WORK IN PROGRESS

The Underpants Speech

How an angry speech paved the way to Canada's Communist labour purges of the 1950s

By Ron Verzuh

Ron Verzuh is Oregon vice-president of the Pacific Northwest Labor History

Association. This document was part of his presentation at the PNLHA conference.

Cumberland, B.C. June 14, 2014

 

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ustice Minister Louis St. Laurent, destined to be Canada's prime minister, made no secret of his dislike for

Communists. In mid-March 1948, he officially announced that "Canada is cracking down on labour-union communists fleeing from the anti-communist Taft-Hartley labor law of the U.S."1 Both the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) and the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL), predecessors of today's Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), sanctioned the federal government ban on reds and refused a request from Mine-Mill, an embattled CCL affiliate, to come to its aid.2 That paved the way for the deportation of Mine-Mill international leader Reid Robinson who had been identified by the authorities as a subversive "labour union official."3 It also gave labour officials the excuse they needed to accelerate ongoing efforts to purge Communist unions from their federations. On 8 April, Mine-Mill western district director Harvey Murphy, a long-time Communist labour leader, stood up at a banquet to make history of sort when he chastised the eighty-two labour leaders who were in the provincial capital of Victoria to lobby politicians regarding the new retail sales tax as well as coming labour legislation. Historian Irving Abella recounts the raucous event, noting that it                                                                                                                          1 "Reds Will Find It Hard To Enter Canadian Labor," Trail Daily Times (TDT), 12 March 1948, 1. 2 "Labor Congress Will Not Interfere With Government's Ban on U.S. Union Organizers," TDT, 11 March 1948, 1. 3 "Canada Will Bar All Communists," TDT, 4 March 1948, 1.  

began with “a good deal of drinking and carousing.” Murphy, who had had a snootful of his favourite whisky made “some highly distasteful remarks about the private lives of some labour leaders.” As Abella further recounts, “[a]mong the less lurid of his statements were that the Congress officials were ‘phonies’ and ‘red-baiting floozies’.”4 The next day, thanks to an enterprising right-wing reporter named Jack Webster, the Murphy incident found its way to the front page of the Vancouver Sun. According to Webster, who later admitted in his memoirs that he "led the witchhunt in print," Murphy was angry that the CCL had not supported Robinson.5 Murphy had “denied that Robinson advocated [the] overthrow of the Canadian government,” the Sun article went on. “‘It’s a lie,’ he [Murphy] said, ‘and they can’t prove it. It shows up our Red-baiters including CCL officials.”6 Soon afterwards, The Canadian Press filed a story revealing that CCL western director William Mahoney planned to submit “affidavits of his accusations” against Murphy after telling reporters that the                                                                                                                          4 Irving Abella, National, Communist and Canadian Labour: The CIO, the Communist Party, and the Canadian Congress of Labour, 1935-56 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 121. 5 “Reid Robinson Deportation Is Ordered,” TDT, 10 April 1948, 1. The quotation is found in Jack Webster, Webster! An autobiography by Jack Webster (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1990), 35. 6 Jack Webster, “Labor Lobby Split by Murphy Speech,” Vancouver Sun, 9 April 1948. Webster, like the CCL leaders Murphy criticized in his speech, was no friend to Communists. In Webster!, 37, he writes that “They [Communists like Murphy] had taken over the labour movement and I believed they had to be evicted. I hounded them.”

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Mine-Mill leader had uttered “unsubstantiated, improperly presented and despicable charges” against fifteen of the lobby delegates who had promptly walked out of the meeting when Murphy refused to withdraw his remarks.7 Mahoney added that the speech "destroyed the prestige labor needs to do its job and give bread and butter to the people." Perhaps worse, fellow red Malcolm Bruce charged that comrade Murphy's comments were "wholly indecent and inexcusable."8 Historian Benjamin Isitt seemed to agree when he called the speech "disastrous" in his recounting of the incident, adding that Communist leaders thought the incident was orchestrated by the CCL "to neutralize Mine-Mill's influence in BC's central labour bodies."9

Murphy’s outburst, soon to be dubbed the ‘underpants speech’ in labour lore, definitely added new impetus to the drive to purge Canadian unions of Communists. Mine-Mill Local 480’s Al King remembers the speech vividly. “Harvey was furious at the direction of some of [A.R.] Mosher’s policies,’ the president of the Trail smelter local recalled. “He stood up at the mike and told the full meeting that if Mosher was going to kiss the boss’s ass, he better be sure to pull his pants down first. Murphy could be

