ABSTRACT
For the educated person from central Europe American parties are a riddle from the start. The two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, can now be differentiated from each other no more by social class than by political principles. There is no trace of any fundamental difference of viewpoint between the two American parties on the most important political questions. In 1901 the American Federation of Labor took up the practice, and it was decided to publish an extra number of the Federationist in which the system was to be explained and recommended. In 1904 it was for the first time made an integral part of trade-union policy in a comprehensive way. In other words, the ruling class, whose members in the Northern and Central states are perhaps inclined more to the Republican Party, belong to the Democratic Party in the Southern states.
