HUGH T. LOVIN
The Ohio "Farmer-Labor"
Movement in the 1930s
Throughout the 1930s a
generation of American radicals sought un-
successfully to build a viable third
party on the considerable political
terrain that lay to the left of the New
Deal coalition. Their failure in the
greatest of all American depressions has
long been accounted either a
tribute to the resiliency of the
two-party system and the political skill of
Franklin Roosevelt, or a confirmation of
the utopian, chiliastic character
of much that has gone by the name of
American radicalism. Such ex-
planations have their power, but they
often fail to come to grips with
the concrete political and social
context that makes understandable the
impotence of the left in the states and
localities where such third party
efforts were actually tried and
abandoned.
Perhaps the oldest idea for a third
party was that of a farmer-labor
coalition, and in 1933 the foremost
advocate of such a political grouping
was Thomas Amlie, a 36-year-old
Wisconsin congressman and former
Non-Partisan League organizer. Described
by the radical monthly Com-
mon Sense as the "life of the Third Party movement in this
country,"
Amlie was one of the chief sponsors of a
September 1933 Chicago con-
ference of trade unionists, left-wing
intellectuals and Progressive
agrarians that organized the Farmer
Labor Political Federation.1 Be-
cause Amlie thought the New Deal doomed
to failure, he expected to
quickly recruit large numbers of
discontented agrarians and laborers to
his Farmer-Labor party. He hoped this
party would emerge in time for
the 1934 state and congressional
elections, or at the latest, become a
national force prior to the 1936
presidential contest.
Amlie called for a third party on the
grounds that both Republicans
and Democrats, even the most liberal New
Deal Democrats, subscribed
to economic theories and practices that
had precipitated the Great
Depression and then needlessly prolonged
it. Moreover, he denounced
those New Deal programs which cut back
farm production and, in
Hugh T. Lovin is Professor of History at
Boise State University.
1. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The
Age of Roosevelt: The Politics of Upheaval (Boston,
1960), 145.
420 OHIO HISTORY
essence, attempted to help agrarians by
creating economic scarcity.
Fundamentally, Amlie argued, the
American economy was geared to
encouraging "production for
profit." Characterizing such a system as
outmoded and likely to perpetuate the
depression that it had precipi-
tated, Amlie advocated an alternative-an
"economy of abundance" that
Farmer-Labor candidates for Congress and
state legislatures would
legislate when they prevailed at the
polls.
Never socialists in a Marxist sense,
Amlie and most Farmer-Laborites
were radical agrarian reformers whose
political outlook had been shaped
by the Non-Partisan League and various
Progressive movements in
which they had participated during the
1920s. Amlie and his supporters,
moreover, totally rejected the Marxist
idea that a class struggle was
necessary to effectuate progressive
social change. Instead Amlie based
his economic philosophy on the theories
of Thorstein Veblen and the
ideas generated by the Technocracy
movement in the late 1920s. Since
1929 writers such as Stuart Chase had
widely publicized Technocratic
principles and made them more appealing
by presenting the new ideas
as a depression cure-all. Amlie
enthusiastically embraced those portions
of technocratic dogma that emphasized
the scientific management of the
economy by competent government
professionals rather than by profit-
minded capitalists.2
To establish a permanent "economy
of abundance," Amlie prescribed
the enactment of two fundamental classes
of legislation: laws that
helped Americans to establish a
"cooperative commonwealth" of
farmers and consumers and statutes that
ensured "production for use"
instead of "production for
profit." Utilizing the Technocrats' techniques
of scientific economic planning, he
proposed "production for use" laws
requiring governmental operation of all
major industries whenever
those industries became idle or operated
minimally. In this way, Amlie
intended to maintain consistently high
levels of industrial and agricul-
tural production in the United States.
Busy industries, in turn, would
ensure full employment, legions of
consumers for America's potential
abundance, and contented agrarians who
no longer complained of eco-
nomic inequality.
The Farmer-Labor movement first
attracted mostly old-line Progres-
sives, agrarians, and some labor
unionists in Minnesota, Iowa and Wis-
consin. Then itexpanded in 1934 and 1935
when the failures of New
Deal farm and industrial recovery
measures became widely apparent.
2. Alfred M. Bingham and Selden Rodman,
eds., Challenge to the New Deal (New
York, 1934), 133-35, 264-65; Bingham, Insurgent
America: Revolt of the Middle-Classes
(New York, 1935), 189; Thomas R. Amlie, The
Forgotten Man's Handbook: 500 Ques-
tions Answered (Elkhorn, Wl, 1936), 81-128.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 421
Farmer-Labor organizers aroused new
interest among those socialists,
laborites and liberals who sought a
broad-based electoral coalition to
challenge the New Deal. Of greater
consequence, Farmer-Labor secured
support from anti-New Deal farm
organizations, the most consequen-
tial of which were the left-agrarian
Farmers' Holiday Association and
the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative
Union.3 Amlie's Farmer-
Labor group helped reestablish
Wisconsin's Progressive party in 1935
and established close and generally
harmonious relations with Governor
Floyd Olson and the Minnesota
Farmer-Labor party during the same
year. Eventually Farmer-Labor claimed
some strength in twenty-six
states.4
Carefully observing populous industrial
areas in Illinois, Michigan,
Indiana and Ohio, Farmer-Labor
organizers saw opportunities for gains
there which they hoped would provide a
desirable urban counterpart
to the third party's support in the
predominantly agrarian prairie states
and in the Far West. For several reasons
Farmer-Labor leaders antici-
pated success in Middle West industrial
areas. First, they speculated,
the conservatism of incumbent Democratic
public officials was likely to
generate third-party sentiment,
especially in Ohio where the relief
policies and anti-labor biases of
Democratic state administrations irked
thousands hurt by the depression. There
Governors George White
(1931-1935) and Martin Davey (1935-1939)
quarreled continuously with
federal relief administrators and
resisted other New Deal social pro-
grams. Eventually, Governor Davey so
exasperated both Washington
New Dealers and his own urban
constituents that both condemned him
as one of the most conservative and
intractable of the nation's state
administrators.5 Ohio also
had one of the most well organized move-
ments of the unemployed of any
industrial state. In 1932 and in 1933 the
Communist-led Ohio Unemployed League
staged protests across the
3. Organized in 1932 by Milo Reno, the
Farmers' Holiday Association had a member-
ship well in excess of 5000, mostly in
Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. For estimates of
the organization's strength, see John L.
