A year into the Great Depression and a new political leadership was desperately needed. A.J. Muste’s thoughts on what it should be.

‘Independent Political Action–Yes, But What Kind?’ by A.J. Muste from Labor Age. Vol. 19 No. 6. June, 1930.

WE WHO were to enjoy the blessings of prosperity showered upon us by the New Capitalism, world without end, find ourselves in the mire of depression. With industry slowed up and millions of workers walking the streets, it is not easy for the workers to get higher wages or even to oppose direct or indirect reductions; it is difficult to organize and strikes may play into the employers’ hands. usual under such conditions where action on the union front becomes difficult, the workers are turning to political action. Even in conservative union circles such as the Rhode Island State Federation and the Rochester Central Labor Union, for example, local unions are being questioned as to whether they believe the time is ripe for entering upon independent political action.

Hoover Betrayal of Labor

Seldom has there been an administration which has done less, and which promises to do less, for labor than our present administration. It did nothing to prevent the business calamity which has overcome the nation, and has confined itself largely to platitudes about everything being in fine shape in its attempt to deal with the situation. Last summer depression was already setting in in the building and automobile industries. Nobody knew better than Mr. Hoover that if measures to prevent a depression and to take up the slack in employment were to be introduced, quick action was necessary. Instead his administration continued chant the prosperity chorus making certain that the crash would be the greater and that serious distress would befall the workers before relief measures could be adopted.

When the crash came, the Hoover administration specialized in misleading statements about the extent of unemployment. Secretary Davis is hardly convinced even yet that the figures of his own department show that there are any large number out of work. Similarly misleading were the figures about all the building that was to be done in 1930 by public and private agencies. None of this could be gotten under way soon enough to prevent serious distress. No really knows to this day how much building will be done in excess of what would have taken place if the fast and furious conferences had not been held.

Mr. Hoover, when he was a mere Secretary of Commerce and there was no depression, was for a “prosperity reserve” for stimulating public works amounting to billions. As president he has not lifted a finger to support legislation to this end now that there is a depression.

Mr. Hoover called in the United States Chamber of Commerce and the big business heads to handle the situation, thus recognizing that body as virtually an agency of the government and forestalling the appointment of a commission similar to the Industrial Commission of 1912 which would have held hearings throughout the country, dramatized the situation and permitted various groups to present their solutions publicly.

The great Engineer called in labor leaders, told them that employers would not cut wages, and thus tricked them into agreeing to advise workers not to ask for wage increases. But he has not prevented numerous wage cuts, as he must have known he could not.

That is more than enough about the shabby treatment the Hoover administration has accorded the workers in connection with the economic depression. A more direct insult, though possibly not so widespread an injury, was offered to labor in the “Yellow-dog” Parker appointment. Mr. Hoover, hoping to strengthen the Republican hold on the hitherto solid South, nominated a man from the State of North Carolina which voted for him and against Al Smith in the 1928 election. It was a purely political appointment.

Parker had handed down a notorious anti-labor decision in connection with the yellow-dog contract. When Mr. Hoover’s attention was called to this fact, did he withdraw his nominee or resort to some political device to get this political appointee side-tracked? No! When it comes to a “yellow-dog” Judge for the Supreme Court of the land, already heavily weighted on the anti-labor and reactionary side, Mr. Hoover sticks to his friends. Indeed he went out of his way to defend Parker’s action in the Red Jacket case.

We might cite other instances such as the appointment and, up to the present, retention as chairman of the Republican national committee of a power trust lobbyist, Claudius Huston, but this will suffice. If ever the workers had cause to rise against an administration and a party, they have cause to revolt now against the G.O.P.

Whither shall labor turn? Of course there are labor politicians in a number of places who are Democratic office-holders and unblushingly offer that party as the Moses or Messiah of labor. There is also a queer assortment of liberals, intellectuals, polite and respectable trade-union ladies who are just too thrilled by visits to the suburban homes of rich and influential Democratic lady politicians. There are former “Socialist” trade unionists and such who agree with the Democratic labor politicians in looking upon that party with favor and hope.

Surely, sensible and honest workers will not be taken in by this stuff. Are they likely to get any more from the Tammany machine in New York than from the Republican machine in Chicago? Will the Democracy of the South where there is as yet only the merest beginning of social legislation organize permit the Democratic party or recognition of the right of labor to give labor its rights? Does not the Democratic party get its campaign funds from the rich just as the Republican? And is it any less likely to play the tune that its contributors call for in every important labor crisis? Have workers on the picket-lines ever found any important difference between Democratic and Republican night-sticks in the hands of the police?

