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Christ and the CIO: Blue-Collar Evangelicalism's Crisis of Conscience and Political Turn in Early Cold-War California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2008

Darren Dochuk
Darren Dochuk
Affiliation:
Purdue University
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Abstract

This article explores tensions within the Democratic Party's uneasy alliance of grassroots labor and blue-collar evangelicalism that collapsed in heated confrontation during California's postwar political realignment. The context in which this played out is Ham and Eggs, one of California's largest old-age welfare movements during the 1930s which, in the midst of economic reconstruction, found new (but short-lived) relevance in the late 1940s. From spring 1945 until summer 1946 Ham and Eggs rallied workers behind its message of economic redistribution and Christian Americanism in hopes of forcing new legislation on behalf of pensions for the elderly. In the process, it stirred a political storm that thrust it into a significance exceeding its original intent. At issue was the “labor question,” the vexing uncertainty animating American politics at this juncture about the extent to which New Deal liberalism's labor-friendly initiatives and progressive impulses for economic freedom, racial equality, and social justice would be extended. Caught between a labor-Left movement within the Democratic Party that looked to extend New Deal liberalism and a galvanized Christian Right, which looked to roll it back, blue-collar evangelicals affiliated with Ham and Eggs confronted a new political reality that compelled them to choose between their class and faith commitments. With reluctance they chose the latter over the former. The decision marked the beginning of blue-collar evangelicalism's shift to the Right and ultimately the formation of a broader evangelical political alliance that would prove instrumental in the rise of California's conservative Republican movement.

Type
The Conservative Turn in Postwar United States Working-Class History
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 74 , Issue 1 , Fall 2008 , pp. 76 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2008

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References

NOTES

1. Perkins to Smith, April 25, 1945, Perkins folder, box 16, Gerald L. K. Smith Papers (GLKS), Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Sketches of Perkins’ life are revealed in his correspondence with Gerald L.K. Smith, the full run of which are documented in boxes 16 and 19 of the GLKS.

2. Fraser, Steve, “The ‘Labor Question,’” in The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order 1930-1980, ed. Fraser, Steve and Gerstle, Gary (Princeton, 1989), 56–57Google Scholar.

3. Within the rich body of literature dealing with labor and New Deal liberalism's rise and fall, a few stand out, including Cohen, Lizabeth, A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Gerstle, Gary, Working-Class Americanism: The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914–1960 (New York, 1989)Google Scholar; Gregory, James, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (Chapel Hill, 2005)Google Scholar; Halle, David, America's Working Man: Work, Home, and Politics among Blue-Collar Property Owners (Chicago: 1984)Google Scholar; Jacobs, Meg, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, 2004)Google Scholar; Lipsitz, George, Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture (Urbana and Chicago, 1994)Google Scholar; McGreevy, John, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago, 1996)Google Scholar; Nelson, Bruce, Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar; Nicolaides, Becky, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (Chicago, 2002)Google Scholar; Self, Robert, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, 2003)Google Scholar; Sugrue, Thomas, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar.

4. Brinkley, Alan, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (New York, 1983), xi, 141Google Scholar. For insight into Bryan's political fusion of Jeffersonian democracy and popular evangelicalism see Kazin, Michael, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (New York, 2006), xiv–xviiGoogle Scholar. On “populism's” turn to the Right after World War II see Kazin, MichaelThe Populist Persuasion: An American History (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

5. Putnam, Jackson K., Old-Age Politics in California (Palo Alto, California, 1970), 79–96Google Scholar. Lists turned over to California Secretary of State Frank Jordan by the Retirement Life Payments Association to petition constitutional amendment on the 1938 state ballot contained 789,104 names, roughly 25% of the state's registered voters. See Zimmerman, Tom, “‘Ham and Eggs, Everybody!’”, Southern California Quarterly (Spring 1980), 80Google Scholar.

6. The typical storyline of these cartoons unfolded in predictable fashion: kind elderly employee voluntarily retires, young associate receives promotion allowing him to buy a home for his family and permit his wife to raise their kids, and delinquent teen finds a way off the street and into the workforce.

