The CIO, 1935-1955In a major reinterpretation of American political thought in the revolutionary era, Marc Kruman explores the process of constitution making in each of the thirteen original states and shows that the framers created a distinctively American science of politics well before the end of the Confederation era. Suspicious of all government power, state constitution makers greatly feared arbitrary power and mistrusted legislators' ability to represent the people's interests. For these reasons, they broadened the suffrage and introduced frequent elections as a check against legislative self-interest. This analysis challenges Gordon Wood's now-classic argument that, at the beginning of the Revolution, the founders placed great faith in legislators as representatives of the people. According to Kruman, revolutionaries entrusted state constitution making only to members of temporary provincial congresses or constitutional conventions whose task it was to restrict legislative power. At the same time, Americans maintained a belief in the existence of a public good that legislators and magistrates, when properly curbed by one another and by a politically active citizenry, might pursue. |
Contents
Introduction The Fragile Juggernaut | 1 |
Founding the CIO 19351936 | 23 |
3 | 32 |
Copyright | |
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activists activities ACWA affiliates AFL's African American ALUAWSU American Labor anti-Communist Anticommunism auto autoworkers Bittner black workers Brophy campaign Carey CIO leaders CIO unions CIO's CIOEB-WSU CIOPROC CIOWO civil rights collective bargaining Committee Communists convention Daniel Bell declared Democratic Detroit Dubofsky economic election employers Executive Board federal FEPC Hillman History ILGWU ILWU industrial union International interview IUCs John John Brophy July labor movement leadership Lee Pressman legislation Lewis Lewis's Marshall Plan McDonald membership ment merger militancy Mill MSAFL-CIO National NLRB NWLB Office organized labor Packinghouse Workers Papers Party percent Philip Murray political action postwar president pro-Soviet production quoted racial rank-and-file role Roosevelt shop-floor South southern Steelworkers strike SWOC Taft-Hartley textile tion Truman TWOC TWUA U.S. Steel unionists University Press USWA wage Walter Reuther War at Home wartime York Zieger