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Hugo Black or Edgar Gardner Murphy were molotov coctail throwing anarchists? Well, the more we know...

by spiridon64 10y ago

Veen 10y ago
The history of progressive politics is both older than the 20th Century and broader than the United States.
- spiridon64 10y ago
  Henri Tolain, George Odger, Keir Hardie, Robert Owen, George Loveless, Giuseppe Mazzini, Benoît Malon or Lloyd Jones and basically most of the early labour right activists were respected members of the society. Even the anarchists of the time like Paul Brousse, Élisée Reclus, César De Paepe, Peter Kropotkin or Tito Zanardelli led relatively normal life, they weren't really "extremist weirdos" apart from having progressive ideas.
kristopolous 10y ago
You have to go back to the 1800s. The Haymarket riot, Thibodaux massacre, Homestead strike, Great railroad strike, Pullman strike, Colorado labor wars, West Virginia coal wars were about wages and labor. The era of nonviolent Ghandi-style protest hadn't begun so violent worker insurrection was a common element. The railroad strike, for instance, had over 100 workers killed and people feared a bloody worker-run revolution like the Paris Commune of 1871. The Civil War, which was largely about labor, was recent so the idea of a 2nd labor war wasn't implausible. A president was assassinated by a unionist steel worker. Wall Street and the LA Times, an anti-union paper at the time, was bombed. Clandestine bombs were sent to dozens of industrialists and anti labor congresspeople. The modern equivalent would be if Obama was killed, Fox News and 740 Park Avenue was bombed, and the Koch brothers had to dodge constant assassination plots by various "fight for $15" people. The 1900-era version of that actually happened. So the struggle for the minimum wage wasn't just the whim of a supreme court justice or the musings of armchair intellectuals, it was a bloody multi generational insurrection by syndicalists, unionists, anarchists, and marxists. Even leading up to the 1938 ruling you had the memorial day massacre, hilo massacre, martial law being declared during teamster strikes, and machine gun companies being called to fight with the national guard, all within 2 years of the Wagner Act.

Hugo Black or Edgar Gardner Murphy were molotov coctail throwing anarchists? Well, the more we know...

Veen 10y ago

The history of progressive politics is both older than the 20th Century and broader than the United States.

spiridon64 10y ago
Henri Tolain, George Odger, Keir Hardie, Robert Owen, George Loveless, Giuseppe Mazzini, Benoît Malon or Lloyd Jones and basically most of the early labour right activists were respected members of the society. Even the anarchists of the time like Paul Brousse, Élisée Reclus, César De Paepe, Peter Kropotkin or Tito Zanardelli led relatively normal life, they weren't really "extremist weirdos" apart from having progressive ideas.

kristopolous 10y ago

You have to go back to the 1800s. The Haymarket riot, Thibodaux massacre, Homestead strike, Great railroad strike, Pullman strike, Colorado labor wars, West Virginia coal wars were about wages and labor. The era of nonviolent Ghandi-style protest hadn't begun so violent worker insurrection was a common element. The railroad strike, for instance, had over 100 workers killed and people feared a bloody worker-run revolution like the Paris Commune of 1871. The Civil War, which was largely about labor, was recent so the idea of a 2nd labor war wasn't implausible. A president was assassinated by a unionist steel worker. Wall Street and the LA Times, an anti-union paper at the time, was bombed. Clandestine bombs were sent to dozens of industrialists and anti labor congresspeople. The modern equivalent would be if Obama was killed, Fox News and 740 Park Avenue was bombed, and the Koch brothers had to dodge constant assassination plots by various "fight for $15" people. The 1900-era version of that actually happened. So the struggle for the minimum wage wasn't just the whim of a supreme court justice or the musings of armchair intellectuals, it was a bloody multi generational insurrection by syndicalists, unionists, anarchists, and marxists. Even leading up to the 1938 ruling you had the memorial day massacre, hilo massacre, martial law being declared during teamster strikes, and machine gun companies being called to fight with the national guard, all within 2 years of the Wagner Act.