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George Morris (American writer)

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George Morris
BornSidney Walter Finkelstein
April 6, 1903
Ukraine
Died1997
Occupationpro-labor writer and journalist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Literary movementCommunism
Years active1920s-1950s
Notable worksDaily Worker contributions, A Tale of Two Waterfronts (1952)
Website
scua.library.umass.edu/umarmot/finkelstein-sidney/

George Morris (1903–1997) was an American writer and labor editor for the CPUSA Daily Worker newspaper who left a body of written work and oral history that documents militant trade unionism as part of American labor history during the first half of the 20th century – including the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike.[1][2][3][4]

Background

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Ukraine in 1918, shortly before Morris left for the USA

George Morris was born "Morris Yusem" on April 6, 1903, to a Jewish family in Raehni (Reni?), Russian Empire (now part of Ukraine).[5] Around 1919, he came to New York City and became a founding member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).[3]

Career

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March 6, 1930, front page of the Daily Worker, for which Morris would serve as labor editor as of 1944

For some (currently undocumented) time, Morris headed the CPUSA's Party's National Labor Commission.[3]

According to a confidential FBI source, Morris was a member of the Young Communist League under the Shane "Morris Yusem" from 1927 to 1930.[5]

According to that source via Jack Rubinstein, a vice president of the Textile Workers Union CIO, Morris (as Yusem) also went to Moscow in 1928 to attend the International Lenin School.[6] On February 24, 1928, Morris Yusem, garment worker, received a US passport to travel in Western Europe; on May 11, 1929, he received another passport to travel to Russia.[5]

Morris edited the Western Worker to 1932 to 1934[4] and successor titles.[3] In 1934, he became labor editor for the Daily Worker and the Worker and covered the rise of the United Auto Workers of America (UAW) closely from 1935 to 1937.[4]

In 1944,[2] Morris joined the Communist Party paper the Daily Worker as its labor editor and writer of the column "World of Labor," often about the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).[1] In 1947 (and possibly longer), he also wrote a column called "View on Labor News."[5] During 1946–1948, Morris also contributed articles to Political Affairs (formerly The Communist theoretical journal).[5]

During 1947–1948, Morris spoke frequently in public, according to an FBI informant in 1949. On March 23, 1947, he spoke to the Mosholu-Kingsbridge section of the communist party. In June 1947, he spoke on "Your Stake in Labor's Battle With the Trusts" at the Progressive Forum, 13 Astor Place, New York City. On September 5, 1947, Morris spoke to Lodge 102 of the International Workers Order (IWO) on the Taft–Hartley Act. On September 6, 1947, the Daily Worker announced that Morris would cover the CIO's New York State convention at Saratoga Springs and then visit Schenectady, Buffalo, Detroit, Flint, Toledo, Cleveland, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, and Boston to see the conditions of industrial workers. On June 28, 1948, Morris spoke to a Brooklyn communist party convention. On September 19, 1948, Morris spoke on "Who's Splitting the Labor Movement" to the Jefferson School of Social Sciences in New York City. On December 9, 1948, Morris spoke to a Brooklyn press conference.[5]

In January 1948, the Marxist monthly Spark quoted Morris from a January 4, 1948, article in the Daily Worker:

"The trouble with many of our labor leaders especially in the CIO is that they have not yet made up their minds that FDR is dead. For a decade or more many of them have learned to rely on White House Nursing bottles (when such was forthcoming) than upon the fighting strength of their members. ... But they are making the big mistake that they made in the 1946 elections which brought us the Taft-Hartley and Marshall Plan Congress. They then tried to mobilize votes for candidates who hardly differed from GOP reactionaries. Millions of workers refused to turn out to vote.[7]

In 1959, the US Congress questioned Harry Bridges about Morris.[8]

In 1959 and 1966, Morris took "extended trips" to the USSR to study Soviet trade unions.[4][6]

In late 1963, the FBI noted that Morris wrote in The Worker about "the 'enigma' of Oswald," which needed clearing as to whether the FBI, CIA, State Department, or Dallas police department had set Oswald up as an "undercover plant" in the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.[9]

In October 1964, an explosive device arrived by mail to the offices of The Worker, addressed to Morris; a police bomb squad dismantled it. It was the second such bomb in a week, and members of the police in both Chicago and New York, as well as the US Post Office Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the attempted bombings.[10]

