Harry A. Millis
Encyclopedia
Harry Alvin Millis was an American
civil servant
, economist
, and educator and who was prominent in the first four decades of the 20th century. He was a prominent educator, and his writings on labor relations were described at his death by several prominent economists as "landmarks". Millis is best known for serving on the "first" National Labor Relations Board
, an executive-branch agency which had no statutory authority. He was also the second chairman of the "second" National Labor Relations Board, where he initiated a number of procedural improvements and helped stabilize the Board's enforcement of American labor law.
. He attended and graduated from Paoli High School. He was heavily involved in athletics in his youth. He enrolled at Indiana University
, receiving his Bachelor of Arts
degree in 1895 and his Master of Arts
in finance
in 1896. He was the first graduate student of John R. Commons
, the renowned institutional economist
. Millis entered the sociology
program at the University of Chicago
in 1896 but in 1898 he switched to the economics program and received his Ph.D.
in economics in 1899.
From 1899 to 1902 he was reference librarian at the John Crerar Library
, a then-independent, privately-owned public library focusing on research and teaching in science, medicine, and technology. In 1901, he married the former Alice May Schoff. The couple had three children: a son, John, and two daughters, Savilla and Charlotte. Alice received her Bachelor of Laws
from the University of Cincinnati
and her Master of Philosophy
from the University of Michigan
. He left his position at Crerar Library in 1902 to become professor of economics and sociology at the University of Arkansas
. He taught there for only two years. He joined the faculty at Stanford University
in 1904 after being appointed assistant professor of economics. While at Stanford, he became friends with the controversial economist Thorstein Veblen
, and helped Veblen and his wife find housing at the college. While at Stanford, he met and became friends with the nationally known economists Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman
and Thomas Sewall Adams
, and in 1907 co-founded the National Tax Association
(a nonpartisan organization that fosters the study of tax theory, tax policy, and other areas of public finance). In 1908, he published the article "Business and Professional Taxes as Sources of Local Revenue" in the Journal of Political Economy
. The article made the case for taxes on professionals and businesses
as a means of broadening the tax base and avoiding over-reliance on property tax
es. Simeon E. Leland, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Northwestern University
and chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
, later said it was a landmark in the study of state tax issues and anticipated the later, better-known work by Seligman and Adams. Millis left Stanford in 1911 and in the fall of 1912 joined the economics department at the University of Kansas
.
Millis joined the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in the fall of 1916 as an assistant professor of economics. He was appointed chair of the department in 1928, and became Professor Emeritus in 1938 at the age of 65. He became associated with the "institutional economics
" school, whose foremost proponents were then primarily teaching at the University of Chicago. Between 1938 and 1945, he and Royal E. Montgomery of Cornell University
co-wrote a three-volume study titled The Economics of Labor. At the time of his death, a group of prominent economists called it "the most authoritative and comprehensive analysis of modern labor economics for the period covered." He followed this with How Collective Bargaining Works in 1942, a text which set the pattern for case studies
in the field of industrial relations.
from 1908 to 1910, studying Asian immigration on the West Coast
and in the Rocky Mountain states
and authoring a three-volume report on the issue. He was director of the Illinois Health Insurance Commission from 1918 to 1919, where he oversaw the state's first large-scale effort to collect health statistics, assess the health of the citizenry, study the implementation of health laws, and make policy recommendations regarding health insurance.
From 1919 to 1921, he was chairman of the Trade Board of the Chicago Men's Clothing Industry, where he helped mediate labor disputes in the textile industry. He was chairman of the Trade Board's Arbitration Committee from 1923 to 1924 and again from 1937 to 1940.
signed the National Industrial Recovery Act
(NIRA) into law. Title I, Section 7(a) of the Act guaranteed the right of workers to form unions, and it set off a massive wave of union organizing punctuated by employer and union violence, general strike
s, and recognition strike
s. Although it was felt Section 7(a) would be self-policing, that assumption failed almost immediately. On August 5, 1933, President Roosevelt announced that the National Recovery Administration
was being instructed to establish a National Labor Board
(NLB) to administer Section 7(a). (Millis served as the vice-chair of the NLB's Chicago office.) But the NLB provided ineffective without any statutory or regulatory powers, so Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6511 on December 16, 1933, to strengthen the NLB and give it the force of executive authority. But this, too, proved too little to deal with the tremendous labor relations problems facing the country. Finally, threatened with a major strike in the steel industry and a Senate labor relations bill moving forward without presidential input, Roosevelt personally drafted Public Resolution No. 44, a bill which authorized the president to create one or more new labor boards to enforce Section 7(a) by conducting investigations, subpoenaing evidence and witnesses, holding elections, and issuing orders. It passed both houses of Congress on June 16, and Roosevelt signed it into law on June 19, 1934. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6073 on June 29, 1934, which abolished the NLB and established the National Labor Relations Board. The three-person board was empowered to hold hearings and make findings of fact, investigate violations of Section 7(a), and hold union organizing elections to resolve labor disputes. Millis expressed no interest in serving on the NLRB. Nonetheless, he was asked to join the new board based on his national reputation as an arbitrator, and agreed to do so. Millis was sworn in as a member of the "first" NLRB on July 9, 1934.
Millis played a role in keeping the "first" NLRB independent. The NRLB's chairman, 36-year-old Lloyd K. Garrison
, had agreed to serve as the chair only to get the board up and running, and he resigned on October 2, 1934, to resume his position as dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School
. Garrison suggested as his replacement a long-time friend, Francis Biddle
, a prominent Philadelphia attorney. Biddle was appointed to the post on November 16. Secretary of Labor
Frances Perkins
, however, had long sought to assert her department's control over the NLRB, but Garrison and Perkins came to an informal agreement which preserved the NLRB's independence. With Garrison's departure, however, Perkins sought to abrogate this agreement. She secretly met with President Roosevelt and secured changes to the executive order appointing Biddle to the NLRB which placed the agency completely under her control. Millis learned of the content of the executive order and alerted Biddle. Biddle confronted Perkins hours before his swearing-in, and Perkins agreed to hold the order in abeyance until she, Biddle, and the president could meet. Roosevelt later agreed that his order had been inappropriate, and told Biddle that he would not rescind the order but he also would not enforce it (personally guaranteeing the NLRB's independence).
Millis impressed his colleagues on the "first" NLRB. Garrison called him immensely experienced, with excellent judgment and common sense. Biddle said Millis educated him about the history of the labor movement, and called Millis cautious, thoughtful, wise, and cheerful. Millis was, Biddle said, "profoundly conscious of the injustices that had been done labor's attempt to organize, although at the same time aware of the dangerous weaknesses in a good deal of labor leadership: not only the racketeering and the feather-bedding, but the lack of imagination, the insistence on improved wages and hours as the sole end, the petty jurisdictional jealousies and squabbles..."
