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Title: Joseph A. Labadie Author: Anonymous Language: en Topics: Joseph Labadie, biography, individualist Source: Retrieved October 7, 2001 from http://members.aol.com/labadiejo/page3.html
Joseph A. Labadie was born on April 18, 1850 in Paw Paw, Michigan, the
descendant of 17^(th) century French immigrants. His boyhood was a
frontier existence among Pottawatomi tribes in southern Michigan, where
his father served as interpreter between the Jesuit missionaries and the
Indians. His only schooling was a few months in a parochial school.
At the age of 17 he began roaming the country as a “tramp” printer. In
1872 he put down roots in Detroit, working as a printer at the Detroit
Post and Tribune. In 1877, Labadie, an agnostic, married his cousin,
Sophie Elizabeth Archambeau, a devout Catholic. During their long and
happy life together, neither tried to change the other’s religious
outlook.
Labadie joined the newly formed Socialist Labor party in 1877, one of
the first two non-German-born Detroiters to do so. The other was Judson
Grenell, Labadie’s collaborator in publishing their first paper, the
Detroit Socialist. As the Socialistic Tract Association, they printed
cheap pamphlets explaining socialism, some of which they handed out free
on street corners.
In 1878, Labadie, who called himself “Jo”, was chosen by Knights of
Labor official Charles Litchman to organize Detroit’s first assembly,
L.A. 901. It was camouflaged as the Washington Literary Society in line
with the organization’s secrecy. Labadie also joined the Greenback
financial reform movement, ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor on the
Greenback-Labor ticket, and served as delegate to the divisive 1880
Greenback-Labor convention in Chicago.
That year he also was instrumental in organizing the Detroit Trades
Council, a city-wide assembly of trades unions, and served as its
president while continuing as an official of the Knights of Labor and
Socialist Labor Party. With Grenell, Labadie continued issuing a
succession of labor papers, including the nationally influential Advance
and Labor Leaf, and was a widely-published columnist for the labor
press, recognized for his forthright style and originality of thought.
In 1883, Labadie abandoned socialism and embraced individualist
anarchism. He became a close associate of Benjamin Tucker and a frequent
contributor to the latter’s Liberty. Despite Labadie’s outspoken
opposition to government, he was appointed clerk at Michigan’s new
Bureau of Labor in Lansing, and served there a year.
After the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago triggered an anti-anarchist
hysteria, which was echoed by Knights of Labor leader Terence Powderly,
Labadie became Powderly’s enemy. He condemned the Knights’ leaders for a
series of blunders and accused them of corruption. He visited the
imprisoned Haymarket anarchists in Chicago on his way to the 1887
Knights of Labor convention in Minneapolis as delegate from Detroit.
After Powderly opposed a clemency resolution for the Haymarket
defendants, Labadie delivered a scathing indictment of Powderly and his
ring.
Disillusioned with the Knights of Labor, Labadie in 1888 organized with
Sam Goldwater the Michigan Federation of Labor, became its first
president, and forged an alliance with Samuel Gompers.
In 1894, Labadie, who attributed his ill health to bad air in printing
plants, went to work for the city waterworks. He founded several
discussion clubs, lectured frequently on anarchism, and helped arrange
appearances for anarchist Emma Goldman.
At the age of 50, he began writing verse and publishing artistic
hand-crafted booklets.
In 1908, the city postal inspector banned his mail because it bore
stickers with anarchist quotations. A month later, the water board
dismissed him for expressing anarchist sentiments. In both cases, the
officials were forced to back down in the face of massive public support
for one of Detroit’s most popular figures.
Beginning in the early 1900s, Labadie’s extensive collection of labor
literature was sought for their institutions by professors in the
growing field of labor scholarship. Labadie chose the University of
Michigan, where it formed the nucleus of the renowned present-day
Labadie Collection.
The Labadies had three children: Laura, Charlotte, and Laurance. Jo
Labadie died in Detroit on October 7, 1933.