Congress of Industrial Organizations Reference library
Robert H. Zieger
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
...late 1930s and early 1940s, the Roosevelt administration's diplomatic and military response to deepening international crises powerfully affected the CIO. Lewis believed that Roosevelt was leading the country into a war that would entangle the labor movement in a repressive bureaucratic apparatus. In late October 1940 the CIO chief shocked laborites when, on a national radio hookup, he announced his support for the Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie and urged union members to turn their backs on Roosevelt. At the CIO's annual convention in...
