Topic 13 : Interviews re Smith Committee investigation of the NLRB, 1968-1975.

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Topic 13 : Interviews re Smith Committee investigation of the NLRB, 1968-1975.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/64091511

Smith's relationships with Frances Perkins and Franklin D. Roosevelt are reviewed as are his views on congressional control over quasi-judicial federal administrative agencies and his participation in the drafting of a bill to amend the Wagner Act (HR. 8813, 1940.) Smith's role with the House Committee on Un-American Activities and in the formulation of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 is also reviewed. The activities of the Smith Committee are examined in detail. Smith Committee members' criticisms of David Saposs, Nathan Witt, and Edwin Smith are discussed, as is the controversy regarding the appointment of Edmund M. Toland as general counsel of the Committee and the battle over Committee interference with NLRB activities, including the effort to abolish the Division of Economic Research because of alleged communist domination; investigations of alleged pro-labor biases on the part of NLRB staff and alleged unfairness to employers; and seizure of NLRB files at the instigation of the Committee. Other issues illustrative of the antagonism between the Smith Committee and Board members are the Committee-inspired allegations that Witt and Edwin Smith gave unfair advice to unions, that Warren Madden solicited union support for the Board against the Committee, and that spurious evidence was used to discredit the NLRB, as well as charges that the Committee investigations disrupted Board work. Also examined is NLRB staffer Joe Rosenfarb's conduct of the Eagle-Picher Mining and Smelting Company Case and Toland's methods of cross examination and his general method of conducting the hearings, which was found offensive by some. The impact of the hearings is discussed at some length. One effect was a realignment of alleged communists and non-communists on the NLRB. The report of the minority members of the Committee was said to have been adopted, in part, in the later Taft-Hartley legislation. The position of the minority members of the Board was a broader concern for principles of law, while the majority chose to concentrate on what they believed to be questionable activities of individual NLRB staff and Board members. Relevant respondents include William Avrutis, Meta Barghausen, George Bokat, George Bott, Fannie Boyls, Harry Brickman, Wallace Cohen, William Consedine, Bernard Cushman, Thomas Emerson, Estelle Frankfurter, Herbert Fuchs, Ben Golden, Leon Keyserling, Ida Klaus, Frank Kleiler, Howard Lichtenstein, J. Warren Madden, Will Maslow, Ray Murdock, George Pratt, Lee Pressman, Roger Robb, David Saposs, Louis Silverberg, Howard Smith, Gerhard Van Arkel, Owsley Vose, Nathan Witt and Benedict Wolf. The House of Representatives investigation of the NLRB in 1939-1940, led by Congressman Howard Worth Smith, forms an important subject for discussion in many of the interviews.

30 transcripts.

Cornell University Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 7911047

Cornell University Library

Related Entities

There are 41 Entities related to this resource.

United States

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Idaho became a state on July 3, 1890 with post offices being established as early as 1876. From the guide to the Franklin County, Idaho Post Office Location Records, 1876-1945, (Utah State University. Special Collections and Archives) These photographs document Region 4, started in 1910, of the US Forest Service, covering Utah, Nevada, Southern Idaho, and Western Wyoming. From the guide to the US Forest Service Photograph Collection., 19...

United States. National Labor Relations Board

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After the first National Labor Relations Board was functionally abolished by the Supreme Court decision invalidating the National Industrial Recovery Act, May 27, 1935, a new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was established as an independent agency by the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act (NLRA) (49 Stat. 195), dated July 5, 1935. The Supreme Court in 1937 declared the Board constitutional and sustained Congress’s power to regulate employers whose operations affected interstate commerce...

United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities (1934-1975)

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From 1934 to 1937 The U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities began as the Special Committee on Un-American Activities and was also known as the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. The Dies Committee, was created on May 26, 1938, with the approval of House Resolution 282, which authorized the Speaker of the House to appoint a special committee of seven members to investigate un-American activities in the United States, domestic diffusion of propaganda, and all other questions relating thereto...

Saposs, David J., 1886-1968

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David Joseph Saposs (February 22, 1886 – November 13, 1968) was an American economist, historian, and civil servant. He is best known for being the chief economist of the National Labor Relations Board from 1935 to 1940. ...

Perkins, Frances, 1880-1965

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Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American sociologist and workers-rights advocate who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes were the only original members of the Rooseve...

Maslow, William C.

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Robb, Roger

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Madden, Joseph Warren, 1890-1972

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Lawyer, government official. From the description of Reminiscences of Joseph Warren Madden : oral history, 1957. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 309736659 ...

Rosenfarb, Joseph, d. 1955.

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Emerson, Thomas I. (Thomas Irwin), 1907-1991

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Lawyer. From the description of Reminiscences of Thomas Irwin Emerson : oral history, 1953. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 309734528 From the description of Reminiscences of Thomas Irwin Emerson : oral history, 1955. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 309737818 Thomas Irwin Emerson was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on July 12, 1907. He graduated from Yale College in 1928 and from Yale Law School in 1...

Frankfurter, Estelle S.

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Bott, George

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Lichtenstein, Howard.

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Eagle-Picher Mining and Smelting Company.

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Pressman, Lee, 1906-1969

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Lawyer. From the description of Reminiscences of Lee Pressman : oral history, 1958. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 309723084 ...

Murdock, Ray R.

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Klaus, Ida.

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Pratt, George O., 1903-1979

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Smith, Edwin S. (Edwin Seymour), 1891-1976

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Edwin S. Smith (1891-1976) served on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the New Deal, as one of its original members, was a member and president of Friends of the Soviet Union, served as the personnel director of Filene's department store in Boston, and was Commissioner of Labor and Industries in Massachusetts. He also worked for the Oil Workers International Union of the CIO, and the Teachers' Division of the United Public Workers of America. When he appeared before the House Comm...

Brickman, Harry, d. 1956.

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Witt, Nathan.

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Cushman, Bernard.

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Wolf, Benedict

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Silverberg, Louis G., d. 1975.

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Keyserling, Leon H.

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Boyls, Fannie M.

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Kleiler, Frank M., 1914-

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Consedine, William R.

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Toland, Edmund M., 1898-1942.

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Vose, Owsley.

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Barghausen, Meta P.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6f521vz (person)

Avrutis, William J.

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Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York. He was the son of James (lawyer, financier) and Sara (Delano) Roosevelt. He married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt on March 17, 1905, and had six children: Anna, James, Franklin, Elliott, Franklin Jr., John. He received his B.A. from Harvard in 1904 and later attended Columbia University Law School. Roosevelt was admitted to the Bar in 1907 and worked for the Carter, Ledyard, and Milburn firm in New York City from 1907 to 19...

Golden, Ben

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Actor and organizer in the People's Theatre Movement in the United States during the 1930s. From the guide to the Ben Golden papers, 1934-1936, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections) ...

Smith, Howard Worth, 1883-1976

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Mills Edwin Godwin, Jr., was born November 19, 1914, at Chuckatuck in Nansemond County, now the City of Suffolk, Virginia. He completed public school and attended the college of William and Mary. He obtained his degree in law from the University of Virginia in 1938. Honorary doctorate degrees have been awarded him by Elon College, Roanoke College, Elmira College, the College of William and Mary, Washington and Lee University, Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Ric...

Bokat, George, 1904-1973.

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Cohen, Wallace M.

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Van Arkel, Gerhard P.

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United States. National Labor Relations Board. Division of Economic Research.

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Fuchs, Herbert, Ministerialrat

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