Vance Muse

Last updated

Vance Muse (born January 6, 1890, Moran, Texas; died October 15, 1950, Houston, Texas) [1] was an American businessman and conservative lobbyist who invented the Right-to-work movement against the unionization of American workers, and helped pass the first anti-union laws in Texas. Muse was editor of The Christian American and worked for the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution (SCUC), which used both anti-Semitic and anti-black rhetoric in their lobby work against the reelection of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Christian American Association worked on the far right-wing in Texas labor politics. [2] He also used segregationist views as an argument against unions, stating that "From now on, white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes whom they will have to call 'brother' or lose their jobs." [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

He was born at Moran, Texas. Beginning in 1917, he worked at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and participated in a wide range of conservative political organizations. He became an associate of business magnate John Henry Kirby, and supported his fight against the Adamson Act which gave an eight-hour workday to railroad workers. [12] He was strongly opposed to the New Freedom business reform legislation of Woodrow Wilson, as well as the New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. During and after World War II, Muse was instrumental in passing a number of anti-union laws in the American South, and wished to propose a Right-to-work amendment to the United States Constitution. [13] [14]

Related Research Articles

The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, racial and religious minorities, rural white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and rich Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and survived the splits that created two splinter parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Nance Garner</span> Vice President of the United States from 1933 to 1941

John Nance Garner III, known among his contemporaries as "Cactus Jack", was an American Democratic politician and lawyer from Texas. He served as the 39th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1931 to 1933 and as the 32nd vice president of the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1941. Garner and Schuyler Colfax are the only politicians to have served as both speaker of the House and vice president of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the United States (1865–1918)</span> Aspect of history

The history of the United States from 1865 until 1918 covers the Reconstruction Era, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era, and includes the rise of industrialization and the resulting surge of immigration in the United States. This article focuses on political, economic, and diplomatic history.

In the context of labor law in the United States, the term "right-to-work laws" refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions which require employees who are not union members to contribute to the costs of union representation. Unlike the right to work definition as a human right in international law, U.S. right-to-work laws do not aim to provide a general guarantee of employment to people seeking work but rather guarantee an employee's right to refrain from paying or being a member of a labor union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Rayburn</span> American politician (1882–1961)

Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn was an American politician who served as the 43rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was a three-time House speaker, former House majority leader, two-time House minority leader, and a 24-term congressman, representing Texas's 4th congressional district as a Democrat from 1913 to 1961. He holds the record for the longest tenure as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving for over 17 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive Era</span> Era of US history between 1896 and 1917

The Progressive Era (1896–1917) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste, and inefficiency. The main themes ended during American involvement in World War I (1917–1918) while the waste and efficiency elements continued into the 1920s. Progressives sought to address the problems caused by rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption; and by the enormous concentration of industrial ownership in monopolies. They were alarmed by the spread of slums, poverty, and the exploitation of labor. Multiple overlapping progressive movements fought perceived social, political and economic ills by advancing democracy, scientific methods, professionalism and efficiency; regulating businesses, protecting the natural environment, and improving working conditions in factories and living conditions of the urban poor. Spreading the message of reform through mass-circulation newspapers and magazines by "probing the dark corners of American life" were investigative journalists known as “muckrakers". The main advocates of progressivism were often middle-class social reformers.

The Black Codes, sometimes called the Black Laws, were laws which governed the conduct of African Americans. In 1832, James Kent wrote that "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in respect to political privileges, between free white persons and free colored persons of African blood; and in no part of the country do the latter, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites, in the exercise of civil and political rights." Although Black Codes existed before the Civil War and although many Northern states had them, it was the Democrat-led Southern U.S. states that codified such laws in everyday practice. The best known of these laws were passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and in order to compel them to work for either low or no wages.

Progressivism in the United States is a political philosophy and reform movement in the United States advocating policies that are generally considered social democratic and left-wing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Connally</span> American politician

Thomas Terry Connally was an American politician, who represented Texas in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, as a member of the Democratic Party. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1917 to 1929, and in the U.S. Senate from 1929 to 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Civic Federation</span>

The National Civic Federation (NCF) was an American economic organization founded in 1900 which brought together chosen representatives of big business and organized labor, as well as consumer advocates in an attempt to ameliorate labor disputes. It favored moderate progressive reform and sought to resolve disputes arising between industry and organized labor.

The conservative coalition, founded in 1937, was an unofficial alliance of members of the United States Congress which brought together the conservative wings of the Republican and Democratic parties to oppose President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. In addition to Roosevelt, the conservative coalition dominated Congress for four presidencies, blocking legislation proposed by Roosevelt and his successors. By 1937, the conservatives were the largest faction in the Republican Party which had opposed the New Deal in some form since 1933. Despite Roosevelt being a Democrat himself, his party did not universally support the New Deal agenda in Congress. Democrats who opposed Roosevelt's policies tended to hold conservative views, and allied with conservative Republicans. These Democrats were mostly located in the South. According to James T. Patterson: "By and large the congressional conservatives agreed in opposing the spread of federal power and bureaucracy, in denouncing deficit spending, in criticizing industrial labor unions, and in excoriating most welfare programs. They sought to 'conserve' an America which they believed to have existed before 1933."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Republican Party (United States)</span> Republican Party

The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States. It is the second-oldest extant political party in the United States after its main political rival, the Democratic Party.

