Pages from Labor's History
In the history of the American labor movement there is a moral and a lesson for the labor movement of today: the need for and the inevitability of independent working-class political action. In the past century the voice of independent labor politics has often 'been low, but seldom mute; and in innumerable instances it was loud, clear and full of promise. Even before the Civil War the organization of workingmen's parties often coincided with the limited successes of unions of skilled craftsmen. The first of these parties dates back to 1828—in New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere—when suffrage...