The American Labor Party (ALP) was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

established in 1936 that was active almost exclusively in the state of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...

who had established themselves as the

Social Democratic Federation The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury, James C ...

(SDF). The party was intended to parallel the role of the

British Labour Party The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all ...

, serving as an umbrella organization to unite New York social democrats of the SDF with trade unionists who would otherwise support candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties.

History

Establishing the ALP

Women voter outreach 1935 English Yiddish

In 1934, the factional war that 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 " Old Guard" of the party had been resoundingly defeated at the 1934 National Convention of the Socialist Party. A coalition of

radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics * Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe an ...

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campai ...

s surrounding the charismatic former preacher Norman Thomas and a growing body of young

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

s, known as the

Militant faction The Militant faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America (SPA) who sought to steer that organization from its orientation towards electoral politics and towards direct action and revolutionary socialism. The fa ...

, had won control of the organization's governing National Executive Committee. They passed a provocative 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 The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Rev ...

united front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political ...

actions. The New York Old Guard returned home to organize the

Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party The Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party was a short-lived organized factional grouping in the Socialist Party of America established in 1934 by its New York-based "Old Guard" faction. The Committee was initially organized to fight ...

, raising funds, selecting a "Provisional Executive Committee," building a mailing list, and maintaining an office in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Headed by former

New York State Assembly The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Ass ...

man Louis Waldman, the Old Guard also took steps to lock up the ownership and funds of various party-affiliated institutions, including '' The Jewish Daily Forward,'' the English weekly '' The New Leader,'' and the Rand School of Social Science. In 1944,

August Claessens August "Gus" Claessens (June 17, 1885 – December 9, 1954) was a Swiss-born American socialist politician, best known as one of the five New York Assemblymen expelled from that body during the First Red Scare for their membership in the Social ...

joined with Socialist Party leaders Harry Laidler and Paul Blanshard in attempting to defeat the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

-dominated faction that had gained control of the ALP. Failing to win control of that organization, Claessens and his associates withdrew that same year and established the

Liberal Party of New York The Liberal Party of New York is a political party in New York. Its platform supports a standard set of socially liberal policies, including abortion rights, increased spending on education, and universal health care. History The Liberal Part ...

as a rival organization. Claessens would be a Liberal Party candidate for the State Assembly several times, failing to win election. In his 1944 memoir, Waldman wrote:

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 Tamiment, first known as Camp Tamiment, was an American resort located in the Pocono Mountains of Pike County, Pennsylvania, which existed from 1921 through 2005. Originally established by the Rand School of Social Science in New York City as ...
, 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.

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 A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

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 that 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, Sidney Hillman, John L. Lewis, and other officials of the unions of the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutua ...

and the

Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...

established Labor's Non-Partisan League (LNPL), an organization akin to the modern political action committee, designed to channel money and manpower to the campaigns of Roosevelt and others standing strongly for the declared interests of organized labor. 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.

The ALP in the elections from 1936 to 1948

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 that election the victorious Democratic gubernatorial candidate,

Herbert H. Lehman Herbert Henry Lehman (March 28, 1878 – December 5, 1963) was an American Democratic Party politician from New York. He served from 1933 until 1942 as the 45th governor of New York and represented New York State in the U.S. Senate from 1949 ...

, had polled over 250,000 votes on the ALP line. Under New York state law, this meant that the ALP was henceforth qualified to register voters and conduct primary elections, thus insuring the organization's continued existence as a political party in the state.Parmet, ''The Master of Seventh Avenue,'' pg. 156. The organization was largely funded by the 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 The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female memb ...

itself contributed nearly $142,000 to the 1936 campaign, 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. Party decision-making in the first year was handled by ILGWU executive secretary Fred Umhey, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union's

Jacob Potofsky Jacob Samuel Potofsky (November 26, 1894 – August 5, 1979) was a Russian Empire-born American trade unionist, best known as second president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, succeeding founder Sidney Hillman. Background Jacob S ...

, and Alex Rose of the Milliners'. 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 The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States. UE was one of the first unions to be ...

, Transport Workers, and State, County, and Municipal Workers. The chief race in 1937 was that for Mayor of New York, pitting pro-Roosevelt progressive Republican Fiorello LaGuardia against a Democratic state supreme court justice,

Jeremiah T. Mahoney Jeremiah T. Mahoney (June 23, 1878 – June 15, 1970) was an American lawyer and jurist. He served on the New York Supreme Court and as president Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). As president of the AAU, he advocated for the United States to boycot ...

