Charles P. Howard was born in Christian County, Illinois, September 14, 1879, and died at Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 31, 1938. At the age of ten years he moved with his family to western Kansas, where he began “deviling” at a small town newspaper after school. Before he was twenty years old Howard had taken over the support of his family because of the death of his father.
He worked in country printing offices, and did not come under the jurisdiction of a union till he joined the International Typographical Union (ITU), Local 170, in the year 19O7. He worked for the Morning Union at Walla Walla, Washington.
Later that year he transferred to Multnomah Typographical Union Number 58. During the next ten years he was elected to every office of the local lodge from reading clerk to president. He also served successive terms during this period as president of the Central Labor Council, Portland, Oregon.
He was a delegate of Local 58, ITU, to the 1916 International Convention in Baltimore, where he led the fight to reinstate priority laws which had been revoked by the 1915 convention. In 1920 he was a delegate to the convention at Albany, and Reading Clerk at the 1921 Quebec convention, serving on a number of policy-making committees during these conventions.
As a delegate to his first American Federation of Labor convention at Denver, Colorado, in 1920, he was immediately placed on important committees. In November 1922, he was elected Vice President of the ITU, and succeeded to the presidency on the death of President John McFarland, June 16, 1923. His administration over the following years is said to have been constructive and aggressive, especially as chief labor contract negotiator with the publishers.
Early in 1918 Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson appointed Howard to the War Labor Board. After a tour to address labor organizations in many parts of the country, he was placed at the head of a bureau of publicity and efficiency in industry. As Commissioner of Conciliation he helped settle many strikes and disputes involving war production. He also represented the Dept. of Labor on committees and commissions formulating policies. He resigned from government service in 1919, and later became manager of a railroad workers journal in Detroit.
Mr. Howard was a member of the Labor Advisory Committee during the short-lived administration of the National Recovery Act (NRA), and he was spokesman for the five international printers' unions in the conference to codify the industry. His experience in administration of the ITU welfare and retirement programs made him an authority on social security and related legislation.
With the advent of the NRA labor unions found their legal status strengthened. Many industrial or company unions were formed. A Committee on Industrial Organization was formed within the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The committee recommended that charters be given to these local industrial unions by the AFL, but that they must not clash with the jurisdiction of craft unions in these plants.
A minority report of the committee recommended that unrestricted charters be given. This minority report was signed by Howard, David Dubinsky, Frank B. Powers, John L. Lewis, A.A. Myrup, and J.C. Lewis. Ten international unions were expelled from the AFL for sponsoring industrial organization, and in 1937, after Howard was denied a seat at the AFL Convention, the ITU followed Howard into the CIO.
While the original committee organized many industrial unions, it did not attempt a national federation and it was not until many unions requested affiliation that the CIO began to issue charters. Howard's office was that of Secretary.
His stature increased to such a degree that when the New York Post and Philadelphia Record planned to honor the ten outstanding Progressives of the nation at a dinner on June 24, 1937, Howard was one of the ten leaders chosen.
He had been a dinner guest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House as early as May 7, 1935. When the Department of Labor celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., Howard, with Henry Harriman, was a principal speaker.
