It is not necessary to assume, as some observers have done, that these petty political excursions wrecked the labor movement of that day.It was perfectly natural that the laborer, when he awoke to the possibilities of organization and found himself possessed of unlimited political rights, should seek a speedy salvation in the ballot box.He took, by impulse, the partisan shortcut and soon found himself lost in the slough of party intrigue.On the other hand, it should not be concluded that these intermittent attempts to form labor parties were without political significance.The politician is usually blind to every need except the need of his party; and the one permanent need of his party is votes.A demand backed by reason will usually find him inert; a demand backed by votes galvanizes him into nervous attention.When, therefore, it was apparent that there was a labor vote, even though a small one, the demands of this vote were not to be ignored, especially in States where the parties were well balanced and the scale was tipped by a few hundred votes.Within a few decades after the political movement began, many States had passed lien laws, had taken active measures to establish efficient free schools, had abolished imprisonment for debt, had legislative inquiry into factory conditions, and had recognized the ten-hour day.These had been the leading demands of organized labor, and they had been brought home to the public conscience, in part at least, by the influence of the workingmen's votes.
It was not until after the Civil War that labor achieved sufficient national homogeneity to attempt seriously the formation of a national party.In the light of later events it is interesting to sketch briefly the development of the political power of the workingman.The National Labor Union at its congress of 1866 resolved "that, so far as political action is concerned, each locality should be governed by its own policy, whether to run an independent ticket of workingmen, or to use political parties already existing, but at all events to cast no vote except for men pledged to the interests of labor." The issue then seemed clear enough.But six years later the Labor Reform party struck out on an independent course and held its first and only national convention.Seventeen States were represented.* The Labor party, however, had yet to learn how hardly won are independence and unity in any political organization.Rumors of pernicious intermeddling by the Democratic and Republican politicians were afloat, and it was charged that the Pennsylvania delegates had come on passes issued by the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.Judge David Davis of Illinois, then a member of the United States Supreme Court, was nominated for President and Governor Joel Parker of New Jersey for Vice-President.Both declined, however, and Charles O'Conor of New York, the candidate of "the Straight-Out Democrats," was named for President, but no nomination was made for Vice-President.Considering the subsequent phenomenal growth of the labor vote, it is worth noting in passing that O'Conor received only 29,489 votes and that these embraced both the labor and the so-called "straight" Democratic strength.
It is interesting to note that in this first National Labor Party Convention a motion favoring government ownership and the referendum was voted down.
For some years the political labor movement lost its independent character and was absorbed by the Greenback party which offered a meeting-ground for discontented farmers and restless workingmen.In 1876 the party nominated for President the venerable Peter Cooper, who received about eighty thousand votes--most of them probably cast by farmers.During this time the leaders of the labor movement were serving a political apprenticeship and were learning the value of cooperation.On February 22, 1878, a conference held at Toledo, Ohio, including eight hundred delegates from twenty-eight States, perfected an alliance between the Labor Reform and Greenback parties and invited all "patriotic citizens to unite in an effort to secure financial reform and industrial emancipation." Financial reform meant the adoption of the well-known greenback free silver policy.Industrial emancipation involved the enactment of an eight-hour law; the inspection of workshops, factories, and mines; the regulation of interstate commerce; a graduated federal income tax; the prohibition of the importation of alien contract labor; the forfeiture of the unused portion of the princely land grants to railroads; and the direct participation of the people in government.These fundamental issues were included in the demands of subsequent labor and populist parties, and some of them were bequeathed to the Progressive party of a later date.The convention was thus a forerunner of genuine reform, for its demands were based upon industrial needs.
For the moment it made a wide popular appeal.In the state elections of 1878 about a million votes were polled by the party candidates.The bulk of these were farmers' votes cast in the Middle and Far West, though in the East, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, and New Jersey cast a considerable vote for the party.
