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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Trade Unionism in the United
+States, by Selig Perlman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A History of Trade Unionism in the United States
+
+Author: Selig Perlman
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14458]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by William Boerst, Martin Pettit and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
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+Social Science Text-Books
+
+EDITED BY RICHARD T. ELY
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM IN THE UNITED STATES
+
+BY
+
+SELIG PERLMAN, PH.D.
+
+Assistant Professor of Economics in the University of Wisconsin;
+Co-author of the History of Labour in the United States
+
+New York
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+1922
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+Set up and electrotyped. October, 1922.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+The present _History of Trade Unionism in the United States_ is in part
+a summary of work in labor history by Professor John R. Commons and
+collaborators at the University of Wisconsin from 1904 to 1918, and in
+part an attempt by the author to carry the work further. Part I of the
+present book is based on the _History of Labour in the United States_ by
+Commons and Associates (Introduction: John R. Commons; Colonial and
+Federal Beginnings, to 1827: David J. Saposs; Citizenship, 1827-1833:
+Helen L. Summer; Trade Unionism, 1833-1839: Edward B. Mittelman;
+Humanitarianism, 1840-1860: Henry E. Hoagland; Nationalization,
+1860-1877: John B. Andrews; and Upheaval and Reorganization, 1876-1896:
+by the present author), published by the Macmillan Company in 1918 in
+two volumes.
+
+Part II, "The Larger Career of Unionism," brings the story from 1897
+down to date; and Part III, "Conclusions and Inferences," is an attempt
+to bring together several of the general ideas suggested by the History.
+Chapter 12, entitled "An Economic Interpretation," follows the line of
+analysis laid down by Professor Commons in his study of the American
+shoemakers, 1648-1895.[1]
+
+The author wishes to express his strong gratitude to Professors Richard
+T. Ely and John R. Commons for their kind aid at every stage of this
+work. He also wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. Edwin E.
+Witte, Director of the Wisconsin State Legislative Reference Library,
+upon whose extensive and still unpublished researches he based his
+summary of the history of the injunction; and to Professor Frederick L.
+Paxson, who subjected the manuscript to criticism from the point of view
+of General American History.
+
+S.P.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] See his _Labor and Administration_, Chapter XIV (Macmillan, 1913).
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                  PAGE
+
+PREFACE                                            v
+
+
+PART I. THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
+
+CHAPTER
+
+1 LABOR MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+  (1) Early Beginnings, to 1827                    8
+  (2) Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832                 9
+  (3) The Period of the "Wild-Cat" Prosperity,
+      1833-1837                                   18
+  (4) The Long Depression, 1837-1862              29
+
+2 THE "GREENBACK" PERIOD, 1862-1879               42
+
+3 THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF
+  THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR                68
+
+4 REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887                 81
+
+5 THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL
+  FAILURE OF PRODUCERS' COOPERATION              106
+
+6 STABILIZATION, 1888-1897                       130
+
+7 TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS                  146
+
+
+PART II. THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM
+
+8 PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES,
+  1898-1914                                      163
+
+  (1) The Miners                                 167
+  (2) The Railway Men                            180
+  (3) The Machinery and Metal Trades             186
+  (4) The Employers' Reaction                    190
+  (5) Legislation, Courts, and Politics          198
+
+9 RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION"   208
+
+10 THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET                    226
+
+11 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS                           245
+
+
+PART III. CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES
+
+12 AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION                    265
+
+13 THE IDEALISTIC FACTOR                         279
+
+14 WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY      285
+
+15 THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND
+  TRADE UNIONISM                                 295
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY                                     307
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
+
+HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM IN THE U.S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+LABOR MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+(1) _Early Beginnings, to 1827_
+
+The customary chronology records the first American labor strike in
+1741. In that year the New York bakers went out on strike. A closer
+analysis discloses, however, that this outbreak was a protest of master
+bakers against a municipal regulation of the price of bread, not a wage
+earners' strike against employers. The earliest genuine labor strike in
+America occurred, as far as known, in 1786, when the Philadelphia
+printers "turned out" for a minimum wage of six dollars a week. The
+second strike on record was in 1791 by Philadelphia house carpenters for
+the ten-hour day. The Baltimore sailors were successful in advancing
+their wages through strikes in the years 1795, 1805, and 1807, but their
+endeavors were recurrent, not permanent. Even more ephemeral were
+several riotous sailors' strikes as well as a ship builders' strike in
+1817 at Medford, Massachusetts. Doubtless many other such outbreaks
+occurred during the period to 1820, but left no record of their
+existence.
+
+A strike undoubtedly is a symptom of discontent. However, one can
+hardly speak of a beginning of trade unionism until such discontent has
+become expressed in an organization that keeps alive after a strike, or
+between strikes. Such permanent organizations existed prior to the
+twenties only in two trades, namely, shoemaking and printing.
+
+The first continuous organization of wage earners was that of the
+Philadelphia shoemakers, organized in 1792. This society, however,
+existed for less than a year and did not even leave us its name. The
+shoemakers of Philadelphia again organized in 1794 under the name of the
+Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers and maintained their existence
+as such at least until 1806. In 1799 the society conducted the first
+organized strike, which lasted nine or ten weeks. Prior to 1799, the
+only recorded strikes of any workmen were "unorganized" and, indeed,
+such were the majority of the strikes that occurred prior to the decade
+of the thirties in the nineteenth century.
+
+The printers organized their first society in 1794 in New York under the
+name of The Typographical Society and it continued in existence for ten
+years and six months. The printers of Philadelphia, who had struck in
+1786, neglected to keep up an organization after winning their demands.
+Between the years 1800 and 1805, the shoemakers and the printers had
+continuous organizations in Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. In
+1809 the shoemakers of Pittsburgh and the Boston printers were added to
+the list, and somewhat later the Albany and Washington printers. In 1810
+the printers organized in New Orleans.
+
+The separation of the journeymen from the masters, first shown in the
+formation of these organizations, was emphasized in the attitude toward
+employer members. The question arose over the continuation in membership
+of those who became employers. The shoemakers excluded such members from
+the organization. The printers, on the other hand, were more liberal.
+But in 1817 the New York society put them out on the ground that "the
+interests of the journeymen are _separate_ and in some respects
+_opposite_ to those of the employers."
+
+The strike was the chief weapon of these early societies. Generally a
+committee was chosen by the society to present a price list or scale of
+wages to the masters individually. The first complete wage scale
+presented in this country was drawn up by the organized printers of New
+York in 1800. The strikes were mainly over wages and were generally
+conducted in an orderly and comparatively peaceful manner. In only one
+instance, that of the Philadelphia shoemakers of 1806, is there evidence
+of violence and intimidation. In that case "scabs" were beaten and
+employers intimidated by demonstrations in front of the shop or by
+breaking shop windows. During a strike the duties of "picketing" were
+discharged by tramping committees. The Philadelphia shoemakers, however,
+as early as 1799, employed for this purpose a paid officer. This strike
+was for higher wages for workers on boots. Although those who worked on
+shoes made no demands of their own, they were obliged to strike, much
+against their will. We thus meet with the first sympathetic strike on
+record. In 1809 the New York shoemakers, starting with a strike against
+one firm, ordered a general strike when they discovered that that firm
+was getting its work done in other shops. The payment of strike benefits
+dates from the first authenticated strike, namely in 1786. The method of
+payment varied from society to society, but the constitution of the New
+York shoemakers, as early as 1805, provided for a permanent strike fund.
+
+The aggressive trade unionism of these early trade societies forced the
+masters to combine against them. Associations of masters in their
+capacity as merchants had usually preceded the journeymen's societies.
+Their function was to counteract destructive competition from
+"advertisers" and sellers in the "public market" at low prices. As soon,
+however, as the wage question became serious, the masters' associations
+proceeded to take on the function of dealing with labor--mostly aiming
+to break up the trade societies. Generally they sought to create an
+available force of non-union labor by means of advertising, but often
+they turned to the courts and brought action against the journeymen's
+societies on the ground of conspiracy.
+
+The bitterness of the masters' associations against the the journeymen's
+societies perhaps was caused not so much by their resistance to
+reductions in wages as by their imposition of working rules, such as the
+limitation of the number of apprentices, the minimum wage, and what we
+would now call the "closed shop." The conspiracy trials largely turned
+upon the "closed shop" and in these the shoemakers figured
+exclusively.[2]
+
+Altogether six criminal conspiracy cases are recorded against the
+shoemakers from 1806 to 1815. One occurred in Philadelphia in 1806; one
+in New York in 1809; two in Baltimore in 1809; and two in Pittsburgh,
+the first in 1814 and the other in 1815. Each case was tried before a
+jury which was judge both of law and fact. Four of the cases were
+decided against the journeymen. In one of the Baltimore cases judgment
+was rendered in favor of the journeymen. The Pittsburgh case of 1815 was
+compromised, the shoemakers paying the costs and returning to work at
+the old wages. The outcome in the other cases is not definitely known.
+It was brought out in the testimony that the masters financed, in part
+at least, the New York and Pittsburgh prosecutions.
+
+Effective as the convictions in court for conspiracy may have been in
+checking the early trade societies, of much greater consequence was the
+industrial depression which set in after the conclusion of the
+Napoleonic Wars. The lifting of the Embargo enabled the foreign traders
+and manufacturers to dump their products upon the American market. The
+incipient American industries were in no position to withstand this
+destructive competition. Conditions were made worse by past over
+investment and by the collapse of currency inflation.
+
+Trade unionism for the time being had to come to an end. The effect on
+the journeymen's societies was paralyzing. Only those survived which
+turned to mutual insurance. Several of the printers' societies had
+already instituted benefit features, and these now helped them
+considerably to maintain their organization. The shoe-makers' societies
+on the other hand had remained to the end purely trade-regulating
+organizations and went to the wall.
+
+Depression reached its ebb in 1820. Thereafter conditions improved,
+giving rise to aggressive organizations of wage earners in several
+industries. We find strikes and permanent organizations among hatters,
+tailors, weavers, nailers, and cabinet makers. And for the first time we
+meet with organizations of factory workers--female workers.
+
+Beginning with 1824 and running through 1825, the year which saw the
+culmination of a period of high prices, a number of strikes occurred in
+the important industrial centers. The majority were called to enforce
+higher wages. In Philadelphia, 2900 weavers out of about 4500 in the
+city were on strike. But the strike that attracted the most public
+attention was that of the Boston house carpenters for the ten-hour day
+in 1825.
+
+The Boston journeymen carpenters chose the most strategic time for their
+strike. They called it in the spring of the year when there was a great
+demand for carpenters owing to a recent fire. Close to six hundred
+journeymen were involved in this struggle. The journeymen's demand for
+the ten-hour day drew a characteristic reply from the "gentlemen engaged
+in building," the customers of the master builders. They condemned the
+journeymen on the moral ground that an agitation for a shorter day would
+open "a wide door for idleness and vice"; hinted broadly at the foreign
+origin of the agitation; declared that all combinations intending to
+regulate the value of labor by abridging the working day were in a high
+degree unjust and injurious to the other classes in the community;
+announced their resolution to support the masters at the sacrifice of
+suspending building altogether; and bound themselves not to employ any
+journeyman or master who might enforce the ten-hour day. The strike
+failed.
+
+The renewed trade-union activities brought forth a fresh crop of trials
+for conspiracy.[3] One case involved Philadelphia master shoemakers who
+combined to reduce wages, two were against journeymen tailors in
+Philadelphia and Buffalo and the fourth was a hatters' case in New
+York. The masters were acquitted and the hatters were found guilty of
+combining to deprive a non-union man of his livelihood. In the
+Philadelphia tailors' case, the journeymen were convicted on the charge
+of intimidation. Of the Buffalo tailors' case it is only known that it
+ended in the conviction of the journeymen.
+
+
+(2) _Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832_
+
+So far we have dealt only with trade societies but not yet with a labor
+movement. A labor movement presupposes a feeling of solidarity which
+goes beyond the boundaries of a single trade and extends to other wage
+earners. The American labor movement began in 1827, when the several
+trades in Philadelphia organized the Mechanics' Union of Trade
+Associations, which was, so far as now known, the first city central
+organization of trades in the world. This Union, originally intended as
+an economic organization, changed to a political one the following year
+and initiated what was probably the most interesting and most typically
+American labor movement--a struggle for "equality of citizenship." It
+was brought to a head by the severe industrial depression of the time.
+But the decisive impulse came from the nation-wide democratic upheaval
+led by Andrew Jackson, for which the poorer classes in the cities
+displayed no less enthusiasm than the agricultural West. To the wage
+earner this outburst of democratic fervor offered an opportunity to try
+out his recently acquired franchise. Of the then industrial States,
+Massachusetts granted suffrage to the workingmen in 1820 and New York in
+1822. In Pennsylvania the constitution of 1790 had extended the right of
+suffrage to those who paid any kind of a state or county tax, however
+small.
+
+The wage earners' Jacksonianism struck a note all its own. If the
+farmer and country merchant, who had passed through the abstract stage
+of political aspiration with the Jeffersonian democratic movement, were
+now, with Jackson, reaching out for the material advantages which
+political power might yield, the wage earners, being as yet novices in
+politics, naturally were more strongly impressed with that aspect of the
+democratic upheaval which emphasized the rights of man in general and
+social equality in particular. If the middle class Jacksonian was
+probably thinking first of reducing the debt on his farm or perchance of
+getting a political office, and only as an after-thought proceeding to
+look for a justification in the Declaration of Independence, as yet the
+wage earner was starting with the abstract notion of equal citizenship
+as contained in the Declaration, and only then proceeding to search for
+the remedies which would square reality with the idea. Hence it was that
+the aspiration toward equal citizenship became the keynote of labor's
+earliest political movement. The issue was drawn primarily between the
+rich and the poor, not between the functional classes, employers and
+employes. While the workmen took good care to exclude from their ranks
+"persons not living by some useful occupation, such as bankers, brokers,
+rich men, etc.," they did not draw the line on employers as such, master
+workmen and independent "producers."
+
+The workingmen's bill of complaints, as set forth in the Philadelphia
+_Mechanic's Free Press_ and other labor papers, clearly marks off the
+movement as a rebellion by the class of newly enfranchised wage earners
+against conditions which made them feel degraded in their own eyes as
+full fledged citizens of the commonwealth.
+
+The complaints were of different sorts but revolved around the charge
+of the usurpation of government by an "aristocracy." Incontrovertible
+proof of this charge was found in special legislation chartering banks
+and other corporations. The banks were indicted upon two counts. First,
+the unstable bank paper money defrauded the wage earner of a
+considerable portion of the purchasing power of his wages. Second, banks
+restricted competition and shut off avenues for the "man on the make."
+The latter accusation may be understood only if we keep in mind that
+this was a period when bank credits began to play an essential part in
+the conduct of industry; that with the extension of the market into the
+States and territories South and West, with the resulting delay in
+collections, business could be carried on only by those who enjoyed
+credit facilities at the banks. Now, as credit generally follows access
+to the market, it was inevitable that the beneficiary of the banking
+system should not be the master or journeyman but the merchant for whom
+both worked.[4] To the uninitiated, however, this arrangement could only
+appear in the light of a huge conspiracy entered into by the chartered
+monopolies, the banks, and the unchartered monopolist, the merchant, to
+shut out the possible competition by the master and journeyman. The
+grievance appeared all the more serious since all banks were chartered
+by special enactments of the legislature, which thus appeared as an
+accomplice in the conspiracy.
+
+In addition to giving active help to the rich, the workingmen argued,
+the government was too callous to the suffering of the poor and pointed
+to the practice of imprisonment for debt. The Boston Prison Discipline
+Society, a philanthropic organization, estimated in 1829 that about
+75,000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United States.
+Many of these were imprisoned for very small debts. In one Massachusetts
+prison, for example, out of 37 cases, 20 were for less than $20. The
+Philadelphia printer and philanthropist, Mathew Carey, father of the
+economist Henry C. Carey, cited a contemporary Boston case of a blind
+man with a family dependent on him imprisoned for a debt of six dollars.
+A labor paper reported an astounding case of a widow in Providence,
+Rhode Island, whose husband had lost his life in a fire while attempting
+to save the property of the man who later caused her imprisonment for a
+debt of 68 cents. The physical conditions in debtors' jails were
+appalling, according to unimpeachable contemporary reports. Little did
+such treatment of the poor accord with their newly acquired dignity as
+citizens.
+
+Another grievance, particularly exasperating because the government was
+responsible, grew in Pennsylvania out of the administration of the
+compulsory militia system. Service was obligatory upon all male citizens
+and non-attendance was punished by fine or imprisonment. The rich
+delinquent did not mind, but the poor delinquent when unable to pay was
+given a jail sentence.
+
+Other complaints by workingmen went back to the failure of government to
+protect the poorer citizen's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness." The lack of a mechanic's lien law, which would protect his
+wages in the case of his employer's bankruptcy, was keenly felt by the
+workingmen. A labor paper estimated in 1829 that, owing to the lack of a
+lien law on buildings, not less than three or four hundred thousand
+dollars in wages were annually lost.
+
+But the most distinctive demands of the workingmen went much further.
+This was an age of egalitarianism. The Western frontiersmen demanded
+equality with the wealthy Eastern merchant and banker, and found in
+Andrew Jackson an ideal spokesman. For a brief moment it seemed that by
+equality the workingmen meant an equal division of all property. That
+was the program which received temporary endorsement at the first
+workingmen's meeting in New York in April 1829. "Equal division" was
+advocated by a self-taught mechanic by the name of Thomas Skidmore, who
+elaborated his ideas in a book bearing the self-revealing title of "_The
+Rights of Man to Property: being a Proposition to make it Equal among
+the Adults of the Present Generation: and to Provide for its Equal
+Transmission to Every Individual of Each Succeeding Generation, on
+Arriving at the Age of Maturity_," published in 1829. This Skidmorian
+program was better known as "agrarianism," probably from the title of a
+book by Thomas Paine, _Agrarian Justice, as Opposed to Agrarian Law and
+to Agrarian Monopoly_, published in 1797 in London, which advocated
+equal division by means of an inheritance tax. Its adoption by the New
+York workingmen was little more than a stratagem, for their intention
+was to forestall any attempts by employers to lengthen the working day
+to eleven hours by raising the question of "the nature of the tenure by
+which all men hold title to their property." Apparently the stratagem
+worked, for the employers immediately dropped the eleven-hour issue.
+But, although the workingmen quickly thereafter repudiated agrarianism,
+they succeeded only too well in affixing to their movement the mark of
+the beast in the eyes of their opponents and the general public.
+
+Except during the brief but damaging "agrarian" episode, the demand for
+free public education or "Republican" education occupied the foreground.
+We, who live in an age when free education at the expense of the
+community is considered practically an inalienable right of every child,
+find it extremely difficult to understand the vehemence of the
+opposition which the demand aroused on the part of the press and the
+"conservative" classes, when first brought up by the workingmen. The
+explanation lies partly in the political situation, partly in the moral
+character of the "intellectual" spokesmen for the workingmen, and partly
+in the inborn conservatism of the tax-paying classes upon whom the
+financial burden would fall. That the educational situation was
+deplorable much proof is unnecessary. Pennsylvania had some public
+schools, but parents had to declare themselves too poor to send their
+children to a private school before they were allowed the privilege of
+sending them there. In fact so much odium attached to these schools that
+they were practically useless and the State became distinguished for the
+number of children not attending school. As late as 1837 a labor paper
+estimated that 250,000 out of 400,000 children in Pennsylvania of school
+age were not in any school. The Public School Society of New York
+estimated in a report for 1829 that in New York City alone there were
+24,200 children between the ages of five and fifteen years not attending
+any school whatever.
+
+To meet these conditions the workingmen outlined a comprehensive
+educational program. It was not merely a literary education that the
+workingmen desired. The idea of industrial education, or training for a
+vocation, which is even now young in this country, was undoubtedly first
+introduced by the leaders of this early labor movement. They demanded a
+system of public education which would "combine a knowledge of the
+practical arts with that of the useful sciences." The idea of industrial
+education appears to have originated in a group of which two
+"intellectuals," Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright, were the leading
+spirits.
+
+Robert Dale Owen was the eldest son of Robert Owen, the famous English
+manufacturer-philanthropist, who originated the system of socialism
+known as "Owenism." Born in Scotland, he was educated at Hofwyl,
+Switzerland, in a school conducted by Emmanuel von Fellenberg, the
+associate of the famous Pestalozzi, as a self-governing children's
+republic on the manner of the present "Julior Republics." Owen himself
+said that he owed his abiding faith in human virtue and social progress
+to his years at Hofwyl. In 1825 Robert Dale left England to join his
+father in a communistic experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, and together
+they lived through the vicissitudes which attended that experiment.
+There he met Frances Wright, America's first suffragist, with whom he
+formed an intimate friendship lasting through many years. The failure at
+New Harmony convinced him that his father had overlooked the importance
+of the anti-social habits which the members had formed before they
+joined; and he concluded that those could be prevented only by applying
+a rational system of education to the young. These conclusions, together
+with the recollections of his experience at Hofwyl, led him to advocate
+a new system of education, which came to be called "state guardianship."
+
+State guardianship was a demand for the establishment by the state of
+boarding schools where children should receive, not only equal
+instruction, general as well as industrial, but equal food and equal
+clothing at the public expense. Under this system, it was asserted,
+public schools would become "not schools of charity, but schools of the
+nation, to the support of which all would contribute; and instead of
+being almost a disgrace, it would become an honor to have been educated
+there." It was urged as an especial advantage that, as children would be
+clothed and cared for at all times, the fact that poor parents could not
+afford to dress their children "as decently as their neighbors" would
+not prevent their attendance.
+
+State guardianship became the battle cry of an important faction in the
+Workingmen's party in New York. Elsewhere a less radical program was
+advocated. In Philadelphia the workingmen demanded only that high
+schools be on the Hofwyl model, whereas in the smaller cities and towns
+in both Pennsylvania and New York the demand was for "literary" day
+schools. Yet the underlying principle was the same everywhere. A labor
+candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District of
+Philadelphia in 1830 expressed it succinctly during his campaign. He
+made his plea on the ground that "he is the friend and indefatigable
+defender of a system of general education, which will place the citizens
+of this extensive Republic on an equality; a system that will fit the
+children of the poor, as well as the rich, to become our future
+legislators; a system that will bring the children of the poor and the
+rich to mix together as a band of Republican brethren."
+
+In New England the workingmen's movement for equal citizenship was
+simultaneously a reaction against the factory system. To the cry for a
+Republican system of education was added an anti-child labor crusade.
+One who did more than any other to call attention to the evils of the
+factory system of that day was a lawyer by the name of Seth Luther, who,
+according to his own account, had "for years lived among cotton mills,
+worked in them, travelled among them." His "_Address to the Working Men
+of New England on the State of Education, and on the Condition of the
+Producing Classes in Europe and America, with Particular Reference to
+the Effect of Manufacturing (as now conducted) on the Health and
+Happiness of the Poor, and on the Safety of our Republic_" was delivered
+widely and undoubtedly had considerable influence over the labor
+movement of the period. The average working day in the best factories at
+that time was nearly thirteen hours. For the children who were sent into
+the factories at an early age these hours precluded, of course, any
+possibility of obtaining even the most rudimentary education.
+
+The New England movement was an effort to unite producers of all kinds,
+including not only farmers but factory workers with mechanics and city
+workingmen. In many parts of the State of New York the workingmen's
+parties included the three classes--"farmers, mechanics, and working
+men,"--but New England added a fourth class, the factory operatives. It
+was early found, however, that the movement could expect little or no
+help from the factory operatives, who were for the most part women and
+children.
+
+The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor movements
+and labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first workingmen's party,
+then came New York and Boston, and finally state-wide movements and
+political organizations in each of the three States. In New York the
+workingmen scored their most striking single success, when in 1829 they
+cast 6000 votes out of a total of 21,000. In Philadelphia the labor
+ticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance of
+power in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupled
+with machinations on the part of "designing men" of both older parties
+soon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany made
+the demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that it
+became enacted into law. In New York, also, the situation became
+complicated by factional strife between the Skidmorian "agrarians," the
+Owenite state guardianship faction, and a third faction which eschewed
+either "panacea." Then, too, the opposition parties and press seized
+upon agrarianism and Owen's alleged atheism to brand the whole labor
+movement. The labor party was decidedly unfortunate in its choice of
+intellectuals and "ideologists."
+
+It would be, however, a mistake to conclude that the Philadelphia, New
+York, or New England political movements were totally without results.
+Though unsuccessful in electing their candidates to office, they did
+succeed in placing their demands to advantage before the public.
+Humanitarians, like Horace Mann, took up independently the fight for
+free public education and carried it to success. In Pennsylvania, public
+schools, free from the taint of charity, date since 1836. In New York
+City the public school system was established in 1832. The same is true
+of the demand for a mechanics' lien law, of the abolition of
+imprisonment for debt, and of others.
+
+
+(3) _The Period of the "Wild-cat" Prosperity, 1833-1837_
+
+With the break-up of the workingmen's parties, labor's newly acquired
+sense of solidarity was temporarily lost, leaving only the restricted
+solidarity of the isolated trade society. Within that limit, however,
+important progress began to be made. In 1833, there were in New York
+twenty-nine organized trades; in Philadelphia, twenty-one; and in
+Baltimore, seventeen. Among those organized in Philadelphia were
+hand-loom weavers, plasterers, bricklayers, black and white smiths,
+cigar makers, plumbers, and women workers including tailoresses,
+seamstresses, binders, folders, milliners, corset makers, and mantua
+workers. Several trades, such as the printers and tailors in New York
+and the Philadelphia carpenters, which formerly were organized upon the
+benevolent basis, were now reorganized as trade societies. The
+benevolent New York Typographical Society was reduced to secondary
+importance by the appearance in 1831 of the New York Typographical
+Association.
+
+But the factor that compelled labor to organize on a much larger scale
+was the remarkable rise in prices from 1835 to 1837. This rise in prices
+was coincident with the "wild-cat" prosperity, which followed a rapid
+multiplication of state banks with the right of issue of paper
+currency--largely irredeemable "wild-cat" currency. Cost of living
+having doubled, the subject of wages became a burning issue. At the same
+time the general business prosperity rendered demands for higher wages
+easily attainable. The outcome was a luxuriant growth of trade unionism.
+
+In 1836 there were in Philadelphia fifty-eight trade unions; in Newark,
+New Jersey, sixteen; in New York, fifty-two; in Pittsburgh, thirteen; in
+Cincinnati, fourteen; and in Louisville, seven. In Buffalo the
+journeymen builders' association included all the building trades. The
+tailors of Louisville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis made a concentrated
+effort against their employers in these three cities.
+
+The wave of organization reached at last the women workers. In 1830 the
+well-known Philadelphia philanthropist, Mathew Carey, asserted that
+there were in the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and
+Baltimore about 20,000 women who could not by constant employment for
+sixteen hours out of twenty-four earn more than $1.25 a week. These were
+mostly seamstresses and tailoresses, umbrella makers, shoe binders,
+cigar makers, and book binders. In New York there was in 1835 a Female
+Union Association, in Baltimore a United Seamstresses' Society, and in
+Philadelphia probably the first federation of women workers in this
+country. In Lynn, Massachusetts, a "Female Society of Lynn and Vicinity
+for the Protection and Promotion of Female Industry" operated during
+1833 and 1834 among the shoe binders and had at one time 1000 members,
+who, like the seamstresses, were home workers and earned scanty wages.
+
+Where nearly every trade was in motion, it did not take long to discover
+a common direction and a common purpose. This was expressed in city
+"trades' unions," or federations of all organized trades in a city, and
+in its ascendency over the individual trade societies.
+
+The first trades' union was organized August 14, 1833, in New York.
