
International Ladies Garment Workers Union 50th Anniversary

( NYC Board of Education Photo / WNYC Archive Collections )
David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), gives the keynote address. Subjects include shorter work hours, better wages, sanitary conditions, and health care. Some people wouldn't give up to make working conditions better for people. As much as people fought, he never dreamed that Medicare and Social Security would be possible. Dubinsky mentions, Max Meyer, Lillian Wald, and Jacob Schiff. He talks about the union health center, and the doctor who helped found it.
Robert Wagner talks about the 'white plague' - tuberculosis - and the establishment of the ILG health center 50 years ago. Wagner launches into a speech about poverty. We should treat poverty as a disease.
There's a kind of strange song sung by a, I think about Lyndon Johnson. "A man who rose in Texas is a man for you and me."
President Lyndon B. Johnson speaks. He talks about how America is the best. That our country is compassionate, and working men and women get a good deal in modern America. We reduced retirement age and increased social security benefits. Increase in minimum wage and worker's compensation. He talks about equal opportunity. We will pass the strongest civil rights bill in American history.
Paula Newman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ms. Francis Perkins, Rose Schneiderman, the Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín, Hubert Humphrey are all present.
The tape ends with Dubinsky praising Johnson, Johnson being presented with a gift, and then Johnson ending with some kind words about Dubinsky.
[poor quality audio. starting at wound minute 11 there is some static]
Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection
WNYC archives id: 150620
Municipal archives id: T410
This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
At the stage when the Johnson is entering the rear of course military orders or even your I.Q. crash high school presidents trees and now it's walking down the left aisle of the next door to the auditorium platform very slowly stopping off at the aisles to greet a number of hand scrapes dollars One Touch the president shake his hand to the left and to the right probably one of Tory a mile away is now have way down the aisle a number of security men following him and waiting for him as he approaches the bottom. Stage right our platform here about. Twenty four. Outside diners were strung across the roofs of the high school and the joining buildings with a few welcome for the president and he no doubt spoke a few words to the group waiting outside that could not be accommodated here in the auditorium properly but then now. Playing as it accompanies the president slow walk to the platform slow because the president is taking the time to stop off and shake hands now the president. Is now doing the stairs he is armed with a life form robber of power walking toward. The center but again. Starting up the shaker have all of the distinguished guests we are all very glad for now President Johnson center stage but he will continue to walk to the stage left to read Mayor Wagner who is also on the stage now having. A ride. Out President Johnson. Is immediately. To the last. Speaker it was like. Being applauded by. The audience here and. Now the audience is seated on the president will be introduced by David whose voice will be heard next. Mr President. Members of. Friends yes. They is a great life great day in the life of. We have lived to reach the fiftieth anniversary of the stablished of the house. When we asked that the pioneers of our you. Told me that a vision their idealism and a conception that the papers of a union is not merely to get better wages hours and who have a conception that they got to be a part of the community citizens of the age of the nation they got to enjoy life and watch small actuate life live in misery and sick this. Is never the else that day and they said wages in the house is good but that it is a loan is not good enough and they established a joint board of salad taken toll. So all that we have sanitary conditions in the shops in addition to short hours and better wages and shore up the discover that that is not enough. That we need help treat been examination Medicare and they have established the health it was only. We had our internal situation of nine hundred twenty six because it maintained our union. And it was hard yet to maintain the health center. But there was the time when they should not part of a number of people that would give up but on all conditions will bet and yes the way I explain it. When you start and then you want Malling then you want more all we did in those days. Off social welfare. Sure was minimal wages next couple of hours. But I'll confess to you. Fifty years ago we didn't dream that will ask for Medicare I'm going to. Be asking about a. Family The President Kennedy introduce to you President are fighting for and I don't partnership that after I will get medical medical care but I ask for something else to get. My employers know it now. So they have I say to me. Day I am up living most of them. Can see. A few of them are here with us. One of them is sitting to my right. Palling you mean she was