                                                                                                                         7 “Harvey Murphy To Face Trade Union Charges,” TDT, 10 April 1948, 1-2. 8 "Labor Censures Harvey Murphy," TDT, 14 April 1948, 2. 9  Benjamin Isitt, Militant Minority: British Columbia Workers and the Rise of a New Left, 1948-1972 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 51  

pretty direct.”10 Labour radical Jack Scott recalled the Murphy speech in similar graphic detail. Murphy “got himself pretty well plastered,” and he “makes his famous remark that there are some people that when they are asked to kiss the boss make only one condition: that he take his underwear down.”11 Scott further noted that it was “funny no doubt, but not exactly tactful.”12 Labour leader Bill White added a gritty personal touch. Puzzling about what all the fuss was really about, he drew this conclusion: “You hear people blame the downfall of the Communist Party on Murphy’s Underwear Speech, but Christ, they were just waiting for any phoney goddamned excuse and that happened to be it.”13 Murphy’s eldest son, the late Rae Murphy, also remembered hearing about the speech. “Of course Harvey was drunk (they all were) and it was a stupid remark,” he said in an interview, but he did not think the event was as significant as some historians implied.14 Still, he agreed that it could be construed as the                                                                                                                          10 Al King with Braid, Kate, Red Bait!: Struggles of a Mine-Mill Local (Vancouver: Kingbird Publishing, 1998), 76. 11 Jack Scott, A Communist Life: Jack Scott and the Canadian Workers Movement, 1927-1985, ed. Bryan D. Palmer (St. John’s: Committee on Canadian Labour History, 1988), 251. 12 Ibid., Scott, 252. 13 Howard White, A Hard Man to Beat: The Story of Bill White, Labour Leader, Historian, Shipyard Worker, Raconteur: An Oral History (Vancouver: Pulp Press, c1983), 168. White, 171, concluded that the CCL leaders and internal party bickering led to the demise of the CPC as “the dominant force on the B.C. labour scene, and the end of any widespread militancy in B.C. labour.” 14 Rae Murphy, eldest son of Harvey Murphy, email correspondence with the author, 8 October 2010.

 

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beginning of the semi-official process of ridding the labour movement of all its left-wing radicals. That process had been going on for decades, but now the CCL and TLC, following the lead of their American ‘parents,’ the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), had the perfect excuse. As White had said, it was all in aid of escalating their anti-red attacks. After much political posturing during which Murphy refused to retract his statements, the CCL suspended the Mine-Mill director for two years. Although the suspension hardly diminished his power at the local level where he was seen as an effective union organizer and hard-nosed negotiator, it could be viewed as marking the start of labour’s Cold War in Trail and it further justified the red purging that was to intensify across the continent in the months and years to come.15 The CCL and its anti-Communist president A.R. Mosher may have suspended what they viewed as an obnoxious radical, but there was no unanimity on expelling him. He would be back before his two-year suspension was

                                                                                                                         15 John Stanton, My Past Is Now: Further Memoirs of a Labour Lawyer (St. John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1994), 119, describes Murphy this way: “He had an engaging personality and was an excellent orator. Stocky, running to fat, and balding, he related well to working people, who enjoyed his gravelly-voiced exposes of the greed and stupidity of certain employers and politicians….No matter what difficulties Murphy faced, he always seemed to land, cat-like, on his feet. His more than generous ego and a certain foxiness were so noticeable that one could never be quite sure where one stood with Murphy.”

up to continue his union’s “class struggle” at the federation level.16 He was soon sitting on a conciliation board and speaking against logging companies on behalf of the IWA.17 He also returned to the Crow's Nest Pass area of Alberta to support Communist Ben Swankey's election campaign.18 It was familiar and friendly territory for Murphy and a reminder of his role in forming one of the nation's first socialist city hall's at Blairmore many years earlier. Regrettably, though, Murphy's indiscreet enthusiasm took Mine-Mill into                                                                                                                          16 As the purges progressed, Mine Mill was one of the few red unions to leave intact its constitution’s Marxist language. “We hold that there is a class struggle in Society,” it read, and “that the producer...is exploited of the wealth which he produces...that the class struggle will continue until the producer is recognized as the sole master of his product...[and] that the working class, and it alone, can and must achieve its own emancipation.” Quoted in Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 14-15. 17 "Harvey Murphy," Secret police report by unnamed agent, 1 October 1948, includes "Murphy blasts 'CCF News' smear on IWA conciliation board award," Pacific Tribune, 1 October 1948.  18 "Harvey Murphy," Secret police report by Corporal J.S. Connors, "K" Division, Lethbridge, Alberta, 16 June 1948, included a copy of Murphy's CJOC radio station broadcast supporting Communist electoral candidate Ben Swankey.