+Baltimore followed in September, Philadelphia in November, and Boston in
+March 1834. New York after 1820 was the metropolis of the country and
+also the largest industrial and commercial center. There the house
+carpenters had struck for higher wages in the latter part of May 1833,
+and fifteen other trades met and pledged their support. Out of this grew
+the New York Trades' Union. It had an official organ in a weekly, the
+_National Trades' Union_, published from 1834 to 1836, and a daily, _The
+Union_, issued in 1836. Ely Moore, a printer, was made president. Moore
+was elected a few months later as the first representative of labor in
+Congress.
+
+In addition, trades' unions were organized in Washington; in New
+Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey; in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, New
+York; and in the "Far West"--Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville.
+
+Except in Boston, the trades' unions felt anxious to draw the line
+between themselves and the political labor organizations of the
+preceding years. In Philadelphia, where as we have seen, the formation
+of an analogous organization, the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations
+of 1828, had served as a preliminary for a political movement, the
+General Trades' Union took especial precaution and provided in the
+constitution that "no party, political or religious questions shall at
+any time be agitated in or acted upon in the Union." Its official organ,
+the _National Laborer_, declared that "_the Trades' Union never will be
+political_ because its members have learned from experience that the
+introduction of politics into their societies has thwarted every effort
+to ameliorate their conditions."
+
+The repudiation of active politics did not carry with it a condemnation
+of legislative action or "lobbying." On the contrary, these years
+witnessed the first sustained legislative campaign that was ever
+conducted by a labor organization, namely the campaign by the New York
+Trades' Union for the suppression of the competition from prison-made
+goods. Under the pressure of the New York Union the State Legislature
+created in 1834 a special commission on prison labor with its president,
+Ely Moore, as one of the three commissioners. On this question of
+prison labor the trade unionists clashed with the humanitarian prison
+reformers, who regarded productive labor by prisoners as a necessary
+means of their reform to an honest mode of living; and the humanitarian
+won. After several months' work the commission submitted what was to the
+Union an entirely unsatisfactory report. It approved the prison-labor
+system as a whole and recommended only minor changes. Ely Moore signed
+the report, but a public meeting of workingmen condemned it.
+
+The rediscovered solidarity between the several trades now embodied in
+the city trades' unions found its first expression on a large scale in a
+ten-hour movement.
+
+The first concerted demand for the ten-hour day was made by the
+workingmen of Baltimore in August 1833, and extended over seventeen
+trades. But the mechanics' aspiration for a ten-hour day--perhaps the
+strongest spiritual inheritance from the preceding movement for equal
+citizenship,[5] had to await a change in the general condition of
+industry to render trade union effort effective before it could turn
+into a well sustained movement. That change finally came with the
+prosperous year of 1835.
+
+The movement was precipitated in Boston. There, as we saw, the
+carpenters had been defeated in an effort to establish a ten-hour day in
+1825,[6] but made another attempt in the spring of 1835. This time,
+however, they did not stand alone but were joined by the masons and
+stone-cutters. As before, the principal attack was directed against the
+"capitalists," that is, the owners of the buildings and the real estate
+speculators. The employer or small contractor was viewed
+sympathetically. "We would not be too severe on our employers," said the
+strikers' circular, which was sent out broadcast over the country, "they
+are slaves to the capitalists, as we are to them."
+
+The strike was protracted. The details of it are not known, but we know
+that it won sympathy throughout the country. A committee visited in July
+the different cities on the Atlantic coast to solicit aid for the
+strikers. In Philadelphia, when the committee arrived in company with
+delegates from New York, Newark, and Paterson, the Trades' Union held a
+special meeting and resolved to stand by the "Boston House Wrights" who,
+"in imitation of the noble and decided stand taken by their
+Revolutionary Fathers, have determined to throw off the shackles of more
+mercenary tyrants than theirs." Many societies voted varying sums of
+money in aid of the strikers.
+
+The Boston strike was lost, but the sympathy which it evoked among
+mechanics in various cities was quickly turned to account. Wherever the
+Boston circular reached, it acted like a spark upon powder. In
+Philadelphia the ten-hour movement took on the aspect of a crusade. Not
+only the building trades, as in Boston, but most of the mechanical
+branches were involved. Street parades and mass meetings were held. The
+public press, both friendly and hostile, discussed it at length. Work
+was suspended and after but a brief "standout" the whole ended in a
+complete victory for the workingmen. Unskilled laborers, too, struck for
+the ten-hour day and, in the attempt to prevent others from taking their
+jobs, riotous scenes occurred which attracted considerable attention.
+The movement proved so irresistible that the Common Council announced a
+ten-hour day for public servants. Lawyers, physicians, merchants, and
+politicians took up the cause of the workingmen. On June 8 the master
+carpenters granted the ten-hour day and by June 22 the victory was
+complete.
+
+The victory in Philadelphia was so overwhelming and was given so much
+publicity that its influence extended to many smaller towns. In fact,
+the ten-hour system, which remained in vogue in this country in the
+skilled trades until the nineties, dates largely from this movement in
+the middle of the thirties.
+
+The great advance in the cost of living during 1835 and 1836 compelled
+an extensive movement for higher wages. Prices had in some instances
+more than doubled. Most of these strikes were hastily undertaken.
+Prices, of course, were rising rapidly but the societies were new and
+lacked balance. A strike in one trade was an example to others to
+strike. In a few instances, however, there was considerable planning and
+reserve.
+
+The strike epidemic affected even the girls who worked in the textile
+factories. The first strike of factory girls on record had occurred in
+Dover, New Hampshire, in 1828. A factory strike in Paterson, New Jersey,
+which occurred in the same year, occasioned the first recorded calling
+out of militia to quell labor disturbances. There the strikers were,
+however, for the most part men. But the factory strike which attracted
+the greatest public attention was the Lowell strike in February, 1834,
+against a 15 percent reduction in wages. The strike was short and
+unsuccessful, notwithstanding that 800 striking girls at first exhibited
+a determination to carry their struggle to the end. It appears that
+public opinion in New England was disagreeably impressed by this early
+manifestation of feminism. Another notable factory strike was one in
+Paterson in July 1835. Unlike similar strikes, it had been preceded by
+an organization. The chief demand was the eleven-hour day. The strike
+involved twenty mills and 2000 persons. Two weeks later the employers
+reduced hours from thirteen and a half to twelve hours for five days and
+to nine hours on Saturday. This broke the strike. The character of the
+agitation among the factory workers stamps it as ephemeral. Even more
+ephemeral was the agitation among immigrant laborers, mostly Irish, on
+canals and roads, which usually took the form of riots.
+
+As in the preceding period, the aggressiveness of the trade societies
+eventually gave rise to combative masters' associations. These, goaded
+by restrictive union practices, notably the closed shop, appealed to the
+courts for relief. By 1836 employers' associations appeared in nearly
+every trade in which labor was aggressive; in New York there were at
+least eight and in Philadelphia seven. In Philadelphia, at the
+initiative of the master carpenters and cordwainers, there came to exist
+an informal federation of the masters' associations in the several
+trades.
+
+From 1829 to 1842 there were eight recorded prosecutions of labor
+organizations for conspiracy. The workingmen were convicted in two
+cases; in two other cases the courts sustained demurrers to the
+indictments; in three cases the defendants were acquitted after jury
+trials; and the outcome of one case is unknown. Finally, in 1842, long
+after the offending societies had gone out of existence under the stress
+of unemployment and depressions, the Supreme Judicial Court of
+Massachusetts handed down a decision, which for forty years laid to
+rest the doctrine of conspiracy as applied to labor unions.[7]
+
+The unity of action of the several trades displayed in the city trades'
+unions engendered before long a still wider solidarity in the form of a
+National Trades' Union. It came together in August 1834, in New York
+City upon the invitation of the General Trades' Union of New York. The
+delegates were from the trades' unions of New York, Philadelphia,
+Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Newark. Ely Moore, then labor
+candidate for Congress, was elected president. An attempt by the only
+"intellectual" present, a Doctor Charles Douglass, representing the
+Boston Trades' Union, to strike a political note was immediately
+squelched. A second convention was held in 1835 and a third one in 1837.
+
+The National Trades' Union played a conspicuous part in securing the
+ten-hour day for government employes. The victory of the ten-hour
+principle in private employment in 1835 generally led to its adoption by
+states and municipalities. However, the Federal government was slow to
+follow the example, since Federal officials were immune from the direct
+political pressure which the workingmen were able to use with advantage
+upon locally elected office holders.
+
+In October 1835, the mechanics employed in the New York and Brooklyn
+Navy Yards petitioned the Secretary of the Navy for a reduction of the
+hours of labor to ten. The latter referred the petition to the Board of
+Navy Commissioners, who returned the petition with the opinion that it
+would be detrimental to the government to accede to their request. This
+forced the matter into the attention of the National Trades' Union. At
+its second convention in 1835 it decided to petition Congress for a
+ten-hour day for employes on government works. The petition was
+introduced by the labor Congressman from New York, Ely Moore. Congress
+curtly replied, however, that it was not a matter for legislation but
+"that the persons employed should redress their own grievances." With
+Congress in such a mood, the hopes of the workingmen turned to the
+President.
+
+A first step was made in the summer of 1836, when the workers in the
+Navy Yard at Philadelphia struck for a ten-hour day and appealed to
+President Jackson for relief. They would have nothing further to do with
+Congress. They had supported President Jackson in his fight against the
+United States Bank and now sought a return favor. At a town meeting of
+"citizens, mechanics, and working men," a committee was appointed to lay
+the issue before him. He proved indeed more responsive than Congress and
+ordered the ten-hour system established.
+
+But the order applied only to the localities where the strike occurred.
+The agitation had been chiefly local. Besides Philadelphia and New York
+the mechanics secured the ten-hour day in Baltimore and Annapolis, but
+in the District of Columbia and elsewhere they were still working twelve
+or fourteen hours. In other words, the ten-hour day was secured only
+where trade societies existed.
+
+But the organized labor movement did not rest with a partial success.
+The campaign of pressure on the President went on. Finally, although
+somewhat belatedly, President Van Buren issued on March 31, 1840, the
+famous executive order establishing the ten-hour day on government work
+without a reduction in wages.
+
+The victory came after the National Trades' Union had gone out of
+existence and should be, more correctly, correlated with a labor
+political movement. Early in 1837 came a financial panic. The industrial
+depression wiped out in a short time every form of labor organization
+from the trade societies to the National Trades' Union. Labor stood
+defenseless against the economic storm. In this emergency it turned to
+politics as a measure of despair.
+
+The political dissatisfaction assumed the form of hostility towards
+banks and corporations in general. The workingmen held the banks
+responsible for the existing anarchy in currency, from which they
+suffered both as consumers and producers. Moreover, they felt that there
+was something uncanny and threatening about corporations with their
+continuous existence and limited liability. Even while their attention
+had been engrossed by trade unionism, the workingmen were awake to the
+issue of monopoly. Together with their employers they had therefore
+supported Jackson in his assault upon the largest "monster" of them
+all--the Bank of the United States. The local organizations of the
+Democratic party, however, did not always remain true to faith. In such
+circumstances the workingmen, again acting in conjunction with their
+masters, frequently extended their support to the "insurgent"
+anti-monopoly candidates in the Democratic party conventions. Such a
+revolt took place in Philadelphia in 1835; and in New York, although
+Tammany had elected Ely Moore, the President of the General Trades'
+Union of New York, to Congress in 1834, a similar revolt occurred. The
+upshot was a triumphant return of the rebels into the fold of Tammany in
+1837. During the next twenty years, Tammany came nearer to being a
+workingmen's organization than at any other time in its career.
+
+
+(4) _The Long Depression, 1837-1862_
+
+The twenty-five years which elapsed from 1837 to 1862 form a period of
+business depression and industrial disorganization only briefly
+interrupted during 1850-1853 by the gold discoveries in California. The
+aggressive unions of the thirties practically disappeared. With industry
+disorganized, trade unionism, or the effort to protect the standard of
+living by means of strikes, was out of question. As the prospect for
+immediate amelioration became dimmed by circumstances, an opportunity
+arrived for theories and philosophies of radical social reform. Once the
+sun with its life-giving heat has set, one begins to see the cold and
+distant stars.
+
+The uniqueness of the period of the forties in the labor movement
+proceeds not only from the large volume of star-gazing, but also from
+the accompanying fact that, for the first and only time in American
+history, the labor movement was dominated by men and women from the
+educated class, the "intellectuals," who thus served in the capacity of
+expert astrologers.
+
+And there was no lack of stars in the heaven of social reform to occupy
+both intellectual and wage earner. First, there was the efficiency
+scheme of the followers of Charles Fourier, the French socialist, or, as
+they preferred to call themselves, the Associationists. Theirs was a
+proposal aiming directly to meet the issue of the prevailing industrial
+disorganization and wasteful competition. Albert Brisbane, Horace
+Greeley, and the Brook Farm enthusiasts and "Associationists" of the
+forties, made famous by their intimate association with Ralph Waldo
+Emerson, had much in common with the present-day efficiency engineers.
+This "old" efficiency of theirs, like the new one, was chiefly concerned
+with increasing the production of wealth through the application of the
+"natural" laws of human nature. With the enormous increase in production
+to be brought about by "Fourierism" and "Association," the question of
+justice in distribution was relegated to a secondary place. Where they
+differed from the new efficiency was in method, for they believed
+efficiency would be attained if only the human instincts or "passions"
+were given free play, while the efficiency engineers of today trust less
+to unguided instinct and more to "scientific management" of human
+"passions."
+
+Midway between trade unionism and the simon-pure, idealistic reform
+philosophies stood producers' and consumers' cooperation. It had the
+merit of being a practical program most suitable to a time of
+depression, while on its spiritual side it did not fail to satisfy the
+loftiest intellectual. It was the resultant of the two most potent
+forces which acted upon the movement of the forties, the pressure of an
+inadequate income of the wage earner and the influence of the
+intellectuals. During no other period has there been, relatively
+speaking, so much effort along that line.
+
+Although, as we shall see, the eighties were properly the era of
+producers' cooperation on a large scale, the self-governing workshop had
+always been familiar to the American labor movement. The earliest
+attempt, as far as we have knowledge, occurred in Philadelphia in 1791,
+when the house carpenters out on strike offered by way of retaliation
+against their employers to undertake contracts at 25 percent less than
+the price charged by the masters. Fourteen years later, in 1806, the
+journeymen cordwainers of the same city, following their conviction in
+court on the charge of conspiracy brought in by their masters, opened up
+a cooperative shoe warehouse and store. As a rule the workingmen took up
+productive cooperation when they had failed in strikes.
+
+In 1836 many of the trade societies began to lose their strikes and
+turned to cooperation. The cordwainers working on ladies' shoes entered
+upon a strike for higher wages in March 1836, and opened three months
+later a "manufactory" or a warehouse of their own. The handloom weavers
+in two of the suburbs of Philadelphia started cooperative associations
+at the same time. At the end of 1836 the hand-loom weavers of
+Philadelphia proper had two cooperative shops and were planning to open
+a third. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the journeymen cordwainers opened
+a shop after an unsuccessful strike early in 1836; likewise the tailors
+of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville. In New York the carpenters had
+done so already in 1833, and the painters of New York and Brooklyn
+opened their shops in 1837.
+
+Before long the spirit became so contagious that the Trades' Union of
+Philadelphia, the city federation of trade societies, was obliged to
+take notice. Early in 1837 a conference of about 200 delegates requested
+each trade society to submit estimates for a shop to employ ten members.
+However, further steps were prevented by the financial panic and
+business depression.
+
+The forties witnessed several similar attempts. When the iron molders of
+Cincinnati failed to win a strike in the autumn of 1847, a few of their
+number collected what funds they could and organized a sort of
+joint-stock company which they called "The Journeymen Molders' Union
+Foundry." Two local philanthropists erected their buildings. In
+Pittsburgh a group of puddlers tried to raise money by selling stock to
+anyone who wished to take an interest in their cooperative venture.
+
+The cooperative ventures multiplied in 1850 and 1851, following a
+widespread failure of strikes and were entered upon with particular
+readiness by the German immigrants. Among the Germans was an attitude
+towards producers' cooperation, based more nearly on general principles
+than the practical exigencies of a strike. Fresh from the scenes of
+revolutions in Europe, they were more given to dreams about
+reconstructing society and more trustful in the honesty and integrity of
+their leaders. The cooperative movement among the Germans was identified
+with the name of Wilhelm Weitling, the well-known German communist, who
+settled in America about 1850. This movement centered in and around New
+York. The cooperative principle met with success among the
+English-speaking people only outside the larger cities. In Buffalo,
+after an unsuccessful strike, the tailors formed an association with a
+membership of 108 and in October 1850, were able to give employment to
+80 of that number.
+
+Again, following an unsuccessful Pittsburgh strike of iron founders in
+1849, about a dozen of the strikers went to Wheeling, Virginia, each
+investing $3000, and opened a cooperative foundry shop. Two other
+foundries were opened on a similar basis in Stetsonville, Ohio, and
+Sharon, Pennsylvania. These associations of iron founders, however,
+might better be called association of small capitalists or
+master-workmen.
+
+During the forties, consumers' or distributive cooperation was also
+given a trial. The early history of consumers' cooperation is but
+fragmentary and, so far as we know, the first cooperative attempt which
+had for its exclusive aim "competence to purchaser" was made in
+Philadelphia early in 1829. A store was established on North Fifth
+Street, which sold goods at wholesale prices to members, who paid twenty
+cents a month for its privileges.
+
+In 1831 distributive cooperation was much discussed in Boston by a "New
+England Association of Farmers, Mechanics, and Other Working Men." A
+half dozen cooperative attempts are mentioned in the Cooperator,
+published in Utica in 1832, but only in the case of the journeymen
+cordwainers of Lynn do we discover an undertaking which can with
+certainty be considered as an effort to achieve distributive
+cooperation. Several germs of cooperative effort are found between 1833
+and 1845, but all that is known about them is that their promoters
+sought to effect a saving by the purchase of goods in large quantities
+which were then broken up and distributed at a slight advance above
+original cost in order to meet expenses. The managers were unpaid, the
+members' interest in the business was not maintained, and the stores
+soon failed, or passed into the possession of private owners.
+
+It was the depression of 1846-1849 which supplied the movement for
+distributive cooperation with the needed stimulus, especially in New
+England. Although the matter was discussed in New York, New Jersey,
+Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even as far west as Ohio and Illinois, yet
+in none of the industrial centers of these States, except perhaps in New
+York, was it put into successful operation.
+
+In New England, however, the conditions were exceptionally favorable. A
+strike movement for higher wages during a partial industrial revival of
+1843-1844 had failed completely. This failure, added to the fact that
+women and girls were employed under very unsatisfactory conditions,
+strengthened the interest of humanitarians in the laboring people and
+especially in cooperation as a possible means of alleviating their
+distress.
+
+Under the stimulus of these agitations, the New England Protective Union
+was formed in 1845. Until 1849, however, it bore the name of the Working
+Men's Protective Union. As often happens, prosperity brought disunion
+and, in 1853, a schism occurred in the organization due to personal
+differences. The seceders formed a separate organization known as the
+American Protective Union.
+
+The Working Men's Protective Union embodied a larger conception of the
+cooperative idea than had been expressed before. The important thought
+was that an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase of
+commodities was a poor way out of labor difficulties, but was valuable
+only as a preparation for something better.
+
+Though the resources of these laborers were small, they began the work
+with great hopes. This business, starting so unpretentiously, assumed
+larger and increasing proportions until in October, 1852, the Union
+embraced 403 divisions of which 167 reported a capital of $241,712 and
+165 of these announced annual sales amounting to $1,696,825. Though the
+schism of 1853, mentioned above, weakened the body, the agent of the
+American Protective Union claimed for the divisions comprising it sales
+aggregating in value over nine and one-fourth millions dollars in the
+seven years ending in 1859.
+
+It is not possible to tell what might have been the outcome of this
+cooperative movement had the peaceful development of the country
+remained uninterrupted. As it happened, the disturbed era of the Civil
+War witnessed the near annihilation of all workingmen's cooperation.
+
+It is not difficult to see the causes which led to the destruction of
+the still tender plant. Men left their homes for the battle field,
+foreigners poured into New England towns and replaced the Americans in
+the shops, while share-holders frequently became frightened at the state
+of trade and gladly saw the entire cooperative enterprise pass into the
+hands of the storekeeper.
+
+This first American cooperative movement on a large scale resembled the
+British movement in many respects, namely open membership, equal voting
+by members irrespective of number of shares, cash sales and federation
+of societies for wholesale purchases, but differed in that goods were
+sold to members nearly at cost rather than at the market price. Dr.
+James Ford in his _Cooperation in New England, Urban and Rural_,[8]
+describes two survivals from this period, the Central Union Association
+of New Bedford, Massachusetts, founded in 1848, and the Acushnet
+Cooperative Association, also of New Bedford, which began business in
+1849.
+
+But the most characteristic labor movement of the forties was a
+resurgence of the old Agrarianism of the twenties.
+
+Skidmore's "equal division" of all property appealed to the workingmen
+of New York because it seemed to be based on equality of opportunity.
+One of Skidmore's temporary associates, a Welshman by the name of George
+Henry Evans, drew from him an inspiration for a new kind of agrarianism
+to which few could object. This new doctrine was a true Agrarianism,
+since it followed in the steps of the original "Agrarians," the brothers
+Gracchi in ancient Rome. Like the Gracchi, Evans centered his plan
+around the "ager publicum"--the vast American public domain. Evans began
+his agitation about 1844.
+
+Man's right to life, according to Evans, logically implied his right to
+use the materials of nature necessary for being. For practical reasons
+he would not interfere with natural resources which have already passed
+under private ownership. Evans proposed instead that Congress give each
+would-be settler land for a homestead free of charge.
+
+As late as 1852 debaters in Congress pointed out that in the preceding
+sixty years only 100,000,000 acres of the public lands had been sold and
+that 1,400,000,000 acres still remained at the disposal of the
+government. Estimates of the required time to dispose of this residuum
+at the same rate of sale varied from 400 or 500 to 900 years. With the
+exaggerated views prevalent, it is no wonder that Evans believed that
+the right of the individual to as much land as his right to live calls
+for would remain a living right for as long a period in the future as a
+practical statesman may be required to take into account.
+
+The consequences of free homesteads were not hard to picture. The
+landless wage earners could be furnished transportation and an outfit,
+for the money spent for poor relief would be more profitably expended in
+sending the poor to the land. Private societies and trade unions, when
+laborers were too numerous, could aid in transporting the surplus to the
+waiting homesteads and towns that would grow up. With the immobility of
+labor thus offering no serious obstacle to the execution of the plan,
+the wage earners of the East would have the option of continuing to work
+for wages or of taking up their share of the vacant lands. Moreover,
+mechanics could set up as independent producers in the new settlements.
+Enough at least would go West to force employers to offer better wages
+and shorter hours. Those unable to meet the expenses of moving would
+profit by higher wages at home. An equal opportunity to go on land would
+benefit both pioneer and stay-at-home.
+
+But Evans would go still further in assuring equality of opportunity. He
+would make the individual's right to the resources of nature safe
+against the creditors through a law exempting homesteads from attachment
+for debts and even against himself by making the homestead inalienable.
+Moreover to assure that right to the American people _in perpetuo_ he
+would prohibit future disposal of the public land in large blocks to
+moneyed purchasers as practiced by the government heretofore. Thus the
+program of the new agrarianism: free homesteads, homestead exemption,
+and land limitation.
+
+Evans had a plan of political action, which was as unique as his
+economic program. His previous political experiences with the New York
+Workingmen's party had taught him that a minority party could not hope
+to win by its own votes and that the politicians cared more for offices
+than for measures. They would endorse any measure which was supported by
+voters who held the balance of power. His plan of action was, therefore,
+to ask all candidates to pledge their support to his measures. In
+exchange for such a pledge, the candidates would receive the votes of
+the workingmen. In case neither candidate would sign the pledge, it
+might be necessary to nominate an independent as a warning to future
+candidates; but not as an indication of a new party organization.
+
+Evans' ideas quickly won the adherence of the few labor papers then
+existing. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune endorsed the homestead
+movement as early as 1845. The next five years witnessed a remarkable
+spread of the ideas of the free homestead movement in the press of the
+country. It was estimated in 1845 that 2000 papers were published in the
+United States and that in 1850, 600 of these supported land reform.
+
+Petitions and memorials having proved of little avail, the land
+reformers tried Evans' pet plan of bargaining votes for the support of
+their principles. Tammany was quick to start the bidding. In May, 1851,
+a mass-meeting was held at Tammany Hall "of all those in favor of land
+and other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidential
+contest of 1852." A platform was adopted which proclaimed man's right to
+the soil and urged that freedom of the public lands be endorsed by the
+Democratic party. Senator Isaac A. Walker of Wisconsin was nominated as
+the candidate of the party for President.
+
+For a while the professional politician triumphed over the too trusting
+workingman reformer. But the cause found strong allies in the other
+classes of the American community. From the poor whites of the upland
+region of the South came a similar demand formulated by the Tennessee
+tailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, who
+introduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneers
+and settlers came the demand for increased population and development of
+resources, leading both to homesteads for settlers and land grants for
+railways. The opposition came from manufacturers and landowners of the
+East and from the Southern slave owners. The West and East finally
+combined and the policy of the West prevailed, but not before the South
+had seceded from the Union.
+
+Not the entire reform was accepted. The Western spirit dominated. The
+homestead law, as finally adopted in 1862, granted one hundred and sixty
+acres as a free gift to every settler. But the same Congress launched
+upon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homestead
+legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those which
+sprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did not
+carry out the broad principles of inalienability and land limitation of
+the original Agrarians.
+
+Their principle of homestead exemption, however, is now almost
+universally adopted. Thus the homestead agitation begun by Evans and a
+group of wage earners and farmers in 1844 was carried to victory, though
+to an incomplete victory. It contained a fruitful lesson to labor in
+politics. The vested interests in the East were seen ultimately to
+capitulate before a popular movement which at no time aspired toward
+political power and office, but, concentrating on one issue, endeavored
+instead to permeate with its ideas the public opinion of the country at
+large.
+
+Of all the "isms" so prevalent during the forties, "Agrarianism" alone
+came close to modern socialism, as it alone advocated class struggle and
+carried it into the political field, although, owing to the peculiarity
+of the American party structure, it urged a policy of "reward your
+friends, and punish your enemies" rather than an out and out labor
+party. It is noteworthy that of all social reform movements of the
+forties Agrarianism alone was not initiated by the intellectuals. On
+the other hand, another movement for legislative reform, namely the
+shorter-hour movement for women and children working in the mills and
+factories, was entirely managed by humanitarians. Its philosophy was the
+furthest removed from the class struggle idea.
+
+For only a short year or two did prosperity show itself from behind the
+clouds to cause a mushroom growth of trade unions, once in 1850-1851 and
+again in 1853-1854, following the gold discoveries in California. During
+these few years unionism disentangled itself from humanitarianism and
+cooperationism and came out in its wholly modern form of restrictive
+craft unionism, only to be again suppressed by the business depressions
+that preceded and followed the panic of 1857. Considered as a whole,
+however, the period of the forties and fifties was the zenith in
+American history of theories of social reform, of "panaceas," of
+humanitarianism.
+
+The trade union wave of the fifties was so short lived and the trade
+unionists were so preoccupied with the pressing need of advancing their
+wages to keep pace with the soaring prices caused by the influx of
+California gold, that we miss the tendency which was so strong in the
+thirties to reach out for a wider basis of labor organization in city
+trades' unions, and ultimately in a National Trades' Union. On the other
+hand, the fifties foreshadowed a new form of expansion of labor
+organization--the joining together in a nation-wide organization of all
+local unions of one trade. The printers[9] organized nationally in
+1850, the locomotive engineers and the hat-finishers in 1854; and the
+iron molders, and the machinists and blacksmiths in 1859; in addition
+there were at least a half dozen less successful attempts in other
+trades.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] See below, 147-148.
+
+[3] See below, 148-149.
+
+[4] See below, 270-272.
