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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
European socialists at the beginning of the twentieth century often expressed amazement at the fact that the United States, although one of the most advanced industrial nations in the world, also had one of the weakest socialist movements, as well as a trade union movement bent on avoiding any hard and fast political commitments. Yet, only a few short years before, it appeared as though the American working class had at last arrived at political maturity and was putting its potential voting strength to good advantage. In the elections of 1886, for example, labor tickets in the Northeast and Middle West polled substantial proportions of the vote and won some startling victories. In New York City, Henry George, running with labor and socialist backing, lost out in his race for mayor by only 22,000 votes, while in Chicago and Milwaukee a number of labor candidates swept to victory.
1 This point is elaborated in much greater detail in my article, “The Knights of Labor and the Trade Unions, 1878–1886,” Journal of Economic History, XVIII (06, 1958), 176–192Google Scholar.
2 Although Samuel Gompers had played an important part in Henry George's mayoralty campaign in 1886 just prior to his election to the presidency of the A.F. of L., he did so not because of any intrinsic faith in either George or politics in general, but because of the enthusiasm of the rank and file. See especially Gompers' autobiography, Seventy Years of Life and Labor (2 vols., New York, 1925), I, 311–326Google Scholar.
3 A.F. of L., Proceedings, 1886, pp. 8, 16 (1905–1906 reprinting).
4 Gompers to Tom Mann, September 2, 1891; Gompers to O. P. Smith, February 10, 1892; Gompers to Alonzo Grouse, September 23, 1892; Gompers to John McBride, February 6, 1893, Samuel Gompers Letter Books, A.F. of L.-C.I.O. Building, Washington, D.C. (hereinafter cited as SGLB); Gompers, , “Organized Labor in the Campaign,” North American Review, CLV (07, 1892), 93Google Scholar.
5 SeeGrob, Gerald N., “The Knights of Labor, Politics, and Populism,” Mid-America, XL (01, 1958), 3–21Google Scholar.
6 American Federationist, I (11, 1894), 205–206Google Scholar. For additional evidence of trade union political activities see Destler, Chester M., American Radicalism 1865–1901 (New London, Connecticut, 1946)Google Scholar, Chaps. VIII, IX, XI; John McBride to Jerre Dennis, July 28, 1895, SGLB; Peterson, James, “The Trade Union and the Populist Party,” Science & Society, VIII (Spring, 1944), 157Google Scholar.
7 Gompers to J. F. Tillman, September 12, 1891, SGLB; A.F. of L., Proceedings, 1891, pp. 15, 40.
8 Gompers, , “Organized Labor in the Campaign,” loc. cit., pp. 93–94Google Scholar; Gompers to J. M. Smales, June 20, 1892; Gompers to Edward L. Daley, September 28, 1892; Gompers to F. U. Adams, November 4, 1892, SGLB.
9 A.F. of L., Proceedings, 1893, pp. 38–39, 62–63.
10 Gompers to Ben Tillett, November 4, 1896. See also Gompers to George L. Burr and Company, February 17, 1896; Gompers to L. Berliner, September 25, 1896, SGLB; Bernstein, Irving, ed., “Samuel Gompers and Free Silver, 1896,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXIX (12, 1942), 394–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Gompers to John Turner, May 21, 1896; Gompers to J. D. Vaughn, June 2, 1896; Gompers to Douglas Wilson, June 16, 1896; Gompers to the NewYork Herald, July 27, 1896; Gompers to W. H. Montgomery, August 20, 1896; Gompers to A. G. Howland, October 27, 1896; Gompers to Ben Tillett, November 4, 1896, SGLB.
12 Gompers, , “Trade Unions and Party Politics,” American Federationist, III (08, 1896), 129–130Google Scholar.
13 Gompers to P. J. McGuire, November 19, 1896, SGLB.
14 The official organ of the Socialist Labor Party, for example, while condemning the Federation's emphasis on the eight-hour movement of 1888–1891 and the lack of a radical political program, often commended it for its organizational work, and on occasion even spoke well of Gompers. New Haven Workmen's Advocate, April 28, December 22, 1888, January 12, December 21, 28, 1889.
