Party, Principles and Policy

J.W. Sullivan

[Reprinted from The Standard, 14 January, 1888]

Whether or not the united party shall place a ticket in the field in coming presidential contest is a question that involves establishing the policy to be pursued by the party until its mission is performed, if it is to follow a consistent and intelligently considered course.

In obedience to the instructions of the Syracuse convention, the New York state committee of the party will, as soon as deemed advisable, issue a call for a national conference of congressional district delegates representing citizens who believe in restoring justice in the fundamental relations of men through the administration of all monopolies by, and for the benefit of, the people. The adoption of the Syracuse platform will settle and proclaim the political principles of the new national party. Next will arise questions as to the policy to be taken up and persevered in order as speedily as possible to bring those principles into operation through the law. A most important question of policy to be considered at the outset will be whether or not the party shall enter candidates in the presidential canvass. No principle announced in the Syracuse platform requires one course or the other. Neither does any principle in the code of morals commonly accepted by men or bodies of men. It is a question of policy only - of deciding upon the most direct road to a goal .

The question is not one of abandoning the political organization. It is to be assumed that the local and state bodies already formed will be strengthened and that the work of uniting new branches to the main party will be pushed on.

Let those earnest men who are positive that duty demands that they should never again vote for a democratic or republican candidate face the question if they really should be voting for principle - voting to further their cherished principles - in case they insisted upon standing up and being counted next November as uncompromising and world defiant believers in the new political economy. By this "policy" might they not rather further put off the day of success? Would not the expenses of a national campaign draw seriously on the vitality of the party? Would the satisfaction of trying to be counted compensate for the danger of crippling the party in localities where local candidates might be placed in office, there to promote true reform principles, if it were not handicapped with a presidential ticket? In cutting off completely from the two old national parties, would the labor party not be reduced to a dead quantity in the eyes of the managers of both, the percentage of votes now drawn from each being not far from equal? On election day could the party's own friends be relied on to march loyally up to the polls in unbroken ranks only for the purpose of being counted? Is a full count possible, conditions being as they are? Beyond these questions arises one paramount to all others. Shall the new party ignore living issues - the every day conflicts of right against wrong in the busy world - and soar above the heads of common men until human clay is brought up to the party's ideal? In other words, will those who believe in enthusiastically voting direct for the party's principles demand that all supporters of those principles must accent that course as the only one prescribed by conscience?

There is little force in instituting a parallel between the methods of the prohibition party and those recommended by the advocates of a full ticket in every campaign for the united labor party. The prohibitionists, impractical and theatrically heroic, support a socialistic measure destructive of personal liberty and of not only the rights of property but property itself. The united labor party is bent upon proceeding in a business-like way to establish perfect freedom and render every man absolutely secure in his property - the product of his labor. The success of the prohibitionists would involve a great and sudden change in the body politic - in its effects resembling the outburst and overflow of torrents of water at the breaking down of a reservoir's dam. The labor party intends no convulsive revolution, no jarring even, in the course of public affairs, but hopes to push on toward the attainment of a reign of justice with a steady motion like that of the constantly progressing current of a broad river.

The tariff is to-day a live national issue. It was the one subject of the president's message; it has already in the current session been made the subject of acrimonious debate in both houses of congress; the partisan editors have taken the opportunity once more to air their cut and dried opinions as to free trade or protection; the managers of the republican party are congratulating themselves that President Cleveland has cornered himself, and that he is their captive. Thus the field is being laid off for the approaching national political battle.

Are the radical tariff reformers among the single tax men going to the polls in November simply to be counted as upholders of a noble, but not immediately applicable principle, while feeling that their votes might be made the means of turning the course of legislation perhaps decisively, in a direction which will finally carry their great principle to an ascendency?

Another view of the tariff question merits patient consideration. There is in the united labor party a not inconsiderable body of men who think that not only should the single tax on land values be in operation before the time of the abolition of customs duties, but also that the present equilibrium in what are termed protected trades should be preserved until the absorption of land values by a tax shall in a measure have opened up natural resources to the skilled labor they believe would be displaced by importations of goods under a reduction of those provisions of the tariff affecting such trades. These men would not now oppose the many modifications of the tariff that they see can undoubtedly be made without disturbing any branch of the labor market. But glassblowers, cigarmakers and workers in certain subdivisions of the manufacture of metals, for example, look upon themselves, in regard to the tariff as it affects their means of employment, as in the same position as are owners of vacant lots with respect to the land value tax. Protected workman and vacant land owner alike may assent to the principle that a community has a right to absorb the unearned increment of land, and that in such case no other taxation is necessary. But no man possessed of vested legal rights desires his own interests to be singled out for destruction in advance of others of its kind or before the substitution of compensating advantages. The New York owner of a vacant lot in Pennsylvania may be reconciled to having the value of that lot taxed away from him if he can thereupon take up one of like value in New York by paying no more than the tax on it. But he will fight against giving up his Pennsylvania lot if he is to be but one of a few local land owners so to suffer. And to many workers in highly protected industries, as the phrase is, the natural course of change from the present system to that under the single just tax seems to be first to shake land values generally. Who would lose in that case? Only speculators in the needs of labor and capital . All who had land for use could continue using it. But if a protected industry goes by the board, or its stability is seriously weakened by the withdrawal of the prop that has upheld it, the opportunity of employment for its workers is put sadly in jeopardy. They can discount the chances of loss through strikes, lockouts and improved machinery, but they will not of their own volition add to the risks before them.

