A third type condemned by revolutionary unionists was the so-called "labor lieutenant." This latter "mis-leader" of labor was the symbol of another objectionable feature of the A. F. of L., viz., the identity of interests assumption. Naturally the idea that the interests of employer and employee are identical, is the only consistent one for an organization based on the craft idea. It is said that Mark Hanna once referred to the organizers and officials of the trade unions as the "labor lieutenants of the captains of industry."
The revolutionary (industrial) unionists believed that collusion existed between the tool-owners and the labor leaders of the country. It was declared on the floor of the convention that "the trade-union movement has become an auxiliary to the capitalist class in order to hold down the toilers of the land."[129] The delegates from the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (members of the Socialist Labor party, though not formally present as such) were especially uncompromising on this point. At the 1900 convention of the Socialist Labor party the following amendment to its constitution was adopted:
If any member of the Socialist Labor party accepts office in a pure and simple trade or labor organization, he shall be considered antagonistically inclined towards the Socialist Labor party and shall be expelled. If any officer of a pure and simple trade or labor organization applies for membership in the Socialist Labor party, he shall be rejected.[130]
Daniel DeLeon and the other Socialist Labor party men at the convention had absolutely no hope for the "pure and simple" union. DeLeon believed "that the pure and simple leaders give jobs to Socialists for the purpose of corrupting them, on the principle that the capitalist politicians give jobs to workingmen for the purpose of corrupting the working class...." "The labor movement," he said "has been prostituted in this country by the jobs ... that the capitalist politicians give to some individual workingmen...."[131]
The DeLeon faction was by no means alone in this attitude. The majority felt that the American Federation of Labor was hopelessly entangled in capitalist politics and irrevocably tied up to the captains of industry through its labor lieutenants. On the whole, the industrialists had no hope that the American Federation of Labor could ever become an industrial organization. Some of them, like A. M. Simons, believed it possible to further their industrial aim by "boring from within" certain of the constituent unions in the American Federation of Labor. Others differed—notably the DeLeonites. Their leader said that the theory of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was,
That boring from within, with the labor fakir in possession, is a waste of time, and that the only way to do is to stand by the workingmen always; to organize them, to enlighten them, and whenever a conflict breaks out in which their brothers are being fooled and used as food for cannon, to have the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance throw itself in the midst of the fray, and sound the note of sense.[132]
"We call upon the socialists of the United States," said another member of the S. T. & L. A., "to get out of the pure and simple organizations and smash them to pieces."[133]
Eugene Debs, too, was convinced of the futility of boring from within. "There is but one way," he said, "to effect this great change, and that is for the workingman to sever his relations with the American Federation and join the union that proposes on the economic field to represent his class."[134]
The industrialists were most at variance on the question of the proper political attitude of labor organizations; consequently, they were not unanimous in their condemnation of the Federation's political polity—or want of it. Moreover, as became evident during the hot debate over the political clause, even those who condemned the Federation's attitude on politics were quite at outs about the political position which should be taken on behalf of the new organization.[135]