s _Open Letter_ to a
workingmen's committee in Leipzig. It sprang from his antagonism to
Schultze-Delizsch's[16] system of voluntary cooperation. In Lassalle's
eagerness to condemn the idea of the harmony of capital and labor, which
lay at the basis of Schultze's scheme for cooperation, he struck at the
same time a blow against all forms of non-political organization of wage
earners. Perhaps the fact that he was ignorant of the British trade
unions accounts for his insufficient appreciation of trade unionism. But
no matter what the cause may have been, to Lassalle there was but one
means of solving the labor problem-political action. When political
control was finally achieved, the labor party, with the aid of state
credit, would build up a network of cooperative societies into which
eventually all industry would pass.

In short, the distinction between the ideas of the _Internationale_ and
of Lassalle consisted in the fact that the former advocated trade
unionism prior to and underlying political organization, while the
latter considered a political victory as the basis of socialism. These
antagonistic starting points are apparent at the very beginning of
American socialism as well as in the trade unionism and socialism of
succeeding years.

Two distinct phases can be seen in the history of the _Internationale_
in America. During the first phase, which began in 1866 and lasted until
1870, the _Internationale_ had no important organization of its own on
American soil, but tried to establish itself through affiliation with
the National Labor Union. The inducement held out to the latter was of a
practical nature, the international regulation of immigration. During
the second phase the _Internationale_ had its "sections" in nearly every
large city of the country, centering in New York and Chicago, and the
practical trade union part of its work receded before its activity on
behalf of the propaganda of socialism.

These "sections," with a maximum membership which probably never
exceeded a thousand, nearly all foreigners, became a preparatory school
in trade union leadership for many of the later organizers and leaders
of the American Federation of Labor: for example, Adolph Strasser, the
German cigar maker, whose organization became the new model in trade
unionism, and P.J. McGuire, the American-born carpenter, who founded the
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and who was for many years the
secretary-treasurer of the