Morris Goldowsky — A Complete Trade Unionist and Socialist
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Morris Goldowsky — A Complete Trade Unionist and Socialist
[!NOTE] This section is by Y. Fogel, but I'm not sure who that was. TBD.
Just as Morris Goldowsky devoted a large part of his productive life to the trade-union movement, so, in describing his socialist activity, we will use an industrial comparison.
In the needle trades, such a term as section work is well known. This is a system of production in which each part of the “garment” is made by different hands. The operation can be learned in no time, and it does not require any particular skill. But the old-time tailor, who was skilled in his craft, knew the “garment” from aleph to tav [from A to Z], and he truly put a great deal of knowledge and artistry into his work.
We use this comparison when we think about Goldowsky.
His socialism is not a section-work operation. He does not fulfill his socialist obligations piecemeal; he is a complete socialist, without deviation and without excuses.
Goldowsky comes from the pressers’ room. Pressers, as is well known, are practical, prosaic fellows, and they have never been much given to the ‘sin’ of being dreamers and simply being socialists. Goldowsky, however, is a rare exception in this regard: he has always fought for practical things, and at the same time he has infused practical matters with his faith in a new socialist order.
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He could speak enthusiastically about “raising the wages,” as cloak pressers put it, and immediately afterward speak with ecstasy at a May Day demonstration.
Goldowsky has always embodied a synthesis between the practical trade unionist and the visionary socialist. Indeed, it is these two qualities that caused our movement to put down roots in Jewish life in America.
The path Goldowsky follows throughout his entire life is, in fact, the path of the Jewish workers’ movement. It is the way of combining practicality with dreaminess, bread with roses, hard reality with the world of the future.
Goldowsky, therefore, is not a section socialist, but a complete socialist, 24 hours a day.
I am certain that his book, which contains his [substantial / rich] biography, reflects in a striking manner the whole Goldowsky.
If our trade-union movement had had more Goldowskys, perhaps the socialist spirit would not have become so diluted and flattened, because crooked paths can be avoided only when one has faith in one’s heart. That faith exists in Goldowsky’s heart.
Y. Fogel