Henry Grunder wrote on 1/4
>snip
>It was part of the genius of the early leaders of the US labor
>movement, that they were able to get disparate occupations to
>subordinate their group identification and affinities, in favor
>of seeing themselves as having a common cause. Thus, steel
>workers, electricians, butchers, brakemen, bicycle makers, and
>so on, were made to think of themselves as "American labor."
>The great advances in the lot of working persons in this
>country in this century were the fruit of this change of
>mindset.  snip<

Funny, that's not how I read labor history. One of Debs' great failures was that
he was unable to achieve the above. The United Workers of the World NEVER became
a major player in the labor movement because they were unable to unite workers
from all professions. Workers couldn't think of themselves as united for a
common cause and couldn't get beyond " I'm a brakeman, I'm a steel worker."
Socialism will never work in this country, despite some very notable
achievements. (Debs was the party's last charasmatic leader and he died in
1926.)

It is unfair to demean the laudable achivements of a group of dedicated workers
who are willing to rise beyond politics and class struggles to provide a greater
good--that of making some of the world's great artistic, historical, and natural
history collections available to all comers. Marx would have wanted it that way.

Diane Gutenkauf, Curator,
(Raised and Educated by members of the Workmans Circle, SP, UWW, Amalgamated
Garment Workers, and ILGWU)
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