Louis Waldman

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He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1923 and worked thereafter as counsel for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, for the New York Central Trades and Labor Council, and for various other unions in the building and garment trades.

In 1916 the young engineer Louis Waldman was approached at a meeting of his Socialist Party branch and was drafted into becoming a candidate of the party for the New York State Assembly. Although he protested that between his engineering job and his evening studies of law he had no time for campaigning, the party official approaching him smiled and replied, "Campaigning? Who said anything about campaigning? We just want someone to run for office. If you get more than seven hundred votes we'll be lucky. The real campaigns this year will be for Meyer London and Morris Hillquit." And thus was born a Socialist Party politician. Waldman did actually campaign, however, mounting the platform to give public speeches, at which he gradually improved. Waldman performed well in the 1916 election, tripling the Socialist tally while losing to his Democratic opponent by a few hundred votes.

In the fall of 1917, with America embroiled in the European conflict and a section of the American electorate radicalized by the turn towards war by the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson, Waldman ran for the Assembly again as a Socialist, this time winning election. Waldman was a member of the State Assembly (New York Co., 8th D.), sitting in the 141st New York State Legislature, one of 10 Socialists elected to the Assembly of 1918, the best electoral performance that the organization would ever achieve.

In November 1918, Waldman met with defeat, but he ran again for state assembly in 1919 against a fusion candidate of the Democratic and Republican parties and emerged victorious, along with four other Socialist Party comrades, August Claessens, Samuel Orr, Charles Solomon, and Samuel A. DeWitt. The five Socialist Assemblymen were suspended on the first day of the new legislative session by the Republican-dominated body and their expulsion trial before the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly and subsequent court fight became a cause celebre of the Red Scare. They were expelled on April 1. All five were re-elected at a special election on September 16, and appeared to take their seats at the beginning of the special session on September 20. The next day, DeWitt and Orr were permitted to take their seats, but Claessens, Solomon and Waldman were expelled again. Protesting against the re-expulsion of their comrades, DeWitt and Orr resigned their seats.

In 1924, he ran on the Socialist ticket for New York Attorney General.

Waldman was elected chairman of the Socialist Party of New York state in 1928, a position which he retained through the first half of the 1930s. He also stood as the SP candidate for Governor of New York in 1928, 1930 and 1932, polling over 100,000 votes in each of these races. Along with Morris Hillquit, James Oneal, and Algernon Lee, Waldman was recognized as a leader of the SP's "Old Guard" faction, which favored close working relations with the trade unions of the American Federation of Labor and pursuance of gradual ameliorative reforms leading eventually to socialism rather than cataclysmic revolutionary transformation. This perspective brought Waldman and the Old Guard into opposition of the largely youth based "Militant" faction in the party, who favored reconciliation with the Communist Party USA, in keeping with the united front policy of the Comintern and preparation for a socialist struggle for power in the event of capitalism's collapse.

During the first half of the 1930s, Waldman was one of the leading figures of the so-called "Old Guard" of the Socialist Party — an organized faction based in New York City which sought to continue the party's traditional orientation towards electoral politics and close cooperation with the trade union movement. The Old Guard organized itself in opposition to a so-called "Militant faction" which emerged in 1930 and 1931, consisting of younger and more radical members who sought a turn towards direct action and a program endorsing revolutionary socialism. Although both of these main factions considered themselves orthodox Marxists, the social democratic Old Guard considered their Militant opponents to be adventurists with a deluded sense of enthusiasm for the Soviet Union and the world communist movement, while the Militants considered the Old Guard to be dyed-in-the-wood reformists unwilling to challenge anti-democratic behavior in the union movement.

Personal and personnel issues entered into play. The Militants sought to replace Socialist Party National Chairman Morris Hillquit, the best known and most widely respected of the Old Guard leaders, as an impediment to the future growth of the party. The Old Guard, similarly, sought the removal of the party's National Executive Secretary, Clarence Senior, a protégé of the charismatic spokesman for the radical wing of the party, former Presidential candidate Norman Thomas, an outspoken pacifist who had made common cause with the organized Militant group in an effort to build the SPA into a mass movement.

The critical moment in the struggle between the two main factions came in June 1934 at the Socialist Party's National Convention in Detroit, Michigan. There the assembled delegates took up debate of an aggressively anti-militarist Declaration of Principles for the party, written by Thomas ally Devere Allen. Louis Waldman was one of the key spokesmen for the Old Guard in the debate over this document at the Detroit Convention.

Waldman took issue with the clause of the proposed Declaration of Principles which called for "massed war resistance" by the party in the face of a new war":

Following the conclusion of debate, the Declaration of Principles was approved by majority vote of the assembled delegates and the matter referred to the membership of the party for ratification by referendum vote.

The Old Guard minority issued a formal statement on the matter, calling the Declaration of Principles "inadequate and confused" and a step towards turning the SPA into an "underground organization." The Old Guard statement continued:

The membership of the party was encouraged to defeat proposed new Declaration of Principles in favor of retention of the existing 1924 Declaration.

The 1934 Declaration of Principles was ratified by the party membership nonetheless.

The factional war within the Socialist Party continued unabated for more than a year more, with the Old Guard faction ultimately exiting the party en masse to form the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) at the time of the party's May 1936 convention in Cleveland.

Waldman continued to play a leading role in the new SDF organization. An organizational meeting was held of the new group in early July, at which Waldman sought to endorse Franklin Delano Roosevelt for President of the United States in lieu of the Socialist nominee, Norman Thomas. The gathering found itself split on the issue, however, and no endorsement was forthcoming. Waldman's foes, such as New York Socialist Party Executive Secretary Jack Altman and Socialist candidate for Governor Harry W. Laidler were quick to attack Waldman, charging him with a "betrayal of Socialist principles" in attempting to "divert 100,000 Socialist votes to the Roosevelt column."

Many SDF members became involved in the American Labor Party when it was formed in 1936, supporting the faction led by David Dubinsky. Waldman however resigned from the ALP in 1940, feeling it had been taken over by a pro-Communist faction led by Sidney Hillman. It was not for another four years until Dubinsky and his supporters reached the same conclusion and bolted to form the Liberal Party.

After resigning from the ALP, Waldman had virtually no political involvements and devoted himself to his law practice, becoming one of the most distinguished labor lawyers in the nation. During this period, he represented Walter Krivitsky among others.

He was also active in the New York State Bar Association and served over the years on numerous state commissions. Representing unions as varied as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the International Longshoremen's Association, Waldman continued his practice until retiring due to a stroke in his late 80s.

Like many liberals of his time, Waldman expressed sympathy for the endeavors of civil rights activists but did not agree with their tactic of breaking the law. In an article published by the New York State Bar Journal in 1965, he expressed his worries. He begins by assuring his readers that he "espoused and still [espouses] the cause of civil rights for all people" and then argues:

In such a way, Waldman asserted: defying the law is on its face generally a bad thing because defiance would weaken respect for the law in most cases, especially if the legal system is basically decent; therefore, in order to meet this objection, those who advocated civil disobedience must have legitimate justifications to defy the law. Answering Waldman's objections, King often used such a particular argument: the evils being opposed were so serious, so numerous, and so difficult to fight that civil disobedience was a justifiable last resort. Although the means were regrettable, the end justified the means.

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