North America’s first general strike was notable for its’
peaceful character and orderliness. For five days in 1919, despite shutting
down all of Seattle, “not a single striker or antistrike partisan was arrested
on any charge related to the strike. In fact, the usual police docket of about
one hundred cases a day fell to about thirty during the strike.” (Friedheim, p.
125). In addition, strike organizers were careful to maintain essential
services in the city. “No one starved or lacked heat; no children had to do
without milk; no sick or injured were denied hospital care.” (Friedheim, p.
126).
Friedheim’s The Seattle General Strike is a thorough
study of this remarkable event. The author makes sure his readers understand
the zeitgeist of that time period, the structure of the Seattle American
Federation of Labor (AFL) and the issues of the strike. While the reading may
be at times ponderous, one will obtain an in-depth understanding acquired
through toil over the details.
Surprisingly, in spite of meticulous illustration of the
facts, Friedheim ignores the important and glaring issue of racism within the
Seattle unions. He mentions racial issues regarding lynching (Friedheim, p. 7)
and voting (Friedheim, p. 168). He even discusses participation of Japanese
unions (Friedheim, p. 124). These inclusions make his omission more perplexing.
The relationship of African American workers to Seattle labor was complex. As
noted by Jon Wright, “many African American workers…were barred from entering
unions” managed by Seattle’s AFL. Conversely, the International Workers of the
World (IWW), who actively participated in the strike, “did not discriminate on
the basis of race.” During the strike, 300 self-organized African Americans
from the longshoremen’s union participated, while others hoped that the strike
would lead to an open (non-union) shop in the shipyards that would permit
African American employment.**
Friedheim, while clearly liberal, is not starry-eyed. He
criticizes the Seattle AFL’s “unqualified support of the Bolshevik Revolution”
as equal to their reactionary “opponents in depth of feeling and lack of
objectivity.” (Friedheim, p. 16). National AFL vociferously opposed revolution.
Above all, Friedheim is a pragmatist. Statements and actions which he sees as
counter-productive to labor’s goals are disapproved. “Leaflets urging workers
to confiscate the means of production,” generated independently of the Strike
Committee, are represented as frightening the public. (Friedheim, p. 101). “Radicals,” who generate
such literature, are juxtaposed against “Progressives,” presented as the
primary organizers who must logistically counter such propaganda.
In his conclusions, Professor Friedheim lists the successes
and failures of the strike. While presenting the image of an effective striking
organization maintaining peace and order in the city, he patiently delineates
their failures in terms of obtaining the $6.00 wage demanded by shipyard
workers and losing the propaganda war with the established Seattle business and
political machinery. After the strike, 39 workers are rounded-up on sedition
charges that do not stick in court. But what does stick is the perception that
“the strike was an unsuccessful Bolshevist revolution…Northwest lore that has
persisted.” (Friedheim, p. 147). He even claims that “the Seattle general
strike helped condition the American people to accept extreme measures against
aliens, dissenters and left-wingers, in what would become a year-long Red
Scare.” (Friedheim, p. 169). Here the
author fails to put the strike in historical perspective: The US public had
begun fearing Bolshevik revolution with the victory of the Russian Red Army in
1917. There is a trajectory from that event to the first Red Scare, which was a
direct result of coordinated leftist bombings through the mail on June 2, 1919.
The general strike may have minimally reinforced citizen’s fears of Bolshevism.
But the Russian Revolution and the 1919 bombings were perceived by the public
as far more tangible threats. It was in
this atmosphere that the peacefulness of the first general strike in US history
was painted-over as a Bolshevik revolution. Even today, the memory of its
positive attributes is resurrected only in the minds of intrepid readers of
obscure, dusty books.
Friedheim, Robert L. The Seattle General Strike.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964.
** Wright,
Jon. "Seattle General Strike: Seattle’s African American Community."
Seattle General Strike Project. 1999. Web. 14 Nov. 2015. <http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/wright.shtml>.
No comments:
Post a Comment