OUR FIRST POST-WAR DEPRESSION
Leuchtenberg, William E.
Report from Lawrence, Massachusetts: OUR FIRST POST-WAR DEPRESSION By William JS. Leuchtenberg THE QUIET MILLTOWN of Lawrence, Massachusetts, found itself the center of national attention in...
...By early March of this year, 15.000 men were out of work...
...The downtown streets are crowded with shoppers and retail stores have been operating at a normal pace...
...Lawrence is the first city in America to be hit by a major postwar depression...
...On April 11, Representative Thomas J. Lane wired President Truman from a hospital bed in Lawrence that "'tin' situation has all the elements of a fullscale depression...
...The creation of a national minimum wage will help stop the movement of industry from the Merrimack Valley in search of cheap labor...
...Irwin L. Moore, President of the New England Electric System, speaking to ihe annual mealing of the Greater Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, devoted his entire talk to "exploding the myth about hydro development...
...Secretary of Labor Maurice Tobin's order establishing a minimum wage of $1.03 in woolen and worsted mill* working on government contracts is an important step in that direction...
...the real impact of rayon on tropical worsteds has yet to be felt, and when technical problems in weaving synihet'c fibres are worked out, a drastic reorganisation and relocation of ihe textile industry may result...
...half the workers in the mills are women who can't be put to work as day laborers digging ditches and building airports...
...If the milltowns of America are to survive the next economic recession, and if a major depression is to be averted, a well-considered federal public work program, sound federal and state fiscal policies, and • coordinated program of regional planning are essential...
...it provides the first real test of how well We are prepared to weather an economic crisis...
...At the same time, there has been a growing demand to supplement compensation checks with federal works projects as a source of additional funds and a means of turning idle labor to productive use...
...rence have attracted greatest attention in the local and national press...
...Pacific and Arlington— ¦ are only working a three-day week, using a stagger system of employment...
...the red flame"—is said to have destroyed machinery and to be operating a large-scale propaganda mill...
...The three largest woolen worsted mills in Lawrence— the American...
...Much of the relative ease with which Lawrence is weathering the present crisis must be credited to the statesmanlike policies of the Textile Workers Union of America, CIO...
...WHILE THE PRESENT SLUMP in Lawrence is not the result of inability to meet competition elsewhere — and there is good reason to believe that a break in prices will return prosperity to the wool mills—the current crisis points up the economic weakness of Lawrence and similar milltowns...
...Nothing concerning the present situation was...
...Communists distributed pamphlets on foreign policy and copies of the Daily Worker to workers entering the . Lawrence office of the Employment Security Division in quest of compensation checks, and the stairs leading ¦ to the office were carpeted with leaflets urging the workers to demand increased unemployment payments...
...During the war, over 25,000 men and women worked three shifts a day in the long, redbrick textile mills along the river...
...SAVE FOR THE IDLE LOOMS at the mills, Lawrence gives no outward sign of being a depression town...
...Leuchtenberg THE QUIET MILLTOWN of Lawrence, Massachusetts, found itself the center of national attention in April...
...How well is America prepared for a depression...
...The closing of these officss, through which jobless workers are now passing at the rate of 200 every 15 minutes, would be catastrophic...
...Any regional planning agency will have to deal with more than the traditional problems of water resources...
...On April 11...
...Instead of following the tempting but foolhardy policy of demanding an immediate increase in unemployment compensation payments, the CIO is fighting for the end of the merit system and the development of a stable system of unemployment compensation and for an adequate state system of health and accident insurance...
...On April 12, in an article on the unemployment crisis and the Communist drive in Lawrence, the New York Times observed ironically: "Optimism also was expressed by the Chamber of tnmmerce...
...The most important contribution of the CIO Textile Workers in Lawrence has been its campaign to get a* deficiency appropriation from Congress to meet the payrolls of the social security offices in Massachusetts...
...William E. Leuchtenberg Is Boston director of Americans for Democratic Action and a frequent contributor to The \tw leatler...
...A "task force'" of "outside agitators" is alleged to have moved into the town and— under the leadership of Anne Burlak...
...Any federal works program in Lawrence must be adapted to the special skills of textile workers...
...From a long-range viewpoint, present reliance on one industry may prove suicidal, but entrenched business interest...
...While the Communist drive in Lawrence has been absurdly exaggerated by the Hearst press, the Communists themselves have openly proclaimed that Lawrence has high priority in their current organizing drive...
