Tuesday, December 27, 2016

The day Monkey Wards

 quit monkeying with the government.

On December 27, 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the National Guard in several states to seize Montgomery Wards and its chairman, Avery Sewell.  Sewell had refused to recognize the government's authority to impose agreements between management and labor.  As Wards was a major supplier to the government for the war effort, Roosevelt was having none of it.  Finally his patience came to an end and Sewell was carried bodily from his Chicago headquarters office.

3 comments:

Secondary Roads said...

And to this very day our federal government continues to over-reach its authority.

Grace said...

Now that's interesting. No reason why government contracts can't include requirements for how employees are to be treated and paid. If you don't like the terms, don't bid on the contract.

vanilla said...

Chuck, I tend to agree that the power of government may lead to many abuses, but given the circumstances in 1944 I tend to agree with Roosevelt's decision. Not so sure I agree quite so much a few years later when Truman tried the same thing with the steel industry. Yet once an action is endorsed, a precedent exists.

Grace, I already got farther into this than I intended in my response to Chuck. I don't disagree with your general premise but there were intense circumstances in '44.