killed off. Milan. The famous lady. The commissioner of the state of New York. And the SEC of the label of the Cabinet of President goes. Championed these causes and she's been. President Johnson. A little while getting a chance to make a name of fancy Speicher's. And to my. Sure. What she did in the field labor standards of protection for workers advancing their cause the Empress health center everything in between. Happy. That she visit is MacOS album Love it says the ghost night of. Glad we are. So many friends. Here we have our new. Friends. Goes days in the field of the law conception. They are making up to be today. As our pioneers did it in those days. And I am talking of his distinguished guests that are sitting right to my right. Willy for I am an enemy of political. Because he was. Mean very long he was the workers and political heart of the fact the industrial civilization. Of that island we could know if we realize that we are not interested to hear. That name first at the house. And to help the mainland to in these last months fan the governor of Puerto Rico government you know. I don't want to take up the time to make. Many other. People that we have on the platform and we have a line from them all. And then I ask myself. There will be. A better place to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of our union else. And I must come to the conclusion. You probably know let me share with you. This cool lines in the heart of what is becoming a damaged community a kind of. Device. To the west two blocks from here there's a lot Chelsea was a half a block. After block victory Palos the parks built by the isles U.W.. Direct the mall I'm twenty seven feet two blocks from here is the College of the garment industry. The fashion is the tool of the galaxy on the same block across from the school is the air fight T.V. game a Tory named after one of the most distinguished and the local Obs of our union the general manager of both makers is of the Negra and his wife is with us here today. And Andy is the fact that. Ailes village is the have. Distinguished friends visiting. The establishment than here in this part one thousand forty five. Day one of the outstanding Union else in the country. Well as the chairman I was supposed to make a speech and I decided to pull you not completely all NATO way so to say. I decided the best speech will be made by D's wools. De Niro's color story that most people can make it you have a real castle. And the immigrants the Italians and the Jews that come to the country they're working in this match ups Canyon the Bungles and amongst them. Making swallows for the moon. Is a boy by the name of next Maya. Overcame the outstanding employ animals level employee of the industry he was the president of a balun company and he is responsible for this full economist male of wider. Than a city of New York up to have that school and then when you go find out you see them at the immigrant bundles. And they show them the section carrying it home boy. And that people send the great fight of those days the fight for the Buffalo who get the ball that tumble had lunch we won the world that wouldn't get the bundle we'll have to be satisfied with the out of money. And then you're going to stop fighting. And you see dandy tragic trying you'll find. One hundred forty seven lives whole lost but before you come to the training fire you see that the outstanding mural and this was the people of a piece of paper the nineteenth ten strike and settled it and you are amongst them. Louis people and I laid on the cane Supreme Court Justice Louis marshal Maurice Siegel Benjamin slays again. Williams blue bowl won three years Miss he gad I'll have again a. Millionaire. Consider that the desired skull was. A part of the employers to the workers who work in these conditions any extracted to feed them for twenty six weeks fight Bill is. In there is Jacob Schiff clanked all that is certainly on about. You having an additional also the P.M.'s of the employers all these will be early days. But not all is misery. After a. Sunshine. Touch of their year present. Medical treatment they have a picture of Dr Klein's that. Tried. To. Initiate. The sponsor. Of. The. Job and price. And Limited to have their portrayed. By. Myself. Do you believe. They did the bills. And they got the long. And they are. One of the most. Dedicated. You find them next. You find their president. And his style of speaking has a tendency to leave the my. Members of the platform. Scribing the pictures. Oh. And from time to time will be directly on my phone. Now once again he's back on my. Lady. The great shame is the great health of usually is good that he has performed for America and for label only United States in farmer's market generally yes performed and other great favors he gave us his son. That is going in the books that. Even though you have to be on the picture because you didn't play the wall there in many places now. Is there because this place is in awe and we are glad to present them I have the city God I have met. Thank you very much. My good friend Dave depend Skee Mr President Senator Humphrey I'm the man yes moraine. Members and friends of this great union. I consider this a family gathering. Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the continuing achievement by one of our outstanding family institutions and I mean the I O G W U. Which may be end in national but still belongs to New York. Because this anniversary has great national significance even world significance and we have the great president of the United States here to prove. The presence of these men and women and many others assembled here today in this glittering assembly gives this occasion an almost cosmic flavor yet the point is that it all started off the sidewalks and out of the sweat shops of New York I myself was not more than an arm's length high when the I O. G. health center was established I am proud to see some of those here today were instrumental in establishing that first Center now grown so great and nationwide in scope. Others are more qualified to speak of this than I but I have read the yellow pages of the newspapers and of the Muckraker magazines in the books and have heard from my own father of the conditions which led the IO G. to establish this groundbreaking epoch making pioneering center for free medical service to members and their families. The IO G. was seeking to meet a desperate need of its members and would be members to provide what they needed as much as bread and shelter and hope and that was health care for in those days the team members and those who sought to be members will be set by a devastating and infectious disease the White Plains and neither the state nor the city know the public conscience but only the vision and idealism of the Union led to the establishment of this health center and even at its birth elementary as it was the IO G. said it was far in advance of anything dreamt conceived. By any other union or by government or by any private industry at the time today fifty years later the I O G Health Center is the model of them all most progressive unions have them many industries have them and of course the city has them for the needy aged for children and for the indigent what great giants of men an intellect and character and courage conceived nurtured planned built and offended the IO G. and its institutions in the day. I'm thinking of names which were legends to me when I was a boy Maurice where my a London Benjamin Celestion just to name three who are gone. And some who are still very much with us and I'm thinking of many I see around us but Chief of them or the ever young the ever dynamic David Dubinsky. I am proud to recall that it was a man from the ranks of the city service who spearheaded the inquiry which led directly to the establishment of the health center and as Dave pointed out was its founding director Dr George M. price so much for the past today along with the I R G W We look to new horizons even while improving extending and expanding the facilities we have these new horizons stretch in many directions but one of them is surely pre-paid comprehensive medical care for the aged through Social Security. Our our new horizons include the answers we must find to the new resurgence of diseases we thought we had under control tuberculosis and the venereal disease and the intensification of a desperate search for the cures to those relentless killers and cripple as of mankind heart disease and cancer. Finally our new horizons must include the pursuit of the complicated answers to the complicated problems of poverty that Dach network of forces in fact is reaching deep down into the entire human and social substructure societies underground where the plants of poverty and discrimination and hate and tension despair crime and social energy on nurtured the tangled root structure of poverty must be attacked even as its manifestations are met we are in an age in which the conscience of the city yes even of the country insists that no human being be required or even permitted to live in conditions of brutal in humanity and degradation. Yet poverty breeds such conditions so does discrimination so does disease I believe that we need research planning an operation centers against poverty just as we have them now against disease and that poverty be recognized as a disease a social disease a deep laid complicated in grown chronic and remedy resistant disease but one which must be attacked with every resource and vigor and every device that we can mobilize Marshall or conceive. To attempt this requires in my humble judgment a wider range of approaches that we have thus far taken or are in the process of undertaking but under the great leadership of President Lyndon Johnson we have made a very me thinking we are facing the dragon of poverty we are no longer denying its existence running away from it or accepting it as in an ever developed part of the social jungle we must then can strike the chains of poverty from one fifth of our people we must and can free unfortunate countrymen from the quick sands of despair. These are the goals which have been set for this generation would it not be wonderful if at the hundredth anniversary of the I O G Health Center we were able we were able to say that we had reached Aagot is it so impossible is it only a dream the strength of a hope and the shape of a vision died for and sung for and fought for and work for is a living yes yes we can prevail Thank you. Thank you. As usual. The all of