Part 13 (1/2)

[65] Long before this, about the middle of the nineties, the first system federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confined to them only; they took up adjustment of grievances and related matters.

[66] The International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron s.h.i.+pbuilders, the Pattern Makers' League, the International Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of Metal Polishers, Platers, Bra.s.s and Silver Workers, the International Federation of Draftsmen's Unions, and the International Brotherhood of Foundry Employes.

[67] Professor Barnett attributes the failure of these agreements chiefly to faulty agreement machinery. The working rules, he points out, are rules made by the national union and therefore can be changed by the national union only. At the same time the agreements were national only in so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; the fixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the national employers' a.s.sociations lacked the power to offer the unions an indispensable _quid pro quo_ in higher wages for a compromise on working rules. (”National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in the United States,” in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, May, 1912, pp. 425 ff.)

[68] The following account is taken from Chapter X of the _Steel Workers_ by John A. Fitch, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.

[69] See above, 133-135.

[70] The opposition of the Steel Corporation to unionism was an important factor in the disruption of the agreement systems in the structural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industry on the Great Lakes in 1908; in each of these industries the Corporation holds a place of considerable control.

[71] See above, 47-49.

[72] Loewe _v._ Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908).

[73] Adair _v._ U.S., 208 U.S. 161 (1908).

[74] 36 Wash. Law Rep. 436 (1909). Gompers was finally sentenced to imprisonment for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined $500 each. These penalties were later lifted by the Supreme Court on a technicality, 233 U.S. 604 (1914).

CHAPTER 9

RADICAL UNIONISM AND A ”COUNTER-REFORMATION”

For ten years after 1904, when it reached its high point, the American Federation of Labor was obliged to stay on the defensive--on the defensive against the ”open-shop” employers and against the courts. Even the periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves.

This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised the stock of the radical opposition.

The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation. Inside it was the socialist ”industrialist” who advocated a political labor party on a socialist platform, such as the Federation had rejected when it defeated the ”program” of 1893,[75] together with a plan of organization by industry instead of by craft. Outside the Federation the opposition marched under the flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, which was launched by socialists but soon after birth fell into the hands of syndicalists.

However, fully to understand the issue between conservatives and radicals in the Federation after 1905, one needs to go back much earlier for the ”background.”

The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly a.s.sisted in the birth of the opportunistic trade unionism of Stra.s.ser and Gompers,[76] did not disappear, but remained throughout the eighties a handful of ”intellectuals” and ”intellectualized” wage earners, mainly Germans.

These never abandoned the hope of better things for socialism in the labor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an att.i.tude of enthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation in their wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistent though friendly ”nudging” in the direction of socialism. During the greater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the trade unionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion of foreign born, princ.i.p.ally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigar making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in 1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations.

When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since 1877. Its enrolled members.h.i.+p was under 10,000, and its activities were non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued until there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who, had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's outstanding revolutionary leaders. This man was Daniel DeLeon.

DeLeon was of South American ancestry, who early immigrated to New York.

For a time he was teacher of languages at Columbia College; later he devoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established his first connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886 and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeon was impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by the socialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taught him that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements, had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of a supreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knights and the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would be used.

By 1895 he learned that he was beaten in both organizations; not, however, without temporarily upsetting the groups in control. For, the only time when Samuel Gompers was defeated for President of the Federation was in 1894, when the socialists, angered by his part in the rejection of the socialist program at the convention,[77] joined with his enemies and voted another man into office. Gompers was reelected the next year and the Federation seemed definitely shut to socialism. DeLeon was now ready to go to the limit with the Federation. If the established unions refused to a.s.sume the part of the gravediggers of capitalism, designed for them, as he believed, by the very logic of history, so much the worse for the established trade unions.

Out of this grew the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a life and death rival to the Federation. From the standpoint of socialism no more unfortunate step could have been taken. It immediately stamped the socialists as wilful destroyers of the unity of labor. To the trade unionists, yet fresh from the ordeal of the struggle against the Knights of Labor, the action of the socialists was an unforgivable crime. All the bitterness which has characterized the fight between socialist and anti-socialist in the Federation verily goes back to this gross miscalculation by DeLeon of the psychology of the trade union movement.

DeLeon, on his part, attributed the action of the Federation to a hopelessly corrupt leaders.h.i.+p and, since he failed to unseat it by working from within, he now felt justified in striking at the entire structure.

The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was a failure from the outset.

Only a small portion of even the socialist-minded trade unionists were willing to join in the venture. Many trade union leaders who had been allied with the socialists now openly sided with Gompers. In brief, the socialist ”revolution” in the American labor world suffered the fate of all unsuccessful revolutions: it alienated the moderate sympathizers and forced the victorious majority into taking up a more uncompromising position than heretofore.

Finally, the hopelessness of DeLeon's tactics became obvious. One faction in the Socialist Labor party, which had been in opposition ever since he a.s.sumed command, came out in revolt in 1898. A fusion took place between it and another socialist group, the so-called Debs-Berger Social Democracy,[78] which took the name of the Social Democratic Party. Later, at a ”Unity Congress” in 1901, it became the Socialist Party of America. What distinguished this party from the Socialist Labor party (which, although it had lost its primacy in the socialist movement, has continued side by side with the Socialist party of America), was well expressed in a resolution adopted at the same ”Unity”

convention: ”We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessity organized on neutral grounds as far as political affiliation is concerned.” With this program, the socialists have been fairly successful in extending their influence in the American Federation of Labor so that at times they have controlled about one-third of the votes in the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiven the socialists their ”original sin.” In the country at large socialism made steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were cast for Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularly since 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and the difficulties created by the War and retrogressed.

For a number of years DeLeon's failure kept possible imitators in check.