The Connecticut labor press. (New Haven, Conn.) 191?-1921, 1920-05-01
HARTFORD CROWD
NOT SATISFIED, TO
HELP FOES AGAIN
Labor Party" Circulating Peti-
tions to Get on State
Ballot.
NO LESSON IN DEFEAT
Organizations Quit Central Labor
Union in Disgust at
Performance.

Not satisfied with the disastrous de-
feat in the recent city election by which
1t turned the city government over to
out-and-out opponents of Organized
Labor, the Hartford Labor Party" is
going to see what it can do along that
line in the coming state election, and as
the Hartford Courant naively puts it,
wants place in the SUM-" The defeat
it got in the city election certainly put
it into the limelight and left such a
limey or. lemon taste, that number
of labor organizations in the city have
already taken formal steps to with
draw from the Central Labor Union
which fostered the Labor Party and
others are preparing to follow. ~
They charge that the Central Labor
Union is no longer representative of
the mass of organized labor workers
in Hartford but has fallen into the
hands of Labor's enemies who are using
it for their own purposes. The Plumb
ers and Steamhtters were the first to
withdraw and other building crafts
and organizations will Soon follow. The
entire matter may be brought up to the
state convention, it is said about Hart
ford, and an effort made to upset the
{. L, u. combine as at present lined
up and to put the body back where it
belongs.
According to the Courant. the lead
ers of the Labor Party in the recent
defeat have prepared and are circulat-
ing petitions to secure place for the
party on the state ticket to be voted on
next fall. This will be easy to do, in
asmuch as the state laws are liberal
enough about granting any grouD of
persons who desire it a chance to get
their names on tickets and be voted for
at the polls. 1t will be another thing
to get a sufficient number of votes to
be elected, however, and again will the
enemies of labor profit by the defec-
ton thus caused from men who might
be friendly.
The 1900 votes cast in Hartford,
added to the 800 or so cast by Labor
Party in New Britain shortly after
will be more than enough If those who
voted can be lined up to secure place
on the state ticket. 1t therefore looks
as if the Hartford crowd was going
ahead with its determination to GO it
alone against the non-partisan policy of
the American and the Connecticut Fed
erations of Labor.
Whether the party will be anywhere
near so strong in Hartford in the fall
dS IL was Ill the spring IS IHdlleT OF
doubt. Hundreds of former sympath-
izers who supported the party in the
recent election in the hope, that the
claims of the leaders that it could win
might prove true, had their eyes opened
when they saw that the only thinp they
won was the election of Brainard as
mayor, man out-and-out opposed to
Organized Labor. Kinsella may not
have given labor or some of it, all ii
wanted, but they realize now that he
was at least fair and could be ap-
preached, while they have their doubts
about even being able to approach
Brainard now
Official action will probably have to
be taken on the withdrawal of the local
unions from the Central Labor Union
inasmuch as the laws provide that in
some cases, such Withdrawals or a sus-
pension automatically suspends the or
ganization from the State Federation
of Labor. This therefore may cause
the matter to be brought before the
state convention this month and cause
the whole proposition to be threshed
out where the threshing will do some
good by showing up actual conditions at
least.