Workers Throughout America Build National Labor Party
TEIGAN, Congressman HENRY C.
Workers Throughout America Build National Labor Party Midwest- Greets Advent of A.LP. LABOR RECOGNIZING NEED FOR ACTION ON POLITICAL AS WELL AS ECONOMIC FIELD-NATIONAL PARTY ESSENTIAL IP STATE...
...It discusses the use sf motion Jpicture films appealing to labor audiences, film strips «a* "still" pictures for illustrated lectures, pictorial books, magazines and pamphlets...
...Paul and Minneapolis were thrown out by the League and have remained out since...
...The defenses on the Austrian frontier are to be strengthened at a cost of about $15,000,000...
...It is true that in the United States it wasn't as essential to have this fundamental program as was the case in the European countries where the workers were more completely enslaved, because our workers could always move westward and "take up homesteads" whefi the pressure became too great in the cities...
...The lists had been drawn up months ago by Nazi spies on the Vienna police force...
...Already more than 75,000 men are building concrete emplacements for heavy guns and fortifications...
...Reverting again to the American Labor Movement to show how it failed to function in a practical way upon the political field, I want to quote here a little statement of Samuel Gompers before a House Committee in'1911...
...However, the economic prostration of the postwar period reduced him to destitution and he cast his lot with the impoverished farmers...
...They were able to eat three times a day, had some sort of house to live in, and they didn't learn as quickly as I had hoped they would...
...He had been in the Socialist Party, but he thought that the Socialist Party's methods were too conservative, and, besides, there was prejudice against the name "Socialist" in those days...
...COMMUNISTS SNIPE AT BLUM LONDON.—This item may be printed after the Blum government has fallen...
...ENCOURAGED BY ADVANCE OF THE A.L.P...
...The tragic thing about it is that this early political movement soon petered out and then for 60 years almost disappeared...
...The party now has 1,310 branches...
...He resisted all modern cultural trends...
...His tragic life recalls Matthew Arnold's lines Wandering between two worlds—one dead, , The other powerless to be born...
...When the agrarian cause was hopelessly lost, Watson turned cynic...
...When the Populist revolt migrated to the South, Watson became one of its most fiery crusaders...
...Its leaders didn't have a philosophy, didn't know economics, but moved by immediate necessity in advocating certain reforms...
...They hadn't been used to that...
...Ever since primitive man buckled down to society, states and societies have been shattered and rent by two great problems: Land and Labor...
...He became venomous fr» his ljatred of the Negro, a "Lily White" of the ultra type...
...VIStTAL AIDS FOR WORKERS' EDUCATION...
...Today in the Twin Cities there is scarcely a labor leader who would dare announce to the workers of the city that he is supporting anyone but a Farmer-Labor candidate for office...
...I thought: "Now when these farmers, these few working people we have out here, familiarize themselves with the gospel of Socialism, they will see the logic of it and will immediately begin voting our ticket...
...There is a higher percentage of farmers in North Dakota than in any other state and yet it was the first in which a movement based upon the working class, the producing class, was developed in the political field...
...It was the most remarkable political achievement on the part of the farmers in this country...
...Back there in 1828 the Philadelphia trade-unions adopted a platform that was astonishingly advanced...
...American labor has not been noted for its activities in politics—I mean in its own behalf...
...The workers' leaders point out that firms like Vickers rolled up a huge profit—a fifty per cent over last year...
...And yet there isn't any doubt that the failure of the American Labor Movement to do for its workers here what had been done in Europe was caused by its neglect of practical politics on the part of the working class...
...And again: "In one way or another the company union generally turned out to be a "Frankenstein" to management . . . The company union is a social phe-nomemm peculiar to this country...
...leaders put the onus for the collapse of the cabinet, if it comes, upon the Socialists...
...In 80 principal cities and towns the Social Democrats now control 65 per cent of the vote...