Here, then, is room for the differences as to policy respecting action on the tariff that do exist in the united labor party. And for other reasons many of its members might wish to be free to vote for or against one or other of the old parties' national candidates, the success of their own party being admittedly beyond all possibility. In view of certain inability to poll its full vote, would not practical wisdom point to no nomination of a national ticket by the united labor party?

A few evenings ago, at a meeting at which thirty active members of the united labor party of New York were present, a ballot on the question of putting up a presidential ticket resulted in eight votes being cast in favor of the policy and twenty-two opposed to it. As to taxation, all were in favor of the single tax: only one favored the tariff as it stands, with a preference for priority of reduction in all other forms of taxation; nineteen favored absolute free trade with the single tax in force, the rest not voting; all voted not to have the question of the tariff as now presented to the country by the old parties introduced in the labor party; all voted that members of the labor party should be left free to hold whatever opinions they wished in regard to that issue as it now stands.

What would be the effect if this single tax, anti-monopoly party should, instead of permanently camping apart from the other parties, adopt as its invariable policy the two following rules: First, never to enter a contest leading to such a division in the party's ranks as would put one set of its adherents in opposition to another equally true to the cardinal principles of the party; second, that the party whenever possible assist in all movements heading in the direction of that social organization which it is striving to establish?

In accordance with the first of these rules, the party would not, as a national organization, enter the presidential contest of this year; nor would candidates for congress be nominated. Following the second, it could on numberless occasions sway, or at least intelligently assist in guiding, those tendencies which are already bringing many monopolies under municipal and state management and supervision, and, what is of higher importance, concentrating taxation on real estate.

In what estimation would his fellow citizens hold a member of the legislature who, making professions of a determination to destroy monopoly, would stubbornly vote alone for a pet bill providing for state ownership of railroads, while the casting of his single vote might result in the passage of a law establishing a commission empowered to supervise the acts of railroad companies, disclosing the true cost of constructing their roads and preventing stock watering, overcharging and discrimination in rates? In the long fight between monopoly and the people the united labor party, many times in many places, will have placed before it such a choice between idealism and gradual improvement. Living issues to-day, local and national, are whether the people or private monopolies shall manage water works, gas works, bridges, docks and the telegraph. The question as to modes of taxation is ever prominent. It is not only the duty of the new party every where to cast its influence with those who are moving alone with it against minor monopolies, even if but for a short distance, but to lend its aid in agitating questions of taxation in order to enlighten men as to the sure means of putting an end to land monopoly.

In case a presidential ticket is not nominated, the hundreds of thousands of supporters of the Syracuse platform throughout the country will be a tempting catch for both the old parties. The bidding of the platform makers for their votes may bring about the adoption of the Australian system of voting: it may put members of the new party in some of the state legislatures, there to agitate the true principles of taxation; it may give to all government employees the benefits of the eight hour law, an advantage to the new party, for those workingmen who have time to read are generally with it; it may establish a law assessing land values separately from other real estate values; it may aid in restoring to the national government powers over the issue of currency that have been largely usurped by the banks. Who can say what it may not do in such doubtful states as Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Indiana with respect to land value taxation?

If the united labor party sets up a national ticket, it walls off the voters for that ticket from the rest of American citizens, and the coming campaign will be conducted by the old parties either with no regard to the new party or with both striving to create a popular impression that it is in the field simply as an assassin.

The fear that the party supporting the Syracuse platform could degenerate into an office capturing body of strikers juggling as a balance of power between the two great parties, and the fear that it may fall to pieces unless it votes, solidly and uniformly, directly for principle by having candidates for every office from coroner to president, are equally groundless. Never with greater zeal did crusaders of old hasten to arms at the call to defend the faith than will the men who have seen into the merits of the principles of that perfect platform press forward to aid in their triumph when the word goes forth that there is a bare hope of success for any one of their measures.

The campaigns already fought by the united labor party have made men pause and think and finally understand that this new party believes itself possessed of imperishable principles. Respect for the sense of the party and its managerial tact will be deepened if it adopts a policy guided by high principle, based on sober reason, easily comprehended by the rank and file, and attractive to the conscientious mass of citizens from whom must be drawn that majority necessary to bring the party's principles into practical measures.