need of his party; and the one permanent need of his
party is votes. A demand backed by reason will usually find him inert;
a demand backed by votes galvanizes him into nervous attention. When,
therefore, it was apparent that there was a labor vote, even though a
small one, the demands of this vote were not to be ignored, especially
in States where the parties were well balanced and the scale was
tipped by a few hundred votes. Within a few decades after the political
movement began, many States had passed lien laws, had taken active
measures to establish efficient free schools, had abolished imprisonment
for debt, had legislative inquiry into factory conditions, and had
recognized the ten-hour day. These had been the leading demands
of organized labor, and they had been brought home to the public
conscience, in part at least, by the influence of the workingmen's
votes.

It was not until after the Civil War that labor achieved sufficient
national homogeneity to attempt seriously the formation of a national
party. In the light of later events it is interesting to sketch briefly
the development of the political power of the workingman. The National
Labor Union at its congress of 1866 resolved "that, so far as political
action is concerned, each locality should be governed by its own policy,
whether to run an independent ticket of workingmen, or to use political
parties already existing, but at all events to cast no vote except for
men pledged to the interests of labor." The issue then seemed clear
enough. But six years later the Labor Reform party struck out on an
independent course and held its first and only national convention.
Seventeen States were represented. * The Labor party, however, had yet
to learn how hardly won are independence and unity in any political
organization. Rumors of pernicious intermeddling by the Democratic
and Republican politicians were afloat, and it was charged that the
Pennsylvania delegates had come on passes issued by the president of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. Judge David Davis of Illinois, then a member
of the United States Supreme Court, was nominated for President and
Governor Joel Parker of New Jersey for Vice-President. Both declined,
however, and Charles O'Conor of New York, the candidate of "the
Straight-Out Democrats," was named for President, but no nomination was
made for Vice-President. Considering the subsequent phenomenal growth of
the labor vote, it is worth noting in passin