relations system of the 1935 Wagner Act. 35 The repeal of Taft-Hartley was clearly

the top priority of the Democrats and the unions in 1950.

 The general political climate of that year, however, did not favor labor unions.

1950 began with John L. Lewis's United Mine Workers mired in a marathon strike

against the coal industry that produced uproar among the American people. Closer to

home, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the most prominent newspaper in Taft's home city,

almost always cast unions in a negative light.36 The majority of opinion leaders and

business elites in Cincinnati opposed labor unions. Taft also benefited from an

upsurge of anti-communism throughout Ohio and in Cincinnati in particular. From

January through March, The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a series of weekly articles by

James Ratliff that claimed Communist agents had infiltrated virtually every

organization and social institution in the city and detailed their methods of subversion.

Such familiar targets as the Progressive Party and labor unions were mentioned as

vehicles for conspirators who had set their sights on local charities and schools. By

July, the stories had drawn so much attention that the House Un-American Activities

Committee made a stop in Cincinnati to investigate Ratliff s charges. What transpired

was a festival of name-calling, innuendo and smear tactics, all of which resonated in

the newspapers through letters from local citizens who expressed outrage at

Communist infiltration in the local plants, unions, and schools.37 McCarthyism came





35 Cincinnati Enquirer, January 4, 1950; memo, Willis Gradison to Taft, November 18, 1950, Political
File-1950 Campaign, Box 304, Taft Papers; and Cincinnati Enquirer, January 5, 1950. Quotation
from Cincinnati Enquirer, January 1, 1950. See also Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy: Re-Examining
the Life and Legacy ofAmerica's Most Hated Senator (New York: Free Press, 2000).

36 See, for example, the columns of syndicated writer Victor Reisel, which received top billing in the
paper. Cincinnati Enquirer, March 14, 1950.

37 Quotation from Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, 241; Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 March 1950, 5
August 1950.