to the ultimate and spiritual; and that inferences drawn from a
reading of Jefferson's Declaration, with its emphasis on individual
liberty, were pressed into service against the seductive collectivist
forecasts of Marx.

CHAPTER 14

WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY

The question of a political labor party hinges, in the last analysis, on
the benefits which labor expects from government. If, under the
constitution, government possesses considerable power to regulate
industrial relations and improve labor conditions, political power is
worth striving for. If, on the contrary, the power of the government is
restricted by a rigid organic law, the matter is reversed. The latter is
the situation in the United States. The American constitutions, both
Federal and State, contain bills of rights which embody in fullness the
eighteenth-century philosophy of economic individualism and governmental
_laissez-faire_. The courts, Federal and State, are given the right to
override any law enacted by Congress or the State legislatures which may
be shown to conflict with constitutional rights.

In the exercise of this right, American judges have always inclined to
be very conservative in allowing the legislature to invade the province
of economic freedom. At present after many years of agitation by
humanitarians and trade unionists, the cause of legislative protection
of child and woman laborers seems to be won in principle. But this
progress has been made because it has been shown conclusively that the
protection of these most helpless groups of the wage-earning class
clearly falls within the scope of public purpose and is therefore a
lawful exercise of the state's police power within the meaning of the
constitution. However, adult male labor offers a far different case.
Moreover, should the unexpected happen and the courts become converted
to a broader view, the legislative standards would be small compared
with the standards already enforced by most of the trade unions.
Consequently, so far as adult male workers are concerned (and they are
of course the great bulk of organized labor), labor in America would
scarcely be justified in diverting even a part of its energy from trade
unionism to a relatively unprofitable seeking of redress through
legislatures and courts.[106]

But this is no more than half the story. Granting even that political
power may be worth having, its attainment is beset with difficulties and