. As LaGuardia was on excellent terms with the New York needle trades unions and was a leading spirit in the formation of the ALP, he was a natural choice for the organization's nomination. Democrat Mahoney countered by red-baiting LaGuardia for his ALP connections, calling the new political organization an "active adjunct of the Communist Party." 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 Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was an American lawyer, prosecutor, and politician who served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican candidate for president in 1944 and 1948: although ...

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. On election day, however, 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. In 1936, 1940, and 1944, the ALP endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt for

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

. In 1941, American Laborite

Joseph V. O'Leary Joseph Vincent O'Leary (December 13, 1890 – December 29, 1964) was an American politician who served as New York State Comptroller. Life He was born on December 13, 1890, in New York City. In 1938, he ran on the American Labor ticket f ...

was appointed

New York State Comptroller The New York State Comptroller is an elected constitutional officer of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and head of the government of New York (state), New York state government's Department of Audit and Control. The New York State C ...

by Governor

both to recognize the ALP's previous and to maintain the party's future support. In 1944 the Congress of Industrial Organization's Greater New York Industrial Union Council, a federation of unions in New York City, formally linked itself to the ALP. The GNYIUC Executive Board "adopted a resolution directing GNYIUC Community Councils, which had been organizing around community issues in neighborhoods throughout the city, to merge into the local ALP clubs," and the "GNYIUC diverted some of its PAC monies directly to the ALP." With this move, the CIO's largest labor federation, consisting of approximately 200 locals and 600,000 members, was formally connected to the ALP. Over the ensuing years, the council would call for local unions to ‘‘Build the American Labor Party, the strongest voice for labor in city and state affairs,’’ and would direct Political Action Stewards in workplaces across the city to ‘‘recruit shop members for active participation in the community activities of the American Labor Party.’’ This support would be instrumental in building the political capacity of the ALP and would ultimately lead to conflicts with the national CIO during the 1948 presidential election. In 1947, several ALP leaders defected. On October 9, 1947, Charles Rubinstein, president of the United Civic Associations of the Bronx, member of the ALP's State executive committee, and former ALP candidate for the City Council left the ALP for no other party, due to "misguided Communist sympathizers" within the ALP. On the same day, George Salvatore, vice chairman of the ALP's Bronx executive committee and former ALP candidate for District Attorney and Supreme Court Justice, left the ALP for the Democratic Party, citing "we are tending to become apologists for Russia's point of view." The next day, October 10, 1947, Eugene Huber resigned as executive secretary of the ALP's Bayside area to join the Liberal Party of New York State because, Huber said, he had found "affixed a stranglehold by the Communist party upon the ALP which has in consequence become a mere envelope for Communist policies and candidates." In 1948, rather than support Harry Truman, the ALP backed Progressive Party candidate

Henry A. Wallace Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and the 10th U.S. ...

. Former Republican Vito Marcantonio won a seat again to the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

, representing

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, ...

for the ALP, as he had done in 1938, 1940, 1942, 1944, and 1946 (but lost in 1950). Marcantonio had been the target of the New York

Wilson Pakula A Wilson Pakula is an authorization given by a political party to a candidate for public office in the State of New York that allows the candidate not registered with that party to run as its candidate in a given election. The name refers to the ...

Act in 1947 aimed at restricting candidates from one party running in another party's primary election (

electoral fusion Electoral fusion is an arrangement where two or more political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, pooling the votes for that candidate. It is distinct from the process of electoral alliances in that the political parties remain separa ...

Leo Isacson Leo Leous Isacson (April 20, 1910 – September 21, 1996) was a New York attorney and politician. He was notable for winning a 1948 election to the United States House of Representatives from New York's twenty-fourth district (Bronx) as the cand ...

was elected in early 1948 to fill a vacancy in a

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

district but lost in the general election in November. The

openly endorsed the Progressive Party; some ALP candidates that year were known or alleged communists, e.g.,

Lee Pressman Lee Pressman (July 1, 1906 – November 20, 1969) was a labor attorney and earlier a US government functionary, publicly alleged in 1948 to have been a spy for Soviet intelligence during the mid-1930s (as a member of the Ware Group), following hi ...

