The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-06-15
Hy HERTRAM D. WOLFE.

ted to the use Of all its energies fol
the building Of an American Labor
Party on national scale. Neverthe
less, the instructions of the centra
executive committee to the districts
in the 1926 campaign declared: There
will be three forms in which the party
will go into the elections: ID Thru ex
listing Farmer and Labor Parties; (2)
thru placing united front labor tickets
on the BALLOT 49, by placing Workers
Party tickets on the ballot"
The question naturally arises, Why
this fiexibility of tactics? Why this
variety of forms?
American political conditions, un-
like those of England, are such that
a National Labor Party tends to come
into being by the foundation of va
rious local and state Labor Parties,
gradually converging towards an
American Labor Party and finally
crystallizing when the national senti-
ment for their unification and for the
creation of single Labor Party on a
national scale is powerful enough.
Sane in Va, Insane in N. Y.
Economically, the United States is
a single unit, but because of this fed
eral system of government, the states
have widely divergent laws and dis
tinct administrations. Thus, in ex-
IRENE cases, men have been known to
be divorced by the laws of one state
and yet, marrying again, become biga-
mists by the laws of another. There
have even been cases, as the Chal-
oner case, where a man was insane
in New York and sane in Virginia.
When the interests of big business
require it, state rights" are promptly
forgotten and by all sorts of legal fic-
tions, unified national law in given
field is put across. Conversely, when
capital wishes to block national law,
the theory of state rights is zealously
upheld and the law is nullified and
declared unconstitutional as an inter-
ference with state sovereignty. In
this manner, every child labor law
thus far put ON the statute books has
been set aside.
The Constitution of the United
States prohibits the passage of laws
limiting or abridging freedom of
speech, press or assemblage, or limit
ing the right of every citizen to bear
arms. But the Constitution has been
so interpreted that any state may
freely adopt criminal syndicalist laws,
laws forbidding the carrying of arms,
laws forbidding mass picketing and
other forms of free assemblage. New
ertheless, when the war broke out, a
national Espionage. act was passed
which was effectively used on a ma
tional scale along with the numerous
criminal syndicalist and criminal an
archy acts of the various states.
Brakes on Progress.
The courts of the United States have
been one of the chief instruments for
blocking legislation which expresses
the needs of the working class. They
have always appealed to presidents
established in period when there
was no working class and no modern
industry.
Labor protection measures, child Ia
Dor laws, regulations of the length of
the work day, minimum wage meas
ures, social insurance, ETC., have been
construed by the capitalist courts as
state matters and not national ones,
therefore the labor movement has had
to fight in each state separately for
the passage of such laws and conse-
quently labor political activities tend
to be of a local nature. 1t is only
when such laws are finally passed in a
given state that the state supreme
courts steps in and declares them. un-
constitutional, and. as last resort, If
the bosses lose, they appeal to the
national supreme court, which gives
the final death blow to the measure in
question.
The Central Labor Union.
Again, the natural basis for politi-
cal activity tends to be the local Cen
trail Labor Council in municipal mat
tiers and the State Federation of La
Dor in state matters. These bodies are
much closer to the rank and file (par-
ticularly the former of them) than is
the executive council and the national
convention of the American Fedora
tion of Labor, Consequently, it is in
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