The good, the bad
and the (perhaps)
not-quite-so-ugly

Malcolm had always conceived a prejudice, well-deserved, against Henry Ford and his anti-union mentality. The image, left, is from the 1937 “Battle of the Overpass”: those who don’t recognise the reference should not hesitate to look it up, or even read on.

He wondered, though, if his assumptions might need at least partially to be reviewed and even revised when he came upon today’s New York Times “On this day” feature, which looks back to a front-page story from 5th January 1905:

Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, announced today one of the most remarkable business moves of his entire remarkable career. In brief it is:

To give to the employees of the company $10,000,000 of the profits of the 1914 business, the payments to be made semi-monthly and added to the pay checks.

To run the factory continuously instead of only eighteen hours a day, giving employment to several thousand more men by employing three shifts of eight hours each, instead of only two nine-hour shifts, as at present.

To establish a minimum wage scale of $5 per day. Even the boy who sweeps up the floors will get that much.

Before any man in any department of the company who does not seem to be doing good work shall be discharged, an opportunity will be given to him to try to make good in every other department. No man shall be discharged except for proved unfaithfulness or irremediable inefficiency.

This is the other side of the coin to the vicious regime of strike-breaking at Fords, especially in the 1930s, and the internal security and thuggery run by Harry Bennett as Head of the firm’s Service Department:

He ruled the Rouge Plant, and some say Henry Ford himself, through threats and intimidation, arguably becoming more influential than Edsel Ford, Henry’s son and the company’s President from 1919 to 1943. He first worked in Ford’s art department in 1917, but his “tough guy” manner got him appointed head watchman, and eventually he supervised over 3000 reputed crooks and retired policemen in the Service Department. “The Battle of the Overpass,” Ford’s 1937 response to attempts at unionization, was led by Bennett. Ford fought unionization until 1941.

A recent study, Strikebreaking and Intimidation, by Stephen H. Norwood, even tries to ascribe psycho-sexual motivation, a machismo, to Bennett and his like. A more straight-forward history can be found in Robert Michael Smith’s From Blackjacks to Briefcases, telling the story of anti-union brutality.

This begins with Allen Pinkerton, the Glaswegian barrel-maker and Chartist, who fled Britain for Chicago, where he later established his detective agency. As Smith reminds us:

During the last decades of the nineteenth century Pinkerton guards were such a common sight at strikebound plants that “Pinkertons” became the eponym applied to all armed guards.

That chain of association brings Malcolm to recall that Dashiell Hammett spent eight years working for the Pinkerton agency. This experience led him to create the magnificent Sam Spade, and thereby the model for the “hard-boiled” genre.

It also provided material for Hammett’s first novel. Red Harvest, is a specific account of the Pinkerton strike-breaking machinery. That text ought to be an essential for any (socialist) reading-list.

The setting of the novel, in “Poisonville“, and the plot derive from the murder (quite probably by Pinkerton men) of Frank Little in Butte, Montana. Little was an organiser for the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World. Malcolm fully expects to corrected on the details by his standard authority on the topic, Our American Cousin. OAC’s reflections on the election, as seen from Denver, continue as acid as ever, and well worth the trip to Misanthropy Abroad (Memo to Malcolm: this mutual log-rolling and back-scratching has got to stop!)

And, apropos of very little, that reminds Malcolm to mention another recent discovery, but one he will be watching with interest, at Holly Martin’s Friend. Malcolm very much hopes that Mark keeps the cyberworld abreast of how and in what ways he fares in his New Year Resolution to:

Read more books that do not include detectives, drug-addled, doomed Europeans and headstrong British Navy Sea Captains.

Meanwhile, next Thursday, Malcolm will find a moment to raise an appropriate glass to the memory of the immortal Dashiell, on the 47th anniversary of his death.

Through a glass, murkily

There is one essential rule about political impressions: wait until the day after — the dust will clear, and the picture will be totally different.