15 Gompers to Ernest Bohm, March 14, June 14, 1889; Gompers to the A.F. of L. Executive Council, May 21, 1889, SGLB; A.F. of L., Proceedings, 1890, p. 12.
16 Gompers to August Delebar, July 12, 1890; Gompers to Ernest Bohm, July 18, 1890, SGLB; A.F. of L., Proceedings, 1890, p. 12.
17 Gompers to Ernest Bohm, September 11, 1890. See also Gompers to Bohm, August 6, 1890, SGLB.
18 See Gompers to Bohm, November 7, 1890, SGLB.
19 An Interesting Discussion at the Tenth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor Held at Detroit, Michigan, December 8–13, 1890 (New York, 1891), p. 6Google Scholar. See also ibid., pp. 4–5.
20 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1890, p. 17Google Scholar.
21 For a transcript of the various statements see ibid., 1890, pp. 22–25, and An Interesting Discussion at the Tenth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor, passim.
22 See the statement by the eminent unionist, Foster, Frank K., in An Interesting Discussion at the Tenth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor, p. 13Google Scholar.
23 New Haven Workmen's Advocate, January 10, 1891; The People, November 15, 1891.
24 For DeLeon's philosophy see the following pamphlets written by him: The Burning Question of Trades Unionism (New York, 1904)Google Scholar; What Means This Strike? (New York, 1898)Google Scholar; Reform or Revolution (New York, 1918)Google Scholar; A Debate on the Tactics of the S. T. & L. A. Toward Trade Unions Between Daniel DeLeon of the Socialist Labor Party and Job Harriman of the Social Democratic Party … November 25, 1900 (n.p., n.d.).
25 See Gompers' autobiography, Seventy Years, I, 70–88Google Scholar, and Commons, John R., “Karl Marx and Samuel Gompers,” Political Science Quarterly, XLI (06, 1926), 281–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 John Swinton's Paper, July 31, 1887.
27 See Gompers' statement before a Senate committee in 1883, in U. S. Congress, Report of the Committee of the Senate Upon the Relations Between Labor and Capital, and Testimony Taken by the Committee (4 vols: Washington, D.C., 1885), I, 374Google Scholar.
28 Gompers to P. J. McGuire, August 4, 1891; Gompers to Samuel Goldwater, December 1, 1893; Gompers to Henry Lloyd, July 2, 1894, SGLB.
29 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1892, p. 39Google Scholar.
30 Italics mine.
31 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1893, pp. 37–38Google Scholar.
32 See Morgan, Thomas J., “The Programme,” American Federationist, I (03, 1894), 7Google Scholar; Frank K. Foster, “Labor Politics, Policies and Platforms,” ibid., I (March, 1894), 5–6; Joseph R. Buchanan, “Political Action by Labor,” ibid., I (May, 1894), 43–44; J. R. Flynn, “The Political Program,” ibid., I (July, 1894), 103.
33 Commons, John R., ed., History of Labour in the United States (4 vols: New York, 1918–1935), II, 511.Google Scholar
34 Ibid.; International Typographical Union, Proceedings, 1896, p. 47 (these Proceedingswere issued as a supplement to the Typographical Journal, IX [11 16, 1896]Google Scholar).
35 Commons, , History of Labour, II, 511Google Scholar.
36 See, for example, the statement of a socialist union journal, the BrauerZeitung, IX (12 1, 1894), 1Google Scholar.
37 Gompers to P. J. McGuire, November 1, 1894, SGLB.
38 Gompers to Frank K. Foster, November 19, 1894, SGLB.
39 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1894, p. 14Google Scholar.
40 A Verbatim Report of the Discussion on the Political Programme, at the Denver Convention of the American Federation of Labor, December 14, 15, 1894 (New York, 1895), pp. 3, 13–25Google Scholar.
