Party, which enjoy a large measure
of autonomy, may occasionally, without changing their present
names, reduce themselves to mere trade-union parties in the narrow
sense of the term. President Gompers has claimed that 80 per cent
of the voting members of the American Federation of Labor followed
his advice in the election of 1908, which was, in nearly every
case, to vote the Democratic ticket. There were not over 2,000,000
members of the Federation at this time, and of these (allowing for
women, minors, and non-voting foreigners) there were not more than
1,500,000 voters. About 60 per cent of this number have always
voted Democratic, so that if Mr. Gompers's claim were conceded it
would mean a change of no more than 300,000 votes. It is true that
such a number of voters could effect the election or defeat of a
great many Democrats or Republican Congressmen, but, as Mr. Gompers
says, it could only elect a score or two of Independents, a number
which, as the example of Populism has shown, would be impotent
under our political system. Moreover, as such a Congressional group
would be situated politically not in the middle, but at one of the
extremes, _it could never hold the balance of power in this or any
other country_ until it became _a majority_.

Mr. Mitchell is careful to qualify his opposition to the third party (or
Labor Party) idea. He writes: "I wish it to be understood that this
refers only to the immediate policy of the unions. One cannot see what
the future of the dominant parties in the United States will be, and
should it come to pass that the two great American political parties
oppose labor legislation, as they now favor it, it would be the
imperative duty of unionists to form a third party in order to secure
some measure of reform."[241] Certainly both parties are becoming more
and more willing to grant "some measure" of labor reform, so that Mr.
Mitchell is unlikely to change his present position.

Whether the unions form a separate party or not, is to them a matter not
of principle, but of ways and means, of time and place. Where they are
very weak politically they seek only to have their representatives in
other parties; where they are stronger they may form a party of their
own to cooeperate with the other parties and secure a share in
government; where they are strongest they will seek to gain control over