us are happy then you have it us and our people speciation knowing our busy you are that you. Didn't let us down today. You have amount of distinguished guests we have many of them but one like can I have I must not and I shall not commit. Maybe on the basis of the fact thirty's and member of the aisle G.W. and Mama remember maybe I shouldn't be too much consign But on the other hand they don't pay dues and one of the members doesn't pay dues. And he's in the member I want you to know that the map now. Lennie's the outstanding man in the United States Senate. When it came to bumping the sponsibility of caring to build on civil rights. Eva came in a member of and he was mayor of Minneapolis and that's a long time ago not a way to be discoverable. And have try. And find a way to be you discover them if you haven't dropped it and then made a man I remember. I don't know what is because of that because of the relationship. And the mutual feeling that we have the fossil for him that he was the sponsor and he and I did state senate of the bill. That told upon the Senate and the Congress to stop the bill to neck metal. To commemorate this occasion Congressman Salah did it in the Congress. Meeting last night because this is a Polish body. And this is the tail end of that policy when the you know an apology what wedding me it last Sunday. Our celebration lasted all of three days of it coming in the end of it that's died in a bank and Congress Masella the live of his thought that they have been those on the platform we came together with. Our beloved. And I want them to make you. Look. Like you saw the sun was not a little. Dinner. Last night although you have been here today on the platform the best. Maintaining his style. That. Feeling. That they sank. The mother song. Texas. And they did a similar take their toll. Well David to give you a feel good song like a drink of water or one stanza was retired last song about face song we had my night as reading earlier night last night to make copies of I'm a blue collar and you'll find it in your pulpit and I see just from the car sings it trying to you know page there there man no walls in Texas I want to feel that song because it is as you see. The first song goes Come polls by my call but Harvard is the up in the popular aisle G.W. The director of our social activity. THE MAN No rolls taxes. Was composed by Bill Microsoft is connected with are you labeled the part in other words that haven't you and not professionals but the media amateurs know that made pins and needles in those that may be so neat. Ladies and gentlemen of. The. Saying the last song the man Texas. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. Will. Certainly a. Goal. You. See a cloud in. The. Area. You get to get. Me a record. A goal. On a date. Our. Way you. Can. Thank you Alan I can't. You. Can't you can't you. Can't you. Can't you. Can. Thank. You. That it. You. Know out like a. Deer like a bolt out. Of. The way. He made a little I am told to eat I am going to OK. Was OK. That you. At least you. Think you need. To do anything. You. Thank you Lou director those. Musician members of the Congress you did very well better today than I you last night. Ladies and gentlemen. We stock price point of all celebration. Why don't lol but it's only in common ration off the years of the exist. But it'll last for many many years this is my mold take ages in general and the president of the United State. Rests in the backyard. Mr Banks came. As his defense gave. Their Wagner. For all government rain the statue ladies and gentlemen. I want to. Thank my friends in the chorus far. That excellent entertainment I want to express my appreciation to the songwriter Mr the bench himself. Over the years I have enjoyed a very pleasant association with you unless you. Not only as a man with a wife and two daughters that you help keep busy. But as a public official Hood larger achievements of the past. And hardly applauds your aspirations for the future. We're not here this afternoon on this occasion to honor fifty years of responsible and progressive leadership I want to this country's most responsible and most progressive labor organization the International Labor Garment Workers Union. Fifty years ago this Health Center stood alone. The first of its kind of established in our country by trade union for working men and women. Your Union stood resolute in the fan ranks of those who carried on the struggle for security for the helpless. Who fought the battle for a better life I ever saw this. And that concern of your union fifty years ago is today embedded in the conscience of our country. In the laws of our land and in the highest hopes of our people. These last fifty years have been decades of decision. In our conscience and in our law. We have decided that children belong in classrooms and not in sweatshops and coal mines. We have decided that young women. Should work in surroundings of decency and not in sweatshops of degradation. But the sick in the suffering in the blind or deaf the mentally ill the mentally retarded should have our care and not our curses. Yes in these fifty years we have set for America a direction toward human decency and human dignity. We have held our country we have held our country. On a course of