The Forgotten Union Labor Platform of 1888
A century and a half ago, a Seattle candidate for the Union Labor Party laid out a vision for a government that serves the people, not the 'moneyed aristocracy.'
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mr. J. J. McGilvra, congressional candidate of the Union Labor Party, wrote to J. W. M. D. Wilson, of the national committee of that party, accepting the nomination. Mr. McGilvra said: 'I hold to the principle that the prosperity of a nation must be the prosperity of its industrial people. If the people are struggling with poverty, the nation is poor, though the treasury is overflowing with idle money. I am for the real interests of the producer; the government should protect the weaker members from the encroachments of the stronger. The fundamental principle has been subverted, and we have a government of the capitalists and moneyed aristocracy. Money is circulation, and the coinage of silver should be as free as that of gold. The money in the public treasury should be used for the payment of bonds, and interest stopped. I am for laws to compel employers and employees to submit all disputes to arbitration. The very sight of this poverty irritates the working people; it has a tendency to drive a wedge between capital and labor. We are the friends of the needy, not the rich. Let us plant prosperity upon the hearth of every state and concede to all what they are justly entitled to.'
“The prosperity of a nation must be the prosperity of its industrial people. If the people are struggling with poverty, the nation is poor, though the treasury is overflowing with idle money.”
McGilvra’s 1888 platform—arguing that true national wealth is found in the prosperity of workers rather than the bank accounts of the wealthy—sounds like a draft of today’s progressive debates. His call for arbitration between labor and capital remains the fundamental friction point of Seattle's evolving economic landscape.
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