+
+[5] The workingmen felt that they required leisure to be able to
+exercise their rights of citizens.
+
+[6] The ship carpenters had been similarly defeated in 1832.
+
+[7] For a detailed discussion of these trials see below, 149-152.
+
+[8] Published in 1916 by the Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 16-18.
+
+[9] The printers had organized nationally for the first time in 1836,
+but the organization lasted less than two years; likewise the
+cordwainers or shoemakers. But we must keep in mind that what
+constituted national organization in the thirties would pass only for
+regional or sectional organization in later years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+THE "GREENBACK" PERIOD, 1862-1879
+
+
+The few national trade unions which were formed at the close of the
+fifties did not constitute by themselves a labor movement. It needed the
+industrial prosperity caused by the price inflation of the Civil War
+time to bring forth again a mass movement of labor.
+
+We shall say little of labor's attitude towards the question of war and
+peace before the War had started. Like many other citizens of the North
+and the Border States the handful of organized workers favored a
+compromise. They held a labor convention in Philadelphia, in which a
+great labor leader of the sixties, William H. Sylvis, President of the
+International Molders' Union, took a prominent part and pronounced in
+favor of the compromise solution advanced by Congressman Crittenden of
+Kentucky. But no sooner had Fort Sumter been fired upon by the
+secessionists than labor rallied to the support of the Federal Union.
+Entire local unions enlisted at the call of President Lincoln, and
+Sylvis himself assisted in recruiting a company composed of molders.
+
+The first effect of the War was a paralysis of business and an increase
+of unemployment. The existing labor organizations nearly all went to the
+wall. The period of industrial stagnation, however, lasted only until
+the middle of 1862.
+
+The legal tender acts of 1862 and 1863 authorized the issue of paper
+currency of "greenbacks" to the amount of $1,050,000,000, and
+immediately prices began to soar. For the next sixteen years, namely
+until 1879, when the government resumed the redemption of greenbacks in
+gold, prices of commodities and labor expressed in terms of paper money
+showed varying degrees of inflation; hence the term "greenback" period.
+During the War the advance in prices was due in part to the
+extraordinary demand by the government for the supply of the army and,
+of course, to speculation.
+
+In July 1863, retail prices were 43 percent above those of 1860 and
+wages only 12 percent above; in July 1864, retail prices rose to 70
+percent and wages to 30 percent above 1860; and in July 1865, prices
+rose to 76 percent and wages only to 50 percent above the level of 1860.
+The unequal pace of the price movement drove labor to organize along
+trade-union lines.
+
+The order observed in the thirties was again followed out. First came a
+flock of local trade unions; these soon combined in city centrals--or as
+they came to be called, trades' assemblies--paralleling the trades'
+union of the thirties; and lastly, came an attempt to federate the
+several trades' assemblies into an International Industrial Assembly of
+North America. Local trade unions were organized literally in every
+trade beginning in the second half of 1862. The first trades' assembly
+was formed in Rochester, New York, in March 1863; and before long there
+was one in every town of importance. The International Industrial
+Assembly was attempted in 1864, but failed to live up to the
+expectations: The time had passed for a national federation of city
+centrals. As in the thirties the spread of unionism over the breadth of
+the land called out as a counterpart a widespread movement of employers'
+associations. The latter differed, however, from their predecessors in
+the thirties in that they made little use of the courts in their fight
+against the unions.
+
+The growth of the national trade unions was a true index of the
+condition of business. Four were organized in 1864 as compared to two
+organized in 1863, none in 1862, and one in 1861. During 1865, which
+marked the height of the intense business activity, six more national
+unions were organized. In 1866 industry entered upon a period of
+depression, which reached its lowest depth in 1867 and continued until
+1869. Accordingly, not a single national union was organized in 1866 and
+only one in 1867. In 1868 two new national labor unions were organized.
+In 1869 two more unions were formed--a total of seven for the four
+depressed years, compared with ten in the preceding two prosperous
+years. In the summer of 1870 business became good and remained good for
+approximately three years. Nine new national unions appeared in these
+three years. These same years are marked also by a growth of the unions
+previously organized. For instance, the machinists and blacksmiths, with
+only 1500 members in 1870, had 18,000 in 1873. Other unions showed
+similar gains.
+
+An estimate of the total trade union membership at any one time (in view
+of the total lack of reliable statistics) would be extremely hazardous.
+The New York _Herald_ estimated it in August 1869, to be about 170,000.
+A labor leader claimed at the same time that the total was as high as
+600,000. Probably 300,000 would be a conservative estimate for the time
+immediately preceding the panic of 1873.
+
+Although the strength of labor was really the strength of the national
+trade unions, especially during the depression of the later sixties, far
+greater attention was attracted outside as well as inside the labor
+movement by the National Labor Union, a loosely built federation of
+national trade unions, city trades' assemblies, local trade unions, and
+reform organizations of various descriptions, from philosophical
+anarchists to socialists and woman suffragists. The National Labor Union
+did not excel in practical activity, but it formed an accurate mirror of
+the aspirations and ideals of the American mechanics of the time of the
+Civil War and after. During its six years' existence it ran the gamut of
+all important issues which agitated the labor movement of the time.
+
+The National Labor Union came together in its first convention in 1866.
+The most pressing problem of the day was unemployment due to the return
+of the demobilized soldiers and the shutting down of war industries. The
+convention centered on the demand to reduce the working day to eight
+hours. But eight hours had by that time come to signify more than a
+means to increase employment. The eight-hour movement drew its
+inspiration from an economic theory advanced by a self-taught Boston
+machinist, Ira Steward. And so naturally did this theory flow from the
+usual premises in the thinking of the American workman that once
+formulated by Steward it may be said to have become an official theory
+of the labor movement.
+
+Steward's doctrine is well expressed by a couplet which was very popular
+with the eight-hour speakers of that period: "Whether you work by the
+piece or work by the day, decreasing the hours increases the pay."
+Steward believed that the amount of wages is determined by no other
+factor than the worker's standard of living. He held that wages cannot
+fall below the standard of living not because, as the classical
+economists said, it would cause late marriages and a reduction in the
+supply of labor, but solely because the wage earner will refuse to work
+for less than enough to maintain his standard of living. Steward
+possessed such abundant faith in this purely psychological check on the
+employer that he made it the cornerstone of his theory of social
+progress. Raise the worker's standard of living, he said, and the
+employer will be immediately forced to raise wages; no more can wages
+fall below the level of the worker's standard of living than New England
+can be ruled against her will. The lever for raising the standard of
+living was the eight-hour day. Increase the worker's leisure and you
+will increase his wants; increase his wants and you will immediately
+raise his wages. Although he occasionally tried to soften his doctrine
+by the argument that a shorter work-day not only does not decrease but
+may actually increase output, his was a distinctly revolutionary
+doctrine; he aimed at the total abolition of profits through their
+absorption into wages. But the instrument was nothing more radical than
+a progressive universal shortening the hours.
+
+So much for the general policy. To bring it to pass two alternatives
+were possible: trade unionism or legislation. Steward chose the latter
+as the more hopeful and speedy one. Steward knew that appeals to the
+humanity of the employers had largely failed; efforts to secure the
+reform by cooperation had failed; the early trade unions had failed; and
+there seemed to be no recourse left now but to accomplish the reduction
+of hours by legislative enactment.
+
+In 1866 Steward organized the Grand Eight-Hour League of Massachusetts
+as a special propagandist organization of the eight-hour philosophy. The
+League was a secret organization with pass words and obligations,
+intended as the central organization of a chain of subordinate leagues
+in the State, afterwards to be created. Of a total of about eighty local
+leagues in existence from 1865 to 1877, about twenty were in
+Massachusetts, eight elsewhere in New England, at least twenty-five in
+Michigan, four or five in Pennsylvania, about seven in Illinois, as many
+in Wisconsin, and smaller numbers in Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, and
+California. Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Pennsylvania had each a Grand
+Eight-Hour League. Practically all of these organizations disappeared
+soon after the panic of 1873.
+
+The National Labor Union centered on the passage of an eight-hour law
+for employes of the Federal government. It was believed, perhaps not
+without some justice, that the effect of such law would eventually lead
+to the introduction of the same standard in private employment--not
+indeed through the operation of the law of supply and demand, for it was
+realized that this would be practically negligible, but rather through
+its contagious effect on the minds of employes and even employers. It
+will be recalled that, at the time of the ten-hour agitation of the
+thirties, the Federal government had lagged about five years behind
+private employers in granting the demanded concession. That in the
+sixties the workingmen chose government employment as the entering wedge
+shows a measure of political self-confidence which the preceding
+generation of workingmen lacked.
+
+The first bill in Congress was introduced by Senator Gratz Brown of
+Missouri in March 1866. In the summer a delegation from the National
+Labor Union was received by President Andrew Johnson. The President
+pointed to his past record favorable to the workingmen but refrained
+from any definite promises. Finally, an eight-hour bill for government
+employes was passed by the House in March 1867, and by the Senate in
+June 1868. On June 29, 1868, President Johnson signed it and it went
+into effect immediately.
+
+The result of the eight-hour law was not all that the friends of the
+bill hoped. The various officials in charge of government work put their
+own interpretations upon it and there resulted much diversity in its
+observance, and consequently great dissatisfaction. There seemed to be
+no clear understanding as to the intent of Congress in enacting the law.
+Some held that the reduction in working hours must of necessity bring
+with it a corresponding reduction in wages. The officials' view of the
+situation was given by Secretary Gideon Wells. He pointed out that
+Congress, by reducing the hours of labor in government work, had forced
+upon the department of the Navy the employment of a larger number of men
+in order to accomplish the necessary work; and that at the same time
+Congress had reduced the appropriation for that department. This had
+rendered unavoidable a twenty percent reduction in wages paid employes
+in the Navy Yard. Such a state of uncertainty continued four years
+longer. At last on May 13, 1872, President Grant prohibited by
+proclamation any wage reductions in the execution of the law. On May 18,
+1872, Congress passed a law for the restitution of back pay.
+
+The expectations of the workingmen that the Federal law would blaze the
+way for the eight-hour system in private employment failed to
+materialize. The depression during the seventies took up all the impetus
+in that direction which the law may have generated. Even as far as
+government work is concerned forty years had to elapse before its
+application could be rounded out by extending it to contract work done
+for the government by private employers.
+
+We have dealt at length with this subject because it marked an important
+landmark. It demonstrated to the wage earners that, provided they
+concentrated on a modest object and kept up a steady pressure, their
+prospects for success were not entirely hopeless, hard as the road may
+seem to travel. The other and far more ambitious object of the
+workingman of the sixties, that of enacting general eight-hour laws in
+the several States, at first appeared to be within easy reach--so
+yielding political parties and State legislatures seemed to be to the
+demands of the organized workmen. Yet before long these successes proved
+to be entirely illusory.
+
+The year 1867 was the banner year for such State legislation. Eight-hour
+laws were passed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Missouri, and New
+York. California passed such a law in 1868. In Pennsylvania, Michigan,
+Maryland, and Minnesota bills were introduced but were defeated. Two
+common features characterized these laws, whether enacted or merely
+proposed to the legislatures. There were none which did not permit of
+longer hours than those named in the law, provided they were so
+specified in the contract. A contract requiring ten or more hours a day
+was perfectly legal. The eight-hour day was the legal day only "when the
+contract was silent on the subject or where there is no express contract
+to the contrary," as stated in the Wisconsin law. But the greatest
+weakness was a lack of a provision for enforcement. New York's
+experience is typical and characteristic. When the workingmen appealed
+to Governor Fenton to enforce the law, he replied that the act had
+received his official signature and he felt that it "would be an
+unwarrantable assumption" on his part to take any step requiring its
+enforcement. "Every law," he said, "was obligatory by its own nature,
+and could derive no additional force from any further act of his."
+
+In Massachusetts, however, the workingmen succeeded after hard and
+protracted labor in obtaining an enforceable ten-hour law for women--the
+first effective law of its kind passed in any American State. This law,
+which was passed in 1874, provides that "no minor under the age of
+eighteen years, and no woman over that age" shall be employed more than
+ten hours in one day or sixty hours in any one week in any manufacturing
+establishment in the State. The penalty for each violation was fixed at
+fifty dollars.
+
+The repeated disappointments with politics and legislation led in the
+early seventies to a revival of faith in trade unionism. Even in the
+early sixties we find not a few unions, national and local, limiting
+their hours by agreement with employers. The national unions, however,
+for the most part left the matter to the local unions for settlement as
+their strength or local conditions might dictate. In some cases the
+local unions were advised to accept a reduction of wages in order to
+secure the system, showing faith in Steward's theory that such reduction
+could not be permanent.
+
+The movement to establish the eight-hour day through trade unionism
+reached its climax in the summer of 1872, when business prosperity was
+at its height. This year witnessed in New York City a general eight-hour
+strike. However, it succeeded in only a few trades, and even there the
+gain was only temporary, since it was lost during the years of
+depression which followed the financial panic of 1873.
+
+To come back to the National Labor Union. At the second convention in
+1867 the enthusiasm was transferred from eight-hour laws to the bizarre
+social reform philosophy known as "greenbackism."
+
+"Greenbackism" was, in substance, a plan to give the man without capital
+an equal opportunity in business with his rich competitor. It meant
+taking away from bankers and middlemen their control over credit and
+thereby furnishing credit and capital through the aid of the government
+to the producers of physical products. On its face greenbackism was a
+program of currency reform and derived its name from the so-called
+"greenback," the paper money issued during the Civil War. But it was
+more than currency reform--it was industrial democracy.
+
+"Greenbackism" was the American counterpart of the contemporary
+radicalism of Europe. Its program had much in common with that of
+Lassalle in Germany who would have the state lend its credit to
+cooperative associations of workingmen in the confident expectation that
+with such backing they would drive private capitalism out of existence
+by the competitive route. But greenbackism differed from the scheme of
+Lassalle in that it would utilize the government's enormous Civil War
+debt, instead of its taxing power, as a means of furnishing capital to
+labor. This was to be done by reducing the rate of interest on the
+government bonds to three percent and by making them convertible into
+legal tender currency and convertible back into bonds, at the will of
+the holder of either. In other words, the greenback currency, instead of
+being, as it was at the time, an irredeemable promise to pay in specie,
+would be redeemable in government bonds. On the other hand, if a
+government bondholder could secure slightly more than three percent by
+lending to a private borrower, he would return his bonds to the
+government, take out the corresponding amount in greenbacks and lend it
+to the producer on his private note or mortgage. This would involve, of
+course, the possible inflation of legal tender currency to the amount of
+outstanding bonds. But inflation was immaterial, since all prices would
+be affected alike and meanwhile the farmers, the workingmen, and their
+cooperative establishments would be able to secure capital at slightly
+more than three percent instead of the nine or twelve percent which they
+were compelled to pay at the bank. Thereby they would be placed on a
+competitive level with the middleman, and the wage earner would be
+assisted to escape the wage system into self-employment.
+
+Such was the curious doctrine which captured the leaders of the
+organized wage earners in 1867. The way had indeed been prepared for it
+in 1866, when the wage earners espoused producers' cooperation as the
+only solution. But, in the following year, 1867, they concluded that no
+system of combination or cooperation could secure to labor its natural
+rights as long as the credit system enabled non-producers to accumulate
+wealth faster than labor was able to add to the national wealth.
+Cooperation would follow "as a natural consequence," if producers could
+secure through legislation credit at a low rate of interest. The
+government was to extend to the producer "free capital" in addition to
+free land which he received with the Homestead Act.
+
+The producers' cooperation, which offered the occasion for the espousal
+of greenbackism, was itself preceded by a movement for consumers'
+cooperation. Following the upward sweep of prices, workmen had begun
+toward the end of 1862 to make definite preparations for distributive
+cooperation. They endeavored to cut off the profits of the middleman by
+establishing cooperative grocery stores, meat markets, and coal yards.
+The first substantial effort of this kind to attract wide attention was
+the formation in December 1862, of the Union Cooperative Association of
+Philadelphia, which opened a store. The prime mover and the financial
+secretary of this organization was Thomas Phillips, a shoemaker who came
+from England in 1852, fired with the principles of the Rochdale
+pioneers, that is, cash sales, dividends on purchases rather than on
+stock, and "one man, one vote." By 1866 the movement had extended until
+practically every important industrial town between Boston and San
+Francisco had some form of distributive cooperation. This was the high
+tide of the movement. Unfortunately, the condition of the country was
+unfavorable to these enterprises and they were destined to early
+collapse. The year 1865 witnessed disastrous business failures. The
+country was in an uncertain condition and at the end of the sixties the
+entire movement had died out.
+
+From 1866 to 1869 experiments in productive cooperation were made by
+practically all leading trades including the bakers, coach makers,
+collar makers, coal miners, shipwrights, machinists and blacksmiths,
+foundry workers, nailers, ship carpenters, and calkers, glass blowers,
+hatters, boiler makers, plumbers, iron rollers, tailors, printers,
+needle women, and molders. A large proportion of these attempts grew out
+of unsuccessful strikes. The most important undertakings were among the
+workers in iron, undoubtedly due in large measure to the indefatigable
+efforts of William H. Sylvis, the founder of the Iron Molders'
+International Union.
+
+At the close of 1869 members of the Iron Molders' International Union
+owned and operated many cooperative foundries chiefly in New York and
+Pennsylvania. The first of the foundries established at Troy in the
+early summer of 1866 was followed quickly by one in Albany and then
+during the next eighteen months by ten more--one each in Rochester,
+Chicago, Quincy, Louisville, Somerset, Pittsburgh, and two each in Troy
+and Cleveland. The original foundry at Troy was an immediate financial
+success and was hailed with joy by those who believed that under the
+name of cooperationists the baffled trade unionists might yet conquer.
+The New York _Sun_ congratulated the iron molders of Troy and declared
+that Sylvis had checkmated the association of stove manufacturers and,
+by the establishment of this cooperative foundry, had made the greatest
+contribution of the year to the labor cause.
+
+But the results of the Troy experiment, typical of the others, show how
+far from a successful solution of the labor problem is productive
+cooperation. Although this "Troy Cooperative Iron Founders' Association"
+was planned with great deliberation and launched at a time when the
+regular stove manufacturers were embarrassed by strikes, and although it
+was regularly incorporated with a provision that each member was
+entitled to but one vote whether he held one share at $100, or the
+maximum privilege of fifty in the total of two thousand shares, it
+failed as did the others in furnishing permanent relief to the workers
+as a class. At the end of the third year of this enterprise, the
+_American Workman_ published a sympathetic account of its progress
+unconsciously disclosing its fatal weakness, namely, the inevitable
+tendency of cooperators to adopt the capitalistic view. The writer of
+this account quotes from these cooperators to show that "the fewer the
+stockholders in the company the greater its success."
+
+A similar instance is furnished by the Cooperative Foundry Company of
+Rochester. This venture has also been a financial success, though a
+partial failure as a cooperative enterprise. When it was established in
+1867 all employes were stockholders and profits were divided as follows:
+Twelve percent on capital and the balance in proportion to the earnings
+of the men. But the capitalist was stronger than the cooperative
+brother. Dividends on capital were advanced in a few years to seventeen
+and one-half percent, then to twenty-five, and finally the distribution
+of any part of the profits in proportion to wages was discontinued.
+Money was made every year and dividends paid, which in 1884 amounted to
+forty percent on the capital. At that time about one-fifth of the
+employes were stockholders. Also in this case cooperation did not
+prevent the usual conflict between employer and employe, as is shown in
+a strike of three and a half months' duration. It is interesting to
+notice that one of the strikers, a member of the Molders' Union, owned
+stock to the amount of $7000.
+
+The machinists, too, throughout this period took an active interest in
+cooperation. Their convention which met in October, 1865, appointed a
+committee to report on a plan of action to establish a cooperative shop
+under the auspices of the International Union. The plan failed of
+adoption, but of machinists' shops on the joint-stock plan there were a
+good many. Two other trades noted for their enthusiasm for cooperation
+at this time were the shoemakers and the coopers. The former, organized
+in the Order of St. Crispin, then the largest trade union in the
+country, advocated cooperation even when their success in strikes was at
+its height. "The present demand of the Crispin is steady employment and
+fair wages, but his future is self-employment" was one of their mottoes.
+During the seventies they repeatedly attempted to carry this motto into
+effect. The seventies also saw the beginning of the most successful
+single venture in productive cooperation ever undertaken in this
+country, namely, the eight cooperative cooperage shops in Minneapolis,
+which were established at varying intervals from 1874 to 1886. The
+coopers took care to enforce true cooperation by providing for equal
+holding of stock and for a division of ordinary profits and losses in
+proportion to wages. The cooper shops prospered, but already ten years
+later four out of the eight existing in 1886 had passed into private
+hands.
+
+In 1866 when the eight-hour demand was as yet uppermost, the National
+Labor Union resolved for an independent labor party. The espousal of
+greenbackism in 1867 only reenforced that resolution. The leaders
+realized only too well that neither the Republican nor Democratic party
+would voluntarily make an issue of a scheme purporting to assist the
+wage earner to become an independent producer. Accordingly, the history
+of the National Labor Union became largely the history of labor's first
+attempt to play a lone political hand on a national scale.
+
+Each annual session of the National Labor Union faithfully reaffirmed
+the decision to "cut loose" from the old parties. But such a vast
+undertaking demanded time. It was not until 1872 that the National Labor
+Union met as a political convention to nominate a national ticket. From
+the first the stars were inauspicious. Charges were made that political
+aspirants sought to control the convention in order to influence
+nominations by the Republican and Democratic parties. A "greenback"
+platform was adopted as a matter of course and the new party was
+christened the National Labor and Reform Party. On the first formal
+ballot for nomination for President, Judge David Davis of Illinois, a
+personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, received 88 votes, Wendell Phillips,
+the abolitionist, 52, and the remainder scattered. On the third ballot
+Davis was nominated. Governor J. Parker of New Jersey was nominated for
+Vice-President. At first Judge Davis accepted the nomination, but
+resigned after the Democrats had nominated Horace Greeley. The loss of
+the candidate spelled the death of the party. The National Labor Union
+itself had been only an empty shell since 1870, when the national trade
+unions, disaffected with the turn towards politics, withdrew. Now, its
+pet project a failure, it, too, broke up.
+
+In 1873, on the eve of the financial panic, the national trade unions
+attempted to reconstruct a national labor federation on a purely
+trade-union basis in the form of a National Industrial Congress. But the
+economic disaster of the panic nipped it in the bud just as it cut off
+the life of the overwhelming majority of the existing labor
+organizations. Another attempt to get together on a national basis was
+made in the National Labor Congress at Pittsburgh in 1876. But those who
+responded were not interested in trade unionism and, mirroring the
+prevailing labor sentiment during the long years of depressions, had
+only politics on their mind, greenback or socialist. As neither
+greenbacker nor socialist would meet the other half-way, the attempt
+naturally came to naught.
+
+Greenbackism was popular with the working people during the depressed
+seventies because it now meant to them primarily currency inflation and
+a rise of prices and, consequently, industrial prosperity--not the
+phantastic scheme of the National Labor Union. Yet in the Presidential
+election of 1876 the Greenback party candidate, Peter Cooper, the well
+known manufacturer and philanthropist, drew only a poor 100,000, which
+came practically from the rural districts only. It was not until the
+great strikes of 1877 had brought in their train a political labor
+upheaval that the greenback movement assumed a formidable form.
+
+The strikes of 1877, which on account of the wide area affected, the
+degree of violence displayed, and the amount of life and property lost,
+impressed contemporaries as being nothing short of social revolution,
+were precipitated by a general ten percent reduction in wages on the
+three trunk lines running West, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio,
+and the New York Central, in June and July 1877. This reduction came on
+top of an earlier ten percent reduction after the panic. The railway men
+were practically unorganized so that the steadying influence of previous
+organization was totally lacking in the critical situation of unrest
+which the newly announced wage reduction created. One must take also
+into account that in the four terrible years which elapsed since the
+panic, America had developed a new type of a man--the tramp--who
+naturally gravitated towards places where trouble was expected.
+
+The first outbreak occurred at Martinsburg, West Virginia, on July 17,
+the day after the ten percent reduction had gone into effect. The
+strike spread like wildfire over the adjacent sections of the Baltimore
+& Ohio road, the strikers assuming absolute control at many points. The
+militia was either unwilling or powerless to cope with the violence. In
+Baltimore, where in the interest of public safety all the freight trains
+had stopped running, two companies of militia were beleaguered by a mob
+to prevent their being dispatched to Cumberland, where the strikers were
+in control. Order was restored only when Federal troops arrived.
+
+But these occurrences fade into insignificance when compared with the
+destructive effects of the strike on the Pennsylvania in and around
+Pittsburgh. The situation there was aggravated by a hatred of the
+Pennsylvania railway corporation shared by nearly all residents on the
+ground of an alleged rate discrimination against the city. The
+Pittsburgh militia fraternized with the strikers, and when 600 troops
+which arrived from Philadelphia attempted to restore order and killed
+about twenty rioters, they were besieged in a roundhouse by a furious
+mob. In the battle the railway yards were set on fire. Damages amounting
+to about $5,000,000 were caused. The besieged militia men finally gained
+egress and retreated fighting rear-guard actions. At last order was
+restored by patrols of citizens. The strike spread also to the Erie
+railway and caused disturbances in several places, but not nearly of the
+same serious nature as on the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania. The
+other places to which the strike spread were Toledo, Louisville,
+Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco.
+
+The strikes failed in every case but their moral effect was enormous.
+The general public still retained a fresh memory of the Commune of Paris
+of 1871 and feared for the foundations of the established order. The
+wage earners, on the other hand, felt that the strikers had not been
+fairly dealt with. It was on this intense labor discontent that the
+greenback agitation fed and grew.
+
+Whereas in 1876 the greenback labor vote was negligible, notwithstanding
+the exhortations by many of the former trade union leaders who turned
+greenback agitators, now, following the great strikes, greenbackism
+became primarily a labor movement. Local Greenback-Labor parties were
+being organized everywhere and a national Greenback-Labor party was not
+far behind in forming. The continued industrial depression was a
+decisive factor, the winter of 1877-1878 marking perhaps the point of
+its greatest intensity. Naturally the greenback movement was growing
+apace. One of the notable successes in the spring of 1878 was the
+election of Terence V. Powderly, later Grand Master Workman of the
+Knights of Labor, as mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
+
+The Congressional election in the autumn of 1878 marked the zenith of
+the movement. The aggregate greenback vote cast in the election exceeded
+a million, and fourteen Representatives were sent to Congress. In New
+England the movement was strong enough to poll almost a third of the
+total vote in Maine, over 8 percent of the total vote in both
+Connecticut and New Hampshire, and from 4 to 6 percent, in the other
+States. In Maine the greenbackers elected 32 members of the upper house
+and 151 members of the lower house and one Congressman, Thompson Murch
+of Rochland, who was secretary of the National Granite Cutters' Union.
+However, the bulk of the vote in that State was obviously agricultural.
+In Massachusetts, the situation was dominated by General Benjamin F.
+Butler, lifelong Republican politician, who had succeeded in getting
+the Democratic nomination for governor and was endorsed by the Greenback
+convention. He received a large vote but was defeated for office.
+
+But just as the Greenback-Labor movement was assuming promising
+proportions a change for the better in the industrial situation cut
+under the very roots of its existence. In addition, one month after the
+election of 1878, its principal issue disappeared. January 1, 1879, was
+the date fixed by the act for resumption of redemption of greenbacks in
+gold and on December 17, 1878, the premium on gold disappeared. From
+that day on, the greenback became a dead issue.
+
+Another factor of great importance was the large increase in the volume
+of the currency. In 1881 the currency, which had averaged about
+$725,000,000 for the years 1876-1878, reached over $1,111,000,000. Under
+these conditions, all that remained available to the platform-makers and
+propagandists of the party was their opposition to the so-called
+"monopolistic" national banks with their control over currency and to
+the refunding of the bonded debt of the government.