...A mystery radio, April fi, invaded "German air" in Austria with a warning against "placing yourselves under the bandits and political losses of the Third Reich" in the coming plebicite...
...The northern frontier, contiguous to Germany, is already protected by a chain of mountain forts nearly 600 miles long...
...and labor posters fef educational or publicity purposes...
...They produced good crops but didn't get anything for them...
...Many businessmen have also discovered that they cannot run their business without knowing something about labor law, just as they cannot do without some knowledge of the law of contracts, sales, etc...
...By Congressman HENRY C. TEIGAN AT the present time there is more interest in labor politics than there has been since I have known anything about politicians...
...the other, on Labor vs...
...hatred of Jews made him more responsible than any other man fi"V the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jew innocent of the murder of Mamr Phagan, an employee in his pencil factory...
...Out in my state and in the state of Wisconsin there was an early reform movement...
...DANISH SOCIAL DEMOCRATS GAIN COPENHAGEN.—Last year brought an increase in membership in the Danish Social Democratic Party which now has a roster of 199,283 dues-paying members...
...Feller and Hurwiti remind them that "The employer may succeed in breaking tbe strike, only to discover later that seeds of discontent have been sown -which will produce future strikes...
...today, even the least progressive of them are offering such courses...
...In this manner the CP...
...ORGANIZATION CAME BEFORE EDUCATION rf,HE usual method is to go out and educate * folks first and then take them into the organization...
...Thi : reviewer also recommends it to younger labor leaders, those fart yet grounded, by actual experience, in the methods of Ameri.an labor unions, and in the essential elementary knowledge of labor law...
...TOMWATSOX, AGRARIAN REBEL, by C. Vann Woodward (The MacmUlan Co., $3.75...
...the alien who came to our shores was anathema and hi...
...The government coalition will introduce such a bill in parliament soon...
...THE WORKERS ABROAD UNIONS DISTRUST CHAMBERLAIN LONDON —Backed by facte and figures designed to show the aerie-Hs need for pressing the British Defense Program with all possible speed, Prime Minister Chamberlain appealed to the Bntisn Trade Unions for "good-will and help" in speeding-up armament ^°rSo far there is no hint of what is thought to he needed by the government and the Prime Minister hasn't been too anxious to explain...
...Samuel Eliot Morison published * a biography of Harrison Gray Otis, a high priest of Massachusetts Federalism, and as Otis' life spanned the history of the Federalist Party, the work also proved to be largely a history of that party...
...M'innesota and Wisconsin are the only two states today in which the workers and farmers have their own political party...
...and the term "proletariat" is of Roman coinage...
...Townley's instructions to the organizers were: "Don't try to explain the platform to the farmer...
...Ton Watson, in the last two decades of his life, seemed to re-incarn.'ite the worst of the old regime's extreme reactionary psychology...
...The government is said to be considering with approval an appropriation asked by the Sudeten Social Democrats of 000 crowns for public works in their districts...
...TERROR CONTINUES IN VIENNA PARIS.—Long squadrons of armored cars containing Nazi secret police followed the German troops into Vienna and other Austrian cities...
...And the thing that has made it permanent was the fact that it was based upon an appeal to class solidarity...
...It was an indictment of the kind of politics that the labor movement of America had been indulging in...
...To answer these needs, two lawyers have written a book crammed with valuable information...
...Further admonishing employers, Messrs...
...JAMES ONEAL...
...Paul in 1917, we found many of the leaders of the trade union movement affiliated with the Democratic Party and some with the Republican Party...
...From now on, this column intends to lean back comfortrbly—with fingers crossed—and watch its contributors do their bit...
...That was in 1828, one hundred and ten years ago—before Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto...
...Conditions were ~ just a little bit too good...
...Fortunately Karl Kautsky had been tipped off in advance and after waiting with bags packed for a week, left two days before Hitler marched on Vienna...
...The kind of politics the leaders of labor have been interested in during past years has not been conducive of any practical aid to the working people...