Millis played a major role in maintaining the "first" NLRB's jurisdiction as well. On June 18, 1934, the National Labor Board asserted jurisdiction over a labor dispute at the Call-Bulletin
, a newspaper in San Francisco, California
. Although the National Labor Board was disbanded two weeks later, but the "first" NLRB asserted continued jurisdiction over the dispute. At a hearing in Washington, D.C., on November 13, 1934, counsel for the newspaper asserted that NIRA gave exclusive jurisdiction over all newspaper industry labor disputes to the Newspaper Industrial Board (NIB). The NIB was a body established by the Code of Fair Competition for the Daily Newspaper Publishing Business, a "fair trade" code established under the authority of NIRA and approved by President Roosevelt. If the NLRB bowed to the newspaper's interpretation, it would be essentially giving up all of its authority to the National Recovery Administration (NRA), with which it was already locked in a jurisdictional struggle. Instead, the NLRB decided to challenge the NRA's claim of authority over all labor disputes in industries covered by NIRA codes. On December 3, 1934, Millis and the other NLRB members issued a public statement declaring that NIRA granted the NRA no exclusive jurisdiction over labor disputes, and pointing out that since the NIB had deadlocked on all major issues before it the NLRB would step in. NRA chief counsel Donald Richberg
angrily supported the NIB and the newspaper industry, and challenged the NLRB's jurisdictional claim. The dispute between the NRA and NLRB threatened to cause the collapse of the NRA Labor Advisory Board, and the automobile, rubber, steel, and textile industries threatened to withdraw from their respective industry code boards. After the NLRB decided in favor of the Call-Bulletin's workers in December 1934, the NRA refused to enforce the decision. Unfortunately, President Roosevelt issued a letter on January 22, 1935, requesting that the NLRB decline jurisdiction in a small number of NIRA codes and asking the NLRB to submit any recommendations it did make in such disputes confidentially to the president. The following day, Millis, Biddle, and NLRB member Edwin S. Smith agreed to challenge the president on the jurisdictional issue. Millis and Smith even threatened to resign, causing the collapse of the NLRB, if Roosevelt insisted on enforcing his letter of January 22. Millis, Biddle, and Smith met with the President a few days later. Roosevelt agreed not to enforce his letter, to authorize an NLRB investigation into the Newspaper Industry Board's operations, and to write a letter to the NLRB members and staff promising not to get involved in any more jurisdictional issues. Roosevelt also made it clear that he wanted the NLRB to steer clear of any disputes in the politically sensitive auto industry. However, although the letter to the NRLB was issued, Roosevelt insisted that it not be made public (so that it would not appear as if he had backed off his previous announcement).
Millis was not on the "first" NLRB for long. Senator
Robert F. Wagner
was continuing to push for comprehensive federal labor relations legislation. His bill, which became the National Labor Relations Act
(NLRA), was enacted by Congress on June 27, 1935, and signed into law by President Roosevelt on July 5. Millis, wishing to return to his home in Chicago, resigned from the NLRB shortly after passage of the NLRA and was succeeded on the Board by John M. Carmody. Even as he left the Board, however, Millis successfully recommended David J. Saposs
as first Chief Economist to lead the new NLRB Division of Economic Research.
, an African American who later was a noted economist. In 1937, he was appointed a member of the Illinois Commission on Unemployment and President Roosevelt appointed him to a Railway Labor Act
fact-finding board in a dispute between the Chicago Great Western Railway
and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. His railway panel found that the railroad should not impose a 15 percent wage reduction on the workers. Roosevelt appointed him to a second railways panel in 1938 to arbitrate a dispute between the million members of the Railway Labor Executives Association (an umbrella group representing 18 railway labor organizations) and the Association of American Railways (which represented all long-haul railroads in the U.S.). In 1940, he sat on a third arbitration panel which resolved a long-running wage dispute between American Railway Express
and its unions.
In 1940, President Roosevelt asked Millis to become the permanent arbiter between General Motors
(GM) and the United Auto Workers
(UAW). The 1937 collective bargaining agreement between the company and its union established a temporary, voluntary arbitration procedure, which was made permanent in the 1940 contract. It was the first permanent arbitration mechanism in any mass production industry, and not only the union but many companies and politicians were eager to see it succeed. Several of President Roosevelt's aides and confidantes urged Millis to accept the position. He agreed. However, Millis refused the large salary that was offered to him, and instead took only the same moderate salary he had been receiving at the university. Although he was arbitrator for only a few months, he laid the groundwork for smooth labor relations not only at General Motors but set a pattern for arbitration that spread throughout the manufacturing sector of the economy.
Finally, in March 1940, Millis joined Collective Bargaining Advisors, a private group dedicated to promoting peaceful labor relations through "scientific" practices.
, was seen as a political liability. The Board had issued three decisions (Fansteel Metallurgical, 5 NLRB 930 (1938); Inland Steel, 9 NLRB No. 73 (1938); and Republic Steel, 9 NLRB No. 33 (1938)) in 1938 which drew widespread condemnation from businesses and certain members of Congress. The Board won (In re Labor Board, 304 U.S. 486 (1938)) and then lost (Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB
, 305 U.S. 364 (1939)) cases before the Supreme Court regarding its internal decision-making processes. And in three cases in 1939 (National Labor Relations Board v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U.S. 240 (1939); National Labor Relations Board v. Columbian Enameling & Stamping Co., 306 U.S. 292 (1939); and National Labor Relations Board v. Sands Manufacturing Co.
, 306 U.S. 332 (1939)) the Supreme Court emasculated the Board's attempts to expansively use Section 10(g) of the NLRA to promote collective bargaining and labor peace. Media and public opinion turned strongly against what was perceived as an overreaching NLRB, and President Roosevelt announced the formation of a commission to study the Board's operations. By March 1939, 11 bills had been filed in Congress to amend the NLRA. The House of Representatives
voted to create a special committee, the Special Committee to Investigate the National Labor Relations Board (popularly known as the "Smith Committee" after its chairman, conservative Democratic
Rep. Howard W. Smith
), in July 1939. The Smith Committee was substantially biased against labor unions and the NLRB, received testimony from hundreds of witnesses, conducted a nationwide survey regarding the impact of the NLRB, and questioned NLRB officials at length about the agencies alleged anti-business and anti-American Federation of Labor
/pro-Congress of Industrial Organizations
biases. Nathan Witt
, the Board's Secretary (and highest-ranking career official), was also under fire from the Smith Committee for his communist
sympathies. The Smith Committee proposed legislation to substantially alter the NLRA. The legislation easily passed the House, but was bottled up by Roosevelt's allies in the Senate and it died. The dispute over the Board's administration had even split the NLRB itself. Board members William S. Leiserson and Edwin S. Smith were at loggerheads (Leiserson having accused Smith of being biased toward labor and the CIO in particular), and Leiserson threatened to quit if Madden was reappointed. The Roosevelt administration now considered Madden a political liability, and resolved to replace him.
