[wahern]

The parties were aligned differently, but the Democrats were still the party more closely aligned with labor at the turn of the century. For example, it was Democrats who passed the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 legalizing labor strikes, which conservative courts had deemed illegal according to their interpretation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (The Sherman Antitrust Act itself was passed unanimously, excepting one dissenting vote in the Senate--Senator Rufus Blodgett[1], Democrat from New Jersey.)

Similarly, Republicans have always been the party generally considered more closely aligned with business, in the sense of leaning toward laissez-faire capitalism, etc. In this respect they inherited the platform from the Whigs, such that this particular alignment of the two major, dominant parties goes back to the Founding of the United States.

[1] See page 3153 at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1890-pt4-v21/p...