The limited potentialities of labor
legislation together with the apparent hopelessness of labor party
politics compelled the American labor movement to develop a sort of
non-partisan political action with limited objectives thoroughly
characteristic of American conditions. Labor needs protection from
interference by the courts in the exercise of its economic weapons, the
strike and the boycott, upon which it is obviously obliged to place
especial reliance. In other words, though labor may refuse to be drawn
into the vortex of politics for the sake of positive attainments, or,
that is to say, labor legislation, it is compelled to do so for the sake
of a _negative_ gain--a judicial _laissez-faire_. That labor does by
pursuing a policy of "reward your friends" and "punish your enemies" in
the sphere of politics. The method itself is an old one in the labor
movement; we saw it practiced by George Henry Evans and the land
reformers of the forties as well as by Steward and the advocates of the
eight-hour day by law in the sixties. The American Federation of Labor
merely puts it to use in connection with a new objective, namely,
freedom from court interference.
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