HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR LABOR
He Gave His Life For Labor Morris Hillquit and Our International By David Dubinsky President, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union TWO Socialist lawyers played a dominant part in (he...
...London represented the aming soul of the union, while Hillquit symbolized its clarity of vision and directness of action...
...HillSuit was the designer of our inustrial policies, the pathfinder in our struggles, and the spiritual leader of our masses...
...These were the opening sentences of Comrade Lee's speech at the funeral of Morris Hillquit held at Cooper Union a year ago...
...In truth, however, he Wis more than legal adviser...
...But we who knew him, and thus loved him Intensely, know that he belonged to no one nation or group except the great working class of every race in every land...
...T'ELL them I feel that the workers, and the workers alone, can and will free the world from its economic and social Ills...
...How vivid that moment was to me, however, is amply proven by the fact that after all these years the scene and the words spoken are quite inextinguishable...
...In brief, he was the directing mind of our International in every important move, phase or development in times of stress or storm, as well as of triumph and vindication...
...He would lend dignity and orderliness to any parley, no matter how trying or provoking were the issues at stake...
...But I had not yet met him personally and the fact that we were invited to his home was a thrilling prospect...
...Ancreven this humble elfort to write of him is not without a recurring pang of pain because of our great loss...
...Not I, at any rate...
...They were Meyer London and Morris Hillauit...
...And equally inextinguishable will always be my admiration for the keenest and most clear-cut intellect it -has been my privilege to encounter...
...Now eloquence is the last quality we usually associate with such superlative intellectuality...
...Though illness prevents me from making a more extended statement, I wish you to convey a message in my name to the large membership of your organization...
...As a young student, when he came here from the Baltic provinces, he worked as a shirtmaker, struggling to make a living...
...TELL them that the fight they are waging is a noble one, carried on for the creation of a brotherhood of man, which must eventually come about if civilisation is to continue...
...So I remember as if it were yesterday, when greeted by him there, saying with all the uninhibited ardor of youth, "This is a wonderful moment for me...
...This duty is reserved for future historians...
...But Hillquit was even more than an industrial adviser to our union...
...He was our counsellor in internal organization affairs as well, and to him we would appeal in times of inner conflict or disturbance for a word of calm and judicious advice...
...He Gave His Life For Labor Morris Hillquit and Our International By David Dubinsky President, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union TWO Socialist lawyers played a dominant part in (he rise of the Cloakmakers' Union and of the I.L.G.W.U...
...On that sweltering afternoon in Washington Hillquit spoke his last word from the public rostrum...
...He was one Of the founders of the labor movement in our midst, the United Hebrew Trades, which he helped to organise in 1888...
...For despite his great gifte, erudition and high authority in his profession and in the community as a whole, Morris Hillquit was one Of us...
...But, like our immortal 'Gene Debs, his soul goes marching on wrapped in the soul-sweetening and emancipating philosophy of International Socialism...
...I have been moved to tears by Debs and elsewhere have experienced keen intellectual satisfaction...
...Morris Hillquit now sleeps...
...Because he was a Socialist and gave liberally of all he possessed to promote the cause, we, who share his ideals, have every reason to be proud not only of the rich heritage he bequeathed to us but prouder still of Socialism, a gift, through him, to the cause of human liberation from economic bondage...
...Morris Hillquit was the lawyer and adviser of the Cloakmakers' Union and of the International for tVo decades...
...But I know only Morris Hillquit who could simultaneously clutch at your heart and sharper your intellect...
...Our opponents feared him, yet profoundly respected him...
...The Rare Quality Of Morris Hillquit By Anita Hock I REMEMBER as if it were yesterday the first time I ever met Morris Hillquit face to face...
...CONTINUE THIS WORK TOWARDS THE LIBERAHON OF MANKIND...
...He Was My Leader By Abraham Canon "HE was my leader...
...Hillquit, however, stands out as a flaming exception...
...To those of us who were privileged to work with Comrade Hillquit in the great cause at labor and Socialism—we who had our outlook clarified and our lives influenced by his charming per sociality, his mighty intellect a n d great heart, his captivating 1 o y a Ity, sincerity anil unflagging devotion to the noble ideals of economic justice and b r o therhood —the task is infinitely too s;reat a one...
...While Hillquit was the architect of our aims and plans, we never attempted to burden him with details and problems of technique...
...Unlike many of the so-called great, Comrade Hillquit scorned the glistening paths of pelf, ease and power to chosing instead the narrow rugged, dimly-lighted lane of economic and political radicalism, and thus left for humanity footprints to be retraced in its unending search for peace, plenty and freedom...