...democratic Socialism was fought without knowledge of its philoe-ophy and program...
...This was possible for the reason, stated by the authors in thefr preface, that they do "not hesitate to present in all fairness the argument of the labor union," and that in presenting the law the authors do not advise employers of means to evade the law...
...puffing meanwhile on a good cigar—also contributed...
...in fact, many of the unions at that time wouldn't tolerate the presence of proselyting Socialists...
...In publishing Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel,* of which C. Vann Woodward is author, the MacmUlan Company has also brought out what is practically a history of the agrarian revolt, especially in the South, for Tom Watson's life spanned the history of that revolt...
...Still, there were a few who were converted, and that was true not only in that western country of ours but in all parts of the United States, as was shown by victories that the Socialist Party won at Milwaukee Schenectady, New York, in cities of Ohio and Pennsylvania and elsewhere in 1912 and 1913...
...charts, maps and exhibits...
...That didn't sound very good to orthodox Socialists, but Townley was right...
...The book is so important that it will receive a more extended notice later.- Tom Watson was the son of one of those middle dam slave owners whose property in Negroes numbered about 50...
...All this is by way of introducing two expert reviews...
...It calls attention to the fact that way back in 1828, 110 years ago, the trade unions in the city of Philadelphia discovered that they couldn't bank upon old-party politicians to serve them in public office...
...LABOR RECOGNIZING NEED FOR ACTION ON POLITICAL AS WELL AS ECONOMIC FIELD-NATIONAL PARTY ESSENTIAL IP STATE ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT TO DISAPPEAR...
...While those who framed that platform weren't fully conscious of why the workers were not receiving the full fruits of their labor, they nevertheless sensed the fact that the workers were being plundered and they also sensed that the workers were entitled to the full fruits of their labor...
...PROGRESSIVE STAND AT FIRST A.F.L...
...This all means that we must get a political party of the workers on the way in the United States, the old scheme of "reward your friends and punish your enemies" is a thing of the past and that the workers have an intelligent program which they want to enact into law...
...If the workers are to get anywhere, if they are really going to achieve their economic liberation, get the full fruits of their labor, they must develop a sense of class solidarity...
...After returning from Europe, he said: "We are in the United States no less than two decades behind many of the European countries in the protection of the life, health and limb of the workers...
...But no labor movement cf a general nature can continue to ignore the main objective, that of achieving the liberation of the entire working class...
...Yet in the course" of a single year he had brought the farmers of North Dakota into the Nonpartisan League...
...After political strength has been developed, then let them separate from the old parties and set up their own political parties...
...While it is written to acquaint employees of their legal rights when negotiating with labor, this reviewer has recommended it to several employers and their attorneys with whom he has had to deal in attempting to settle labor disputes...
...Once the organization ¦was pretty well developed—with a membership of 15,000 to 20.000— we started a paper...
...They are provoking industrial unrest, causing extreme political embarrassment to M. Blum and his ministers...
...Among those arrested are some of the workers' representatives who negotiated with Schuschnigg on the possibility of defending Austrian independence...
...Among the arrested are Kunschak, Rott, who was a Minister in Schusch-'nigg's Sabiet, and Watzek, Secretary of State and at one time a prominent free union official...
...If the 12,051 members exempt from payments are included, the total is brought tip to 210,000 organized democratic Socialists...
...Certain things in North Dakota had incensed the farmers...
...When the Non-partisan League established its national offices in St...
...AGRARIAN REBELS 'TWENTY-FIVE years ago, Prof...
...They talked to the people about these reforms and tried to convert them to their program, but there was no thought on the part of that leadership to show the workers and farmers their common class interests...
...Today lawyers are anxious to learn all they can about the law regulating the relations between labor and capital...
...They feel that an injury to one is an injury to all and are going to fight to achieve that end on the political field through those selected by themselves to run for public office...
