Socialist Labor Party
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP) has its roots in German Socialist tradition and in German American working-class culture. It was founded in the wake of labor upheavals in conjunction with the wave of railroad strikes of 1877.
Its founding myth indicates that activists from the International Workingmen’s Association (Internationale Arbeiter Association), the Chicago-based Workingmen’s Party of Illinois, and the New York-based Social Democratic Labor Party met in Newark to reconcile the seemingly antagonistic forces of “Lasalleanism” (reform) and “Marxism” (revolution)— that is, the political and the economic approach to working-class struggle—to form a party. In doing so they attempted to replicate developments in Germany, where similar theoretical and practical insights had led to the founding of the Sozialist- ische Partei Deutschland (Socialist Party of Germany, SPD) in Gotha in 1875.The SLP, of course, was never a “mass party” or a people’s party, as its German model came to be. In the 1880s and 1890s its membership varied between 1,000 and 7,000 at its 1885 peak (Foner 1955, 40). However, its social and cultural impact among urban immigrant workers made up for its membership numbers. The party and its members were steeped in a working-class urban culture, which extended far beyond the workplace and scientific Marxism. In New York, the party’s stronghold, 80 percent of its members were of German descent. In the 1880s the party supported about fourteen German-language organs, which were published by relatively autonomous local sections, among them such substantial organs and long-lived papers as the New York Volks-Zeitung (Peoples News), the Philadelphia Tageblatt (Daily), or the Chicago Vorbote (Harold, weekly) and the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers’ News, daily). Similar papers were published in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and St.
Louis. The papers provided a platform for theoretical discussions, analysis of current political events, and shop-floor activities, as well as announcements or reports of community events. They thus functioned as the media that kept a revolutionary industrial working-class community in touch. Ideological conflicts notwithstanding, party members were involved in union activities: founding and sustaining local craft unions (such as cigar makers, bakers, machinists, shoemakers, printers, etc.) and forming federations (such as the Central Labor Union in New York and Chicago) to be locally more effective in their demands for better working conditions and higher wages. As individuals they were influential in the formation of the American Federation of Labor. They also participated in electoral politics, and local circumstances permitting, such as in Illinois, even enjoying some success. Their leisure activities revolved around the Turner and singing societies, mutual aid and benefit associations, and the staging of performative events such as picnics, parades, and theatrical shows. All of these activities became elements of a vibrant ethnic and urban working-class culture. In 1875 in Chicago a Lehr and Wehrverein, an association rooted in the German sharpshooters’ tradition, was organized in response to police brutality. It at first united revolutionary German American workers, but soon, moving toward a more anarchist trend, antagonized SLP members.Though German Americans were the largest contingent in the early SLP and Socialist ideals originating in Germany had a strong impact, German Americans were not the only ones striving for Socialist change, nor were their ideals and dogmas uncontested. Time and again they were scolded by German Socialist activists such as Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht for their sectarianism and their inability to relate to the American working class, often being unable and/or unwilling to learn to speak English. However, the party did embrace the growing diversity of the immigrant working class.
In 1885 an English party paper was established and workers from other immigrant groups found the SLP organizational structure and its ideological outlook congenial enough as to actively participate in the party’s development. Between the 1880s and 1920s the party supported seven Yiddish, eight Yugoslav, six Czech, three Slovak, four Hungarian, and one each Bulgarian, Greek, and Polish newspapers. Or one might say that the newspapers, rooted in their respective ethnic communities in Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, or New York, supported the party.In 1890 Daniel De Leon (1852—1914) joined the party. He became editor of the English journal The People in 1892 and during the following years the undisputed leader of the party. His entry marked the demise of German dominance of the party and the beginning of a more “American” outlook. This did not mean, however, that the party’s basis broadened. Its development continued to be marked by ongoing discussions over political versus economic activism; and conflicts and dissension prevailed, often leading to embittered fights at the workplace. In the 1880s the more radical party members split off to form the so- called anarcho-syndicalist branch of the labor movement, and in the 1890s an ongoing conflict with the American Federation of Labor led to the Socialist Trades and
Labor Assembly in 1896. Party members also were unable and/or unwilling to embrace other social movements. In 1881 an active women’s group in New York became part of the SLP as Branch 14, engaging in discussions over women’s labor and the future of socialism, in addition to supporting a free Sunday school. Party officials, however, rejected the concept of women’s suffrage and were hostile to women working in factories. Rather they emphasized women’s role in supporting the family, sustaining a German cultural identity, and fending off americanization. When later they did acknowledge the validity of woman’s suffrage, they relegated the issue to the future when the revolution had been accomplished and the “social question” solved.
Neither did they make particular efforts to address the “race question.” Again, in theory, African American workers were considered as equals. But in practice no attempt was made to bring them into the Socialist fold or to help organize effective unions for African Americans.Around the turn of the twentieth century, the SLP’s hold among workers dwindled even further and its activities were focused on publishing the various foreign-language newspapers and supporting a printing company, which mainly published writings and speeches by De Leon and translated European Socialist classics. Catering to a sense of a superior understanding of socialism became particularly important, while standing in the shadow of the rising Socialist Party under the leadership of Eugene Debs. The party, which claims to be the second-oldest social democratic party, is still in existence in 2005 and publishes the journal The People six times a year.
Christiane Harzig
See also Chicago; Liebknecht, Wilhelm; New York City; Newspaper Press, German Language in the United States
References and Further Reading
Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Vol. 2. New York: International, 1955.
Girard, Frank, and Ben Perry. The Socialist Labor Party, 1876—1991: A Short History. Philadelphia: Livra, 1991.
Harzig, Christiane. “The Role of German Women in the German-American Working-Class Movement in Late Nineteenth-Century New York.” Journal of American Ethnic History 8, no. 2 (1989): 87-107.
Hoerder, Dirk, and Christiane Harzig, eds.
The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1845—1976. An Annotated Bibliography. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1987.
Nadel, Stan. “The German Immigrant Left in the United States.” In The Immigrant Left in the United States. Eds. Paul Buhle and Dan Georgakas. Albany: SUNY, 1996, pp. 45-76.