The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1950-06-08
Rutgers Labor Institute heraIded AS
Milestone On Road To Industrial Peace

New brunswick, N. j. (lLNO y
When William Green, president of
the American Federation of Labor,
comes here June Is to deliver the
keynote address of the goth ami
versary of the Rutgers University
Labor Institute, he will find this
pioneer workers education project
heralded by labor and education as
a milepost toward industrial peace.
Green visited Rutgers 20 years
ago, then as an anxious observer of
a brand new venture in bringing
education and labor together to dis
cuss unemployment from labor's
viewpoint. He told his 149 listeners
New Jersey Federation of Labor
unionists, educators and govern
ment leaders-that they were max
ing history. The intervening years
since have proven the correctness
of this prophecy.
Idea Spreads to Nation
The education minded labor lead
er was not the only observer at this
first formal meeting of American
college and union representatives.
Representatives of universities as
far west as Michigan had come to
see if the project would work. The
University of Michigan people were
so convinced of the values of pool
ing labor information that a similar
institute was underway at Ann
Arbor. Today, models of the Rut-
gers Institute are found in rs col
leges and universities in 40 states.
Labor was even more impressed
with the outcome Of that meeting
20 years ago. Before the 5-day
session was ended, the delegates
unanimously requested future con-
ferences and the State Federation
of Labor at its next annual meeting
petitioned Rutgers to make it an
annual affair.
In 1947, the New Jersey Legisla-
ture, recognizing the contributions
which the institute has made toI
labor management understanding,
created the Rutgers Institute of
Management and Labor Relations
to provide similar educational adj
vantages on a year-round basis for
management, labor and the public.
Unemployment was creating al
national emergency when Norman
C. Miller, director of the Rutgers
University Extension Division, pro-
posed that workers and college pro-
fessors sit down together to see i'll
they might help the situation. Hell
took his idea to Spencer Miller, Jr.,
then director of the Workers Edu-
cation Bureau of America. MillerI
was also thinking of enlisting edu
cation in the desperate unemploy
ment situation. Together they car
ried their idea to former Senator
Arthur A. Quinn, then president of
the N. j. Federation of Labor.
Quinn approved and the fedora
tion petitioned the Rutgers trus
tees to provide facilities for an in
stitute. Approval was immediate
and the leaders began at once to
plan for the first Rutgers Labor
Institute. In its second meeting,
the institute turned from unem-
ployment to financial security as
the discussion topic. Beginning
with the third institute, a CON
sciousness of labor's citizenship in
the community, nation and world
began TO express itself in theI
theme, Labor and the World Eco
nomic Problem"
Broad Program Scheduled
Recognition of this triple respon-
sibility has grown steadily since
Among the state problems on the
program, June IL through Is, are
unemployment compensation, civil
rights under the New Jersey law,
public utility antistrike legislation,
workmen's compensation, and a
-----------------------