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Throughout America's political history, a number of third parties have been associated chiefly with one state. Mississippi had its Freedom Democratic Party, while Pennsylvania was home to the Keystone party. Minnesota was the hotbed of the long-lasting Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, or the DFL. In its territorial days Utah was home to two local parties, one allied with the Mormon church and one deeply suspicious of Mormon leaders.
New York has been home to several of these essentially one-state parties. The American Labor party formed in 1936 when a number of the state's Socialists realized that Franklin Roosevelt offered many of the reforms the Socialist Party had long been seeking. Further, many New York leftists accused Socialist presidential nominee Norman Thomas of being a stooge who helped the Republican Landon. By his repeated attacks on FDR, Norman Thomas could only help the Republicans. The new American Labor Party offered a way for Socialists, leftists, and radical union members to vote for Roosevelt without endorsing the machine politics of the state's Democratic party.
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In many elections the American Labor Party endorsed the Democratic candidates for President and for governor of New York. In certain other elections the party showed its independence by declining to support more conservative Democrats, nominating instead its own candidates.
In the 1936 race the new party announced to the press that it hoped to win 100,000 votes, thus helping Roosevelt to carry New York. Most of the state's prominent Socialists, including Louis Waldman, James Oneal, and August Claessens joined the new party, as did many state union leaders. As it turned out, the party leaders had been thinking small. Actually the party performed nearly three times as well as its leaders had hoped: 275,000 ALP votes for Roosevelt. In 1940 and 1944 the party increased its vote to nearly half a million. Without the ALP votes for Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944, in fact, the president would not have carried New York.
In gubernatorial races the ALP endorsed the Democratic candidate in 1936, 1938, and 1946, and provided the margin of victory in 1936 and 1938 as Herbert Lehman won in close races. In 1942, 1950, and 1954 the American Labor Party nominated its own gubernatorial candidates. The best race of those three years was 1942, when ALP standard-bearer Dean Alfange won just over 400,000 votes.
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One of the most important events in the party's history was a schism in 1944, when a number of prominent ALP leaders left the party and formed the rival Liberal Party. David Dubinksy, Adolf Berle, George Counts, and others left the ALP because Communists were playing an increasingly important role in the leadership of the party. Both the ALP and the Liberal parties supported FDR in the 1944 election.
In its later history the American Labor party decided not to support the Democratic nominee Harry S Truman. Instead, the party endorsed the candidacy of Henry Wallace, who was running nationally on the Progressive Party label. In New York there was no Progressive party ticket, and all of Wallace's votes were on the ALP line. Wallace advocated better relations with the Soviet Union, a stand that pleased the far left members of the American Labor party. The ALP won its highest vote total ever in 1948, securing Wallace more than 509,000 votes in New York. While the party didn't help Wallace win, they did insure that Truman lost New York. Truman lost the state by only about 61,000 votes.
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In 1952 the ALP again endorsed the Progressive party's presidential ticket, this time for Hallinan-Bass. While the ALP ticket won only 64,000 votes for Hallinan, this did represent almost half of the ticket's national total. ALP gubernatorial candidate John McManus attracted only 47,000 votes two years later, and under New York law a party had to win at least 50,000 votes to maintain its ballot status. The ALP executive committee voted the party out of existence in 1956.
For the collector, the two decades of American Labor party campaigning produced many dozen buttons and ribbons. A number of FDR buttons boasted the name of the American Labor Party, and a number of 1936 ALP items mention both FDR and Lehman. Wallace and Hallinan buttons from the ALP are also out there, though in smaller numbers.
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Also out there are quite a few buttons for ALP mayoral, congressional, gubernatorial, city council, and other candidates. These have not been cataloged, and most can be had for $4 to $15. A few especially popular candidates are Fiorello LaGuardia and the Marxist congressman Vito Marcantonio. Both these candidates had varied political histories, running on several major and minor party labels over the years.
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Collecting American Labor Party items provides a chance to own important pieces of history, at prices that are still relatively low because so many collectors emphasize only the Democratic and Republican parties in their collections.
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Sources: New York Times, August 2, 1936; Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections; Encyclopedia of Third Parties in the United States; Jon D. Curtis, "American Labor, Liberal, Conservative, and Right to Life Parties," Bull Moose, Winter 1994.
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| © 1996 by Stephen Cresswell |