. Candidates included (winners bolded): *

: Marjorie Viemeister (1st District), Richard T. Mayes (2nd District) Herbert A. Shingler (3rd District), Thomas J. McCabe (4th District), Morris Pottish (5th District), Irma Lindheim (6th District), Joseph L. Pfeifer (Democrat + ALP) (8th District), Murray Rossof (9th District), Ada B. Jackson (10th District), Frank Serri (11th District), Vincent J. Longhi (12th District), James Griesi (13th District), Lee Pressman (14th District), Emanuel Celler (Democrat + ALP) (15th District), Frank Cremonesi (16th District), Alvin Udell (17th District), Vito Marcantonio (18th District),

Arthur G. Klein Arthur George Klein (August 8, 1904 – February 20, 1968) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served eight terms as a United States House of Representatives, United States Representative from New York during the mid-20th centur ...

Democrat + ALP) (19th District), Annette T. Rubinstein (20th District), Paul O'Dwyer (Democrat ALP) (21st District),

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was t ...

(Democrat + ALP) (22nd District), Leon Straus (23rd District),

(24th District),

Albert E. Kahn Albert Eugene Kahn (May 11, 1912 – September 15, 1979) was an American journalist, photographer, and author. He is known chiefly for his books ''Sabotage! The Secret War Against America'' (1944), related to Nazi and German-American subversive ...

(25th District), Nicholas Carnes (26th District), Francis X. Nulty (27th District), Pasquale Barile (28th District), Harold M. Chown (29th District), Robert R. Decormier (Democrat + ALP) (30th District), Andrew Peterson (31st District), Margaret L. Wheeler (32nd District), Rockwell Kent (33rd District), Raymond K. Bull (34th District), Max Meyers (35th District), Sidney H. Greenberg (36th District), John Muschock (37th District), Harold Slingerland (39th District), Helen M. Lopez (41st District), Emmanuel Fried (42nd District), George W. Provost (43rd District), Robert Williams (44th District), and Lewis King (45th District). *

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan comp ...

: Francis W. Frazier (1st District), Doris Koppelman (2nd District) John S. Fells (3rd District) Gabriel Kopperl (4th District) Donald H. Smith (5th District) Paul Melone (6th District) John Profeta (7th District) Leroy P. Peterson (8th District) Kenneth Sherbell (10th District) Robert Lund (13th District) Helen I. Phillips (15th District) James Malloy (23rd District) Sol Salz (25th District) Charles Hendley (28th District) S. Fels Hecht (31st District) Sidney H. Greenberg (36th District) Max Meyers (35th District) George La Fortune (36th District) Willard Ryker (42nd District) George W. Provost (43rd District) William Murphy (44th District) and Harry Bailey (51st District). * New York State Supreme Court: Hyman N. Glickstein (1st District), Joseph J. Porte (2nd District), Paul L. Ross (1st District), Charles Rothenberg (2nd District), Robert V. Santangelo (1st District), Max Torchin (2nd District) and Abraham Wittman (8th District).

Demise

By the 1950s, the ALP had lost much of its support to the rival

, in part because of accusations of

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

influence in the ALP. In 1952, the party endorsed Progressive Party candidate

Vincent Hallinan Vincent Hallinan (December 16, 1896 – October 2, 1992) was an American lawyer and candidate for President of the United States in the 1952 election on the Progressive Party ticket. Early life and education Hallinan was born into a large i ...

for President, but he attracted little support.

Corliss Lamont Corliss Lamont (March 28, 1902 – April 26, 1995) was an American socialist and humanist philosopher and advocate of various left-wing and civil liberties causes. As a part of his political activities, he was the Chairman of National Council ...

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.

Members

* Vito Marcantonio * Mary van Kleeck

References

External links

''Program of the American Labor Party''
(October 1936) {{Authority control Political parties established in 1936 Political parties disestablished in 1956 Defunct political parties in the United States Socialist Party of America Defunct social democratic parties in the United States Communist Party USA mass organizations Left-wing populism in the United States Regional and state political parties in New York (state) Labor parties in the United States

History

Establishing the ALP

The ALP in the elections from 1936 to 1948

Demise

Members

See also

References

Further reading

Archives

Articles

Theses

External links