Louis Waldman

Infobox Person
name = Louis Waldman


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birth_date = January 5, 1892
birth_place = Yancherudnia, Ukraine
death_date = September 12, 1982
death_place = New York, New York [New York Times 14 September 1982 edition]
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Louis Waldman (January 5, 1892 - September 12, 1982) was a leading figure in the Socialist Party of America during its first 30 years and a prominent labor lawyer.

Biography

Born in Yancherudnia, Ukraine, to one of the few literate men among the Jews of the village, Waldman migrated to America as a teenager settling in New York City. After first attending engineering school and finally law school, he was elected to the New York State Assembly as a Socialist in 1917 and again in 1919. That year, all five Socialist members (August Claessens, Samuel Orr, Charles Solomon, and Sam Dewitt) were expelled in what became a lengthy court fight which was central to the struggle for civil liberties during the Red Scare.

Waldman was a leader of the Socialist Party's most committedly anticommunist faction from the beginning. Waldman was probably the major antagonist of Leon Trotsky while he was living in Manhattan and was active in the party there, as soon as America entered World War I, he publicly debated Trotsky over the latter's call to carry out armed resistance against the Wilson Administration.

Waldman became chairman of the Socialist Party of New York state in 1928 and was their candidate for Governor of New York that year and again in 1932. He quickly became a leader in that period of the party's "old guard", which was opposed to the position of the largely youth based "militant" faction that favored reconciliation and reunification with the Communist Party USA, in keeping with the United front policy of the Comintern. The old guard left the party after the militants effectively took over at the national convention of 1934, whereupon they formed the Social Democratic Federation (SDF).

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 as early as 1940 feeling it had been taken over by its 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 the most distinguished labor lawyer in New York and quite possibly the nation. 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 right up to his death.

Legacy

In 1944, Louis Waldman published his autobiography, "Labor Lawyer", in which he laid out his defense of the positions he had taken in his political career. Among other things, Waldman became very critical of the New Deal, considering it to be overly accommodating to the Communists and exhibiting certain authoritarian tendencies, somewhat echoing the critique of the old right. He was particularly alarmed by the integration of trade unions into the state apparatus that began to occur during World War II.

"Labor Lawyer" also contains arguably the finest existing history of the events in the Socialist Party in the years following the death of Eugene Victor Debs, and is especially significant because many of the figures he denounces as dangerous pro-Communists such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Andrew Biemiller would become some of the leading anti-Communist liberals of the postwar years. While Waldman himself was mostly apolitical after the war, this perspective clearly informed figures such as Ralph de Toledano who moved to the right from the anti-Communist left.

In addition, the law firm he founded, now Vladeck, Waldman, Elias, and Engelhardt, P.C., continues to exist as one of the leading labor law firms in New York.

References