FBI: Anti-union weapon for bosses against Teamsters

Teamster Politics by Farrell Dobbs, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for March, is part of a four-volume series along with Teamster Rebellion, Teamster Power and Teamster Bureaucracy on the Teamster battles of the 1930s. Dobbs, a leader of the 1934 Teamster strikes and central organizer of the 11-state drive that unionized over-the-road truckers, was national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party from 1953 to 1972 and its presidential candidate four times. The excerpt is from the chapter “Antilabor Role of the FBI.” Copyright © 1975 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY FARRELL DOBBS
The provocative interference of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the legitimate affairs of the people in this country, including disruption of their political and trade-union organizations, was given large-scale exposure after the Watergate scandals. But the antidemocratic and antilabor activities of federal and other police agencies were already in operation during the 1930s.

That role was evidenced in the 1939 governmental attacks on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which occurred at a time when I was a general organizer assigned to the union’s over-the-road campaign in the Midwest. In connection with the organizing drive — an action that helped lift the IBT into its present powerful status — several officials of Teamster locals were framed up and hauled into the courts on various charges. …

In July 1938 the Teamsters and Bakers unions had jointly tied up the wholesale bakeries in Sioux City. The strike was solid. Not a single worker sought to return to the job. Since this left the police with no pretext to attack the picket lines, there were no instances of violence in the city during the walkout.

The incident later seized upon to fabricate a case against the Teamsters was of an isolated and questionable nature. One of the struck firms, Metz Baking Company, operated extensively in the region of Sioux City. A Metz truck was allegedly burned during the strike near the Iowa-Minnesota line. The company blamed the Teamsters, and the charge became a one-day sensation in the papers.

[Teamsters] Local 383 disclaimed any knowledge of the matter, observing that there would have been no point in the strikers taking such action in the hinterlands. The outcome of the struggle had to be determined in Sioux City, where the union forces were strong and in full control of the situation. …

In any event, the conflict was actually fought out in Sioux City, and after a walkout of about a month the strikers won. A year later union contracts with the bakeries were renewed on improved terms, without need for strike action. By that time the false allegations against the Teamsters concerning the Metz truck were thought to have sunk back into limbo.

Not so. The FBI had long been working quietly on the case. This had led to secret indictments against several Teamster officials by a federal grand jury, which had been convened in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the opposite end of the state. They were alleged to have participated in the burning of the truck during the 1938 strike.

There were five counts against them: violation of the Dyer Act (transporting a stolen vehicle across state lines); interference with interstate commerce; conspiracy to do both of the above; conspiracy to steal bakery goods; and possession of stolen bakery goods.

The first three of these counts were the most vital, since they were used to assume federal jurisdiction over the case. Such action conformed with the line that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had laid down by then. His aim was clearly to provide a basis for federal police actions designed to weaken strong trade unions.

None of this was known to the IBT until September 23, 1939. At four o’clock that morning FBI agents descended upon the homes of the unsuspecting victims. The dragnet caught up Teamster officials in three cities: Louis Miller and Walter K. Stultz in Omaha, Nebraska; Francis Quinn in Des Moines, Iowa; Howard Fouts and Ralph Johnson in Sioux City. (Jack Maloney was also on the list, but he was attending a union conference in Chicago at the time. Upon his return to Sioux City he surrendered himself through a lawyer.)

After the arrests, obstacles were put in the way of the defendants making bail. Fellow union officials, who sought help from bonding agencies to get them out of jail, were shadowed by FBI agents. Pressure was then brought against the bondsmen to scare them off. Despite such harassment, release of the six was finally obtained by posting $5,000 bail for each one.

A seventh victim was Earl Carpenter. He had been an officer of the Omaha IBT local until late 1938 when he moved to Oakland, California, and took a job as a bus driver. He, too, was picked up by the FBI and held in an Oakland jail pending later transport to Iowa for his trial.

Ominously enough, the attack had not been limited to Sioux City Local 383, the only IBT unit involved in the 1938 bakery strike. Omaha Local 554 and Des Moines Local 90 had also become targets of the FBI. All three locals were among the key links in the eleven-state formation through which the Teamsters were organizing over-the-road drivers across the entire upper Mississippi valley. Thus it was plainly evident that the Metz incident was being used as a cover for a union-busting attack of major proportions, and strong countermeasures were needed to ward off the danger. …

Earl Carpenter, Jack Maloney, Francis Quinn, and Walter K. Stultz were put in the federal prison at Sandstone, Minnesota. Howard Fouts and Ralph Johnson were sent to Terre Haute, Indiana. Louis Miller was locked up at Leavenworth, Kansas. Before entering prison Miller sent me a letter expressing his feelings about the situation. “As you know,” Lou wrote, “a decision has been made which seems to be final and under these circumstances there is nothing left for me to do but take the consequence. I want you to know that in spite of the verdict which has declared me guilty, I shall serve time as a free man, in thought.

“I have at all times tried to play the game as a true unionist, fighting for those principles which every true union man has in his heart. I do not intend that this letter should in any sense be an obituary, rather I want to arouse the union consciousness of every working man and woman.”

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