James S. Allen uses the opportunity of the Daily Worker’s ten years of publishing to look back at the origins of the labor and Marxist press in the United States.

‘Forerunners of the U.S.A. Working Class Press’ by James S. Allen from the Daily Worker. Vol. 11 No. 6. January 6, 1934.

In the history of the labor press it is rare to find a daily paper which has been able to continue publication for a ten-year period, let alone retain a true working class policy throughout. The Daily Worker is one of the few English working class dallies in the whole history of American labor journalism which can claim such an honor. And it is not surprising that this honor should fall to the organ of the Communist Party, for the Communists better than anyone else realize the need of a paper that is distinctly working class, which is a weapon in the struggle against capitalism.

This, however, must not be taken to mean that the American working class did not make heroic efforts to launch and maintain its own press. The rise and fall in the labor press reflects the fortunes of the labor movement itself, and particularly of the most class-conscious section of it. To this section, particularly, a labor press always meant a press which was anti-capitalist, which maintained a staunch working class policy and which gave battle on all the major issues facing the workers. The Daily Worker, therefore, has a long and rich tradition of labor journalism to draw upon, just as the workers who support it have a rich history of struggle.

BORN IN CIVIL WAR PERIOD

The modern labor movement dates from the Civil War decade and it was during that period that modern labor journalism was born. It did not start from scratch, of course, for during the thirties and forties there had been a sizeable local labor movement with a press of its own. The first labor paper in this country flourished in the 1830’s –the Working Man’s Advocate, published by the Evans brothers. But with the recession in the labor movement these early labor papers disappeared only to be replaced by many more during the tremendous upsurge of the workers in 1863- 1877. These papers grew in effectiveness and influence with the rise of the National Labor Union, formed in 1868, the first notable nation-wide organization of labor. These papers arose in the course of the class struggle. The Fincher’s Trades Weekly, issued in Philadelphia from 1883 to 1866, was among the most influential labor papers of the period. Its publisher was the secretary of the Machinists’ and Blacksmiths Union, the most important national trade union of the time and one of the first to achieve national organization on a more or less lasting basis. The paper depended directly on subscriptions and donations from labor unions, ignoring advertising completely. It started as a four page paper with a circulation of less than 5,000 copies.

At the end of two and one-half gears it had doubled its size, and Its circulation reached 11,000, a substantial number for the time. It was circulated in 31 of the 36 states, the District of Columbia, three provinces of Canada, and cities in England a really national and even, international paper. As between the advocates of independent political action and those of “pure trade unionism”–a controversy which continued to rage in the working class movement here eve to the present day–Fincher’s took the side of the latter, a factor which doubtless contributed heavily to its death for the trend in the labor movement of the time was decidedly in the opposite direction.

The Daily Evening Voice of Boston (December, 1864, to October, 1867) was launched as a cooperative venture by the locked-out printers of Boston. It achieved a large circulation in the New England States, as the official organ of the Workingmen’s Assembly of Boston and Vicinity and was especially active in the struggle for the 8-hour day. This movement, whose outstanding leader was Ira Stewart, had grown rapidly in the period immediately following the Civil War and was able to force the passage of 8-hour bills for government employees in a number of states and municipalities as well as the national 8-hour bill which was passed by Congress in 1867. This is among the first of the daily labor papers in the country. In St. Louis, the Daily Press had even a shorter life, 1864-1866.

The Workingman’s Advocate of Chicago is perhaps the most interesting of the labor papers of the time. Like most of the labor journals, it was started by striking printers in 1864, and became the official organ of the Chicago Trades’ Assembly and later of the National Labor Union. It existed 13 years as a weekly and was edited during its entire existence by Andrew C. Cameron, who was the delegate of the National Labor Union to the Congress of the International Workingmen’s Association (First International) at Basle in 1869. The paper agitated effectively for the principles of the National Labor Union. Although it partook to its own detriment, and that of the labor movement as a whole, of harmful money reform illusions (Greenbackism), it fought against the “money oligarchy,” for the 8-hour day, supported and led the workers in struggle, and agitated for independent political action. It was a political working class newspaper although its politics proved to be confused and misleading.