Shover, Cornbelt Rebellion: The Farmers' Holi-
day Association (Urbana, 1965), 88-89. The Farmers' Educational and
Cooperative Union,
organized in 1902 by Isaac Newton
Gresham, had a membership during the 1930s in ex-
cess of 60,000. Theodore Salutos and
John D. Hicks, Twentieth Century Populism: Agri-
cultural Discontent in the Middle
West, 1900-1939 (Lincoln, 1951), 235.
4. Donald R. McCoy, Angry Voices:
Left-of-Center Politics in the New Deal Era (Law-
rence, 1958), 28-44; Russel B. Nye, Midwestern
Progressive Politics: A Historical Study
of its Origins and Growth, 1870-1958 (New York, 1959), 330-35; [Thomas R. Amlie?],
Toward a New Party (Washington, D.C., 1935), 19.
5. James T. Patterson, The New Deal
in the States; Federalism in Transition (Prince-
ton, 1969), 61-62, 63, 83, 91, 164, 181;
Williem E. Leuchtenberg, Franklin Roosevent and
the New Deal, 1932-1940 (New York, 1963), 270; John Braeman, Robert Bremner,
and
David Brody, eds., The New Deal: The
State and Local Levels (Columbus, 1975), 77-103.
422 OHIO HISTORY
state while the followers of A. J.
Muste, organized into the American
Workers party, formed an effective
organization of unemployed workers
in Toledo two years later.6
Even more important than the agitation
of the unemployed was the
growth of a rebellious union
consciousness among the industrial workers
of the state. Although the National
Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)
seemingly encouraged workers to create
strong unions capable of engag-
ing in real collective bargaining,
corporate executives in the electrical,
automobile, steel and rubber industries
evaded or ignored the NIRA
guidelines or manipulated them to
management's advantage.7 Disen-
chanted with the New Deal, many
industrial workers soon asserted that
the initials NRA stood for National Run
Around. At the same time the
conservative, craft-oriented leadership
of the American Federation of
Labor proved reluctant to commit its
resources to the difficult and as yet
unsuccessful task of organizing the mass
production workers of Ohio
and other industrial states. With some
misgivings, therefore, the AFL
responded to the pressure from below by
chartering specially created
federal labor unions, but carefully
retained control of the new locals
through the appointment of officers
responsible to the national AFL.
From their inception the new locals were
in a state of near rebellion
against the parent organization: by 1935
many had lost faith with the
AFL after its national officers refused
to sanction industry-wide walk-
outs at the moment when the rank and
file seemed most aggressive. As
a consequence many of the federal labor
unions collapsed: by 1936
75 percent of Ohio's industrial
workforce still remained unorganized.8
6. Irving Bernstein, Turbulent Years:
A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941
(Boston, 1969), 221; Idem., The Lean
Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-
1933 (Boston, 1960), 428, 432-34; Arthur Schelesinger, Jr., The
Age of Roosevelt: The
Coming of the New Deal (Boston, 1959), 269; Roy Rosenzweig, "Radicals and
the Jobless:
The Musteites and the Unemployed
Leagues, 1932-1936," Labor History, XVI (Winter
1975), 58-61.
7. Sidney Fine, The Automobile under
the Blue Eagle: Labor, Management, and the
Automobile Manufacturing Code (Ann Arbor, 1963), 345-76; James O. Morris, Conflict
within the AFL: A Study of Craft
Versus Industrial Unionism, 1901-1938 (Ithaca,
1958),
147-48; "Information on Chevrolet
Local #14, Toledo, Ohio, Discrimination," n.d. (type-
script), The Papers of Richard
Frankensteen, Wayne State University, Detroit (hereafter
cited as Frankensteen Papers).
8. Bernstein, Turbulent Years, Chapter
8; Melvyn Dubufsky and Warren Van Tine,
John L. Lewis: A Biography (New York, 1977), 245. Sit-down strikes and tubulence,
not
sanctioned by the AFL, erupted,
Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 220-27, 500; Sidney Fine,
Sit-down: The General Motors Strike
of 1936-1937 (Ann Arbor, 1969), 173.
For accounts
by participants from Ohio rubber,
automobile, and electrical industries, see "Oral His-
tory Interview of Paul Milay," June
24, 1961, Archives of Labor History and Urban
Affairs, Wayne State University; Harley
Anthony, "Before and after the Union at the
B. F. Goodrich Co., Akron, Ohio,"
n.d. (typescript), The Papers of the United Rubber
Workers, Wayne State University; Wyndham
Mortimer, Organize! My Life as a Union
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 423
In Ohio Farmer-Labor activity began in
late 1933 under the initial
leadership of Howard Williams. Once
active in Arthur Townley's Non-
Partisan League, Williams was a member
of the Minnesota Farmer
Labor party, and one of Amlie's earliest
Farmer-Labor admirers. In 1933
he held the post of National Organizer
of Amlie's national Farmer-
Labor organization, the Farmer Labor
Political Federation. Williams
gathered enough supporters by the end of
1933 to create the Ohio
Farmer-Labor Progressive Federation
(OFLPF). The first OFLPF
members were principally individuals who
had been active in the Ohio
branch of the left-liberal League for
Independent Political Action, a
handful of Socialists, and some old-line
Progressives whose liberal
credentials dated from the 1920s.9
After Williams returned to Minnesota,
another plains state radical,
Herbert Hard, assumed the chairmanship
of the OFLPF and for the
next three years supplied the group with
his considerable organizational
experience. Educated at the University
of Michigan and at the Univer-
sity of North Dakota, where he earned
graduate degrees, Hard taught
engineering and chemistry before
becoming dean at North Dakota
Agricultural College. Impressed with
Arthur Townley's crusade to
better the lot of farmers, Hard joined
the Non-Partisan League and re-
mained loyal to it throughout the League's
North Dakota heydays
which lasted well into the 1920s. He
pursued elective state office
unsuccessfully but won an appointment as
North Dakota State Engi-
neer in Governor Lynn Frazier's
administration. When the Non-Partisan
League declined, Hard supported Robert
LaFollette's third-party
movement in 1924 and later joined the
League for Independent Political
Action. At the end of Frazier's
administration in North Dakota, Hard
looked for a new job and politically
greener pastures. Eventually he
relocated in Columbus, Ohio, where he
held offices in the Ohio organi-
zation of the League for Independent
Political Action, interested him-
self in Columbus city welfare activities
necessitatd by the Great De-
pression, and became President of a
local farmers' milk cooperative.
He joined Amlie's Farmer-Labor movement
in 1933 and assisted
Williams in founding the OFLPF.
Man (Boston, 1971), 54-83; James J. Matles and James
Higgins, Them and Us: Strug-
gles of a Rank-and-File Union (Boston, 1974), 30, 35; Daniel Nelson, ed., "The
Beginnings
of the Sit-down Era: The Reminiscences
of Rex Murray," Labor History, XV (Winter
1974), 91-96.
