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Massachusetts labour and the League of Nations controversy in 1919

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
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Extract

Why did a minority succeed in defeating the League of Nations? The failure of the United States senate to ratify President Woodrow Wilson’s peace treaty has invited explanation for half a century and more. Historians argue that the intraisigence of Wilson and of his outright opponents, the ‘Irreconcilables’, forced a sufficient number of senators to drop their support. They attribute significance to the sensitivities of Republicans and congressmen smarting under the wartime powers of a Democratic president. They have also, rather reluctantly, turned their attention to the senators’ constituents. In dealing with the latter, historians have emphasised the influence of Irish-Americans. The Irish contingent, Link argues, ‘were up in arms because Wilson had refused to press the cause of Irish independence in Paris and because the treaty allegedly benefited the hated English’. According to Adler, even those who considered that ‘American-Irishmen were asses’ conceded their influence: ‘each jackass had one vote and there were lots of them’. Stone agrees that the ‘Irish vote, always important in American politics, had added significance for the league fight’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 76 , September 1975 , pp. 396 - 416
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1975

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References

1 Bailey, T.A., Woodrow Wilson and the lost peace (Chicago, 1963), PP 90—105 Google Scholar; Stone, R., The Irreconcilables; the fight against the League of Nations (Lexington, Ky., 1970).Google Scholar

2 Link, A.S., Wilson, the diplomatist; a look at his major foreign policies (Baltimore, 1957), p. 133.Google Scholar

3 Adler, S., The isolationist impulse; its twentieth-century reaction (London, 1957), p. 85.Google Scholar

4 Stone, Irreconcilables, p. 102.

5 Huthmacher, J.J., Massachusetts people and politics, 1919–1933: the transition from Republican to Democratic dominance and its national implications (New York, 1969), pp 20, 23, 42.Google Scholar

6 Citizens of Springfield, Mass. and members of the Cigar Makers’ Union, Local no. 49 to Lodge, 19 Jan. 1899 (petition in National Archives, Washington, D.C.); Lodge to W. J. Wright, 31 Jan. 1900, to W. L. Marvin, 5 Mar. 1900, and to M. Reed, 10 Mar 1900 (all in Lodge papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston).

7 Later known as the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor, since 1958 the State Labor Council, A.F.L.—C.I.O.

8 Massachusetts State Federation of Labor, History of the M.S.F.L., 1887–1935 (Boston, 1935), p. 57.

9 Menu, Allied war dinner, held simultaneously in two Philadelphia hotels on the evening of 17 May 1918, the speakers including W. R. Gay lord of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, the French ambassador, the principal of Aberdeen University, etc. (in the papers of the League to Enforce Peace, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.).

10 Various programmes and brochures, for example Program: New England Congress for a League of Free Nations (held in Boston, 7–8 Feb. 1919), circulars of P. W. Collins, W H. Short (secretary of the L.E.P.) to C W. Eliot, 24 Sept., Eliot to Short, 27 Sept., Short to Eliot, 2 Oct., Eliot to Short, 8 Nov 1918 (all in L.E.P. papers).

11 Collins to W. R. Boyd, Jr (national campaign manager, L.E.P.), 18 Feb. 191 g (L.E.P papers).

12 Short to Taft, 9 July 1919, L.E.P papers.

13 J. H. Pinnington to L.E.P., 12 June 1917, L.E.P. papers.

14 Selection from resolutions forwarded to the L.E.P., L.E.P papers.

15 See, for example, the petition of 6 Mar. 1919, from the committee of the Boston Women’s Trade Union League, representing labour in twenty-one trades, which included the signatures of Maud Foley (president. Shirtwaistmakers’ Union). Julia S. O’Connor (executive board, Telegraph Operators’ Union), Mary E. Meehan and Margaret Cleary, as well as those of Mabel Gillespie and Nellie Markham. Other surnames on other petitions were Beaulieu, Blesser, Bowen, Zuckeman, etc. The typical petition, exemplified bv the Carpenters’ and Joiners’ Boston Local no. 144, called for a league ’as outlined by the plans of the A.F of L. and its Massachusetts State Branch ’ (All in the David I. Walsh Papers, Holv Cross College, Worcester, Mass.).

16 Petitions in the National Archives. Labour’s ‘ Magna Carta ’ consisted of a series of demands, annually pressed on congress, for laws to protect the rights to organise, for safe working conditions and for certain minimal social welfare.

17 On the other hand, only 203 local and central bodies were active enough to send delegates to the M.S.B, annual convention in 1918, and even this was the highest level of attendance recorded up to 1935 (History of the M.S.F.L., 1887–1935, p. 37).

