Robert
Ferdinand Wagner, the youngest of nine children, was born in Hesse-Nassau,
Germany, on 8th June, 1877. His family
emigrated to the United States in 1885 and settled in New
York City. Wagner was unable to speak English when he started
school but he was a good student and eventually graduated from the
New York City College (1898) and the New York Law School (1900).
Wagner was active in the Democratic Party
and with the support of Charles Murphy
and the Tammany Society he won a seat
in the state legislature in 1904 and four years later was elected
to the state senate. Wagner took a particular interest in industrial
working conditions and developed a sympathy for the emerging trade
union movement.
In 1919 Wagner became a justice of the New York Supreme Court. He
held this position to 1926 when he was elected to the United States
Senate. During his first term Wagner failed in his attempts to persuade
Congress to pass legislation to help trade unions and the unemployed.
A
strong supporter of the New Deal, Wagner
was appointed by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt to be the first chairman of the National
Recovery Administration. Wagner became an important figure in
the Roosevelt administration and helped draft the National
Industrial Recovery Act, the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration, the Social Security
Act, and the National Labour Relations
Act - commonly called the Wagner Act.
The
NAACP hoped that the election of Franklin
D. Roosevelt in 1932 would bring an end to lynching.
Two African American campaigners against lynching, Mary
McLeod Bethune and Walter Francis White,
had been actively involved in helping Roosevelt to obtain victory.
The president's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt,
had also been a long-time opponent of lynching.
Robert
F. Wagner and
Edward
Costigan agreed
to draft a bill that would punish the crime of lynching.
In
1935 attempts were made to persuade Roosevelt to support the Costigan-Wagner
bill. However, Roosevelt refused to speak out in favour of the bill
that would punish sheriffs who failed to protect their prisoners from
lynch mobs. He argued that the white voters in the South would never
forgive him if he supported the bill and he would therefore lose the
next election.
Even the appearance in the newspapers of the lynching of Rubin
Stacy failed to change Roosevelt's mind on the subject. Six deputies
were escorting Stacy to Dade County jail in Miami on 19th July, 1935,
when he was taken by a white mob and hanged by the side of the home
of Marion Jones, the woman who had made the original complaint against
him. The New York Times later
revealed that "subsequent investigation revealed that Stacy,
a homeless tenant farmer, had gone to the house to ask for food; the
woman became frightened and screamed when she saw Stacy's face."
Wagner
argued in the Senate that "there is no greater evil than mob
violence and there is no reform for which I have pleaded with greater
certainty of its wisdom than this bill." The Costigan-Wagner
received support from many members of Congress but the Southern opposition
managed to defeat it. However, the
national debate that took place over the issue helped to bring attention
to the crime of lynching.
In
1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt
appointed Wagner as the first chairman of the National
Recovery Administration. Wagner became an important figure in
the Roosevelt administration and helped draft the National
Industrial Recovery Act, the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration, the Social Security
Act, and the National Labour Relations
Act - commonly called the Wagner Act.
In 1937 Wagner persuaded Congress to establish the United
States Housing Authority, an agency to provide loans for low-cost
public housing. However, he was less successful in his attempts to
create a national health care system.
Wagner resigned from the Senate for health reasons in 1949. However,
he recovered and spent his last few years helping to establish the
new nation of Israel. Robert Ferdinand Wagner died in New
York City on 4th May, 1953.
(1)
New
York Times (1st August, 1918)
In ability and character, in honesty of purpose and manliness of action.
Senator Wagner has been an inspiration to younger legislators and
a beacon light to men older than him in years. He was the friend of
the laboring man and the defender of women and children who have to
earn their bread by the sweat of their brow and yet he never was a
demagogue. All the gold in the world could not buy him; all the beckonings
of ambition could not induce him to abandon the cause that was righteous
and the issue that was true. There is not a black spot upon him. He
has served the people well.
(2)
Robert F. Wagner, speech in the Senate (31st March, 1937)
The
uprising of the common people has come, as always, only because of
a breakdown in the ability of the law and
our economic system to protect their rights. The sitdown has been
provoked by the long-standing and ruthless tactics of a few great
corporations who have hamstrung the National Labor Relations Board
by invoking court actions, which they have a perfect legal right to
do; who have openly banded together to defy this law of Congress quite
independently of any court action, which they have neither the legal
nor the moral right to do; and who have systematically used spies
and discharges and violence and terrorism to shatter the workers'
liberties as decided by Congress, which they have neither the legal
nor the moral right to do. The organized and calculated and cold-blooded
sitdown against Federal law has come not from the common people, but
from a few great vested interests. Make
men free, and they will be
able to negotiate without fighting.