9. McCoy, Angry Voices, 37;
Howard Williams to Charles W. Spicer, May 23, 1934,
Philip B. Freer to Williams, November
20, 1934, Joseph Shorts to Williams, December 11,
1934, The Papers of Howard Y. Williams,
Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul (here-
after cited as Williams Papers).
424 OHIO HISTORY
As chairman of its executive committee
in 1934, Hard labored to
expand the OFLPF's backing among
Progressive, agrarian and left-
wing groups and to ensure their
allegiance to the state Farmer-Labor
party that the Ohio Federation intended
to create. In part, he succeeded.
Hard courted George Hagens and other
leaders of the Ohio organiza-
tion of the Farmers' Educational and
Cooperative Union (FECU). The
FECU membership probably never exceeded
4000, but the organiza-
tion attracted wide farmer interest by
proposing legislation requiring
farm prices that guaranteed "cost
of production." Although FECU
leaders initially expressed reservations
about Amlie's "economy of
abundance" economics, Hagens and
his subordinates eventually re-
sponded to Hard's third-party proposal
more cordially.10 Hard also ne-
gotiated successfully with leaders of
the Ohio Commonwealth party, a
small body whose candidates for Ohio
public offices polled no more than
15,800 votes in the 1934 general
elections. Commonwealthers decried
the repeal of national prohibition,
lamented the dominance of "wets"
in the Democratic and Republican
parties, and advocated reviving the
Great Experiment nationally. Hard
considered Commonwealther sup-
port desirable since it would provide
the OFLPF an introduction to
other middle-class groups whose sympathy
the Commonwealthers en-
joyed. Meanwhile, Hard worked to enlist
the "ablest" of the disinte-
grating Ohio Socialist party men. And
although he distrusted Com-
munists, Hard accepted help from a
handful of them after the party
moved to a popular front orientation
after 1935.11
On the other hand, Hard failed to win support
from the most impor-
tant labor and farm groups. AFL craft
unions rejected all Farmer-Labor
overtures, reminding Hard of the
Federation's support of the New Deal
and the AFL's historical policy of
opposing third parties. Ohio Grange and
Farm Bureau Federation leaders proved
similarly unreceptive to Hard's
pleas for support. In Hard's opinion,
most AFL leaders and Grange and
Farm Bureau members were either
"reactionary" or too "conserva-
tive" to support
left-of-the-New-Deal politics.12
Of the agrarian rebuffs to Farmer-Labor,
the most serious came from
the influential and greatly respected
Farm Bureau Federation, whose
support the OFLPF needed badly if Ohio
Farmer-Labor were ever to
establish a large agrarian base. Unlike
the situation in Minnesota, Iowa,
Wisconsin and Michigan, where agrarian
Left organizations were so
10. Hard to Williams, December 10, 1934,
Williams Papers.
11. Hard to Williams, January 12, July
25, 1935, Ibid.; Hard to Thomas R. Amlie, n.d.,
The Papers of Thomas R. Amlie, State
Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison (here-
after cited as Amlie Papers).
12. Hard to Williams, December 10. 1934,
Williams Papers.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 425
numerous as to provide a major component
of Farmer-Labor's agrarian
following, such groups in Ohio were
negligible in numbers and influ-
ence. The organization of the Farmers'
Educational and Cooperative
Union, as noted above, had about 4000
members, and the Farmers'
Holiday Association probably recruited
fewer than 500 members in
Ohio, although many Ohio farmers
occasionally indulged in some of the
Association's militant practices.13
Consequently, Hard persisted in seek-
ing Farm Bureau backing. In the end,
however, his appeals to the Ohio
Farm Bureau Federation fell on deaf
ears. When President Franklin
Roosevelt persuaded national Farm Bureau
Federation leaders to back
New Deal agricultural programs,
especially those provided for in the
Agricultural Adjustment Act of May 1933,
and to give the programs
time to fulfill their recovery and
reform objectives, the middle west
Farm Bureaus fell into line. On March
26-27, 1934, the state presidents
and secretaries of all middle west Farm
Bureaus conferred in Chicago.
These officials criticized certain
features of the New Deal's agricultural
programs, but they applauded the Triple-A
generally and agreed that
Farm Bureaus should cooperate with the
New Deal so that Triple-A
programs would have a chance to serve
the farmers effectively.14
Since AFL unions and most farm groups
had demonstrated their lack
of interest in the OFLPF's political
propositions, it became abundantly
clear that the OFLPF must seek allies
elsewhere. Hard and other
OFLPF leaders then looked more actively
for support among discon-
tented unemployed urban residents and
rebellious industrial workers. In
Hard's judgment, the workers were the
more desirable allies and prob-
ably would oblige Farmer-Labor, for
serious third-party political dis-
cussions had become widespread in union
circles. Matthew Smith, secre-
tary of the Mechanics Educational
Society, advised Cleveland union
members to seek a "free society of
the workers' commonwealth." A.J.
Muste offered similar counsel, while
automobile industry unionists in
Cleveland called for a Labor party.
According to UAW leader Richard
F. Reisinger, unionists badly needed an
independent American Labor
party because Republicans and Democrats
merely provided "stop gap"
and "camouflage" legislation
designed to "pacify and fool the wage
earner."15 Designating themselves
"Progressives," automobile union
13. Christiana McFadyen Campbell, The
Farm Bureau and the New Deal (Urbana,
1962), 45; Shover, Cornbelt
Rebellion, 94, 172.
14. Frank Freidel, Franklin D.
Roosevelt: Launching the New Deal (Boston, 1956),
91-96; Campbell, The Farm Bureau and
the New Deal, 53-54, 66-67.
15. The Progressive: LaFollette's Magazine, January 12, 1935, R. E.
Reisinger, "Do We
Need a Labor Party?" United Auto
Worker (October 1935), 2. For an account of Musteite
influence in Ohio automobile workers
unions, see Fine, Sit-down, 75-76.
426 OHIO HISTORY
leaders in Cleveland joined self-styled
Labor Progressives in Michigan
and other automobile manufacturing
centers. The Labor Progressives
battled primarily to build strong
industrial unions, but they never
neglected the political realm and
demanded labor party support from
their international union as well.