 

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suspension with him prompting Scott to comment that it was “a real victory for the anti-Communist forces.”19 He added that the incident gave the B.C. Federation of Labour “the opportunity to come down with both feet on the Party’s trade union activity.” King agreed that “when they evicted Murphy from the CCL, they weren’t only gunning for Murphy. They were gunning for anybody who was left-wing in the labour movement.”20 Murphy faced no party disciplinary measures which an embittered Scott suggested was how “the reds beat themselves in B.C.”21 Murphy didn't let the underpants fiasco slow him down. He continued his work as chief negotiator for Local 480, winning improved collective agreements for several years to come. In the early to mid-1950s, he worked tirelessly to fend off the raiding United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in Trail. As that battle was subsiding he devoted himself to organizing a series of memorable concerts at the Peace Arch                                                                                                                          19 Ibid., Scott, 252. 20 Ibid., King, Red Bait!, 76. 21 Ibid., Scott, 251.

near Blaine, Washington, featuring famous opera singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. The concerts continued annually for four years from 1952 to 1955. In 1954, he used his B.C. District Union News to support the banned U.S. film Salt of the Earth and urge that it be shown everywhere. Throughout the Cold War he was an ardent anti-war advocate, supporting to work of Canadian Peace Congress founder Dr. James Gareth Endicott. In 1967, Mine-Mill merged with the USWA after a decade of. Murphy, who had twelve years earlier returned to Toronto to become vice-president of the newly formed autonomous wing of Mine-Mill in Canada, took a job with his old labour enemy. When he retired in the early 1970s, the underpants speech never resurfaced in his papers. Only the labour leaders who heard it will ever know what the man who called himself "the reddest rose in Labour's garden" really said.22 Historians, meanwhile, are left to consider what impact it might have had in the internecine labour wars that followed.

                                                                                                                         22  The origin of the actual phrase seems elusive. It appears in Stephen L. Endicott, Raising the Workers’ Flag: the Workers’ Unity League of Canada, 1930-1936 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 126. Endicott explains in a footnote that he took it from “an unidentified, undated transcript of an interview.” It is noted without a source in Elsie G. Turnbull, Trail Between Two Wars: The Story of a Smelter City (Victoria, B.C.: Morriss Printing Co., 1980), 74.  

APPENDICES

RCMP Personal History File for Harvey Murphy

British Columbia Police (“D” Division) Prince Rupert, B.C.

April 3, 1933 Name: Harvey Murphy

Alias: Nationality: Canadian

When and how arrived in Canada: Born Kitchener, Ont.

DESCRIPTION: Age: 29

Weight: 165 Height: 5’7 or 8”

Build: Sturdy Colour of hair: Light brown – almost bald on top Colour of eyes: Dark blue

Glasses (if worn): Complexion: Sallow, almost double chin

Hair on face: Clean shaven – bushy eyebrows

Teeth: Nose: Big and flat – almost Jewish in appearance Deformities: Nil

Marks: Two inch scar behind right ear – operation

Peculiarities: Soft hands, hairy arms, thick neck

Usual dress: Well dressed – blue suit (shabby), blue shirt, blue tie, black

oxfords, cap (grey tweed), reddish brown overcoat

Manner: Walks like a sailor – legs astride

Habits: (smokes, drinks, gambles, etc.): Heavy cigarette smoker

Speech: Good English Languages spoken:

Married or single: Family:

Home address: Present address: Prince Rupert

Former address: MacLeod and Lethbridge, Alta.

If not married, parent’s name and address: Samuel, father, and Anne, mother, living in Toronto, Ont. Past and present occupation: Machinist and pump man, etc. above ground in coal mines. At present working for National Mine Workers Association organizer

Associations affiliated with: National Mine Workers Association

Influence and standing in same: Paid organizer and leader

Intimate associates: Lealas, Bradley, and all radicals in the present movement

Ability and influence as agitator: Very good speaker, has wide knowledge of labour conditions. Is one of big leaders Present locality of activities: At present is getting affidavits re unsafe working conditions in Anyox Mine to present to

 

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Minister of Mines for B.C. Will return to Vancouver in the near future

Activities: Was mixed up in the MacLeod coal mine strikes and is trying to organize miners in the Crows Nest and has been transferred to Vancouver. Works under instructions from Calgary at the present time.

General remarks: List of files in which this man appears:

History, early and recent: (Known to be correct except when otherwise stated.) Source: B.C. Archives GR-0429 (Box 21, File 6, Folio 321)

 

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2. RCMP Description - 6 November 1941

 

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Source: RCMP Secret Files, 6 November 1941, obtained under Access to Information legislation through the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Murphy's police record - December 1941

Source: RCMP Secret Files, December 1941, obtained under Access to Information legislation through the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).