Promoting the Public Good
DOUGLAS, PAUL H.
Promoting the Public Good Labor at the Rubicon By J. B. S. Hardman New York University Press. J 73 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by Paul H. Douglas Former Democratic Senator, Illinois In 1913, J. B. S....
...We were, externally, very dissimilar people...
...Hard-man pushed for collective bargaining and social legislation with unflagging dedication...
...I have often thought how much poorer the nation would have been without Hardman, Abraham Cahan...
...The labor movement has always had a choice between these two courses of action...
...Indeed, the ILGWU, its sister, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and its spiritual offshoot, the United Auto Workers, are conspicuous cases of the ideal in unions...
...Labor at the Rubicon is a welcome reminder of a long and productive career in the service of a worthy and historic cause...
...In addition to vigorously defending their members' economic interests, they have worked for the greater public good...
...Only the Jewish trade unions could have tolerated such a man and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) hired him as the editor of its newspaper...
...Hardman, on the other hand, while just as committed to the cause of equality as I, had a tragic sense of the failings of the human spirit and the uncertainties of life...
...There was an air of indefiniteness in his writing, a recognition that the final results of his efforts might be somewhat different from what he hoped...
...He could have been a character out of Henry James or Chekhov...
...Despite his ambivalences, however, Hardman's influence brought strength to true liberal principles in every walk of life, and in this he was typical of the union to which he belonged...
...Reviewed by Paul H. Douglas Former Democratic Senator, Illinois In 1913, J. B. S. Hardman and I jointly entered the seminars of Professors Seager and Seligman at Columbia University...
...Yet Hard-man did not run his newspaper like a blind propagandist...
...He had come up from the Lower East Side with a Jewish and Socialist background, whereas I had come down from the north country and was what is now known as a wasp...
...Those interested in the goals that Hardman spent his life fighting for will be grateful for these memoirs and observations, rescued by the author's devoted wife...
...Consequently, one learned to expect from Justice a strain of compassion toward opponents, and an awareness of the shortcomings of the labor movement...
...But shared outlooks brought us together and we hit it off amazingly well, beginning a friendship that would last until Hardman's death in 1968 at the age of 86...
...Sidney Hillman, David Dubinsky, Walter Reuther, and their followers...
...Justice, giving him free rein...
...He was a perpetual source of interest and stimulation to me...
...In contrast, some of the other unions have been disappointing, pursuing narrow and immediate ends, and lacking any larger vision...
...Along with the other important leaders of the ILGWU, he emphasized the necessity for the new unions to act politically ?that meant not simply supporting progressive candidates but also forming a separate Liberal party to put pressure on the New York Democratic party...
...During our college days I was very positive about my convictions, refusing to admit any weaknesses in them...
Vol. 56 • May 1973 • No. 11