...Who that knew him can ever forget the Morris Hillquit who was the great banner-bearer, of those courageous and inspired days...
...But what would even these rare gifts have mattered had they not been further combined with an intellectual integrity and that absolute courage of convictions that made Morris Hillquit the great champion of Socialism in the days whe nthat word and all it stands for was anathema, in the days when that word and all it standi being bandied about, as it is today, by scared capitalists, tricky reformers and nebulous professors...
...Hillquit's principal weapons on the platform and at the conference table were his persuasiveness, his sharp logic, unusual informativeness, and ability to marshal facts in defense of the issues he espoused...
...I have met many outstanding persons functioning ably in the most variegated human activities—writers, artists, professors, lawyers, physicians—but nowhere have I met such relentless logic and such a devastating power of sound analysis...
...It is a great pity that he died at the threshold of a new era In America, when newer and greater possibilities seemed to open for his marvelous, gifts and invaluable experience...
...I had heard Hillquit speak often, of course, and had been enthralled by the limpid quality of his mind...
...TELL them that I have absolute faith irt the triumph of Socialism: of that order based upon the virtual equality of men...
...And now, ever since the Detroit convention, many of us miss that leadership more than ever...
...I was very younf^-just out of college a few years—and the two big events of that year for me had been marrying S. John Block and together" joining the Socialist Party...
...It is not unlikely that in the days ahead efforts will be made to portray Morris Hillquit as a great American, a great Semite, a great lawyer or something else...
...These years brought us success and disappointment, bitter struggles and the taste of victory...
...yet every free hour he could coax •Way from his sweatshop labor he would devote to propaganda for the cause which he held dearer than anything in life—the cause of the working class...
...Morris Hillquit's Lost Massage In 1888 Morris Hillquit helped organise the United Hebrew Trades...
...From the trial of 1915 to the code hearings in Washington was a long span...
...Nor did the fact that I was by no means always in agreement with his point of view prevent this intense enjoyment ot his extraordinary limpidity of thought and the power limpidly to conVey thought to others...
...To hear him speak meant'not only to be thrilled intellectually but tp be deeply stirred emotionally...
...Continue This Work...
...As a Negro, conscious of the pyramid of pain beneath which Negroes in America especially must labor to live, I can say with utter frankness that Morris Hillquit will in due time stand in the estimation of this oppressed but appreciating people side by side with Douglass, Lovejoy, Phillips, Debs, Thomas, Lewis and others who have fought—and are still fighting —the good fight against entrenched injustice...
...In 1933 that great organisation celebrated its 45//i anniversary, and in response to an invitation to participate Comrade Hillquit wrote this, his last inspiring message to the workers of the country and the world: VOUR letter reminding me of the forty-fifth anniversary of the United Hebrew Trades brings back to me very old and very cherished memories...
...The moral force behind his pleading was colored by ethics of the highest order, the inseparable reflection of the social ideals which he preached and practiced...
...To hear Morris Hillquit present a problem or expound a thesis has always remained for me one of the major intellectual pleasurea I have experienced...
...His attitude at conferences was that of a professor at the head of a class...
...His last public appearance, let it be recorded here, was in the interest of the Cloakmakers' organization at the hearings on the Cloak Code in Washington in July, 1933, when he flew from his sickbed, accompanied by a physician and a nurse, to Washington to defend the position of our union on the work hours and wage scales' that were to be included in that new charter of labor conditions...
...It isn't often one meets one's heroes face to face...
...This unusual combination was to me his rarest quality...
...They made an indelible impression on a great many comrades...
...He still is...
...A Shining Memory By Frank R. Crasswaith OUR generation is not equipped to write even an approximately adequate appraisal of our late and l>eloved Morris Hillquit...
...For me Hillquit will always live as a clear flams lighting the dark and difficult road which must inevitably be travelled by every great cause...
...And then I was to see for the first time, but by no means the last, that amused, tolerant, quizzical look that was always one of Morris Hillquit's most striking characteristics, as he said in that dry, kindly, sarcastic tone, which was equally characteristic, "Well, well, well, I certainly wish you much more wonderful moments than this one...
...Hillquit was the master debater at industrial conferences, and the spiritual father of nearly all our collective agreements in the past generation...
...All of us Who in these past years have held posts of responsibility in the union found in him a devoted comrade and a wise, dependable, clearthinking spokesman...
...Invariably his direction was sound and constructive...
Vol. 17 • October 1934 • No. 80
