Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman was born in Zargare, Lithuania in 1887. He arrived in the United States in 1907. Hillman never worked as a laborer of any kind and was referred to as the only outstanding labor leader who never was a worker. He began his career as one of the organizers of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and at 27 became its first president. He held that post to the day of his death and during that time was the unquestioned czar of this union.
Communism
Hillman was never a Communist Party member. He understood the Communist Party and its methods and would not permit his union to be controlled by the Party. The membership of his union was overwhelmingly Socialist who lived within the capitalist system.
When the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed in the mid-1930s all the leaders were aware that certain Communist activists weremoving in, especially at the invitation of CIO leader John L. Lewis. Hillman knew Michael Quill, Joseph Curran, Harry Bridges, Ben Gold, Abram Flasner and numerous others who had moved into the CIO were Communists. And Hillman understood Communists in labor unions are not interested in the welfare of the members but in the use of the union apparatus for pro-Soviet activities.
Hillman was one of many labor leaders to use the goon as part of his enforcement machinery.
"Clear Everything with Sidney"
Hillman organized in 1943 the CIO Political Action Committee to mobilize voters in upcoming elections.
At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, DNC Chairman Bob Hannegan went for instructions to President Franklin Roosevelt's private railway car just before the July convention officially began. Roosevelt had decided to dump incumbent Vice-President Henry Wallace. Worried over dissension on the choice of a successor, the New York Times reported Roosevelt told Hannegan: "Go on down there and nominate Truman before there's any more trouble. And clear everything with Sidney." [1] That is, the President could not make the selection of Truman until Hillman. approved it.[2]
The Democratic party could win the Presidential election of 1944 if it could carry the Southern states and in addition New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey. These states were carried with the support of the CIO.
Further reading
- Bernstein, Irving. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941 (1970), the best overview of the era
- Fraser, Steve. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor (1993). excerpt and text search, the standard scholarly biography
- Fraser, Steve. "From The 'New Unionism' To The New Deal." Labor History 1984 25(3): 405-430. 0023-656x online
- Galenson, Walter. The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941 (1960) online editiononline edition
- Josephson, Matthew. Sidney Hillman (1952), good older biography
- Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II (2003)
- Zieger, Robert H. The CIO, 1935-1955 (1995) online edition, the standard scholarly history
See also
References
- ↑ "Clear everything with Sidney", Time magazine], Sep. 25, 1944.
- ↑ The New Force, Time magazine, Jul. 24, 1944.
External links
- Vladimir I. Lenin to Sidney Hillman, Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 35, pages 526-527.