ASPECTS OF DeLEON.

The recent exchanges of opinion on Daniel De Leon that have been appearing in the pages of the journal, "Labor History" indicate a growing awareness that De Leon was a significant figure who has been given but slight notice by too many historians in the past. A number of those historians who have written on American labor and socialism have bypassed De Leon, or, when they have dealt with him at all, have done little or no primary research and have instead copied opinions on De Leon from each other. With a rather strained effort at objectivity, a number of historians of American socialist and labor history have also ignored or belittled Socialist Labor Party histories and character studies of De Leon as being much `too favorable to take seriously, despite the fact that these publications contain material on De Leon that can be found nowhere else. These SLP histories all written by people who knew and worked with De Leon-are valuable documents which admittedly give a favorable picture of De Leon by his dedicated followers (why consider only his opponents to be "objective"?), but also provide the researcher with insights into the reasons De Leon as a leader excited such dedication from his proponents and such animosity from his enemies.