American Gandhi. Leilah Danielson

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СКАЧАТЬ the AFT; in fact, Muste served as one of the international’s vice presidents through much of the 1920s. The college only admitted students who had recommendations from their unions and reached out to unionists who could not stay for long-term study by establishing an extension program and by offering short courses where unionists could gather to explore problems in their union or in the labor movement as a whole. In 1925, Brookwood expanded its extension program by offering correspondence courses through the pages of Labor Age.

      Brookwood also sought to be wholly financed by unions. These efforts paid off: within Brookwood’s first year alone, Muste boasted of having thirty endorsements from unions. The college never became financially independent, however; although a number of unions established scholarships, he was forced to turn to old sources of support, like Elizabeth Glendower Evans and Anna N. Davis, as well as to the newly formed American Fund for Public Service (also known as the Garland Fund), from which he managed to obtain a long-term grant. Muste made it clear, however, that these donations came with ‘‘no strings attached.’’¹⁰³

      Muste’s desire to obtain labor’s support partly explains his more moderate tone and cultivation of the AFL leadership during Brookwood’s early years, though he was also genuinely eager to find common ground between ‘‘lefts and rights’’ in the movement. In his correspondence and interactions with the AFL leadership, ‘‘Brother Muste’’ explicated Brookwood’s pragmatic approach to education and its hostility to sectarianism, and reassured them that the college’s goal was simply to make more ‘‘effective’’ trade unionists. He also made it the college’s policy not to take official positions on questions facing the labor movement or to publicly align with any given party. In 1924, he even offered the AFL official representation on Brookwood’s board of directors, though he was relieved when the federation declined the offer.¹⁰⁴ His efforts paid off. By 1924, the AFL had endorsed the movement and became formally affiliated with the WEB, and articles on workers’ education, including some by Brookwood faculty and staff, began to appear regularly in its organ, the American Federationist.¹⁰⁵

      Muste’s publications during this period espoused loyalty to the AFL, while drawing attention to trends that presaged a more progressive federation. Thus he responded with cautious optimism when, in 1924, the AFL departed from its tradition of nonpartisanship and supported third-party candidate Robert La Follette’s bid for the presidency and replaced Gompers with William Green, who many hoped would be a progressive because of his background in an industrial union.¹⁰⁶ In essence, Muste tried to chart a middle course. He continued to call for a more militant and internationally minded American labor movement, while criticizing ‘‘lefts’’ for ‘‘crabbing about trade union leadership’’ and for pursuing a ‘‘destructive’’ policy of dual unionism.¹⁰⁷ To some, recalling his recent stint as head of a renegade union, his reformist posture appeared disingenuous, but Muste saw it as a realistic assessment of the state of American labor in the early 1920s. In this way, he reflected the spirit of reconciliation that animated the progressive wing of the labor movement more broadly during the postwar years. Labor Age, for example, rarely explicitly criticized the AFL, instead posing questions for discussion and printing articles that represented a variety of perspectives.¹⁰⁸

      It took Muste two years before he found a stable faculty who shared his teaching philosophy. In early 1922, he hired Josephine ‘‘Polly’’ Colby, who had served as a vice president and full-time national organizer for the AFT, to teach English and public speaking.¹⁰⁹ The other two core members of the faculty were David Saposs and Arthur Calhoun. Saposs was from a working-class, immigrant background and had worked his way through graduate school under the tutelage of John Commons at the University of Wisconsin. By the time he was hired at Brookwood to teach courses on trade union organization and administration, he had extensive experience as a labor researcher and economist and had published widely. Arthur Calhoun, a sociologist by training, taught courses in economics, social problems, and social psychology. Clint Golden took Brookwood’s message into the field, finding students, obtaining scholarships, initiating extension classes, and helping Brookwood alumni secure funding for educational initiatives within their unions and their communities. A burly and charismatic man, Golden was tremendously important in expanding Brookwood’s connections far beyond the progressive wing of the labor movement.¹¹⁰

      Muste’s commitment to a pragmatic approach to labor education shaped the curriculum. Courses focused on the ‘‘actual living problems’’ that confronted workers and the labor movement; education should begin with the ‘‘experiences’’ of trade unionists and ‘‘the problems that arise in connection with them,’’ Muste explained.¹¹¹ Faculty preferred free and open discussions rather than lecture, which was seen as passive and authoritative, or debate, which was seen as narrowly confining discussion between two simplified poles. Faculty also presented their subject material as objectively as possible, and then allowed the students to come to their own conclusions, using the research and rhetorical skills they had learned.¹¹²

      Muste’s personality encouraged this thoughtful engagement with different sides of an issue. Len De Caux, who attended the college in the mid-1920s (and who would later serve as the Communist editor of the CIO News), recalled that Muste ‘‘always looked for the center with his ‘On the one hand . . . But on the other hand . . .’.’’ ‘‘To us young Brookwooders, A. J. was essentially moderate. We respected his counsels of caution, practicality, a relative labor conformism.’’ He continued, ‘‘I would have expected him to progress ever rightward, a typical social-democrat. Youthful impatients, we didn’t suspect that fires like our own might burn beneath the diplomatic calm of this lean and eager man.’’ De Caux’s comments must be understood as the impressions of a student; Cara Cook, who served as a staff member of the college, suggested that Muste’s tendency to present many sides of an issue was ‘‘consciously cultivated . . . more as a teaching method than as a front for tolerance.’’ It may have reflected ‘‘his own method of thinking through something . . . employed until the crunch came, when he could be unequivocal—‘the time comes when, for the good of all concerned, you have to make up your mind.’ ’’¹¹³

      FIGURE 3. Brookwood Faculty and Staff, 1928. Left to right: Arthur Calhoun, A. J. Muste, Cara Cook, Helen Norton, Josephine Colby, Tom Tippett, and David Saposs. (Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University)

      Short courses and visiting lecturers from all elements of the labor movement and the liberal left, as well as from abroad, further enriched Brookwood’s curriculum and reinforced the inclusive spirit of inquiry that Muste sought to inculcate in his students and in the labor movement. Trade union officials representing both left and right perspectives spoke at Brookwood, academics like Rex Tugwell and Selig Perlman participated in summer institutes and workshops, and a wide range of intellectuals lectured on a variety of topics; William Z. Foster, Roger Baldwin, V. F. Calverton, Sinclair Lewis, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, A. Philip Randolph, Scott Nearing, Reinhold Niebuhr, Norman Thomas, Charney Vladeck, Harry Wood, Bertram Wolfe, and Kate Richards O’Hare were just some of the left-liberal luminaries who spoke at Brookwood in the 1920s.¹¹⁴

      Brookwood’s student body offers further evidence of Muste’s ecumenical approach to labor education and his desire to bridge the gap between conservatives and radicals in the movement. The faculty deliberately selected students who would disagree with each other. ‘‘What we wish to do is to make our idealists practical, and our practical minded people, idealists,’’ one early member of the faculty explained. They also sought to balance region, trade, and ethnicity, making a special effort to recruit women and African Americans. Foreign students also enrolled at Brookwood. Len De Caux, for example, was from New Zealand; others hailed from Japan, Mexico, Norway, Guatemala, and England. As a result of these policies, Brookwood’s student body was quite diverse and became more so over time. As Muste once bragged, Brookwood students ‘‘are ‘old line trade unionists’ СКАЧАТЬ