The American Civil War Sesquicentennial

“The past is never dead. It’s not even in the past”
--William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

On April 12, 1861, the first shots of the American Civil War were fired from Charleston, South Carolina across the harbor at Fort Sumter. Nearly four years and 618,000 American lives later, the war ended with the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac at the crossroads called Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. Despite the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth six days later, the peace held, as another contentious period of American history known as Reconstruction began in earnest. These facts, however, tell us little about the importance of the conflict in the history of the United States. To understand the importance of the conflict, we turn to the voluminous number of books and other material that seek to explain the events and their importance.

Most importantly, the Civil War ended slavery, the right of a person to hold other people as property. Ending slavery was not the stated aim of the federal government at the beginning of the conflict; Lincoln requested the mobilization of the loyal state militias (which became most of the Union Army) “… to maintain the honor, the integrity, the existence, and the perpetuity of the National Union.” The issue of slavery was never far away, however, because “Without slavery, the rebellion could never have existed. Without slavery, it could not continue.”

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire is one of the most important--and tragic--events in American Labor History. In the late afternoon of March 25, 1911--just before quitting time that Saturday, in fact--a fire broke out on the 9th floor of the building housing the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The Order Department, located on the 8th floor, immediately notified company management, located on the 10th floor, and persons on both of those floors escaped harm. But no one from the company thought to evacuate the workers located on the floor between, and as a result they were trapped. Some were able to escape to the roof of the building. Many more, fearing being burned to death in the fire, leaped to their death from the 9th and 10th floors of the building.

The factors that contributed to this tragedy were numerous--from New York Fire Department ladders that only reached to the 6th floor, to the cramped work quarters with wicker baskets full of scrap cloth and the oil impregnated floor in the factory. Many of the contributed factors may have been overcome, but a door the the stairway was locked (either to keep union organizers out, or to keep workers from leaving early); other doors that would have allowed the women to escape opened inward, and were blocked as the by now panicked women attempting to escape.

The fear of unionization was very much on the minds of the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. In 1910, the "Uprising of the 20,000" led to the unionization of many rival shirtwaist companies. Triangle was able to resist the unionization drive, and therefore also resist the demand of its workers to unlock the doors of the factory and to ensure that the fire escapes were functional. Those demands remained unaddressed on March 25, 1911.

This tragedy deeply touched many New Yorkers--one in ten, in fact, turned out to observe and participate in the memorial service held for the victims as many of them were taken to the cemetery in Queens. As a result of this tragedy, many new laws and ordinances were passed that attempted to address the concerns raised by this event--and unions were at the forefront, bargaining to gain many new workplace safety features.

The Cornell University Industrial and Labor Relations School has developed an online exhibit where a great deal of primary source material has been brought together--a terrific achievement, for which everyone involved gets a hardy thanks from this blogger. In light of the renewed assault on labor across the nation, this event should serve as a reminder of what life was like for workers without unions.

The "Incident" Over the Tea in Boston

On this date in history, 1773, the "incident over the tea" took place in Boston Harbor, as a number of men, lightly disguised as "Indians," boarded a ship anchored in the harbor, broke open all of the chests containing tea, and dumped the contents and chests overboard--all while a crowd of several thousand watched silently from the docks.In response, the British government in London ordered the port of Boston closed. This in turn provoked the various colonies to call for a meeting in Philadelphia to formulate a protest. Eventually, events led to the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolutionary War, and the establishment of the United States of America.

This act is generally portrayed as a reaction by the Americans to the ideal of "no taxation without representation; however, the Tea Act actually reduced the tax paid on tea. It did promise to vigorously enforce the prohibition on importing tea other than from the East India Company, and promise prosection of smugglers. Among the most prominent smugglers of tea (and other goods) was John Hancock (the guy with the big signature).

What often gets overlooked is the role of the "lower sort" in this protest. As Alfred Young demonstrated in The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, the support of these kinds of people was instrumental to accomplishing this particular incident, as well as enforcing the boycott that preceded it.

Pro-Labor Republican?

Sarah Palin, the gift that keeps on giving, on the Hugh Hewitt radio show yesterday:



The money quote:

"We’ve gone through periods of our life here with paying out of pocket for health coverage until Todd and I both landed a couple of good union jobs,"

The interviewer being Hugh Hewitt, there was no real follow-up on this point, of course.

Joe and Jill Six-Pack (aka Todd and Sarah Palin) benefited from their "good union jobs," so surely Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin supports the Employee Free Choice Act--right, Governor? Being in a union family, she must also be aware of how Taft-Hartley tilted the playing field in favor of management, and supports amending the Labor-Management Relations Act to rollback those stipulations--right, Governor? And Senator McCain, surely you agree with your veep choice, and believe that it is important enough to suspend your campaign to parachute return to Washington to introduce this legislation, right?

It's what Teddy Roosevelt would've done, after all.

