"...If our enormous productivity is diverted
to a peace time economy, and trade re-opened with all the world, it
would certainly result in a 'swift expansion of the material well being'
for all the world.
"The threat of widespread unemployment would vanish, and we could look forward to generations of peace.
"The continuation of the present insane war economy can result only in
more taxes, more misery; more of our sons wasting their precious lives;
abysmal poverty for generations to come, a lower standard of living, a
complete loss of all the liberties we praise so highly..."
Wyndham Mortimer writing in 1953 to members of the United Auto Workers union.
Mortimer had been the UAW Vice-President in charge of the Flint
Sit-Down Strike and he signed the first contract with General Motors on
behalf of the UAW.
Mortimer was expelled from the UAW in 1938
for being a "Red;" but a few months later militant rank-and-file members
won his re-instatement in the union.
Mortimer joined the
Socialist Party of Eugene Debs in 1908; in 1932 he joined the Communist
Party and remained a member until his death in 1966.