Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,913

This is the grave of Philip Landrum.

Born in Martin, Georgia in 1907, Landrum grew up mostly in Macon and went to school there and then onto Mercer University, the Baptist university in that town. Landrum definitely also grew up with all the prejudices of the white southern Baptist of that time and place. He ended up transferring from Mercer to Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, getting a bachelor’s degree in 1939. Then came a law degree from the Atlanta Law School in 1941, which no longer exists. He practiced law in Canton, Georgia.

But like so many of the figures in this series, Landrum saw the law as a path to politics. That was delayed of course because of World War II. He enlisted in 1942 as a private, but he was soon moved to officer school and left the military as a first lieutenant in 1945. He was in the Army Air Corps, but otherwise I don’t know too much about his military record. He took a job with the Veterans Administration for a minute after the war. But being already politically connected, he was soon named as an assistant state attorney general back in Georgia and then was the executive secretary to Governor Melvin Thompson in 1947 and 1948.

Finally, in 1952 Landrum decided to run for Congress. He won and this being the Jim Crow South, he wasn’t going anywhere. He did have plenty of primary competition for his seat, including from one Zell Miller, but he always won. Now, on some issues Landrum was not horrible. In fact, he was the primary figure in the House behind the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which was the law that backed up Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. But on most issues, Landrum was horrible. That of course includes race, where he proudly signed the Southern Manifesto and did whatever he could to stop all civil rights legislation, voting against all of it.

That’s not surprising. But it doesn’t make him any different than almost every other southern politician of the time. And I don’t cover a lot of members of Congress in this series because most of them leave no mark at all. But Phil Landrum is notorious for me. That’s because of the Landrum-Griffin Act, his major contribution to American life and one of the worst anti-union laws ever enacted in this nation’s anti-union history.

Sure, there was some corruption among some unions, mostly because the mob had killed enough people to control some locals and anyone who stood up to them would also die. So what were the unions supposed to do here? It made good headlines to stand up against unions in the 50s anyway.

Anti-corruption hearings in Congress settled in the McClellan Committee, named after its chair, senator John McClellan, a Democrat from Arkansas. The McClellan Committee originally investigated corruption charges against both business and labor but soon shifted to a Senate committee devoted exclusively to digging into the dark side of organized labor. After the 1958 congressional election, in which Democrats picked up large gains in both chambers, conservatives struck back by raising fears of communistic and corrupt unions (never mind that the lefty unions were the ones most likely to not be corrupt and the corrupt unions were largely among the most conservative) would rule America.

Introducing the law was two congressmen–Landrum and Michigan Republican John Griffin. This “bipartisanship” that so many Beltway hacks long for today ignores the fact that the real control in Congress belonged to people who shared very similar conservative positions on many issues, regardless of party registration. Among the law’s features were mandating that unions hold internal elections, barred members of the Communist Party from holding union office for five years after they left the CPUSA, required that unions submit annual financial reports to the Department of Labor, and limit power to put locals into trusteeship, which is a way to undermine internal union challenges. Effectively, Landrum-Griffin used corruption as an excuse to extend the anti-union provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. Legislation could have dealt with actually corrupt unions rather than serve as a general attack on organized labor, but that was not the point for the legislators involved. They wanted to bust unions.

Organized labor as a whole vociferously opposed Landrum-Griffin. This isn’t because the AFL-CIO didn’t oppose corruption. As a whole, the federation very much did. It also kicked three particularly corrupt unions out of the federation, including the Teamsters. It’s because the bill’s authors used it as a broader attack upon unions, forcing them into reporting requirements that business did not have to adhere to. In other words, it was a major step in tipping a playing field only twenty years earlier evened for workers back toward employers. What on earth did communism have to do with corruption? Nothing of course, but it didn’t matter.

Politically of course, it was brilliant to force labor to oppose Landrum-Griffin because they then looked pro-corruption to the general public. Some senators who had made their name fighting union corruption were not happy that the bill attacked the heart of unions. That included John F. Kennedy, who had introduced his own anti-corruption bill. Said Robert Kennedy, chief counsel to McClellan, Landrum-Griffin went “beyond the scope of the McClellan Committee’s findings to affect the economic balance at the bargaining table by honest and legitimate unions and employers.” What made Landrum-Griffin beat Kennedy’s bill was President Eisenhower giving a national speech on September 3 to urge its passage. Congress soon did and Eisenhower signed the law on September 14, 1959.

I have no problem with fighting union corruption. My objection to Landrum-Griffin is that it doesn’t treat business and labor fairly. Corporate America is filled with all sorts of crime. But no one ever takes that on. Make reporting and corruption requirements equal across business and organized labor. Makes sense. This is just Landrum and friends unionbusting. Not that Eisenhower cared, he was happy to sign the bill.

Landrum decided not to run for reelection in 1976. Undoubtedly he would have won if he had tried, but he was getting older. Unlike present Democrats, he decided that he could retire and someone else could do the job. Amazing, I know. He died in 1990, at the age of 83.

Philip Landrum is buried in Jasper City Cemetery, Jasper, Georgia.

If you would like this series to visit other anti-union congresscritters, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. All my favorite people. Fred Hartley is in Newark, New Jersey and Robert Griffin is in Traverse City, Michigan. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.