Attu, 30 March 1945 -- "I don't think that emotion is what the labor movement lacks"

My soon to be rejoined Rosita... 

My application for rotation is in the mail. I had ten hours of solid sleep last night, and today brought your wonderful Shelton letter. For APO 726 that is the perfect day. Gene [Elliott] and I have been reading extracts from your and Jean's letters. Jean says to tell me to tell you that besides the things you know she left in the houseboat there is also the Elliott's croquet set under Haj's bed. That is a statement which strikes me as nearly as wonderful as the one about living in trees being a prerequisite of conceptual thought.

...

I finally got around to reading the WA and frankly, I'm not impressed. I think that the general program is good in parts but that there is not the least chance of it's being effective, and there seems to be a lot of conflict between the points. For instance "Unify Labor's Ranks" and "Purify the Unions." The one calls for solidarity and the other calls from throwing out reactionaries and scissorbills, which would include, presumably, DeLacy [Hugh DeLacy was a one-term Congressman and president of the Washington Commonwealth Federation at that time.] and men of his type. That would make for a unified union but a damn small one.

[This WA (Workers Alliance) --there have been several others--was a short-lived publication of the Workers Alliance Institute in Seattle. The "work-or-jail" legislation mentioned was one of several Congressional attempts to pass a law requiring able-bodied civilians to work in war-related industries if needed.] 

 

Up here I do not know that full background of the "work-or-jail" bill. I object to it very strongly as a peacetime measure, just as I object to the idea of peacetime conscription. But if there is a labor shortage, if they can't get workers by ordinary means, I think the cry of slavery is unjustified and hysterical. It seems to me that the argument is that if the government can draft men to fight, to garrison the Aleutians, to sweat out the Southwest Pacific, it has every right to draft them for the factories.

 

 

It is, of course, impossible to expect people to appreciate what they have, but with all the goodwill in the world it is hard for me to feel that anyone is being abused when he is allowed to live at home, have some privacy and earn enough to keep eating. That only goes for wartime, of course. Also the WA mentions many times the deep dark plot of driving a wedge between labor and servicemen. At the same time it hails in three front page stories efforts to avoid the No-Strike Pledge. I'm undecided myself on what justifies a strike in war time, but I know completely and positively that 95 percent of the men in the army are not undecided. If there is one thing which angers a soldier it is the idea of a strike in a war industry. 

To buck for better relations between labor and the servicemen and at the same time to indicate approval of striking for 2-1/2 cents an hour more in the lumber camps, or a change in factory jobs in New Bedford, or because the NWLB decided against concessions to the Textile Workers Union is the best divisive propaganda that could be conceived. A strike now, for anything but the most imperative reasons, is a direct invitation for the formation of a Legion whose labor-baiting after the war will make the old Legion look like the civil liberties union.

It seems to me that WA could never be anything except a splinter group, at best a bleat like the New Republic, at worst a name-calling In Fact. This, of course, is judging purely by the paper. Knowing people might make difference. Also, there is remarkably little news in the paper: it is all given over to attitude and opinion. I don't think that emotion is what the labor movement lacks: it needs facts not adjectives, and facts seem pretty far between. Incidentally, the little item on why there is no inflation south of the border was a gem, even down to the exclamation point. 

I hope you are not disappointed in me for the above, little lover. On such things as the work-or-fight legislations I simply am in no position to judge; the papers get here very light [late?], Time of course is inadequate on such subjects, and the name-calling and hysteria of the antis seems unnecessary to me. 

Darling, darling, I love you so very much, and it is so hard to try to say the things I mean across time and space. Before long I will be with you and then the world can take itself off and go noisily to hell for all I care because my life will be very full and very complete and entirely wonderful.

You are adored,

M