...I happened to be the Secretary of that early organization known as the National Nonpartisan League...
...Their request pointed out that for every 100 men unemployed in Czech districts there are 280 unemployed in areas with 80 per cerjt German population...
...The Herald's correspondent feels that the trouble started by the Communists in the strike of 30,000 metal and arms workers cannot be stopped...
...The workers also point out that there will be no talk of patriotic dropping of standards to arm the British nation while the munition makers are shipping guns and bullets to other countries—and those countries are Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy...
...And until this is done—until the workers as a whole become conscious of their need for working together, for asserting their rights as a class— there are going to be many ups and, downs in the movement...
...He got us together...
...In fact, he refused to accept the merger with the Bryan Democrats in 1896 and fought on for sa-nother ten years...
...North Dakota still has the Nonpartisan League setup, which means that the League places a ticket in the field to seek the nominations of the dominating political party in the state...
...Both reviewers are well known to our readers...
...Capitalism washed-out the old agrarian ideals and its followers passed into the Democratic Party just as the agrarians in the Northwest made their peace with the Republican Party...
...I was foolish enough to think after I had made some little study of economics that if we could just present our program to the people of the country they would accept it immediately because it was so reasonable...
...These working class leaders are now paying dearly for having had the courage to reveal themselves...
...SURPRISING STATEMENT FOR SAMUEL GOMPERS TTHAT is a surprising confession for a man in * Gompers' position to make, but it was true...
...The source of the broadcasts has not as yet been discovered.] CZECH SOCIALISTS ACT PRAGUE.—As this country's military leaders cbntinue to encircle Czechoslovakia with new forts which could hold off a Nazi invasion for several months, German Social Democrats from the Sudeten district are drawing up a program of reforms to hand to Premier Hodza...
...On the contrary, the law is set forth sanely and fairly...
...In some cases, fights and damage have been caused by Thorez's followers who seem to have gotton out of control, even of the CP...
...They charged the railroads and the bankers with being responsible for this condition, but even more than the banks and the railroads, the grain buyers in the Twin Cities...
...Books • • • and Writers By ELIAS L. TARTAK »T«HTS ©shram seems to have been born under friendly and favor-* able %mens...
...Proof of public confidence is the gain in the past nine years of 250 branches and 50,000 members...
...The fact is that, in the city of Minneapolis in that first election, our candidate for Governor, Charles A. Lindberg, former Congressman from Minnesota, was defeated for Governor by a vote of two to one...
...After we get them in, we'll educate them...
...The time came, however, when there wasn't any more worthwhile land to take as homesteads and that aroused the working class to the need of some genuine reform...
...The problem of the farmer and the problem of the proletariat...
...There has been an unusual awakening among the working people of the country during the past few years...
...After North Dakota had been won "in 1916, the League went into Wisconsin, South Dakota, Montana, and finally spread into 13 states...
...The Gestapo, personally directed by Rudolph Himmler, Hitler's vicious lieutenant in charge of wiping out anti-Nazi political activity, had long carefully prepared lists of trade unionists, Social Democrats and Communists...
...Lai ir relations would be considerably improved if the advice given t mployers by this book were followed...
...That is surprising: since North Dakota is the nation's most agricultural in character...
...Of course, the latter is a perfectly legitimate objective— don't misunderstand me...
...Paul by a majority of two to one...
...His group took possession of the state and eliminated the bosses who had run North Dakota from the time it was admitted to the Union...
...The most important event of the past year was the municipal ¦ elections, m which the Social Democrats won their greatest vic-VJIa^ decades" In this capital the Socialist vote increased from 126,940 to 161,8o5...
...The unions won't reply until definite proposals are made, -bearing in mind the Tory foreign policy and the fact that the Government's pledge that no excessive arms profit would, be allowed, has been broken...
...This has already been done in New York, and it is expected that the American Labor Party in that city and state will elect several members to Congress this year...
