The industrial upheaval in the middle of the eighties had, like the great strike of 1877, a political reverberation. Although the latter was heard throughout the entire country, it centered in the city of New York, where the situation was complicated by court interference in the labor struggle.
A local assembly of the Knights of Labor had declared a boycott against one George Theiss, a proprietor of a music and beer garden. The latter at first submitted and paid a fine of $1000 to the labor organization, but later brought action in court against the officers charging them with intimidation and extortion.
The judge, George C. Barrett, in his charge to the jury, conceded that striking, picketing, and boycotting as such were not prohibited by law, if not accompanied by force, threats, or intimidation. But in the case under consideration the action of the pickets in advising passers-by not to patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circulars constituted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained by fear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theiss inflicted by the "boycott," the case was one of extortion covered by the penal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated by the defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to their organization. The jury, which reflected the current public opinion against boycotts, found all of the five defendants guilty of extortion, and Judge Barrett sentenced them to prison for terms ranging from one year and six months to three years and eight months.
The Theiss case, coming as it did at a time of general restlessness of labor and closely after the defeat of the eight-hour movement, greatly hastened the growth of the sentiment for an independent labor party. The New York Central Labor Union, the most famous and most influential organization of its kind in the country at the time, with a membership estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000, placed itself at the head of the movement in which both socialists and non-socialists joined. Henry George, the originator of the single tax movement, was nominated by the labor party for Mayor of New York and was allowed to draw up his own platform, which he made of course a simon-pure single tax platform. The labor demands were compressed into one plank. They were as follows: The reform of court procedure so that "the practice of drawing grand jurors from one class should cease, and the requirements of a property qualification for trial jurors should be abolished"; the stopping of the "officious intermeddling of the police with peaceful assemblages"; the enforcement of the laws for safety and the sanitary inspection of buildings; the abolition of contract labor on public work; and equal pay for equal work without distinction of sex on such work.
The George campaign was more in the nature of a religious revival than of a political election campaign. It was also a culminating point in the great labor upheaval. The enthusiasm of the laboring people reached its highest pitch. They felt that, baffled and defeated as they were in their economic struggle, they were now nearing victory in the struggle for the control of government. Mass meetings were numerous and large. Most of them were held in the open air, usually on the street corners. From the system by which one speaker followed another, speaking at several meeting places in a night, the labor campaign got its nickname of the "tailboard campaign." The common people, women and men, gathered in hundreds and often thousands around trucks from which the shifting speakers addressed the crowd. The speakers were volunteers, including representatives of the liberal professions, lawyers, physicians, teachers, ministers, and labor leaders. At such mass meetings George did most of his campaigning, making several speeches a night, once as many as eleven. The single tax and the prevailing political corruption were favorite topics. Against George and his adherents were pitted the powerful press of the city of New York, all the political power of the old parties, and all the influence of the business class. George's opponents were Abram S. Hewitt, an anti-Tammany Democrat whom Tammany had picked for its candidate in this emergency, and Theodore Roosevelt, then as yet known only as a courageous young politician.
The vote cast was 90,000 for Hewitt, 68,000 for George, and 60,000 for Roosevelt. There is possible ground for the belief that George was counted out of thousands of votes. The nature of the George vote can be sufficiently gathered from an analysis of the pledges to vote for him. An apparently trustworthy investigation was made by a representative of the New York Sun. He drew the conclusion that the vast majority were not simply wage earners, but also naturalized immigrants, mainly Irish, Germans, and Bohemians, the native element being in the minority. While the Irish were divided between George and Hewitt, the majority of the German element had gone over to Henry George. The outcome was hailed as a victory by George and his supporters and this view was also taken by the general press.
In spite of this propitious beginning the political labor movement soon suffered the fate of all reform political movements. The strength of the new party was frittered away in doctrinaire factional strife between the single taxers and the socialists. The trade union element became discouraged and lost interest. So that at the next State election, in which George ran for Secretary of State, presumably because that office came nearest to meeting the requirement for a single taxer seeking a practical scope of action, the vote in the city fell to 37,000 and in the whole State amounted only to 72,000. This ended the political labor movement in New York.
Outside of New York the political labor movement was not associated either with the single tax or any other "ism." As in New York it was a spontaneous expression of dissatisfaction brought on by failure in strikes. The movement scored a victory in Milwaukee, where it elected a mayor, and in Chicago where it polled 25,000 out of a total of 92,000. But, as in New York, it fell to pieces without leaving a permanent trace.
[18] See the next chapter for the scheme of organization followed by the Order.