Maine Taxpayers Will Pay for Gov.’s Mural Move
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Looks like Maine taxpayers will foot a hefty bill for Gov. Paul LePage’s blatant partisanship. Last month in a stealth move, LePage unilaterally removed an 11-panel mural from the state’s Department of Labor, saying its depictions of Maine working people was “anti-business.”
Now, Washington Post reporter Jason Horowitz found that because federal funding contributed to the mural, if LePage does not exhibit the art in an appropriate government building,
he must reimburse the state’s unemployment trust fund account 63.39 percent of the “current fair market value,” according to the Labor Department. Given the painting’s new cultural significance, LePage may unintentionally have taken on the role of a political Larry Gagosian, the art dealer who has a knack for driving up prices. Tom Denenberg, the chief curator of the Portland Museum of Art, said that while he wouldn’t put a dollar amount on the mural’s appreciation, the governor’s focus “without a doubt dramatically increases its importance.”
The mural also included a depiction of Maine resident and first female Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and its removal prompted Mount Holyoke College President Lynn Pasquarella to write a scathing letter to LePage saying his action “conjures thoughts of rewriting history prevalent in totalitarian regimes.” Perkins was a Mount Holyoke graduate.
Judy Taylor, the local artist who won a competition to design the mural, said LePage’s depiction of the art as akin to North Korean propaganda was particularly unfortunate. Her father was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Korean War.
Maine Mural Artist Has a Few Words for Gov. LePage
When he yanked the 11-panel mural depicting workers in Maine, Gov. Paul LePage said he had been told the images were akin to North Korean propaganda.
Now, the artist of the murals, Judy Taylor, says LePage’s comment was especially painful–because her father was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Korean War. The New York Times quotes a statement Taylor issued today describing her father:
“He was a man who stood by every word he spoke,” she wrote. “It was so heartbreaking to learn that this controversy may have started with an anonymous letter comparing this mural to a North Korean propaganda poster. Perhaps we should hang my father’s Bronze Star for his service in Korea in the now empty reception area of the Maine Department of Labor until the mural is returned, as a symbol of the importance of remembering our history, and not shuttering it away.” Read the rest of this entry »
Removal of Labor Mural Akin to Action by ‘Totalitarian Regimes’
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Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s unilateral decision to remove an 11-panel mural depicting the state’s working families raises “grave concerns,” wrote Mount Holyoke College President Lynn Pasquarella in a letter to LePage. The mural, which LePage removed from the Department of Labor over the weekend, includes a depiction of 1902 Mount Holyoke graduate and former U.S. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. (Kudos the Maine Democratic Party for posting the mural on its website.) As Pasquarella told LePage:
I was particularly surprised to read that you were influenced by an anonymous fax comparing the 11-panel mural to North Korean political propaganda, because the act of removing images commemorating Maine’s history itself conjures thoughts of rewriting history prevalent in totalitarian regimes.
Look for Pasquarella’s name to appear on lists compiled by far right groups. In recent days, according to a report broken by TPM, the extremist Michigan-based Mackinac Center has
made a broad public records request to at least three in-state universities with departments that specialize in the study of labor relations, seeking all their emails regarding the union battle in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
The group is targeting academic supporters of working families and their unions.
Unemployed Workers Have Lifeline Because of Frances Perkins’ Legacy
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With U.S. unemployment at 8.5 percent in March, the highest rate in 25 years, more than 6 million Americans are making ends meet because of the idea and determination of the nation’s first female Cabinet member, Frances Perkins, a “canny but little-known social worker” who became President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s labor secretary during the Depression.
In a Point of View guest column at the AFL-CIO website, Kirstin Downey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Washington Post, says the vital need for many New Deal programs is especially clear now as we struggle through our current economic crisis.
Downey, author of The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, says Perkins and Roosevelt “propelled into existence” the unemployment insurance system, part of the package of social safety proposals born in the New Deal, including Social Security. Perkins brought her drive and commitment to the effort, and Roosevelt won the political support that allowed the package to pass, Downey says.
New Perkins Center to Honor ‘Woman Behind New Deal’
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Today, as in 1933, the nation faces serious economic uncertainty. As we struggle to find new answers, we look to the example of Frances Perkins, labor secretary during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, for inspiration.
Perkins is best known for creating much of the social safety net that protects the elderly, young and those experiencing hard times. She is credited with creating Social Security, unemployment insurance and the system that became Aid to Dependent Children.
She also was behind the Fair Labor Standards Act that set a 40-hour workweek to prevent workers from getting broken down by exhaustion, a minimum wage that ensured they would receive a certain level of compensation, a ban on child labor and creation of overtime pay for workers asked to work long hours.
On April 21, an organization based at her family homestead in Newcastle, Maine, is holding its official Washington, D.C., “coming out party” for the brand-new Frances Perkins Center. Started in January by a group that included Perkins’s grandson, the center aims to continue her legacy by spreading the word about her accomplishments and working to carry on her commitment to social justice.
