he exercise of its economic weapons, the
strike and the boycott, upon which it is obviously obliged to place
especial reliance. In other words, though labor may refuse to be drawn
into the vortex of politics for the sake of positive attainments, or,
that is to say, labor legislation, it is compelled to do so for the sake
of a _negative_ gain--a judicial _laissez-faire_. That labor does by
pursuing a policy of "reward your friends" and "punish your enemies" in
the sphere of politics. The method itself is an old one in the labor
movement; we saw it practiced by George Henry Evans and the land
reformers of the forties as well as by Steward and the advocates of the
eight-hour day by law in the sixties. The American Federation of Labor
merely puts it to use in connection with a new objective, namely,
freedom from court interference. Although the labor vote is largely
"undeliverable," still where the parties are more or less evenly matched
in strength, that portion of the labor vote which is politically
conscious of its economic interests may swing the election to whichever
side it turns. Under certain conditions[108] labor has been known even
to attain through such indirection in excess of what it might have won
had it come to share in power as a labor party.

The controversy around labor in politics brings up in the last analysis
the whole problem of leadership in labor organizations, or to be
specific, the role of the intellectual in the movement. In America his
role has been remarkably restricted. For a half century or more the
educated classes had no connection with the labor movement, for in the
forties and fifties, when the Brook Farm enthusiasts and their
associates took up with fervor the social question, they were really
alone in the field, since the protracted trade depression had laid all
labor organization low. It was in the eighties, with the turmoil of the
Knights of Labor and the Anarchist bomb in Chicago, that the
"intellectuals" first awakened to the existence of a labor problem. To
this awakening no single person contributed more than the economist
Professor Richard T. Ely, then of Johns Hopkins University. His pioneer
work on the _Labor Movement in America_ published in 1886, and the works
of his many capable students gave the labor movement a permanent place
in the public mind, besides presenting the cause of labor with
scientific precision and with a judicious balance. Among the other
pioneers were preac