To make matters worse the intellectual has brought with him a psychology which is particularly out of fit with the American labor situation.  We noted that the American labor movement became shunted from the political arena into the economic one by virtue of fundamental conditions of American political institutions and political life.  However, it is precisely in political activity where the intellectual is most at home.  The clear-cut logic and symmetry of political platforms based on general theories, the broad vistas which it may be made to encompass, and lastly the opportunity for eloquent self-expression offered by parliamentary debates, all taken together exert a powerful attraction for the intellectualized mind.  Contrast with this the prosaic humdrum work of a trade union leader, the incessant wrangling over “small” details and “petty” grievances, and the case becomes exceedingly clear.  The mind of the typical intellectual is too generalized to be lured by any such alternative.  He is out of patience with mere amelioration, even though it may mean much in terms of human happiness to the worker and his family.

When in 1906, in consequence of the heaping up of legal disabilities upon the trade unions, American labor leaders turned to politics to seek a restraining hand upon the courts,[109] the intellectuals foresaw a political labor party in the not distant future.  They predicted that one step would inevitably lead to another, that from a policy of bartering with the old parties for anti-injunction planks in their platforms, labor would turn to a political party of its own.  The intellectual critic continues to view the political action of the American Federation of Labor as the first steps of an invalid learning to walk; and hopes that before long he will learn to walk with a firmer step, without feeling tempted to lean upon the only too willing shoulders of old-party politicians.  On the contrary, the Federation leaders, as we know, regard their political work as a necessary evil, due to an unfortunate turn of affairs, which forces them from time to time to step out of their own trade union province in order that their natural enemy, the employing class, might get no aid and comfort from an outside ally.

Of late a rapprochement between the intellectual and trade unionist has begun to take place.  However, it is not founded on the relationship of leader and led, but only on a business relationship, or that of giver and receiver of paid technical advice.  The role of the trained economist in handling statistics and preparing “cases” for trade unionists before boards of arbitration is coming to be more and more appreciated.  The railway men’s organizations were first to put the intellectual to this use, the miners and others followed.  From this it is still a far cry to the role of such intellectuals as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, G.D.H.  Cole and the Fabian Research group in England, who have really permeated the British labor movement with their views