Meanwhile, in the company of like-
minded delegates from painters,
teachers, miners and garment workers
unions, the automobile industry
unionists presented Labor party pro-
posals to national AFL conclaves. In
1935, Labor Progressives urged
the AFL to sponsor a labor party
composed of "trades unions and
working class and farming organizations."16
Ohio unionists also seriously
contemplated local Labor party activity,
speculating about their chances of
electing slates of labor unionists to
county, municipal, and other
governmental offices. Eventually they ex-
perimented with such activity in
Columbus and Toledo. In 1935 union-
ists had the greatest success in Toledo
where they formed the Lucas
County Congress for Political Action and
elected four nominees to the
Toledo City Council and the Board of
Education.17
Third-party gestures by the Labor
Progressives raised hopes that the
OFLPF might, at last, get its movement
off the ground in 1935. OFLPF
leaders courted Labor Progressives,
although Hard and several others
wooed them with some misgivings. The
OFLPF leaders correctly sus-
pected, but exaggerated, the extent of
Communist influence within the
Labor Progressives' ranks and, more
importantly, noted troubling ide-
ological differences with the expression
of pro-Labor party sentiment
emanating from the unionists. For their
part, trade unionists formally
welcomed "farming
organizations" to their proposed Labor party, but
they made no commitment to
Farmer-Labor's cure-the-depression tech-
nocratic panacea. Hard was distressed
that the unionists neither fully
understood nor wholeheartedly
sympathized with "production for use."
Some unionists objected to its
collectivist nature and especially to
Amlie's plan for governmental operation
of industries that were other-
wise idle, fearing that such proposals
could never win public acceptance
in America. Above all, labor unionists
saw few immediate benefits for
themselves in "production for
use." Implementing Amlie's proposal
would require complex economic planning
and then systematic engi-
neering that, even under the best of
circumstances, would take consid-
16. Proceedings of the First
Constitutional Convention of the International Union,
United Automobile Workers of America (Detroit, 1935), 67, 81; Report of the Proceedings
of the Fifty-fifth Annual Convention
of the American Federation of Labor (Washington,
D.C., 1935), 239-40.
17. The Progressive: LaFollette's
Magazine, October 12, 1935, January 11, 1936.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 427
erable time before Technocrats finely
turned the new economic system and
made it fully operable. Following a
stint of organizational work in New
York and Ohio, one Farmer-Labor
organizer reported that his contacts
responded favorably to the phrases
"economy of abundance" and "pro-
duction for use" but generally
refused to take them seriously because
the obvious complexities of Technocrat
economic engineering and the
implications of "production for
use" quickly became "too big and too
hazy" for them to grasp readily.
For similar reasons, the editor of
Farmer-Labor's short-lived Ohio journal,
Action, reported many
accepted "production for use"
less than wholeheartedly.18
Faced with these difficulties, national
Farmer-Labor leaders carefully
reviewed Farmer-Labor's prospects in
Ohio. Howard Williams per-
sonally tested the strength of
third-party sentiment by traveling widely
around the state. Especially in Canton,
Toledo, and other industrial
centers, his speeches received
complimentary receptions. Inquiring
further, Amlie and Williams looked for
more convincing indications that
industrial workers were so profoundly
disappointed with the New Deal
that they would support Farmer-Labor.
Amlie and Williams haunted the
national labor conventions in 1935 and
contacted most of the Ohio dele-
gations, discussing with them the
Farmer-Labor movement. After talk-
ing to the delegates, the Farmer-Labor
chiefs concluded that automo-
bile and rubber industry unionists were
most likely to support Farmer-
Labor enthusiastically, although most
union activists themselves
would have preferred a straightforward
Labor party.19
Accordingly, Farmer-Labor prepared to
launch a third party in Ohio.
The OFLPF arranged a number of
conferences in February, May, and
August 1935. Twenty-one
organizations-fifteen of which Hard classified
as "middle class" and three
labor unions and three radical groups-sent
delegates to most of the meetings. With
Hard maintaining a taut rein on
the proceedings, Farmer-Labor political
plans were outlined and pro-
cedures were formulated for formally
unveiling the new party on
August 21, 1935. Delegates also prepared
a tentative party platform. It
contained measures for redressing
labor's grievances against open-shop
industrialists and, at Hard's
insistence, a plank calling for implementa-
tion of Amlie's "production for
use" cure-all.20 The OFLPF also created
18. Morton Allen to Harvey O'Connor,
December 10, 1935, The Papers of Harvey
O'Connor, Wayne State University; Ray S.
Kellogg to Nathan Fine, March 14, 1936,
Amlie Papers.
19. Williams to Hard, March 23, 1935,
Williams Papers; Amlie to Crist Williams,
August 3, 1935, [Nathan Fine?] to Hard,
October 24, 1935, Amlie Papers.
20. Columbus Dispatch, May 20,
1935; The Progressive: LaFollette's Magazine,
May 25, June 8, August 10, 1935.
428 OHIO
HISTORY
county-level Farmer-Labor organizations
in Holmes and Portage coun-
ties and lobbied Ohio unions for
support.21
Since Farmer-Labor lacked a large-scale
agrarian base in Ohio, as
Williams repeatedly reminded Hard,
Farmer-Labor had to secure help
from the unions, both craft and
industrial, if it were to be a viable force.
Doubtful that Ohio AFL unions would ever
support Farmer-Labor,
OFLPF leaders nevertheless appealed anew
to the craft unions in the
summer of 1935. But the leaders of the
Ohio State Federation of Labor
firmly declined to support Farmer-Labor,
as did most of the individual
AFL craft unions, and the delegates to
the Federation's 1937 state con-
vention voted to deny Farmer-Labor the
AFL endorsement. Clearly
Williams had miscalculated concerning
possible Ohio AFL help to
Farmer-Labor, although there was still
considerable labor party senti-
ment in the automobile and rubber
industry unions that, as of 1935, had
not yet formally deserted the AFL for
the new Congress of Industrial
Organizations. Under these unfavorable
circumstances, Farmer-Labor-
ites hastily dropped their plans to
launch a new party immediately.22
Farmer-Labor suffered more reverses in
1936. Appalled that so many
labor unions chose not to support
Farmer-Labor, most of the OFLPF's
Farmers' Education and Cooperative Union
and Socialist allies
deserted.23 Far more
distressing to OFLPF leaders, other radical anti-
New Dealers gained the ears of thousands.
"General" Jacob Coxey,
now an octogenarian and best remembered
for his colorful leadership
of Coxey's Army during the depression of
the 1890s, formed a National
Farmer Labor party that competed for the
hearts of the New Deal's
left-wing critics. Father Charles
Coughlin and Dr. Francis Townsend
interested opponents of the New Deal in
radical solutions to the depres-
sion and won many thousands of
followers. Coughlin, for example, en-
rolled an estimated 250,000 Ohioans in
his National Union for Social
Justice.24
21. Hard to Williams, July 8, 1935,
Williams Papers; Hard to Amlie, July 9, 1935,
Minutes of Farmer Labor Progressive
Federation Conference, August 21, 1935, Amlie
Papers.
