"We  find  professionals  in  our  labor  unions.  Every  day  dozens  of
professionals  come  looking  for  jobs  as  longshoremen.  I  know  in  San
Francisco  the  majority  of  the  doctors  can't  pay  their  rent.  I  know  that
registered  nurses  are  out  of  work,  that  lawyers  are  starving  to  death.
But  it's  not  our  people  who  are  starving  to  death  in  San  Francisco.
They're  working.  They're  protected  by  our  unions."

Shoemaker  did  some  thinking  out  loud.  Accepting  Bridges'  definition
of  the  bourgeoisie,  he  said,  wouldn't  it  be  true  that  they'd  be  such  a
tiny  minority  that  the  working  class  could  easily  overthrow  them?


156  Harry  Bridges   on   Trial

Bridges'  answer  was  simplicity  itself — "four  per  cent  of  the  people
control  ninety  per  cent  of  the  wealth."  Shoemaker  wondered  if  the
unions  would  desire  or  try  to  convince  the  professionals  and  office
workers  to  go  along  with  the  industrial  workers.
"The  unions  are  already  doing  it,"  Bridges  told  him  proudly.  "We
have  growing  unions  for  white  collar  and  professional  workers,  artists,
government  workers,  the  screen  guilds  for  actors  and  writers  in  Holly-
wood— even  doctors'  and  lawyers'  unions."

Now,  if  Bridges  was  for  public  ownership  of  utilities  and  natural
resources,  Shoemaker  asked,  would  he  go  so  far  as  to  abolish  all  private
property?  No,  Bridges  didn't  think  so.  He  would  favor,  even  under  the
most  extreme  conditions,  the  retention  of  such  private  property  as
automobiles  and  small  family  homes.  And  he  didn't  think  the  Marxists
wanted  to  abolish  this  kind  of  private  property,  either.  At  any  rate,  if
they  did,  he'd  be  opposed  to  it.
Incidentally,  Bridges  listed  his  own  property  as  an  automobile  and
a  block  of  land  in  Australia.
