Child of the Sit-Downs_ The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger - Carlton Jackson [114]
72. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 17.
73. Ibid.
74. Robert M. LaFollette, Committee on Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, 75th Cong., 1 sess., 1937, 2520.
75. Skeels interview, 38.
76. Ibid., 40.
77. Ibid., 19.
78. Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,”42.
79. Ibid., 43.
80. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 20.
81. Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,” 43.
82. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 20.
83. Ever since the event, union people and their historians have disputed who actually conceived of the plan to feign an attack on Number Nine while actually intending to take Number Four. Robert Travis, local Flint UAW official, said that he and author Henry Kraus “worked out the details of the movement.” Roy Reuther remembered that “it was a kind of a joint thing in which four to five people sort of refined and developed the idea” (Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,” 44). It seems, however, that Kermit Johnson, in consort with his wife, Genora (who did all the typing—no mean feat in those days!), was the principal architect. He and Genora held several meetings in their own home to discuss strategies and maneuvers. Kermit Johnson, like his wife, has been neglected by history. For yet another version, see Keeran, Communist Party.
84. Skeels interview, 26. Nevertheless, when the action started, Walter Reuther apparently had a change of heart. “As the fighting progressed, Walter joined in, bringing a west-side caravan to Flint. See Nelson Lichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (New York: Basic Books, 1995), 78–79.
85. Keeran, Communist Party, 165.
86. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 21.
87. Sol Dollinger to the author, June 28, 1999.
88. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 21.
89. Skeels interview, 27.
90. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 20–21.
91. Ibid., 22.
92. Irving Howe and B. J. Widick, The UAW and Walter Reuther (New York: Random House, 1949), 59.
93. “Women’s Brigade Uses Heavy Clubs,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1937.
94. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 22.
95. Gluck interview, 106. Genora thought the term might have been coined during the IWW (“Wobbly”) movements of a few years before.
96. Rosenthal, Striking Flint, 22.
97. Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,” 47.
98. Ibid. See also Skeels interview, 31.
99. Skeels interview, 31.
100. Ibid.
101. Kermit Johnson to Robert Travis, Sit-Down, 1937, UAW Collection, Reuther Library.
102. Ibid., Feb. 4, 1937, UAW Collection, Reuther Library.
103. Bud Simon to Robert Travis and the Flint Auto Workers, Feb. 6, 1937, UAW Collection, Reuther Library.
104. Hassett, “Never Again,” 12.
105. Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,” 49.
106. Gluck interview, 67, 101.
107. Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,” 49.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid., 51.
110. Genora Dollinger, “A Dance in Front of Fisher #1,” unpublished article, Dollinger Collection, box 3, folder 7, Reuther Library.
111. Sol Dollinger to the author, June 28, 1999.
112. Genora Johnson, interview with Kathryn Kish, ca. 1987.
113. Unsigned telegram to Henry Kraus, Feb. 12, 1937, Kraus Collection, box 9, folder 14, Reuther Library.
114. Patricia Murolo and A. B. Chitty, From the Folks Who Brought You the Week-End: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States (New York: New Press, 2001), 207.
115. McElvaine, Great Depression, 294.
116. Fine, Sit-Down, 201.
117. Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,” 59.
118. Genora Dollinger, speech to Local 659, 1974, Flint, Michigan, Dollinger Collection, Los Angeles.
119. Quoted in Yeghissian, “Emergency Brigade,” 59.
3. The Lure of Trotskyism
1. Congressional Record, 49 Cong., 2d sess., 1875, 1887. Quoted in Carlton Jackson, Presidential Vetoes: 1792–1945 (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1967), 153.
2. Sol Dollinger, “Formative Years,” 19.
3. Sol Dollinger, interview with the author, Oct. 19, 1997.
4. Sol Dollinger, “Formative Years,” 27, 29. See also Skeels interview, 37
5. Roger Keeran, in The Communist Party and the Auto Workers’ Union, 169, credits Dorothy