22. Williams to Hard, July 24, 1935,
Williams Papers. The Progressive: LaFollette's
Magazine, August 30, 1935; Minutes of Farmer Labor Progressive
Federation Conference,
August 21, 1935, Amlie Papers.
23. Hard to [Alfred] Bingham, March 11,
1936, Cynthia Erskine to Nathan Fine, March 22,
1936, Amlie Papers. After 1935, Ohio Socialists
largely ignored the OFLPF. The Trotsky-
ist faction of the Ohio Socialist party
formally condemned, on November 14, 1936, Labor
and Farmer-Labor parties as
"reformist" and called on Ohio Socialists to support only
"revolutionary" parties (Labor
Action, December 5, 1936).
24. New York Times, July 5, 7, 8,
11, 1935; Hard to Williams, n.d., Williams Papers;
David H. Bennett, Demagogues in the
Depression: American Radicals and the Union
Party, 1932-1936 (New Brunswick, 1969), 82.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 429
OFLPF members bickered as Farmer-Labor's
setbacks accumulated.
With their dreams of eventually forming
a third party undiminished,
Hard and like-minded Progressives were
content to wait for better
days. They hoped to keep OFLPF alive but
held that a viable Farmer-
Labor party could not be built in Ohio
prior to the 1936 elections. On
the other hand, Cleveland, Toledo, and
Akron unionists and other con-
verts to Farmer-Labor scoffed at Hard's
pessimism. Their third-party
optimism was reflective of the
rank-and-file insurgency that they had
raised within their unions against AFL
union leaders. These unionists
contended that Farmer-Labor might yet
cultivate a mass base among
the rank-and-file and secure the
extensive labor support that Ohio
Farmer-Labor sorely needed if it were to
prosper.
Cleveland, Akron, and Toledo labor
unionists thus took the lead, de-
manding immediate third-party activity
in Ohio despite Hard's judg-
ment that such an effort was no longer
feasible. These labor radicals
insisted that the OFLPF organize a third
party in 1936 and run Farmer-
Labor candidates for state and
congressional offices in the general elec-
tions. However, their decision to
cooperate fully came at a moment
when OFLPF leaders were not only
ill-disposed toward immediate
third-party action, but when new
factionalism sundered the OFLPF,
making its leaders even more hesitant to
heed the wishes of their new
labor allies.
In 1935 the Communist party had abruptly
reversed its line when
it proposed a "Popular Front"
coalition of Communists, other radi-
cals, progressives, and liberals.
Accordingly, national Communist
leaders announced their support of
Farmer-Labor parties, and in Ohio
John Williamson and other state
Communist leaders sought admission
to the OFLPF. Over Hard's objections,
Communists appeared at
Farmer-Labor meetings, participated in
the deliberations and worked
with the OFLPF faction that opposed Hard
and Amlie. Outside OFLPF
circles, Communists called for an Ohio
Farmer-Labor party in leaflets,
official party publications, and in
their industrial shop papers such as the
Goodrich Worker and the Spark Plug, which was distributed at the
Fisher automobile body plant in
Cleveland.25
Hard and his allies fought back. They
denounced the Communists
for meddling in OFLPF affairs and
accused the Communist party of
25. Irving Howe and Lewis Coser, The
American Communist Party: A Critical His-
tory (New York, 1962), Chapter 8; Earl Latham, The
Communist Controversy in Wash-
ington: From the New Deal to McCarthy
(Cambridge, 1966), 53-54; Spark
Plug, undated
copies, The Papers of Henry Kraus, Wayne
State University (hereafter cited as Kraus
Papers); John Williamson, "Leading
Mass Struggles in Ohio," Party Organizer, IX
(July-August 1936), 12-18.
430 OHIO HISTORY
maneuvering to dominate the
organization. Hard's factional oppon-
ents replied that Communists should be
welcomed into the OFLPF
since they and their sympathizers truly
favored a Farmer-Labor party.
Labor oriented members of the OFLPF also
pointed out that Commu-
nists exercised influence in some of the
larger labor unions and thus
were potentially valuable helpers in
augmenting a new party's "labor
base." The disputes continued for
many months with neither side
manifesting any disposition toward
compromise.26
Differences of opinion on national
Farmer-Labor policies shortly
widened the divisions within the OFLPF
and similarly caused fissures
in many of the Farmer-Labor groups
outside Ohio. By the end of 1935,
Amlie and other national leaders
disagreed sharply about the desirabil-
ity of tolerating the participation of
Communists in various state and
local Farmer-Labor groups that followed
the Communist party's Pop-
ular Front line. The national
Farmer-Labor chiefs, moreover, were at
loggerheads about the upcoming national
convention at Chicago on
May 30-31, 1936, of the American
Commonwealth Political Federa-
tion (the national Farmer-Labor
organization formed in 1935 to gather
support, nominate, and campaign for a
third-party candidate for Presi-
dent of the United States in 1936).
Amlie and his forces, with whom
Hard and his OFLPF allies sided, tried
unsuccessfully to ban Commu-
nists from the Chicago convention.
Meanwhile, Amlie and his faction
belatedly decided in April 1936
that Farmer-Labor should not name a
candidate for President of the
United States in 1936. Amlie's forces
opposed running a presidential
nominee because, they reasoned, national
labor support would not be
forthcoming. In their view, John L.
Lewis had closed the door to
Farmer-Labor nationally when he
organized Labor's Non-Partisan
League, made it the CIO's political arm,
and directed it to gather labor
backing for the reelection of Franklin
Roosevelt. On the national level
Amlie and his supporters prevailed, and
Farmer-Labor named no pres-
idential candidate. Ohio Farmer-Labor
factions, in the meantime,
quarreled heatedly about the matter.
Hard and his followers denounced
the other OFLPF faction for urging that
Farmer-Labor run Gerald Nye,
United States Senator from North Dakota,
for the presidency of the
United States.27
26. Hard to Williams, February 18, 1936,
Williams Papers; Hard to Amlie, January 22,
1936, Hard to Alfred Bingham, March 11,
April 13, 1936, Philip Scheonberg to Amlie,
February 26, 1936, Cynthia Erskine to
Nathan Fine, March 22, 1936; Erskine to Amlie,
May 21, 1936, Amlie Papers.