41 Ibid., pp. 25–26, 62. At the convention the following year the delegates declared that the A.F. of L. “has no political program,” but they agreed to accept the amended planks as their “legislative demands.” , A.F.. of , L., Proceedings, 1895, pp. 66–67Google Scholar.
42 Gompers, , Seventy Years, I, 393–394Google Scholar.
43 The Carpenter, XVI (10, 1896)Google Scholar. 1. Edward L. Daley of the Lasters Protective Union offered the most common explanation for the actions of the trade unionists at Denver. “A number of amendments were offered to the programme as submitted and … my vote was against each and all of the amendments, my object being to prevent, if possible, any change in the programme, which I was instructed to vote for in its entirety. So many of these amendments were adopted as to completely change the structure and intent of the programme, and in the form in which it finally came to be voted upon, I voted against it, and did so fully believing that my course would meet with the full approval of our Union. This belief is based upon the fact that although this programme, including ‘Plank Ten,’ had been submitted to all our Local Branches in the call for our Convention last year, and had also been published in our official journal in the issues preceding the Convention, not a single gate from any Branch had come instructed to vote for it, and, believing that our Union does not and never did wish to commit itself to an endorsement of socialism or any other political policy, it was plain to my mind that the disposal of the whole programme by the Denver Convention would be satisfactory to our Union; in fact, many of the members of different Branches of our Union have so stated to me.” Lasters Protective Union, Proceedings, 1895, pp. 18–19Google Scholar.
44 Socialist Labor Party, Proceedings, 1896, p. 28Google Scholar.
45 See American Federationist, IV (06, 1897), 79Google Scholar, (July, 1897), 93; U.S. Industrial Commission, Report of the Industrial Commission (19 vols.: Washington, D.C., 1900–1902), XVII, 209–210.Google Scholar
48 For Gompers' harsh and unyielding attitude toward DeLeon and the Alliance see Gompers to A. von Elm, March 9, 1896; Gompers to A. McArthur, March 27, 1896; Gompers to Ben Tillett, May 2, 1896; Gompers to Fred S. Carter, March 1, 1897; Gompers to James Tole, September 2, 1897, SGLB.
47 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1903, p. 198Google Scholar.
48 Recently several historians have written that the antisocialist activities of the Catholic Church in the American labor movement (which has always contained a substantial proportion of Catholic leaders and rank and filers) played a major role in preventing the socialists from gaining a foothold among the working class. FatherBrowne, Henry J. in his excellent study The Catholic Church and the Knights of Labor (Washington, D.C., 1949)Google Scholar has asserted that the “influence of the Catholic Church … was exercised as a conserving force in American unionism, helping it to survive by at least the endorsement of silence, and aiding in the struggle which kept it an economic movement nonpoliticized by the socialists” (p. 357). The fullest and most detailed case for this point of view has been presented by Karson, Marc in American Labor Unions and Politics 1900–1918 (Carbondale, Illinois, 1958)Google Scholar, who argues that “Aided by the predominantly Catholic officers of the international unions and by the large Catholic rank and file in the AF of L, responsive to their Church's views on socialism, Catholicism had helped to account for the moderate political philosophy and policies of the AF of L, for socialism's weakness in the AF of L, and, therefore, for the absence of a labor party in the United States” (p. 284). See alsoSaposs, David J., “The Catholic Church and the Labor Movement,” Modern Monthly, VII (05, 06, 1933), 225–30Google Scholar, 294–98, and Abell, Aaron I., “The Reception of Leo XIII's Labor Encyclical in America, 1891–1919,” The Review of Politics, VII (10, 1945), 464–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yet the thesis that the position of the Catholic Church, especially as expressed in the papal encyclical Return Novarum (1891), which laid the foundation for a Catholic program of moderate social reform that maintained in a slightly modified version the institution of private property, was partially responsible for the antisocialism and conservatism of the American labor movement is not completely convincing. A more plausible explanation is that American labor ideology, including its political philosophy and program, developed out of the essentially middle class psychology of the rank and file, a psychology that was characteristic of its societal environment. Since the typical worker, lacking a mature sense of class consciousness, was also an expectant capitalist or incipient entrepreneur, it is evident that he could not logically have propounded radical or socialist ideas without considerably modifying his own future aspirations. Thus the antisocialist position of American trade unionism and the antisocialism of the Catholic Church tended to parallel each other, although for somewhat different reasons. Trade unionists opposed socialism because they had become convinced that in the United States the obstacles to such an ideology were all but insurmountable. In developing a much more limited program based on economic action, they came to be the most bitter foe of socialists. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, opposed socialism largely for religious doctrinal reasons. In actuality the antisocialism of the Catholic Church served to reinforce that which already existed within the framework of trade union ideology.
