John Brophy Quotes
Attacking communists was generally nothing more than a smokescreen for attacking the CIO.
John Brophy, 1883-1963., Miner and Trade Unionist, Quoted in Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais, Labor’s Untold Story
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Seeger’s admission was typical of tens of thousands of Americans who had become disillusioned with the fairness, equity, and effectiveness of capitalism during the depression. They were easy prey for Communist propaganda which pointed out all the problems in American society from legal racial discrimination to lack of a social safety net while at the same time lying about the Russian achievements and hiding the horrible abuses of human rights—especially the political murders of millions of people. Then the truth about Russia emerged, Seeger and so many others abandoned the Communist Party as at the same time America was improving its society and beginning to try and deal with the great problem that had plagued America from its inception—racism and slavery.
The organization thought that Franklin D. Roosevelt was surrounded by and influenced by communists, and was destroying America for capitalism, when in reality it was Roosevelt who saved capitalism in America by leading the country out of the Great Depression without any revolution or insurgency and maintaining the basic structure of capitalism. They were so fearful of communism that most Americans thought paranoid and unrealistic. When Roosevelt trounced Alf Landon in the 1936 Presidential election, the Liberty League collapsed.
Although the U. S. denied propaganda and dirty tricks efforts interfering in the internal affairs of South American Countries, this memo proves that there were some instances of just that.
Howe was specifically referring to the Gastonia strike of 1929. The Communists, never known for their skill at organizing labor action, sold out the workers in order to have a political issue to campaign on throughout the world. Meanwhile, the Southern establishment saw the strike as an Armageddon where Communism and racial integration had to be stopped cold and therefore not only refused even reasonable demands, but used the National Guard {592420} and law enforcement authorities to murder and jail innocent people. Both sides got what they wanted unfortunately, with the communists cleverly exposing to the rest of the world, the worst of Southern racism. All civil rights protests thereafter in America were claimed by the Southern segregationists to be communist organized, and even affirmative action efforts are still often so labeled.
To this day, historians debate whether Foster actually believed that statement or just used it as a ploy to discredit the AFL and other labor groups who the communists then considered their foes.
A theater arts program that operated nationally under the WPA.
John Brophy (1883–1963) was an important figure in the United Mine Workers of America (UWMA) in the 1920s and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and 1940s. He was the last major challenger to John L. Lewis' power within the UMWA and, after Lewis hired him back, a key leader within the CIO.
