"the Union Labor and United Labor parties have gathered into one common camp.'

48

The municipal elections of the spring of 1887, however, did not mark any falling off in the interest taken by organised labour in independent politics. Union Labor party, Knights of Labor, or labour tickets were in the field in at least fiftynine localities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, East St. Louis, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Dubuque, Kansas City (Missouri), Denver, and San Diego (California). Probably the most important contest of the independent labour forces in the spring of 1887, was the general municipal election in Chicago. Such was the fear of a Union Labor party triumph that the old parties combined upon a fusion ticket. The labour candidates were most violently denounced as anarchists and cutthroats. The expectation that the labour party would carry the city did not come true; the labour ticket polled 25,000 votes as against 52,000 for the fusion forces. In Milwaukee, also, the labour forces were opposed by a fusion ticket. Against the combined old parties the Union Labor judicial candidates swept the city of Milwaukee, though the country vote of the county defeated them. Nine of the alder men elected were labour candidates. In Cincinnati the Union Labor candidate for mayor came within 600 votes of being elected, leading the Democratic candidates by above 5,000 votes. The labour ticket won out in at least nineteen more localities, mostly in the Middle West. In Paterson, New Jersey, the labour ticket lost by only 300 votes. Philadelphia, Kansas City, St. Louis and Denver were the places where the showing of labour was most disappointing.

By the autumn of 1887 the independent labour party movement was clearly losing strength. One of the chief factors in its decline was the bitter dissension which almost everywhere broke out in the independent labour party forces. In Chicago the Union Labor party was split in two in the autumn election of 1887. The one faction bargained with the Democrats, while the other openly advocated socialism. In Cincinnati, also, there was a split in the labour party as early as May, 1887. Buchanan's comment upon the situation as it presented itself

48 Ibid., July 17, 1887.

:

in the autumn of the year is significant. In giving his analysis of what the difficulty with the independent labour party movement had been, he stated: "Men representing a dozen different shades of opinion have come together ostensibly to pool their issues and amalgamate the elements variedly represented. When they have come to write the 'union' platform each one claimed that he had the cure-all. . . . Well, the upshot of the business has been a few truces, and the stronger faction has written the platform, while the rest have gone home sore-headed.” 49

Out of the autumn elections of 1887 organised labour could, indeed, get little comfort. The Union Labor party ran state tickets in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Iowa. In Ohio the party made its best showing, polling 25,000 votes. The "labor" candidate for governor received but 600 votes in Massachusetts. In Pennsylvania the party could muster less than 9,000 votes. In New York the Union Labor party barely commanded 1,000 votes. The United Labor party, with Henry George as candidate for secretary of state, also made a disappointing showing. In the prairie States the Union Labor party fared much better than in the industrial centres. The elections of autumn made it clear that the wave of independent political activity by the wage-earners had about spent its force. The Union Labor party had dismally failed to secure the votes of the workingmen of the cities.

The spring elections of 1888 were almost as disappointing to labour as those of the preceding autumn. In Chicago there was again the old split between the socialists and the conservatives. The socialists ran their own Radical Labor party ticket, but secured only 3,600 votes. The United Labor party made combinations with the Democrats in all wards where this could be arranged. Where it ran its own candidates it made no better showing than did the socialists. In Kansas City, also, the socialist and "labor" forces opposed each other. The "labor" ticket polled 900 votes as against 2,000 in 1887. Dubuque, carried by the "labor" forces in 1887, now turned them out of office. In Milwaukee the Union Labor party

49 Chicago Labor Enquirer, Nov. 26, 1887.

made a determined effort to elect its city ticket. Against it was arrayed an old party fusion ticket, as well as independent socialist candidates. The socialist ticket was responsible for the defeat of the Union Labor party. The "Citizen's" ticket secured a plurality of but 900 votes, while the socialist vote was almost 1,000. In Galesburg, Illinois, organised labour scored its only victory in independent politics during the spring of 1888. At that place two striking engineers on the Burlington railway were elected as aldermen.