So when Malcolm encountered Belfast Gonzo, at 4.24 a.m. GMT yesterday, setting the agenda for Slugger O’Toole, he expected something to be adrift:

BAD news for Hillary Clinton, coming third in the Democratic caucus in Iowa.

Admittedly, Gonzo was operating from early results (quoting the Democrat split at 37-27-24): which substantially underestimated both the Edwards and Clinton figures. The BBC gives the final figures as 37.6-29.7-29.5. The New York Times, as “gray” and lady-like as ever, equates those figures to the share of the delegates to the State convention, which will decide the Iowa representation at the National Convention: Obama 940, Edwards 744, Clinton 737, with 46 still to play for.

It does not take much “spin” to make the whole thing look rosier for Hillary.

When Malcolm looks further, the same impression persists.

The Democratic caucuses in Iowa are “open”. The effect of this deserved the Washington Post‘s comment:

Obama’s victory in the first official vote of 2008 came from a big influx of first-time caucusgoers and significant support from independents. Nearly six in 10 Democratic participants said they had not caucused before, and that group preferred Obama by double-digit margins over Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina. Although Clinton ran about even with Obama among Democrats, Obama outpaced both of his main rivals among independents, who made up 20 percent of voters and broke 41 percent for Obama, 23 percent for Edwards and 17 percent for Clinton.

Elsewhere, the Post indicates that Clinton raised more cash in Iowa than any other candidate.

On the Democratic side, then, Iowa merely short-listed the prime candidates down to three. It makes New Hampshire, next Tuesday, highly significant. So, if, and only if Hillary stumbles there, her candidature is seriously in trouble. Reuters reports Zogby’s latest poll:

Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, led Illinois Sen. Obama 32 percent to 26 percent among likely voters in the state’s Democratic primary. Former Sen. John Edwards, the runner-up in Iowa, was at 20 percent, and no other Democrat was in double digits.

Of course, there should be a further bounce for Obama not yet registering there.

On the other side of the aisle, things are no clearer. Huckabee wiped everyone else’s clock. Malcolm recalls that he was an also-ran under the back end of the year. Now:

With 93 percent of precincts reporting, Huckabee had won 34 percent of the delegates awarded, Romney held 25 percent, and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) were tied for third, with about 13 percent each.

Huckabee’s problems start here:

Huckabee enters New Hampshire with little money and little time to mount an adequate come-from-behind surge. And tradition pulls against him. George H. W. Bush in 1980, Bob Dole in 1988 and 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000 — all are Iowa caucus winners who lost their New Hampshire primaries.

What does intrigue is the complexion of the Republican semi-closed caucus, to whom Huckabee specifically framed his appeal:

Sixty percent of Republican caucusgoers described themselves as evangelicals, according to entrance polls. Those voters went for Huckabee over Romney by more than 2 to 1.

The Economist‘s on-line up-date confirms much of this:

Mrs Clinton’s third-place finish is deeply disappointing for her, even though she retains lots of money, strong organisation and a well-recognised name and can expect to improve her performance. She has quickly turned to New Hampshire, where polls have shown her tying with (or leading) Mr Obama, and then on to South Carolina. Mr Edwards’s future looks cloudier, given the gap with Mr Obama. The Democrats appear to be heading for a two-horse race, which either can win.

And:

The [Republican] winner who stayed away from Iowa was Mr McCain. He came in fourth, but just a few hundred votes behind Mr Thompson, a former senator, despite barely visiting the state. Recent newspaper endorsements and media coverage have revived the Arizona senator’s fortunes. He now looks like he can move past Mr Romney in New Hampshire and perhaps win the state, which abuts Mr Romney’s Massachusetts.

One last thought: 230,000 Democrats turned out on a cold Iowan night: in 2000 it was just 59,000. That’s down to Howard Dean nationally, but particularly Obama’s local squad: so let’s hear it for Paul Tewes, Steve Hildebrand and Mitch Stewart. It looks as if the Democratic surge, which delivered in the 2006 mid-terms, is still racing: if so, the Republicans are definitely dans le merde, all the way to November.

The above appeared previously on Malcolm’s experiment with WordPress.