Wellington Roe (May 27, 1898 - February 3, 1952) was an American author and political activist with the American Labor Party.
Wellington Roe (May 27, 1898 - February 3, 1952) was an American author and political activist with the American Labor Party.
Roe was born in Danbury, Connecticut and attended Wesleyan University. [1] He moved to Florida in the 1920s, where he was involved in the advertising business and was accused of check forgery in 1921. [2] In 1924, Roe was involved in a real estate partnership in Fort Lauderdale, where he gained a reputation as the "gaudiest local character of the boom". [3] Following a hurricane in September 1926, the firm's properties were destroyed and Roe abandoned his business partners. [4] In 1937, he published The Tree Falls South, a novel about Kansas farmers during the Dust Bowl. [5] The following year he published Begin No Day, a novel about labor relations in the hatting industry in Connecticut. [6] Eleanor Roosevelt wrote that "the difficulties of labor and management are truthfully pictured" in the novel. [7] Roe was a member of the League of American Writers. [8] Roe attempted to discredit Jan Valtin, writing an expose of him for the newspaper PM that was never published. [9]
Roe was a founding member of the American Labor Party in New York. [10] Bella Dodd wrote that she had "not known him as a [Communist] Party member but as a liberal...one who did not mind being used for their campaigns." [11] He ran for election as an American Labor Party candidate for Congress in 1940. [12] He received 5.5% of the vote, losing the election to James A. O'Leary. [13] Roe became a member of Lodge 598 of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen in 1944 but was expelled in 1946. [14] During his time in the union he was the special assistant to Alexander F. Whitney. [15] Despite his early support of railroad unions, he later became critical of labor unions, believing they were "often dictatorships in which labor bosses are the autocratic rulers of the dues-paying members". [16] His 1948 book Juggernaut expressed these views on unions through profiles of labor leaders like David Dubinsky and Samuel Gompers. [17] He resigned from the American Labor Party in 1948, stating that he could not support the candidacy of Henry Wallace. [18] Roe died in February 1952. [19]