William Hammatt Davis (August 29, 1879 – August 13, 1964) was the Chairman of the War Labor Board (WLB) in the administration of President

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

, where his job was keeping industrial peace between management and labor. He was also appointed US Economic Stabilizer in the last months of World War II, though Roosevelt's successor,

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

, soon eliminated this potentially powerful position. Davis also helped draft the

National Labor Relations Act The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and ...

(the Wagner Act) of 1935, which gave labor unions the right to organize.

Early life

Born and raised in

Bangor, Maine Bangor ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of Penobscot County. The city proper has a population of 31,753, making it the state's 3rd-largest settlement, behind Portland (68,408) and Lewiston (37,121). Modern Bangor ...

, Davis was the brother of

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

winning playwright

Owen Davis Owen Gould Davis (January 29, 1874 – October 14, 1956) was an American dramatist known for writing more than 200 plays and having most produced. In 1919, he became the first elected president of the Dramatists Guild of America. He received t ...

. He graduated from

Bangor High School Bangor High School, a member of the Bangor School System, is a high school in Bangor, Maine, United States. It has an enrollment of approximately 1,200 students in grades 9–12. It is Bangor's only public high school. Since its 2001–2002 sel ...

and received a law degree from

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

in 1901. His first job was in the

U.S. Patent Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...

, but he soon left to become a successful New York patent attorney. He returned to government service briefly in World War I, working in the War Department.

New Deal and wartime service

When Franklin Roosevelt formed the

National Recovery Administration The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate "cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governmen ...

(NRA) early in the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

, Davis was tapped as Deputy Administrator. The NRA was declared unconstitutional and disbanded in 1937, and Davis returned to New York to head the state's Labor Mediation Board. He developed such a good reputation as a mediator between management and labor that Roosevelt brought him back to Washington in 1941 to join (and soon chair) the National Defense Mediation Board (NDMB), which became the War Labor Board (WLB) in early 1942. Davis ran the Board until March 1945, when, seeing the end of the war in sight, Roosevelt named him Director of Economic Stabilization, to manage the return to a peace-time economy. The NDMB-WLB Chairmanship was an important yet difficult position, Davis having to walk the line between management and organized labor. Though generally trusted by both sides, his main job was to strongly discourage strikes for the duration of the war. A frequent figure in news articles of the 1940s, Davis' success was often ascribed to his personality and appearance. The news magazine ''Time'' described him variously as "rumple-haired", "dry-humored", "shaggy", "humane", "tendacious", "chunky", and "grizzled", but above-all patient and fair-minded. A 1941 ''Time'' article praised his " record' of "peacably unraveling the most tangled wrangle", and declared him "one of the brightest hopes of the US had in the murky field of industrial disputes."

From Roosevelt to Truman

While Roosevelt seemed to set up Davis as the 'czar' of post-war recovery by appointing him Economic Stabilizer, Harry Truman fired him within months of taking office, and eliminated his potentially powerful role. Davis became an open critic of Truman's labor policies, but the two must have reached some degree of accommodation by 1949, when Truman appointed Davis to head the Atomic Energy Commission's Labor Relations Panel.

Other activities

Davis was involved with progressive New York philanthropic and cultural organizations throughout his career. While on the Labor Committee of

Edward A. Filene Edward Albert Filene (September 3, 1860 – September 26, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known for building the Filene's department store chain and for his decisive role in pioneering credit unions across the Un ...

Twentieth Century Fund The Century Foundation (established first as The Cooperative League and then the Twentieth Century Fund) is a progressive think tank headquartered in New York City with an office in Washington, D.C. It was founded as a nonprofit public policy r ...

in the early 1930s, he worked closely with the office of Sen. Robert F. Wagner to craft the

. Later he served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

Davis' wife, Grace D. Davis, died in 1972.Obituary, ''New York Times'', July 15, 1972

Early life

New Deal and wartime service

From Roosevelt to Truman

Other activities

References

Further reading