Content area
Full Text
Throughout his career as lawyer, labor leader, soldier, jurist, and ambassador, Goldberg was ever devoted to serving the American people and the Nation
On December 12, 1995, Arthur J. Goldberg, President John F. Kennedy's first Secretary of Labor and principal architect of the 1955 AFL-CIO merger, became the l9th American to be inducted into the U.S. Department of Labor's Hall of Fame. Goldberg passed away on January 19, 1990, at the age of 82. He had been born August 8, 1908, into a bluecollar neighborhood on the west side of Chicago-an area described by a distinguished Goldberg biographer, David L. Stebenne, professor of history at Ohio State University, as "a neighborhood, like other urban slums [replete with] more than a little social unrest, which found expression in radical politics." As we will see, Goldberg's early experiences in such an environment instilled in him a talent for peacemaking and a true sympathy for the working man, which found expression in a lifetime of public service.
The early years
Goldberg's father, Joseph, was an educated man who had been a town clerk in the Ukraine. Seeking refuge from the anti-Semitic pogroms of his homeland, he fled his village, northeast of Kiev, and embarked for the New World. He journeyed through such then-exotic places as Alaska and California, and wound up in Texas in 1890. Stebenne tells us that Joseph then demonstrated the true pioneer spirit by driving a horse and wagon to Chicago. There, he found that the only job available him, educated man though he was, was that of a peddler or produce deliverer. Even so, as soon as he could earn enough money, he sent for his wife, Rebecca, and daughter, Mary.
Arthur was youngest of 11 children who would be born to this immigrant family of the Chicago ghettoes. He was the only one of the siblings destined to graduate high school or college. Goldberg had a rough trail to follow to reach the heights he finally achieved. His father died when he was only 8 years old, and he worked in all sorts of low-paying jobs while in elementary and high school. These included working in a fish market, working as a shoe salesman, and also being a vendor at Wrigley Field....