unexamined di­ and equitable basis, industrial peace and prosperity in mension of this strike, see Marjorie Penn Lasky, " 'Where I the community, and the steady employment of labor; was a Person'; The Ladies' Auxiliary in the 1934 Teamsters' Strikes," in Women, Work, and Protest, ed. Ruth Milkman To discourage strikes, lockouts, and unfair demands by (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 181-205. either employer or employee; To uphold the principles '' CA, Annual Report, 1932, 2, and Constitution and By- of the Open Shop."^ Laws (reprint, May 1, 1935); O. R Briggs and J. W. Sch­ In public addresses, A. W. "Bert" Strong, "the grand roeder, "Policy and Principles of the Citizens' Alliance of old man of the Alliance," frequently linked the open Minneapolis," undated pamphlet—aU CA Papers. " Walker, American City, 190-192; Minneapolis Bureau of shop to the preservation of the American Constitution. Industrial Relations, "'Employment Relation Policies and Strong and the CA leadership claimed that the closed Rules and Regulations Governing Employment,"' [1934], CA shop, which required all workers to be union members, Papers. Strong was the president of Strong, Scott, and Com­ violated that sacred document. Every employer- pany, manufacturers of grain elevators and boiler equipment. member of the alliance was required to sign the follow­ He was a charter member of the CA and president several times. ing statement: "This Company will not knowingly em­ ^ CA, Annual Report, 1932, 3; McNally "The Real Men­ ploy or retain in employment any person whose ace to Industrial Peace in Minneapolis," [1935?], CA Papers. 106 Minnesota History 0. R BRIGGS, 1902 A.W. STRONG, 1915 F R. SALISBURY, 1902 up Bert Strong's style: "[Tjhis is neither politics nor lives as ample evidence of the possibilities of ""rags to economics—it is theology."* riches." Bert Strong told an audience: "When I was still Such zealous leadership was translated into the "vic­ a young man—this was in the nineties—I decided tory at all costs" methods best evidenced in the Citi­ I would like to be my own boss. I had no capital but I zens' Alliance's efforts to break the 1934 Minneapolis was young with plenty of blood and vinegar in me. truckers' strike. In that strike, the alliance—on behalf I was ready to take a chance. ... for I had a plan to of the employers—co-ordinated efforts to move goods buy out this business of which I am now president." In with nonunion labor, assisted in arming and organizing such an ideological framework, the able and motivated a police force, and negotiated with Mayor Alexander would succeed. Other workers were simply of a lower G.
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