+
+The disappearance of the financial issue snapped the threads which had
+held together the farmer and the wage-worker. So long as depression
+continued, the issue was financial and the two had, as they thought, a
+common enemy--the banker. The financial issue once settled, or at least
+suspended, the object of the attack by labor became the employer, and
+that of the attack by the farmer--the railway corporation and the
+warehouse man. Prosperity had mitigated the grievances of both classes,
+but while the farmer still had a great deal to expect from politics in
+the form of state regulation of railway rates, the wage earners'
+struggle now turned entirely economic and not political.
+
+In California, as in the Eastern industrial States, the railway strikes
+of 1877 precipitated a political movement. California had retained gold
+as currency throughout the entire period of paper money, and the labor
+movement at no time had accepted the greenback platform. The political
+issue after 1877 was racial, not financial, and the weapon was not
+merely the ballot, but also "direct action"--violence. The anti-Chinese
+agitation in California, culminating as it did in the Exclusion Law
+passed by Congress in 1882, was doubtless the most important single
+factor in the history of American labor, for without it the entire
+country might have been overrun by Mongolian labor and the labor
+movement might have become a conflict of races instead of one of
+classes.[10]
+
+The seventies witnessed another of those recurring attempts of
+consumers' cooperation already noticed in the forties and sixties. This
+time the movement was organized by the "Sovereigns of Industry," a
+secret order, founded at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1874 by one
+William H. Earle. The spirit of the Order was entirely peaceful and
+unobtrusive as expressed in the first paragraph of the Declaration of
+Purposes which reads as follows:
+
+"The Order of the Sovereigns of Industry is an association of the
+industrial or laboring classes, without regard to race, sex, color,
+nationality, or occupation; not founded for the purpose of waging any
+war of aggression upon any other class, or for fostering any antagonism
+of labor against capital, or of arraying the poor against the rich; but
+for mutual assistance in self-improvement and self-protection."
+
+The scheme of organization called for a local council including members
+from the town or district, a state council, comprising representatives
+from the local councils and a National Council in which the States were
+represented. The president of the National Council was the founder of
+the Order, William H. Earle.
+
+Success accompanied the efforts of the promoters of the Sovereigns of
+Industry for a few years. The total membership in 1875-1876 was 40,000,
+of whom seventy-five percent were in New England and forty-three percent
+in Massachusetts. Though the Order extended into other States and even
+reached the territories, its chief strength always remained in New
+England and the Middle States. During the last period of its existence a
+national organ was published at Washington, but the Order does not
+appear to have gained a foothold in any of the more Southern sections of
+the country.
+
+In 1875, 101 local councils reported as having some method of supplying
+members with goods, 46 of whom operated stores. The largest store
+belonged to the council at Springfield, Massachusetts, which in 1875
+built the "Sovereign Block" at a cost of $35,500. In his address at the
+fourth annual session in Washington, President Earle stated that the
+store in Springfield led all the others with sales amounting to $119,000
+for the preceding year. About one-half of the councils failed to report,
+but at the Congress of 1876 President Earle estimated the annual trade
+at $3,000,000.
+
+Much enthusiasm accompanied the progress of the movement. The hall in
+"Sovereign Block" at Springfield was dedicated amid such jubilation as
+marks an event thought to be the forerunner of a new era. There is
+indeed a certain pathos in the high hopes expressed in the Address of
+Dedication by President Earle, for, though the Order continued to thrive
+until 1878, shortly after a decline began, and dissolution was its fate
+in 1880.
+
+The failure of the Sovereigns marked the latest attempt on a large
+scale[11] to inoculate the American workingmen with the sort of
+cooperative spirit which proved so successful in England.[12]
+
+This failure of distributive cooperation to gain the strong and lasting
+foothold in this country that it has abroad has been accounted for in
+various ways by different writers. Great emphasis has been laid upon the
+lack of capital, the lack of suitable legislation on the subject of
+cooperation, the mutual isolation of the educated and wage-earning
+classes, the lack of business ability among wage earners, and the
+altogether too frequent venality and corruption among cooperators.
+
+Probably the lack of adequate leadership has played as important a part
+as any. It is peculiar to America that the wage earner of exceptional
+ability can easily find a way for escaping into the class of independent
+producers or even employers of labor. The American trade union movement
+has suffered much less from this difficulty. The trade unions are
+fighting organizations; they demand the sort of leader who is of a
+combative spirit, who possesses the organizing ability and the "personal
+magnetism" to keep his men in line; and for this kind of ability the
+business world offers no particular demand. On the other hand, the
+qualifications which go to make a successful manager of a cooperative
+store, namely, steadiness, conservatism of judgment, attention to detail
+and business punctuality always will be in great demand in the business
+world. Hence, when no barrier is interposed in the form of preempted
+opportunities or class bias, the exceptional workingman who possesses
+these qualifications will likely desert his class and set up in business
+for himself. In England, fortunately for the cooperative movement, such
+an escape is very difficult.
+
+The failure of consumers' cooperation in America was helped also by two
+other peculiarly American conditions. European economists, when speaking
+of the working class, assume generally that it is fixed in residence and
+contrast it with capital, which they say is fluid as between city and
+city and even between country and country. American labor, however,
+native as well as immigrant, is probably more mobile than capital; for,
+tradition and habit which keep the great majority of European wage
+earners in the place where their fathers and forefathers had lived
+before them are generally absent in this country, except perhaps in
+parts of New England and the South. It is therefore natural that the
+cooperative spirit, which after all is but an enlarged and more
+generalized form of the old spirit of neighborliness and mutual trust,
+should have failed to develop to its full strength in America.
+
+Another condition fatal to the development of the cooperative spirit is
+the racial heterogeneity of the American wage-earning class, which
+separates it into mutually isolated groups even as the social classes of
+England and Scotland are separated by class spirit. As a result, we find
+a want of mutual trust which depends so much on "consciousness of kind."
+This is further aggravated by competition and a continuous displacement
+in industry of nationalities of a high standard of living by those of a
+lower one. This conflict of nationalities, which lies also at the root
+of the closed shop policy of many of the American trade unions, is
+probably the most effective carrier that there is to a widespread growth
+of the cooperative spirit among American wage earners. This is further
+hindered by other national characteristics which more or less pervade
+all classes of society, namely, the traditional individualism--the
+heritage of puritanism and the pioneer days, and the emphasis upon
+earning capacity with a corresponding aversion to thrift.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] The National Labor Union came out against Chinese immigration in
+1869, when the issue was brought home to the Eastern wage earners
+following the importation by a shoe manufacturer in North Adams,
+Massachusetts, of Chinese strike breakers.
+
+[11] There were many cooperative stores in the eighties and a concerted
+effort to duplicate the venture of the Sovereigns was attempted as late
+as 1919 under the pressure of the soaring cost of living.
+
+[12] Where Consumers' Cooperation has worked under most favorable
+conditions as in England, its achievements have been all that its most
+ardent champions could have desired. Such is the picture presented by
+Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb in the following glowing terms:
+
+"The organization of industry by Associations of Consumers offers, as
+far as it goes, a genuine alternative to capitalist ownership, because
+it supersedes the capitalist power, whether individual or joint-stock,
+alike in the control of the instruments of production by which the
+community lives, and in the absorption of the profits, which otherwise
+support a capitalist class. The ownership and control are vested in, and
+the profits are distributed among, the whole community of consumers,
+irrespective of their industrial wealth. Through the device of dividend
+on purchases the Cooperative Movement maintains an open democracy,
+through the control of this democracy of consumers it has directly or
+indirectly kept down prices, and protected the wage-earning class from
+exploitation by the Credit System and from the extortions of monopolist
+traders and speculators. By this same device on purchases, and the
+automatic accumulation of part of the profit in the capital of each
+society and in that of the Wholesales, it has demonstratedly added to
+the personal wealth of the manual working class, and has, alike in Great
+Britain, and in other countries, afforded both a valuable financial
+reserve to the wage earners against all emergencies and an instrument
+for their elevation from the penury to which competition is always
+depressing them. By making possible the upgrowth of great business
+enterprises in working class hands, the Cooperative Movement has,
+without divorcing them from their fellows, given to thousands of the
+manual workers both administrative experience and a well-grounded
+confidence; and has thus enabled them to take a fuller part in political
+and social life than would otherwise have been probable."--_New
+Statesman_, May 30, 1916. "Special Supplement on the Cooperative
+Movement."
+
+Indeed the success of the consumer's cooperative movement in European
+countries has been marvellous, even measured by bare figures. In all
+Europe in 1914, there were about 9,000,000 cooperators of whom one-third
+lived in Great Britain and not less than two and a half millions in
+Germany. In England and Scotland alone, the 1400 stores and two
+Wholesale Cooperative Societies controlled in 1914 about 420 million
+dollars of retail distributive trade and employed nearly 50,000
+operatives in processes of production in their own workshops and
+factories.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF
+LABOR
+
+
+With the practical disintegration of the organized labor movement in the
+seventies, two nuclei held together and showed promise of future growth.
+One was the "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor" and the other a small
+trade union movement grouped around the International Cigar Makers'
+Union.
+
+The "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor," while it first became
+important in the labor movement after 1873, was founded in 1869 by Uriah
+Smith Stephens, a tailor who had been educated for the ministry, as a
+secret organization. Secrecy was adopted as a protection against
+persecutions by employers.
+
+The principles of the Order were set forth by Stephens in the secret
+ritual. "Open and public association having failed after a struggle of
+centuries to protect or advance the interest of labor, we have lawfully
+constituted this Assembly," and "in using this power of organized effort
+and cooperation, we but imitate the example of capital heretofore set in
+numberless instances;" for, "in all the multifarious branches of trade,
+capital has its combinations, and, whether intended or not, it crushes
+the manly hopes of labor and tramples poor humanity into the dust."
+However, "we mean no conflict with legitimate enterprise, no antagonism
+to necessary capital." The remedy consists first in work of education:
+"We mean to create a healthy public opinion on the subject of labor (the
+only creator of values or capital) and the justice of its receiving a
+full, just share of the values or capital it has created." The next
+remedy was legislation: "We shall, with all our strength, support laws
+made to harmonize the interests of labor and capital, for labor alone
+gives life and value to capital, and also those laws which tend to
+lighten the exhaustiveness of toil." Next in order were mutual benefits.
+"We shall use every lawful and honorable means to procure and retain
+employ for one another, coupled with a just and fair remuneration, and,
+should accident or misfortune befall one of our number, render such aid
+as lies within our power to give, without inquiring his country or his
+creed."
+
+For nine years the Order remained a secret organization and showed but a
+slow growth. In 1878 it was forced to abolish secrecy. The public mind
+was rendered uneasy by the revolutionary uprising of workingmen of Paris
+who set up the famous "Commune of Paris" of 1871, by the destructive
+great railway strikes in this country in 1877 and, lastly, by a wave of
+criminal disorders in the anthracite coal mining region in Eastern
+Pennsylvania,[13] and became only too prone to attribute revolutionary
+and criminal intents to any labor organization that cloaked itself in
+secrecy. Simultaneously with coming out into the open, the Knights
+adopted a new program, called the Preamble of the Knights of Labor, in
+place of the vague Secret Ritual which hitherto served as the
+authoritative expression of aims.
+
+This Preamble recites how "wealth," with its development, has become so
+aggressive that "unless checked" it "will inevitably lead to the
+pauperisation and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses." Hence, if
+the toilers are "to enjoy the blessings of life," they must organize
+"every department of productive industry" in order to "check" the power
+of wealth and to put a stop to "unjust accumulation." The battle cry in
+this fight must be "moral worth not wealth, the true standard of
+individual and national greatness." As the "action" of the toilers ought
+to be guided by "knowledge," it is necessary to know "the true condition
+of the producing masses"; therefore, the Order demands "from the various
+governments the establishment of bureaus of labor statistics." Next in
+order comes the "establishment of cooperative institutions productive
+and distributive." Union of all trades, "education," and producers'
+cooperation remained forever after the cardinal points in the Knights of
+Labor philosophy and were steadily referred to as "First Principles,"
+namely principles bequeathed to the Order by Uriah Stephens and the
+other "Founders."[14]
+
+These idealistic "First Principles" found an ardent champion in Terence
+V. Powderly, a machinist by trade and twice mayor of Scranton,
+Pennsylvania, on a labor ticket, who succeeded Stephens in 1878 to the
+headship of the Order. Powderly bore unmistakably the stamp of this sort
+of idealism throughout all the time when he was the foremost labor
+leader in the country. Unlike Samuel Gompers, who came to supplant him
+about 1890, he was foreign to that spirit of combative unionism which
+accepts the wage system but concentrates on a struggle to wrest
+concessions from the employers. Even when circumstances which were
+largely beyond his control made Powderly a strike leader on a huge
+scale, his heart lay elsewhere--in circumventing the wage system by
+opening to the worker an escape into self-employment through
+cooperation.
+
+Producers' cooperation, then, was the ambitious program by which the
+Order of the Knights of Labor expected to lead the American wage-earning
+class out of the bondage of the wage system into the Canaan of
+self-employment. Thus the Order was the true successor of the
+cooperative movement in the forties and sixties. Its motto was
+"Cooperation of the Order, by the Order, and for the Order." Not
+scattered local initiative, but the Order as a whole was to carry on the
+work. The plan resembled the Rochdale system of England in that it
+proposed to start with an organization of consumers--the large and
+ever-growing membership of the Order. But it departed radically from the
+English prototype in that instead of setting out to save money for the
+consumer, it primarily aimed to create a market for the productive
+establishments which were to follow. Consumers' cooperation was to be
+but a stepping stone to producers' self-employment. Eventually when the
+Order had grown to include nearly all useful members of society--so the
+plan contemplated--it would control practically the whole market and
+cooperative production would become the rule rather than the exception.
+So far, therefore, as "First Principles" went, the Order was not an
+instrument of the "class struggle," but an association of idealistic
+cooperators. It was this pure idealism which drew to the Order of the
+Knights of Labor the sympathetic interest of writers on social subjects
+and university teachers, then unfortunately too few in number, like Dr.
+Richard T. Ely[15] and President John Bascom of Wisconsin.
+
+The other survival in the seventies of the labor movement of the
+sixties, which has already been mentioned, namely the trade union
+movement grouped around the Cigar Makers' Union, was neither so purely
+American in its origin as the Knights of Labor nor so persistently
+idealistic. On the contrary, its first membership was foreign and its
+program, as we shall see, became before long primarily opportunist and
+"pragmatic." The training school for this opportunistic trade unionism
+was the socialist movement during the sixties and seventies,
+particularly the American branch of the International Workingmen's
+Association, the "First _Internationale_," which was founded by Karl
+Marx in London in 1864. The conception of _economic_ labor organization
+which was advanced by the _Internationale_ in a socialistic formulation
+underwent in the course of years a process of change: On the one hand,
+through constant conflict with the rival conception of _political_ labor
+organization urged by American followers of the German socialist,
+Ferdinand Lassalle, and on the other hand, through contact with American
+reality. Out of that double contact emerged the trade unionism of the
+American Federation of Labor.
+
+The _Internationale_ is generally reputed to have been organized by Karl
+Marx for the propaganda of international socialism. As a matter of fact,
+its starting point was the practical effort of British trade union
+leaders to organize the workingmen of the Continent and to prevent the
+importation of Continental strike-breakers. That Karl Marx wrote its
+_Inaugural Address_ was merely incidental. It chanced that what he wrote
+was acceptable to the British unionists rather than the draft of an
+address representing the views of Giuseppe Mazzini, the leader of the
+"New Italy" and the "New Europe," which was submitted to them at the
+same time and advocated elaborate plans of cooperation. Marx emphasized
+the class solidarity of labor against Mazzini's harmony of capital and
+labor. He did this by reciting what British labor had done through the
+Rochdale system of cooperation without the help of capitalists and what
+the British Parliament had done in enacting the ten-hour law of 1847
+against the protest of capitalists. Now that British trade unionists in
+1864 were demanding the right of suffrage and laws to protect their
+unions, it followed that Marx merely stated their demands when he
+affirmed the independent economic and political organization of labor in
+all lands. His _Inaugural Address_ was a trade union document, not a
+_Communist Manifesto_. Indeed not until Bakunin and his following of
+anarchists had nearly captured the organization in the years 1869 to
+1872 did the program of socialism become the leading issue.
+
+The philosophy of the _Internationale_ at the period of its ascendency
+was based on the economic organization of the working class in trade
+unions. These must precede the political seizure of the government by
+labor. Then, when the workingmen's party should achieve control, it
+would be able to build up successively the socialist state on the
+foundation of a sufficient number of existing trade unions.
+
+This conception differed widely from the teaching of Ferdinand Lassalle.
+Lassallean socialism was born in 1863 with Lassalle's _Open Letter_ to a
+workingmen's committee in Leipzig. It sprang from his antagonism to
+Schultze-Delizsch's[16] system of voluntary cooperation. In Lassalle's
+eagerness to condemn the idea of the harmony of capital and labor, which
+lay at the basis of Schultze's scheme for cooperation, he struck at the
+same time a blow against all forms of non-political organization of wage
+earners. Perhaps the fact that he was ignorant of the British trade
+unions accounts for his insufficient appreciation of trade unionism. But
+no matter what the cause may have been, to Lassalle there was but one
+means of solving the labor problem-political action. When political
+control was finally achieved, the labor party, with the aid of state
+credit, would build up a network of cooperative societies into which
+eventually all industry would pass.
+
+In short, the distinction between the ideas of the _Internationale_ and
+of Lassalle consisted in the fact that the former advocated trade
+unionism prior to and underlying political organization, while the
+latter considered a political victory as the basis of socialism. These
+antagonistic starting points are apparent at the very beginning of
+American socialism as well as in the trade unionism and socialism of
+succeeding years.
+
+Two distinct phases can be seen in the history of the _Internationale_
+in America. During the first phase, which began in 1866 and lasted until
+1870, the _Internationale_ had no important organization of its own on
+American soil, but tried to establish itself through affiliation with
+the National Labor Union. The inducement held out to the latter was of a
+practical nature, the international regulation of immigration. During
+the second phase the _Internationale_ had its "sections" in nearly every
+large city of the country, centering in New York and Chicago, and the
+practical trade union part of its work receded before its activity on
+behalf of the propaganda of socialism.
+
+These "sections," with a maximum membership which probably never
+exceeded a thousand, nearly all foreigners, became a preparatory school
+in trade union leadership for many of the later organizers and leaders
+of the American Federation of Labor: for example, Adolph Strasser, the
+German cigar maker, whose organization became the new model in trade
+unionism, and P.J. McGuire, the American-born carpenter, who founded the
+Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and who was for many years the
+secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor.
+
+Fate had decreed that these sections of a handful of immigrants should
+play for a time high-sounding parts in the world labor movement. When,
+at the World Congress of the International Workingmen's Association at
+the Hague in 1872, the anarchist faction led by Bakunin had shown such
+strength that Marx and his socialist faction deemed it wise to move the
+General Council out of mischief's way, they removed it to New York and
+entrusted its powers into the hands of the faithful German Marxians on
+this side of the Atlantic. This spelled the end of the _Internationale_
+as a world organization, but enormously increased the stakes of the
+factional fights within the handful of American Internationalists. The
+organization of the workers into trade unions, the _Internationale's_
+first principle, was forgotten in the heat of intemperate struggles for
+empty honors and powerless offices. On top of that, with the panic of
+1873 and the ensuing prolonged depression, the political drift asserted
+itself in socialism as it had in the labor movement in general and the
+movement, erstwhile devoted primarily to organization of trade unions,
+entered, urged on by the Lassalleans, into a series of political
+campaigns somewhat successful at first but soon succumbing to the
+inevitable fate of all amateurish attempts. Upon men of Strasser's
+practical mental grasp these petty tempests in the melting pot could
+only produce an impression of sheer futility, and he turned to trade
+unionism as the only activity worth his while. Strasser had been elected
+president of the Cigar Makers' International Union in 1877, in the midst
+of a great strike in New York against the tenement-house system.
+
+The president of the local New York union of cigar makers was at the
+time Samuel Gompers, a young man of twenty-seven, who was born in
+England and came to America in 1862. In his endeavor to build up a model
+for the "new" unionism and in his almost uninterrupted headship of that
+movement for forty years is indicated Gompers' truly representative
+character. Born of Dutch-Jewish parents in England in 1850, he typifies
+the cosmopolitan origins of American unionism. His early contact in the
+union of his trade with men like Strasser, upon whom the ideas of Marx
+and the International Workingmen's Association had left an indelible
+stamp, and his thorough study of Marx gave him that grounding both in
+idealism and class consciousness which has produced many strong leaders
+of American unions and saved them from defection to other interests.
+Aggressive and uncompromising in a perpetual fight for the strongest
+possible position and power of trade unions, but always strong for
+collective agreements with the opposing employers, he displays the
+business tactics of organized labor. At the head of an organization
+which denies itself power over its constituent unions, he has brought
+and held together the most widely divergent and often antagonistic
+unions, while permitting each to develop and even to change its
+character to fit the changing industrial conditions.
+
+The dismal failure of the strike against the tenement house system in
+cigar making brought home to both Strasser and Gompers the weakness of
+the plan of organization of their union as well as that of American
+trade unions in general. They consequently resolved to rebuild their
+union upon the pattern of the British unions, although they firmly
+intended that it should remain a militant organization. The change
+involved, first, complete authority over the local unions in the hands
+of the international officers; second, an increase in the membership
+dues for the purpose of building up a large fund; and, third, the
+adoption of a far-reaching benefit system in order to assure stability
+to the organization. This was accomplished at the convention held in
+August, 1879. This convention simultaneously adopted the British idea of
+the "equalization of funds," which gave the international officers the
+power to order a well-to-do local union to transfer a portion of its
+funds to another local union in financial straits. With the various
+modifications of the feature of "equalization of funds," the system of
+government in the Cigar Makers' International Union was later used as a
+model by the other national and international trade unions.
+
+As Strasser and men of his ilk grew more and more absorbed in the
+practical problems of the everyday struggle of the wage-earners for
+better conditions of employment, the socialistic portion of their
+original philosophy kept receding further and further into the
+background until they arrived at pure trade unionism. But their trade
+unionism differed vastly from the "native" American trade unionism of
+their time, which still hankered for the haven of producers'
+cooperation. The philosophy which these new leaders developed might be
+termed a philosophy of pure wage-consciousness. It signified a labor
+movement reduced to an opportunistic basis, accepting the existence of
+capitalism and having for its object the enlarging of the bargaining
+power of the wage earner in the sale of his labor. Its opportunism was
+instrumental--its idealism was home and family and individual
+betterment. It also implied an attitude of aloofness from all those
+movements which aspire to replace the wage system by cooperation,
+whether voluntary or subsidized by government, whether greenbackism,
+socialism, or anarchism.
+
+Perhaps the most concise definition of this philosophy is to be found
+in Strasser's testimony before the Senate Committee on Education and
+Labor in 1883:
+
+     "_Q._ You are seeking to improve home matters first?
+
+     "_A._ Yes, sir, I look first to the trade I represent; I look first
+     to cigars, to the interests of men who employ me to represent their
+     interest.
+
+     "_Chairman_: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.
+
+     "_Witness_: We have no ultimate ends. We are going on from day to
+     day. We are fighting only for immediate objects--objects that can
+     be realized in a few years.
+
+     "By Mr. Call: _Q._ You want something better to eat and to wear,
+     and better houses to live in?
+
+     "_A._ Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and become
+     better citizens generally.
+
+     "_The Chairman_: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it
+     should be thought that you are a mere theoriser, I do not look upon
+     you in that light at all.
+
+     "_The Witness_: Well, we say in our constitution that we are
+     opposed to theorists, and I have to represent the organization
+     here. We are all practical men."
+
+Another offshoot of the same Marxian _Internationale_ were the "Chicago
+Anarchists."[17] The _Internationale_, as we saw, emphasized trade
+unionism as the first step in the direction of socialism, in opposition
+to the political socialism of Lassalle, which ignored the trade union
+and would start with a political party outright. Shorn of its
+socialistic futurity this philosophy became non-political "business"
+unionism; but, when combined with a strong revolutionary spirit, it
+became a non-political revolutionary unionism, or syndicalism.
+
+The organization of those industrial revolutionaries was called the
+International Working People's Association, also known as the "Black"
+or anarchist International, which was formed at Pittsburgh in 1883. Like
+the old _Internationale_ it busied itself with forming trade unions, but
+insisted that they conform to a revolutionary model. Such a "model"
+trade union was the Federation of Metal Workers of America, which was
+organized in 1885. It said in its Declaration of Principles that the
+entire abolition of the present system of society can alone emancipate
+the workers, but under no consideration should they resort to politics;
+"our organization should be a school to educate its members for the new
+condition of society, when the workers will regulate their own affairs
+without any interference by the few. Since the emancipation of the
+productive classes must come by their own efforts, it is unwise to
+meddle in present politics.... All _direct_ struggles of the laboring
+masses have our fullest sympathy." Alongside the revolutionary trade
+unions were workers' armed organizations ready to usher in the new order
+by force. "By force," recited the Pittsburgh Manifesto of the Black
+International, "our ancestors liberated themselves from political
+oppression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves
+from economic bondage. It is, therefore, your right, it is your duty,
+says Jefferson,--to arms!"
+
+The following ten years were to decide whether the leadership of the
+American labor movement was to be with the "practical men of the trade
+unions" or with the cooperative idealists of the Knights of Labor.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] After the defeat of a strong anthracite miners' union in 1869,
+which was an open organization, the fight against the employers was
+carried on by a secret organization known as the Molly Maguires, which
+used the method of terrorism and assassination. It was later exposed and
+many were sentenced and executed.
+
+[14] The Preamble further provides that the Order will stand for the
+reservation of all lands for actual settlers; the "abrogation of all
+laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, the removal of
+unjust technicalities, delays, and discriminations in the administration
+of justice, and the adopting of measures providing for the health and
+safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, or building pursuits";
+the enactment of a weekly pay law, a mechanics' lien law, and a law
+prohibiting child labor under fourteen years of age; the abolition of
+the contract system on national, state, and municipal work, and of the
+system of leasing out convicts; equal pay for equal work for both sexes;
+reduction of hours of labor to eight per day; "the substitution of
+arbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employees
+are willing to meet on equitable grounds"; the establishment of "a
+purely national circulating medium based upon the faith and resources of
+the nation, issued directly to the people, without the intervention of
+any system of banking corporations, which money shall be a legal tender
+in payment of all debts, public or private".
+
+[15] Dr. Ely in his pioneer work, _The Labor Movement in America_,
+published in 1886, showed a most genuine sympathy for the idealistic
+strivings and gropings of labor for a better social order. He even
+advised some of his pupils at the Johns Hopkins University to join the
+Knights of Labor in order to gain a better understanding of the labor
+movement.
+
+[16] Schultze-Delizsch was a German thinker and practical reformer of
+the liberal school.
+
+[17] The Anarchists who were tried and executed after the Haymarket
+Square bomb in Chicago in May, 1886. See below, 91-93.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887
+
+
+With the return of business prosperity in 1879, the labor movement
+revived. The first symptom of the upward trend was a rapid
+multiplication of city federations of organized trades, variously known
+as trade councils, amalgamated trade and labor unions, trades
+assemblies, and the like. Practically all of these came into existence
+after 1879, since hardly any of the "trades' assemblies" of the sixties
+had survived the depression.
+
+As was said above, the national trade unions existed during the sixties
+and seventies in only about thirty trades. Eighteen of these had either
+retained a nucleus during the seventies or were first formed during that
+decade. The following is a list of the national unions in existence in
+1880 with the year of formation: Typographical (1850), Hat Finishers
+(1854), Iron Molders (1859), Locomotive Engineers (1863), Cigar Makers
+(1864), Bricklayers and Masons (1865), Silk and Fur Hat Finishers
+(1866), Railway Conductors (1868), Coopers (1870), German-American
+Typographia (1873), Locomotive Firemen (1873), Horseshoers (1874),
+Furniture Workers (1873), Iron and Steel Workers (1876), Granite Cutters
+(1877), Lake Seamen (1878), Cotton Mill Spinners (1878), New England
+Boot and Shoe Lasters (1879).
