Thompson Henry Murch

Thompson Henry Murch (March 29, 1838 – December 15, 1886) was a nineteenth century politician, stonecutter, editor, publisher and merchant from Maine. He was among the first trade unionists elected to the United States Congress.

Born in Hampden, Maine, Murch attended common schools as a child and spent his early life at sea. His father waa a sea-captain who died when Murch was an infant. Murch learned the trade of stonecutting and engaged in that occupation for eighteen years, living in a rented house on Dix Island, the site of a major granite quarry. He became editor and publisher of the Granite Cutters' International Journal in 1877 and was secretary of the Granite Cutters' International Association of America in 1877 and 1878.

Murch was elected a Greenbacker to the United States House of Representatives in 1878, serving from 1879 to 1883. Murch's election, along with fellow Greenback candidate George W. Ladd from nearby Bangor, greatly embarrassed the state and national Republican establishments, who'd come to consider Maine safe for the party. Murch was attacked in the New York Times and other Republican papers as "the Communist candidate" and called disrespectively "Murch, the stonecutter". A front-page New York Times article characatured him as "an ignorant stone-cutter who was never heard of until a few months ago, a Communist, a demogogue of the lowest type".[1]

Less biased sources described Murch as honest, decent, and a devoted family man. The Reading (Penn) Eagle suggested that even thousands of Republicans supported Murch as "the man who broke the Blaine, Hale, Hamlin Ring", referring to the three most prominent Republicans politicians in Maine, one of whom (Hale) Murch had defeated.[2]

After his defeat in the 1882 election, Murch engaged in mercantile pursuits until his death in Danvers, Massachusetts on December 15, 1886. He was interred in Hampden Cemetery in Hampden, Maine. <Read More>

Source: Wikipedia

The American Federation of Labor (AF of L) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death. As the Knights of Labor faded away, the AFL coalition gradually gained strength. In practice, AFL unions were important in industrial cities, where they formed a central labor office to coordinate the actions of different AFL unions. Most strikes were assertions of jurisdiction, so that the plumbers, for example, used strikes to ensure that all major construction projects in the city used union plumbers. To win they needed the support of other unions, hence the need for AFL solidarity.

Gompers promoted harmony among the different craft unions that comprised the AFL. Focused on higher wages and job security, the AFL fought against socialism and the Socialist party. After 1907 it formed alliances with the Democratic party at the local, state and national levels. The AFL enthusiastically supported the war effort in World War I, and saw rapid growth in union membership and wage rates. The AFL unions lost membership in the 1920s, and did not recover from the doldrums until the New Deal passed the Wagner Act in 1935. The AFL enthusiastically supported the New Deal Coalition led by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt.

John L. Lewis led a group of industrial unions to break away in the 1930s to form the CIO. The two federations competed for new members furiously, even violently. The AFL was always larger, and added more members in the very rapid growth period in the late 1930s and World War II era, while avoiding the radicalism of the CIO. William Green was president (1925-1952), but after 1940 the dominant leader was George Meany (1894-1980).

The AFL was always hostile to Communists, especially as they were powerful inside the rival CIO. The AFL boycotted the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) because of its decision to admit Soviet trade unions. The AFL was instrumental in establishing a rival federation, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which eventually won the allegiance of all labor federations save those of the Soviet Union and its satellites. The AFL hailed the Truman administration's Cold War policies and strongly supported American military intervention in the Korean War. Corruption in labor unions became a major political issues in the 1950s. Meany convinced the AFL to expel the racketeer-influenced International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) in 1953, and several other corrupt affiliates, most notably the Teamsters union, several years later. The AFL was at its peak in 1955, when it reunited with the CIO to form the AFL-CIO, which has lost members but remains in place today. <Read More>

Source: Wikipedia