compassion the course we have stepped over those years. Of course that you really help to say. Is the course of today's America. And we're going to keep America moving. We're going to move forward with the American people the earliest goal of American society we beckoning promise which brought men to the shores has been a nation where each citizen would find his achievements limited only by his ability and where the helpless need not abandon hope. This is the meaning of justice when we pledge ourselves to liberty. And to justice for all and I predict that in the next ten years. We will make greater games toward this goal. Toward justice and social progress than at any time in the long history of our beloved Republic. We will do this him two way. First by keeping the commitments that we have already made by completing the programs that we've already begun and second by moving to transform the forces of future change into an instrument five progress rather than a threat to our prosperity in one nine hundred forty six we committed ourselves in this nation to seek a job for every worker. In the month of May of this year. Employment rose to an all time high in the United States more than seventy one million jobs. The unemployment rate on yesterday dropped to five point one percent. Of married men the unemployment rate dropped to two point six percent the lowest unemployment rate for a married man in the last six years. This means that ninety seven point four percent of all married workers in this country now have jobs. In the last twelve months alone in this country we have added two million jobs to the American economy. And we have lowered unemployment even though one point four million people have entered the labor market in the past five months compared with an almost full year increase of one point two million the US has promised progress but these achievements are not easy product of chance our circumstance they have resulted from the patient and they determined pursuit of policies. Including the largest tax cut in the history of America and to deter recession and generate growth. And we will continue this person until every American who wants to work can find a job. Thirty years ago ministration which great lady on the platform is Perkins maids and played such a prominent part. That administration promised that Norm are going to reach retirement would find a lifetime of labor rewarded only by years of neglect and fear and despair. Well in the past four years we've extended you an increase ocean Security benefits to more than five million people we have reduced the male retirement age we've given greater scope to what could be earned without losing benefits and we have taken a long series of steps to strengthen our entire social security system which means so much to all of us. And we're also keeping our commitment to provide hospital care under Social Security for all of our citizens and we're going to see that come true. Across a wide range of measures we must carry forward the goals of the past to fulfillment in the future. We will help the underprivileged underpaid by extending minimum wage and unemployment compensation. And we have mounted an attack upon the final fortresses of poverty your children will live to see the day when poverty has been transformed from a real menace to a remote memory. We will continue the hundred year struggle to give every American of every race and color equal opportunity in American society. We have proposed and in the great leadership of Senator John Kerry on the platform we will pass the strongest seven Rights Bill in American history. But now is the time to look beyond that. To struggle to eliminate the heavy weight of discrimination in the hearts and in the homes of people who give to members of minorities the training the education and the housing which will enable them to pass through the doors of opportunity. Laws can give man rights but only when Justice resides in the spirit of man will it become a living reality in the society of man. We got in so the past is not adequate to the goals of our future our second task. Is to resolve problems which will not yield to old slogans our historic programs are tested resolves. What Thomas Jefferson said almost two centuries ago is true for us today the new circumstances under which we are placed. For new works and you phrases and for the transfer of all words you object and only sixteen more years. There will be more young Americans under twenty five and the total of all Americans that were living in the making thirty. More Americans under twenty five in the next sixteen years and all Americans that were living in one nine hundred thirty. And less time than that there'll be nearly as many Americans beyond the age of sixty five as all Americans in the north and the south at the time of the Civil War well in the past we fought to eliminate scarcity and the future will have to learn the wise use of abundance. Yesterday we work to equalize competition between business and labor and government and special interests tomorrow we will have to find new ways of cooperation yesterday we fought to create growth tomorrow we'll have to use that growth for our great benefit if you weeks ago I talked about some of these problems. That need to make our