New book tells story of Kansas labor court that both flirted with fascism, stood up for workers' rights
LAWRENCE — People may think of Kansas as a middle-of-the-road state today. But in the early years of the 20th century the opposite was true, and a University of Kansas professor has written a book telling the story of Kansas’ formation of a unique industrial relations court that both flirted with fascism and stood up for workers’ rights.
Ben Merriman, associate professor of public affairs & administration at KU, is author of “The Kansas Court of Industrial Relations: Interwar America’s Dangerous Experiment in Social Control,” published by Cambridge University Press. The book outlines the formation of the KCIR in 1920, how it came about, how it was unceremoniously abandoned in 1925 and the lessons it holds for labor law today. The story is a largely forgotten chapter of American history.
“Once the country has been set on one course of policy for a long time, it’s easy to forget that things could have been different,” Merriman said of the country’s history of labor law. “The course we were on by the ‘30s has continued. The Kansas Court of Industrial Relations was very different than the National Labor Relations Board or state public sector labor boards we have today. They’re not saying, ‘This is the deal, take it or go to jail.’ That’s what the Kansas court did.”
The court’s founding in Kansas was not a surprise to people at the time, according to Merriman. The state was known to be among the first to try new laws and policy approaches. The author points out that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down, on average, one ruling or policy from Kansas per year from 1900 through the beginning of the Great Depression.
The court was known to be heavy-handed. The KCIR outlawed strikes and lockouts, applied heavy criminal sanctions and dictated terms of work life, including wages, hours and conditions. Merriman described this as “America’s closest practical encounter with fascism.” The book cites how former Kansas Gov. Henry Allen met on more than one occasion with Italian Premier Benito Mussolini to discuss such courts. Industrial courts, most using a lighter touch than the KCIR, existed in most of the industrialized world between World War I and World War II.
Public opinion on the KCIR was divided at the time.
“When I pulled up old national newspaper and magazine articles, I learned immediately that the court was very hotly debated, and it wasn’t just in our state,” Merriman said. “It was very much intended and received as a provocation. Debate didn’t break along party lines, either. There were very prominent Democrats and Republicans who loved it and very prominent members of both parties who thought it was a terrible thing.”
For his part, President Warren Harding wanted a national court like the KCIR, but ultimately no other state or national court was established. While the term fascism wasn’t widely used at the time, Merriman traces how the court’s idea that the government could control vital aspects of both citizens’ and industries’ existence leaned in that direction.
“They were probably right to be frightened by or wary of the court,” Merriman said of the court’s critics. “Emotions ran very high, and there were vital questions of the national interest and individual rights at stake.”
“The Kansas Court” also traces how businesses and labor unions interacted with and challenged the court during its brief existence. Such challenges led the U.S. Supreme Court to reach landmark decisions limiting the right to strike and the power of states to control private business. These decisions influenced the New Deal labor law.
While it has been a century since the KCIR’s existence, labor courts still exist in some countries. And while the Kansas court took a repressive approach to organized labor, its legacy is not cut and dry, as it also provided cost-free legal assistance, quick decisions and issued some far-sighted rulings, including orders for equal pay for women, a living wage for all and fair wage for skilled workers, according to Merriman.
In the afterword, Merriman examines how the 2020s are strikingly similar to the 1920s, with a global pandemic in recent memory, high inflation and plentiful but underpaid jobs.
“I have the feeling that this is not the time period people generally look to for ideas or inspiration, but in the ’20s there were a lot of ideas being tried out in the states,” Merriman said.
He added that today, national labor law is weak in many of the same ways as the 1920s.
How labor law evolves remains to be seen, but a largely forgotten body like the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations and other state policy experiments of the era may provide insight for labor issues of today.
“The trend is to find national solutions for policy issues, but I think we often overlook possibilities that are right under our noses in the states. I think this story completely turns upside down what people think about the history of our state.”