Correspondence

From International Socialist Review, Vol.24 No.2, Spring 1963, p.34.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

Editor:

In the winter issue of International Socialist Review, in a lengthy and thoughtful article, Mr. Art Preis takes me to task at some length for saying in a piece entitled Labor’s Ebbing Strength, published in The Nation of September 1, that both the membership and the prestige of American unions were declining.

Mr. Preis suggests that one possible source of my information might have been The Nation’s office boy who confirmed my view while the rest of the editorial staff was out drinking beer.

I should like to assure readers of your excellent publication that this was not my source: I was privileged to see advance proofs of Mr. Milton Alvin’s piece which follows Mr. Preis’s essay in the same issue of your magazine.

Near the lead of this piece, Mr. Alvin says, “It is no secret that labor’s influence and strength has been waning for the past fifteen years. The union movement has not only diminished in size but its membership has failed to keep pace with the general increase in population. Even more serious than this absolute and relative decline in numbers has been the erosion of its morale, its militancy and social idealism.”

It is easy to understand how some confusion might arise when successive articles in the same publication take such varied positions.

George G. Kirstein
Publisher, The Nation
New York City

* * *

(The following reply was addressed to Mr. Kirstein by Milton Alvin, with a copy sent to the International Socialist Review.)

Editor:

The International Socialist Review has sent me a copy of your letter commenting on the contradiction in Art Preis’s article and mine.

I think the point Preis was trying to make is that it is premature to “hang a wreath” on the American labor movement, which is still numerically very sizeable. In re-reading your article, my own and Preis’, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps you and I over-emphasized the decline in the unions on this point while we seem to be in general agreement on the fact that there has been a real decline in other respects.

At any rate, I want you to know that I appreciate your contribution to a discussion on the union movement that is both desirable and necessary. I hope our efforts will succeed in stimulating some thinking, especially among unionists themselves, on the whole problem of how to lift the movement to the place it should occupy in American life.

I am encouraged by the fact that all three articles we are discussing are now being circulated among some union leaders in this area.

Milton Alvin
Los Angeles

* * *

(Editors Note: Art Preis has been critically ill for quite some time and is, unfortunately, unable to participate in the exchange of views over the articles mentioned above.)

Top of page

ISR Index | Main Newspaper Index

Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive

Last updated on 22 May 2009