...There are still 80,000 men unemployed in the mimitinw^ industry—a powerful argn% v ment against the Cabinet's glib talk of labor shortages and increased working hours...
...But if the second cabinet led by the Socialist leader collapses, the Communist Party will be as much responsible tot it as the reactionary financial forces in the Senate, the Laborite London Daily Herald's Paris correspondent reports...
...The author is head of the oldest and most extensive trade union educational project in the country...
...We will take the parts of the platform pertaining to the more immediate demands, and we'll go out and organize the farmers on a non-partisan basis...
...We called for contributions, and have already been blessed by same...
...Mark St...
...He lived in the past and could not shape civilizslpon in accord with his agrarian model...
...In those days the working people were in the movement as individuals rather than as groups...
...They will find in the book, a good, though brief summary of the history of the American Labor movement, its organization end structure, its objectives and its methods, in addition to the difenssion of the law of industrial relations . DAVID I. ASHE...
...The party has been active on the international scene, collecting large funds for the Spanish Loyalists...
...So he said, "This is what we will do...
...However, as time went on the Non-partisan League gained in the cities with every election...
...After a few defeats in Minnesota along these lines, a new party was started,, and the same was true in Wisconsin...
...Hat fascism appeared in the later years of his life, there is Ut-tle doubt that this declassed heir of middle-class slave owners and frustrated agrarian rebel would have organized storm troops in imitation of Hitler...
...A step in this direction is Labor's Non-Partisan League, headed by E. L. Oliver, formerly of Northern Minnesota...
...That is why Thueydides and Plutarch make such fascinating reading when studied in the light Of Mart and Engels...
...Trade unions as such didn't engage much in politics...
...Herr Jaksch is the leader in this new policy...
...It is still perhaps the most practical plan in many states for labor to select its candidates and let them run under the banner of one or the other of the old political parties...
...Through the years of poverty following the destruction of the slate system, Watson always had a nostalgic longing for the old regime of plairterocracy...
...In 1933 they polled about 60 per cent...
...So the employees are not rushing their sacrifices for the government while partners of the late Zah-aroff scoop up millions in profits on war machines...
...Townley was practically unknown in the state, and he had no money...
...Immediately after they left the police cars, Himmler's men started the roundup of all those whom they could locate...
...The appeal to get members was solely on a class basis...
...CONVENTION A T the first convention of the American Fed-eration of Labor, a remarkably progressive platform was adopted...
...We know that^it would be next to impossible to maintain an independent political workers' party in our state or in other states unless we can pretty soon develop a national movement with which these state movements may be affiliated...
...The Christian "trade unionists" are faring no better...
...It was Rome who had first to provide "bread and momes" for its unemployed...
...In 1936 we carried Minneapolis by a majority of 50,000 and St...
...ODAY in Minnesota and in Wisconsin, where * a party of the workers has been built, we feel very much encouraged when we see the workers in New York City organizing themselves into the American Labor Party...
...I was looking through a book the other day written by Robert Hunter, a noted Socialist of 25 years ago, entitled "Labor in Politics...
...Just tell him that the bankers and lawyers have been making his laws and say to him, 'It is about time that you made your own laws...
...I foresook teaching to become State Secretary of the Socialist Party out in North Dakota...
...But he said, "We won't teach them anything about the platform...
...They were in a pretty good mood to be educated politically...
...The Socialists feel that the only way to stall off a German invasion is to have the central government here immediately enact a series of basic reforms, which have not yet been revealed, but which will steal the thunder of the Nazis, the German Catholic Party and the German Agrarian Partjj...
...Work was begun two months ago when plans of a Nazi putsch in Vienna became almost a certainty...
...Reports here indicate that the important prisoners have been moved to Germany, The Vienna, jails arc full...
...Despite the gravity of the international situation, and the strong rightist opposition to the Blum "stop-gap" cabinet, the French Communists under Thorez are playing their old game, of attacking the Popular Front behind the scenes...