7. A 1939 poll found Ham and Eggs’ most critical support in Los Angeles’ blue-collar suburbs. See “Second Survey of Public Opinion Regarding California Retirement Life Payments Act, October 1939, Ham and Eggs folder, Freedom Center Collection (FCC), California State University, Fullerton. For an account of 1930s radicalism in Los Angeles’ working-class suburbs see Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven, especially Chapter Four.

8. See, for example, “Resolution Adopted by the Inter-Denominational Ministers Alliance, September 24, 1939,” and “Hoaxing California, published by Southern California Citizens Against 30-Thursday,” both in Ham and Eggs folder, FCC. In addition, critics also painted Ham and Eggs in highly racist undertones, suggesting that if passed, Ham and Eggs’ pension plan would hand state power to white indigents from other parts of the country, black folk, and the uneducated. See Report on “Ham ‘N Eggs” in Rob Wagner's Script, October 1939, Ham and Eggs folder, FCC.

9. “A New Declaration of Independence,” Ham and Eggs folder, FCC.

10. Los Angeles Examiner, November 3, 1939, Pt. 1, p. 1.

11. “Address of William Schneiderman,” Ham and Eggs folder, FCC.

12. For example of labor support for the movement see People's World, November 2 and 4, 1939. Winston, and Moore, Marian, Out of the Frying Pan (Los Angeles, 1939), 156Google Scholar.

13. Zimmerman, “‘Ham and Eggs, Everybody,’” 86–91; Putnam, Old-Age Politics in California, 105.

14. For a useful secondary analysis of Townsend's Midwestern Protestant sensibilities see Putnam, Old Age Politics, 19–20, 54–55. The Townsend movement's religious appeal is evidenced by a cursory survey of local press coverage in the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Long Beach Townsend Clubs met regularly, for example, in Trinity Baptist Church and Zion Evangelical Church. See Long Beach Press-Telegram, August 25, 1936. Townsend's closest allies included Rev. B. Barr, Townsend manager of the Eighteenth Congressional District, and Rev. Joe Nation, pastor of Trinity Baptist. See Long Beach Press-Telegram, April 10, 1937.

15. See “Don't Go Back to Oklahoma,” in “Out on a Limb,” Ham and Eggs pamphlet filed in box 15, Ham and Eggs folder, GLKS. For detailed analysis of this migration and its effect on California religious and political culture see Darren Dochuk, “From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Southernization of Southern California, 1939–1949” (Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 2005).

16. See Southern California District Council of Assemblies of God, Annual Report 1941, 1946, Pentecostal Collection (PC), Vanguard University, Costa Mesa, California. Maps of Southern California industry provided by James Wilburn, “Social and Economic Aspects of the Aircraft Industry in Metropolitan Los Angeles During World War II” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1971).

17. F.C. Woodworth to Rev. J.R. Flower, October 9, 1946, and November 29, 1946, Southern California District Executive Files, Flower Collection (FC), Assemblies of God Archives, Springfield, Missouri.

18. On popular evangelicalism's role in helping fuse Populism see Creech, Joe, Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist Revolution (Urbana and Chicago, 2006)Google Scholar.

19. Kazin, The Populist Persuasion, 111–112; Kazin, A Godly Hero, xiv.

20. Correspondence about the California Pastors Committee between J. Roswell Flower, General Secretary of the Assemblies of God, and the liberal-progressive Committee for Church and Community Cooperation are located in the Minutes of Committee for Church and Community Cooperation, June 14, 1945, box 23, Committee for Church and Community Cooperation Correspondence and Minutes, April-July 1945 folder, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Collection (LACFL), Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge, Northridge, California.

21. Lawrence Allen to Gerald L. K. Smith, September 15, 1945, box 15, Ham and Eggs folder, GLKS.

22. Report on Ham and Eggs Meeting, November 11, 1945, box 67, folder 12, Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles Community Relations Committee (CLA), Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge.

23. Report on Earl Craig's “Public Affairs Forum,” November 6, 1945, box 67, folder 12, CLA.

24. Report on Ham and Eggs Meeting, December 3, 1945, box 67, folder 12, CLA.

25. Perkins, Jonathan, The Preacher and the State (Los Angeles, 1946), 7, 12, 40–49Google Scholar. Copy of booklet can be found in box 19, Perkins folder, GLKS.

