American Labor Party

For two decades, the battle raged--first within the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union; then, within the American Labor Party; and finally, on the world stage in the post-world War Il days, as the Communists hoped to make their World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) the voice of world labor.

Unfortunately, he neglects to discuss its most singular success in this arena - the American Labor Party. The ALP became a major force in New York City politics: it amassed almost 36 percent of Fiorello La Guardia's vote for reelection for mayor in 1937 and ensured Vito Marcantonio's reelections to Congress until he was defeated in 1950 by a coalition candidate of the Democratic, Republican, and Liberal parties.

The American Labor Party endorsed Roosevelt's candidacy.

Quill was a leader of the left wing of the CIO in New York City and successful standard-bearer for the American Labor party's City Council slate.

In cases where conservative or centrist Democrats run, the Working Families Party could also run its own candidates, as the old American Labor Party (ALP) once did.

Nor do the apologetic words of Kozura's coal bootleggers - "It was something we had to do, there was no other way" - encourage the reader to accept the author's description of the "class-war mentality" that existed among miners.(17) And surely Davin is misguided to argue that 1936 Labor Party sentiment was so strong that in "New York City the Non-Partisan League chapter actually transformed itself into a third party." The party to which he refers - the American Labor Party - was not produced by any such parthenogenesis.

Under such cross-endorsement, votes for major-party candidates on the New Party line would still count toward their election total, so nothing would be "wasted" or "spoiled" This is what third parties did in the nineteenth century, and what the American Labor Party did in New York in the 1930s--and it worked.