Kurt Vonnegut Quotes
What Franklin Roosevelt did, which really offended them, was he strengthened the labor unions - made it possible for them to strike. The oligarchs were furious because the working class was not supposed to have any power at all.
Vonnegut, Kurt. A Man Without a Country. Seven Stories Press, 2005.
Vladimir Lenin
Roosevelt shocked the conservative members of his own party with this statement. Labor unions were not then an accepted concept in American society. Anti trust legislation and enforcement was in its infancy and companies in an industry commonly conspired as to price fixing, labor negotiations and market share allocations. TR had a scrupulous sense of fairness and equity.
He had squads of thugs that he would “rent” out to other gangsters for their enforcement activities and to unions to protect themselves from goons and intimidate non union workers. However, he would not let his men work as goons and strike busters or for companies—despite huge pay offers—to keep their workers in line, a common practice at the time.
While Ray was very sympathetic towards the strike, his father’s attitude was typical of that of business men across the nation. A picket line or demonstration was a “mob” and mobs should be broken up before they do physical damage to people or property. “Grape” and “canister” were types of ammunition for cannon that was used against personnel in war. One shell could kill 20-30 men in a crowd.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was an American writer. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works, with further collections being published after his death.