27. McCoy, Angry Voices, 104-14;
Cynthia Erskine to Nathan Fine, March 22, 1936,
Amlie Papers; "Report: National
Farmer Labor Conference-Called by the Farmer Labor
Association of Minnesota," Chicago,
May 30-31, 1936 (mimeographed), William Papers.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 431
While factional disputes preoccupied the
OFLPF during the latter
part of 1935 and the spring of 1936,
labor unionists took steps to revive
the lagging Ohio Farmer-Labor movement
and supply the third-party
impetus that OFLPF leaders no longer
provided. First, CIO-oriented
local union leaders wrested.control of
the automobile and rubber in-
dustry unions from the AFL-appointed
leaders who dominated these
bodies. Politically, the insurgents
committed themselves to supporting
Farmer-Labor parties in the 1936
elections. Many leaders and rank-
and-file of United Mine Workers Union
locals soon followed suit and
called upon their own union to back a third
party.28 At the national
convention of the United Automobile
Workers of America (April
1936), the radical majority readily
secured approval of their political
proposition that all automobile industry
unionists support the candi-
dates of a Farmer-Labor party. The
convention delegates adopted a
third-party resolution by a large
majority, although they formally re-
scinded it a few days later after John
L. Lewis made it known that he
would withhold $100,000 of organizing
money unless the UAW sup-
ported FDR. Nevertheless, the United
Automobile Workers district coun-
cil in Detroit and local unions in
Michigan, South Bend, Indiana,
Toledo and Cleveland ignored Lewis's
wishes. These unionists sup-
ported the Michigan Farmer-Labor party
that had been organized in
1934 and helped to form an Indiana
Farmer-Labor party. Bypassing
Hard and his followers in the OFLPF,
they began to organize an
Ohio Farmer-Labor party as well.29 They
spearheaded the creation of
union-dominated Farmer-Labor
organizations in Cuyahoga, Summit,
and Lucas counties and appointed a
"Sponsoring Committee" to con-
duct Farmer-Labor political work in
Mahoning Valley industrial cen-
ters.30 Finally, with support
from rubber industry unionists, the UAW
Senatory Nye's Ohio supporters presented
him as a desirable candidate because Nye's views
were strongly isolationist; therefore,
he would prevent American involvement in a world
war.
28. Fine, Sit-down, 88-91;
Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 382-83, 506-08; Thomas Ken-
nedy to John L. Lewis and Philip Murray,
January 10, 1936, The Papers of John Brophy,
Catholic University of America Library,
Washington, D.C.
29. United Automobile Worker, May,
July 7, 1936; Irving Howe and B. J. Widick, The
U. A. W. and Walter Reuther (New York, 1949), 52-53; CIO Union News Service, Sep-
tember 28, 1936; Alton A. Greer to Farm
and Labor Organizations, January 28, 1936, The
Papers of United Automobile Workers
Local #9, Wayne State University: "Proceedings:
Organizing Convention of the St. Joseph
County Indiana Farmer-Labor Party," July 11-12,
1936 (mimeographed), The Papers of
Adolph Germer, State Historical Society of Wis-
consin (hereafter cited as Germer
Papers); John Bartee to Howard Williams, June 23,
November 5, 1936, Williams Papers;
Minutes of meeting, Detroit District Council,
United Automobile Workers of America.
The Papers of George Addes, Wayne State
University.
30. The Progressive: LaFollette's
Magazine, April 25, May 23, 1936; Farmer-Labor
Challenge, April 1936; Thomas Moore to Williams. April 22, 1936,
Williams Papers.
432 OHIO HISTORY
activists demanded that Hard call an
OFLPF convention to unite for-
mally the unionists' third-party
movement with OFLPF's non-labor
forces. Under this pressure Hard
reluctantly called a special conven-
tion for April 2, 1936, in Columbus.
The old progressives feared a party
controlled by labor elements.
Hard and his supporters never felt
comfortable with the ethnically
diverse, urban working-class groups in
Ohio with whom circumstances
had compelled them to work. Their
outlook remained rooted in the
radical agrarianism of the Non-Partisan
League and in movements
such as Robert La Follette's Progressive
party of 1924. Consequently,
Hard and his OFLPF faction clung
stubbornly to their neo-Populist
orientation and, for political allies,
preferred farmers and old-line
AFL craftsmen who had already won a
measure of economic security
and lower middle-class social status.
Thus Hard and his faction fought
vigorously at the Columbus con-
vention to sidetrack proposals for the
formation of a third party in
1936. They discounted the interest the
new industrial unions had shown
in a third party and emphasized the
anti-third party views of the
well-established AFL craft unions-a
matter irrelevant to the new move-
ment. Progressives also reminded the
delegates of the nearly insur-
mountable problems they would face in
the legal formation of such a
third party. Farmer-Labor could not secure
financing on short notice
for a 1936 campaign nor collect the more
than 300,000 signatures on
a petition needed to place a state
ticket on the Ohio ballot (a number
equal to at least 15 percent of votes
cast for Governor of Ohio in the
previous general election). When union
delegates ignored this counsel
and voted for "full"
Farmer-Labor slates for county and state offices,
Hard replied that Farmer-Labor could
place only a few nominees on
its state ticket due to its limited
funds.31
Differences within the OFLPF multiplied
following the Columbus
assembly. The radical unionists
denounced the Progressives for a lack
of political imagination and for
underestimating the strength of work-
ing-class backing that Farmer-Labor
could tap. Meanwhile, Hard con-
tinued to oppose working with
Communists, including those who were
in a position to further Farmer-Labor's
cause. And the OFLPF leaders
used their official posts to hinder
Farmer-Labor political work. Many of
Hard's critics concluded that he and his
group would continue to im-
31. Hard to Alfred Bingham, n.d., Amlie
Papers. Hard to Nathan Fine, April 20, 1936,
Hard to Alfred Bingham, n.d., Amlie
Papers; Hard to Williams, n.d., Williams Papers;
The Progressive: LaFollette's
Magazine, May 2, 1936.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 433
pede Farmer-labor activities during the
crucial months preceding the
1936 elections. Most of the Cleveland
Farmer-Laborites withdrew from
the OFLPF and organized a separate
Cuyahoga County Farmer Labor
Progressive party.32
With Ohio Farmer-Labor splintered into
hostile factions. Amlie and
Williams attempted unsuccessfully to
reunite the quarreling groups.
When negotiators were unable to end the
feud, Hard's opponents,
automobile industry union leaders, and
officials of the Akron Central
Labor Union Council united to bypass the
OFLPF leadership and
proceed on their own to build a
statewide party, select candidates,
and compete in the 1936 elections.
