Ten years before the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act the American Federation of Labor joined the movement to obtain Federal aid for vocational education. Among the new forces which entered the movement the American Federation of Labor was one of the most important. . . . Through the activity of the national labor organization the movement took on new vigor. .. The Federation of Labor began an active campaign. . . . In April 1910 the Senate Committee in charge of the [Davis] bill had hearings on it. These were managed by Arthur E. Holder, of the American Federation of Labor.1 The American Federation of Labor at its annual convention in 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911 passed resolutions favorable to industrial education, and in 1908 authorized the appointment of a special committee on industrial education. . . . The 1912 convention of the Federation expressed its approval of the Page bill in the following terms: . . . "Much time and attention has already been given to this bill by the president of the American Federation of Labor, as well as by the legislative committee, and considerable hope has been expressed for its ultimate success. "2 Here are sources outside the Federation itself which reveal the active sponsorship that organized labor assumed in the infancy of vocational education. The motives of organized labor in thus lending its influential support to the movement are well known. Foremost among them was labor's traditional zeal for education, particularly for making it available to all children. Another important factor was labor's preference that agencies of concern to the general welfare be con 1 Lloyd E. Blauch, Federal Cooperation in Agricultural Extension Work, Vocational Education, and Vocational Rehabilitation, U. S. Office of Education Bulletin, 1933, No. 15 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1935), pp. 60-1. 2 63d Cong., 2d sess., House Document No. 1004, Report of the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education, June 1, 1914 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1914), vol. I, p. 101. ducted under public auspices. Labor regarded vocational education as a reasonable adjunct to the public school system; it found undesirable the growing practice of private trade and vocational schools which were operated for profit and often without regard for the educational well-being of the students, their future in industry, or their development as citizens. The position of the American Federation of Labor is shown in a letter of March 22, 1912, from the then president, Samuel Gompers, to Honorable Carroll S. Page: The position of the American Federation of Labor is so well known in reference to vocational education that it ought to be unnecessary to further present its views. However, as you are actively and earnestly engaged in an effort to secure the passage of the Page-Wilson vocational education bill, drawn upon similar lines as was the DolliverDavis bill, which latter was acceptable to the organizations of labor, I desire to assure you that the American Federation of Labor desires to give every assistance within its power to secure the final enactment of this legislation.3 Speaking before the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education in April 1914, Grant Hamilton, legislative representative of the American Federation of Labor, testified: . . . the American Federation of Labor, which I represent here, is in favor of industrial education. . . . We believe that the United States should cooperate with the states in establishing a system of industrial education. . . . We necessarily and naturally are more interested in the boy or the girl who wants to learn a trade, and we would like to have them educated along particular lines. . . . We are in favor of the agricultural colleges, and their extension work. We are in favor of universities, and, in fact, every system of education that gives to the various sections of our society an opportunity to become educated.4 ... After the testimony of Mr. Hamilton, Senator Page, a member of the Commission, said to him: You have been very strong factors, I know, in pushing this fight for Federal aid for industrial education. You have been exceedingly good abettors and active workers on that line, and I look upon you as great friends of this measure.5 The 1907 convention of the Federation declared that it favored: ... the best opportunities for the most complete industrial and technical education obtainable for prospective applicants for admission into Ibid, p. 101. 4 Ibid., vol. II, p. 181. Ibid., p. 184. the skilled crafts of this country . . . to the end that such applicants be fitted not only for all usual requirements, but also for the higher supervisory duties, responsibilities and rewards. . . . • The next year the convention with considerable prophetic discernment was pointing out two roads which might be traveled toward industrial education in the United States: There are two groups with opposite methods, and seeking antagonistic ends, now advocating industrial education in the United States.... One of these groups. . . [would] educate the student or apprentice to non-union sympathies and prepare him as a skilled worker for scab labor and strike-breaking purposes. This group ... also favors the training of the student or apprentice for skill in only one industrial process, thus making the graduate a skilled worker in only a very limited sense and rendering him entirely helpless if lack of employment comes in his single subdivision of the craft. . . . The other group is composed of great educators, enlightened representatives of organized labor and persons engaged in genuine social service, who advocate industrial education as a common right to be open to all children on equal terms to be provided by general taxation and kept under the control of the whole people with a method or system of education that will make the apprentice or graduate a skilled craftsman, in all the branches of his trade. . . .7 The Special Committee on Industrial Education, reporting to the 1909 convention, favored the establishment of public industrial schools in which: The course of instruction . . . should be English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, elementary mechanics, and drawing. Shop instruction for particular trades, and for each trade represented, the drawing, mathematics, physical and biological science applicable to the trade, the history of that trade, and a sound system of economics, including and emphasizing the philosophy of collective bargaining. 