NLRB Chairman J. Warren Maddden's term on the Board expired on August 27, 1940. President Roosevelt, campaigning for re-election
, refused to name successor to Madden until the election was over. Senator Wagner and influential Roosevelt confidante and labor leader Sidney Hillman
both suggested Millis to the president. After the election, Roosevelt personally contacted Millis and asked him to be NLRB Chairman. Millis later said, "I was dragged into that job by the President; I certainly was not a candidate for membership on the Board, much less the chairmanship." Word leaked of the Millis appointment on November 6, the day after the election. His nomination was officially announced on November 14. Media outlets said that Millis' nomination was intended to replace a "radical" majority on the Board with one that was merely "liberal." Millis' appointment had an immediate effect. Witt resigned immediately. David Saposs, also under fire for alleged communist beliefs, left the Board on October 11 after Congress defunded his office. Millis was confirmed by the Senate on November 26. Thomas I. Emerson, chief of NLRB's Review Division, resigned the next day—the same day that Millis was sworn in as NLRB Chairman.
Millis allied with Leiserson against Edwin S. Smith, and made extensive changes in NLRB administration, doctrine, personnel and operations. Smith strongly criticized these changes, but Millis replied that Smith had refused to discuss these changes or participate in Board decisions making them and had thus lost his right to criticize. Millis stripped the office of Secretary of all its power and never filled the position, set up an Administrative Division to supervise the 22 regional offices, initiated a study of the Board's administrative procedures, and genuinely delegated power to the regional offices. He appointed Robert Watts as the agency's new chief counsel, removed casehandling and regional office communication from the jurisdiction of the Office of the Secretary, created a Field Division, delegated large amounts of authority to field offices, and generally implemented the recommendations of a 1939 internal staff report (which had been stalled by Chairman Madden because it would have taken authority out of Witt's hands). He also adopted most of the recommendations William Leiserson had made regarding how the Board made its decisions, which included basing decisions on trial examiner's report, authorizing NLRB review attorneys to review each report, drafting decisions for review ahead of time, authorizing review attorneys to revise the draft before a final decision was issued, altering the trial examiner's report to emphasize findings of fact and to support points of law, and holding Board conferences when there were differences of opinion over decisions. He also eliminated Review Division's decisive role in cases, which had been established under Madden and Witt. Madden and Witt had adopted a highly centralized Board structure so that (generally speaking) only the cases most favorable to the Board made it to the courts. The centralized structure meant that only the strongest cases made it to the Board itself, where the Board could apply all its economic and legal powers to crafting the best decision possible. This strategy had enabled to Board to defend itself very well before the Supreme Court, so that the Court upheld the NLRA when few expected it to do so. But Madden and Witt had held on to the centralized strategy too long, and made political enemies in the process. Millis dismantled Madden's centralized process which had been used to win court litigation, and substituted a decentralized process in which the Board was less a decision-maker and more a provider of services to the regions. Many of the changes Millis instituted were designed to mimic requirements placed on other agencies by the Administrative Procedure Act
.
Millis' alliance with Leiserson also overturned a number of the NLRB's more radical precedents and established a more moderate labor policy. Where the Madden Board had issued wide-ranging decisions approving multi-plant locals in Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast, 7 NLRB 1002 (1938) and Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company, 10 NLRB 1470 (1939) (decisions that favored industrial unions
like the CIO), Millis worked with Leiserson to overturn these precedents in Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast, 32 NLRB 668 (1941) and Libbey-Owens Ford, 31 NLRB 243 (1942). The Millis-led Board also issued a number of decision that turned the bar on representation petitions during the term of the contract into a tool for ensuring the security of incumbent unions. Although the Madden Board had held in A. Sartorious, 10 NLRB 403 (1938), that strikebreaker
s were not eligible to participate in union organizing elections, the Millis Board voted in In Rudolph Wurlitzer Co., 32, NLRB 163 (1941) to overturn that precedent. The Madden Board had held in Inland Steel, 9 NLRB 783 (1938) that a company was responsible for actions of its foremen, but the Millis Board overturned this decision in Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., 32 NLRB 1056 (1941). The Madden Board had ruled several times that an employer could be held guilty of NLRA violations no matter the circumstances, but in New York and Porto Rico S.S. Co., 34 NLRB 1028 (1941), the Millis-led Board said the employer was absolved of guilt if it had been forced to act under union economic pressure. These and other critical decisions by the Millis Board were strongly approved of by Secretary of Labor Perkins and President Roosevelt.
Not all changes at the NLRB deepened Millis' control of the Board. When Edwin S. Smith's term expired in August 1941, Millis wrote to Roosevelt and suggested William Hammatt Davis
(Deputy Administrator of the NRA), attorney (and later Senator) Wayne Morse
, Professor George W. Taylor
, and economist Edwin E. Witte
as Smith's replacement. Secretary Perkins suggested Gerard D. Reilly, a solicitor in the Department of Labor. Reilly won Roosevelt's approval. Reilly, however, was very conservative and adopted a legalistic
approach to labor law, and Millis and many others at the NRLB considered him a reactionary
. Reilly believed Millis was too much influenced by Chief Trial Examiner Frank Bloom (a left-wing
lawyer) and Oscar Smith, head of Field Division. Millis thought Reilly's legalism interfered with "realistic" labor relations, and that he was too willing to impose his conservative views on national labor relations policy just as Madden and Smith had imposed their liberal views.
On January 12, 1942, President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board
(NWLB), whose existence displaced the NLRB as the main focus of federal labor relations for the duration of the war. The NWLB was given the authority to "finally determine" any labor dispute which threatened to interrupt war production, and to stabilize union wages and benefits during the war. Although Roosevelt instructed the NWLB not to intrude on jurisdiction exercised by the NLRB, the War Labor Board refused to honor this request. But Millis was not adept at bureaucratic maneuvering, and did not understand that press attention could help him win battles with the NWLB. For the next three years, Millis tried to secure a jurisdictional agreement with NWLB chair George W. Taylor, but these discussions proved fruitless and Millis broke them off in June 1945. The NWLB also heavily raided the NLRB for staff, significantly affecting Millis' ability to ensure NLRB operations. From July 1942 to October 1943, the NLRB lost more than 150 staff, including several regional directors, to the War Labor Board.
Additional changes came with the passage of the War Labor Disputes Act on June 25, 1943. Enacted over Roosevelt's veto after 400,000 coal miners, their wages significantly lowered due to high wartime inflation, struck for a $2-a-day wage increase, Whenever a union threatened to strike, the legislation required NLRB (in part) to generate a strike ballot outlining all the collective bargaining proposals and counter-proposals, wait 30 days, and then hold a strike vote. The War Labor Disputes Act proved very burdensome. The NLRB processed 2,000 WLDA cases from 1943 to the end of 1945, of which 500 were strike votes. The act's strike vote procedures did little to stop strikes, however: 203 of the 232 strike votes taken in 1944 led to strike, and Millis feared unions were using the referendums to whip up pro-strike feelings among their members. Millis also believed the law's strike vote process actually permitted more strikes to occur than the NLRB would have allowed under its old procedures. There were so many strike vote filings in the six months after the war ended that NLRB actually shut down its long distance telephone lines, cancelled all out of town travel, suspended all public hearings, and suspended all other business to accommodate the workload.
