The American unions also are beginning to take a more radical and Socialistic attitude. At its Convention at Columbus, Ohio (January, 1911), the United Mine Workers, after prolonged discussion, passed by a large majority an amendment to their constitution, forbidding their officers from acting as members of the Civic Federation. This resolution was confessedly aimed at Mr. John Mitchell, as Vice President of the Civic Federation, and resulted in his resignation from that body. It marks a crisis in the American Labor movement. The Miners' Union had already indorsed Socialism, its Vice President is a party Socialist, and its present as well as its former President vote the Socialist ticket. Having forced the Federation of Labor to admit the revolutionary Western Federation of Miners into the Federation of Labor Congresses, the element opposed to Mr. Gompers and Mr. Mitchell's conservative tactics has, for the first time, become formidable, embracing one third of the delegates, and is likely to bring about great changes within a few years, both as to the Federation's political and as to its labor-union policy.
This action of the Miners was followed a few months later by the election to office of several of Mr. Gompers's Socialist opponents in his own union (the Cigarmakers). Then another of Mr. Gompers's most valued lieutenants (after Mr. Mitchell), Mr. James O'Connell, for many years President of the very important Machinists' Union, was defeated by a Socialist, Mr. W. H. Johnston,—after a very lively contest in which Socialism and the Civic Federation, and their contrasting the labor policies, played a leading part. The old conservative trade unionism is not only going, but it is going so fast that one or two more years like the last would overwhelm it in the national convention of the Federation of Labor and revolutionize the policy of the whole movement.
The change in the political attitude of the American unions has been equally rapid. Until a few years ago the majority of them were opposed to coöperation with any political party. Then they decided almost unanimously to act nationally, and for the time being with the Democrats, and this decision still holds. More recently several local labor parties have been formed, and the Socialist Party has occasionally been supported. The only question that interests us, however, is the purpose behind these changing political tactics.
It is natural that unionists on entering into the Socialist Party should seek to control it. Socialists make no objection at this point. The only question relates to their purpose in seeking control. A prominent Socialist miner, John Walker, has frankly advocated a Labor Party of the British type, while others wish to turn the Socialist Party into that sort of an organization; while the Secretary of the Oklahoma Federation of Labor, on joining the Party said: "Let us get into the Socialist Party—on the inside—and help run it as we think it should be run," and then gave an idea of how he proposed to run it by accusing the Party of containing too many people "who are Socialists before anything else." This is a common feeling among new labor-union recruits in the Party. It is difficult to see the difference between those who share Walker's view and want to carry out the present non-Socialist political program of the unions through a non-Socialist Labor Party and those who, like this other union official, expect to use the Socialist Party for the same purpose. Let us notice the similarity of certain arguments used in favor of each method.
"The Socialist Party," says the organ of the Garment Workers' Union, "does not command the confidence of American labor to the extent of becoming a national power in our day and generation, and it is, therefore, necessary that the working class should turn its attention to the formation of a party that will be productive of practical results in sweeping away the legislative and the legal obstacles that now stand in the way of our rights and progress."[251]
"Much is being written and said nowadays as to the danger of Socialism and in favor of trades unionism," writes the Mine Workers' Journal, "To us the condemnation of the Socialists, coming as it does from the capitalistic press, is a reminder that of the two evils to their selfish class interest, they prefer the least.... It is useless to attempt to divide trades unionism from Socialism. It cannot be done. They have all learned that their interests are common; they know that labor divided will continue to suffer, and will hang together before they will allow capital to hang them separately.
"Indeed, looking at trades unionism in all its phases and from every angle, we fail to see why Socialism and it should be separated. The man or men in the movement to-day who are not more or less Socialistic in their belief are few and far between and do not know what the principles of unionism are, or what it stands for. We are all more or less Socialistic in our belief."[252]
A perusal of the labor papers in general shows that while a number agree with the Garment Workers a still larger number share the opinion of the Mine Workers' Journal. Yet what is the essential difference?
The Garment Workers' organ claims that the European Socialists and trade unionists support one another's candidates and unite their power without the Socialists demanding the indorsement of their program, and argues for that policy in this country. This statement is not accurate. Only in England, where there has hitherto been no independent Socialist action of any consequence, has there been any such compromise. On the Continent of Europe the Socialists usually agree to leave the unions perfect freedom in their business, and not to interfere in the slightest with their action on the economic field, but there is no important instance in recent years where they have compromised with them at the ballot box. And this error is shared by the Mine Workers' Journal, which, as I have just shown, is friendly rather than hostile to Socialism. In another editorial in this organ we find it said that "whenever Socialism in America adopts the methods of the British, and other European toilers and pulls in harness with trade unionism, it is bound to make headway faster than at present, because there is scarcely a man in the labor movement that is not more or less of a Socialist." Here again the British (Labor Party) and the Continental (Socialist) methods are confused. It is true that the Socialist parties and the labor unionists everywhere act together. But there are two fundamental differences between the situation in Great Britain and that on the Continent. A large part of the unions on the Continent are extremely radical if not revolutionary in their labor-union tactics, and secondly, the overwhelming majority of their members are Socialists in politics. Surely there could be no greater contrast than that between the swallowing up of the budding Socialist movement by non-Socialist labor unions in Great Britain and the support of the Socialist Party by the revolutionary unionist on the Continent.
In America only a minority of the unions are definitely and clearly Socialist. The local federations of the unions in many of our leading cities have declared for the Party. Among the national organizations, however, only the Western Federation of Miners, the Brewers, the Hat and Cap Makers, the Bakers, and a few others, numbering together no more than a quarter of a million members, have definitely indorsed Socialism. The Coal Miners, numbering nearly 300,000, have indorsed collective ownership of industry, but without saying anything about the Socialist Party. Besides these, the Socialist Party, of course, has numerous individual adherents in every union. On the whole the Socialists are very much outnumbered in the unions, and as long as this condition remains, the majority of Socialists do not desire anything approaching fusion between the two movements.
Half a century ago, it is true, Marx himself favored the Socialists entering into a labor union party in England. He assumed that English unions would soon go into politics, whereas they took half a century to do it; he assumed, also, that when they entered politics they would be more or less militant and independent, and he never imagined that during fifteen years of "independent action" they would oppose revolutionary and militant ideas more than ever, and would even go so far in support of the Liberal Party as almost to bring about a split within their own anti-revolutionary ranks. Certainly Marx expected that they would accept his leading principles, whereas only the smallest minority of the present Labor Party has done so, while the majority has not yet consented to make Socialism an element of the Party's constitution, confining themselves to a broad general declaration in favor of "State Socialism"—and even this not to be binding on its members.