Emil Antonio Costello (January 2, 1908 – February 9, 1994) was an American furniture worker and labor union activist from Kenosha, Wisconsin who served one term as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Kenosha County. While he was elected as a Progressive,[1] he was frequently accused of being a communist or fellow traveler[2][3][4][5] who urged others to join the party.[6]
Background
editCostello was born January 2, 1908, in Kenosha. He attended Kenosha public schools, and became an assembler at the Simmons Bedding Company factory there. He helped organize and became president of an AFL Directly Affiliated Local Union there, which was later dissolved at the AFL's insistence, and assigned to the Upholsterers International Union of North America (UIU). He was on the state governing council of the Wisconsin State Federation of Labor.
Assembly and UFWA
editIn 1936, Costello was elected as a Progressive from the Assembly's 2nd Kenosha County district (the Towns of Brighton, Bristol, Paris, Pleasant Prairie, Randall, Salem, Somers, and Wheatland; the Village of Silver Lake; and the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 11th Wards of the City of Kenosha), unseating Democratic incumbent Matt G. Siebert in a three-way race, with 5,144 votes to Siebert's 4,712 and Republican Jay Rhodes' 3,539. He was assigned to the standing committees on labor and on transportation.[7]
In 1937, he was one of a group of labor activists who led a breakaway movement, taking the Simmons local of the UIU and several others out of the Upholsterers and forming a new union, the United Furniture Workers of America (UFWA) which advocated industrial unionism, and affiliated immediately with the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He was expelled from the AFL, became interim president of the Wisconsin CIO (he would serve from 1937-1939) and was hired as an organizer by the CIO. An effort was made to censure Costello for excessive absences from the Assembly, but was decisively defeated.[8] When he came up for re-election in 1938, he faced two challengers in the Progressive primary (which he won). He was again accused of "holding communist views",[9] and lost in the general election to Siebert, who took his old seat back with 4,730 votes to Costello's 3,420 and Republican James Brook's 3,152.[10]
After the Assembly
editCostello ended up working for the CIO's Steel Workers Organizing Committee and the successor United Steelworkers until 1947. By 1961, when he was hauled before the House Unamerican Activities Committee, he was running an employment agency in California.[11] He died February 9, 1994, in San Diego, California, where he had been living.[12][13]
References
edit- ^ "Members of the Wisconsin Legislature 1848–1999 State of Wisconsin Legislative Bureau. Information Bulletin 99-1, September 1999. p. 40 Archived December 9, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "John Sentinel" "'We Want Bobrowicz!' Chant the Communists." Milwaukee Sentinel November 2, 1946; pp. 1-2
- ^ "Christoffel and Lawyer for Union Termed Communists", Associated Press, Post-Crescent Marcy 19, 1947; p. 1, col. 5 via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Communist?", UPI, Racine Journal Times June 27, 1947; p. 1, col. 4 via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Washington Report: Bobby's Protege A Liability", Lewis Jr., Fulton, Shreveport Journal May 23, 1962; p. 8, col. 1 via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Secret Red Parleys By 'Labor Leaders': Ran CIO Business by Day, Met at Night, Charge" Milwaukee Sentinel September 14, 1946; pp. 1, 6
- ^ Ohm, Howard F.; Bryhan, Leone G., eds. The Wisconsin blue book, 1937 Madison: Democrat Printing Company, State Printer, 1937; pp. 49, 359, 431, 542
- ^ Associated Press. "Motion to Censure Costello Defeated" Oshkosh Northwestern May 20, 1937; p. 5, col. 2
- ^ Everett, Winter. "Around the Statehouse", Wisconsin State Journal September 28, 1938; p. 4, col. 7 via Newspapers.com
- ^ Ohm, Howard F.; Bryhan, Leone G., ed. The Wisconsin Blue Book, 1940 Madison: Democrat Printing Company, State Printer, 1940; pp. 549, 618
- ^ Walter, Francis E. "Committee on Un-American Activities Report for the Year 1962" Union Calendar No. 62; 88th Congress, 1st Session; House of Representatives; Report No. 176 Washington, D.C.: Congress of the United States, pp. 75, 81
- ^ "United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JPT5-CY8 : 9 January 2021), Emil Costello, 09 Feb 1994; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
- ^ "California Death Index, 1940-1997," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VPD4-D7Q : 26 November 2014), Emil Antonio Costello, 09 Feb 1994; Department of Public Health Services, Sacramento.