Additional Board personnel changes further moderated the NLRB during Millis' tenure. John Mills Houston
was appointed to the Board in 1943 after William S. Leiserson's term expired and Leiserson did not seek reappointment to the agency. Millis formed a voting alliance with Houston some time in late 1944. Despite this alliance, Millis sometimes was unable to form majorities on the Board. He vigorously dissented in American News Company, Inc., 55 1302 (1944), a decision in which the Board held that strikers not protected from discharge or refusals of reinstatement if they struck for an illegal reason. Millis feared this would resurrect the vague "legality of objective" test which the Board had rejected long ago.
By early 1945, Millis was in ill health. He resigned from the NLRB on June 7, 1945. His successor was Paul M. Herzog
.
Millis was critical of the Board in his last years. The Madden Board had held in American Can Co., 13 NLRB 1252 (1939) that a smaller craft union
should not be created if there was any history of industrial union bargaining with the employer. Although Millis was critical of the American Can decision, he nonetheless rarely permitted it to be violated during his tenure on the Board. He took his successor, Paul Herzog, to task for repeatedly violating the American Can doctrine between 1945 and 1947. He also criticized the Herzog Board for becoming too dependent on Congress, for delaying decisions for political reasons, and for allowing consultation with interested parties to appear too much like undue influence He also criticized Herzog for being over-cautious and not enforcing the NLRA strongly enough.
Millis was a member of a number of associations during his lifetime. He was a longtime member of the American Economic Association
, serving as its president from 1934 to 1935. He was also a member of the Chicago Bibliographic Society, a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research
, a founder and director of the Agricultural Economics Foundation
, and a member of the Social Science Research Council
and the Cosmos Club
.
Harry A. Millis died on June 25, 1948, at Albert Merritt Billings Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, two weeks after suffering a stroke
. He was survived by his wife, Alice; son John (at the time, president of the University of Vermont
); and daughters Savilla and Charlotte.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
civil servant
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
, economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, and educator and who was prominent in the first four decades of the 20th century. He was a prominent educator, and his writings on labor relations were described at his death by several prominent economists as "landmarks". Millis is best known for serving on the "first" National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
, an executive-branch agency which had no statutory authority. He was also the second chairman of the "second" National Labor Relations Board, where he initiated a number of procedural improvements and helped stabilize the Board's enforcement of American labor law.
Early life
Millis was born in May 1873 in Paoli, IndianaPaoli, Indiana
Paoli is a town in Paoli Township, Orange County, Indiana, United States. The population was 3,844 at the 2000 census. The town is the county seat of Orange County.-History:...
. He attended and graduated from Paoli High School. He was heavily involved in athletics in his youth. He enrolled at Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
, receiving his Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in 1895 and his Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
in 1896. He was the first graduate student of John R. Commons
John R. Commons
John Rogers Commons was an American institutional economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.-Biography:Born in Hollansburg, Ohio, John R. Commons had a religious upbringing which led him to be an advocate for social justice early in life...
, the renowned institutional economist
Institutional economics
Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping economic behaviour. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instinct-oriented dichotomy between technology on the one side and the "ceremonial" sphere of society on the...
. Millis entered the sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
program at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1896 but in 1898 he switched to the economics program and received his Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in economics in 1899.
From 1899 to 1902 he was reference librarian at the John Crerar Library
John Crerar Library
The John Crerar Library is a library, which after a long history of independent operations, is currently operated by the University of Chicago. It is recognized as one of the best libraries in the country for research and teaching in the sciences, medicine, and technology...
, a then-independent, privately-owned public library focusing on research and teaching in science, medicine, and technology. In 1901, he married the former Alice May Schoff. The couple had three children: a son, John, and two daughters, Savilla and Charlotte. Alice received her Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...
from the University of Cincinnati
University of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....
and her Master of Philosophy
Master of Philosophy
The Master of Philosophy is a postgraduate research degree.An M.Phil. is a lesser degree than a Doctor of Philosophy , but in many cases it is considered to be a more senior degree than a taught Master's degree, as it is often a thesis-only degree. In some instances, an M.Phil...
from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. He left his position at Crerar Library in 1902 to become professor of economics and sociology at the University of Arkansas
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...
. He taught there for only two years. He joined the faculty at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1904 after being appointed assistant professor of economics. While at Stanford, he became friends with the controversial economist Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement...
, and helped Veblen and his wife find housing at the college. While at Stanford, he met and became friends with the nationally known economists Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman
Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman
Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman , was an American economist.-Biography:He was born in New York City, a son of Joseph Seligman, a banker. He was educated at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1879...
and Thomas Sewall Adams
Thomas Sewall Adams
Thomas Sewall Adams was an American economist and educator, born in Baltimore, Maryland.-Life:Thomas Sewall Adams was born on December 29, 1873 in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Baltimore City College in 1893 and subsequently enrolled in Johns Hopkins University, where he received his BA...
, and in 1907 co-founded the National Tax Association
National Tax Association
The The National Tax Association is a non-profit organization committed to the education of tax issues to all people. NTA was first founded in 1907, and has since then strived to understand and address issues in the taxation system. Since its first founding, the NTA has become the leading...
(a nonpartisan organization that fosters the study of tax theory, tax policy, and other areas of public finance). In 1908, he published the article "Business and Professional Taxes as Sources of Local Revenue" in the Journal of Political Economy
Journal of Political Economy
The Journal of Political Economy is an academic journal run by economists at the University of Chicago and published every two months by the University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes articles in both theoretical economics and empirical economics...
. The article made the case for taxes on professionals and businesses
Corporate tax
Many countries impose corporate tax or company tax on the income or capital of some types of legal entities. A similar tax may be imposed at state or lower levels. The taxes may also be referred to as income tax or capital tax. Entities treated as partnerships are generally not taxed at the...
as a means of broadening the tax base and avoiding over-reliance on property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
es. Simeon E. Leland, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is one of twelve regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the nation's central bank....
, later said it was a landmark in the study of state tax issues and anticipated the later, better-known work by Seligman and Adams. Millis left Stanford in 1911 and in the fall of 1912 joined the economics department at the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
.
Millis joined the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago in the fall of 1916 as an assistant professor of economics. He was appointed chair of the department in 1928, and became Professor Emeritus in 1938 at the age of 65. He became associated with the "institutional economics
Institutional economics
Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping economic behaviour. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instinct-oriented dichotomy between technology on the one side and the "ceremonial" sphere of society on the...
" school, whose foremost proponents were then primarily teaching at the University of Chicago. Between 1938 and 1945, he and Royal E. Montgomery of Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
co-wrote a three-volume study titled The Economics of Labor. At the time of his death, a group of prominent economists called it "the most authoritative and comprehensive analysis of modern labor economics for the period covered." He followed this with How Collective Bargaining Works in 1942, a text which set the pattern for case studies
Case study
A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...
in the field of industrial relations.
