The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-26
THE LABOR ISSUE.
In the Past It Has Figured Consider
 ably in Presidential Politics.

In the Past It Has Figured Consider ably in Presidential Politics.
 Leslie's Weekly.
 There Is not the faintest reason to suppose that President Roosevelt's Moyer-Haywood letter will put the labor issue into politics in any shane which will embarrass the President or his party in 1908. Nevertheless, several times in the past the labor question had some influence in the elections. The battle summer" of 1877. when the strike on many of the railroads put the militia in bloody collision with the mob in Pittsburg. St. Louis, Chicago and other points. turned several States against the Re publicans in the State elections that fall, put the Senate against President Hayes in the Congress of 1879-s1 in tne latter half Of his term, and in- creased the Democratic majority in the House of that Congress. That was the first time that the RsnnhIiN cans had lost the Senate since IJncoIn entered office in 1861. The Democra ts being in power in the axecutive branch of the government at the lime and also having control of the popuIar House Of Congress, they were hit in ene electlons or lSS6 by the railway strikes in the spring and summer of that year, and lost some votes in Con gress.~ That was in Cleveland's first term. Two labor parties, the United ana the Union, appeared in the field m the Presidential campaign of 1SSS largely as consequence of those troubles of 1886. but they had no ef rect on the canvass. Cleveland's de- feat and Harrisons election in that year were due to other causes than the labor unions activity in politics
 The strike In the Carnegie steel works at Homestead. Pa, in the sum mer of 1892. in which many persons were killed and the bloody conflicts precipitated by the striking miners in Idaho about the same time. contribut- ed much toward Harrison's defeat in November of that year and CIeveland's s second election. The Debs railway hold-up in Chicago in the summer of 1884. which Cleveland suppressed, was one of the causes of the overWhelminq overthrow of his party in the Con. gressional elections in that year and contributed something toward his partys defeat for President and Con gress in 1896. though the silver issue was far larger factor against the Democrats in that canvass President Roosevelt's intervention in the an- thracite coal strike in the early fall of 1902. and the settlement which he brought, added much to his prestige among all elements of the people and saved his party from defeat in the Congressional canvass in that year.
 As a friend of labor and a man who enforces the square deal among all elements of the community, President Roosevelt has hosts of friends in the labor societies, and they furnished some of that 2.5oO.O0O popular plural ity which he won in the Presidential election of 1904. Ills personal porr la1ty. too, disarmed the political la Dor chiefs who. in the Congressional canvass of 1906. assalled LittIefield of Maine, Cannon of Illinois, Bartholdt of Missouri, and other Republican Congressman who refused to take or ders from the political labor bosses. As the Republican party has placed on the national statue book every law in the interest of labor which is there. the labor politicians are not likely to be able to make much partisan capi- tai against the Republicans in 1908 on account of the Mover Haywood mat ter,