Interview
I [interviewer Barbara Morford] interviewed George Hall on the afternoon of July 23, 1981, at his home on Beach Road north of Green Bay. We sat in the living room of the house he shares with his adopted sister, Betty (Bets) Radey, and her husband. We began talking shortly after 2 p.m. and were interrupted once by the telephone, and another time to take a tour through George's impressive garden and to walk to the beach. Bets was working nearby canning green beans, and joined us from time to time. She once handed George a note with some names of labor people on it to help jog George's memory. She was always close to him and seemed to have shared a lot of his history with him. George was dressed in a sport shirt and slacks, sat in a comfortable easy chair, and was able to move and gesture freely thanks to the lavalier microphone used for the recording.
This interview is the portrait of a man belonging to a transitional phase in Wisconsin's labor history. He spans the period when the leadership of the Wisconsin labor movement shifted from the “sewer socialists” (so-called for the support of public ownership of utilities) to the more pragmatic business unionism of today. He repeatedly mentions the dedication of the “workingman” as the value upon which all action should be based. His assessment of his treatment by the post-Haberman leadership of the Wisconsin labor movement is poignant.
The strength of Hall's conservative philosophy is reflected in his conviction that strikes are neither necessary nor healthy for the labor movement and in his anti-communism. Enigmatic is his total dedication to the values of the socialist traditions of Weber and Ohl and his loyalty to the Haberman-Ranney type of leadership.
The major strength of this interview is the portrait it paints of a labor leader whose career spans these two periods of Wisconsin's labor history. It is a very candid picture of a man's feelings and actions toward his career. Due perhaps to his age, or perhaps to his concern with action rather than reflection, the interview lacks specific dates and names which might make it in and of itself more helpful as an institutional history.
Abstract to the Interview
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher, by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button, may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on Mr. Hall's training in Chicago should locate the place on the second track of tape one, side one, where the voice announces the 02:20 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Two minutes, twenty seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on Mr. Hall's training in Chicago continues until approximately 03:45, at which point discussion of the next topic (“RETURNS TO LA CROSSE AS CONTRACTOR AND IS APPROACHED BY UNION”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “MOVES TO WORK AT MOTOR METER GAUGE FOR BETTER WAGES AND THEN TO CHICAGO FOR TRAINING” give further details on what appears on the tape between 02:20 and 03:45.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract when used with the index will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
