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Labor Party of the United States | |
|---|---|
| Chairman | Max S. Hayes |
| Secretary | Frank J. Esper |
| Editor | Robert M. Buck |
| Founded | August 18, 1919 (1919-08-18) |
| Dissolved | July 13, 1920 (1920-07-13) |
| Succeeded by | Farmer-Labor Party of the United States |
| Headquarters | Chicago |
| Newspaper | The New Majority |
| Youth wing | Young People's Labor Club |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| International affiliation | Berne International |
TheLabor Party of the United States was a short-lived political party formed by several state-level labor parties upon the encouragement ofChicago Federation of Labor leaderJohn Fitzpatrick.[1] It was formed in the immediate aftermath ofWorld War I, due in large part to deterioration in the condition of the country's workers due to the imbalance between static workers' wages and rapidly escalating prices for necessities and consumer goods.[2]
The party quickly sought to unify the forces of the country's industrial workers with thefarmers' movement andcooperative movement, as the nation's farmers had also been hit hard by declining agricultural prices during the war years and the economic interests of urban workers and rural farmers fell into alignment. On July 13, 1920, the Labor Party merged with theCommittee of 48 to form theFarmer-Labor Party.
The aftermath of theFirst World War had the effect of producing, throughout the world, thegreatest revolutionary wave seen since theRevolutions of 1848. Regimes which had defined their time before the war were abruptly overthrown inRussia,Germany,Austria,Hungary andTurkey. Revolutionary nationalism spread throughout nations, such as thePoles,Finns andIrish, which had been subject to centuries of domination by the great powers. Even the greatest empire on the face of the planet was unable to escape the socioeconomic effects of the War and its aftermath, as theUnited Kingdom's entire political system was turned on its head whenLabour superseded theLiberals as the official opposition toConservative government in 1922, and ascended to form a government themselves by 1924.
TheUnited States was not immune to the effects of the War or its aftermath. Upon entering the War, the prices of nearly every industrial product produced in the United States began to rapidly escalate, while workers' wages were kept static and the prices for agricultural goods paid to farmers went into decline due tooverproduction.[2] TheWilson Administration, primarily interested in waging the War, began to favor management in the event of any strikes which occurred and propaganda was disseminated labeling all who did not selflessly contribute to the war effort to be disloyal and un-American.[3] Even worse, as the War ended, theeconomic bubble which it had produced burst and the United States was thrust first into thePost–World War I recession, and then into theDepression of 1920–21.
Against this backdrop, the farmers and industrial workers of America were beginning to respond to the pressures which they had been forced to shoulder. Beginning as early as 1915, theNon-Partisan League began to develop inNorth Dakota[4] and by 1917 the Union Labor Party was formed inDuluth, Minnesota.[5] In 1918, the Minnesota arm of the Farmer's Non-Partisan League merged with the Union Labor Party and the Worker's Non-Partisan League to form theFarmer-Labor Party of Minnesota. At the same time, a strike by theInternational Association of Machinists inConnecticut was evolving to create theAmerican Labor Party and theChicago Federation of Labor was leading the charge to organize the Labor Party of Cook County inIllinois.[2]
Over the course of the next year, the Labor Party of Cook County and theIllinois Federation of Labor joined forces to help form theLabor Party of Illinois, while workers inNew York City established the American Labor Party of Greater New York, which quickly evolved into theAmerican Labor Party of New York State. By August 1919, labor parties had been established in seven states, including Minnesota, Connecticut, Illinois, New York,Kansas,Ohio, andSouth Dakota. By November, labor parties would exist in all 48 states.[2]
On August 18, 1919, representatives of the seven labor parties convened theNational Conference of Representatives of Labor Party Groups, where the parties agreed that they would establish a national organization of the Labor Party of the United States. They determined to issue a call to the first convention of the new party, which would be held on November 22 inChicago. The call specified that the central bodies of the labor federations in each state would each be entitled to one delegate, the labor parties and individual labor unions would be entitled to one delegate for every five-hundred members, and theNon-Partisan League,Committee of 48,Social Democratic League andBritish Labour Party, among others, would each be entitled to send one fraternal delegate. The Conference elected a temporary Executive Committee with formerAFL presidential contenderMax S. Hayes as its chair, and adoptedRobert M. Buck'sThe New Majority as the party's official newspaper.
The convention met, as planned, on November 22, 1919. Around one thousand delegates attended, representing the original seven labor parties, as well as labor unions and new labor parties from throughout the country.[6] The convention quickly elected Hayes as permanent chair of the party,John H. Walker as vice-chair andFrank J. Esper as national secretary-treasurer. The keynote address was given byChicago Federation of Labor leaderJohn Fitzpatrick, who had been absolutely instrumental in the development of the party. The convention also adopted a declaration of principles (which was patterned heavily on the Labor Party of Cook County's earlier14 Points of Labor) and a party constitution, both of which ultimately ended up surviving the Labor Party itself.
Among the things demanded in the declaration of principles were the complete repeal of theEspionage Act of 1917, complete equality for all sexes and races, an end to labor injunctions, cost of living reductions, thenationalization ofpublic utilities andnatural resources, the enactment of thePlumb Plan to nationalize the railroads, freepublic education "from kindergarten to university" anddemocratic education, the introduction of the powers of popularinitiative,referendum andrecall at the federal level, the abolition of theUnited States Senate, a maximum term of four years for federal judges, the introduction of a nationwideage of consent of 18 years, theabolition of the employment of all minors under the age of 16 years, the institution ofminimum wages and minimum prices for agricultural goods, an end to the use ofconvict labor and foreign labor to undercut American workers' wages, a maximum work day of 8 hour and a maximum work week of 44 hours, andfull employment.[7]
It was, however, clear from the beginning that, at least at this particular time, the interests of urban workers and rural farmers were so intertwined that they had really become one and the same. Moreover, the Labor Party, which was formed from the labor movement (and thus had significant overlap with theindustrial democratic tendencies of theSocialist Party of America), had a particular affinity for the idea of acooperative commonwealth. All of these concerns fed into the establishment, on February 12, 1920, of the Cooperative Congress.[2]
Composed of members representing the Labor Party, theCommittee of 48, theNon-Partisan League, and other groups of thefarmers' andcooperative movements, the Cooperative Congress was the first step toward the unification of the forces of labor, agriculture and cooperation. It elected, from among its quorum, a twelve-member All-American Farmer-Labor Cooperative Commission, which would concern itself with the task of paving the way for such a unification.
In July, both the Labor Party and the Committee of 48 assembled their respective conventions inChicago. On July 13, the Committee of 48 convention joined the Labor Party convention to spectacular fanfare, and it was determined that the two would merge, retaining the Labor Party's constitution and principles, but adopting the new name of theFarmer-Labor Party of the United States. As a symbol of ultimate unity, the convention nominated a presidential ticket comprisingParley P. Christensen, the chair of the Committee of 48 convention, as the nominee for President andMax S. Hayes as the nominee for Vice President.[8]
| Convention | Location | Date | Notes and references |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st National Convention | Chicago | November 22–25, 1919 | |
| 2nd National Convention Also 1st National Convention of the FLPUS | Chicago | July 11–14, 1920 | Merged withCommittee of 48 to formFLPUS. |
