Reclaiming legacy of slain, forgotten Jewish labor leader
By Penny Schwartz

BOSTON (JTA)— Any student of American labor history knows the name Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor in 1886. He was hugely influential in U.S. politics and left an indelible mark on the lives of millions of working Americans.

Not so familiar is the name Edward Cohen, a fellow Jewish immigrant cigar maker from London and Gompers' friend and protege.

Cohen served as president of the Massachusetts branch of the American Federation of Labor during its formative years in the early 1900s, gaining the admiration of his fellow workers and a host of prominent figures, including Louis Brandeis, who later went on to become the first Jewish Supreme Court justice.

Now, a century after his death, Cohen's place in American labor history is being recognized.

A large, intricately carved bronze plaque commemorating Cohen and acknowledging his contributions as an influential labor leader soon will be permanently installed at the historic Massachusetts State House. The president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Robert Haynes, who rediscovered Cohen's story about a decade ago while looking through old union records, called the installation of the plaque one of the greatest moments in the history of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.

Through extensive research and exclusive interviews with several descendants of the family, JTA has discovered documents not previously associated with Cohen that shed new light on his significance in the cannon of American labor history.

Cohen fought for a wide variety of causes, including worker safety and child labor restrictions. He also supported the cause of women's suffrage and, according to Brandeis, was instrumental in the adoption of the nation's first savings bank life insurance program.

Cohen's steady rise was tragically cut short when he was killed in a bizarre shooting accident at the Beacon Hill office of the Massachusetts governor at the time, Curtis Guild. On Dec. 5, 1907, Cohen, then 47, was sitting with two of his union allies in the anteroom of the governor's office at the state house when James Steele, a man who recently had been released from a mental institution, began shooting at random. Cohen was killed and one of his union allies was seriously injured.

Cohen's murder dominated Boston news headlines for days. Some 12,000 people turned out to mourn his death, with a dignitary-led funeral procession through the streets of Boston.

Over the ensuing decades, however, Cohen largely was forgotten - no more so than in the Jewish community, even in sectors active in the labor movement.

Then, last December, 100 years after Cohen's murder, a ceremony was held at the Massachusetts State House unveiling a portrait of the plaque soon to be installed. The plaque was designed by Meredith Bergmann, an award-winning sculptor from New York.

The ceremony served as a kind of minifamily reunion among long-lost relatives, said Harry Greenberger, one of Cohen's grandchildren, who was among six Cohen descendants who attended the ceremony at the state house.

On a Sunday morning last spring, Phyllis Cohen Feltzer, one of Cohen's granddaughters, sat with JTA in New York and shared one of two old family scrapbooks containing unpublished letters and telegrams relating to Cohen.

Among the dozens of letters and telegrams sent to Cohen's widow, who moved to New York with their eight children, are notes from Gompers, the governor and Boston Mayor John "Honey" Fitzgerald, grandfather of John F. Kennedy.

"It is quite a significant accomplishment that a Jewish person would become the head of a major organization in Massachusetts" in the early 1900s, said James Green, professor of history and labor studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

Little is known about Cohen's religious beliefs or practice. He was buried by the Sons of Benjamin in a Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn.