Apathy and Other Axioms

Expelling the Union Dissenter from History

When Cesar Chavez came to organize farm workers, his cause was applauded by every labor and liberal group; when Joseph Yablonski stepped forward to lead insurgent miners and was murdered, there was mostly silence. From a few labor leaders came clumsy mutterings lest “labor” be blamed; otherwise, with only few notable exceptions, labororiented liberals turned away. The same embarrassed silence followed the 1965 murders of Dow Wilson and Lloyd Green, two leaders of a Painters’ Union reform movement in California. All of which sadly illustrates the great paradox of the labor movement: its attitude toward democracy.

The miners’ story of undergro...