The unions in the cigar
making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many
socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations
of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and
other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in
1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations.
When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the
issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade
unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife
caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either
faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization
went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since
1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10,000, and its activities were
non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but
entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly
in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued until
there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who,
had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism
than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's
outstanding revolutionary leaders.
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