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The American Labor Party (ALP) was a social democrats of the SDF with trade unionists who would otherwise support candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties.
In 1934, the factional war which had dominated the life of the Socialist Party of America had reached a turning point. After beating back a challenge to their position and authority in 1932, the New York-based "Declaration of Principles, which the Old Guard regarded as a direct call to insurrection. Further galling from the perspective of the Old Guard, was the eagerness of Thomas and the Militants to build what they called an "all-inclusive party," bringing radical intellectuals into party ranks from various oppositional communist orbits and working with the Communist Party USA in united front actions.
A year and a half of bitter factional warfare ensued. Finally, in January 1936, the governing National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party revoked the charter of its dissident New York state organization. The New York Old Guard and their cothinkers exited the Socialist Party and reorganized as the Social Democratic Federation of America (SDF).
The SDF sought to build close relations with the existing trade union movement and disliked, distrusted, and disavowed many of their former Socialist Party comrades and their pretensions to electoral office. In the New York municipal elections of 1935, the Socialists had polled nearly 200,000 votes, a showing which threatened to be a "spoiler" for the chances of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the forthcoming 1936 presidential elections. This view was shared with the Social Democrats by many in the New York trade union movement, who sought to bolster Roosevelt's chances in some way.
On April 1, 1936, [2]
During the summer of 1936, the New York state organization of LNPL was transformed into an independent political party in an effort to bolster Roosevelt's electoral chances in the state by gaining him a place on a second candidate ballot line. The opportunity to pull the lever for the new American Labor Party, it was hoped, would siphon away a good percentage of the nearly 200,000 votes cast in 1932 for Norman Thomas and the Socialists.[3]
Progressive Era
Repression and persecution
Civil Rights / Anti-imperialism
The ALP's most common strategy was to co-endorse the candidate of one or the other of the two major parties, based upon the perceived favorability of each to the cause of labor. It also nominated its own candidates for some positions, offering competition when neither of the two old party candidates passed muster. Although the organization was founded primarily as a vehicle to help assure Roosevelt's victory in New York in the 1936 campaign, in [4]
The organization was largely funded by the rather conservative needle trades unions of the state. The ALP found itself $50,000 in debt at the end of the 1936 campaign, but substantial contributions from labor groups erased the red ink. The ILGWU itself contributed nearly $142,000 to the 1936 campaign,[4] a relatively huge sum for a third party campaign, given that only $26,000 from all sources had been raised and spent by Norman Thomas' Socialist campaign in the previous presidential election.[5] Party decision-making in the first year was handled by ILGWU executive secretary Fred Umhey, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union's Jacob Potofsky, and Alex Rose of the Milliners'.[4]
The success of the ALP in its initial campaign was a beacon for other radical organizations. Although its constitution specifically barred Communists from the organization, there was no enforcement for this provision and large numbers flocked to registration as ALP members from the Communist-led United Electrical Workers, Transport Workers, and State, County, and Municipal Workers.[4]
The chief race in 1937 was that for [6] This would come to be a common theme in the political discourse about the new party. Also in the 1937 election the ALP tapped Republican special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey as its nominee for New York District Attorney. Dewey anticipated a probable loss in his race, owing to a wide advantage for the Democratic Party in voter registrations, a number approaching a ratio of 5-to-1. However, on election day, LaGuardia, Dewey, and the ALP emerged victorious. Of LaGuardia's nearly 1.35 million votes, some 483,000 were registered on the ALP line, while Dewey was elected with nearly 60 percent of the vote.[7]
In 1936, 1940, and 1944, the ALP endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt for President of the United States. In 1941, American Laborite Joseph V. O'Leary was appointed New York State Comptroller by Governor Herbert H. Lehman both to recognize the ALP's previous and to maintain the party's future support. In 1948, rather than support Harry Truman, it backed Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace.
Former Republican Vito Marcantonio won election to the United States House of Representatives, representing East Harlem for the ALP in 1938, 1940, 1942, 1944, 1946, and 1948, but lost in 1950. He had been the target of the New York Wilson Pakula Act in 1947 aimed at restricting candidates from one party running in another party's primary election electoral fusion. Leo Isacson was elected in early 1948 to fill a vacancy in a Bronx district.
By the 1950s, the ALP had lost much of its support to the rival Liberal Party of New York, in part because of accusations of communist influence in the ALP. In 1952, the party endorsed Progressive Party candidate Vincent Hallinan for President, but he attracted little support. Corliss Lamont made an unsuccessful run under the party's banner for the U.S. Senate, also in 1952. In the 1954 election, the ALP failed to garner 50,000 votes for any of its candidates and it lost its place on the New York ballot. In 1956 the party was terminated by its New York state committee.[8]
"Back from Detroit, I was immediately confronted with a problem which involved millions of dollars of property controlled by subsidiaries of the Socialist Party. In New York alone there were such institutions as the Jewish Daily Forward, the leading Jewish newspaper in the world with a circulation running into hundreds of thousands and with reserve funds amounting to millions. There was The New Leader, a weekly newspaper published in English; there was the Rand School of Social Science which, together with Camp Tamiment, had enormous property value, not to speak of their importance as propaganda and educational instruments. Control of the Forward alone also meant probable control of fraternal and labor organizations such as the Workmen's Circle, with its millions of dollars in property and tens of thousands of members throughout the United States....
"After Detroit it was obvious that the militant Socialists controlled the Socialist Party. I saw that all they had to do in order to gain control of the valuable property in New York was to revoke the New York State charter and expel all state organizations controlled by the Social Democrats or the Old Guard. Since there was always a minority of militant Socialists in each of these corporate institutions, these properties involving millions of dollars in property value and cash reserves would quickly fall into the hands of the militants....
"All during 1935 and the early part of 1936 my office was converted into a meeting place for the various committees and members of the organizations threatened by the militants. Constitutions and bylaws were modified in such a way as to prevent control falling into the hands of Norman Thomas' super-revolutionists." Louis Waldman, Labor Lawyer. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1944; pp. 272-273.
Anarchism, Social democracy, Means of production, Libertarian socialism, Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Harry S. Truman, Four Freedoms, United States presidential election, 1936, United States presidential election, 1940, United States presidential election, 1944
New York City, Long Island, Albany, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania
William Z. Foster, Communism, Gus Hall, Barack Obama, Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Staten Island
New York City, Liberal Party of New York, Socialist Party of America, New York City mayoral elections, Conservative Party of New York
New York City, World War II, United States Army, New Jersey, World Series
New York, United States House of Representatives, New York University, New York State Assembly, New York City
Populist Party (United States), Politics, Progressive Party (United States, 1912), United States Greenback Party, Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party
William Z. Foster, Communist Party USA, First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Soviet Union, Cold War