Meeting at Akron in June 1936, they
elected a Provisional Committee of
Thirty-two headed by Richard
Reisinger, a Cleveland automobile union
leader close to the Commu-
nists. The group adopted a
"Declaration of Principles" that committed
the party to working for major labor
reforms and an American "econ-
omy of abundance." The
"Declaration" required the party to remain
"an all-inclusive federation"
of groups that offered their support. The
Akron assembly also nominated Wilmer
Tate, President of the Akron
Central Labor Union Council, as
Farmer-Labor's candidate for Con-
gress in the Fourteenth Congressional
District. Finally, the group out-
lined procedures for organizing
Farmer-Labor Clubs, several of which
soon flourished in Summit, Portage,
Lake, and Lorain counties.33
Pleased with the developments at Akron,
Amlie and other national
Farmer-Labor leaders preached unity and
pleaded for cooperation be-
tween Hard and his Progressives and the
groups represented by the
Provisional Committee of Thirty-two.34
But these pleas were in vain.
At a July 1936 meeting in Columbus
between the OFLPF and the in-
surgent committee, Hard repeated his
opposition to a Farmer-Labor
party in 1936 and demanded the exclusion
of Communists from any
Farmer-Labor party in which he and his
faction might participate.
The Committee of Thirty-two replied that
Farmer-Labor dared not ex-
clude Communists or any other possible
supporters. The Committee
also denied Hard's accusation that it
showed little interest in appeal-
32. United Automobile Worker, July
7, 1936; The Progressive: LaFollette's Maga-
zine, April 25, May 23, 1936; Hard to Alfred Bingham, n.d.,
Mary Harris to Nathan Fine,
July 15, 1936, Amlie Papers; Hard to
Williams, n.d., Williams Papers.
33. United Automobile Worker, July
7, 1936; The Progressive: LaFollette's Magazine,
June 13, 1936; [Hard], "Report on
Akron Convention," June 8, 1936, Amlie Papers;
Wilmer Tate to Williams, July 13, 1936,
Williams Papers; R. E. Reisinger to Henry [Kraus],
n.d., Cleveland Citizen, undated
clippings, Kraus Papers.
34. For examples, see: Alfred Bingham to
Reisinger, July 7, 1936, Amlie Papers;
Williams to Wilmer Tate, August 7, 1936,
Williams Papers.
434 OHIO HISTORY
ing to farmers, and it ruled that the
Committee must remain in the
ascendancy in directing Ohio
Farmer-Labor affairs.35
With labor unionists now at the
forefront, Farmer-Labor political
activity gained some momentum during the
summer of 1936. Labor
unionists dominated a newly created
"State Committee for the Pro-
motion of a Farmer-Labor Party in
Ohio." The principal State Com-
mittee officers included Richard
Reisinger, President of the Cleveland
Automobile Workers District Council, and
Jack Kroll, Manager of the
Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers of America in Cin-
cinnati. State Committee heads made one
last effort to conciliate the
anti-labor OFLPF elements, inviting the
ever more disputatious Hard
to take a seat on the State Committee.
He declined, and the differ-
ences between Hard's group and the State
Committee remained un-
patched.36
In the next few weeks, the State
Committee mapped Farmer-Labor's
1936 political campaigns. It called a
nominating convention to meet in
September 1936 and select a ticket for
state offices. Most importantly,
the committeemen decided that
Farmer-Labor should devote its ener-
gies and finances primarily to elections
in several key industrial coun-
ties where Farmer-Labor candidates would
be placed on county ballots
and to elections of United States
Congressmen in the Fourteenth,
Twentieth , Twenty-first, and Twenty-second
districts.
The State Committee kept Farmer-Labor
campaigns active until
the autumn of 1936, but the new party
soon ran afoul the popularity
of Franklin Roosevelt, the power of the CIO,
and a host of other road-
blocks. Among Farmer-Labor's most
serious difficulties were unantici-
pated impediments to placing
Farmer-Labor candidates on the ballot.
The Board of Elections in Akron rejected
Farmer-Labor's entire coun-
ty slate and cancelled Wilmer Tate's
congressional candidacy. The
State Committee, meanwhile, failed to
mobilize as many New Deal
critics as it hoped, and significant
urban middle-class support never
35. "Report of Herbert A. Hard to
National ACPF [American Commonwealth Political
Federation] Office," July 13, 1936,
Amlie Papers.
36. The Progressive: LaFollette's
Magazine, July 25, 1936; Mary Harris to Nathan
Fine, July 15, 1936, Hard to Alfred
Bingham, August 22, 1936, Amlie Papers. Reisinger,
the President of the State Committee,
was also an officer of Local Union #32, United
Automobile Workers of America, and
served as "Legislative Agent" in Ohio in 1936 for
the international automobile workers
union. In 1937, he was elected to the governing
board of that international union
(undated clippings and "Questionnaire" completed by
Reisinger, May 9, 1939, Reisinger File,
Wayne State University). The secretary of the
State Committee, Jack Kroll, was an
associate of Sidney Hillman and also an officer in
the Amalgamated Clothing Workers
international union. Kroll later became President
of the ClO's Ohio Industrial Union
Council, Gary M. Fink, ed., Biographical Dictionary
of American Labor Leaders (Westport, 1974), 193.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 435
materialized. Instead, Roosevelt gained
ground in the spring of 1936 and
kept the lead for himself and the
Democrats. North Dakota Congress-
man William Lemke further impeded
Farmer-Labor by forming the
Union party and attracting many farm and
urban Ohioans to his anti-
New Deal camp. Lemke, the Union party's
nominee for President of
the United States, polled 132,212 votes
in the Ohio general elections.37
Other Farmer-Labor troubles included
renewed opposition from the
Ohio State Federation of Labor
affiliates. Many of these unionists
advocated that the AFL unions help to
elect Roosevelt in 1936 and
form a genuine Labor party following the
elections.
National CIO leaders and the CIO's
political arm, Labor's Non-
Partisan League, made it all but
impossible to conduct effective Farmer-
Labor political work in Ohio and most
other states except Minnesota
and Wisconsin. Although John L. Lewis
was to break with Roosevelt
by 1940, Lewis supported the President
in 1936 and opposed third-
party endeavors. Lewis pleaded
repeatedly for support of Roosevelt,
"a good and faithful servant"
who would, if reelected, ensure the ad-
vancement of labor, provide help in
building powerful industrial
unions, and compel industry to bargain
collectively with labor.38 Lewis
created the strongest and, in the
judgement of CIO leaders, the most
effective Non-Partisan League organizations
in New York, Pennsyl-
vania, West Virginia, and in
thirty-seven Ohio counties.3 Lewis also
weakened third-party support in 1936
when he hinted publicly that the
CIO might engage in third-party activity
following the elections. By Sep-
tember 1936, most local unions of the
United Automobile Workers of
American had formally endorsed Roosevelt
and other Democrats. By a
vote of 61 to 39, delegates to the
United Rubber Workers national con-
vention (September 1936) denied Ohio
Farmer-Labor the endorsement
of that 30,000-member union.
