Evolution, Not Revolution: The Effect of New Deal Legislation on Industrial Growth and Union Development in Dallas, Texas Page: 58
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"Dallas Chamber of Commerce [had] responded so quickly and energetically that [National
Recovery Administration] chief Hugh Johnson singled out the organization for commendation."
The Dallas Chamber boasted that the city's work force had a vast resource of "native, intelligent
labor, easily trained, loyal, and efficient." By the fall of 1933 this enthusiastic spirit weakened
significantly. This change of heart centered on the apparent support among Dallas workers for
securing their goals by abandoning the established open shop system and actively participating in
organized labor activities. Historian Hill claims the spark that revived the Dallas movement was
the "militancy of the Dallas dressworkers" during their ten month strike to "challenge the elite's
commitment to low wages," but in fact it appears that this fire soon spread to other industries as
well, such as the plants that produced cement and automobile parts in Dallas.90
During the Great Depression, if unionization was to succeed in the South, the national
organizations had to distance themselves from earlier radical politics and revise their traditional
rhetoric of empowerment. Labor leaders during the 1920s had appealed to younger workers by
emphasizing the respectability, credibility, and stability that union representation would bring to
their work environment. Union organizations in the 1930s employed similar tactics in an effort
to eliminate open-shop policies. While this proved to be too weak to establish strong unions
quickly in Dallas, it represents an important philosophical change among union leaders in that
they did not speak in terms of empowerment any longer but "emphasized the need to restore
credibility and stability to their organization through non-partisan politics and low risk factors."
Anti-union sentiment among Dallas industry owners and the power that the Dallas Chamber of
Commerce had in the maintenance of open shops created an atmosphere in which unions were
initially unsuccessful. According to historian John A. Salmond, this was true elsewhere in the
90Biles, The South and the New Deal, 60, (first quotation), 94. (second quotation.); Hill, The Making ofa
Modern City: Dallas, 130 (third quotation).58
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Welch, M. Courtney. Evolution, Not Revolution: The Effect of New Deal Legislation on Industrial Growth and Union Development in Dallas, Texas, dissertation, August 2010; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30524/m1/67/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .