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

Abstract

Making World Safe for Workers: Labor, Left, and Internationalism, by Elizabeth McKillen. The Working Class In American History series. Chapaign, University of Illinois Press, 2013. xiv, 299 pp. $55.00 US (cloth). The failure of European socialist parties to oppose and effectively curtail movement toward world war in 1914 has long haunted labour and left history. Instead of resisting cry for war, most socialist and labour parties supported war, even while some publicly opposed a conflict that lasted more than four years and cost twenty million military and civilian lives. In United States, story differs, both due to its late entry into war but also opposition of majority of Left to Wilson's claims that war would make world safe for democracy. While some, such as American Federation of Labor President Samuel Gompers, would support military preparedness and US participation in war, majority of socialists, union activists, and labour radicals opposed US interventions, first in Mexican Revolution and later in the European War. After World War I, labour movement, despite massive strikes, lost influence and visibility. As far as most understand, Left had little power in making or sustaining of peace in post-war world. Flistorian Elizabeth McKillen's book, Making World Safe for Workers aims to change story and to broaden understanding of Left's role in abortive wartime negotiations, international labour cooperation, and in making of Wilsonian peace. The 1919 Versailles Treaty notwithstanding, conservative American labour supported Versailles Treaty, League of Nations it created, and International Labour Organisation (ILO). Significant voices on US Left and in labour movement opposed Treaty and ILO. McKillen argues for importance of political divisions in Labor Left, their implication for US foreign policy, and for labour's role in US failure to ratify Treaty and join League of Nations. McKillen shows us that what has been attributed to conservative opposition to Wilson's internationalism--the failure of Congress to ratify Treaty and participation in League of Nations--was not just product of Henry Cabot Lodge and an isolationist Congress. Rather, McKillen asserts, labour provisions of Versailles Treaty, lack of democracy in League and ILO, and ILO's founding labour principles (rightfully seen as undermining labour rights) were central to failure of public support for Wilson's foreign policy. His internationalism, as seen from a Left perspective, re-inscribed subordination of labour and endorsed capitalism and imperial rule. Another aspect of McKillen's research reiterates importance of American Federation of Labor (AFL) and its president Samuel Gompers in reshaping labour relations in World War 1 era. Throughout book, one is struck with how Gompers's political ambitions, and visceral hatred of his opponents in Industrial Workers of World (IWW) and Socialist party, undermined labour unity and did heavy damage, not least to Wilson's efforts to successfully connect with European socialists and trade unionists. …