18 A. M. Huddell of the Boston C.L.U. attached significance to this session. Writing to Senator Walsh (whom he rather distantly addressed as ‘ Dear Sir ’), Huddell observed ‘ the large attendance at this meeting taxed the capacity of Tremont Temple and large numbers were unable to gain admission to take part in the meeting, showing the keen interest taken by the working people in this important question’. Letter of 13 Mar, 1919 (Walsh papers).

19 Boston Herald, 8 Feb. 1919.

20 Ibid.

21 The United States senate voted against ratifying the treaty of Versailles on 19 Nov. 1919, and again, following reconsideration, on 19 Mar. 1920.

22 According to Mary Bromage, it was only the Republican election victory of 1920 that reduced De Valera’s ‘hope that Wilsonian internationalism would be exerted ’ (De Valera and the march of a nation (London, 1956), p. 105).

23 This view invites the objection that the C.L.U. represented skilled workers whereas the I.W.W. had been an organization of the unskilled. Since there were so many recent immigrants in Lawrence, the older-established American Irish would have been more highly endowed with industrial skills and relatively well represented in the C.L.U.

24 Resolution of 9 Mar. 1919 (Walsh papers). See, further, J. B. McPherson, The Lawrence strike of 1912 (Boston, 1912), p. 2.

25 Proceedings of the thirty-fourth annual convention of the M.S.B, of the A.F.L. held at Greenfield, Mass., 8–10 Sept. 1919 (hereafter cited as Proc. M.S.B.) p. 7.

26 McGrady had in March undertaken a speaking tour on behalf of the League. His conversion stood out in contrast to the steadfastness of A. M. Huddell, who had chaired the pro-league L.E.P labour session of February- Huddell, a veteran of many a brutal labour struggle and the survivor of at least one attempt on his life, refused to conform to the pro-Irish attitude of the majority on the 1919 resolutions committee, of which he was chairman. The details of the intra-labour movement struggle over the league perished with the M.S.B, papers. Whatever the practical abilities of the labour leaders of 1919, their reluctance to go into print (compared to the fertility of pioneers like George E. McNeill) impeded later historians. James Duncan of Quincy, president of the Granite Cutters’ International Association of America and vice-president of the A.F.L. visited Russia in 1917, and accompanied the American Labor Mission to the peace talks in 1919. But he remained aloof from local labour politics. Proc. M.S.B., 1919, 86 f; History of the M.F.S.L., 1887–1935, pp 39–40; W. L. Collins, secretary, Springfield C.L.U., to L.E.P., 12 March, 1919, L.E.P. papers; Duncan, J., Address of James Duncan … envoy extraordinary to Russia appointed by President Wood-row Wilson of the U.S.A., May 5, 1917 … Aug. 18) 1917 (n.p., 1917),Google Scholar and A few thoughts incidental to an American labor mission to Europe on the peace treaty of 1919 (Quincy, 1919).

27 Boston Labor World, 24 July 1920.

28 Boston Globe, 6 Aug. 1920; Boston Labor World, 14 Aug. 1920.

29 Boston Globe, η Aug. 1920.

30 Boston Republic, 21 Oct., 30 Dec. 1899.

31 The refusal of the Paris peace negotiators to consider the Irish question stemmed from the view that it was an aspect of domestic British politics. Supporters of the Irish cause wanted to know why this rule was applied to Ireland, but not to former territories of the vanquished central powers.

32 Proc. M.S.B. 1919, pp 60–65.

33 Local no. 589 provided $240 in April, compared with total receipts of $419 for March. Proc. M.S.B., 1919, pp 60–65.

34 The parenthetical interpretation is based on the views of Mr Enrico Parente. Parente was an organizer first for the I.W.W. (at the time of the Lawrence strike) and later with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. He thinks that the Italians probably lacked the voting strength to challenge the Irish in the M.S.B, in 1919; otherwise they would have supported the League. Italian workers were, however, more nationalistic than their leaders. Interview, 7 June 1972. Also { Enrico Parente retires from union post ’ in Boston Nor’Easter (an I.L.G.W U. publication), II (Dec. 1970), p. 1 ; Serino, G.R., Italians in the political life of Boston (Harvard Ph.D., 1950), pp 29, 39Google Scholar; Diggins, J.P., Mussolini and fascism; the view from America (Princeton, N.J., 1972), pp 108–109.Google Scholar Huthmacher believes that Italians as a whole were disillusioned with the league • Huthmacher, , Massachusetts people, p. 21 Google Scholar

35 Proc. M.S.B, 1919, 60–65.

36 Proc. M.S.B. 1919, 60–65.

37 Proc. M.S.B. 1898, 2–3.

38 Such behaviour was not confined to Massachusetts. James D. Phelan of California and Thomas J. Walsh of Montana were two prominent Irish-American politicians who stuck to the league.