8 It is clear that the support which organized labor gave to vocational education, was constructive, consistent, intelligent, and unremitting. Organized labor experienced a sense of triumph with the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act in 1917. Free public education had always been the godchild of the labor movement, and it now saw the benign influence of public education being extended to the industrial field. • American Federation of Labor, Report of Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh Annual Convention... (Washington: The National Tribune Company, 1907), p. 319. 7 American Federation of Labor. Report of Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Annual Convention... (Washington: The National Tribune Company, 1908), p. 234. American Federation of Labor, Report of Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Convention (Washington: The Law Reporter Printing Company, 1909), p. 138. ... 92263°-38-17 Collective bargaining as a subject in the school curriculum was not beyond the hopes of labor. Labor leaders had fought for public control of the dawning system of vocational education and their hopes were high that its social worth would be demonstrated. Changes in Attitude Eighteen years later the convention of the Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor was found giving its assent to a resolution which stated: The intent of the Smith-Hughes Act has not always been carried out, but there have been many abuses in the use of the funds given by the Federal Government to the States, since these tax funds have, in many instances, been given to schools located wholly within private industrial plants and operated in a manner which seriously affected wage earners, not only tending to overcrowd certain skilled trades, but in other ways to lower the prevailing wages in these skilled trades, thereby increasing unemployment as well as lowering standards of living. . . . [At a certain] school for Apprentice Training which is operated for the benefit of . . . [the industry] with not much thought given to benefiting Apprentices . . . Beginners, learners and helpers are given a short course . . . which has resulted in the lowering of wages in these particular trades. Apprentices. . . are trained in these schools and put to work . . . at wage rates much lower than those prevalent for that particular operation . . . while skilled workers in these crafts remain unemployed. It is neither just nor reasonable that public funds should be used to maintain training schools for the exclusive benefit of a particular employer. There are similar abuses in similar trades and industrial arts schools throughout the country.' A proposed resolution submitted to the 1935 convention of the American Federation of Labor considered the question in this language: [We]. . . deplore this misuse of taxpayers' money and call upon the President of the United States and the Honorable Secretary of the Interior, to immediately cause to be investigated all Vocational Training or Trades Educational Schools located within private industrial plants and to withdraw Federal funds where abuses exist.10 American Federation of Labor, Metal Trades Department. Proceedings of the Twentyseventh Annual Convention, Atlantic City (1935), pp. 57-8, 79. 10 American Federation of Labor. Report of Proceedings of the Fifty-fifth Annual Convention, . . (Washington: Judd & Detweiler, 1935), p. 192. A similar resolution stated: Several glaring instances have come to light during the past year where private employers through the cooperation of local, state and Federal educational authorities have secured the services of productive labor at no cost by using funds designated for vocational training. . . Private industry is taking advantage of this situation to train surplus workers in the public schools thus avoiding the customary expense of "breaking in" new help; . . . What the country needs today is not so much training in mechanical skill as instruction in meeting the economic and social problems which confront the masses and how to meet the situations which arise as a result of the disappearance of skill in industry; . . . a proper and just program for organized labor to substitute for the present inadequate and socially undesirable system of vocational training now in force; . . . 111 In 1936 the Committee on Education of the American Federation of Labor reported to the convention that: in recent years American labor has become increasingly disturbed by the manner in which Vocational Education has been administered and the funds expended.12 The 1937 report of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor stated: Severe criticism has been directed toward the administration of vocational education because in many instances it permitted the control and purpose of vocational education to become an adjunct to the employment and management divisions of big corporations. This meant that instead of workers being trained for the purpose of making them efficient and to develop ability in performing work for which they were peculiarly fitted, they were merely required to acquire special skill and speed in certain jobs. So serious and so widespread were complaints against the administration of vocational education that the President created a commission to investigate before the increased appropriations of the George-Deen Act should become effective. Even before this inquiry had been finished a powerful lobby became active for the purpose of increasing the appropriation for vocational education by ten million dollars over the four and one-half million dollars recommended by the Bureau of the Budget. The Appropriation Bill for the Department of the Interior passed both Houses of Congress with an amendment adding ten million dollars to the four and a half millions recommended for 11 Ibid., p. 266. 19 American Federation of Labor. Report of the Proceedings of the Fifty-sixth Annual Convention . . . (Washington: Judd & Detweiler, 1936), p. 409. |