...Citing England, France, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden in labor relations, they sum up that "the conclusion seems inescapable that in the United States the general trend in the labor movement will continue unchanged, hence that workers will continue ti organise pti a large scale, and that business must adjust itself to this freM...
...Czech military authorities are now drawing up plans for similar additional defences on the Hungarian border, feeling that Hungary may be Hitler's ne*xt objective...
...And, despite attacks by certain groups of employers on the Wagner Act, the authors state that "experience with past legislation has demonstrated the prior necessity of bolstering labor and of dealing firmly with the class of employers who would deny the place of social justice In their labor relations...
...The Social Democrats under the leadership of Premier Stauiung have been in office since 1929...
...They knew that they were being plundered and robbed...
...Townley decided to organize first and then educate...
...Townley was the most remarkable organizer that I have ever known...
...WISCONSIN WAS EXAMPLE FOR OTHERS A FTER the Wisconsin movement had grown under the leadership of Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., a progressive wave spread to other states...
...But here again, this early platform was soon modified until instead of having a general social objective for the betterment of all the people, it became a fight to achieve for the individuals in a particular trade something th^t would be of benefit to them...
...The North Dakota movement, started in 1915—23 years ago—is still alive and dominates the politics of the Flickertail State...
...The old political bosses who operated from hotels in St...
...THE EYE ROUTE Local unions and workers' education groups who want "something different" for meeting and classes^will find concrete aas\ practical suggestions in this pamphlet...
...The founder of the organization was A. C. Townley, a remarkable organizer and a man who understood the farmers and workers...
...Capitalist...
...I am not challenging his honesty, but it was due to this that reforms were not achieved in this country for the working class as they were in many European nations...
...EASY TO TEACH WHEN THEY'RE TOGETHER *?*HE point I want to make is that after you ¦ get the workers to act together on the basis of class, you will have no trouble teaching them about the program...
...We recommend this combination to our readers...
...HOW TO DEAL WITH ORGANIZED LABOR, by Alexander Felle'- and Jacob E. Hurwitz (Alexander Publishing Co., $6.50...
...This considerably encourages those of us who have put in many years in this work...
...Incidentally, one of the editors of that paper—The Nonpartisan Leader— was The New Leader's columnist, Charles Edward Russell...
...Send farmers to the legislature, let's quit sending bankers and lawyers.' " Mr...
...He was a man who, no doubt, honestly thought that the working class only needed to be organized upon the economic field...
...And now . . . "for what we are about to receive...
...There were bitter agrarian revolutions in ancient Greece...
...It is not we who invented these problems...
...Nor do they offer any encouragement to those who-would modify the Wagner Act "out of existence by amendments," saying: "Nearly forty million workers have a vital stake in the enforcement of this Act, and it is but wishful thinking for an employer to expect these masses supinely to countenance a revocation or emasculation of this their first real Bill of Rights...
...one on the book devoted to an important chapter of the American agrarian , rebellioi...
...The League is using the right procedure as the workers are not yet imbued with enough confidence in their own strength to make them go along in a new party...
...Labor versus Employer WHAT better proof could there be of the growing importance of Organized Labor in the United States than the fact that even lawyers are beginning to sit up and take notice of it ? Until recent times, very few law schools offered a course in labor law...
...Among the things stated was that the workers were entitled to the full fruits of their industry...
...There are now between ten and twelve thousand Socialists in Jail or concentration camps...
...DISILLUSIONMENT CAME QUICKLY VLTELL, I was disillusioned...
...There was difficulty in making these leaders align themselves with the Non-partisan League, the farmers organization...
...The Socialist movement also had developed good organization in several Northwest states, but the first state to organize a movement based upon the working class itself was North Dakota...
...So we found that the very people who would profit most weren't just ready to accept our plan...
Vol. 21 • April 1938 • No. 15