Morris' 1971 article on the police received mention in 2015 Workers World newspaper, republished in 2020 in Struggle for Socialism newspaper:

A column by George Morris, the Daily World's labor analyst, waxes eloquent about the cops' strike and says "it is in the spirit of rebellion we see everywhere today as in unions against the long entrenched bureaucracy." He further says that the cops are "beginning to see themselves as in much the same position as other city employees and workers." Finally, he admonishes his readers that "fire should not be blunderbussed against all on the police force."
You see, the way to look at it is that there are good cops and bad cops, just like there are good capitalists and bad ones. We must assume then, that there are good storm troopers and bad ones if we use the logic of George Morris. In this way, Morris substitutes bourgeois morality for Marxist analysis of class antagonisms and contradictions between class groupings.[11][12]

Legacy

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Morris' most famous work was about the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike (here, policeman wields night stick on a striker)

In addition to his written works, Morris gave an Oral history in 1980, whose topics include:

Works

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Morris wrote pamphlets and articles,[1] often for New Century Publishers. His most famous article was the 1953 "Tale of Two Waterfronts."[2]

Morris wrote some 40 pamphlets and books, including:

  • Reconversion: The Trotskyite Fifth Column in the Labor Movement (1945)[13]
  • How Wall Street Picks Your Pocket (1946)[14]
  • The Red-Baiting Racket (1947)[15]
  • How to Make Your Vote Count (1948)[16]
  • Where is the CIO Going? (1949)[1]
  • The CIO Today (1950)[17]
  • A Tale of Two Waterfronts (1952)[18]
  • Labor and Anti-Semitism (1953)[19]
  • What I Saw... in the Soviet Union Today (1959)[6]
  • American Labor: Which Way? (1961)[20]
  • CIA And American Labor: The Subversion Of The AFL-CIO's Foreign Policy (1967)[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Morris, George (1949). Where is the CIO Going? A Program for Militant Trade Unionism. New Century Publishers. p. 32. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d Morris, George; Kimeldorf, Howard (2 September 1980). "Morris (George) interview". New Century Publishers. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d "George Morris Papers TAM 200". New York University - Tamiment Library. 1 May 2018. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e Morris, George (1967). CIA And American Labor: The Subversion Of The AFL-CIO's Foreign Policy. International Publishers. pp. 152 (About the Author). Retrieved 16 June 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "JFK Assassination System Record Number 124-90132-10023, Agency File Number CR 100-71274-26" (PDF). Federal Bureau of Investigation. 14 April 1949. p. 4. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  6. ^ a b c Morris, George (August 1959). What I Saw... in the Soviet Union Today. New Century Publishers. pp. 3 (bio). Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  7. ^ ""They"–The Big Switch" (PDF). Spark: 10. January 1948. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  8. ^ Passport Security: Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities. USGPO. 1959. p. 721. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  9. ^ "NYTimes, western ed., Peter Kihss, 12/24/63, dateline New York" (PDF). FBI. 24 December 1963. p. 1. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  10. ^ "Staff at Worker Gets a Live Bomb; Police Dismantle It After It Is Almost Set Off". New York Times. 22 October 1964. p. 9. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  11. ^ Marcy, Sam (8 January 2015). "The year of the pig: Should workers support police strikes?". Workers' World. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  12. ^ Marcy, Sam (5 June 2020). "Should workers support police strikes?". Workers' World. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  13. ^ Morris, George (January 1945). The Trotskyite Fifth Column in the Labor Movement. New Century Publishers. p. 31. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  14. ^ Morris, George (1946). The CIO Today. New Century Publishers. p. 15. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  15. ^ Morris, George (October 1947). The Red-Baiting Racket. New Century Publishers. p. 38. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  16. ^ Morris, George (October 1948). How to Make Your Vote Count. New Century Publishers. p. 23. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  17. ^ Morris, George (March 1950). The CIO Today. New Century Publishers. p. 32. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  18. ^ Morris, George (1952). A Tale of Two Waterfronts. Daily Worker. p. 31. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  19. ^ Morris, George (May 1953). Labor and Anti-Semitism (PDF). New Century Publishers. p. 23. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  20. ^ Morris, George (1961). American Labor: Which Way?. New Century Publishers. p. 23. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
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