TUE "LABOUR PARTY" IN AMERICA.
THE organisation of a Working-Men's Party in the United States has caused wide-spread alarm among the capitalist classes, and. has thrown the political managers, both Repub- liean and Democratic, into a state of almost amusing perplex- ity. Yet it is, on the whole, a hopeful sign, though it is not without its omens of danger. If the working-men of the United States, or any considerable proportion of them, have for a long time been smarting under a vague sense of wrong, and have found no hope ofredress, except in conspiracies against "order," identified with the interests of a capitalist "society," and in reckless appeals to force, it is a clear gain that they should be induced to put their demands into a political form, and to seek for the attainment of their ends by political methods. If they make mistakes in the selec- tion of their objects, and of the means to be employed in reaching them, there is no cure so certain and so safe as that of experience. The fundamental errors of the "Know-Nothing" movement would for a long time have been an element of insecurity in the politics of the United States, if they had not been tried by political tests, and finally exploded. The "rights of labour" movement is more formidable, but the best chance of grappling with it lies in the public statement and discussion of its pretensions. The ordeal through which an organised political party has to pass is severe upon fallacies and illusions ; it brings forward with crushing weight the vast store of common-sense which is the possession of the middle- class majority, the freeholders of the States, whose will is ultimately the determining force in every controversy, and who have no liking for schemes which unsettle property and weaken individual effort. This force will now be brought to bear upon the claims of the working-men, and the result can hardly be doubtful. For the representatives of the artisans and the wage-receiving class at large, ceasing to brood over their wrongs, have put the remedies they demand into a formal shape, upon which a judgment must speedily be pronounced in party convention, at State elections, and finally in the national Legislature. No American who has an intelligent and honest faith in the stability of his country's institutions need fear the issue of this struggle.
At the same time, there are good reasons for insisting that the steady majority of the American people shall pronounce its opinion without delay upon the claims of the workmen. The latter class are ignorant and excitable, easily moved by misrepresentation, inflamed with irrational hopes, and im- patient of the restraints which any organised government, however Democratic may be its constitution, is bound to impose. The United States would not be, as they are, a Con- servative country, in the best sense of the word, if the work- men, most of them foreigners by birth, and undisciplined in American ideas of political and social rights, ruled as the majority. Of late years the terrible wrench given to business relations by the collapse of 1873 has agitated this class with dangerous passions, and interested demagogues have been found in abundance to play upon their anger and their hatred, their fears and their hopes. The consequences have been wit- nessed in the recent strikes, which, though they amazed every one, were the natural result of the political and social struggles of the country since the close of the Civil War. The majority had been content to hear capital abused, and to listen to the promulgation of quack schemes for the relief of "the debtor class" with half-credulous attention. They had real grievances against the great Railway corporations, for whose corrupt pro- fusion they were forced indirectly to pay, and by whose ille- gitimate influences their wishes were often defeated in the State Legislatures and in Congress. They were not displeased to see the great monopolies smarting under the Granger legislation and trembling before the menace of a general strike. Even the startling events of the struggle in July failed to convince many Americans that the demands of the workmen involved any changes dangerous in them- selves or subversive of the established order of American society. But now that the Working-Men's party has un- furled its flag and formulated its claims in States so important as Ohio and Pennsylvania, there is no excuse for evading their consideration. The working-men, it is true, have fallen at the outset into the hands of interested politicians, who have failed to procure the gratification of their ambitions in either of the regular party organisations. Able and unscrupulous dema- gogues like General Butler know well how to exploiter the inar- ticulate and unreasoning cravings of discontented masses. But though the platforms adopted at the Labour Conventions in Pennsylvania and Ohio may owe their logical completeness to the practised hands of trained journalists and experienced agitators, we cannot doubt that they represent what the working- men themselves believe to be the means to their chosen ends. Among the demands put forward in the platform adopted at the Cincinnati Convention of the new party are the following, —the compulsory restriction of the working-day to• eight hours ; "the repeal of the patent laws, and all other laws or charters giving special privileges to individuals or companies, to the detriment of labour ;" the total abolition of indirect taxation, and the substitution for it of a graduated income-tax ; the assumption by the Government of a controlling power over railways, telegraphs, and all means of transportation ; and lastly, the abolition of the wages system, by vesting in the Government, "as fast as practicable," the management of all • industrial enterprises, to be (whatever this may mean) "operated by free co-operating unions for the good of the whole people." These are not aims in which the majority of the American Electorate, the freehold farmers and the small traders of the towns, will be prepared to acquiesce, and the organisation of the working-men's party will afford an opportunity for passing a decisive judgment upon them. In the new number of the North-American Review there are two interesting contributions upon the questions raised by the Railway Strike. The capitalists' case is stated with point and energy by Colonel Scott—universally known through the States as "Tom Scott"—the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and one of the four autocrats who, as Secretary Sherman said the other day, control the traffic of the groat trunk linos, and by their individual wills can change the rate of wages and the price of produce, and thus affect both the cost of living and the means of living. Colonel Scott's argument, however, pre- sents few novel points. We know all that can be said in favour of protecting the capitalist, securing freedom of con- tract, and sternly repressing disorder. But the case on the other side embraces more original views. It is stated by "A Striker," who professes to be an American working- man, and is probably what he represents himself ; his father, be says, was a Swede, who emigrated from Europe because he had heard "that North America was peopled and governed by working-men, and the care of the States was mainly engaged in the welfare and prosperity of labour." But these expectations in which "A Striker" was bred up, have been disappointed. The States are breaking faith with the workmen. Capital is monopolising political power, and "hiring a mercenary Press" to guard its acquisitions. "It seems to me," says the writer, "the power has got fixed so long in one set of hands, that things are settling down into a condition like what my father left behind him in Europe forty years ago, and what stands there still." The political power promised by universal suffrage is an illusion, because capital "can buy idlers and vagabonds enough to swell the ranks of wealth, and run up a majority whenever a show of hands is required." Hence the despair with which the working-men plunged into the strike, and the conviction they entertain that radical changes in the social system must be introduced. "Our claim is simple. We demand fair wages. We say that the man able and willing to work, and for whom there is work to do, is entitled to wages sufficient to provide him with enough food, shelter, and clothing to sustain and preserve his health and strength. We contend that the employer has no right to speculate on starva- tion when he reduces wages below a living figure, saying, if we refuse that remuneration, there are plenty of starving men out of work that will gladly accept half a loaf instead of no bread." In this passage we have the genuine ring of Continental social- ism, which insists that Government shall settle what "fair wages" are to mean from time to time. If the Railways are the only proprietary interests now threatened, they will not long remain so ; and this the majority of the American people must clearly see. Unless they have altogether changed their character, they will promptly and emphatically declare that such ideas can find no place in the social order of a practical and individualist Republic like the United States. The workmen, by their complaint that capital conquers them at the polls, acknowledge that they are in a minority,—and unless they can verify their allegation that the majority is corrupt, and set it free from the corrupting influences, they must, as a minority, submit.
Previous page
