Harry Truman's 1948 Labor Day Speech: "You" versus "Them"

I’d love to write about President Donald Trump’s 2019 Labor Day speech, but his calendar shows no public events today. Oops, no Labor Day speech? So, I’ll look instead to past Labor Day speeches.

Harry Truman

Speaking on Labor Day in Cadillac Square in Detroit on September 6, 1948, President Harry Truman praised organized labor, warned that a past Republican administration had "dealt three major blows" to organized labor, and reminded his audience that “Labor has always had to fight for its gains.” He ended by urging union members to vote Democratic in November. This was a ceremonial speech – a speech of values – a speech of honor and dishonor – but it was also a crassly political policy speech. It was a straightforward, beautifully-organized, and harsh political policy speech. It was a stunningly brilliant political speech. He laid out the basic political division of the last hundred years – labor versus business – in bleak terms that no one could fail to see.

First, let’s look at the speech’s occasion. Republican President Grover Cleveland had reluctantly proclaimed the first national Labor Day only after losing anti-union fights. Speaking on friendly grounds to a group of unionized autoworkers, Truman, a liberal Democrat, identified himself with their interests and needs. Truman was in the midst of a very close reelection campaign against Republican Thomas Dewey. Students of history recall that he won the election in a squeaker.

Second, Truman pitted you versus them. He reminded his audience that the Republican Party was pro-business and antilabor. He announced that he would speak “plainly and bluntly.” Plain and blunt he was as he attacked Republicans:

“Not only the labor unions, but all men and women who work are in danger, and the danger is greatest for those who do not belong to unions. If anything, the blows will fall most severely on the white-collar workers and the unorganized workers.”

And he said…

“If you let the Republican administration reactionaries get complete control of this Government, the position of labor will be so greatly weakened that I would fear, not only for the wages and living standards of the American workingman, but even for our Democratic institutions of free labor and free enterprise. 

“Remember that the reactionary of today is a shrewd man.”

Truman reserved his harshest language for the anti-labor union Taft-Hartley Act that was passed over his veto:

“Do you want to carry the Taft-Hartley law to its full implication and enslave totally the workingman, white-collar and union man alike, or do you want to go forward with an administration whose interest is the welfare of the common man?”

Think about Truman’s words: “danger,” “blows,” “fear,” “reactionary,” “enslave.” Blunt and harsh.

Yes, in Truman’s speech, it was you versus them. He said that “The ‘boom’ is on for them, and the ‘bust’ has begun for you.”

Truman’s language – and ideas – resonate with what we are hearing today from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and today's other liberal Democrats. Yet their speeches convey little of the directness, simplicity, or fight-for-it mentality that came so easily to Truman. In my next blog post, I plan to write about one of Bernie Sanders’ speeches to show exactly what his persuasive language lacks compared to Truman’s. If time allows, I then hope to return to Truman’s speech to show how brilliantly he presented a sequence of ideas. 

P.S.: Do I think that labor and business need to be at odds? Not necessarily. But our rhetoric – and our economic system – sometimes push us to think that they do. An old but wonderful book, The Worldly Philosophers, deserves a careful look. Read it, please. Found in bookstores and libraries everywhere. 

Image: Harry Truman speaking in 1948, National Park Service photo by Abbie Rowe (cropped) via Wikimedia Commons