The political program initiated in 1906 seemed to be bearing fruit.
The drift into politics, since 1906, has differed essentially from that
of earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from "on top," not
from the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats in
strikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led by
local unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically in
all preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the American
Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file
seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who
held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions
than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of
court. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by the
Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation
leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the
political parties by holding out a _quid pro quo_ of such an uncertain
value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a mark
of the instability of the general political alignment in the country.
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