+
+In 1880 the Western greenbottle blowers' national union was established;
+in 1881 the national unions of boiler makers and carpenters; in 1882,
+plasterers and metal workers; in 1883, tailors, lithographers, wood
+carvers, railroad brakemen, and silk workers.
+
+An illustration of the rapid growth in trade union membership during
+this period is given in the following figures: the bricklayers' union
+had 303 in 1880; 1558 in 1881; 6848 in 1882; 9193 in 1883. The
+typographical union had 5968 members in 1879; 6520 in 1880; 7931 in
+1881; 10,439 in 1882; 12,273 in 1883. The total trade union membership
+in the country, counting the three railway organizations and those
+organized only locally, amounted to between 200,000 and 225,000 in 1883
+and probably was not below 300,000 in the beginning of 1885.
+
+A distinguishing characteristic of the trade unions of this time was the
+predominance in them of the foreign element. The Illinois Bureau of
+Labor describes the ethnical composition of the trade unions of that
+State during 1886, and states that 21 percent were American, 33 percent
+German, 19 percent Irish, 10 percent British other than Irish, 12
+percent Scandinavian, and the Poles, Bohemians, and Italians formed
+about 5 percent. The strong predominance of the foreign element in
+American trade unions should not appear unusual, since, owing to the
+breakdown of the apprenticeship system, the United States had been
+drawing its supply of skilled labor from abroad.
+
+The Order of the Knights of Labor, despite its "First Principles" based
+on the cooperative ideal, was soon forced to make concessions to a large
+element of its membership which was pressing for strikes. With the
+advent of prosperity, the Order expanded, although the Knights of Labor
+played but a subordinate part in the labor movement of the early
+eighties. The membership was 20,151 in 1879; 28,136 in 1880; 19,422 in
+1881; 42,517 in 1882; 51,914 in 1883; showing a steady and rapid growth,
+with the exception of the year 1881. But these figures are decidedly
+deceptive as a means of measuring the strength of the Order, for the
+membership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached
+50,000 no less than one-half of this number passed in and out of the
+organization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducing
+the economic strength of the Order, brought large masses of people under
+its influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle of
+the eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention of the public
+press. The labor press gave the Order great publicity, but the Knights
+did not rely on gratuitous newspaper publicity. They set to work a host
+of lecturers, who held public meetings throughout the country adding
+recruits and advertising the Order.
+
+The most important Knights of Labor strike of this period was the
+telegraphers' strike in 1883. The telegraphers had a national
+organization in 1870, which soon collapsed. In 1882 they again organized
+on a national basis and affiliated with the Order as District Assembly
+45.[18] The strike was declared on June 19, 1883, against all commercial
+telegraph companies in the country, among which the Western Union, with
+about 4000 operators, was by far the largest. The demands were one day's
+rest in seven, an eight-hour day shift and a seven-hour night shift, and
+a general increase of 15 percent in wages. The public and a large
+portion of the press gave their sympathy to the strikers, not so much on
+account of the oppressed condition of the telegraphers as of the general
+hatred that prevailed against Jay Gould, who then controlled the
+Western Union Company. This strike was the first in the eighties to call
+the attention of the general American public to the existence of a labor
+question, and received considerable attention at the hands of the Senate
+Committee on Education and Labor. By the end of July, over a month after
+the beginning of the strike, the men who escaped the blacklist went back
+to work on the old terms.
+
+From 1879 till 1882 the labor movement was typical of a period of rising
+prices. It was practically restricted to skilled workmen, who organized
+to wrest from employers still better conditions than those which
+prosperity would have given under individual bargaining. The movement
+was essentially opportunistic and displayed no particular class feeling
+and no revolutionary tendencies. The solidarity of labor was not denied
+by the trade unions, but they did not try to reduce the idea to
+practice: each trade coped more or less successfully with its own
+employers. Even the Knights of Labor, the organization _par excellence_
+of the solidarity of labor, was at this time, in so far as practical
+efforts went, merely a faint echo of the trade unions.
+
+But the situation radically changed during the depression of 1884-1885.
+The unskilled and the semi-skilled, affected as they were by wage
+reductions and unemployment even in a larger measure than the skilled,
+were drawn into the movement. Labor organizations assumed the nature of
+a real class movement. The idea of the solidarity of labor ceased to be
+merely verbal and took on life! General strikes, sympathetic strikes,
+nationwide boycotts and nation-wide political movements became the order
+of the day. The effects of an unusually large immigration joined hands
+with the depression. The eighties were the banner decade of the entire
+century for immigration. The aggregate number of immigrants arriving was
+5,246,613--two and a half millions larger than during the seventies and
+one million and a half larger than during the nineties. The eighties
+witnessed the highest tide of immigration from Great Britain and the
+North of Europe and the beginning of the tide of South and East European
+immigration.
+
+However, the depression of 1883-1885 had one redeeming feature by which
+it was distinguished from other depressions. With falling prices,
+diminishing margins of profit, and decreasing wages, the amount of
+employment was not materially diminished. Times continued hard during
+1885, a slight improvement showing itself only during the last months of
+the year. The years 1886 and 1887 were a period of gradual recovery, and
+normal conditions may be said to have returned about the middle of 1887.
+Except in New England, the old wages, which had been reduced during the
+bad years, were won again by the spring of 1887.
+
+The year 1884 was one of decisive failure in strikes. They were
+practically all directed against reductions in wages and for the right
+of organization. The most conspicuous strikes were those of the Fall
+River spinners, the Troy stove mounters, the Cincinnati cigar makers and
+the Hocking Valley coal miners.
+
+The failure of strikes brought into use the other weapon of labor--the
+boycott. But not until the latter part of 1884, when the failure of the
+strike as a weapon became apparent, did the boycott assume the nature of
+an epidemic. The boycott movement was a truly national one, affecting
+the South and the Far West as well as the East and Middle West. The
+number of boycotts during 1885 was nearly seven times as large as during
+1884. Nearly all of the boycotts either originated with, or were taken
+up by, the Knights of Labor.
+
+The strike again came into prominence in the latter half of 1885. This
+coincided with the beginning of an upward trend in general business
+conditions. The strikes of 1885, even more than those of the preceding
+year, were spontaneous outbreaks of unorganized masses.
+
+The frequent railway strikes were a characteristic feature of the labor
+movement in 1885. Most notable was the Gould railway strike in March,
+1885. On February 26, a cut of 10 percent was ordered in the wages of
+the shopmen of the Wabash road. A similar reduction had been made in
+October, 1884, on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. Strikes occurred on the
+two roads, one on February 27 and the other March 9, and the strikers
+were joined by the men on the third Gould road, the Missouri Pacific, at
+all points where the two lines touched, making altogether over 4500 men
+on strike. The train service personnel, that is, the locomotive
+engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors, supported the strikers and
+to this fact more than to any other was due their speedy victory. The
+wages were restored and the strikers reemployed. But six months later
+this was followed by a second strike. The road, now in the hands of a
+receiver, reduced the force of shopmen at Moberly, Missouri, to the
+lowest possible limit, which virtually meant a lockout of the members of
+the Knights of Labor in direct violation of the conditions of settlement
+of the preceding strike. The General Executive Board of the Knights,
+after a futile attempt to have a conference with the receiver, declared
+a boycott on Wabash rolling stock. This order, had it been carried out,
+would have affected over 20,000 miles of railway and would have equalled
+the dimensions of the great railway strike of 1877. But Jay Gould would
+not risk a general strike on his lines at this time. According to an
+appointment made between him and the executive board of the Knights of
+Labor, a conference was held between that board and the managers of the
+Missouri Pacific and the Wabash railroads, at which he threw his
+influence in favor of making concessions to the men. He assured the
+Knights that in all troubles he wanted the men to come directly to him,
+that he believed in labor organizations and in the arbitration of all
+difficulties and that he "would always endeavor to do what was right."
+The Knights demanded the discharge of all new men hired in the Wabash
+shops since the beginning of the lockout, the reinstatement of all
+discharged men, the leaders being given priority, and an assurance that
+no discrimination against the members of the Order would be made in the
+future. A settlement was finally made at another conference, and the
+receiver of the Wabash road agreed, under pressure by Jay Gould, to
+issue an order conceding the demands of the Knights of Labor.
+
+The significance of the second Wabash strike in the history of railway
+strikes was that the railway brotherhoods (engineers, firemen, brakemen,
+and conductors), in contrast with their conduct during the first Wabash
+strike, now refused to lend any aid to the striking shopmen, although
+many of the members were also Knights of Labor.
+
+But far more important was the effect of the strike upon the general
+labor movement. Here a labor organization for the first time dealt on an
+equal footing with probably the most powerful capitalist in the country.
+It forced Jay Gould to recognize it as a power equal to himself, a fact
+which he conceded when he declared his readiness to arbitrate all labor
+difficulties that might arise. The oppressed laboring masses finally
+discovered a powerful champion. All the pent-up feeling of bitterness
+and resentment which had accumulated during the two years of depression,
+in consequence of the repeated cuts in wages and the intensified
+domination by employers, now found vent in a rush to organize under the
+banner of the powerful Knights of Labor. To the natural tendency on the
+part of the oppressed to exaggerate the power of a mysterious
+emancipator whom they suddenly found coming to their aid, there was
+added the influence of sensational reports in the public press. The
+newspapers especially took delight in exaggerating the powers and
+strength of the Order.
+
+In 1885 the New York _Sun_ detailed one of its reporters to "get up a
+story of the strength and purposes of the Knights of Labor." This story
+was copied by newspapers and magazines throughout the country and aided
+considerably in bringing the Knights of Labor into prominence. The
+following extract illustrates the exaggerated notion of the power of the
+Knights of Labor.
+
+"Five men in this country control the chief interests of five hundred
+thousand workingmen, and can at any moment take the means of livelihood
+from two and a half millions of souls. These men compose the executive
+board of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor of America. The ability
+of the president and cabinet to turn out all the men in the civil
+service, and to shift from one post to another the duties of the men in
+the army and navy, is a petty authority compared with that of these five
+Knights. The authority of the late Cardinal was, and that of the
+bishops of the Methodist Church is, narrow and prescribed, so far as
+material affairs are concerned, in comparison with that of these five
+rulers.
+
+"They can stay the nimble touch of almost every telegraph operator; can
+shut up most of the mills and factories, and can disable the railroads.
+They can issue an edict against any manufactured goods so as to make
+their subjects cease buying them, and the tradesmen stop selling them.
+
+"They can array labor against capital, putting labor on the offensive or
+the defensive, for quiet and stubborn self-protection, or for angry,
+organized assault, as they will."
+
+Before long the Order was able to benefit by this publicity in quarters
+where the tale of its great power could only attract unqualified
+attention, namely, in Congress. The Knights of Labor led in the
+agitation for prohibiting the immigration of alien contract laborers.
+The problem of contract immigrant labor rapidly came to the front in
+1884, when such labor began frequently to be used to defeat strikes.
+
+Twenty persons appeared to testify before the committee in favor of the
+bill, of whom all but two or three belonged to the Knights of Labor. The
+anti-contract labor law which was passed by Congress on February 2,
+1885, therefore, was due almost entirely to the efforts of the Knights
+of Labor. The trade unions gave little active support, for to the
+skilled workingmen the importation of contract Italian and Hungarian
+laborers was a matter of small importance. On the other hand, to the
+Knights of Labor with their vast contingent of unskilled it was a strong
+menace. Although the law could not be enforced and had to be amended in
+1887 in order to render it effective, its passage nevertheless attests
+the political influence already exercised by the Order in 1885.
+
+The outcome of the Gould strike of 1885 and the dramatic exaggeration of
+the prowess of the Order by press and even by pulpit were largely
+responsible for the psychological setting that called forth and
+surrounded the great upheaval of 1886. This upheaval meant more than the
+mere quickening of the pace of the movement begun in preceding years and
+decades. It signalled the appearance on the scene of a new class which
+had not hitherto found a place in the labor movement, namely the
+unskilled. All the peculiar characteristics of the dramatic events in
+1886 and 1887, the highly feverish pace at which organizations grew, the
+nation-wide wave of strikes, particularly sympathetic strikes, the wide
+use of the boycott, the obliteration, apparently complete, of all lines
+that divided the laboring class, whether geographic or trade, the
+violence and turbulence which accompanied the movement--all of these
+were the signs of a great movement by the class of the unskilled, which
+had finally risen in rebellion. This movement, rising as an elemental
+protest against oppression and degradation, could be but feebly
+restrained by any considerations of expediency and prudence; nor, of
+course, could it be restrained by any lessons from experience. But, if
+the origin and powerful sweep of this movement were largely spontaneous
+and elemental, the issues which it took up were supplied by the existing
+organizations, namely the trade unions and the Knights of Labor. These
+served also as the dykes between which the rapid streams were gathered
+and, if at times it seemed that they must burst under the pressure,
+still they gave form and direction to the movement and partly succeeded
+in introducing order where chaos had reigned. The issue which first
+brought unity in this great mass movement was a nation-wide strike for
+the eight-hour day declared for May 1, 1886.
+
+The initiative in this strike was taken not by the Order but by the
+trade unionists and on the eve of the strike the general officers of the
+Knights adopted an attitude of hostility. But if the slogan failed to
+arouse the enthusiasm of the national leaders of the Knights, it
+nevertheless found ready response in the ranks of labor. The great class
+of the unskilled and unorganized, which had come to look upon the
+Knights of Labor as the all-powerful liberator of the laboring masses
+from oppression, now eagerly seized upon this demand as the issue upon
+which the first battle with capital should be fought.
+
+The agitation assumed large proportions in March. The main argument for
+the shorter day was work for the unemployed. With the exception of the
+cigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organizations.
+The Knights of Labor as an organization figured far less prominently
+than the trade unions, and among the latter the building trades and the
+German-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front of
+the movement. Early in the strike the workingmen's cause was gravely
+injured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributed
+to anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen.
+
+The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which had
+heretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity. For
+what many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval in
+a less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoretical
+justification, the contemporary Chicago "anarchists,"[19] the largest
+branch of the "Black International," had elevated into a well
+rounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Labor
+upheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of the
+eighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalism
+was characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with which
+minor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades and
+large territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, to
+enter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by a
+ready resort to violence. In 1886 the membership of the Black
+International probably was about 5000 or 6000 and of this number about
+1000 were English speaking.
+
+The circumstances of the bomb explosion were the following. A strikers'
+meeting was held near the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago, late on the
+third of May. About this time strike-breakers employed in these works
+began to leave for home and were attacked by strikers. The police
+arrived in large numbers and upon being received with stones, fired and
+killed four and wounded many. The same evening the International issued
+a call in which appeared the word _"Revenge"_ with the appeal:
+"Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force." A protest mass
+meeting met the next day on Haymarket Square and was addressed by
+Internationalists. The police were present in numbers and, as they
+formed in line and advanced on the crowd, some unknown hand hurled a
+bomb into their midst killing and wounding many.
+
+It is unnecessary to describe here the period of police terror in
+Chicago, the hysterical attitude of the press, or the state of panic
+that came over the inhabitants of the city. Nor is it necessary to deal
+in detail with the trial and sentence of the accused. Suffice it to say
+that the Haymarket bomb showed to the labor movement what it might
+expect from the public and the government if it combined violence with a
+revolutionary purpose.
+
+Although the bomb outrage was attributed to the anarchists and not
+generally to the strikers for the eight-hour day, it did materially
+reduce the sympathy of the public as well as intimidate many strikers.
+Nevertheless, _Bradstreet's_ estimated that no fewer than 340,000 men
+took part in the movement; 190,000 actually struck, only 42,000 of this
+number with success, and 150,000 secured shorter hours without a strike.
+Thus the total number of those who secured with or without strikes the
+eight-hour day was something less than 200,000. But even those who for
+the present succeeded, whether with or without striking, soon lost the
+concession, and _Bradstreet's_ estimated in January, 1887, that, so far
+as the payment of former wages for a shorter day's work is concerned,
+the grand total of those retaining the concession did not exceed, if it
+equalled, 15,000.
+
+American labor movements have never experienced such a rush to organize
+as the one in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. During 1886 the
+combined membership of labor organizations was exceptionally large and
+for the first time came near the million mark. The Knights of Labor had
+a membership of 700,000 and the trade unions at least 250,000, the
+former composed largely of unskilled and the latter of skilled. The
+Knights of Labor gained in a remarkably short time--in a few
+months--over 600,000 new members and grew from 1610 local assemblies
+with 104,066 members in good standing in July 1885, to 5892 assemblies
+with 702,924 members in July 1886. The greatest portion of this growth
+occurred after January 1, 1886. In the state of New York there were in
+July 1886, about 110,000 members (60,809 in District Assembly 49 of New
+York City alone); in Pennsylvania, 95,000 (51,557 in District Assembly
+1, Philadelphia, alone); in Massachusetts, 90,000 (81,191 in District
+Assembly 30 of Boston); and in Illinois, 32,000.
+
+In the state of Illinois, for which detailed information for that year
+is available, there were 204 local assemblies with 34,974 members, of
+which 65 percent were found in Cook County (Chicago) alone. One hundred
+and forty-nine assemblies were mixed, that is comprised members of
+different trades including unskilled and only 55 were trade assemblies.
+Reckoned according to country of birth the membership was 45 percent
+American, 16 percent German, 13 percent Irish, 10 percent British, 5
+percent Scandinavian, and the remaining 2 percent scattered. The trade
+unions also gained many members but in a considerably lesser proportion.
+
+The high water mark was reached in the autumn of 1886. But in the early
+months of 1887 a reaction became visible. By July 1, the membership of
+the Order had diminished to 510,351. While a share of this retrogression
+may have been due to the natural reaction of large masses of people who
+had been suddenly set in motion without experience, a more immediate
+cause came from the employers. Profiting by past lessons, they organized
+strong associations. The main object of these employers' associations
+was the defeat of the Knights. They were organized sectionally and
+nationally. In small localities, where the power of the Knights was
+especially great, all employers regardless of industry joined in a
+single association. But in large manufacturing centers, where the rich
+corporation prevailed, they included the employers of only one industry.
+To attain their end these associations made liberal use of the lockout,
+the blacklist, and armed guards and detectives. Often they treated
+agreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress.
+The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearly
+foreshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gould
+railways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886.
+
+As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould
+system in March 1885, the employes were assured that the road would
+institute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it
+is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by
+minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated
+in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car
+shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortly
+before passed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over the
+entire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that the
+Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two months
+before the strike. District Assembly 101, the organization embracing the
+employes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and
+authorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might find
+opportune to enforce the two following demands: first, the formal
+"recognition" of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the
+unskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights
+of Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in the
+movement. But evidently the organization preferred to make the issue
+turn on discrimination against members. Another peculiarity which marked
+off this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility with
+which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and all
+leased and operated lines. This strike broke out simultaneously over the
+entire system on March 6. It affected more than 5000 miles of railway
+situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska.
+The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but
+actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic
+"killing" of engines, that is removing some indispensable part,
+effectively stopped all the freight traffic. The number of men actively
+on strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all of
+the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen,
+brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to
+leave their posts under threats from the strikers.
+
+The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the
+strikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his attitude was
+overbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, a
+strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labor
+contract, but necessarily assumed the aspect of a crusade against
+capital. Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take were
+excluded.
+
+Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the
+dispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months of
+sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left,
+however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the
+impression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and a
+Congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.
+
+The disputes during the second half of 1886 ended, for the most part,
+disastrously to labor. The number of men involved in six months, was
+estimated at 97,300. Of these, about 75,300 were in nine great lockouts,
+of whom 54,000 suffered defeat at the hands of associated employers. The
+most important lockouts were against 15,000 laundry workers at Troy, New
+York, in June; against 20,000 Chicago packing house workers; and against
+20,000 knitters at Cohoes, New York, both in October.
+
+The lockout of the Chicago butcher workmen attracted the most attention.
+These men had obtained the eight-hour day without a strike during May. A
+short time thereafter, upon the initiative of Armour & Company, the
+employers formed a packers' association and, in the beginning of
+October, notified the men of a return to the ten-hour day on October 11.
+They justified this action on the ground that they could not compete
+with Cincinnati and Kansas City, which operated on the ten-hour system.
+On October 8, the men, who were organized in District Assemblies 27 and
+54, suspended work, and the memorable lockout began. The packers'
+association rejected all offers of compromise and on October 18 the men
+were ordered to work on the ten-hour basis. But the dispute in October,
+which was marked by a complete lack of ill-feeling on the part of the
+men and was one of the most peaceable labor disputes of the year, was in
+reality a mere prelude to a second disturbance which broke out in the
+plant of Swift & Company on November 2 and became general throughout the
+stockyards on November 6. The men demanded a return to the eight-hour
+day, but the packers' association, which was now joined by Swift &
+Company, who formerly had kept aloof, not only refused to give up the
+ten-hour day, but declared that they would employ no Knights of Labor in
+the future. The Knights retaliated by declaring a boycott on the meat of
+Armour & Company. The behavior of the men was now no longer peaceable as
+before, and the employers took extra precautions by prevailing upon the
+governor to send two regiments of militia in addition to the several
+hundred Pinkerton detectives employed by the association. To all
+appearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for on
+November 10 the packers' association rescinded its decision not to
+employ Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out of
+a clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderly
+ordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider the
+reports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on the
+ground, but, as was charged by them, was guided instead by the advice of
+a priest who had appealed to him to call off the strike and thus put an
+end to the suffering of the men and their families.
+
+New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strike
+and on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separate
+strikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New York
+with coal and the other by longshoremen on the New York water front;
+both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed by
+the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of
+Labor, struck against a reduction of 2-1/2 cents an hour in the wages of
+the "top-men" and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances of
+their own. Soon the strike spread to the other roads and the number of
+striking coal-handlers reached 3000. The longshoremen's strike was begun
+by 200 men, employed by the Old Dominion Steamship Company, against a
+reduction in wages and the hiring of cheap men by the week. The strikers
+were not organized, but the Ocean Association, a part of the Knights of
+Labor, took up their cause and was assisted by the longshoremen's union.
+Both strikes soon widened out through a series of sympathetic strikes of
+related trades and finally became united into one. The Ocean Association
+declared a boycott on the freight of the Old Dominion Company and this
+was strictly obeyed by all of the longshoremen's unions. The
+International Boatmen's Union refused to allow their boats to be used
+for "scab coal" or to permit their members to steer the companies'
+boats. The longshoremen joined the boatmen in refusing to handle coal,
+and the shovelers followed. Then the grain handlers on both floating and
+stationary elevators refused to load ships with grain on which there was
+scab coal, and the bag-sewers stood with them. The longshoremen now
+resolved to go out and refused to work on ships which received scab
+coal, and finally they decided to stop work altogether on all kinds of
+craft in the harbor until the trouble should be settled. The strike
+spirit spread to a large number of freight handlers working for
+railroads along the river front, so that in the last week of January the
+number of strikers in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, reached
+approximately 28,000; 13,000 longshoremen, 1000 boatmen, 6000 grain
+handlers, 7500 coal-handlers, and 400 bag-sewers.
+
+On February 11, August Corbin, president and receiver of the
+Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, fearing a strike by the miners
+working in the coal mines operated by that road, settled the strike by
+restoring to the eighty-five coal-handlers, the original strikers, their
+former rate of wages. The Knights of Labor felt impelled to accept such
+a trivial settlement for two reasons. The coal-handlers' strike, which
+drove up the price of coal to the consumer, was very unpopular, and the
+strike itself had begun to weaken when the brewers and stationary
+engineers, who for some obscure reason had been ordered to strike in
+sympathy, refused to come out. The situation was left unchanged, as far
+as the coal-handlers employed by the other companies, the longshoremen,
+and the many thousands of men who went out on sympathetic strike were
+concerned. The men began to return to work by the thousands and the
+entire strike collapsed.
+
+The determined attack and stubborn resistance of the employers'
+associations after the strikes of May 1886, coupled with the obvious
+incompetence displayed by the leaders, caused the turn of the tide in
+the labor movement in the first half of 1887. This, however, manifested
+itself during 1887 exclusively in the large cities, where the movement
+had borne in the purest form the character of an uprising by the class
+of the unskilled and where the hardest battles were fought with the
+employers. District Assembly 49, New York, fell from its membership of
+60,809 in June 1886, to 32,826 in July 1887. During the same interval,
+District Assembly 1, Philadelphia, decreased from 51,557 to 11,294, and
+District Assembly 30, Boston, from 81,197 to 31,644. In Chicago there
+were about 40,000 Knights immediately before the packers' strike in
+October 1886, and only about 17,000 on July 1, 1887. The falling off of
+the largest district assemblies in 10 large cities practically equalled
+the total loss of the Order, which amounted approximately to 191,000. At
+the same time the membership of the smallest district assemblies, which
+were for the most part located in small cities, remained stationary and,
+outside of the national and district trade assemblies which were formed
+by separation from mixed district assemblies, thirty-seven new district
+assemblies were formed, also mostly in rural localities. In addition,
+state assemblies were added in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana,
+Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, and
+Wisconsin, with an average membership of about 2000 each.
+
+It thus becomes clear that by the middle of 1887, the Great Upheaval of
+the unskilled and semi-skilled portions of the working class had already
+subsided beneath the strength of the combined employers and the
+unwieldiness of their own organization. After 1887 the Knights of Labor
+lost its hold upon the large cities with their wage-conscious and
+largely foreign population, and became an organization predominantly of
+country people, of mechanics, small merchants, and farmers,--a class of
+people which was more or less purely American and decidedly middle class
+in its philosophy.
+
+The industrial upheaval in the middle of the eighties had, like the
+great strike of 1877, a political reverberation. Although the latter was
+heard throughout the entire country, it centered in the city of New
+York, where the situation was complicated by court interference in the
+labor struggle.
+
+A local assembly of the Knights of Labor had declared a boycott against
+one George Theiss, a proprietor of a music and beer garden. The latter
+at first submitted and paid a fine of $1000 to the labor organization,
+but later brought action in court against the officers charging them
+with intimidation and extortion.
+
+The judge, George C. Barrett, in his charge to the jury, conceded that
+striking, picketing, and boycotting as such were not prohibited by law,
+if not accompanied by force, threats, or intimidation. But in the case
+under consideration the action of the pickets in advising passers-by not
+to patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circulars
+constituted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained by
+fear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theiss
+inflicted by the "boycott," the case was one of extortion covered by the
+penal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated by
+the defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to their
+organization. The jury, which reflected the current public opinion
+against boycotts, found all of the five defendants guilty of extortion,
+and Judge Barrett sentenced them to prison for terms ranging from one
+year and six months to three years and eight months.
+
+The Theiss case, coming as it did at a time of general restlessness of
+labor and closely after the defeat of the eight-hour movement, greatly
+hastened the growth of the sentiment for an independent labor party. The
+New York Central Labor Union, the most famous and most influential
+organization of its kind in the country at the time, with a membership
+estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000, placed itself at the head of the
+movement in which both socialists and non-socialists joined. Henry
+George, the originator of the single tax movement, was nominated by the
+labor party for Mayor of New York and was allowed to draw up his own
+platform, which he made of course a simon-pure single tax platform. The
+labor demands were compressed into one plank. They were as follows: The
+reform of court procedure so that "the practice of drawing grand jurors
+from one class should cease, and the requirements of a property
+qualification for trial jurors should be abolished"; the stopping of the
+"officious intermeddling of the police with peaceful assemblages"; the
+enforcement of the laws for safety and the sanitary inspection of
+buildings; the abolition of contract labor on public work; and equal pay
+for equal work without distinction of sex on such work.
