The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-28
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER as, 1908.
AN uNwIsE MovFMENT.

few days ago a call was issued by certain labor leaders in Birmingham to all union workers to send delegates to a meeting to be held in that city on Sunday, November 1, "the object of which shall be to promote the political welfare of the wage earners of the State," is the language used. Commenting on this movement The Bessemer Rustler says;
 The Rustler is for an organized labor that has the manhood and courage 10 stand by it's idea of right and Will vote that way and we have a perfect contempt for the poor milk and water union man who will forsake his political principle and vote the way some leader tells him. when doubtless that same leader has re- cefved a certain price to deliver the vote of his union to a, certain candidate.
 An effort to organize laboring men into a political party will be the beginning of the end of union labor in Alabama. Those who are promoting or endorsing this movement should remember the Farmers Alliance and take warning by it. To organize for mutual industrial and social benefit was a commendable object, and if the farmers had been content with that object. much good to them might have been the result; but when their organiza- lion was turned into political party with the ayowed ohject of controlling the poli- tics and offices of Alabama, its finish was assured and it's power for good was at an end.
 A like fate is bound to follow an effort to degrade labor by making it a political organization and trying to force the mem bers to vote as the labor leaders dictate. It will take from laboring men the last vestige of political independence and make of them too!s to build up a machine for the advancement of designing and ann bitious leaders. If the working men think 2 this movement is for their benefit, they are sadly mistaken, as they are bound to learn. sooner or later. It is impossible for such an organization to control the State, but it is not impossible for some of the leaders of the movement to hoist tnomseIves into office. The number who can thus be elected is but q drop in the bucket compared to the masses of work ing men. They will not be able to control legislation or to benefit the masses in any respect. but they will gratify their own ambitions and advance their own interests at the expense of real working men.
 There will always be political parties in Alabama and and it is as much the duty of the mechanic to vote his own choice SIS 1t is for the professional man to do so. No man who believes in the doctrines or the policies of either the Democratic or Republican Party should allow any secret organization to dictate to him or influence his vote. When laboring men unite themselves into party to pro mote their political welfare, as this call declares, they voluntarily provoke antag- onism on the part of all other callings or professions and cut themselves loose from the sympathy and assistance of all other people of the State. If the wage earners can advance their social and industrial interests by uniting and working together with full knowledge and recognition of the rights of all others, they should do 60, but to organize themselves into a political party will be fatal to them.