Dewey's Logical Theory: New Studies and Interpretations

12. The Teachers Union Fight and the Scope of Dewey's Logic

262 12 TheTeachersUnionFight andtheScopeof Dewey’sLogic Michael Eldridge During an internal dispute in the New York Teachers Union in 1932–33, John Dewey chaired a grievance committee. The committee’s initial report on the dispute was well received by the general membership. But their recommendation to suspend radical union members was not accepted, in part because of a mistake made by the union president. Dewey’s failure to be more political also played a role in the course of these events. Although his committee’s recommendation was sound, consistent with Dewey’s philosophy , and possibly workable, Dewey did not take steps before the general meeting that could have prevented the president’s error. This case, examined in terms of Dewey’s definition of inquiry and the chapter on social inquiry in his 1938 Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, enables us to grasp that inquiry understood simply as an intellectual activity is insufficiently Deweyan. Deweyan inquiry is a transformation of experience, a remaking of actual situations. In this situation, Dewey’s actions did not measure up to his own standards of effective inquiry despite its intellectual coherence and attractiveness. But rather than merely fault Dewey, we can see—by examining this unsuccessful effort—what an effective Deweyan social inquiry would be. For anyone who has some experience in getting things done, this suggested scenario will seem commonplace. We have come a long way in terms of day-to-day democratic action since the 1930s, an achievement in workplace democracy that would be very satisfying to Dewey. But where we still fall short is in our thinking about informed social change. We lack an adequate democratic political technology, one that will guide the action. I dealt with the need for a better formed political technology in my Transforming Experience: John Dewey’s Cultural Instrumentalism (1998). Here I want to discuss the logic of such a technology. Does the logic presented in the 1938 volume enable us to understand and evaluate a democratic political The Teachers Union Fight 263 technology? Specifically, does Dewey’s discussion in the chapter on social inquiry (LW12:481–505) provide agents of democratic change with the needed logic? A Deweyan Social Inquiry The Teachers Union case provides an example of an actual effort by Dewey to effect democratic social change. By looking at what he did and did not do, we will have before us an instance of attempted social inquiry. What Happened: Dewey and the Local 5 Conflict Dewey became a charter member of the New York Teachers Union in 1916 and served for three years as its first vice president (Dykhuizen 1973, 171). In 1927 he characterized himself as a “somewhat nominal” dues-paying member rather than an “active working” one (1928, LW3:275). His role was not as slight as his self-characterization indicated, however, for the address in which it occurs, “Why I Am a Member of the Teachers Union,” was still being used in American Federation of Teachers recruitment brochures in 1984 (see the textual commentary on Dewey 1928, LW3:441). He became increasingly active politically after retiring from teaching in 1929. For these and other reasons, he was asked to resolve the conflict occasioned by the challenge of two radical factions in the New York Teachers Union, Local 5, of the American Federation of Teachers. The two factions, the Progressives and the Rank and File, opposed one another as well as the union’s leadership, Henry Linville and Abraham Lefkowitz. In 1932 Lefkowitz, the union’s legislative representative, moved to expel the leaders of these two factions for disruptive behavior and for repeated misrepresentations of the leadership’s actions. At a meeting of the general membership in October, a five-person grievance committee was elected. This committee then elected Dewey as its chair. Over the next several months the committee met extensively, hearing more than a hundred witnesses on both sides, as well as the six members against whom specific charges had been made. Dewey wrote the report submitted to the general membership before the next general meeting. The report recommended that a delegate assembly be created and that a provision for suspending members from meetings be adopted. A separate report, which was not submitted until the meeting occurred, dealt with the specific charges. At the meeting , the recommendation to suspend one of the six failed to gain the 264 Michael Eldridge necessary two-thirds majority. The cases against the...