Yet the paper effectively pointed out to the workers that both the Democratic and Republican Parties were the tools of the capitalists and that it was necessary for the working class to organize its own political party. The Advocate was very friendly to the First International, printing reports of its activities and the proceedings of its gatherings. Perhaps one of the greatest measures of its relatively high development was its support, soon after the overthrow of chattel slavery, of the struggle of the Negro people for their rights. At this early period it called for solidarity between white and Negro workers, fought against white chauvinism, and helped in the organization of the Negroes.

GERMAN WORKERS ACTIVE

Precisely now when the German workers in their native country as well as in the United States are called upon to take up the brunt of the struggle against fascism, it is important to recall the tremendous service rendered the American working class by the German immigrant workers in the middle of the last century. Many German workers came to the United States as refugees after the Revolution of 1848 in Germany. These ’48-ers as well as those who came in large numbers later played an extremely important role in the American labor movement. They organized the first socialist groups in this country, introduced the American working class to the principles of scientific socialism as taught by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and gave to the labor movement here its really first modern orientation. Out of the Communist Club and the General German Labor Alliance in New York there arose Section One of the International Workingmen’s Association, the leading and most active Section of the International on American soil, which came to play an important role in the labor movement as a whole.

This forerunner of the Communist Party of the U.S.A. published a large number of papers in many cities, most of them in German. Among the most important of these were the Arbeiter-Union, which was published in New York as the organ of the German Labor Alliance in 1869-1870 and the Arbeiter-Zeitung, New York, founded in 1873 as the organ of the I.W.A., and later reorganized as the New Yorker Volkszeitung. Arising directly out of the I.W.A. Marxist groups in Chicago was the Verbote, which was able to continue as a daily until 1914. Among the editors of these early Marxist papers were people who then and later played an important role in the labor movement, such as F. A. Sorge, the “father” of American Socialism, and who during slavery had published an anti-slavery paper in Texas and who edited a large number of socialist papers in the North.

A labor paper of special interest was The Socialist, founded in New York on April 15, 1876, as the organ of the Social Democratic Labor Party, one of the founding organizations together with the I.W.A. of the Workingmen’s Party of the United States, which in 1877 changed its name to the Socialist Labor Party. This paper was perhaps the first English language paper having definite Marxist views. The paper changed its name to the Labor Standard when it became the organ of the new party. Due to its tendency of “pure trade-unionism,” it was disowned as the official organ of the S.L.P. and the short-lived National Socialist of Cincinnati took its place as the English organ of the Party. Nevertheless, the Labor Standard played a positive role in bringing to the attention of the American workers the teachings of Karl Marx. Besides running a number of articles explaining these teachings, it published a series of articles by Engels on the labor movement in Europe. It has the honor of being, to the best of our knowledge, the first paper to print English translations of parts of the first volume of Capital. It ran these extracts serially in 1877, nine years before the first volume appeared in translation in England and 29 years before the American edition of Capital appeared.

INFLUENCED BY FIRST INTERNATIONAL

We have mentioned only a few of the most important labor papers of the sixties and seventies. Many of the papers appearing during that period had only a short existence, but practically all of them arose from the struggle of the workers during the era when large-scale modern industry was being created.

They all reflected to a surprising degree the influence of Marx and Engels and of the First International. They flourished in the period when the overthrow of chattel slavery had cleared the path for the development of the national labor movement. They reflected the upsurge and radical mood of the workers as the big capitalists were coming into power. From them there branched, in various political directions, the later working class press.

COMPARISONS WITH “DAILY”

In the best qualities of the papers of those stormy years, the Daily Worker has its early precedents. Like them, it must depend directly upon the workers for its support. The Daily, however, has all the advantages of years of experience, of international association, of Marxism-Leninism. It must also learn to find the most direct, living contact with the masses of workers, avoiding the cheap trappings of bourgeois journalism, regain for the working clan press that fresh simple appeal which was one of the greatest qualities of the early papers

The great improvement of the last few months in our “Dally” and the growing support given it by the workers are guarantees that it will become continually more effective as a powerful revolutionary arm of the working class.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n006b-10th-anniv-eastern-edition-jan-05-1934-DW-LOC.pdf