Public service
Millis was a firm believer in "practical" economics and labor relations, the idea that an academic should not merely study from afar but should actively participate in the practice of his or her subjects. Accordingly, Millis agreed to serve on a number of public boards, commissions, and agencies throughout his life. He served as a staff economist and field investigator for the United States Immigration CommissionDillingham Commission
The United States Immigration Commission was a special congressional committee formed in February 1907 by the United States Congress, which was then under intense pressure from various nativist groups, to study the origins and consequences of recent immigration to the United States...
from 1908 to 1910, studying Asian immigration on the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
and in the Rocky Mountain states
Mountain States
thumb|300px|Regional definitions vary from source to source. The states shown in dark red are always included, while the striped states are usually considered part of the same region called the Mountain States....
and authoring a three-volume report on the issue. He was director of the Illinois Health Insurance Commission from 1918 to 1919, where he oversaw the state's first large-scale effort to collect health statistics, assess the health of the citizenry, study the implementation of health laws, and make policy recommendations regarding health insurance.
From 1919 to 1921, he was chairman of the Trade Board of the Chicago Men's Clothing Industry, where he helped mediate labor disputes in the textile industry. He was chairman of the Trade Board's Arbitration Committee from 1923 to 1924 and again from 1937 to 1940.
"First" NLRB
In 1934, Millis was named a member of the "first" National Labor Relations Board. On June 16, 1933, President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
signed the National Industrial Recovery Act
National Industrial Recovery Act
The National Industrial Recovery Act , officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 (Ch. 90, 48 Stat. 195, formerly...
(NIRA) into law. Title I, Section 7(a) of the Act guaranteed the right of workers to form unions, and it set off a massive wave of union organizing punctuated by employer and union violence, general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
s, and recognition strike
Recognition strike
A recognition strike is an industrial strike implemented in order to force a particular employer or industry to recognize a trade union as the legitimate collective bargaining agent for a company's workers...
s. Although it was felt Section 7(a) would be self-policing, that assumption failed almost immediately. On August 5, 1933, President Roosevelt announced that the National Recovery Administration
National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices...
was being instructed to establish a National Labor Board
National Labor Board
The National Labor Board was an independent agency of the United States Government established on August 5, 1933 to handle labor disputes arising under the National Industrial Recovery Act .-Establishment, structure and procedures:...
(NLB) to administer Section 7(a). (Millis served as the vice-chair of the NLB's Chicago office.) But the NLB provided ineffective without any statutory or regulatory powers, so Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6511 on December 16, 1933, to strengthen the NLB and give it the force of executive authority. But this, too, proved too little to deal with the tremendous labor relations problems facing the country. Finally, threatened with a major strike in the steel industry and a Senate labor relations bill moving forward without presidential input, Roosevelt personally drafted Public Resolution No. 44, a bill which authorized the president to create one or more new labor boards to enforce Section 7(a) by conducting investigations, subpoenaing evidence and witnesses, holding elections, and issuing orders. It passed both houses of Congress on June 16, and Roosevelt signed it into law on June 19, 1934. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6073 on June 29, 1934, which abolished the NLB and established the National Labor Relations Board. The three-person board was empowered to hold hearings and make findings of fact, investigate violations of Section 7(a), and hold union organizing elections to resolve labor disputes. Millis expressed no interest in serving on the NLRB. Nonetheless, he was asked to join the new board based on his national reputation as an arbitrator, and agreed to do so. Millis was sworn in as a member of the "first" NLRB on July 9, 1934.
Millis played a role in keeping the "first" NLRB independent. The NRLB's chairman, 36-year-old Lloyd K. Garrison
Lloyd K. Garrison
Lloyd Kirkham Garrison was an American lawyer. He was Dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, but also served as chairman of the "first" National Labor Relations Board, chairman of the National War Labor Board, and chair of the New York City Board of Education...
, had agreed to serve as the chair only to get the board up and running, and he resigned on October 2, 1934, to resume his position as dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School
University of Wisconsin Law School
The University of Wisconsin Law School is the professional school for the study of law at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. The law school was founded in 1868.-Facilities:...
. Garrison suggested as his replacement a long-time friend, Francis Biddle
Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge who was Attorney General of the United States during World War II and who served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials....
, a prominent Philadelphia attorney. Biddle was appointed to the post on November 16. Secretary of Labor
United States Secretary of Labor
The United States Secretary of Labor is the head of the Department of Labor who exercises control over the department and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all other issues involving any form of business-person controversies....
Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins , born Fannie Coralie Perkins, was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition...
, however, had long sought to assert her department's control over the NLRB, but Garrison and Perkins came to an informal agreement which preserved the NLRB's independence. With Garrison's departure, however, Perkins sought to abrogate this agreement. She secretly met with President Roosevelt and secured changes to the executive order appointing Biddle to the NLRB which placed the agency completely under her control. Millis learned of the content of the executive order and alerted Biddle. Biddle confronted Perkins hours before his swearing-in, and Perkins agreed to hold the order in abeyance until she, Biddle, and the president could meet. Roosevelt later agreed that his order had been inappropriate, and told Biddle that he would not rescind the order but he also would not enforce it (personally guaranteeing the NLRB's independence).
Millis impressed his colleagues on the "first" NLRB. Garrison called him immensely experienced, with excellent judgment and common sense. Biddle said Millis educated him about the history of the labor movement, and called Millis cautious, thoughtful, wise, and cheerful. Millis was, Biddle said, "profoundly conscious of the injustices that had been done labor's attempt to organize, although at the same time aware of the dangerous weaknesses in a good deal of labor leadership: not only the racketeering and the feather-bedding, but the lack of imagination, the insistence on improved wages and hours as the sole end, the petty jurisdictional jealousies and squabbles..."
Millis played a major role in maintaining the "first" NLRB's jurisdiction as well. On June 18, 1934, the National Labor Board asserted jurisdiction over a labor dispute at the Call-Bulletin
San Francisco Call
The San Francisco Call was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called The San Francisco Call & Post, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, and the News-Call Bulletin...
, a newspaper in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Although the National Labor Board was disbanded two weeks later, but the "first" NLRB asserted continued jurisdiction over the dispute. At a hearing in Washington, D.C., on November 13, 1934, counsel for the newspaper asserted that NIRA gave exclusive jurisdiction over all newspaper industry labor disputes to the Newspaper Industrial Board (NIB). The NIB was a body established by the Code of Fair Competition for the Daily Newspaper Publishing Business, a "fair trade" code established under the authority of NIRA and approved by President Roosevelt. If the NLRB bowed to the newspaper's interpretation, it would be essentially giving up all of its authority to the National Recovery Administration (NRA), with which it was already locked in a jurisdictional struggle. Instead, the NLRB decided to challenge the NRA's claim of authority over all labor disputes in industries covered by NIRA codes. On December 3, 1934, Millis and the other NLRB members issued a public statement declaring that NIRA granted the NRA no exclusive jurisdiction over labor disputes, and pointing out that since the NIB had deadlocked on all major issues before it the NLRB would step in. NRA chief counsel Donald Richberg
Donald Richberg
Donald Randall Richberg was an American attorney, civil servant, and author who was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's key aides and who played a critical role in the New Deal. He co-wrote the National Industrial Recovery Act, was general counsel and executive director of the National...
