American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [59]
On the surface, McSweeney and Powderly possessed many similarities. These two sons of Irish Catholic immigrants grew up in large families—McSweeney was one of eight, Powderly one of twelve. Their careers began in the labor movement, yet they were conservative by temperament and opposed to socialism. Unions were their avenue into partisan politics. Their backgrounds fed their interest in immigration.
Yet their differences outweighed their similarities. Whereas McSweeney was a Democrat, Powderly, sixteen years older than his soon to be nemesis, was a Republican. McSweeney played the political game with aplomb, cultivating influential and powerful people throughout society. Powderly, on the other hand, had a knack for angering both subordinates and superiors wherever he went. McSweeney was slick, while Powderly could be moody and abrasive. McSweeney retained strong ties to labor and the Catholic Church throughout his life; Powderly became estranged from both. Though both men supported the current immigration laws, McSweeney was sympathetic toward immigrants, while Powderly’s views were decidedly more negative.
McSweeney seemed to be born for political life, but Powderly was miscast in the profession. A slender, almost frail man, with a long droopy mustache and pale blue eyes, Powderly had the look, according to one contemporary journalist, that some mistook for “poets, gondola scullers, philosophers, and heroes crossed in love.” He was not, in appearance at least, a typical union man, and his looks suggested other character flaws: indecisiveness, moodiness, thin skin, and a querulous nature.
One historian described him as “a vain, pigheaded, unyielding, difficult man,” who was hard to like even from the “safe distance of an archive one hundred years” later. He had a tendency to quarrel with friends and foes alike. Recalling his days as leader of the Knights of Labor, Powderly noted: “I cannot forget either that I had been the recipient of a much larger share of unstinted censure, condemnation, denunciation, and abuse from those I had worked for as well as from those I had opposed.” By the early 1890s, the Knights had gone into decline, wracked with dissension, and Powderly was looking for other opportunities. He later claimed that when he left the Knights, he was “broken in health and spirits” and doctors had given him only months to live.
Powderly somehow managed to survive, and in 1896 he supported Ohio’s Republican governor, William McKinley, for president. He became McKinley’s main adviser on labor issues. The Immigration Bureau was to be Powderly’s reward.
Over the course of his career, Powderly made many enemies, a dubious skill he would soon put to use in his new job. Some of those enemies pressured the Senate to block Powderly’s confirmation, forcing McKinley to make a recess appointment. Even the Knights of Labor’s official newspaper came out against its former chief. Many of them distrusted Powderly’s Republican friends and criticized Powderly for dropping his opposition to the gold standard to align with McKinley’s views.
Another critic was Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who called Powderly’s selection “an affront to labor.” Gompers’s AFL succeeded the Knights as the country’s leading labor union, and the two men clashed repeatedly over the years.
Powderly fought back, however, and McKinley stuck with him. Powderly went so far as to elicit the support of Edward McSweeney, his soon to be subordinate, to lobby Gompers to lift his opposition to