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Session:         Page of 592

Mo' Time.” Art D'Lugoff brought it in. That's the end of the Salute to Freedom.

Q:

Okay. We've gone far afield from the discussion of the activities of the union in the mid-sixties. Now we'll have a discussion of the anti- war activities of 1199. What was the first involvement of 1199 in the antiwar movement?

Foner:

The involvement in the anti-war movement would center around the Southeast Asia situation. Here the issue was brought up at delegates' meetings, at the executive council, and then to the delegate assemblies. As a matter of fact, I think, a reporter, in the early sixties, came to do a feature for Modern Hospital magazine, and in the article he attended a delegate assembly meeting, and the delegate assembly meeting included--we had a strike in West Virginia and a striker was making an appeal to the delegates for support. Now, these were all white workers. This striker was, incidentally, very, very shaky about speaking in that kind of setting. She didn't know what to do, but she was very moving. She just spoke as a human being who was on strike, and she was very, very, very warmly received and it had a very great impact on her. But in the description of the meeting, Modern Hospital refers to the fact that another issue on the agenda was the war in Vietnam, so that the issue was always being raised. The union took a position and tried to be involved in activity. The union was involved in- -I have things here like the emergency rally on Vietnam at Madison Square Garden where it indicates that 1199 is one of the supporting organizations, one of two unions, the other union being District 65.

Q:

Do you recall the date of that event?

Foner:

I don't have a date on that event, but let me see for a minute. The speakers are Dr. King, Wayne Morris, Spock, Norman Thomas--

[BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE 2]

Foner:

Here is an ad. I think that this was, to my knowledge, the first ad inserted by a union on the war in Vietnam, and it was a period when ads in the Times were coming hot and heavy, and we thought that there should be some indication of what we were doing. We decided to raise funds for an ad. It was not put in by the union. It was put in by members of the union. It's an appeal from 1,268 drug and hospital workers, members of the union, and it's a broad statement on “stop the bombing, seek an immediate cease-fire, negotiate an international settlement.” It's very little copy and most of the ad is devoted to the listing of the names, a partial listing of names, several hundred names in here, in two-point type. The members contributed a





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