angrily supported the NIB and the newspaper industry, and challenged the NLRB's jurisdictional claim. The dispute between the NRA and NLRB threatened to cause the collapse of the NRA Labor Advisory Board, and the automobile, rubber, steel, and textile industries threatened to withdraw from their respective industry code boards. After the NLRB decided in favor of the Call-Bulletin's workers in December 1934, the NRA refused to enforce the decision. Unfortunately, President Roosevelt issued a letter on January 22, 1935, requesting that the NLRB decline jurisdiction in a small number of NIRA codes and asking the NLRB to submit any recommendations it did make in such disputes confidentially to the president. The following day, Millis, Biddle, and NLRB member Edwin S. Smith agreed to challenge the president on the jurisdictional issue. Millis and Smith even threatened to resign, causing the collapse of the NLRB, if Roosevelt insisted on enforcing his letter of January 22. Millis, Biddle, and Smith met with the President a few days later. Roosevelt agreed not to enforce his letter, to authorize an NLRB investigation into the Newspaper Industry Board's operations, and to write a letter to the NLRB members and staff promising not to get involved in any more jurisdictional issues. Roosevelt also made it clear that he wanted the NLRB to steer clear of any disputes in the politically sensitive auto industry. However, although the letter to the NRLB was issued, Roosevelt insisted that it not be made public (so that it would not appear as if he had backed off his previous announcement).
Millis was not on the "first" NLRB for long. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Robert F. Wagner
Robert F. Wagner
Robert Ferdinand Wagner I was an American politician. He was a Democratic U.S. Senator from New York from 1927 to 1949.-Origin and early life:...
was continuing to push for comprehensive federal labor relations legislation. His bill, which became the National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
(NLRA), was enacted by Congress on June 27, 1935, and signed into law by President Roosevelt on July 5. Millis, wishing to return to his home in Chicago, resigned from the NLRB shortly after passage of the NLRA and was succeeded on the Board by John M. Carmody. Even as he left the Board, however, Millis successfully recommended David J. Saposs
David J. Saposs
David Joseph Saposs was an American economist, historian, and civil servant. He is best known for being the chief economist of the National Labor Relations Board from 1935 to 1940.-Early life:...
as first Chief Economist to lead the new NLRB Division of Economic Research.
Service between NLRBs
Millis returned to the University of Chicago. One of his students at this time was Oliver CoxOliver Cox
Oliver Cromwell Cox was a Trinidadian-American sociologist noted for his early Marxist viewpoint on Fascism. He is a member of the Chicago school of sociology-Education:...
, an African American who later was a noted economist. In 1937, he was appointed a member of the Illinois Commission on Unemployment and President Roosevelt appointed him to a Railway Labor Act
Railway Labor Act
The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, passed in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration and mediation for strikes as a means of resolving labor disputes...
fact-finding board in a dispute between the Chicago Great Western Railway
Chicago Great Western Railway
The Chicago Great Western Railway was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, and Kansas City. It was founded by Alpheus Beede Stickney in 1885 as a regional line between St. Paul and the Iowa state line called the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad...
and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. His railway panel found that the railroad should not impose a 15 percent wage reduction on the workers. Roosevelt appointed him to a second railways panel in 1938 to arbitrate a dispute between the million members of the Railway Labor Executives Association (an umbrella group representing 18 railway labor organizations) and the Association of American Railways (which represented all long-haul railroads in the U.S.). In 1940, he sat on a third arbitration panel which resolved a long-running wage dispute between American Railway Express
Railway Express Agency
The Railway Express Agency was a the national monopoly set up by the Untied States federal government in 1917. Rail express services provided small package and parcel transportation using the extant railroad infrastructure much as UPS functions today using the road system...
and its unions.
In 1940, President Roosevelt asked Millis to become the permanent arbiter between General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
(GM) and the United Auto Workers
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
(UAW). The 1937 collective bargaining agreement between the company and its union established a temporary, voluntary arbitration procedure, which was made permanent in the 1940 contract. It was the first permanent arbitration mechanism in any mass production industry, and not only the union but many companies and politicians were eager to see it succeed. Several of President Roosevelt's aides and confidantes urged Millis to accept the position. He agreed. However, Millis refused the large salary that was offered to him, and instead took only the same moderate salary he had been receiving at the university. Although he was arbitrator for only a few months, he laid the groundwork for smooth labor relations not only at General Motors but set a pattern for arbitration that spread throughout the manufacturing sector of the economy.
Finally, in March 1940, Millis joined Collective Bargaining Advisors, a private group dedicated to promoting peaceful labor relations through "scientific" practices.
NLRB chairmanship
Millis had been GM-UAW arbitrator for only a few months when he was asked to be the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.Appointment
For more than two years, the NLRB had been under severe political pressure, and its chairman, J. Warren MaddenJ. Warren Madden
J. Warren Madden, born Joseph Warren Madden, was an American lawyer, judge, civil servant, and educator. He served on the United States Court of Claims and was the first Chair of the National Labor Relations Board...
, was seen as a political liability. The Board had issued three decisions (Fansteel Metallurgical, 5 NLRB 930 (1938); Inland Steel, 9 NLRB No. 73 (1938); and Republic Steel, 9 NLRB No. 33 (1938)) in 1938 which drew widespread condemnation from businesses and certain members of Congress. The Board won (In re Labor Board, 304 U.S. 486 (1938)) and then lost (Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB
Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB
Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 364 is an 8-to-0 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that an administrative agency of the United States government, seeking enforcement of its orders, cannot withdraw its petition or the transcript of the administrative hearing once these...
, 305 U.S. 364 (1939)) cases before the Supreme Court regarding its internal decision-making processes. And in three cases in 1939 (National Labor Relations Board v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U.S. 240 (1939); National Labor Relations Board v. Columbian Enameling & Stamping Co., 306 U.S. 292 (1939); and National Labor Relations Board v. Sands Manufacturing Co.
National Labor Relations Board v. Sands Manufacturing Co.
National Labor Relations Board v. Sands Manufacturing Co., 306 U.S. 332 is an 5-to-2 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which overturned a decision by the National Labor Relations Board because it was not supported by substantial evidence...
, 306 U.S. 332 (1939)) the Supreme Court emasculated the Board's attempts to expansively use Section 10(g) of the NLRA to promote collective bargaining and labor peace. Media and public opinion turned strongly against what was perceived as an overreaching NLRB, and President Roosevelt announced the formation of a commission to study the Board's operations. By March 1939, 11 bills had been filed in Congress to amend the NLRA. The House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
voted to create a special committee, the Special Committee to Investigate the National Labor Relations Board (popularly known as the "Smith Committee" after its chairman, conservative Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Rep. Howard W. Smith
Howard W. Smith
Howard Worth Smith , Democratic U.S. Representative from Virginia, was a leader of the conservative coalition who supported both racial segregation and women's rights.-Early life and education:...
