Donald Randall Richberg (July 10, 1881 - November 27, 1960)Ingham, John N. Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1983. Purvis, Thomas L., ed. A Dictionary of American History. Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley-Blackwell, 1997. was an American attorney, civil servant, and author who was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's key aides and who played a critical role in the New Deal. He co-wrote the National Industrial Recovery Act, was general counsel and executive director of the National Recovery Administration.Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Coming of the New Deal. Paperback ed. New York: Mariner Books, 2003. (Originally published 1958.) McKenna, Marian Cecilia. Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Constitutional War: The Court-Packing Crisis of 1937. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002. He also co-authored the Railway Labor Act, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and the Taft-Hartley Act.Nelson, Daniel. "The AFL and the Challenge of Company Unionism, 1915-1937." In Nonunion Employee Representation: History, Contemporary Practice, and Policy. Bruce E. Kaufman and Daphne Gottlieb Taras, eds. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. Cushman, Barry. Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Early life and career Donald Richberg was born in July 1881 in Knoxville, Tennessee, to John Carl and Eloise Olivia (née Randall) Richberg. His grandfather, Louis Richberg, and his father had migrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1851. His grandfather set up shop as a merchant in New York City before moving to Chicago, Illinois, in 1854 and starting a meatpacking business. Richberg's father became a corporate attorney and later represented the City of Chicago. His grandmother, Mirenda Briggs Randall, and his mother were both physicians.Smith, George W. History of Illinois and Her People, Vol. 5. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1927. His sister was the aviator Leda Richberg-Hornsby."At 23 Woman Who Eloped Joins Navigators of the Air." New York Sun. March 30, 1914.
Donald Richberg graduated from a Chicago public high school, received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1901, and a J.D. from Harvard University in 1904. He met Elizabeth Harriet Herrick while at Harvard, and they married in 1906; they separated in 1915, and divorced in 1917 after she left him."Donald Richberg Seeks Divorce." Chicago Daily Tribune. May 16, 1917. He soon married Lynette Mulvey, but they divorced in 1924. The same year, he married Florence Weed (she survived him). They had one daughter."Donald Richberg of N.R.A. Is Dead." Associated Press. November 28, 1960.
Richberg and his father established a law firm, Richberg & Richberg, in Chicago. In 1913, Harold L. Ickes joined the firm. His increasingly ill father gave up the practice of law in 1915, and Morgan Davies and John S. Lord joined the firm (now called Richberg, Ickes, Davies & Lord).The firm merged with other partnerships through the years and today is known as Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell. See: "Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell Timeline." Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell. No date. Accessed 2009-04-14. He was named a special state's attorney from 1913 to 1915 and assisted the City of Chicago with its extensive litigation against the People's Gas Company, and from 1916 to 1919 was a special master for a Chicago city court of chancery.
Richberg's first foray into politics was in 1905. Becoming involved in progressive politics, he became a close associate of Jane Addams and Charles Edward Merriam, and campaigned heavily for Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne in the mayoral race that fall.Davis, Allen F. The Social Workers and the Progressive Party, 1912-1916. American Historical Review. 69:3 (April 1964); O'Neill, William L. Feminism in America: A History. 2d ed. Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1989. ; McGerr, Michael E. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003. ; Davis, Allen F. Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890-1914. 3d ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1984. ; McCarthy, Michael P. "Prelude to Armageddon: Charles E. Merriam and the Chicago Mayoral Election of 1911." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. November 1974. Along with Ickes, he helped form the Progressive-Republican League of Illinois, and became an active member of the Progressive Party nationally.Nye, Russel B. Midwestern Progressive Politics: A Historical Study of Its Origins and Development, 1870-1958. New York: Harper & Row, 1959; James, Curtis. Presidents, Parties, and the State: A Party System Perspective on Democratic Regulatory Choice, 1884-1936. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Rollins, Albert Brooks. Roosevelt and Howe. Reprint ed. Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001.
Great Railroad Strike of 1922 In 1922, Richberg became nationally famous for his involvement in the Great Railroad Strike. In 1920, Richberg became general counsel for the Railway Employees' Department."Injunction Upheld Against Rail Men." New York Times. September 24, 1922. In this capacity, he served as the primary attorney for the striking railway unions, and led the opposition to the "Daughtery injunction."During the strike, U.S. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty, a strong anti-unionist, received permission from President Warren G. Harding to represent the government and railroads before federal district court Judge James H. Wilkerson. On September 1, 1922, Wilkerson issued the most sweeping labor injunction in U.S. history, banning almost all union activity in conjunction with the strike. The injunction subsequently became known as the "Daugherty Injunction," and the backlash against the injunction led directly to passage of the Norris-LaGuardia Act which outlawed labor injunctions. See: Davis, Colin J. Power at Odds: The 1922 National Railroad Shopmen's Strike. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1977. ; O'Brien, Ruth. Workers' Paradox: The Republican Origins of New Deal Labor Policy, 1886-1935. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. ; "Daugherty Injunction." New York Times. September 26, 1922; "Lays Rail Strike to Eight Financiers." New York Times. September 20, 1922. Deeply angered by what he perceived to be the injunction's unconstitutional infringement on worker rights, Richberg co-authored legislation which in 1926 was enacted as the Railway Labor Act.Robertson, David Brian. Capital, Labor, and State: The Battle for American Labor Markets From the Civil War to the New Deal. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. ; Anderson, Jervis. A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait. Reprint ed. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1986. ; Forbath, William E. Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. ; Leslie, Douglas L. The Railway Labor Act. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1995. ; "Mixed Doubles." Time. September 10, 1934. In 1926, Richberg became counsel for the Railway Labor Executives' Association, a lobbying group of railway unions.Rose, Mark H.; Seely, Bruce Edsall; and Barrett, Paul F. The Best Transportation System in the World: Railroads, Trucks, Airlines, and American Public Policy in the Twentieth Century. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 2006. In this capacity, he helped draft the Norris-La Guardia Act, federal legislation which was enacted by Congress in 1932 and which banned labor injunctions.Arneson, Eric, ed. Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 2006. ; Reynolds, Morgan O. "An Economic Analysis of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the Wagner Act, and the Labor Representation Industry." Journal of Libertarian Studies. 6:3-4 (Summer/Fall 1982).Morris, Charles. The Blue Eagle At Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. (Originally published in 1957.) In an attempt to injure the bill's chances for passage, Secretary of Labor William N. Doak (in a meeting which included representatives of the National Association of Manufacturers) offered Richberg a federal judgeship if he would end his support for the bill. Richberg refused. His experiences drafting these successful federal laws led many to consider Richberg to be the foremost expert on labor law by 1932.
Federal service
In September 1932, Richberg, Ickes, Fred C. Howe, Felix Frankfurter, and Henry A. Wallace organized the National Progressive League to support New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt for President of the United States. After Roosevelt's election in November 1932, Richberg worked on the presidential transition team and for the new administration during the Hundred Days, drafting legislation. In this capacity Richberg was called upon to help draft the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) along with Hugh S. Johnson, Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, Jerome Frank, Charles Wyzanski and Bernard Baruch.Watkins, T.H. The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America. New York: Macmillan, 2000. .Hawley, Ellis Wayne. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly: A Study in Economic Ambivalence. Reprinted 2d ed. New York: Fordham University Press, 1995. Moley asked Richberg to assist him in putting final touches on the bill after various competing drafts had been reconciled, and Richberg was largely responsible for drafting Title I, Section 7(a)—which guaranteed collective bargaining rights for workers and unions.Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. Paperback ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
National Recovery Administration and Presidential councils