In United States politics, modern liberalism is a form of social liberalism. It combines ideas of civil liberty and equality with support for social justice and a well-regulated mixed economy. Modern liberalism opposes the interests of corporations, opposes cuts to the social safety net, and supports a role for government in reducing inequality, increasing diversity, providing access to education, ensuring access to private sector healthcare, regulating economic activity, and protecting the natural environment. This form of liberalism took shape in the 20th century as the voting franchise and other civil rights were extended to a larger class of citizens, most notably among African Americans and women. Major examples of modern liberal policy programs include the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, and the Affordable Care Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Henry Kirby</span>

John Henry Kirby was a businessman whose ventures made him the largest lumber manufacturer in Texas and the Southern United States. In addition to serving two terms in the Texas Legislature, he also established the Kirby Petroleum Company. With his successful reputation, he was known by his business peers as "The Prince of the Pines" and "The Father of Industrial Texas". Kirbyville, Texas in Jasper County is named after him, as is Kirby Drive and Upper Kirby in Houston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texas in the American Civil War</span> Article about the state of Texas and its involvement with the civil war.

Texas declared its secession from the Union on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States on March 2, 1861, after it had replaced its governor, Sam Houston, who had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. As with those of other states, the Declaration of Secession was not recognized by the US government at Washington, DC. Some Texan military units fought in the Civil War east of the Mississippi River, but Texas was more useful for supplying soldiers and horses for the Confederate Army. Texas' supply role lasted until mid-1863, when Union gunboats started to control the Mississippi River, which prevented large transfers of men, horses, or cattle. Some cotton was sold in Mexico, but most of the crop became useless because of the Union's naval blockade of Galveston, Houston, and other ports.

In the United States, liberalism is based on concepts of unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, the right to due process and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation of liberalism. It differs from liberalism worldwide because the United States has never had a resident hereditary aristocracy and avoided much of the class warfare that characterized Europe. According to Ian Adams: "Ideologically, all US parties are liberal and always have been. Essentially they espouse classical liberalism, that is a form of democratised Whig constitutionalism plus the free market. The point of difference comes with the influence of social liberalism" and the proper role of government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hatton W. Sumners</span> American politician

Hatton William Sumners was a Democratic Congressman from the Dallas, Texas, area, serving from 1913 to 1947. He rose to become Chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Deal</span> Economic programs of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs and agencies included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). They provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth, and the elderly. The New Deal included new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and efforts to re-inflate the economy after prices had fallen sharply. New Deal programs included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, first and second terms</span> U.S. presidential administration from 1933 to 1941

The first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt began on March 4, 1933, when he was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the second term of his presidency ended on January 20, 1941, with his inauguration to a third term. Roosevelt, the Democratic governor of the largest state, New York, took office after defeating incumbent President Herbert Hoover, his Republican opponent in the 1932 presidential election. Roosevelt led the implementation of the New Deal, a series of programs designed to provide relief, recovery, and reform to Americans and the American economy during the Great Depression. He also presided over a realignment that made his New Deal Coalition of labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics, African Americans, and rural white Southerners dominant in national politics until the 1960s and defined modern American liberalism.

References

  1. Texas Historical Association; Vance Muse
  2. Dixon, Marc (2007). Limiting labor: Business political mobilization and union setback in the states. Journal of Policy History, 19(3), p. 321
  3. Colby, Gerard (1984). ""Decade of Despair". Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain. Secaucus: Lyle Stewart. pp. 347–357.
  4. Southern Studies - The Racist Roots of Right to Work Laws. Retrieved from the Internet Archive.
  5. Mark Ames. Pando.com "As “Right To Work” becomes law in Wisconsin, a reminder of its inventor’s racist past"
  6. Muse, Vance (1986). "Making Peace with Grandfather". Texas Monthly. 14 (2): 142.
  7. Green, E. C. (1999). From antisuffragism to anti-communism: The conservative career of Ida M. Darden. Journal of Southern History, 287-316.
  8. Brewer, T. B. (1970). State anti‐labor legislation: Texas—A case study. Labor History, 11(1), 58-76.
  9. Morgan, G. T. (1971). The Gospel of Wealth Goes South: John Henry Kirby and Labor's Struggle for Self-Determination, 1901-1916. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 186-197.
  10. Motl, K. C. (2006). Under the Influence: The Texas Business Men's Association and the Campaign against Reform, 1906-1915. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 494-529.
  11. Obadele-Starks, E. (2001). Black unionism in the industrial South (No. 11). Texas A&M University Press.
  12. Phillips, M., Tullock, S., Volanto, K. J., Cunningham, S., Baker, N., Green, G., & Lind, M. (2014). The Texas Right: The Radical Roots of Lone Star Conservatism (No. 39). D. O. D. Cullen, & K. G. Wilkison (Eds.). Texas A&M University Press.
  13. Green, George N. (June 15, 2010). "MUSE, VANCE". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  14. Bernstein, V. H. (1943). The Antilabor Front. The Antioch Review, 328-340.