), in July 1939. The Smith Committee was substantially biased against labor unions and the NLRB, received testimony from hundreds of witnesses, conducted a nationwide survey regarding the impact of the NLRB, and questioned NLRB officials at length about the agencies alleged anti-business and anti-American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
/pro-Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
biases. Nathan Witt
Nathan Witt
Nathan Witt was an American lawyer who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board from 1937 to 1940...
, the Board's Secretary (and highest-ranking career official), was also under fire from the Smith Committee for his communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
sympathies. The Smith Committee proposed legislation to substantially alter the NLRA. The legislation easily passed the House, but was bottled up by Roosevelt's allies in the Senate and it died. The dispute over the Board's administration had even split the NLRB itself. Board members William S. Leiserson and Edwin S. Smith were at loggerheads (Leiserson having accused Smith of being biased toward labor and the CIO in particular), and Leiserson threatened to quit if Madden was reappointed. The Roosevelt administration now considered Madden a political liability, and resolved to replace him.
NLRB Chairman J. Warren Maddden's term on the Board expired on August 27, 1940. President Roosevelt, campaigning for re-election
United States presidential election, 1940
The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt , a Democrat, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue...
, refused to name successor to Madden until the election was over. Senator Wagner and influential Roosevelt confidante and labor leader Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman was an American labor leader. Head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, he was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party.-Early years:Sidney Hillman was...
both suggested Millis to the president. After the election, Roosevelt personally contacted Millis and asked him to be NLRB Chairman. Millis later said, "I was dragged into that job by the President; I certainly was not a candidate for membership on the Board, much less the chairmanship." Word leaked of the Millis appointment on November 6, the day after the election. His nomination was officially announced on November 14. Media outlets said that Millis' nomination was intended to replace a "radical" majority on the Board with one that was merely "liberal." Millis' appointment had an immediate effect. Witt resigned immediately. David Saposs, also under fire for alleged communist beliefs, left the Board on October 11 after Congress defunded his office. Millis was confirmed by the Senate on November 26. Thomas I. Emerson, chief of NLRB's Review Division, resigned the next day—the same day that Millis was sworn in as NLRB Chairman.
Changes instituted at the Board
Millis implemented significant administrative changes at the NLRB. His goal was to get the NLRB out of the limelight in wake of Smith Committee investigation. He deliberately made the NLRB more dependent on Congress and the executive branch for its survival.Millis allied with Leiserson against Edwin S. Smith, and made extensive changes in NLRB administration, doctrine, personnel and operations. Smith strongly criticized these changes, but Millis replied that Smith had refused to discuss these changes or participate in Board decisions making them and had thus lost his right to criticize. Millis stripped the office of Secretary of all its power and never filled the position, set up an Administrative Division to supervise the 22 regional offices, initiated a study of the Board's administrative procedures, and genuinely delegated power to the regional offices. He appointed Robert Watts as the agency's new chief counsel, removed casehandling and regional office communication from the jurisdiction of the Office of the Secretary, created a Field Division, delegated large amounts of authority to field offices, and generally implemented the recommendations of a 1939 internal staff report (which had been stalled by Chairman Madden because it would have taken authority out of Witt's hands). He also adopted most of the recommendations William Leiserson had made regarding how the Board made its decisions, which included basing decisions on trial examiner's report, authorizing NLRB review attorneys to review each report, drafting decisions for review ahead of time, authorizing review attorneys to revise the draft before a final decision was issued, altering the trial examiner's report to emphasize findings of fact and to support points of law, and holding Board conferences when there were differences of opinion over decisions. He also eliminated Review Division's decisive role in cases, which had been established under Madden and Witt. Madden and Witt had adopted a highly centralized Board structure so that (generally speaking) only the cases most favorable to the Board made it to the courts. The centralized structure meant that only the strongest cases made it to the Board itself, where the Board could apply all its economic and legal powers to crafting the best decision possible. This strategy had enabled to Board to defend itself very well before the Supreme Court, so that the Court upheld the NLRA when few expected it to do so. But Madden and Witt had held on to the centralized strategy too long, and made political enemies in the process. Millis dismantled Madden's centralized process which had been used to win court litigation, and substituted a decentralized process in which the Board was less a decision-maker and more a provider of services to the regions. Many of the changes Millis instituted were designed to mimic requirements placed on other agencies by the Administrative Procedure Act
Administrative Procedure Act
The Administrative Procedure Act , , is the United States federal law that governs the way in which administrative agencies of the federal government of the United States may propose and establish regulations. The APA also sets up a process for the United States federal courts to directly review...
.
Millis' alliance with Leiserson also overturned a number of the NLRB's more radical precedents and established a more moderate labor policy. Where the Madden Board had issued wide-ranging decisions approving multi-plant locals in Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast, 7 NLRB 1002 (1938) and Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company, 10 NLRB 1470 (1939) (decisions that favored industrial unions
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
like the CIO), Millis worked with Leiserson to overturn these precedents in Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast, 32 NLRB 668 (1941) and Libbey-Owens Ford, 31 NLRB 243 (1942). The Millis-led Board also issued a number of decision that turned the bar on representation petitions during the term of the contract into a tool for ensuring the security of incumbent unions. Although the Madden Board had held in A. Sartorious, 10 NLRB 403 (1938), that strikebreaker
Strikebreaker
A strikebreaker is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who are not employed by the company prior to the trade union dispute, but rather hired prior to or during the strike to keep the organisation running...
s were not eligible to participate in union organizing elections, the Millis Board voted in In Rudolph Wurlitzer Co., 32, NLRB 163 (1941) to overturn that precedent. The Madden Board had held in Inland Steel, 9 NLRB 783 (1938) that a company was responsible for actions of its foremen, but the Millis Board overturned this decision in Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., 32 NLRB 1056 (1941). The Madden Board had ruled several times that an employer could be held guilty of NLRA violations no matter the circumstances, but in New York and Porto Rico S.S. Co., 34 NLRB 1028 (1941), the Millis-led Board said the employer was absolved of guilt if it had been forced to act under union economic pressure. These and other critical decisions by the Millis Board were strongly approved of by Secretary of Labor Perkins and President Roosevelt.
Not all changes at the NLRB deepened Millis' control of the Board. When Edwin S. Smith's term expired in August 1941, Millis wrote to Roosevelt and suggested William Hammatt Davis
William Hammatt Davis
William Hammatt Davis was the Chairman of the War Labor Board in the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt, where his job was keeping industrial peace between management and labor. He was also appointed US Economic Stabilizer in the last months of World War II, though Roosevelt's...
(Deputy Administrator of the NRA), attorney (and later Senator) Wayne Morse
Wayne Morse
Wayne Lyman Morse was a politician and attorney from Oregon, United States, known for his proclivity for opposing his parties' leadership, and specifically for his opposition to the Vietnam War on constitutional grounds....
, Professor George W. Taylor
George W. Taylor (professor)
George W. Taylor was a notable professor of industrial relations at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and is credited with founding the academic field of study known as industrial relations. He served in several capacities in the federal government, most notably as a mediator...
