The Utopian Communist: A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling

CHAPTER XI

XI. The Workingmen's League

T

HE decade preceding the panic of 1857, which acted as

a sharp, although temporary, setback for the labor move­

ment in the United States, also marks a transitional period

in the history of socialism. From the purely communistic Utopian

type it was developing into a type which would aim at political

power by the use of political weapons. In this development Weitling was an important figure.^1

The period from 1838 to 1857 has been described as "the period

of humanitarianism," or the "star-gazing period," in the history

of American labor. During these years labor leaders, like other

Americans, were genuinely concerned with the growing inequali­

ties which were coming to light in this young and powerful na­

tion dedicated to the principle of equality for all. Robert Owen's

panaceas for a brave new world were well known in the United

States, where Orestes A. Brownson was wrestling with some of

the same problems. Albert Brisbane had introduced Americans

to the doctrines of Fourier, had rejected both political action and

the class struggle, and had sought to reorganize society into units

whose economic and social relationships would be in perfect ad­

justment.

Brisbane converted to Fourierism Horace Greeley, the poor

New Hampshire boy who may have derived his deep sense of

"universal justice" from the New England Transcendentalists;

(^1) See Frederic Heath, Social Democracy Red Book (Terre Haute, 1900),
passim.