49 Gompers to L. E. Tossey, August 31, 1894. See also Gompers to James G. Bacon, August 11, 1893, SGLB.
50 Gompers to the Delegates to the International Labor Congress (Brussels, Belgium), August 4, 1891, SGLB.
51 Gompers, , “Labor and Its Attitude Toward Trusts,” American Federationist,XIV (11, 1907), 881Google Scholar. See also idem., “Attacking the Trusts,” ibid., III (December, 1896), 217, and ibid., VI (August, 1899), 130–131.
52 See, for example, , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1891, pp. 26, 33Google Scholar; 1892, p. 46.
53 Gompers, , “A Word on Trusts,” American Federationist, VI (10, 1899), 195Google Scholar.
54 See Gompers to Ernst A. Weier, November 27, 1899, SGLB; Valesh, Frank, “Labor Legislation (?),” American Federationist, II (04, 1895), 26–27Google Scholar. During the Pullman strike of 1894 Attorney-General Olney had obtained a sweeping injunction against the officers and members of the American Railway Union, prohibiting them from interfering with the mails, with interstate commerce, with the conduct of the business of twenty-three railroads specifically named, and from attempting to persuade other employees to quit work.
55 See Gompers to D. L. Alexander, February 14, 1890; Gompers to W. B. Mahon, November 8, 1899, SGLB.
56 Gompers, , “A Minimum Living Wage,” American Federationist, V (04, 1898), 25Google Scholar.
57 Gompers to Senator George P. Edmunds, August 4, 1889; Gompers to Ralph H. Shephard, January 15, 1891; Gompers to E. M. Sharon, May 31, 1893, SGLB.
58 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1893, pp. 37, 47–48.Google Scholar
59 Ibid., 1891, pp. 24–25, 27–28; 1892, pp. 9, 12, 32–33; 1893, pp. 14, 42; 1894, pp. 48, 50–51; 1896, p. 50; U. S. Congress, House Judiciary Committee, Hearing on Conspiracies and Injunctions (Washington, D.C., 1900), pp. 19–20Google Scholar.
60 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1899, p. 23Google Scholar; 1890, p. 40; 1892, pp. 39, 45; 1893, pp. 36, 47; 1894, pp. 28, 46; 1895, p. 81; 1898, pp. 63, 82–83; 1899, pp. 61, 105–106; Gompers, , “Trade Unions the Precursors of Progressive Thought,” American Federationist, III (09, 1896), 142Google Scholar.
61 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1895, p. 59Google Scholar. Gompers generally took the position that there were more important issues facing the working class than the tariff. See Gompers to W. S. Gammon, December 28, 1894; Gompers to L. Berliner, September 25, 1896, SGLB.
62 For the changing attitude of the A.F. of L. toward immigration see , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1886, p. 17Google Scholar; 1887, pp. 23, 30; 1888, p. 26; 1889, pp. 15, 19–20; 1891, p. 51; 1894, pp. 12, 47; Gompers to Adlai E. Stevenson, April 4, 1894, SGLB; A.F. of L., Some Reasons for Chinese Exclusion (Washington, D.C., n.d.). Behind the scenes Gompers worked hard to convert the Federation to an outright exclusionist position. See Gompers to P. J. McGuire, January 9, 1893; Gompers to the A.F. of L. Executive Council, January 16, 1893, SGLB.
63 , A.F. of , L., Proceedings, 1895, pp. 79–80Google Scholar.