Increasingly symbolic of the new mood
were incidents such as one at
Steubenville, where Labor Day paraders
carried placards proclaiming "Down
with the Company Union" and
37. Walter Locke, "Ohio Political
Outlook," Review of Reviews, XCIII (May 1936), 35;
Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the New Deal, 184-85; Bennett, Demagogues in
the Depression, 170, 268.
38. The Progressive: LaFollette's
Magazine, October 10, 1936, Leuchtenberg, Franklin
1). Roosevelt and the New Deal, 188-89; John L. Lewis and the International Union,
United Mine Workers of America: The
Story from 1917 to 1952 (Silver
Springs, 1952),
copy in The Papers of John L. Lewis,
microfilm edition, State Historical Society of Wis-
consin; "Address of John L.
Lewis," September 19, 1936, "Industrial Democracy in
Steel," n.d. (typescripts), Lewis
Papers; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 16, 1936.
39. John L. Lewis and the
International Union, 86; Labor's Non-Partisan League: Its
Origins and Growth (Washington, D.C., 1939), 6; "Proceedings: Meeting
of State Commit-
tee Delegates, Labor's Non-Partisan
League," August 10, 1936 (mimeographed), Labor's
Non-Partisan league Collection, State
Historical Society of Wisconsin.
436 OHIO
HISTORY
"Vote Roosevelt."40 Labor
Progressives made clear to CIO and Non-
Partisan League officials their hopes
for making the Non-Partisan League
their mechanism for launching an
independent Labor party after the
1936 elections,41 but in the
meantime they helped the League build
support for FDR.
The Ohio Farmer-Labor movement was now
past recovery. In 1937
Farmer-Labor's old Progressive and
radical elements continued to
feud, and two separate Farmer-Labor
splinters lingered for several
months before disbanding. In the
meantime, labor unions hastened the
dissolution of Farmer-Labor bodies. AFL
and CIO chiefs succeeded
in discouraging their followers from
joining any new third-party ven-
tures. The Ohio State Federation of
Labor reiterated its historic pol-
icy, first imposed in 1908, of
"elect[ing] those to public office, regardless
of political affiliation, who have shown
friendliness to the just and ra-
tional demands of labor."42 The
Ohio CIO held that farmers and lab-
orers shared an "identity of
interest" since both sought "a decent stan-
dard of living and a more bountiful
share in the national wealth and
income," but winning those benefits
by political action was possible
only through the activities of the CIO's
political machinery, Labor's
Non-Partisan League.43 In
1937 and 1938, individual CIO union lead-
ers similarly defined their position.
For instance, a group of UAW
local union presidents, mostly from Ohio
and Michigan, resolved that
Labor's Non-Partisan League remained the
only effective "instrument"
for cooperative "political
expression" by "labor, farm, radical and
other progressive groups."44
Except for one interlude in 1934 when
the Ohio organization of the
40. News-Week, VIII (August 15,
1936), 9, United Automobile Worker, September,
1936; Walter Galenson, The CIO
Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor
Movement, 1935-1941 (Cambridge, 1960), 273, Steel Labor, October 20,
1936. A few
unionists ran on Democratic tickets for
local offices and were elected in 1936 (for exam-
ple, see Steel Labor, November
20, 1936).
41. Adolph Germer to Jim [Oneal], July
26, 1936, Germer Papers; George L. Berry to
John Brophy, June 18, 1936, The Papers
of Labor's Non-Partisan League, Catholic Uni-
versity of American Library, Washington,
D.C. Congressman Amlie noted these develop-
ments and concluded that a national
Farmer-Labor party was unattainable after 1936
unless Farmer-Laborites accepted a party
that strongly reflected the character of a Labor
party such as the one in Great Britain
(Amlie to Alfred Bingham, December 8, 1936,
Amlie Papers).
42. Hard to Alfred Bingham, April 13,
1937, Amlie Papers. Proceedings of the Ohio
State Federation of Labor
Non-Partisan Political Conference (Columbus,
1938), 8.
43. Proceedings of the First
Convention: Committee for Industrial Organization in the
State of Ohio (Columbus, 1938), 82; also see: Report of Secretary
Treasurer, Labor's
Non-Partisan League of Ohio, January 5,
1939, Labor's Non-Partisan League Papers.
44. "Minutes of National Conference
held in the City of Toledo," August 28, 1938,
The Papers of the Congress of Industrial
Organizations, Catholic University of America
Library.
Ohio Farmer-Labor Movement 437
Farmers' Educational and Cooperative
Union cooperated with the
OFLPF, Ohio Farmer-Labor never counted
on help from agrarian
groups. Consequently, Farmer-Labor
depended primarily upon Pro-
gressives, radicals, and labor unionists
for its backing. In the long run,
the labor groups became crucial.
However, Farmer-Labor stood little
chance unless New Deal shortcomings so
offended urban workers as
to unite them behind a new party. But to
the new party's dismay,
Ohio unionists grumbled about the New
Deal but never turned unitedly
against it. For instance, the CIO's
United Rubber Workers had about
30,000 members, many of whom complained
repeatedly about New
Deal policies. Yet rubber industry
unionists denied Ohio Farmer-Labor
their endorsement in 1936. The new
unions had the last word, depriv-
ing Farmer-Labor of the urban,
working-class constituency needed for
a viable third party in Ohio.
More importantly, the Ohio Farmer-Labor
movement made only
minimal headway for another fundamental
reason. Its progressive
legacy and agrarian heritage constantly
predisposed it toward farmers
and AFL groups that proved immune to
Farmer-Labor's anti-New Deal
blandishments, and Farmer-Labor leaders
never mastered the art of
working with (or appealing to) ethnic
and urban laborites. Indeed,
Ohio Farmer-Labor leaders faltered at
the first necessary step, failing
in 1936 to reach a satisfactory accord
with Ohio's Labor Progressives
who were third-party minded. Thereafter
Ohio Farmer-Labor could
not form workable alliances with ethnic
and working-class groups. Al-
though a Farmer-Labor party could work
for a generation in Wiscon-
sin and Minnesota, it was doomed in Ohio
where a rich mix of ethni-
cally heterogenous working-class
elements dominated Ohio's indus-
trial work force.