Making the World Safe for Workers: Labor, the Left, and Wilsonian Internationalism

321 Pages·2013·3.216 MB·English

by  Elizabeth McKillen

MAKING THE WORLD
SAFE
FOR

WORKERS
Labor, the Left,
and Wilsonian Internationalism
Elizabeth McKillen
W A
C H
THE WORKING CLASS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Making the World Safe for Workers
The Working Class in American History
Editorial Advisors
James R. Barrett, Julie Greene, William P. Jones,
Alice Kessler-Harris, and Nelson Lichtenstein
Making the World
Safe for Workers
Labor, the Left,
and Wilsonian Internationalism
Elizabeth McKillen
university of illinois press
urbana, chicago, and springfield
© 2013 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
c 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKillen, Elizabeth, 1957-
Making the world safe for workers : labor, the Left, and Wilsonian
internationalism / Elizabeth McKillen.
pages cm. — (The working class in American history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-252-03787-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-252-09513-9 (ebook)
1. Labor—United States—History—20th century. 2. Labor unions—
Political activity—United States—History—20th century. 3. Labor movement—
History—20th century. 4. International labor activities—History—20th century.
5. United States—Foreign relations—1913–1921. 6. Wilson, Woodrow, 1856–1924.
7. International Labor Organization.
I. Title.
hd8072.m3155 2013
331.880973’09041—dc23 2013009260
Dedicated to Nathan and to Isaac

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Part I Mexico and the Western Hemisphere
Chapter 1 The Mexican Revolution as Catalyst 23
Part II World War I and the U.S. Labor Debate
over Neutrality and Preparedness
Chapter 2 The Outbreak of World War I
and the Socialist “War on War” 56
Chapter 3 Antiwar Cultures of the AFL,
the Debate over Preparedness,
and the Gompers Turnabout 91
Part III U.S. Belligerency
Chapter 4 Dialectical Relationships: Collaboration
and Resistance in Wartime 128
Chapter 5 The AFL, International Labor Politics,
and Labor Dissent in 1918 152
Part IV Versailles and Its Aftermath
Chapter 6 Making the World Safe for Workers?
The AFL, Wilson, and the Creation
of the ILO at Versailles 181
Chapter 7 U.S. Labor Irreconcilables and Reservationists
and the Founding ILO Conference
in Washington, D.C., November 1919 208
Conclusion 241
Notes 247
Abbreviations and Primary Sources 287
Index 293
Preface and Acknowledgments
In the summer of 2011, as I waited in stifling one-hundred-degree heat
and humidity for a bus to take me from the National Archives in College
Park, Maryland, to a gritty Washington, D.C., hotel, I briefly experienced a
midlife crisis. What insanity, I wondered, had led me to abandon the cool
streams and lakes surrounding my home in Maine for an urban swamp like
Washington, D.C.? After all, nineteenth-century policymakers had been smart
enough, in a day before air conditioning, to shut down government and
make a reverse journey to Maine during the hottest summer months. More
seriously, I wondered about the wisdom of devoting so much of my research
life to the seemingly unglamorous subject of labor and foreign policy. Many
colleagues, friends, and family, I suspected, wondered why I had not already
moved on to greener research pastures.
But with the help of air conditioning and a cold beer, my doubts soon re-
solved themselves. The reason, I realized, that I had devoted so much time to
the excavation of old labor and Left perspectives on the world of international
diplomacy was simply that I believed in the subject. Books written about
Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policies and diplomacy at Versailles could fill a
small library. By contrast, I could count on one hand the number of books
devoted even partially to working-class responses to Wilson’s diplomacy.
Yet my own research convinced me that the World War I era witnessed one
of the most important working-class debates, over the interlinking issues
of national security, labor internationalism, and the best means of assuring
world peace and prosperity, in U.S. history. This debate, moreover, was not
contained within national borders but was part of a broader transnational
dialogue among workers and labor activists about whether Wilson’s schemes
for transforming diplomacy would really serve the interests of ordinary peo-
ple. The perspectives of working people and their organizations, I continue
to believe, need to be incorporated alongside those of policymakers in any
comprehensive assessment of U.S. foreign policy.
Needless to say, I have incurred many debts in pursuing this seemingly
endless research journey. First, I wish to thank the wonderful research and
inter-library loan staff at the University of Maine for bringing so many sources