JF Ptak Science Books Post 2165
Representative Clare E. Hoffman wrote (or lent his name to) this insane and blistering attack on the CIO (the other half of the AFL-CIO) which was the Congress of Industrial Organizations founded by John L. Lewis in 1928. Hoffman (1875-1967) was a conservative "Republican" from the 4th District/Michigan, who was pretty much an outsider to either major party, making and destroying his own roads and bridges in a long Congressional career. He was a recognized anti-Semite, a race-baiter, a leading exponent in the Impeach Roosevelt movement (publishing and distributing by Congressional franking privileges "Roosevelt is Judas"), and a person who supported and spoke for a number of "isolationist" and national socialist-supporting groups. He saw Soviets/Communists everywhere, including his campaign against polio immunization, which he feared was too heavily influence by commies and Jews.
In addition to saving America from Communists and Jews, saving America for the "true American", Hoffman was strongly aligned with the Constitutional Educational League, which published this pamphlet. The CEL was indicted in 1942 with 27 other groups for sedition and conspiracy and working to aid Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers--which is a tough business, but not too tough for Hoffman. The CEL and Hoffman and the associated ilk and cancers were associated with a panoply of other Isolationist/Fascist groups operating int he U.S. during the war including such wincingly-named groups as the Christian Mobilizer, Christocrats, American Destiny, National Workers League, Black Legion (perhaps the most infamous of these groups), National American, Silver Shirts (started by bizarro local boy Pelley and very nasty), Citizens USA, and a host of others. And of course America First, which may have been the most well known of these groups, having the famous affiliation and support of Charles Lindbergh (until Pearl Harbor at which point the Colonel back away).
Getting back to the pamphlet--it has the feel of old bad fetish porn, and makes endless claims that the trade unions were thuggy Communist--and even worse, "red Communist"-- and would wind up controlling and destroying the U.S., putting the country under control of the U.S.S.R. The aim seems to be equating the CIO with Communism, and so to stop Communism you must stop the CIO, the great destroyers of the American way.
I can't help but seeing many similarities between some current right-wing attacks against unions and pieces of the Hoffman piece--we'll see how silly/abhorrent these claims really are with historical perspective in another few decades.
Sources: Ellen Parsons, "Anti-Jewish Manifestations" in American Jewish Yarbook, 1945/6, pp 135-143; Glen Yeadon, Nazi Hydra in America, p. 151.
