Who is the man being removed from his office, carried by the U.S. Army National Guard, in December 1944?

During WWII (1939-1945), the U.S. retailer and manufacturer Montgomery Ward supplied the Allies with a range of items including tractors to auto parts to workmen’s clothing-items, all deemed equally important as bullets and ships.

In an effort to avert strikes in critical war-supported industries, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had created the National War Labor Board.

The focus of the Board was to negotiate settlements between management and employees to avoid shut-downs in production that might cripple the war effort. Montgomery Ward Chairman Sewell Avery (1874-1960) refused to comply with the terms of three collective bargaining agreements with the United Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, representing its employees.

In April 1944, after Sewell refused a second board order to abide by the collective bargaining agreement, Roosevelt called out the Army National Guard to seize the company’s main plant in Chicago, Illinois. Sewell himself had to be carried out of his office by National Guard troops.

Then on December 27, 1944, President Roosevelt ordered his Secretary of War to seize additional plants and facilities belonging to Montgomery Ward in the states of New York, Michigan, California, Illinois, Colorado and Oregon. Roosevelt’s statement emphasized that the government would “not tolerate any interference with war production in this critical hour”.

Sewell decided to fight the collective bargaining agreement in court but lost.