39 Serino attached significance to the Democratic vote in Boston’s ‘new immigrant’ North End in 1920, the lowest, he maintains, between 1900 and 1932. But there are several discrepancies in his figures (the fact that the North End was less Democratic than the City in 1916, but more Democratic in 1920; the even lower North End Democratic poll of 1924). Serino, ‘Italians in Boston ’, p. 45, appendix II-C. Comparing Irish-Italian with other Boston wards, Huthmacher discerns less than a two-point variation in the Republican swing of 1920 : Huthmacher, , Massachusetts People, p. 42.Google Scholar A more recent analysis suggests that the Democratic defeat of 1920 cannot be attributed to ethnic factors : R. A. Burchell, ‘Did the Irish and German voters desert the Democrats in 1920? A tentative statistical answer’ in Journal of American Studies, VI (Aug. 1972), p. 157.

40 J. P. O’Grady contrasts the impotence of the Irish with the power of the less numerous but bipartisan Poles in The immigrants’ influence on Wilson’s policies (Lexington, Ky., 1967), p. 8.

41 Boston Post, 19 Jan. 1919.

42 Programme, New England Congress (L.E.P. Papers) ; Boston Herald, 14 Feb. 1919; Boston Post, 17 Mar. 1919; Huddell to Walsh, 24 Jan. 1919; J. J. Hamilton for Boston C.L.U. to Walsh, 2 Apr. 1919 (Walsh papers).

43 Fitchburg Sentinel, 24 Mar. 1919.

44 Fall River Globe, 11 Oct. 1919. Organised labour had strenuously acclaimed Walsh’s pro-league speeches, but the speech of 9 October elicited no such response.

45 Springfield Republican, 14 Oct. 1919.

46 Worcester Post, 30 Jan. 1919; The Union, 20 Dec. 1919.

47 Goolidge to Lodge, 22 Feb. 1919, in Lodge papers.

48 Lodge to W H. Hays (a Republican national committeeman from New York City), io May 1919 (Lodge papers).

49 J W Weeks to Lodge, 28 July, Lodge to Weeks, 31 July 1919 (Lodge papers).

50 Cook, S.L., Louis A. Coolidge (Boston, 1924), pp 10, 27–29.Google Scholar

51 L. A. Coolidge to Lodge, 7 Aug. 1919 (Lodge papers).

52 L. A. Coolidge to Lodge, 11 July, 7, 26, Aug. 1919 (Lodge papers).

53 Lodge to G. S. Davison, 10 Sept., L. A. Coolidge to Lodge, 7 Aug., Lodge to L. A. Coolidge, 8, 9, Aug. 1919 (Lodge papers); Diamond, W., The economic thought of Woodrow Wilson (Baltimore, 1943).Google Scholar

54 ‘Lodge : glimpse of some of his efforts for humanity and labor ’ in Henry Cabot Lodge (n.p., c. 1911); Lodge to L. A. Coolidge, 9 Aug., 31 May 1919 (Lodge papers).

55 L. A. Coolidge to Lodge, 4 Aug. 1919 (Lodge papers).

56 Walsh to Lodge, 11 Aug. 1919 (Lodge papers).

57 S. Adamowska, president, Cambridge Friends of Poland, to Lodge, 30 Apr., Lodge to D. L. Pickman, 1 May, Lodge to J. W. Weeks, 31 July 1919 (Lodge papers).

58 Lodge to L. A. Coolidge, 1 Jan., to J. W. Weeks, 31 July, to General J. H. Sherburne, 4 Dec. 1919 (Lodge papers).

59 Responding address of W. A. Nealey at Greenfield convention, Proc. M.S.B. 1919, pp 6–7.

60 Lodge to F W. Stearns, 30 Oct. 1919 (Lodge papers).

61 Lodge to General J. H. Sherburne, 4 Dec. 1919 (Lodge papers).

62 ‘Comparison of the course of retail food prices in the United States with the Massachusetts minimum wage decrees ’, a graph appended to Seventh annual report of the minimum wage commission of Massachusetts for the year ending November 30, 1919, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Bureau of Statistics, Labor Division, Forty-eighth quarterly report on the state of employment, December 31, 1919, p. 20; Proc. M.S.B., 1918, pp 133–4; Proc. M.S.B., 1919, pp 4–5.

63 Commonwealth of Massachusetts official sources cited in preceding footnote.

64 J. H. Walker circulars to labour union secretaries, 17, 22, Sept. 1919.

65 Gompers, S., Why the Peace Treaty should be ratified (Washington, D.C., 1919), p.5.Google Scholar