The spring elections of 1888 show that the socialists had withdrawn their support from the independent labour party forces. In Denver and Philadelphia the socialists seem to have captured the labour party organisation, but they could not get any very considerable support from the wage-earners. Personal animosities were another element of disruption within the labour forces almost everywhere. The Chicago labour party seems to have been the worst sufferer in this respect.

In the presidential election of the autumn of 1888 organised labour split its forces. In May the United and the Union Labor parties held their conventions simultaneously in Cincinnati. The efforts made to unite them, however, proved unavailing, because the United Labor party would not recede from its advocacy of the single tax. It named Robert H. Cowdrey for president, while the Union Labor party candidate was A. J. Streeter, the president of the northern Farmers' Alliance. Late in the campaign the United Labor party withdrew from the struggle, except in New York. The Union Labor party of the campaign of 1888 was distinctly a farmers' party, although its platform contained most of the planks of the preamble of the Knights of Labor. In Kansas, where the Union Labor party got its largest vote, not a single mechanic was upon its ticket. Nor did organised labour give its support to this party. Many of the most prominent leaders of organised labour served as old-party campaigners in this elec tion. Charles Litchman, secretary of the Knights of Labor, John Jarrett, ex-president of the iron and steel workers, and John Campbell, of the glass-workers, were stump speakers for Harrison. The window-glass workers' union, Local Assembly 300, Knights of Labor, made a considerable contribution to

the Republican campaign fund. Henry George, on the other hand, worked for the election of Cleveland.. The independent labour party organisations in most cities, also, were mere annexes of one or the other of the old parties. During the campaign, Powderly said: "There is no Knights of Labor ticket in the field, and the ticket through which the most practical results can be secured is the ticket which the Knights of Labor should support." 50

The activity of labour leaders on behalf of old-party candidates in the campaign of 1888 was a source of much trouble within the unions. A later secret circular of the General Executive Board of the Knights of Labor made the claim that the partisan political activity of several of its officers in the presidential campaign of 1888 cost the Order no less than 100,000 members. In Cleveland the trades assembly had be come so much of a "Democratic side-show," that a rival central labour union was organised. As early as February, 1888, a determined effort was made in the Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly to bar all unions whose main activity lay in the political field. The independent political movement of organised labour had by this time reached the stage of utter collapse.

Streeter, the Union Labor party nominee, received almost no votes in industrial centres in the election of 1888. Milwaukee with several thousand votes for Streeter was the one large city in which the Union Labor party showed any strength. The 38,000 votes cast for Streeter in Kansas, 29,000 in Texas, 19,000 in Missouri, and 11,000 in Arkansas, must be contrasted with the few votes he polled in the industrial States.

While the Union Labor party gained no support from the workingmen of the cities on the strength of its name and platform, these proved a decided handicap with the farmer voters. Its candidates were denounced as being anarchists. Less than three weeks before the election an exposé of the Order of the Videttes made the rounds of the Kansas press. The Order of the Videttes was represented as the controlling inner ring of the Union Labor party. The overthrow of all law and order was claimed to be the aim of this Order, though its pretended

50 Pittsburgh Trades Journal, Sept. 15, 1888. The account of the political movement outside of New York was compiled

from a large number of local labour and of farmers' papers, including John Swinton's Paper.

ritual read like that of any other secret fraternal organisation. In fact, it is doubtful whether such an organisation as the Order of Videttes ever existed. About a week after the exposé of the ritual, a story was circulated that an express package, marked "glass, handle with care," consigned to Winfield, Kansas, exploded while being handled by the agent at Coffeyville. As the state headquarters of the Union Labor party were at Winfield, the claim was made that the Coffeyville express package contained dynamite intended for the Order of the Videttes. In Arkansas similar charges seem to have been made in this campaign against the Union Labor party.