26. Reports on Ham and Eggs Meetings, March 3 and March 24, 1946, box 67, folder 11, CLA.

27. See “Invades Los Angeles Area,” in box 10, folder 11, Papers of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Congress (CRC), Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles, California; “Editorial on Gerald L.K. Smith, Ham and Eggs Movement in Los Angeles,” Prophecy Monthly (August 1945), 11–12.

28. Smith to Dr. Will Durant, July 11, 1945, box 15, Ham and Eggs folder, GLKS.

29. See Report on Ham and Eggs Meeting, February 17, 1946, box 67, folder 11, CLA.

30. Report on Ham and Eggs Meeting, November 3, 1945, box 67, folder 12, CLA.

31. Chapter One of Denning, Michael, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1997)Google Scholar provides insight into the “progressive-labor” alliance. For more complete treatment of liberal cosmopolitanism and working-class ethnic culture in Los Angeles see Shana Bernstein, “Building Bridges at Home in a Time of Global Conflict: Interracial Cooperation and the Fight for Civil Rights in Los Angeles, 1933–1954” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2003). For deeper analysis of blue-collar southerners and their engagement with northern and western liberal and labor culture see Gregory, The Southern Diaspora.

32. As part of its education on blue-collar evangelicalism, progressive church leaders contacted the Assemblies of God headquarters in Missouri to find out more about what Pentecostalism was and how many in California practiced it. See Minutes of Committee for Church and Community Cooperation, June 14, 1945, box 23, Committee for Church and Community Cooperation Correspondence and Minutes, April-July 1945 folder, LACFL. Letter from J. Roswell Flower, August 16, 1945, box 86, folder 1, CLA.

33. Gene Tipton, “The Labor Movement in the Los Angeles Area During the 1940s” (Ph.D diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1953), 343–345.

34. Griffith, Barbara S., The Crisis of American Labor: Operation Dixie and the Defeat of the CIO (Philadelphia, 1988), 107–112Google Scholar. For further insight into battles between religious and labor leaders during postwar union drives in the South see also Brattain, Michelle, The Politics of Whiteness; Race, Workers, and Culture in the Modern South (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar; Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism 1945–60 (Urbana and Chicago, 1994)Google Scholar.

35. See “California Council Builds Democracy,” excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor, July 19, 1947, box 69, Relations; State Relations; California Council; Federation for Civic Unity folder, John Anson Ford Papers (JAF), the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

36. McWilliams summarized the argument of MFD activists when he charged that to allow Smith to speak was “tantamount to saying that we tolerate at home what we summarily punish abroad; that fascism is a criminal doctrine under the American flag in Cologne but that it can be propagated in the public schools of Los Angeles.” McWilliams in Los Angeles Against Gerald L.K. Smith.

37. Sitton, Tom, “Direct Democracy vs. Free Speech: Gerald L.K. Smith and the Recall Election of 1946 in Los Angeles,” Pacific Historical Review 57 (August 1988): 292CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. See “McClanahan Faces Recall” and “Why Smith Has Come to Los Angeles” in Los Angeles Against Gerald L.K. Smith; Anonymous letter to Smith, March 19,1945, box 18, McClanahan folder, GLKS.

39. See “Committee of 500” in box 18, McClanahan folder, GLKS and letter from Smith to McClanahan, January 17, 1946, box 18, McClanahan folder, GLKS.

40. McClanahan to Smith, March 24, 1946, box 18, McClanahan folder, GLKS.

41. Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1945.

42. Bob Shuler to Mayor Fletcher Bowron, October 18, 1945, box 44, folder 3, American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Papers (ACLU), Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

43. Heale, M.J., “Red Scare Politics: California's Campaign Against Un-American Activities, 1940–1970,” Journal of American Studies 20 (1986): 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44. Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1944.

45. Report on Ham and Eggs Meeting, May 19, 1946, box 67, folder 11, CLA.

46. Shuler to Bowron, October 18, 1945, ACLU.

47. Ibid.

48. “That Mass Meeting,” The Methodist Challenge, October 1945.

49. Anonymous letter from woman (signed “Disillusioned American”) to Smith March 19, 1946, box 18, McClanahan folder, GLKS.