cities a decent place to live and the need to preserve the fading beauty of our countryside the need to give all of our children education of the highest quality but these problems are only a beginning. From the encouragement of creativity in science and art to the fruitful use of resources liberated by automation and the possible possibility of enforceable arms control. We face towering tests of our imagination and our ingenuity towering tests of our leadership and our labor and in those battles that we all see ahead this young man. Will be on the leave the problems are new but the weapons are the same compassion and concern faith in the future and dedication to the dignity of man. That is why I know as this country marches following this just beyond the father's visions of those who even built this great union the IO G W. Well always be in the front ranks of this advancing nation. One day a great leader. A great man. A great President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Had this to say. A generation may possess this land blessed beyond anything that we now know. Blessed with those things material and spiritual. Life and. If that is the fashion of your dreams. Then I say. Hold fast to your dream America needs it. Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy are gone. But are people still dreams their dreams and we will carry on. All hopes have been reached and you arrive back in us all targets have been met. But new trial awaits us. Yes we will remain on together under the leadership of some of the great men and women on this front row we will dream on together and in those dreams we will point the way toward the destiny. Of our great nation. The president of the United States and the Johnson seated now while members of the platform an audience for. The president's speech. Here at the high school the fashion industry for. The second day in the final day of. The fiftieth anniversary of the center of the G.. Once again David. Is at the microphone and. The fall. Until the chairman's fat salt. Nor Wallace to leave these cities visited Tory. It happened that is security Bam want to talk the same way. Mr President. I knew. The moment you told me that you come. To our people. You have them befall. You I haven't met someone else ever. And I knew. The feeling that day I have. To paddle that. They did today that I was supposed to send them to you. And because you offer economy I thought I'll say five cents. And I'll hand it to you directly. I'll read it to you also you will have to do it. Oh. Dear Mr President. And the Congress of the United States and next to the law is in the second day of the Treasury. With the medal celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the fight. In the United States by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union it also made provisions to strike two of these. And one long and all won in Silver. Mr President. Your participation. And the sentiments you have expressed here today make this the greatest holiday. Organization. And to commemorate this occasion. We are happy that you all had been palled that all the silver medal that we have should be presented to you as a means of expressing my appreciation our gratitude I. Let you have. All day because Wednesday is having metal. Johnson. Says. They've been so. Different. Now and still lesser. Presidents are. Saving Lives and suppose. When I was a very young man in the Congress back in one nine hundred thirty eight I first met. A loved friend David de Bensky at that time. I was one of his supporters of a very advanced piece of legislation known as the Wage and Hour act. That provided a minimum wage of twenty five cents per hour. And one nine hundred sixty. I came to the great city of New York and I was presented to a multitude of Mr bench his friends and in the closing Senates Mr Bensky said I have known this man. For almost a quarter of a century I've gone to I'm going to times and ask for his support. On many pieces of legislation I have not always got all I ask. But I've always got more than I was promised. I am in great respect for Mr Bensky is and you know it. And great admiration for his imagination I would not say to you to day that he will always get all the ash. But he will always get more and I promise. I'll President Johnson. Taking. This gets a platform that states. The Spurgeon's. Center there will come for a. Mayor Wagner. And. Other distinguished guests. And now the president marches to the right of stage as the band. Begins its famous march. Now the president slowly leaves the platform just a slowly as he arrives because of shaking hands now. An avalanche of arms and hands reaching up to the president from the aisle G.W. chorus as the president bends over the edge of the platform to reach all the hands now waving goodbye as he leaves exits stage right. You've been listening. To a special brought us over W. N.Y.C. of the golden anniversary celebration of the aisle G.W. You have sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson the head of the list of distinguished speakers all the president has left and from the. Fashion industries high school here at twenty. Fourth Street we wish you a pleasant Good After know as we return you to the studios of W. N.Y.C. in the municipal building.