The Socialists have repeatedly attempted to make official inroads
upon organized labor. They have the sympathy of the I.W.W., the
remnant of the Knights of Labor, and the more radical trades
unions, but from the American Federation of Labor-they have met
only rebuff. A number of state federations, especially in the
Middle West, not a few city centrals, and some sixteen national
unions, have officially approved of the Socialist programme, but
the Federation has consistently refused such an endorsement.
The political tactics assumed by the Federation discountenance a
distinct labor party movement, as long as the old parties are
willing to subserve the ends of the unions. This self-restraint
does not mean that the Federation is not "in politics." On the
contrary, it is constantly vigilant and aggressive and it engages
every year in political maneuvers without, however, having a
partisan organization of its own. At its annual conventions it
has time and again urged local and state branches to scrutinize
the records of legislative candidates and to see that only
friends of union labor receive the union laborer's ballot. In
1897 it "firmly and unequivocally" favored "the independent use
of the ballot by trade unionists and workmen united regardless of
party, that we may elect men from our own ranks to write new laws
and administer them along lines laid down in the legislative
demands of the American Federation of Labor and at the same time
secure an impartial judiciary that will not govern us by
arbitrary injunctions of the courts, nor act as the pliant tool
of corporate wealth.
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