+
+The George campaign was more in the nature of a religious revival than
+of a political election campaign. It was also a culminating point in the
+great labor upheaval. The enthusiasm of the laboring people reached its
+highest pitch. They felt that, baffled and defeated as they were in
+their economic struggle, they were now nearing victory in the struggle
+for the control of government. Mass meetings were numerous and large.
+Most of them were held in the open air, usually on the street corners.
+From the system by which one speaker followed another, speaking at
+several meeting places in a night, the labor campaign got its nickname
+of the "tailboard campaign." The common people, women and men, gathered
+in hundreds and often thousands around trucks from which the shifting
+speakers addressed the crowd. The speakers were volunteers, including
+representatives of the liberal professions, lawyers, physicians,
+teachers, ministers, and labor leaders. At such mass meetings George did
+most of his campaigning, making several speeches a night, once as many
+as eleven. The single tax and the prevailing political corruption were
+favorite topics. Against George and his adherents were pitted the
+powerful press of the city of New York, all the political power of the
+old parties, and all the influence of the business class. George's
+opponents were Abram S. Hewitt, an anti-Tammany Democrat whom Tammany
+had picked for its candidate in this emergency, and Theodore Roosevelt,
+then as yet known only as a courageous young politician.
+
+The vote cast was 90,000 for Hewitt, 68,000 for George, and 60,000 for
+Roosevelt. There is possible ground for the belief that George was
+counted out of thousands of votes. The nature of the George vote can be
+sufficiently gathered from an analysis of the pledges to vote for him.
+An apparently trustworthy investigation was made by a representative of
+the New York Sun. He drew the conclusion that the vast majority were not
+simply wage earners, but also naturalized immigrants, mainly Irish,
+Germans, and Bohemians, the native element being in the minority. While
+the Irish were divided between George and Hewitt, the majority of the
+German element had gone over to Henry George. The outcome was hailed as
+a victory by George and his supporters and this view was also taken by
+the general press.
+
+In spite of this propitious beginning the political labor movement soon
+suffered the fate of all reform political movements. The strength of the
+new party was frittered away in doctrinaire factional strife between the
+single taxers and the socialists. The trade union element became
+discouraged and lost interest. So that at the next State election, in
+which George ran for Secretary of State, presumably because that office
+came nearest to meeting the requirement for a single taxer seeking a
+practical scope of action, the vote in the city fell to 37,000 and in
+the whole State amounted only to 72,000. This ended the political labor
+movement in New York.
+
+Outside of New York the political labor movement was not associated
+either with the single tax or any other "ism." As in New York it was a
+spontaneous expression of dissatisfaction brought on by failure in
+strikes. The movement scored a victory in Milwaukee, where it elected a
+mayor, and in Chicago where it polled 25,000 out of a total of 92,000.
+But, as in New York, it fell to pieces without leaving a permanent
+trace.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] See the next chapter for the scheme of organization followed by the
+Order.
+
+[19] See above, 79-80.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL FAILURE OF PRODUCERS'
+COOPERATION
+
+
+We now come to the most significant aspect of the Great Upheaval: the
+life and death struggle between two opposed principles of labor
+organization and between two opposed labor programs. The Upheaval
+offered the practical test which the labor movement required for an
+intelligent decision between the rival claims of Knights and trade
+unionists. The test as well as the conflict turned principally on
+"structure," that is on the difference between "craft autonomists" and
+those who would have labor organized "under one head," or what we would
+now call the "one big union" advocates.
+
+As the issue of "structure" proved in the crucial eighties, and has
+remained ever since, the outstanding factional issue in the labor
+movement, it might be well at this point to pass in brief review the
+structural developments in labor organization from the beginning and try
+to correlate them with other important developments.
+
+The early[20] societies of shoemakers and printers were purely local in
+scope and the relations between "locals" extended only to feeble
+attempts to deal with the competition of traveling journeymen.
+Occasionally, they corresponded on trade matters, notifying each other
+of their purposes and the nature of their demands, or expressing
+fraternal greetings; chiefly for the purpose of counteracting
+advertisements by employers for journeymen or keeping out dishonest
+members and so-called "scabs." This mostly relates to printers. The
+shoemakers, despite their bitter contests with their employers, did even
+less. The Philadelphia Mechanics' Trades Association in 1827, which we
+noted as the first attempted federation of trades in the United States
+if not in the world, was organized as a move of sympathy for the
+carpenters striking for the ten-hour day. During the period of the
+"wild-cat" prosperity the local federation of trades, under the name of
+"Trades' Union,"[21] comes to occupy the center of the stage in New
+York, Philadelphia, Boston, and appeared even as far "West" as
+Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The constitution of the New York
+"Trades' Union" provided, among other things, that each society should
+pay a monthly per capita tax of 6-1/4 cents to be used as a strike fund.
+Later, when strikes multiplied, the Union limited the right to claim
+strike aid and appointed a standing committee on mediation. In 1835 it
+discussed a plan for an employment exchange or a "call room." The
+constitution of the Philadelphia Union required that a strike be
+endorsed by a two-thirds majority before granting aid.
+
+The National Trades' Union, the federation of city trades' unions,
+1834-1836, was a further development of the same idea. Its first and
+second conventions went little beyond the theoretical. The latter,
+however, passed a significant resolution urging the trade societies to
+observe a uniform wage policy throughout the country and, should the
+employers combine to resist it, the unions should make "one general
+strike."
+
+The last convention in 1836 went far beyond preceding conventions in its
+plans for solidifying the workingmen of the country. First and foremost,
+a "national fund" was provided for, to be made up of a levy of two cents
+per month on each of the members of the trades' unions and local
+societies represented. The policies of the National Trades' Union
+instead of merely advisory were henceforth to be binding. But before the
+new policies could be tried, as we know, the entire trade union movement
+was wiped out by the panic.
+
+The city "trades' union" of the thirties accorded with a situation where
+the effects of the extension of the market were noticeable in the labor
+market, and little as yet in the commodity market; when the competitive
+menace to labor was the low paid out-of-town mechanic coming to the
+city, not the out-of-town product made under lower labor costs selling
+in the same market as the products of unionized labor. Under these
+conditions the local trade society, reenforced by the city federation of
+trades, sufficed. The "trades' union," moreover, served also as a source
+of reserve strength.
+
+Twenty years later the whole situation was changed. The fifties were a
+decade of extensive construction of railways. Before 1850 there was more
+traffic by water than by rail. After 1860 the relative importance of
+land and water transportation was reversed. Furthermore, the most
+important railway building during the ten years preceding 1860 was the
+construction of East and West trunk lines; and the sixties were marked
+by the establishment of through lines for freight and the consolidation
+of connecting lines. The through freight lines greatly hastened freight
+traffic and by the consolidations through transportation became doubly
+efficient.
+
+Arteries of traffic had thus extended from the Eastern coast to the
+Mississippi Valley. Local markets had widened to embrace half a
+continent. Competitive menaces had become more serious and threatened
+from a distance. Local unionism no longer sufficed. Consequently, as we
+saw, in the labor movement of the sixties the national trade union was
+supreme.
+
+There were four distinct sets of causes which operated during the
+sixties to bring about nationalization; two grew out of the changes in
+transportation, already alluded to, and two were largely independent of
+such changes.
+
+The first and most far-reaching cause, as illustrated by the stove
+molders, was the competition of the products of different localities
+side by side in the same market. Stoves manufactured in Albany, New
+York, were now displayed in St. Louis by the side of stoves made in
+Detroit. No longer could the molder in Albany be indifferent to the fate
+of his fellow craftsman in Louisville. With the molders the
+nationalization of the organization was destined to proceed to its
+utmost length. In order that union conditions should be maintained even
+in the best organized centers, it became necessary to equalize
+competitive conditions in the various localities. That led to a
+well-knit national organization to control working conditions, trade
+rules, and strikes. In other trades, where the competitive area of the
+product was still restricted to the locality, the paramount
+nationalizing influence was a more intensive competition for employment
+between migratory out-of-town journeymen and the locally organized
+mechanics. This describes the situation in the printing trade, where the
+bulk of work was newspaper and not book and job printing. Accordingly,
+the printers did not need to entrust their national officers with
+anything more than the control of the traveling journeymen and the
+result was that the local unions remained practically independent.
+
+The third cause of concerted national action in a trade union was the
+organization of employers. Where the power of a local union began to be
+threatened by an employers' association, the next logical step was to
+combine in a national union.
+
+The fourth cause was the application of machinery and the introduction
+of division of labor, which split up the established trades and laid
+industry open to invasion by "green hands." The shoemaking industry,
+which during the sixties had reached the factory stage, illustrates this
+in a most striking manner. Few other industries experienced anything
+like a similar change during this period.
+
+Of course, none of the causes of nationalization here enumerated
+operated in entire isolation. In some trades one cause, in other trades
+other causes, had the predominating influence. Consequently, in some
+trades the national union resembled an agglomeration of loosely allied
+states, each one reserving the right to engage in independent action and
+expecting from its allies no more than a benevolent neutrality. In other
+trades, on the contrary, the national union was supreme in declaring
+industrial war and in making peace, and even claimed absolute right to
+formulate the civil laws of the trade for times of industrial peace.
+
+The national trade union was, therefore, a response to obvious and
+pressing necessity. However slow or imperfect may have been the
+adjustment of internal organizations to the conditions of the trade,
+still the groove was defined and consequently the amount of possible
+floundering largely limited. Not so with the next step, namely the
+national federation of trades. In the sixties we saw the national trade
+unions join with other local and miscellaneous labor organizations in
+the National Labor Union upon a political platform of eight-hours and
+greenbackism. In 1873 the same national unions asserted their rejection
+of "panaceas" and politics by attempting to create in the National Labor
+Congress a federation of trades of a strictly economic character. The
+panic and depression nipped that in the bud. When trade unionism revived
+in 1879 the national trade unions returned to the idea of a national
+federation of labor, but this time they followed the model of the
+British Trades Union Congress, the organization which cares for the
+legislative interests of British labor. This was the "Federation of
+Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada,"
+which was set up in 1881.
+
+It is easy to understand why the unions of the early eighties did not
+feel the need of a federation on economic lines. The trade unions of
+today look to the American Federation of Labor for the discharge of
+important economic functions, therefore it is primarily an economic
+organization. These functions are the assistance of national trade
+unions in organizing their trades, the adjustment of disputes between
+unions claiming the same "jurisdiction," and concerted action in matters
+of especial importance such as shorter hours, the "open-shop," or
+boycotts. None of these functions would have been of material importance
+to the trade unions of the early eighties. Existing in well-defined
+trades, which were not affected by technical changes, they had no
+"jurisdictional" disputes; operating at a period of prosperity with
+full employment and rising wages, they did not realize a necessity for
+concerted action; the era of the boycotts had not yet begun. As for
+having a common agency to do the work of organizing, the trade unions of
+the early eighties had no keen desire to organize any but the skilled
+workmen; and, since the competition of workmen in small towns had not
+yet made itself felt, each national trade union strove to organize
+primarily the workmen of its trade in the larger cities, a function for
+which its own means were adequate.
+
+The new organization of 1881 was a loose federation of trade and labor
+unions with a legislative committee at the head, with Samuel Gompers of
+the cigar makers as a member. The platform was purely legislative and
+demanded legal incorporation for trade unions,[22] compulsory education
+for children, the prohibition of child labor under fourteen, uniform
+apprentice laws, the enforcement of the national eight-hour law, prison
+labor reform, abolition of the "truck" and "order" system, mechanics'
+lien, abolition of conspiracy laws as applied to labor organizations, a
+national bureau of labor statistics, a protective tariff for American
+labor, an anti-contract immigrant law, and recommended "all trade and
+labor organizations to secure proper representation in all law-making
+bodies by means of the ballot, and to use all honorable measures by
+which this result can be accomplished." Although closely related to the
+present American Federation of Labor in point of time and personnel of
+leadership, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the
+United States and Canada was in reality the precursor of the present
+state federations of labor, which as specialized parts of the national
+federation now look after labor legislation.
+
+Two or three years later it became evident that the Federation as a
+legislative organization proved a failure.[23] Manifestly the trade
+unions felt no great interest in national legislation. The indifference
+can be measured by the fact that the annual income of the Federation
+never exceeded $700 and that, excepting in 1881, none of its conventions
+represented more than one-fourth of the trade union membership of the
+country. Under such conditions the legislative influence of the
+Federation naturally was infinitesimal. The legislative committee
+carried out the instructions of the 1883 convention and communicated to
+the national committees of the Republican and Democratic parties the
+request that they should define their position upon the enforcement of
+the eight-hour law and other measures. The letters were not even
+answered. A subcommittee of the legislative committee appeared before
+the two political conventions, but received no greater attention.
+
+It was not until the majority of the national trade unions came under
+the menace of becoming forcibly absorbed by the Order of the Knights of
+Labor that a basis appeared for a vigorous federation.
+
+The Knights of Labor were built on an opposite principle from the
+national trade unions. Whereas the latter started with independent
+crafts and then with hesitating hands tried, as we saw, to erect some
+sort of a common superstructure that should express a higher solidarity
+of labor, the former was built from the beginning upon a denial of craft
+lines and upon an absolute unity of all classes of labor under one
+guiding head. The subdivision was territorial instead of occupational
+and the government centralized.
+
+The constitution of the Knights of Labor was drawn in 1878 when the
+Order laid aside the veil of secrecy to which it had clung since its
+foundation in 1869. The lowest unit of organization was the local
+assembly of ten or more, at least three-fourths of whom had to be wage
+earners at any trade. Above the local assembly was the "district
+assembly" and above it the "General Assembly." The district assembly had
+absolute power over its local assemblies and the General Assembly was
+given "full and final jurisdiction" as "the highest tribunal" of the
+Order.[24] Between sessions of the General Assembly the power was vested
+in a General Executive Board, presided over by a Grand Master Workman.
+
+The Order of the Knights of Labor in practice carried out the idea which
+is now advocated so fervently by revolutionary unionists, namely the
+"One Big Union," since it avowedly aimed to bring into one organization
+"all productive labor." This idea in organization was aided by the
+weakness of the trade unions during the long depression of the
+seventies, which led many to hope for better things from a general
+pooling of labor strength. But its main appeal rested on a view that
+machine technique tends to do away with all distinctions of trades by
+reducing all workers to the level of unskilled machine tenders. To its
+protagonists therefore the "one big union" stood for an adjustment to
+the new technique.
+
+First to face the problem of adjustment to the machine technique of the
+factory system were the shoemakers. They organized in 1867 the Order of
+the Knights of St. Crispin, mainly for the purpose of suppressing the
+competitive menace of "green hands," that is unskilled workers put to
+work on shoe machines. At its height in 1872, the Crispins numbered
+about 50,000, perhaps the largest union in the whole world at that time.
+The coopers began to be menaced by machinery about the middle of the
+sixties, and about the same time the machinists and blacksmiths, too,
+saw their trade broken up by the introduction of the principle of
+standardized parts and quantity production in the making of machinery.
+From these trades came the national leaders of the Knights of Labor and
+the strongest advocates of the new principle in labor organization and
+of the interests of the unskilled workers in general. The conflict
+between the trade unions and the Knights of Labor turned on the question
+of the unskilled workers.
+
+The conflict was held in abeyance during the early eighties. The trade
+unions were by far the strongest organizations in the field and scented
+no particular danger when here or there the Knights formed an assembly
+either contiguous to the sphere of a trade union or even at times
+encroaching upon it.
+
+With the Great Upheaval, which began in 1884, and the inrushing of
+hundreds of thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled workers into the
+Order, a new situation was created. The leaders of the Knights realized
+that mere numbers were not sufficient to defeat the employers and that
+control over the skilled, and consequently the more strategic
+occupations, was required before the unskilled and semi-skilled could
+expect to march to victory. Hence, parallel to the tremendous growth of
+the Knights in 1886, there was a constantly growing effort to absorb the
+existing trade unions for the purpose of making them subservient to the
+interests of the less skilled elements. It was mainly that which
+produced the bitter conflict between the Knights and the trade unions
+during 1886 and 1887. Neither the jealousy aroused by the success of the
+unions nor the opposite aims of labor solidarity and trade separatism
+gives an adequate explanation of this conflict. The one, of course,
+aggravated the situation by introducing a feeling of personal
+bitterness, and the other furnished an appealing argument to each side.
+But the struggle was one between groups within the working class, in
+which the small but more skilled group fought for independence of the
+larger but weaker group of the unskilled and semi-skilled. The skilled
+men stood for the right to use their advantage of skill and efficient
+organization in order to wrest the maximum amount of concessions for
+themselves. The Knights of Labor endeavored to annex the skilled men in
+order that the advantage from their exceptional fighting strength might
+lift up the unskilled and semi-skilled. From the point of view of a
+struggle between principles, this was indeed a clash between the
+principle of solidarity of labor and that of trade separatism, but, in
+reality, each of the principles reflected only the special interest of a
+certain portion of the working class. Just as the trade unions, when
+they fought for trade autonomy, really refused to consider the unskilled
+men, so the Knights of Labor overlooked the fact that their scheme would
+retard the progress of the skilled trades.
+
+The Knights were in nearly every case the aggressors, and it is
+significant that among the local organizations of the Knights inimical
+to trade unions, District Assembly 49, of New York, should prove the
+most relentless. It was this assembly which conducted the longshoremen's
+and coal miners' strike in New York in 1887 and which, as we saw,[25]
+did not hesitate to tie up the industries of the entire city for the
+sake of securing the demands of several hundred unskilled workingmen.
+Though District Assembly 49, New York, came into conflict with not a few
+of the trade unions in that city, its battle royal was fought with the
+cigar makers' unions. There were at the time two factions among the
+cigar makers, one upholding the International Cigar Makers' Union with
+Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers as leaders, the other calling itself
+the Progressive Union, which was more socialistic in nature and composed
+of more recent immigrants and less skilled workers. District Assembly 49
+of the Knights of Labor took a hand in the struggle to support the
+Progressive Union and by skillful management brought the situation to
+the point where the latter had to allow itself to be absorbed into the
+Knights of Labor.
+
+The events in the cigar making trade in New York brought to a climax the
+sporadic struggles that had been going on between the Order and the
+trade unions. The trade unions demanded that the Knights of Labor
+respect their "jurisdiction" and proposed a "treaty of peace" with such
+drastic terms that had they been accepted the trade unions would have
+been left in the sole possession of the field. The Order was at first
+more conciliatory. It would not of course cease to take part in
+industrial disputes and industrial matters, but it proposed a _modus
+vivendi_ on a basis of an interchange of "working cards" and common
+action against employers. At the same time it addressed separately to
+each national trade union a gentle admonition to think of the unskilled
+workers as well as of themselves. The address said: "In the use of the
+wonderful inventions, your organization plays a most important part.
+Naturally it embraces within its ranks a very large proportion of
+laborers of a high grade of skill and intelligence. With this skill of
+hand, guided by intelligent thought, comes the right to demand that
+excess of compensation paid to skilled above the unskilled labor. But
+the unskilled labor must receive attention, or in the hour of difficulty
+the employer will not hesitate to use it to depress the compensation you
+now receive. That skilled or unskilled labor may no longer be found
+unorganized, we ask of you to annex your grand and powerful corps to the
+main army that we may fight the battle under one flag."
+
+But the trade unions, who had formerly declared that their purpose was
+"to protect the skilled trades of America from being reduced to
+beggary," evinced no desire to be pressed into the service of lifting up
+the unskilled and voted down with practical unanimity the proposal.
+Thereupon the Order declared open war by commanding all its members who
+were also members of the cigar makers' union to withdraw from the latter
+on the penalty of expulsion.
+
+Later events proved that the assumption of the aggressive was the
+beginning of the undoing of the Order. It was, moreover, an event of
+first significance in the labor movement since it forced the trade
+unions to draw closer together and led to the founding in the same year,
+1886, of the American Federation of Labor.
+
+Another highly important effect of this conflict was the ascendency in
+the trade union movement of Samuel Gompers as the foremost leader.
+Gompers had first achieved prominence in 1881 at the time of the
+organization of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. But
+not until the situation created by the conflict with the Knights of
+Labor did he get his first real opportunity, both to demonstrate his
+inborn capacity for leadership and to train and develop that capacity by
+overcoming what was perhaps the most serious problem that ever
+confronted American organized labor.
+
+The new Federation avoided its predecessor's mistake of emphasizing
+labor legislation above all. Its prime purpose was economic. The
+legislative interests of labor were for the most part given into the
+care of subordinate state federations of labor. Consequently, the
+several state federations, not the American Federation of Labor,
+correspond in America to the British Trades Union Congress. But in the
+conventions of the American Federation of Labor the state federations
+are represented only nominally. The Federation is primarily a federation
+of national and international (including Canada and Mexico) trade
+unions.
+
+Each national and international union in the new Federation was
+acknowledged a sovereignty unto itself, with full powers of discipline
+over its members and with the power of free action toward the employers
+without any interference from the Federation; in other words, its full
+autonomy was confirmed. Like the British Empire, the Federation of Labor
+was cemented together by ties which were to a much greater extent
+spiritual than they were material. Nevertheless, the Federation's
+authority was far from being a shadowy one. If it could not order about
+the officers of the constituent unions, it could so mobilize the general
+labor sentiment in the country on behalf of any of its constituent
+bodies that its good will would be sought even by the most powerful
+ones. The Federation guaranteed to each union a certain jurisdiction,
+generally coextensive with a craft, and protected it against
+encroachments by adjoining unions and more especially by rival unions.
+The guarantee worked absolutely in the case of the latter, for the
+Federation knew no mercy when a rival union attempted to undermine the
+strength of an organized union of a craft. The trade unions have learned
+from experience with the Knights of Labor that their deadliest enemy
+was, after all, not the employers' association but the enemy from within
+who introduced confusion in the ranks. They have accordingly developed
+such a passion for "regularity," such an intense conviction that there
+must be but one union in a given trade that, on occasions, scheming
+labor officials have known how to checkmate a justifiable insurgent
+movement by a skillful play upon this curious hypertrophy of the feeling
+of solidarity. Not only will a rival union never be admitted into the
+Federation, but no subordinate body, state or city, may dare to extend
+any aid or comfort to a rival union.
+
+The Federation exacted but little from the national and international
+unions in exchange for the guarantee of their jurisdiction: A small
+annual per capita tax; a willing though a not obligatory support in the
+special legislative and industrial campaigns it may undertake; an
+adherence to its decisions on general labor policy; an undertaking to
+submit to its decision in the case of disputes with other unions, which
+however need not in every case be fulfilled; and lastly, an unqualified
+acceptance of the principle of "regularity" relative to labor
+organization. Obviously, judging from constitutional powers alone, the
+Federation was but a weak sort of a government. Yet the weakness was not
+the forced weakness of a government which was willing to start with
+limited powers hoping to increase its authority as it learned to stand
+more firmly on its own feet; it was a self-imposed weakness suggested by
+the lessons of labor history.
+
+By contrast the Order of the Knights of Labor, as seen already, was
+governed by an all-powerful General Assembly and General Executive
+Board. At a first glance a highly centralized form of government would
+appear a promise of assured strength and a guarantee of coherence
+amongst the several parts of the organization. Perhaps, if America's
+wage earners were cemented together by as strong a class consciousness
+as the laboring classes of Europe, such might have been the case.
+
+But America's labor movement lacked the unintended aid which the sister
+movements in Europe derived from a caste system of society and political
+oppression. Where the class lines were not tightly drawn, the
+centrifugal forces in the labor movement were bound to assert
+themselves. The leaders of the American Federation of Labor, in their
+struggle against the Knights of Labor, played precisely upon this
+centrifugal tendency and gained a victory by making an appeal to the
+natural desire for autonomy and self-determination of any distinctive
+group. But originally perhaps intended as a mere "strategic" move, this
+policy succeeded in creating a labor movement which was, on
+fundamentals, far more coherent than the Knights of Labor even in the
+heyday of their glory. The officers and leaders of the Federation,
+knowing that they could not command, set themselves to developing a
+unified labor will and purpose by means of moral suasion and propaganda.
+Where a bare order would breed resentment and backbiting, an appeal,
+which is reinforced by a carefully nurtured universal labor sentiment,
+will eventually bring about common consent and a willing acquiescence in
+the policy supported by the majority. So each craft was made a
+self-determining unit and "craft autonomy" became a sacred shibboleth in
+the labor movement without interfering with unity on essentials.
+
+The principle of craft autonomy triumphed chiefly because it recognized
+the existence of a considerable amount of group selfishness. The Knights
+of Labor held, as was seen, that the strategic or bargaining strength of
+the skilled craftsman should be used as a lever to raise the status of
+the semi-skilled and unskilled worker. It consequently grouped them
+promiscuously in "mixed assemblies" and opposed as long as it could the
+demand for "national trade assemblies." The craftsman, on the other
+hand, wished to use his superior bargaining strength for his own
+purposes and evinced little desire to dissipate it in the service of his
+humbler fellow worker. To give effect to that, he felt obliged to
+struggle against becoming entangled with undesirable allies in the
+semi-skilled and unskilled workers for whom the Order spoke. Needless to
+say, the individual self-interest of the craft leaders worked hand in
+hand with the self-interest of the craft as a whole, for had they been
+annexed by the Order they would have become subject to orders from the
+General Master Workman or the General Assembly of the Order.
+
+In addition to platonic stirrings for "self-determination" and to narrow
+group interest, there was a motive for craft autonomy which could pass
+muster both as strictly social and realistic. The fact was that the
+autonomous craft union could win strikes where the centralized
+promiscuous Order merely floundered and suffered defeat after defeat.
+The craft union had the advantage, on the one hand, of a leadership
+which was thoroughly familiar with the bit of ground upon which it
+operated, and, on the other hand, of handling a group of people of equal
+financial endurance and of identical interest. It has already been seen
+how dreadfully mismanaged were the great Knights of Labor strikes of
+1886 and 1887. The ease with which the leaders were able to call out
+trade after trade on a strike of sympathy proved more a liability than
+an asset. Often the choice of trades to strike bore no particular
+relation to their strategic value in the given situation; altogether one
+gathers the impression that these great strikes were conducted by
+blundering amateurs who possessed more authority than was good for them
+or for the cause. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the compact
+craft unions led by specialists scored successes where the heterogeneous
+mobs of the Knights of Labor had been doomed from the first. Clearly
+then the survival of the craft union was a survival of the fittest; and
+the Federation's attachment to the principle of craft autonomy was, to
+say the least, a product of an evolutionary past, whatever one may hold
+with reference to its fitness in our own time.
+
+Whatever reasons moved the trade unions of the skilled to battle with
+the Order for their separate and autonomous existence were bound sooner
+or later to induce those craftsmen who were in the Order to seek a
+similar autonomy. From the very beginning the more skilled and better
+organized trades in the Knights sought to separate from the mixed
+"district assemblies" and to create within the framework of the Order
+"national trade assemblies."[26] However, the national officers, who
+looked upon such a move as a betrayal of the great principle of the
+solidarity of all labor, were able to stem the tide excepting in the
+case of the window glass blowers, who were granted their autonomy in
+1880.
+
+The obvious superiority of the trade union form of organization over the
+mixed organization, as revealed by events in 1886 and 1887, strengthened
+the separatist tendency. Just as the struggle between the Knights of
+Labor and the trade unions on the outside had been fundamentally a
+struggle between the unskilled and the skilled portions of the
+wage-earning class, so the aspiration toward the national trade assembly
+within the Order represented the effort of the more or less skilled men
+for emancipation from the dominance of the unskilled. But the Order
+successfully fought off such attempts until after the defeat of the
+mixed district assemblies, or in other words of the unskilled class, in
+the struggle with the employers. With the withdrawal of a very large
+portion of this class, as shown in 1887,[27] the demand for the national
+trade assembly revived and there soon began a veritable rush to organize
+by trades. The stampede was strongest in the city of New York where the
+incompetence of the mixed District Assembly 49 had become patent. At the
+General Assembly in 1887 at Minneapolis all obstacles were removed from
+forming national trade assemblies, but this came too late to stem the
+exodus of the skilled element from the order into the American
+Federation of Labor.
