Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/31

 along this line. The labor party campaign of the left wing had a deep effect for the time upon the trade unions.

In December, 1922, the T. U. E. L. issued a statement entitled "A Political Party for Labor," in which it laid down a program for drawing the trade unions directly into the political struggle against the capitalist state in alliance with the Communists. It called upon all its followers to carry out a campaign of education and organization along the lines laid down.

In March, 1923, the league conducted a referendum on the question in a circular letter and ballot sent to 35,000 local unions in the United States, accompanying the letter with a copy of the league statement. The response was wide-pread and resulted in intense agitation and discussion, in which the idea of a labor party received wide acceptance, and the impulse toward political action was stimulated greatly.

A reflex of this stirring appeared in May, in a call for a national farmer-labor convention, issued by the Farmer-Labor Party of which John Fitzpatrick was the head, for July 3, in Chicago. The left-wing elements supported this call and made of the convention a great gathering of over 600 delegates from all over the country.

The tremendous left-wing sentiment at that gathering, on the one hand, and the collapse of the so-called progressive leaders who bolted and returned to the Gompers camp, on the other hand, presaged the acute struggle that was ahead, and the realignment of forces that would be necessary before any effective left wing, industrial or political, could forge ahead.

The T. U. E. L. participated actively, thereafter, in the building up of local and state labor parties, and in the preparation of the convention of June 17, 1924, at St. Paul, which it was hoped would put a working class ticket in the presidential election and unify wide masses of workers in the political struggle. But the LaFollette