‘No Greater Calling’
UAW to honor Walter Reuther as his 100th birthday approaches
There it was in black and white: Walter Reuther’s original script for his 1946 appearance on “NBC News,” complete with edits.
In one part of the document, words were blackened out. In another, the phrase “real wages” was underlined for emphasis. Here, a line strikes through an unnecessary letter. There, another is used to open space between two words mistakenly typed together.
The former UAW president went on NBC to address the national problem of inflation eating up workers’ wage increases.
This fall you and everyone else connected to the Internet will be able to view this script and much more on a Web site that will be launched as part of a celebration of the beloved UAW president’s birth. He would have turned 100 on Sept. 1.
The site, “No Greater Calling: The Life of Walter Reuther,” is the achievement of Walter P. Reuther Library staff — including a dozen student interns — at Wayne State University in Detroit.
“By Sept. 1, when people click on www.reuther.wayne.edu they will be able to access the “No Greater Calling” site where they can view 600 photos of Reuther’s life and times,” Mike Smith, Reuther Library director, said. “There will also be eight pages of biography, numerous original documents and actual speeches that can be streamed by Internet.”
From Sept. 1 through May 2008, visitors to the Reuther Library also will be able to learn about the life and times of the man who served as the UAW’s fourth president from 1946 until his tragic death in an airplane crash in 1970 through a display in the main lobby of the Reuther Library.
In addition, Web site visitors will be able to view other fascinating original resource materials, such as Reuther’s campaign program when he ran for UAW president.
Reuther, who was once described as “the only man who can remember the future,” showed his visionary leadership during that 1946 campaign by calling for equal pay for equal work regardless of sex or race, a national campaign for winning a guaranteed annual wage for all workers, conversion of government-owned war plants into public corporations operated under democratic controls in the public interest, and support for national health care.
The Web site for remembering Reuther’s achievements and his broad social justice agenda will be complemented with a teacher’s guide geared toward 10- to 12-year-olds, so that important lessons of labor history can be passed on to future union activists: today's students.