+
+The victory of craft autonomy over the "one big union" was decisive and
+complete.
+
+The strike activities of the Knights were confessedly a deviation from
+"First Principles." Yet the First Principles with their emphasis on
+producers' cooperation were far from forgotten even when the enthusiasm
+for strikes was at its highest. Whatever the actual feelings of the
+membership as a whole, the leaders neglected no opportunity to promote
+cooperation. T.V. Powderly, the head of the Order since 1878, in his
+reports to the annual General Assembly or convention, consistently urged
+that practical steps be taken toward cooperation. In 1881, while the
+general opinion in the Order was still undecided, the leaders did not
+scruple to smuggle into the constitution a clause which made cooperation
+compulsory.
+
+Notwithstanding Powderly's exhortations, the Order was at first slow in
+taking it up. In 1882 a general cooperative board was elected to work
+out a plan of action, but it never reported, and a new board was chosen
+in its place at the Assembly of 1883. In that year, the first practical
+step was taken in the purchase by the Order of a coal mine at
+Cannelburg, Indiana, with the idea of selling the coal at reduced prices
+to the members. Soon thereafter a thorough change of sentiment with
+regard to the whole matter of cooperation took place, contemporaneously
+with the industrial depression and unsuccessful strikes. The rank and
+file, who had hitherto been indifferent, now seized upon the idea with
+avidity. The enthusiasm ran so high in Lynn, Massachusetts, that it was
+found necessary to raise the shares of the Knights of Labor Cooperative
+Shoe Company to $100 in order to prevent a large influx of "unsuitable
+members." In 1885 Powderly complained that "many of our members grow
+impatient and unreasonable because every avenue of the Order does not
+lead to cooperation."
+
+The impatience for immediate cooperation, which seized the rank and file
+in practically every section of the country, caused an important
+modification in the official doctrine of the Order. Originally it had
+contemplated centralized control under which it would have taken years
+before a considerable portion of the membership could realize any
+benefit. This was now dropped and a decentralized plan was adopted.
+Local organizations and, more frequently, groups of members with the
+financial aid of their local organizations now began to establish shops.
+Most of the enterprises were managed by the stockholders, although, in
+some cases, the local organization of the Knights of Labor managed the
+plant.
+
+Most of the cooperative enterprises were conducted on a small scale.
+Incomplete statistics warrant the conclusion that the average amount
+invested per establishment was about $10,000. From the data gathered it
+seems that cooperation reached its highest point in 1886, although it
+had not completely spent itself by the end of 1887. The total number of
+ventures probably reached two hundred. The largest numbers were in
+mining, cooperage, and shoes. These industries paid the poorest wages
+and treated their employes most harshly. A small amount of capital was
+required to organize such establishments.
+
+With the abandonment of centralized cooperation in 1884, the role of the
+central cooperative board changed correspondingly. The leading member of
+the board was now John Samuel, one of those to whom cooperation meant
+nothing short of a religion. The duty of the board was to educate the
+members of the Order in the principles of cooperation; to aid by
+information and otherwise prospective and actual cooperators; in brief,
+to coordinate the cooperative movement within the Order. It issued forms
+of a constitution and by-laws which, with a few modifications, could be
+adopted by any locality. It also published articles on the dangers and
+pitfalls in cooperative ventures, such as granting credit, poor
+management, etc., as well as numerous articles on specific kinds of
+cooperation. The Knights of Labor label was granted for the use of
+cooperative goods and a persistent agitation was steadily conducted to
+induce purchasers to give a preference to cooperative products.
+
+As a scheme of industrial regeneration, cooperation never materialized.
+The few successful shops sooner or later fell into the hands of an
+"inner group," who "froze out" the others and set up capitalistic
+partnerships. The great majority went on the rocks even before getting
+started. The causes of failure were many: Hasty action, inexperience,
+lax shop discipline, internal dissensions, high rates of interest upon
+the mortgage of the plant, and finally discriminations instigated by
+competitors. Railways were heavy offenders, by delaying side tracks and,
+on some pretext or other, refusing to furnish cars or refusing to haul
+them.
+
+The Union Mining Company of Cannelburg, Indiana, owned and operated by
+the Order as its sole experiment of the centralized kind of cooperation,
+met this fate. After expending $20,000 in equipping the mine, purchasing
+land, laying tracks, cutting and sawing timber on the land and mining
+$1000 worth of coal, they were compelled to lie idle for nine months
+before the railway company saw fit to connect their switch with the main
+track. When they were ready to ship their product, it was learned that
+their coal could be utilized for the manufacture of gas only, and that
+contracts for supply of such coal were let in July, that is nine months
+from the time of connecting the switch with the main track. In addition,
+the company was informed that it must supply itself with a switch engine
+to do the switching of the cars from its mine to the main track, at an
+additional cost of $4000. When this was accomplished they had to enter
+the market in competition with a bitter opponent who had been fighting
+them since the opening of the mine. Having exhausted their funds and not
+seeing their way clear to securing additional funds for the purchase of
+a locomotive and to tide over the nine months ere any contracts for coal
+could be entered into, they sold out to their competitor.
+
+But a cause more fundamental perhaps than all other causes of the
+failure of cooperation in the United States is to be found in the
+difficulties of successful entrepreneurship. In the labor movement in
+the United States there has been a failure, generally speaking, to
+appreciate the significance of management and the importance which must
+be imputed to it. Glib talk often commands an undeserved confidence and
+misleads the wage earner. Thus by 1888, three or four years after it had
+begun, the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle of life and
+succumbed. The failure, as said, was hastened by external causes and
+discrimination. But the experiments had been foredoomed anyway,--through
+the incompatibility of producers' cooperation with trade unionism. The
+cooperators, in their eagerness to get a market, frequently undersold
+the private employer expecting to recoup their present losses in future
+profits. In consequence, the privately employed wage earners had to bear
+reductions in their wages. A labor movement which endeavors to practice
+producers' cooperation and trade unionism at the same time is actually
+driving in opposite directions.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] See Chapter 1.
+
+[21] In the thirties the term "union" was reserved for the city
+federations of trades. What is now designated as a trade union was
+called trade society. In the sixties the "Union" became the "trades'
+assembly."
+
+[22] See below, 152-154.
+
+[23] See below, 285-290, for a discussion why American labor looks away
+from legislation.
+
+[24] The Constitution read as follows: "It alone possesses the power and
+authority to make, amend, or repeal the fundamental and general laws and
+regulations of the Order; to finally decide all controversies arising in
+the Order; to issue all charters.... It can also tax the members of the
+Order for its maintenance."
+
+[25] See above, 98-100.
+
+[26] The "local assemblies" generally followed in practice trade lines,
+but the district assemblies were "mixed."
+
+[27] See above, 100-101.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+STABILIZATION, 1888-1897
+
+
+The Great Upheaval of 1886 had, as we saw, suddenly swelled the
+membership of trade unions; consequently, during several years
+following, notwithstanding the prosperity in industry, further growth
+was bound to proceed at a slower rate.
+
+The statistics of strikes during the later eighties, like the figures of
+membership, show that after the strenuous years from 1885 to 1887 the
+labor movement had entered a more or less quiet stage. Most prominent
+among the strikes was the one of 60,000 iron and steel workers in
+Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the West, which was carried to a successful
+conclusion against a strong combination of employers. The Amalgamated
+Association of Iron and Steel Workers stood at the zenith of its power
+about this time and was able in 1889, by the mere threat of a strike, to
+dictate terms to the Carnegie Steel Company. The most noted and last
+great strike of a railway brotherhood was the one of the locomotive
+engineers on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. The
+strike was begun jointly on February 27, 1888, by the brotherhoods of
+locomotive engineers and locomotive firemen. The main demands were made
+by the engineers, who asked for the abandonment of the system of
+classification and for a new wage scale. Two months previously, the
+Knights of Labor had declared a miners' strike against the Philadelphia
+& Reading Railroad Company, employing 80,000 anthracite miners, and the
+strike had been accompanied by a sympathetic strike of engineers and
+firemen belonging to the Order. The members of the brotherhoods had
+filled their places and, in retaliation, the former Reading engineers
+and firemen now took the places of the Burlington strikers, so that on
+March 15 the company claimed to have a full contingent of employes. The
+brotherhoods ordered a boycott upon the Burlington cars, which was
+partly enforced, but they were finally compelled to submit. The strike
+was not officially called off until January 3, 1889. Notwithstanding the
+defeat of the strikers, the damage to the railway was enormous, and
+neither the railways of the country nor the brotherhoods since that date
+have permitted a serious strike of their members to occur.
+
+The lull in the trade union movement was broken by a new concerted
+eight-hour movement managed by the Federation, which culminated in 1890.
+
+Although on the whole the eight-hour movement in 1886 was a failure, it
+was by no means a disheartening failure. It was evident that the
+eight-hour day was a popular demand, and that an organization desirous
+of expansion might well hitch its wagon to this star. Accordingly, the
+convention of the American Federation of Labor in 1888 declared that a
+general demand should be made for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890. The
+chief advocates of the resolution were the delegates of the carpenters,
+who announced a readiness to lead the way for a general eight-hour day
+in 1890.
+
+The Federation at once inaugurated an aggressive campaign. For the first
+time in its history it employed special salaried organizers. Pamphlets
+were issued and widely distributed. On every important holiday mass
+meetings were held in the larger cities. On Labor Day 1889, no less
+than 420 such mass meetings were held throughout the country. Again the
+Knights of Labor came out against the plan.
+
+The next year the plan of campaign was modified. The idea of a general
+strike for the eight-hour day in May 1890, was abandoned in favor of a
+strike trade by trade. In March 1890, the carpenters were chosen to make
+the demand on May 1 of the same year, to be followed by the miners at a
+later date.
+
+The choice of the carpenters was indeed fortunate. Beginning with 1886,
+that union had a rapid growth and was now the largest union affiliated
+with the Federation. For several years it had been accumulating funds
+for the eight-hour day, and, when the movement was inaugurated in May
+1890, it achieved a large measure of success. The union officers claimed
+to have won the eight-hour day in 137 cities and a nine-hour day in most
+other places.
+
+However, the selection of the miners to follow on May 1, 1891, was a
+grave mistake. Less than one-tenth of the coal miners of the country
+were then organized. For years the miners' union had been losing ground,
+with the constant decline of coal prices. Some months before May 1,
+1891, the United Mine Workers had become involved in a disastrous strike
+in the Connelsville coke region, and the plan for an eight-hour strike
+was abandoned. In this manner the eight-hour movement inaugurated by the
+convention of the Federation in 1888 came to an end. Apart from the
+strike of the carpenters in 1890, it had not led to any general movement
+to gain the eight-hour work day. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of
+workingmen had won reduced hours of labor, especially in the building
+trades. By 1891 the eight-hour day had been secured for all building
+trades in Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Indianapolis, and San Francisco.
+In New York and Brooklyn the carpenters, stone-cutters, painters, and
+plasterers worked eight hours, while the bricklayers, masons, and
+plumbers worked nine. In St. Paul the bricklayers alone worked nine
+hours, the remaining trades eight.
+
+In 1892 the labor movement faced for the first time a really modern
+manufacturing corporation with its practically boundless resources of
+war, namely the Carnegie Steel Company, in the strike which has become
+famous under the name of the Homestead Strike. The Amalgamated
+Association of Iron and Steel Workers, with a membership of 24,068 in
+1891, was probably the strongest trade union in the entire history of
+the American labor movement. Prior to 1889 the relations between the
+union and the Carnegie firm had been invariably friendly. In January
+1889, H.C. Frick, who, as owner of the largest coke manufacturing plant,
+had acquired a reputation of a bitter opponent of organized labor,
+became chairman of Carnegie Brothers and Company. In the same year,
+owing to his assumption of management, as the union men believed, the
+first dispute occurred between them and the company. Although the
+agreement was finally renewed for three years on terms dictated by the
+Association, the controversy left a disturbing impression upon the minds
+of the men, since during the course of the negotiations Frick had
+demanded the dissolution of the union.
+
+Negotiations for the new scale presented to the company began in
+February 1892. A few weeks later the company presented a scale to the
+men providing for a reduction and besides demanded that the date of the
+termination of the scale be changed from July 1 to January 1. A number
+of conferences were held without result; and on May 30 the company
+submitted an ultimatum to the effect that, if the scale were not signed
+by June 29, they would treat with the men as individuals. At a final
+conference which was held on June 23, the company raised its offer from
+$22 per ton to $23 as the minimum base of the scale, and the union
+lowered its demand from $25, the rate formerly paid, to $24. But no
+agreement could be reached on this point nor on others and the strike
+began June 29 upon the definite issue of the preservation of the union.
+
+Even before the negotiations were broken up, Frick had arranged with the
+Pinkerton detective agency for 300 men to serve as guards. These men
+arrived at a station on the Ohio River below Pittsburgh near midnight of
+July 5. Here they embarked on barges and were towed up the river to
+Pittsburgh and taken up the Monangahela River to Homestead, which they
+approached about four o'clock on the morning of July 6. The workmen had
+been warned of their coming and, when the boat reached the landing back
+of the steel works, nearly the whole town was there to meet them and to
+prevent their landing. Passion ran high. The men armed themselves with
+guns and gave the Pinkertons a pitched battle. When the day was over, at
+least half a dozen men on both sides had been killed and a number were
+seriously wounded. The Pinkertons were defeated and driven away and,
+although there was no more disorder of any sort, the State militia
+appeared in Homestead on July 12 and remained for several months.
+
+The strike which began in Homestead soon spread to other mills. The
+Carnegie mills at 29th and 33d Streets, Pittsburgh, went on strike. The
+strike at Homestead was finally declared off on November 20, and most
+of the men went back to their old positions as non-union men. The
+treasury of the union was depleted, winter was coming, and it was
+finally decided to consider the battle lost.
+
+The defeat meant not only the loss by the union of the Homestead plant
+but the elimination of unionism in most of the mills in the Pittsburgh
+region. Where the great Carnegie Company led, the others had to follow.
+The power of the union was henceforth broken and the labor movement
+learned the lesson that even its strongest organization was unable to
+withstand an onslaught by the modern corporation. The Homestead strike
+stirred the labor movement as few other single events. It had its
+political reverberation, since it drove home to the workers that an
+industry protected by high tariff will not necessarily be a haven to
+organized labor, notwithstanding that the union had actively assisted
+the iron and steel manufacturers in securing the high protection granted
+by the McKinley tariff bill of 1890. Many of the votes which would
+otherwise have gone to the Republican candidate for President went in
+1892 to Grover Cleveland, who ran on an anti-protective tariff issue. It
+is not unlikely that the latter's victory was materially advanced by the
+disillusionment brought on by the Homestead defeat.
+
+In the summer of 1893 occurred the financial panic. The panic and the
+ensuing crisis furnished a conclusive test of the strength and stability
+of the American labor movement. Gompers in his presidential report at
+the convention of 1899, following the long depression, said: "It is
+noteworthy, that while in every previous industrial crisis the trade
+unions were literally mowed down and swept out of existence, the unions
+now in existence have manifested, not only the power of resistance, but
+of stability and permanency," and he assigned as the most prominent
+cause the system of high dues and benefits which had come into vogue in
+a large number of trade unions. He said: "Beyond doubt the superficial
+motive of continued membership in unions organized upon this basis was
+the monetary benefits the members were entitled to; but be that as it
+may, the results are the same, that is, _membership is maintained, the
+organization remains intact during dull periods of industry, and is
+prepared to take advantage of the first sign of an industrial revival_."
+Gompers may have overstated the power of resistance of the unions, but
+their holding power upon the membership cannot be disputed. The
+aggregate membership of all unions affiliated with the Federation
+remained near the mark of 275,000 throughout the period of depression
+from 1893 to 1897. At last the labor movement had become stabilized.
+
+The year 1894 was exceptional for labor disturbances. The number of
+employes involved reached nearly 750,000, surpassing even the mark set
+in 1886. However, in contradistinction to 1886, the movement was
+defensive. It also resulted in greater failure. The strike of the coal
+miners and the Pullman strike were the most important ones. The United
+Mine Workers began their strike in Ohio on April 21. The membership did
+not exceed 20,000, but about 125,000 struck. At first the demand was
+made that wages should be restored to the level at which they were in
+May 1893. But within a month the union in most regions was struggling to
+prevent a further reduction in wages. By the end of July the strike was
+lost.
+
+The Pullman strike marks an era in the American labor movement because
+it was the only attempt ever made in America of a revolutionary strike
+on the Continental European model. The strikers tried to throw against
+the associated railways and indeed against the entire existing social
+order the full force of a revolutionary labor solidarity embracing the
+entire American wage-earning class brought to the point of exasperation
+by unemployment, wage reductions, and misery. That in spite of the
+remarkable favorable conjuncture the dramatic appeal failed to shake the
+general labor movement out of its chosen groove is proof positive of the
+completion of the stabilization process which had been going on since
+the early eighties.
+
+The Pullman strike began May 11, 1894, and grew out of a demand of
+certain employes in the shops of the Pullman Palace Car Company,
+situated at Pullman, Illinois, for a restoration of the wages paid
+during the previous year. In March 1894, the Pullman employes had voted
+to join the American Railway Union. The American Railway Union was an
+organization based on industrial lines, organized in June 1893, by
+Eugene V. Debs. Debs, as secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of
+Locomotive Firemen, had watched the failure of many a strike by only one
+trade and resigned this office to organize all railway workers in one
+organization. The American Railway Union was the result. Between June 9
+and June 26 the latter held a convention in Chicago. The Pullman matter
+was publicly discussed before and after its committee reported their
+interviews with the Pullman Company. On June 21, the delegates under
+instructions from their local unions, feeling confident after a victory
+over the Great Northern in April, unanimously voted that the members
+should stop handling Pullman cars on June 26 unless the Pullman Company
+would consent to arbitration.
+
+On June 26 the railway strike began. It was a purely sympathetic strike
+as no demands were made. The union found itself pitted against the
+General Managers' Association, representing twenty-four roads centering
+or terminating in Chicago, which were bound by contracts with the
+Pullman Company. The association had been organized in 1886, its main
+business being to determine a common policy as to traffic and freight
+rates, but incidentally it dealt also with wages. The strike soon spread
+over an enormous territory. Many of the members of the brotherhoods
+joined in, although their organizations were opposed to the strike. The
+lawless element in Chicago took advantage of the opportunity to rob,
+burn, and plunder, so that the scenes of the great railway strike of
+1877 were now repeated. The damages in losses of property and business
+to the country have been estimated at $80,000,000. On July 7, E.V. Debs,
+president, and other principal officers of the American Railway Union
+were indicted, arrested, and held under $10,000 bail. On July 13 they
+were charged with contempt of the United States Court in disobeying an
+injunction which enjoined them, among other things, from compelling or
+inducing by threats railway employes to strike. The strike had already
+been weakening for some days. On July 12, at the request of the American
+Railway Union, about twenty-five of the executive officers of national
+and international labor unions affiliated with the American Federation
+of Labor met in conference in Chicago to discuss the situation. Debs
+appeared and urged a general strike by all labor organizations. But the
+conference decided that "it would be unwise and disastrous to the
+interests of labor to extend the strike any further than it had already
+gone," and advised the strikers to return to work. On July 13, the
+American Railway Union, through the Mayor of Chicago, offered the
+General Managers' Association to declare the strike off, provided the
+men should be restored to their former positions without prejudice,
+except in cases where they had been convicted of crime. But the
+Association refused to deal with the union. The strike was already
+virtually beaten by the combined moral effect of the indictment of the
+leaders and of the arrival in Chicago of United States troops, which
+President Cleveland sent in spite of the protest of Governor Altgeld of
+Illinois.
+
+The labor organizations were taught two important lessons. First, that
+nothing can be gained through revolutionary striking, for the government
+was sufficiently strong to cope with it; and second, that the employers
+had obtained a formidable ally in the courts.[28]
+
+Defeats in strikes, depression in trade, a rapidly falling labor market
+and court prosecutions were powerful allies of those socialistic and
+radical leaders inside the Federation who aspired to convert it from a
+mere economic organization into an economic-political one and make it
+embark upon the sea of independent politics.
+
+The convention of 1893 is memorable in that it submitted to the
+consideration of affiliated unions a "political programme." The preamble
+to the "programme" recited that the English trade unions had recently
+launched upon independent politics "as auxiliary to their economic
+action." The eleven planks of the program demanded: compulsory
+education; the right of popular initiative in legislation; a legal
+eight-hour work-day; governmental inspection of mines and workshops;
+abolition of the sweating system; employers' liability laws; abolition
+of the contract system upon public work; municipal ownership of electric
+light, gas, street railway, and water systems; the nationalization of
+telegraphs, telephones, railroads, and mines; "the collective ownership
+by the people of all means of production and distribution"; and the
+referendum upon all legislation.
+
+Immediately after the convention of 1893 affiliated unions began to give
+their endorsement to the political program. Not until comparatively late
+did any opposition make itself manifest. Then it took the form of a
+demand by such conservative leaders as Gompers, McGuire, and Strasser,
+that plank 10, with its pledge in favor of "the collective ownership by
+the people of all means of production and distribution," be stricken
+out. Notwithstanding this, the majority of national trade unions
+endorsed the program.
+
+During 1894 the trade unions were active participants in politics. In
+November, 1894, the _Federationist_ gave a list of more than 300 union
+members candidates for some elective office. Only a half dozen of these,
+however, were elected. It was mainly to these local failures that
+Gompers pointed in his presidential address at the convention of 1894 as
+an argument against the adoption of the political program by the
+Federation. His attitude clearly foreshadowed the destiny of the program
+at the convention. The first attack was made upon the preamble, on the
+ground that the statement therein that the English trade unions had
+declared for independent political action was false. By a vote of 1345
+to 861 the convention struck out the preamble. Upon motion of the
+typographical union, a substitute was adopted calling for the
+"abolition of the monopoly system of land holding and the substitution
+therefor of a title of occupancy and use only." Some of the delegates
+seem to have interpreted this substitute as a declaration for the single
+tax; but the majority of those who voted in its favor probably acted
+upon the principle "anything to beat socialism." Later the entire
+program was voted down. That sealed the fate of the move for an
+independent labor party.
+
+The American Federation of Labor was almost drawn into the whirlpool of
+partisan politics during the Presidential campaign of 1896. Three
+successive conventions had declared in favor of the free coinage of
+silver; and now the Democratic party had come out for free coinage. In
+this situation very many prominent trade union leaders declared publicly
+for Bryan. President Gompers, however, issued a warning to all
+affiliated unions to keep out of partisan politics. Notwithstanding this
+Secretary McGraith, at the next convention of the Federation, charged
+President Gompers with acting in collusion with the Democratic
+headquarters throughout the campaign in aid of Bryan's candidacy. After
+a lengthy secret session the convention approved the conduct of Gompers.
+Free silver continued to be endorsed annually down to the convention of
+1898, when the return of industrial prosperity and rising prices put an
+end to it as a demand advocated by labor.
+
+The depressed nineties demonstrated conclusively that a new era had
+arrived. No longer was the labor movement a mere plaything of the
+alternating waves of prosperity and depression. Formerly, as we saw, it
+had centered on economic or trade-union action during prosperity only to
+change abruptly to "panaceas" and politics with the descent of
+depression. Now the movement, notwithstanding possible changes in
+membership, and persistent political leanings in some portions of it, as
+a whole for the first time became stable in purpose and action. Trade
+unionism has won over politics.
+
+This victory was synchronous with the first successful working out of a
+national trade agreement and the institutionalization of trade unionism
+in a leading industry, namely stove molding. While one of the earliest
+stable trade agreements in a conspicuous trade covering a local field
+was a bricklayers' agreement in Chicago in 1887, the era of trade
+agreements really dates from the national system established in the
+stove foundry industry in 1891. It is true also that the iron and steel
+workers had worked under a national trade agreement since 1866. However,
+that trade was too exceptionally strong to be typical.
+
+The stove industry had early reached a high degree of development and
+organization. There had existed since 1872 the National Association of
+Stove Manufacturers, an organization dealing with prices and embracing
+in its membership the largest stove manufacturers of the country. The
+stove foundrymen, therefore, unlike the manufacturers in practically all
+other industries at that time, controlled in a large measure their own
+market. Furthermore, the product had been completely standardized and
+reduced to a piecework basis, and machinery had not taken the place of
+the molders' skill. It consequently was no mere accident that the stove
+industry was the first to develop a system of permanent industrial
+peace. But, on the other hand, this was not automatically established as
+soon as the favorable external conditions were provided. In reality,
+only after years of struggle, of strikes and lockouts, and after the
+two sides had fought each other "to a standstill," was the system
+finally installed.
+
+The eighties abounded in stove molders' strikes, and in 1886 the
+national union began to render effective aid. The Stove Founders'
+National Defense Association was formed in 1886 as an employers'
+association of stove manufacturers. The Defense Association aimed at a
+national labor policy; it was organized for "resistance against any
+unjust demands of their workmen, and such other purposes as may from
+time to time prove or appear to be necessary for the benefit of the
+members thereof as employers of labor." Thus, after 1886, the alignment
+was made national on both sides. The great battle was fought the next
+year.
+
+March 8, 1887, the employes of the Bridge and Beach Manufacturing
+Company in St. Louis struck for an advance in wages and the struggle at
+once became one between the International Union and the National Defense
+Association. The St. Louis company sent its patterns to foundries in
+other districts, but the union successfully prevented their use. This
+occasioned a series of strikes in the West and of lockouts in the East,
+affecting altogether about 5000 molders. It continued thus until June,
+when the St. Louis patterns were recalled, the Defense Association
+having provided the company with a sufficient number of strike-breakers.
+Each side was in a position to claim the victory for itself; so evenly
+matched were the opposing forces.
+
+During the next four years disputes in Association plants were rare. In
+August 1890, a strike took place in Pittsburgh and, for the first time
+in the history of the industry, it was settled by a written trade
+agreement with the local union. This supported the idea of a national
+trade agreement between the two organizations. Since the dispute of
+1887, negotiations with this object were from time to time conducted,
+the Defense Association invariably taking the initiative. Finally, the
+national convention of the union in 1890 appointed a committee to meet a
+like committee of the Defense Association. The conference took place
+March 25, 1891, and worked out a complete plan of organization for the
+stove molding industry. Every year two committees of three members each,
+chosen respectively by the union and the association, were to meet in
+conference and to draw up general laws for the year. In case of a
+dispute arising in a locality, if the parties immediately concerned were
+unable to arrive at common terms, the chief executives of both
+organizations, the president of the union and the president of the
+association, were to step in and try to effect an adjustment. If,
+however, they, too, failed, a conference committee composed of an equal
+number of members from each side was to be called in and its findings
+were to be final. Meanwhile the parties were enjoined from engaging in
+hostilities while the matter at dispute was being dealt with by the duly
+appointed authorities. Each organization obligated itself to exercise
+"police authority" over its constituents, enforcing obedience to the
+agreement. The endorsement of the plan by both organizations was
+practically unanimous, and has continued in operation without
+interruption for thirty years until the present day.
+
+Since the end of the nineties the trade agreement has become one of the
+most generally accepted principles and aspirations of the American labor
+movement. However, it is not to be understood that by accepting the
+principle of the trade agreement the labor movement has committed
+itself to unlimited arbitration of industrial disputes. The basic idea
+of the trade agreement is that of collective bargaining rather than
+arbitration. The two terms are not always distinguished, but the
+essential difference is that in the trade agreement proper no outside
+party intervenes to settle the dispute and make an award. The agreement
+is made by direct negotiation between the two organized groups and the
+sanction which each holds over the head of the other is the strike or
+lockout. If no agreement can be reached, the labor organization as well
+as the employers' association, insists on its right to refuse
+arbitration, whether it be "voluntary" or so-called "compulsory."