(3)
Frances Perkins
was secretary for labor in Franklin D. Roosevelt's first cabinet.
She wrote about this period in her book, The Roosevelt I Knew
(1946)
It ought to be on the record that the President
did not take part in developing the National Labor Relations Act and,
in fact, was hardly consulted about it. It was not a part of the President's
program. It did not particularly appeal to him when it was described
to him. All the credit for it belongs to Wagner.
The proposed bill, it must be remembered, was remedial. Certain unfair
practices which employers had used against workers to prevent unionization
and to cripple their economic strength had been uncovered by Wagner.
The bill sought to correct these specific, known abuses, and did not
attempt to draw up a comprehensive code of ethical behaviour in labor
relations. Such a comprehensive code, however, was needed. Roosevelt
supported my suggestion that labor leaders who wanted to distinguish
themselves should draw up such a code and let us take a look at it.
(4)
Rexford Tugwell was an assistant secretary
in the Agricultural Department in 1933. He wrote about his experiences
in The Democratic Roosevelt (1957)
Senator Wagner had been chairman of the National Labor Board during
the first half of NRA. During that service he had seen how little
could be accomplished without powers to enforce the principles that
were supposed to be those of all New Dealers. Such intractable employer
corporations as Weirton Steel, Budd Manufacturing, and Ford Motor
were either refusing compliance or were making use of company unions
to evade collective bargaining.
In February 1934, Senator Wagner induced Franklin to issue two executive
orders authorizing the Board to hold elections for determining bargaining
agents and to prevent violations to the Department of Justice for
prosecution. But Wagner was convinced that more was necessary and
on 1st March he introduced a Labor Disputes Bill.
Senator Wagner's bill enumerated several "unfair practices"
to be prohibited, such as the sponsoring by employers of company unions,
interfering with employees' choice of bargaining representatives,
and refusal to bargain with elected agents. Under the bill a new labor
board would be set up, fully equipped with staff to investigate and
powers to enforce the provisions of the act.
(5)
Roy Wilkins
interviewed Huey P. Long for The
Crisis in February,
1935.
"How about lynching.
Senator? About the Costigan-Wagner bill in congress and that lynching
down there yesterday in Franklinton..."
He ducked the Costigan-Wagner
bill, but of course, everyone knows he is against it. He cut me off
on the Franklinton lynching and hastened in with his "pat"
explanation:
"You mean down in
Washington parish (county)? Oh, that? That one slipped up on us. Too
bad, but those slips will happen. You know while I was governor there
were no lynchings and since this man (Governor Allen) has been in
he hasn't had any. (There have been 7 lynchings in Louisiana in the
last two years.) This one slipped up. I can't do nothing about it.
No sir. Can't do the dead nigra no good. Why, if I tried to go after
those lynchers it might cause a hundred more niggers to be killed.
You wouldn't want that,
would you?"
"But you control
Louisiana," I persisted, "you could..."
"Yeah, but it's not
that simple. I told you there are some things even Huey Long can't
get away with. We'll just have to watch out for the next one. Anyway
that nigger was guilty of coldblooded murder."
"But your own supreme
court had just granted him a new trial."
"Sure we got a law
which allows a reversal on technical points. This nigger got hold
of a smart lawyer somewhere and proved a technicality. He was guilty
as hell. But we'll catch the next lynching."
My guess is that Huey
is a hard, ambitious, practical politician. He is far shrewder than
he is given credit for being. My further guess is that he wouldn't
hesitate to throw Negroes to the wolves if it became necessary; neither
would he hesitate to carry them along if the good they did him was
greater than the harm. He will walk a tight rope and go along
as far as he can. He told New York newspapermen he welcomed Negroes
in the share-the-wealth clubs in the North where they could vote,
but down South? Down South they can't vote: they are no good to him.
So he lets them strictly alone. After all, Huey comes first.
Anyway, menace or benefactor,
he is the most colorful character I have interviewed in the twelve
years I've been in the business.
(6)
Robert F. Wagner, speech in the Senate (19th June, 1945)
We
face the issue of whether public funds shall be used
to help guarantee full employment - and public housing raises
this issue.
We face the issue of whether
subsidy shall be used to share our wealth more equitably among the
people of this country - and public housing raises this issue.
We face the issue of whether
we shall solidify or break down the ghettos of segregation in our
cities - and public housing
is confronted with this issue in every step it takes.
We face the dramatic challenge
of rebuilding America - the
greatest challenge ever issued to our inventive genius plant
capacity, and physical and mental resources. Without public
housing, no such rebuilding program can even commence
to get started.
We will be faced with
a postwar challenge from overseas - from the other nations that will
be building or rebuilding
their cities.
If we want to lead the
world, the people of America cannot be left living in slums.
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