William B. Rubin, Milwaukee attorney, was born in Russia, September 1, 1873. He came to the United States with his parents at the age of nine, and became a naturalized citizen. He attended the engineering school at the University of Wisconsin; but transferred to Michigan to obtain his bachelors and law degrees. Rubin then established his legal practice in Milwaukee, and except for a short period in 1919 and 1920 practiced there continuously until his retirement in December 1956.
In addition to becoming a highly successful trial lawyer of both civil and criminal cases, Rubin was a labor attorney of national reputation, and author and lecturer. He early displayed a desire to become known as a man of ideals and ideas, evidently feeling that he had a destiny to fulfill in behalf of mankind. Throughout his life Rubin was an advocate of personal liberty, and maintained a keen desire to help bring about social and economic progress. Rubin, who seemed to have an infinite capacity for work, was described as thoroughly honest and stubborn for any position he took; and was the reverse of his own statement that “an inert mind is a parasite on civilization.”
His letters show him to have been a man of positive and progressive ideas, willing to fight in support of his convictions. Among the many points of view expressed were his belief in free enterprise, properly regulated; his conviction that Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions on constitutionality of laws, since laws represent the people's legislation; and his objection to the inquisition-like power of courts and judges. His test of this last objection led to his being cited for disbarment in 1927, and he was not exonerated until the case was tried before the state Supreme Court in 1930.
As early as 1906 he acquired a national reputation as a labor counsel when, in the case of the Iron Molders Union vs Allis Chalmers, he established the American common law rule, or code, governing the relation of capital and labor in labor's right to strike. Dozens of labor cases followed, including his role as counsel in the steel strike of 1919, the strike by Actor's Equity in 1919, and the seaman's strike of 1919. Rubin participated in the drafting of the first yellow-dog-law prohibiting the blacklisting of employees by employers in 1929. In the 1930s, as counsel for the Wisconsin Cooperative Milk Pool, Rubin represented labor in the milk strikes in Wisconsin, and in 1937 was mediator in the J. I. Case labor troubles.
For twenty-five years he was chief counsel for the American Federation of Labor, and traveled widely in behalf of many unions. He carried on active correspondence with union leaders such as Samuel Gompers, John P. Frey, and William Green; and was associated as counsel with men such as Clarence Dardefitem when both he and Dardefitem represented the Illinois and Chicago Federations of Labor.
In 1912 Rubin helped organize the Union Bank of Milwaukee, and for a time was its president; but in 1920 he sold his interest, as he felt the bank had become more involved with following its invested dollar than in helping trade unionism. In 1913 and 1914 he was active in the Provident Loan Society, organized in 1904 in Milwaukee to lend to the poor.
In 1913 Rubin and his wife traveled in Europe so that he could study labor conditions. In 1924 he again went abroad, this time to study Zionism; and the following year, at the request of Samuel Gompers, he went to Germany to reestablish fraternal relations between the AFL and the German labor movement.
Rubin always maintained a sizable legal office, from which many prominent attorneys “graduated.” He employed from two to six assistants, and often expressed a desire to make money in the law mainly to enable him to be free to devote himself to the causes for which he stood. In 1919 he decided to set up practice in New York City, where he thought he could do the most good for the labor movement and “be of more benefit to the things for which I stand” (Letter to Gompers, April 21, 1919). After the six months' residency requirement was fulfilled he failed to be licensed in New York--perhaps due to the opposition of anti-labor lawyers--and he returned to Milwaukee.
As he became somewhat disenchanted with the national labor movement and failed to realize his desire to head its legal division, Rubin turned to politics as his vehicle to advance the people's cause. As a liberal Democrat he became a devotee of Franklin Roosevelt, and acquired a large following among the farm and labor groups in Wisconsin. Previously he had experienced two periods of active political limelight on the national scene: In 1918, on the recommendation of Gompers, President Wilson called on Rubin to campaign in several western states where the labor vote was needed. In 1924, he traveled a month in the East campaigning for the candidacy of LaFollette and Wheeler for President and Vice President
In the thirties and forties Rubin was a stormy petrol in Wisconsin politics. In the state Democratic platforms for 1932, 1936, and 1938 he is said to have written the planks on farm labor, banking, and relief. In 1932, he was defeated in the Democratic primary for governor; and again in 1934, after being defeated in the primary he decided to run in the election as a third candidate, and was again defeated. In 1933 he was defeated in his bid to become a state justice of the Supreme Court. Three times, in 1936, 1939, and 1949, Rubin hoped to receive an appointment as judge of a Federal court, either circuit or district, but failed. He was sometimes described as being too uncompromising and impulsive for the bench. In 1936, he was Delegate-at-large to the Democratic National Convention. Rubin frequently complained of the influence of Philip LaFollette on Democratic appointments in Wisconsin.
William Rubin published two books, The Toiler in Europe (1919) and The Constitution and Democracy (1937), and wrote the play, The Bolshevist (1919), in which he exposed the fallacies of communism. Numerous pamphlets and articles came from his vigorous pen, and he contributed regularly to union publications such as The American Federalist, The Molders' Journal, The Bridgeman's Magazine, The Pattern Makers' Journal, and The American Labor Banner. He constantly furnished editorials and copy for newspapers, especially the Milwaukee papers, the Sheboygan Press, and the Madison Capital Times.
Rubin's first wife, Sonia, died in 1915, leaving one son, Abner, who became a New York lawyer, specializing in theatrical matters. Rubin's marriage of 1925 to Mrs. Borzena Brydlova Grotte, author and playwright, ended in divorce in 1929. In 1935 he married a Milwaukee French teacher, Josephine Geraghty. Although he maintained many of his Jewish ties, Rubin seems not to have remained an orthodox Jew, and was openly opposed to the Zionist movement. In 1927 he debated Rabbi Stephen Wise in Milwaukee, arguing that Judaism is a religion, not a race or nationality. He died in Milwaukee in February 3, 1959.
A letter from William B. Rubin to a friend, January 19, 1926, gives advice which epitomizes Rubin's own thinking and life: “Be militant! Weather all storms. Life is great if you fight for it.”