The answer is clear. We must have in this country a party absolutely separate and distinct from the two old parties. We need a new and realistic political alignment.

We believe, however, that much effort will be wasted or worse than wasted, many false hopes will sap our energies, unless in building a new party, certain lines of action are closely adhered to. We state these lines here dogmatically though not in a dogmatic spirit.

1. The New Party Must Be A Labor Party. James Madison, sometimes described as the father of the Constitution, made it clear in a famous passage in Article 10 of the FEDERALIST that political parties serve economic interests and groups. If you want to know whether there is really a chance to build a new party, you have to ask whether there is an economic interest and group not served by the dominant political parties. In an industrial and capitalist world, that group consists of the wage-earners, the professional, clerical and especially, manual workers in our big industries. They get an inequitable share of the national income; their elementary rights to protest and organize are denied; their status is insecure and inferior; their opportunities are limited. On the other hand, these workers have the votes to build a new party and their pennies gathered together can match the million dollar campaign funds given to the old parties by big business and finance leaders.

Any new party which does not get its main strength from these industrial workers and does not seek primarily to serve their material and spiritual needs will be as unreal as are the present old parties, and will contribute not clarity but more confusion to the political scene.

The new party must have an intelligent agricultural policy in order to get as much farmer support as possible.

But in so far as farmers are also getting to a wage-earner status, they constitute an even smaller group in our population and their psychology is not such as you can build a stable party of revolt upon. Liberals and intellectuals, progressive spirits in all walks of life, will find a welcome, an intelligent program of social reconstruction and a chance to work in a labor party, but they too have neither the votes nor the psychology to provide the broad base for a realistic political alignment.

2. A Labor Party Must Develop Its Own Leadership and Candidates. When once a party is well established and strong, it can afford to welcome into its service men and women who have already made reputations in the old parties and are ready to repudiate those parties. Indeed, a labor party does not at any time absolutely debar celebrities. if it is certain that they are definitely cutting themselves off from their old political alignment. Politicians who are already established however, are apt to do so because they see some temporary political advantage for themselves. They want to get elected to an office, rather than build up a new party. In a critical moment they will desert the party as easily as they came into it. Besides, the whole notion that a party is built up by big men is a fallacy. A party is built on a mass need, an economic interest, a sound program and the labor of hundreds of obscure workers. Then the party as it grows makes its leaders great. It is not by picking out a few big men to lead that a party becomes great. Let labor slowly and patiently build up its own leadership. And this suggests the next basic point.

3. The Party Must Build Its Machinery From the Bottom. Orators and fine programs do not build a party. Idealism if it remains abstract or sentimental will not build a party. The strength of the old parties lies in the machinery they build up in precincts, wards, congressional districts. The patient organizers, not of the ballyhoo labor party needs a few skillful and type, and a lot of young men and women who will do Jimmy Higgins work in obscurity.

In America we tend to get excited about a new party just before a presidential election, make a big splurge, and then forget about it until the next presidential election–which suits the old parties exactly but does not develop a permanent political arm for labor. It is encouraging that people are now beginning to build labor and socialist parties in normal times and down on the ground in the cities and the congressional districts where alone the foundations can be laid.

4. The New Party Must Have A Radical Program of Social Ownership and Control of Basic Resources and Industries. In other words, it must stand openly for a socialist reconstruction of society. It must set out to do away with capitalism and to establish in its stead a cooperative order of industry and society.

Possibly some one thinks, with pleasure or dismay, “Now he is coming to the idealistic part of his essay.” The fact is I am arguing for a thorough going program of socialist reconstruction because I think that is the only realistic, practical, sensible thing to do. We have to meet the people where they live and not with abstraction. So far as possible we must put our program in terms of immediate aims which can be understood and which appear to be within reach. But we must not be a mere “good government” party. are not pursuing the will-o’-the-wisp of putting honest men in office. We must not deceive the people as to what can be done under the present economic system. If we place too much emphasis on these immediate aims we shall probably never get started because the old parties can beat us at that game. If we do get started on this line, we shall one day find ourselves in the sorry position in which the British Labor Party finds itself today, threatened with most serious internal dissension because the Labor Party is not doing one single distinctively labor thing about unemployment, and finds itself with increasing unemployment on its hands but unable honestly and with good grace to place the blame on capitalist economy where it belongs because by its election propaganda it raised false hopes as to what could be achieved immediately and without disturbing capitalist industry.

If we go out from the start with a radical and thorough program, our growth is likely to be slower, but it will be sound and sure. No other course is worth bothering about at this late date in the development of the new capitalism in this country. By the same token

5. The Labor Party Must Be Openly and Uncompromisingly Anti-Militarist and Anti-Imperialist. It must insist that our marines get out of other countries, oppose military training in the public schools, fight jingoism in school programs and text-books, stand for the independence of the Philippines, oppose any additions to our navy, insist on drastic cuts in our military expenditures, refuse to support any war now that the Kellogg Pact has been signed and make it known in advance that it will refuse to support any war, oppose any meddling on the part of the United States in the affairs of weaker nations, support anti-imperialist movements against the United States in other countries.

Once again, such a course will cost us votes in the beginning but at this day and age there is no use engaging in the baby-play of pretending to establish a labor party which undertakes to compromise with militarism and runs the risk of being jockeyed into the position in which the British Labor Party finds itself today in regard to India.

6. Within the New Party There Must Be A Militant Left Wing Group. In theory any one who has even the most elementary knowledge of the mechanism of any sort of group action will accept this point. The practical question is what group will fulfill this function in any labor party which may be built in the United States?

The logical thing would be for the Socialist Party to fulfill here the role which the Independent Labor Party has played in Great Britain. Before the War there would have been no doubt that the Socialist Party was slated for this role in America. In certain instances it is playing that part now. There are many ardent and active young spirits in the Socialist Party who are working to this end.

Certain grounds for doubt should, however, have the most earnest thought of all who are concerned about the building of a new social order, whether they be Socialist Party members or not. In the first place, the Socialist Party is not a new and young movement free from past ties and traditions, able to launch forth with the energy, the courage and, perhaps, the carelessness of a newcomer on the political scene. There is some question as to whether it can practically be “born again,” as it would have to be if it were to function as a left-wing labor group. In the second place, in spite of a considerable infusion of young blood even in official positions, the dominant personalities in certain sections of the party are middle-aged or old people who rendered magnificent service in an older day but for that very reason, perhaps, are not in a position to approach the problems of a new day in a sufficiently fresh spirit.

In the third place, in the absence of a Labor Party in the United States, the Socialist Party in centers where it has voting strength such as Milwaukee and Reading, has virtually been forced to function as a labor party rather than as a left-wing ginger group in a larger body. Whether it can now play a different role or may not simply be absorbed in such centers if a national labor party once gets under way, is a matter of doubt.

More serious still is the fact that certain sections of the Socialist Party have very close political ties with trade unions and trade union leaders which have pretty much lost all socialist idealism and are infected with such evils as autocracy and corruption which are, alas, too common in our Labor Movement. The Socialist Party is thus in the position of a party which was critical of the American Federation of Labor before the war when that organization was perhaps on the whole rendering pretty good service to the working-class and was certainly much more militant and aggressive than it is now, while it is inclined to “play” with A. F. of L. leaders and to be very cautious in criticism of their policies now when at many points they are demonstrably failing to meet the needs of the workers and work hand in glove with the most reactionary politicians of the old parties!

In connection with this, the whole organization of certain sections of the Socialist Party is toward the middle class and away from the unskilled workers and their actual struggles, though, obviously, building industrial unions in basic industries and building a labor or Socialist Party must go hand in hand. From all this there develops a fundamental problem which the Socialist Party must solve and on the solution of which any continued independent existence must depend.

Meanwhile progressives in or out of the Socialist Party must rally to the Conference for Progressive Labor Action which has set forth a clear cut program on all issues here cited. Without militants, as the history of labor in the United States and elsewhere abundantly demonstrates, no industrial unions and no labor party will be built. Without militants, no union or labor party will remain genuinely labor. Without a definite program, rallying centre, a means of intercommunication and the morale and discipline which constant consultation can generate, militants are scattered and helpless. For that reason the C.P.L.A. must enter on the second year of its history with a sobering sense of its responsibility and with redoubled energy, courage and fire.

Labor Age was a left-labor monthly magazine with origins in Socialist Review, journal of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Published by the Labor Publication Society from 1921-1933 aligned with the League for Industrial Democracy of left-wing trade unionists across industries. During 1929-33 the magazine was affiliated with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) led by A. J. Muste. James Maurer, Harry W. Laidler, and Louis Budenz were also writers. The orientation of the magazine was industrial unionism, planning, nationalization, and was illustrated with photos and cartoons. With its stress on worker education, social unionism and rank and file activism, it is one of the essential journals of the radical US labor socialist movement of its time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v19n06-Jun-1930-Labor-Age.pdf