The Billionaire Bailout

Because of the "principled" opposition of an overwhelming number of Republican US House members, the Billionaire Bailout flamed out this afternoon. In my opinion, this is a desirable outcome--if Wall Street is really in need of a huge bailout, then they will have to accept some stipulations that they have resisted to this point. In my view, those stipulations should be (in order of importance):

1.) Changes in the bankruptcy law that allow judges to change the terms of mortgages, so that people in danger of losing their homes can find a way to stay.

2.) An equity stake for the taxpayer in any company that accepts money for this bailout, along the lines that the Swedish government imposed in the early 1990s. If Wall Street's losses are going to be socialized, so should the profits.

3.) Greater regulation of the financial industry, to prevent another fiasco like this happening ten years from now.

4.) Executive compensation should be brought in line with performance--no more Carly Fiorina-style golden parachutes.

Now is the time for tough bargaining on the part of Democratic Party leaders--put together a package that Main Street can support. As for the opposition from Wall Street, I'm reminded of one of my mother's favorite sayings: "Beggars can't be choosers."

Labor and the Civil Rights Act

On this date in history, July 2, 1964, Lyndon Johnson cajoled and twisted the arms of enough congressmen to pass the Civil Rights Act. This landmark piece of legislation segregation in schools, public places, and employment. It also ensured that the Democratic Party would become the minority party in the South; despite Johnson's landslide victory over Goldwater in November 1964, Goldwater won the in the formerly "Solid South" states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, in addition to his home state of Arizona.

Since the ostensible subject this blog is suppose to cover is all things labor, I would like to focus on the effect of this legislation on the labor movement. As a means of combatting segregation in the workplace, the act provided for the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). During its early years of existence, the EEOC filed few cases.

Griggs v. Duke Power changed that posture dramatically. Duke Power before the passage of the Civil Rights Act had maintained a strictly segregated workforce, with African Americans relegated to the laborer occupations. To maintain this system after the passage of the Act, the company changed the requirement for any position other than laborer to be limited to high school graduates. This eliminated nearly all African American candidates, while "grandfathering" whites in better postions who had not earned a high school diploma. Because the requirement of a diploma was "race neutral," lower courts had ruled that the company was justified in making this change.

The US Supreme Court, however, ruled that the company had to prove that the requirements were "reasonably related" to job qualifications if these changes had a disparate impact on ethnic groups, and overturned the decision of the lower court. During this same time frame, the "Philadelphia Plan" was implemented. In Philadelphia, the construction trades were especially obstinate in removing obstacles to hiring more African Americans on construction jobs. In 1968, Johnson's Secretary of Labor, William Wirtz, attempted to implement the first Philadelphia Plan, which would set "affirmative action" goals to hire African Americans in greater numbers for projects paid for by the Federal Government. Wirtz backed down under pressure from the building trades, however.

Since labor unions had led the opposition to Nixon in 1968 (nearly succeeding in electing Hubert H. Humphrey), Nixon felt no such compunction to buckle under to union pressure. In fact, Nixon saw this as a "wedge" issue, to further divide the labor/liberal opposition--which it certainly did.

JAMES BROWN! Ladies and Gentlemen

Just to counteract that little throw-up taste in you mouth from that last post:

The End of Racism

Not so fast there, Dinesh D'Souza

Let the Texas Republican Party know how you feel about their marketing campaign.

"A Third-Rate Burglary"

On this date in history, five burglars were arrested in the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters on the sixth floor of the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Three of the men--Eugenio Martinez, Virgilio R. Gonzales, and Bernard L. Barker, were Cuban exiles who had taken part in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The fourth man, Frank Sturgis, was described by DC police as a "soldier of fortune," who had led three three Cuban exiles during the Bay of Pigs incident. The fifth man gave police the name of Edward Martin; his real name, however, was James W. McCord, who was employed with Richard M. Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President, known by the acronym CREEP. Later, two co-conspirators, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, were also indicted.

Hunt encouraged the men to plead guilty, as he planned to do, assuring them they would receive light sentences and that their families "would be taken care of." Hunt had readily supplied the Cuban exiles (whom he had led during the CIA-directed Bay of Pigs operation) with money, but had cut off funds when the men threatened to tell police what they knew. Hunt appealed to the men's patriotism, and promised that the money would flow again. Unfortunately for Hunt, however, his wife died in a tragic plane crash just days before with $10,000 in cash in a briefcase; this money is eventually traced back to CREEP.

Despite the scent of scandal wafting through the campaign, Nixon wins a landslide victory over the Democratic Party candidate, George McGovern, in the fall. The story of the attempted cover-up would not die, however, as two enterprising journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, kept digging for information and interviewing sources, guided in part by a source cultivated by Woodward known as "Deep Throat," after the adult movie popular in 1972. As the story "gained legs," it spurred investigations by the FBI, the US Senate, and the US House, culminating in this episode: