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Looking backward it is not difficult to see what importance attaches to
this beginning of the political organization of the working class, as a
class, for the distinct purpose of conquering the public powers and
emancipating the toilers from the inhumanity of wage-slavery.
Discussing this period and the work covered by it, Morris Hillquit, in
his “History of Socialism in the United States,” says:
“The Socialist Labor Party was the dominant factor in the Socialist
movement of this country for more than twenty years, and its variegated
career forms the most intricate and interesting part of the history of
American Socialism.”
“At the first glance it appears a series of incoherent events,
ill-considered political experiments, sudden changes of policy,
incongruous alliances, internal and external strife, and a succession of
unaccountable ups and downs, with no perceptible progress or gain.”
“But the confusion is only apparent. On closer analysis we find a
logical thread running all through the seemingly devious course of the
party, and a good reason for every one of its seemingly planless moves.”
“The difficulties which beset the path of the Socialist Labor Party were
extraordinary. As one of the first Socialist parties organized in this
country on a national scale, it had to cope with the usual adversities
which attend every radical movement at the outset of its career—weakness
and diffidence in its own ranks, hostility and ridicule from the
outside.”
These were stirring times. The trade-union movement was entering upon a
period of unprecedented activity. The Knights of Labor were in the
ascendant and other labor unions were multiplying and rapidly increasing
their membership. Everywhere the voice of the agitator was heard. In
March, 1885, was inaugurated the strike of the Knights of Labor on the
Gould Southwest Railway system, to be followed by the greater strike on
the same system in 1886, which spread rapidly over the states of
Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas, and threatened to
involve the railway traffic of all the western and southwestern states.
It was one of the most notable labor strikes and brought the Knights of
Labor conspicuously before the whole country. The Knights were finally
beaten, although the fight was so stubbornly contested and the public
was so thoroughly aroused that Congress was prevailed upon to
investigate the trouble and the committee issued a detailed report in
two parts, containing about eleven hundred pages.
On May 1 of the same year the general strikes for the eight hour work
day broke out in various parts of the country, involving several hundred
thousand organized workers, most of whom met with disappointment and
failure.
The agitation carried on during this time for the shorter work day,
known as the eight hour movement, culminated on May 4, 1886, in the
Haymarket riots at Chicago, and the outrageous execution of the
anarchists on November 11 of the following year, a foul blot on our
capitalistic civilization that will remain to damn it forever.
The murderous assaults upon peaceable meetings and the brutal clubbing
of orderly workingmen by the police of Chicago at the behest of their
political superiors, the tools of the capitalist class, goaded the
leaders almost to desperation and led to the Haymarket massacre, a
fiendish plot to silence the agitation and crush the movement for an
eight hour work day which was spreading over the country; and, it must
be confessed, it served for a time at least the malign purpose of the
pretended supporters of “law and order.” But as certain as retributive
justice pursues her course, the dragon’s teeth sown by the capitalist
hand in the Haymarket tragedy, taking root in the blood of innocent
workingmen, will yet spring from the pregnant soil of freedom to avenge
the crimes of plutocratic tyranny and misrule.
In 1884 Laurence Gronlund published his “Co-Operative Commonwealth,” and
he was doubtless right when he claimed, six years later, that this work
had contributed its full share to the spread of Socialism. Gronlund said
that as late as 1880 he could count all the native American Socialists
on the fingers of one hand. When the patient labors, the bitter poverty
and shocking privations of this pioneer Socialist are taken into
account, his untimely and almost tragic death seems to have been, after
all, a blessed balm to his weary soul. He gave his life to civilize the
world and was rewarded with suffering and death.
Four years after Gronlund’s “Co-Operative Commonwealth” appeared, in
1888, Edward Bellamy published his “Looking Backward,” and it had a most
wonderful effect upon the people. He struck a responsive popular chord
and his name was upon every tongue. The editions ran into the hundreds
of thousands and the people were profoundly stirred by what was called
the vision of a poetic dreamer. Although not an exposition of scientific
socialism, Bellamy’s social romance, “Looking Backward,” with its
sequel, “Equality,” were valuable and timely contributions to the
literature of Socialism and not only aroused the people but started many
on the road to the revolutionary movement. The quick and wide response
to the author’s plea for a social readjustment evinced not only the
discontent of the people, but their eager readiness to grasp at anything
that might give promise of escape from the poverty, the insecurity, the
daily horrors of the existing order. Thousands were moved to study the
question by the books of Bellamy and thus became Socialists and found
their way into the Socialist movement.
In February, 1888, the strike occurred on the Burlington system,
involving all its engineers and firemen and some of its brakemen and
switchmen. P. M. Arthur, then grand chief of the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers, was threatened with federal court proceedings on
account of a boycott which had been placed upon the C., B. & Q. cars and
was so effective that it looked as if a complete tie-up of traffic would
result from it. The boycott was raised and the strike began to wane. But
the contest continued almost a year and it cost the brotherhoods fully
two million dollars. At last, however, the strikers were exhausted and
compelled to yield to total defeat.
Thus was it proved by the loss of another great railroad strike—not one
of which was ever won by the brotherhoods—that when the supreme test of
strength comes the railway unions are always crushed by the railway
corporations.
The defeat of this and other strikes, together with the fact that most
railway employes were ineligible to the then existing brotherhoods, led
to the organization of the American Railway Union in 1893, which
embraced all the employes in the railway service. The new union grew
rapidly. Soon after it was organized it engaged in and won several minor
strikes. In April, 1894, the strike on the Great Northern, involving all
the employes of the entire system, was fought, and resulted in a
complete victory for the union in less than three weeks. A short time
later another strike was threatened owing to disagreement growing out of
the construction of the agreement. For the second time the A. R. U. came
out victorious. At this time thousands were pouring into the union all
over the country. Then followed the Pullman strike, in the latter part
of June.
The Pullman company, backed by the combined railway corporations,
represented by the General Managers’ Association, resolved to crush the
union. They not only failed, but the union paralyzed their traffic and
defeated them all. Seeing that the union was triumphant they changed
their tactics. They had the United States marshal of Illinois swear in
an army of deputies, ostensibly to protect property, but in fact to
incite tumult. In his official report to the council of Chicago the
Chief of Police said that these “deputies” consisted of thieves, thugs
and ex-convicts, the worst element that had ever been turned loose on
any city. As soon as the deputies began to operate, as directed by their
leaders, and under cover of night, trouble began, and this is what the
corporations wanted. Peace and order were fatal to them as turbulence
and violence were fatal to the union. They understood this perfectly.
Hence the deputies and disorder. Immediately these thugs began to
perform, the capitalist papers and Associated Press flashed broadcast
the falsehood that the strikers were on the warpath and threatened
destruction to every living thing. The falsehood caught on like magic.
Far and wide the cry went up: “Down with the A. R. U.! Down with
anarchy!” The tide turned. The triumphant union and defeated
corporations changed places. With practically the whole population
aroused against the A. R. U. every outrage upon it was not only
possible, but perpetrated with mad zeal in the name of patriotism. The
A. R. U. had no press, no way of getting its side before the people, and
thousands of the very workers in whose behalf it was fighting and had
staked everything, turned upon it and joined in the flood of angry
denunciation that was launched upon it.
Injunctions by the hundred were issued and served by all the courts
between the Ohio and the Pacific. A half dozen burly ruffians, by order
of the federal authorities—precisely whom could never be learned—backed
up a cart at the union headquarters, forced their way into the offices,
sacked them, taking records, books, private papers and unopened letters,
without warrant of any description, nailing up the headquarters and
hauling the booty to the federal building.
How is this for a specimen of “law and order” the capitalist class and
their brood of hirelings so ceaselessly harp about?
In violation of law and precedent and in defiance of the protest of the
governor of Illinois, the mayor of Chicago and an overwhelming majority
of the people, Grover Cleveland, then President of the United States,
forced the federal troops into the state for the sole purpose of aiding
the corporations to crush the union and defeat the strike, and when
history shall be truthfully written, this crime will make the name of
Cleveland the synonym of infamy forever.
Thousands of falsehoods were coined and circulated by the capitalist
press, shifting the blame of lawlessness and crime from the instigators
to innocent men; the leaders were arrested without charges and jailed
without trial, headquarters were broken up, a special grand jury was
sworn in expressly to indict, a notorious capitalist union-hater being
made foreman, and a hundred other flagrant violations of the law and
outrages upon justice were committed in the name of law to defeat
justice and enthrone corporate rapacity.
The venality of capitalist government never made so bold an exhibition
of itself. It was scandalous beyond expression and shocking to the last
degree. Every department of the federal government was freely placed at
the service of the railroad corporations and Republican and Democratic
officials vied with each other in cheerful and servile obedience to
their masters.
When the government and its capitalist lackeys had completed their
service as corporation scavengers, General Miles, the military satrap,
like a vulture stuffed with carrion, pompously exclaimed at a
plutocratic banquet in honor of his gallant services:
“_I have broken the backbone of this strike._”
Such sublime heroism in such a holy cause, Grover Cleveland, Nelson
Miles, et al., will not be forgotten nor remain unrewarded.
The _Coming Nation_, started at Greensburg, Ind., by J. A. Wayland, in
1893, was the first popular propaganda paper to be published in the
interest of Socialism in this country. It reached a large circulation
and the proceeds were used in founding and developing the Ruskin
Co-operative colony in Tennessee. Later Mr. Wayland began the
publication of the _Appeal to Reason_, and now it numbers its
subscribers by the hundreds of thousands. It is not saying too much for
the _Appeal_ that it has been a great factor in preparing the American
soil for the seed of Socialism. Its enormous editions have been and are
being spread broadcast and copies may be found in the remotest recesses
and the most inaccessible regions. The propaganda thus organized by Mr.
Wayland, for which he has peculiar genius, and carried forward and
enlarged constantly with the aid of a corps of able comrades, has been
and is a source of incalculable strength in promoting education among
the workers and building up the general movement.
The periodical end weekly press, so necessary to any political movement,
is now developing rapidly and there is every reason to believe that
within the next few years there will be a formidable array of reviews,
magazines, illustrated journals and daily and weekly papers to represent
the movement and do battle for its supremacy.
The last convention of the American Railway Union was the first
convention of the Social Democracy of America, and this was held at
Chicago in June, 1897, the delegates voting to change the railway union
into a working class political party.
The _Railway Times_, the official paper of the union, became the _Social
Democrat_ and later the _Social Democratic Herald_, and is now published
at Milwaukee in the interest of the Socialist party.
The Social Democracy, the evolution of unionism crushed by the weight of
despotic power, was the logical extension and expansion of the American
Railway Union, and the direct outgrowth of the great industrial uprising
known as the Pullman strike and the brutal tyranny and relentless
persecution that followed it.
The General Managers’ Association pursued the American Railway Union
with fiendish ferocity, determined to stamp out the last spark of its
life, and as a result, when the few surviving delegates met in national
convention in the year named, the last they ever held as a railway labor
union, the American Railway Union, loved and respected by labor, and
feared and hated by capital, was metamorphosed into the Social
Democracy.
At the national convention which followed a year later, in June, 1898, a
split occurred, one wing adhering to the colonization scheme, making
that the chief end of their movement, while the latter abandoned the
colonization feature and struck out for political action as a working
class party. The latter was known as the Social Democratic Party and
progressed rapidly from the start, while the former soon exhausted its
resources and passed out of existence.
The Socialist Labor Party, in which internal dissension had been brewing
for some time, divided into separate factions in July, 1899, the
anti-administration faction uniting with the Social Democratic Party in
the following year, giving the united party the name of the Socialist
Party, the name it bears today.
In the brief summary of the development of the American movement much
has had to be omitted for the want of space. To sketch in outline
merely, with the hope of stimulating to further reading and study of the
history and literature of the Socialist movement has been the purpose of
this brief treatise.
Scarcely, however, can reference be omitted to the helpful influence of
the popular pen of Robert Blatchford, the author of “Merrie England” and
other works, and one of the most simple, attractive and convincing
writers on Socialism in all the world. Hundreds of thousands of copies
of “Merrie England” have been sold and given away and the demand still
continues. The work of Mr. Blatchford is specially adapted to beginners.
He has the rare faculty of making himself interesting to the workingman
and working woman, addressing himself to them in their own simple
language and illustrating his argument in the same simple and convincing
fashion. Robert Blatchford and his writings have contributed materially
to the spread of Socialism in this country and are justly entitled to
the grateful acknowledgment of the American movement.
Reference to Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Frederick Engels, William
Liebknecht and August Bebel, the titans of revolutionary socialism, and
their contemporaries and successors, need not be made in these brief
pages, nor to the Socialist classics which are so well known and may be
read in all languages.
The immortal shibboleth of Marx: “Workingmen of all countries, unite!
You have nothing to lose but your chains—you have a world to gain,” is
the rallying cry of the class struggle, the inspiration of the working
class, and is heard echoing and re-echoing around the world.
The Socialist vote in the United States shows a steady and, all things
considered, satisfactory progress of the movement.
In the national election of 1892 the Socialist vote was 21,164.
In 1896 the vote was 36,274.
In 1900 the Socialist Party cast 87,814 votes and the Socialist Labor
Party 39,739 votes, a total of 127,553 votes.
Since the election of 1900 there has been greater activity in organizing
and a more widespread propaganda than ever before. In the elections of
the past it can scarcely be claimed that the Socialist movement was
represented by a national party. It entered these contests with but few
states organized and with no resources worth mentioning to sustain it
during the campaign.
It is far different today.
The Socialist party is organized in almost every state and territory in
the American Union. Its members are filled with enthusiasm and working
with an energy born of the throb and thrill of revolution. The party has
a press supporting it that extends from sea to sea, and is as vigilant
and tireless in its labors as it is steadfast and true to the party
principles.
The Socialist party stands upon a sound platform, embodying the
principles of International Socialism, clearly and eloquently expressed,
and proclaims its mission of conquest on the basis of the class
struggle. Its tactics are in harmony with its principles, and both are
absolutely uncompromising.
Viewed today from any intelligent standpoint the outlook of the
Socialist movement is full of promise to the workers of coming freedom.
It is the break of dawn upon the horizon of human destiny and it has no
limitations but the walls of the universe.
What party strife or factional turmoil may yet ensue we neither know nor
care. We only know that the principles of Socialism are necessary to the
emancipation of the working class and to the true happiness of all
classes and that its historic mission is that of a conquering movement.
We know that day by day, nourished by the misery and vitalized by the
aspirations of the working class, the area of its activity widens, it
grows in strength and increases its mental and moral grasp, and when the
final hour of capitalism and wage slavery strikes, the Socialist
movement, the greatest in all history—great enough to embrace the human
race—will crown the class struggles of the centuries with victory and
proclaim FREEDOM TO ALL MANKIND.