, and economist Edwin E. Witte
Edwin E. Witte
Edwin E. Witte was an economist who focused on social insurance issues for the state of Wisconsin and for the Committee on Economic Security. While the executive director of the President's Committee on Economic Security under United States President Franklin D...
as Smith's replacement. Secretary Perkins suggested Gerard D. Reilly, a solicitor in the Department of Labor. Reilly won Roosevelt's approval. Reilly, however, was very conservative and adopted a legalistic
Legalism (Western philosophy)
Legalism, in the Western sense, is an approach to the analysis of legal questions characterized by abstract logical reasoning focusing on the applicable legal text, such as a constitution, legislation, or case law, rather than on the social, economic, or political context...
approach to labor law, and Millis and many others at the NRLB considered him a reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
. Reilly believed Millis was too much influenced by Chief Trial Examiner Frank Bloom (a left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
lawyer) and Oscar Smith, head of Field Division. Millis thought Reilly's legalism interfered with "realistic" labor relations, and that he was too willing to impose his conservative views on national labor relations policy just as Madden and Smith had imposed their liberal views.
Chairmanship during World War II
The United States entered World War II on December 8, 1941, and the war significantly changed the NRLB and Millis' tenure as chairman.On January 12, 1942, President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board
National War Labor Board
The National War Labor Board was a federal agency created in April 1918 by President Woodrow Wilson. It was composed of twelve representatives from business and labor, and co-chaired by Former President William Howard Taft. Its purpose was to arbitrate disputes between workers and employers in...
(NWLB), whose existence displaced the NLRB as the main focus of federal labor relations for the duration of the war. The NWLB was given the authority to "finally determine" any labor dispute which threatened to interrupt war production, and to stabilize union wages and benefits during the war. Although Roosevelt instructed the NWLB not to intrude on jurisdiction exercised by the NLRB, the War Labor Board refused to honor this request. But Millis was not adept at bureaucratic maneuvering, and did not understand that press attention could help him win battles with the NWLB. For the next three years, Millis tried to secure a jurisdictional agreement with NWLB chair George W. Taylor, but these discussions proved fruitless and Millis broke them off in June 1945. The NWLB also heavily raided the NLRB for staff, significantly affecting Millis' ability to ensure NLRB operations. From July 1942 to October 1943, the NLRB lost more than 150 staff, including several regional directors, to the War Labor Board.
Additional changes came with the passage of the War Labor Disputes Act on June 25, 1943. Enacted over Roosevelt's veto after 400,000 coal miners, their wages significantly lowered due to high wartime inflation, struck for a $2-a-day wage increase, Whenever a union threatened to strike, the legislation required NLRB (in part) to generate a strike ballot outlining all the collective bargaining proposals and counter-proposals, wait 30 days, and then hold a strike vote. The War Labor Disputes Act proved very burdensome. The NLRB processed 2,000 WLDA cases from 1943 to the end of 1945, of which 500 were strike votes. The act's strike vote procedures did little to stop strikes, however: 203 of the 232 strike votes taken in 1944 led to strike, and Millis feared unions were using the referendums to whip up pro-strike feelings among their members. Millis also believed the law's strike vote process actually permitted more strikes to occur than the NLRB would have allowed under its old procedures. There were so many strike vote filings in the six months after the war ended that NLRB actually shut down its long distance telephone lines, cancelled all out of town travel, suspended all public hearings, and suspended all other business to accommodate the workload.
Additional Board personnel changes further moderated the NLRB during Millis' tenure. John Mills Houston
John Mills Houston
John Mills Houston was a member of the United States House of Representatives from the 5th congressional district of Kansas from 1935 to 1943. He was also a member of the National Labor Relations Board from 1943 to 1953....
was appointed to the Board in 1943 after William S. Leiserson's term expired and Leiserson did not seek reappointment to the agency. Millis formed a voting alliance with Houston some time in late 1944. Despite this alliance, Millis sometimes was unable to form majorities on the Board. He vigorously dissented in American News Company, Inc., 55 1302 (1944), a decision in which the Board held that strikers not protected from discharge or refusals of reinstatement if they struck for an illegal reason. Millis feared this would resurrect the vague "legality of objective" test which the Board had rejected long ago.
By early 1945, Millis was in ill health. He resigned from the NLRB on June 7, 1945. His successor was Paul M. Herzog
Paul M. Herzog
Paul M. Herzog was an American lawyer, educator, civil servant, and university administrator. He was Chairman of the United States National Labor Relations Board from 1945 to 1953.-Early life and career:...
.
Retirement and death
In the fall of 1945, Millis returned to the University of Chicago. He became senior adviser to the newly-formed Industrial Relations Center, and (with former student Emily Clark Brown) began a major analysis of federal labor policy. Their co-authored work, From Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley: A Study of National Labor Policy and Labor Relations, had just been completed when he died.Millis was critical of the Board in his last years. The Madden Board had held in American Can Co., 13 NLRB 1252 (1939) that a smaller craft union
Craft unionism
Craft unionism refers to organizing a union in a manner that seeks to unify workers in a particular industry along the lines of the particular craft or trade that they work in by class or skill level...
should not be created if there was any history of industrial union bargaining with the employer. Although Millis was critical of the American Can decision, he nonetheless rarely permitted it to be violated during his tenure on the Board. He took his successor, Paul Herzog, to task for repeatedly violating the American Can doctrine between 1945 and 1947. He also criticized the Herzog Board for becoming too dependent on Congress, for delaying decisions for political reasons, and for allowing consultation with interested parties to appear too much like undue influence He also criticized Herzog for being over-cautious and not enforcing the NLRA strongly enough.
Millis was a member of a number of associations during his lifetime. He was a longtime member of the American Economic Association
American Economic Association
The American Economic Association, or AEA, is a learned society in the field of economics, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. It publishes one of the most prestigious academic journals in economics: the American Economic Review...
, serving as its president from 1934 to 1935. He was also a member of the Chicago Bibliographic Society, a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research
National Bureau of Economic Research
The National Bureau of Economic Research is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community." The NBER is well known for providing start and end...
, a founder and director of the Agricultural Economics Foundation
Agricultural & Applied Economics Association
The Agricultural & Applied Economics Association is a professional association for those interested in the field of agricultural and applied economics. AAEA members work for academic departments, government agencies, NGOs, think tanks, and in the private sector, and focus on a combination of...
, and a member of the Social Science Research Council
Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council is a U.S.-based independent nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines...
and the Cosmos Club
Cosmos Club
The Cosmos Club is a private social club in Washington, D.C., founded by John Wesley Powell in 1878. In addition to Powell, original members included Clarence Edward Dutton, Henry Smith Pritchett, William Harkness, and John Shaw Billings. Among its stated goals is "The advancement of its members in...
.
Harry A. Millis died on June 25, 1948, at Albert Merritt Billings Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, two weeks after suffering a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. He was survived by his wife, Alice; son John (at the time, president of the University of Vermont
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
); and daughters Savilla and Charlotte.