50. Perkins to Smith, February 21, 1946, box 19, Rev. Jonathan E. Perkins folder, GLKS.

51. Report on Ham and Eggs Meeting, January 20, 1946, box 67, folder 11, CLA.

52. Letter from Willis Allen to Gerald Smith, March 28, 1946, box 18, Ham and Eggs folder, GLKS.

53. Press Release from Lawrence Allen, May 10, 1946, box 18, Ham and Eggs folder, GLKS.

54. Perkins to Smith, May 10 and May 14, 1946, box 19, Perkins folder, GLKS.

55. Report on Ham and Eggs Meeting, May 26, 1946, box 67, folder 11, CLA.

56. Putnam, Jackson, Modern California Politics (Nevada, 1996 [fourth edition]), 35Google Scholar.

57. For thick description of the “mid-century earthquake” that rocked American labor at this time see Denning, The Cultural Front, Chapter One. See also Lipsitz, Rainbow at Midnight, especially Parts Two and Three, and Lichtenstein, Nelson, Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II (New York, 1982), especially Chapter ElevenGoogle Scholar.

58. The literatures on working-class conservatism's racial backlash and the Christian Right's social politics are too extensive to cite fully here. For an overview see Dochuk, Darren, “Revival on the Right: Making Sense of the Conservative Moment in American History,” in History Compass: An Online Journal 4 (July 2006): 975–999CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. See “Report on Gerald L.K. Smith Meeting, April 5, 1951,” Hollywood High School Auditorium, box 41, folder 1951–36 and “Report on Gerald L.K. Smith Meeting, Wednesday, March 12, 1952,” box 41, folder 1952–63, CRC.

60. For insight into the MacArthur-Tenney-Smith alliance see “Platform: Christian Nationalist Party,” and Jack Tenney, “The Fight to Save America,” Acceptance Speech as Vice Presidential Nominee, Christian Nationalist Party, box 44, folder 2, ACLU. “G.L.K. Smith Pledges Drive to Elect Tenney,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1954, 25.

61. Francis, Warren B., “Gerald L.K. Smith's Party Given More California Money Than GOP,” Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1950Google Scholar.

62. Smith's ties to racist conservatives and those involved with the Wallace campaigns are well documented in boxes 43–45, CRC. At his highest level of popularity in California during the 1968 campaign, Wallace polled eleven percent of the popular vote. Leading Wallace's California campaign was William K. Shearer, a Republican consultant, and Reverend Alvin Mayall, a Baptist pastor from Bakersfield. For a detailed account of the California campaign see Carter, Dan, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York, 1995), 307–344Google Scholar.

63. Perkins’ memoir, publications, and obituary are available in the Jonathan Ellsworth Perkins file in FC.

64. For a sampling of Shuler's views see, for example, “Labor and Religion,” The Methodist Challenge, October 1949; “Herein Is Tragedy,” The Methodist Challenge, July 1952; “A Democratic Denial,” The Methodist Challenge, May 1959.

65. On evangelical views of RTW battles see, for example, “Right to Work,” The Methodist Challenge, June 1955; “The Rightness of the Right to Work,” The Methodist Challenge, May 1959. On the importance of RTW campaigns to the rise of western conservatism see Elizabeth Shermer, “Counter-Organizing the Sunbelt: Right to Work Campaigns and Anti-Union Conservatism, 1943–1958,” Pacific Historical Review (forthcoming). For national perspective see Cowie, Jefferson, Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor (Ithaca, 1999)Google Scholar; Gall, Gilbert, The Politics of Right to Work: The Labor Federation as Special Interests, 1943–1979 (New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Klein, Jennifer, For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's Public-Private Welfare State (Princeton, 2003)Google Scholar.

66. See Dochuk, “From Bible Belt to Sunbelt,” Chapter Seven.

67. Ibid. By the late 1960s the Southern Baptist Convention counted 250,000 members in California; within another decade it would be the largest Protestant organization in the state. The Assemblies of God claimed similar statistical triumphs in California.

68. On California's role in the nation's rightward turn see especially Brennan, Mary, Dallek, Matthew, The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan's First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics (New York, 1995)Google Scholar; Schuparra, Keven, Triumph of the Right: The Rise of the California Conservative Movement, 1945–1966 (Armonk, N.Y., 1998)Google Scholar; McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar.