Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Document Notes
State power and American politics at large can look quite different when the Left has control over the levers of power.
Highlights
id596968390
Private industry has given ample proof of its inability to supply even our most elemental social and economic needs,” Benson declared, adding that government was “no longer a mere huge policeman, protector of the rights of private property; it is now the great guarantor of social and economic justice and security for all the people.”
id596968482
four thousand lumberjacks walked off the job in northern Minnesota. Led by indigenous Timber Workers Union president Fred Lequier, the jacks were up against the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, a powerful opponent that these workers fought in subzero temperatures when much of the union’s rank and file was homeless. Benson acted decisively, opening the Duluth Armory as sleeping quarters for the strikers and using relief funds to set up soup kitchens in towns across the region. Much to Weyerhaeuser’s chagrin, Governor Benson also instructed the Highway Patrol to keep scab timber trucks off the roads.
id596968762
When the Northern States Power Company came to the bargaining table with the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, it had little choice but to capitulate to the union’s demands since Benson had threatened, in the event of a power cutoff, to operate the Minneapolis electrical system with guardsmen