...Stating thai labor and Industry mutt work together "to preserve Mew England from the Blight of transplanted foreign philosophies...
...Failure of the 80th Congress to pass this legislation threatened to close down unemployment compensation offices throughout the state this spring, but the emergency appropriation is expected to be voted soon...
...At the same time, it is clear that the reliance of Lawrence on one industry, the attacks on an adequate social insurance program by the manufacturers, and the absence of any backlog of public works could be disastrous in any prolonged economic decline...
...Congressman Lane is now preparing a bill to compensate displaced textile workers and to provide for federal development of "replacement industries" in "depressed areas...
...which held it.- annual meeting this afternoon...
...Any immediate increase in the amount of ' payments, as proposed in a pending bill of the Fur and Leather Workers, would deplete the fund, creating chaos in the milltowns, the ultimate aim of the Communist program...
...the manufacturers hope to wreck the unemployment compensation program to have a ready reason to reduce benefits—each group serves the ends of the other perfectly...
...a reference to Emil Rieve, president of the CIO United Textile Workers—Ed...
...Lawrence, a city of 85,000 in the Merrimack valley of Northeastern Massachusetts, has long been the greatest woolen manufacturing center in the country...
...Despite considerable community pressure, the CIO has refused to echo the popular cry that imported British woolens and the reciprocal trade agreements program are responsible for the present ills of Lawrence...
...John Williamson...
...In the first week of April, over 22,000 persons were drawing unemployment compensation, about half of all workers of all classifications in the Greater Lawrence area...
...Easter shoppers on downtown Essex Street stared at the cameras of Life photographers, while union 'leaders were badgered by reporters from metropolitan dailies...
...Total British wool exports to this country for the entire past year would have provided only two hours' work for the American textile labor force, if produced here...
...communistic...
...t * COMMUNIST OPERATIONS in Lav...
...The Lawrence experience suggests that an adequate unemployment compensation fund will greatly reduce the immediate impact of a slump by keeping purchasing power high, and that the appeal of groups like the Communists is minimal when acute economic distress is avoided...
...The Worker claimed that the UE had organized a council of the unemployed in Holyoke, but in Lawrence the Communist leaflets were thrown into wastepaper baskets or in»the halls of the unemployment security office, and the few Communist shop stewards have been ousted from the CIO Textile Workers in shop elections...
...on the agenda...
...Readers of the Boston tabloids were stunned by front-page scare headlines — RED GOONS SMASH FACTORIES IN LAWRENCE and REDS CANVASS LAWRENCE IDLE...
...unemployment compensation payments are keeping the merchants in business...
...he left no doubt that he regarded ihe TV A idea as the most dangerous of these "foreign philosophies" and the attempt to establish a Merrimack Valley Authority the greatest threat to the economic "prosperity" of Lawrence...
...The Communists hope to wreck the unemployment compensation program to create an economic and political crisis...
...If benefits continue to be paid out at the present rate, the fund will be exhausted before many more months, a situation the employers await hopefully and which doesn't appear to disturb the Chamber of Commerce, despite the fact that business in Lawrence has been maintained only because of the spending of claim checks and the stagger system of employment The Associated Industries of Massachusetts are backing legislation which would increase payroll taxes in times of depression and decrease them in times of prosperity, clearly the reverse of sound fiscal policy...
...His most recent article was "TVA for New England...
...THE MAIN CONTRIBUTION of tho Communists to the welfare of Law - rence workers has been to play right into the hands of the Chamber of Commerce and similar groups which denounce any long-term program of industrial development in Lawrence a...
...Money paid out for unemployment compensation claims in Lawrence has risen almost 400 percent in the past year, with $2,090,000 paid out in the first quarter of 1949...
...National Labor Secretary of the Communist party, has frequently urged the importance of recruiting New England textile worker* for the party, while the Daily Worker names Lawrence and New Bedford as key centers of a new drive to organize the unemployed into committees to fight the "cold war policy of the trusts" and the "spineless policy of Rieve and Co...
...have blocked diversification of industry in the Lawrence area...
...It is essential to develop fully the economic resources of the Merrimack valley with power, flood control, soil conservation and industrial development as part of one unified regional plan, as proposed in Congressman Lane's bill for a Merrimack Valley Authority...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 22
