Editing 78-06-B5 (section)

=== Transcript ===
Recently a meeting took place that revealed how much Americans have been divided
by labels and the images. Congressman Phil Crane of Illinois, a Republican and also
chairman of the American Conservative Union, decided to try to establish communications
with rank-and-file union workers. Obviously he can have contact every day with
the hierarchy of organized labor in Washington. Indeed a labor lobbyist stands
in the entrance to the House Chamber regularly giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down
signal to Congressmen to indicate how they should vote on legislation when they
respond to a roll call. That signal reflects the view of organized labors leadership
in Washington.

Phil Crane and a colleague, a young Congressman from Oklahoma, Mickey Edwards,
journeyed to Youngstown, Ohio to meet with local labor leaders. 1fuy Youngstown?
Because they wanted to hear the view of those local leaders on the closing of the
Youngstown Sheet and Tube plant which wiped out the jobs of nearly 5,000 steel industry
workers.

The locals were edgy about meeting with Congressmen they thought of as "the
opposition". They insisted on secrecy and no publicity, and they were suspicious
that Crane and Edwards might be using them in some way.

The meeting was held on their terms. Congressman Crane asked for their analysis
of why the plant closed, and their views about economic problems in general.

These men and women who work on the line, not at a desk in labor headquarters
in Washington, told of injury to the investment climate caused by laws passed in
Washington.

One angrily asked if the Congressmen knew how much it cost to put in a new blast
furnace. This, remember, was a worker--not a voice for management.

They spoke of the inability of management to absorb mounting production costs
imposed by government regulations. They were eloquent about the lack of a coherent
energy policy designed to provide abundant fuel sources to keep industry going. And
they told the two conservative Congressmen of how inflation was caused by uncontrollable
deficit spending by the federal government. They criticized unfair trade practices
by some foreign competitors and the harm done by environmental extremists who cared
more for fish than people.

You've heard me on these broadcasts express the same views. They are often
described as "conservative". But, when Phil Crane asked the union workers if they
thought of themselves as "liberal" or "conservative", they unanimously declared
themselves liberal.

Their definition of conservative was the typical stereotype, "spokesmen for big
business and bankers, country club set , anti-working people, and so forth."
Next broadcast I'd like to tell you about the follow up to that meeting.

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.

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