+
+The clarification of the conception of the trade agreement was perhaps
+the main achievement of the nineties. Without the trade agreement the
+labor movement could hardly come to eschew "panaceas" and to
+reconstitute itself upon the basis of opportunism. The coming in of the
+trade agreement, whether national, sectional, or local, was also the
+chief factor in stabilizing the movement against industrial depressions.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[28] See below, 159-160.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS
+
+
+While it was in the nineties that trade unionists first tasted the
+sweets of institutionalization in industry through "recognition" by
+employers, it was also during the later eighties and during the nineties
+that they experienced a revival of suspicion and hostility on the part
+of the courts and a renewal of legal restraints upon their activities,
+which were all the more discouraging since for a generation or more they
+had practically enjoyed non-interference from that quarter. It was at
+this period that the main legal weapons against trade unionism were
+forged and brought to a fine point in practical application. The history
+of the courts' attitude to trade unionism may therefore best be treated
+from the standpoint of the nineties.
+
+The subject of court interference was not altogether new in the
+eighties. We took occasion to point out the effect of court interference
+in labor disputes in the first and second decades of the nineteenth
+century and again in the thirties. Mention was made also of the court's
+decision in the Theiss boycott case in New York in 1886, which proved a
+prime moving factor in launching the famous Henry George campaign for
+Mayor. And we gave due note to the role of court injunctions in the Debs
+strike of 1894 and in other strikes. Our present interest is, however,
+more in the court doctrines than in their effects: more concerned with
+the development of the legal thought underlying the policies of the
+courts than with the reactions of the labor movement to the policies
+themselves.
+
+The earliest case on record, namely the Philadelphia shoemakers' strike
+case in 1806,[29] charged two offences; one was a combination to raise
+wages, the other a combination to injure others; both offences were
+declared by the judge to be forbidden by the common law. To the public
+at large the prosecution seemed to rest solely upon the charge that the
+journeymen combined to raise wages. The defense took advantage of this
+and tried to make use of it for its own purposes. The condemnation of
+the journeymen on this ground gave rise to a vehement protest on the
+part of the journeymen themselves and their friends. It was pointed out
+that the journeymen were convicted for acts which are considered lawful
+when done by masters or merchants. Therefore when the next conspiracy
+case in New York in 1809 was decided, the court's charge to the jury was
+very different. Nothing was said about the illegality of the
+combinations to raise wages; on the contrary, the jury was instructed
+that this was not the question at issue. The issue was stated to be
+whether the defendants had combined to secure an increase in their wages
+by unlawful means. To the question what means were unlawful, in this
+case the answer was given in general terms, namely that "coercive and
+arbitrary" means are unlawful. The fines imposed upon the defendants
+were only nominal.
+
+A third notable case of the group, namely the Pittsburgh case in 1815,
+grew out of a strike for higher wages, as did the preceding cases. The
+charges were the same as in those and the judge took the identical view
+that was taken by the court in the New York case. However, he explained
+more fully the meaning of "coercive and arbitrary" action. "Where
+diverse persons," he said, "confederate together by direct means to
+impoverish or prejudice a third person, or to do acts prejudicial to the
+community," they are engaged in an unlawful conspiracy. Concretely, it
+is unlawful to "conspire to compel an employer to hire a certain
+description of persons," or to "conspire to prevent a man from freely
+exercising his trade in a particular place," or to "conspire to compel
+men to become members of a particular society, or to contribute toward
+it," or when persons "conspire to compel men to work at certain prices."
+Thus it was the effort of the shoemakers' society to secure a closed
+shop which fell chiefly under the condemnation of the court.
+
+The counsel for the defense argued in this case that whatever is lawful
+for one individual is lawful also for a combination of individuals. The
+court, however, rejected the arguments on the ground that there was a
+basic difference between an individual doing a thing and a combination
+of individuals doing the same thing. The doctrine of conspiracy was thus
+given a clear and unequivocal definition.
+
+Another noteworthy feature of the Pittsburgh case was the emphasis given
+to the idea that the defendants' conduct was harmful to the public. The
+judge condemned the defendants because they tended "to create a monopoly
+or to restrain the entire freedom of the trade." What a municipality is
+not allowed to do, he argued, a private association of individuals must
+not be allowed to do.
+
+Of the group of cases which grew out of the revival of trade union
+activity in the twenties, the first, a case against Philadelphia master
+shoemakers, was decided in 1821, and the judge held that it was lawful
+for the masters, who had recently been forced by employes to a wage
+increase, to combine in order to restore wages to their "natural level."
+But he also held that had the employers combined to depress wages of
+journeymen below the level fixed by free competition, it would have been
+criminal.
+
+Another Pennsylvania case resulted from a strike by Philadelphia tailors
+in 1827 to secure the reinstatement of six discharged members. As in
+previous cases the court rejected the plea that a combination to raise
+wages was illegal, and directed the attention of the jury to the
+question of intimidation and coercion, especially as it affected third
+parties. The defendants were found guilty.
+
+In a third, a New York hatters' case of 1823, the charge of combining to
+raise wages was entirely absent from the indictment. The issue turned
+squarely on the question of conspiring to injure others by coercion and
+intimidation. The hatters were adjudged guilty of combining to deprive a
+non-union workman of his livelihood.
+
+The revival of trade unionism in the middle of the thirties brought in,
+as we saw, another crop of court cases.
+
+In 1829 New York State had made "conspiracy to commit any act injurious
+to public morals or to trade or commerce" a statutory offence, thus
+reenforcing the existing common law. In 1835 the shoemakers of Geneva
+struck to enforce the closed shop against a workman who persisted in
+working below the union rate. The indictment went no further than
+charging this offence. The journeymen were convicted in a lower court
+and appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. Chief Justice Savage, in
+his decision condemning the journeymen, broadened the charge to include
+a conspiracy to raise wages and condemned both as "injurious to trade or
+commerce" and thus expressly covered by statute.
+
+The far-reaching effects of this decision came clearly to light in a
+tailor's case the next year. The journeymen were charged with practising
+intimidation and violence, while picketing their employers' shops during
+a prolonged strike against a reduction in wages. Judge Edwards, the
+trial judge, in his charge to the jury, stigmatized the tailors' society
+as an illegal combination, largely basing himself upon Judge Savage's
+decision. The jury handed in a verdict of guilty, but recommended mercy.
+The judge fined the president of the society $150, one journeyman $100,
+and the others $50 each. The fines were immediately paid with the aid of
+a collection taken up in court.
+
+The decisions produced a violent reaction among the workingmen. They
+held a mass-meeting in City Hall Park, with an estimated attendance of
+27,000, burned Judge Savage and Judge Edwards in effigy, and resolved to
+call a state convention to form a workingmen's party.
+
+So loud, indeed, was the cry that justice had been thwarted that juries
+were doubtless influenced by it. Two cases came up soon after the
+tailors' case, the Hudson, New York, shoemakers' in June and the
+Philadelphia plasterers' in July 1836. In both the juries found a
+verdict of not guilty. Of all journeymen indicted during this period the
+Hudson shoemakers had been the most audacious ones in enforcing the
+closed shop. They not only refused to work for employers who hired
+non-society men, but fined them as well; yet they were acquitted.
+
+Finally six years later, in 1842, long after the offending trade
+societies had gone out of existence under the stress of unemployment
+and depression, came the famous decision in the Massachusetts case of
+Commonwealth _v._ Hunt.
+
+This was a shoemakers' case and arose out of a strike. The decision in
+the lower court was adverse to the defendants. However, it was reversed
+by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The decision, written by
+Chief Justice Shaw, is notable in that it holds trade unions to be legal
+organizations. In the earlier cases it was never in so many words held
+that trade unions were unlawful, but in all of them there were
+suggestions to this effect. Now it was recognized that trade unions are
+_per se_ lawful organizations and, though men may band themselves
+together to effect a criminal object under the disguise of a trade
+union, such a purpose is not to be assumed without positive evidence. On
+the contrary, the court said that "when an association is formed for
+purposes actually innocent, and afterwards its powers are abused by
+those who have the control and management of it to purposes of
+oppression and injustice, it will be criminal in those who misuse it, or
+give consent thereto, but not in other members of the association." This
+doctrine that workingmen may lawfully organize trade unions has since
+Commonwealth _v._ Hunt been adopted in nearly every case.
+
+The other doctrine which Justice Shaw advanced in this case has been
+less generally accepted. It was that the members of a union may procure
+the discharge of non-members through strikes for this purpose against
+their employers. This is the essence of the question of the closed shop;
+and Commonwealth _v._ Hunt goes the full length of regarding strikes for
+the closed shop as legal. Justice Shaw said that there is nothing
+unlawful about such strikes, if they are conducted in a peaceable
+manner. This was much in advance of the position which is taken by many
+courts upon this question even at the present day.
+
+After Commonwealth _v._ Hunt came a forty years' lull in the courts'
+application of the doctrine of conspiracy to trade unions. In fact so
+secure did trade unionists feel from court attacks that in the seventies
+and early eighties their leaders advocated the legal incorporation of
+trade unions. The desire expressed for incorporation is of extreme
+interest compared with the opposite attitude of the present day. The
+motive behind it then was more than the usual one of securing protection
+for trade union funds against embezzlement by officers. A full
+enumeration of other motives can be obtained from the testimony of the
+labor leaders before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in
+1883. McGuire, the national secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters
+and Joiners, argued before the committee for a national incorporation
+law mainly for the reason that such a law passed by Congress would
+remove trade unions from the operation of the conspiracy laws that still
+existed though in a dormant state on the statute books of a number of
+Slates, notably New York and Pennsylvania. He pleaded that "if it
+(Congress) had not the power, it shall assume the power; and, if
+necessary, amend the constitution to do it." Adolph Strasser of the
+cigar makers raised the point of protection for union funds and gave as
+a second reason that it "will give our organization more stability, and
+in that manner we shall be able to avoid strikes by perhaps settling
+with our employers, when otherwise we should be unable to do so, because
+when our employers know that we are to be legally recognized that will
+exercise such moral force upon them that they cannot avoid recognizing
+us themselves." W.H. Foster, the secretary of the Legislative Committee
+of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, stated that in
+Ohio the law provided for incorporation at a slight cost, but he wanted
+a national law to "legalize arbitration," by which he meant that "when a
+question of dispute arose between the employers and the employed,
+instead of having it as now, when the one often refuses to even
+acknowledge or discuss the question with the other, if they were
+required to submit the question to arbitration, or to meet on the same
+level before an impartial tribunal, there is no doubt but what the
+result would be more in our favor than it is now, when very often public
+opinion cannot hear our cause." He, however, did not desire to have
+compulsory arbitration, but merely compulsory dealing with the union, or
+compulsory investigation by an impartial body, both parties to remain
+free to accept the award, provided, however, "that once they do agree
+the agreement shall remain in force for a fixed period." Like Foster,
+John Jarrett, the President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and
+Steel Workers, argued for an incorporation law before the committee
+solely for its effect upon conciliation and arbitration. He, too, was
+opposed to compulsory arbitration, but he showed that he had thought out
+the point less clearly than Foster.
+
+The young and struggling trade unions of the early eighties saw only the
+good side of incorporation without its pitfalls; their subsequent
+experience with courts converted them from exponents into ardent
+opponents of incorporation and of what Foster termed "legalized
+arbitration."
+
+During the eighties there was much legislation applicable to labor
+disputes. The first laws against boycotting and blacklisting and the
+first laws which prohibited discrimination against members who belonged
+to a union were passed during this decade. At this time also were passed
+the first laws to promote voluntary arbitration and most of the laws
+which allowed unions to incorporate. Only in New York and Maryland were
+the conspiracy laws repealed. Four States enacted such laws and many
+States passed laws against intimidation. Statutes, however, played at
+that time, as they do now, but a secondary role. The only statute which
+proved of much importance was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. When Congress
+passed this act in 1890, few people thought it had application to labor
+unions. In 1893-1894, as we shall see, however, this act was
+successfully invoked in several labor controversies, notably in the Debs
+case.
+
+The bitterness of the industrial struggle during the eighties made it
+inevitable that the labor movement should acquire an extensive police
+and court record. It was during that decade that charges like "inciting
+to riot," "obstructing the streets," "intimidation," and "trespass" were
+first extensively used in connection with labor disputes. Convictions
+were frequent and penalties often severe. What attitude the courts at
+that time took toward labor violence was shown most strikingly, even if
+in too extreme a form to be entirely typical, in the case of the Chicago
+anarchists.[30]
+
+But the significance of the eighties in the development of relations of
+the courts to organized labor came not from these cases which were,
+after all, nothing but ordinary police cases magnified to an unusual
+degree by the intensity of the industrial struggle and by the excited
+state of public opinion, but in the new lease of life to the doctrine of
+conspiracy as affecting labor disputes. During the eighties and nineties
+there seemed to have been more conspiracy cases than during all the rest
+of the century. It was especially in 1886 and 1887 that organized labor
+found court interference a factor. At this time, as we saw, there was
+also passed voluminous state legislation strengthening the application
+of the common law doctrine of conspiracy to labor disputes. The
+conviction of the New York boycotters in 1886 and many similar
+convictions, though less widely known, of participants in strikes and
+boycotts were obtained upon this ground.
+
+Where the eighties witnessed a revolution was in a totally new use made
+of the doctrine of conspiracy by the courts when they began to issue
+injunctions in labor cases. Injunctions were an old remedy, but not
+until the eighties did they figure in the struggles between labor and
+capital. In England an injunction was issued in a labor dispute as early
+as 1868;[31] but this case was not noticed in the United States and had
+nothing whatever to do with the use of injunctions in this country. When
+and where the first labor injunction was issued in the United States is
+not known. An injunction was applied for in a New York case as early as
+1880 but was denied.[32] An injunction was granted in Iowa in 1884, but
+not until the Southwest railway strike in 1886 were injunctions used
+extensively. By 1890 the public had yet heard little of injunctions in
+connection with labor disputes, but such use was already fortified by
+numerous precedents.
+
+The first injunctions that attained wide publicity were those issued by
+Federal courts during the strike of engineers against the Chicago,
+Burlington, & Quincy Railroad[33] in 1888 and during the railway strikes
+of the early nineties. Justification for these injunctions was found in
+the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust
+Act. Often the State courts used these Federal cases as precedents, in
+disregard of the fact that there the issuance of injunctions was based
+upon special statutes. In other cases the more logical course was
+followed of justifying the issuance of injunctions upon grounds of
+equity. But most of the acts which the courts enjoined strikers from
+doing were already prohibited by the criminal laws. Hence organized
+labor objected that these injunctions violated the old principle that
+equity will not interfere to prevent crime. No such difficulties arose
+when the issuance of injunctions was justified as a measure for the
+protection of property. In the Debs case,[34] when the Supreme Court of
+the United States passed upon the issuance of injunctions in labor
+disputes, it had recourse to this theory.
+
+But the theory of protection to property also presented some
+difficulties. The problem was to establish the principle of irreparable
+injury to the complainant's property. This was a simple matter when the
+strikers were guilty of trespass, arson, or sabotage. Then they damaged
+the complainant's physical property and, since they were usually men
+against whom judgments are worthless, any injury they might do was
+irreparable. But these were exceptional cases. Usually injunctions were
+sought to prevent not violence, but strikes, picketing, or boycotting.
+What is threatened by strikes and picketing is not the employer's
+physical property, but the relations he has established as an employer
+of labor, summed up in his expectancy of retaining the services of old
+employes and of obtaining new ones. Boycotting, obviously, has no
+connection with acts of violence against physical property, but is
+designed merely to undermine the profitable relations which the employer
+had developed with his customers. These expectancies are advantages
+enjoyed by established businesses over new competitors and are usually
+transferable and have market value. For these reasons they are now
+recognized as property in the law of good-will and unfair competition
+for customers, having been first formulated about the middle of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+The first case which recognized these expectancies of a labor market was
+Walker _v._ Cronin,[35] decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
+Court in 1871. It held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover
+damages from the defendants, certain union officials, because they had
+induced his employes, who were free to quit at will, to leave his employ
+and had also been instrumental in preventing him from getting new
+employes. But as yet these expectancies were not considered property in
+the full sense of the word. A transitional case is that of Brace Bros.
+_v._ Evans in 1888.[36] In that case an injunction against a boycott was
+justified on the ground that the value of the complainant's physical
+property was being destroyed when the market was cut off. Here the
+expectancies based upon relations which customers and employes were
+thought of as giving value to the physical property, but they were not
+yet recognized as a distinct asset which in itself justifies the
+issuance of injunctions.
+
+This next step was taken in the Barr[37] case in New Jersey in 1893.
+Since then there have been frequent statements in labor injunction cases
+to the effect that both the expectancies based upon the
+merchant-function and the expectancies based upon the employer-function
+are property.
+
+But the recognition of "probable expectancies" as property was not in
+itself sufficient to complete the chain of reasoning that justifies
+injunctions in labor disputes. It is well established that no recovery
+can be had for losses due to the exercise by others of that which they
+have a lawful right to do. Hence the employers were obliged to charge
+that the strikes and boycotts were undertaken in pursuance of an
+unlawful conspiracy. Thus the old conspiracy doctrine was combined with
+the new theory, and "malicious" interference with "probable
+expectancies" was held unlawful. Earlier conspiracy had been thought of
+as a criminal offence, now it was primarily a civil wrong. The emphasis
+had been upon the danger to the public, now it was the destruction of
+the employer's business. Occasionally the court went so far as to say
+that all interference with the business of employers is unlawful. The
+better view developed was that interference is _prima facie_ unlawful
+but may be justified. But even this view placed the burden of proof upon
+the workingmen. It actually meant that the court opened for itself the
+way for holding the conduct of the workingmen to be lawful only when it
+sympathized with their demands.
+
+During the eighties, despite the far-reaching development of legal
+theories on labor disputes, the issuance of injunctions was merely
+sporadic, but a veritable crop came up during 1893-1894. Only the
+best-known injunctions can be here noted. The injunctions issued in the
+course of the Southwest railway strike in 1886 and the Burlington strike
+in 1888 have already received mention. An injunction was also issued by
+a Federal court during a miners' strike at Coeur d'Alène, Idaho, in
+1892.[38] A famous injunction was the one of Judges Taft and Rickes in
+1893, which directed the engineers, who were employed by connecting
+railways, to handle the cars of the Ann Arbor and Michigan railway,
+whose engineers were on strike.[39] This order elicited much criticism
+because it came close to requiring men to work against their will. This
+was followed by the injunction of Judge Jenkins in the Northern Pacific
+case, which directly prohibited the quitting of work.[40] From this
+injunction the defendants took an appeal, with the result that in Arthur
+_v._ Oakes[41] it was once for all established that the quitting of work
+may not be enjoined.
+
+During the Pullman strike numerous injunctions, most sweeping in
+character, were issued by the Federal courts upon the initiative of the
+Department of Justice. Under the injunction which was issued in Chicago
+arose the famous contempt case against Eugene V. Debs,[42] which was
+carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of the
+court in this case is notable, because it covered the main points of
+doubt above mentioned and placed the use of injunctions in labor
+disputes upon a firm legal basis.
+
+Another famous decision of the Supreme Court growing out of the railway
+strikes of the early nineties was in the Lennon case[43] in 1897.
+Therein the court held that all persons who have actual notice of the
+issuance of an injunction are bound to obey its terms, whether they were
+mentioned by name or not; in other words, the courts had evolved the
+"blanket injunction."
+
+At the end of the nineties, the labor movement, enriched on the one side
+by the lessons of the past and by the possession of a concrete goal in
+the trade agreement, but pressed on the other side by a new form of
+legal attack and by the growing consolidation of industry, started upon
+a career of new power but faced at the same time new difficulties.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] See above, 6.
+
+[30] See above, 91-93.
+
+[31] Springhead Spinning Co. _v._ Riley, L.R. 6 E. 551 (1868).
+
+[32] Johnson Harvester Co. _v._ Meinhardt, 60 How. Pr. 171.
+
+[33] Chicago, Burlington, etc., R.R. Co. _v._ Union Pacific R.R. Co.,
+U.S. Dist. Ct., D. Neb. (1888).
+
+[34] In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895).
+
+[35] 107 Mass. 555 (1871).
+
+[36] 5 Pa. Co. Ct. 163 (1888).
+
+[37] Barr _v._ Trades' Council, 53 N.J.E. 101 (1894).
+
+[38] Coeur d'Alène Mining Co. _v._ Miners' Union, 51 Fed. 260 (1892).
+
+[39] Toledo, etc. Co. _v._ Penn. Co., 54 Fed. 730 (1893).
+
+[40] Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. _v._ N.P.R. Co., 60 Fed. 803 (1895).
+
+[41] 64 Fed. 310 (1894).
+
+[42] In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1894).
+
+[43] In re Lennon, 166 U.S. 548 (1897).
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES, 1898-1914
+
+
+When, in 1898, industrial prosperity returned, there came with it a
+rapid expansion of labor organization. At no time in its history, prior
+to the World War, not excepting the Great Upheaval in the eighties, did
+labor organizations make such important gains as during the following
+five years. True, in none of these years did the labor movement add over
+half a million members as in the memorable year of 1886; nevertheless,
+from the standpoint of permanence, the upheaval during the eighties can
+scarcely be classed with the one which began in the late nineties.
+
+During 1898 the membership of the American Federation of Labor remained
+practically stationary, but during 1899 it increased by about 70,000 (to
+about 350,000); in 1900, it increased by 200,000; in 1901, by 240,000;
+in 1902, by 237,000; in 1903, by 441,000; in 1904, by 210,000, bringing
+the total to 1,676,000. In 1905 a backward tide set in; and the
+membership decreased by nearly 200,000 during that year. It remained
+practically stationary until 1910, when the upward movement was resumed,
+finally bringing the membership to near the two million mark, to
+1,996,000, in 1913. If we include organizations unaffiliated with the
+Federation, among them the bricklayers[44] and the four railway
+brotherhoods, with about 700,000 members, the union membership for 1913
+will be brought near a total of 2,700,000.
+
+A better index of progress is the proportion of organized workers to
+organizable workers. Two such estimates have been made. Professor George
+E. Barnett figures the organizable workers in 1900 at 21,837,000; in
+1910 at 30,267,000. On this basis wage earners were 3.5 percent
+organized in 1900 and 7 percent in 1910.[45] Leo Wolman submits more
+detailed figures for 1910. Excluding employers, the salaried group,
+agricultural and clerical workers, persons engaged in personal or
+domestic service, and those below twenty years of age (unorganizable
+workers), the organizable total was 11,490,944. With an estimated trade
+union strength of 2,116,317 for 1910 the percentage of the organized was
+18.4.[46] Excluding only employers and salaried persons, his percentage
+was 7.7, which compares closely with Professor Barnett's.
+
+Of greater significance are Wolman's figures for organization by
+industries. These computations show that in 1910 the breweries had 88.8
+percent, organized, printing and book binding 34.3 percent, mining 30.5
+percent, transportation 17.3 percent, clothing 16.9 percent, building
+trades 16.2 percent, iron and steel 9.9 percent, metal 4.7 percent, and
+textile 3.7 percent.[47] By separate occupations, railway conductors,
+brakemen, and locomotive engineers were from 50-100 percent organized;
+printers, locomotive firemen, molders and plasterers, from 30-50
+percent; bakers, carpenters, plumbers, from 15-30 percent organized.[48]
+
+Accompanying the numerical growth of labor organizations was an
+extension of organization into heretofore untouched trades as well as a
+branching out into new geographical regions, the South and the West. On
+the whole, however, though the Federation was not unmindful of the
+unskilled, still, during the fifteen years after 1898 it brought into
+its fold principally the upper strata of semi-skilled labor. Down to the
+"boom" period brought on by the World War, the Federation did not
+comprise to any great extent either the totally unskilled, or the
+partially skilled foreign-speaking workmen, with the exception of the
+miners and the clothing workers. In other words, those below the level
+of the skilled trades, which did gain admittance, were principally the
+same elements which had asserted their claim to organization during the
+stormy period of the Knights of Labor.[49] The new accretions to the
+American wage-earning class since the eighties, the East and South
+Europeans, on the one hand, and the ever-growing contingent of
+"floaters" of native and North and West European stock, on the other
+hand, were still largely outside the organization.
+
+The years of prosperity brought an intensified activity of the trade
+unions on a scale hitherto unknown. Wages were raised and hours reduced
+all along the line. The new strength of the trade unions received a
+brilliant test during the hard times following the financial panic of
+October 1907, when they successfully fought wage reductions. As good a
+test is found in the conquest of the shorter day. By 1900 the eight-hour
+day was the rule in the building trades, in granite cutting and in
+bituminous coal mining. The most spectacular and costly eight-hour fight
+was waged by the printers. In the later eighties and early nineties, the
+Typographical Union had endeavored to establish a nine-hour day in the
+printing offices. This was given a setback by the introduction of the
+linotype machine during the period of depression, 1893-1897. In spite of
+this obstacle, however, the Typographical Union held its ground.
+Adopting the policy that only journeymen printers must operate the
+linotype machines, the union was able to meet the situation. And,
+furthermore, in 1898, through agreement with the United Typothetæ of
+America, the national association of employers in book and job printing,
+the union was able to gain the nine-hour day in substantially all book
+and job offices. In 1903 the union demanded the eight-hour day in all
+printing offices to become effective January 1, 1906. To gain an
+advantage over the union, the United Typothetæ, late in the summer of
+1905, locked out all its union men. This at once precipitated a strike
+for the eight-hour day. The American Federation of Labor levied a
+special assessment on all its members in aid of the strikers. By 1907
+the Typographical Union won its demand all along the line, although at a
+tremendous cost of money running into several million dollars, and in
+1909 the United Typothetæ formally conceded the eight-hour day.
+
+Another proof of trade union progress is found in the spread of trade
+agreements. The idea of a joint partnership of organized labor and
+organized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since the
+fifties, had been struggling for acceptance, finally showed definite
+signs of coming to be materialized.
+
+
+(1) _The Miners_
+
+In no other industry has a union's struggle for "recognition" offered a
+richer and more instructive picture of the birth of the new order with
+its difficulties as well as its promises than in coal mining. Faced in
+the anthracite field[50] by a small and well knitted group of employers,
+generally considered a "trust," and by a no less difficult situation in
+bituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mine
+operators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a space of fifteen
+years in unionizing the one as well as the other; while at the same time
+successfully and progressively solving the gigantic internal problem of
+welding a polyglot mass of workers into a well disciplined and obedient
+army.
+
+The miners' union attained its first successes in the so-called central
+bituminous competitive field, including Western Pennsylvania, West
+Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. In this field a
+beginning had been made in 1886 when the coal operators and the union
+entered into a collective agreement. However, its scope was practically
+confined to Ohio and even that limited agreement went under in 1890.[51]
+With the breakdown of this agreement, the membership dwindled so that
+by the time of a general strike in 1894, the total paid-up membership
+was barely 13,000. This strike was undertaken to restore the wage-scale
+of 1893, but during the ensuing years of depression wages were cut still
+further.[52]
+
+The turn came as suddenly as it was spectacular. In 1897, with a
+membership which had dropped to 10,000 and of which 7000 were in Ohio
+and with an empty treasury, the United Mine Workers called a general
+strike trusting to a rising market and to an awakened spirit of
+solidarity in the majority of the unorganized after four years of
+unemployment and distress. In fact the leaders had not miscalculated.
+One hundred thousand or more coal miners obeyed the order to go on a
+strike. In Illinois the union had but a handful of members when the
+strike started, but the miners struck to a man. The tie-up was
+practically complete except in West Virginia. That State had early
+become recognized as the weakest spot in the miners' union's armor.
+Notwithstanding the American Federation of Labor threw almost its entire
+force of organizers into that limited area, which was then only
+beginning to assume its present day importance in the coal mining
+industry, barely one-third of the miners were induced to strike. A
+contributing factor was a more energetic interference from the courts
+than in other States. All marching upon the highways and all assemblages
+of the strikers in large gatherings were forbidden by injunctions. On
+one occasion more than a score of men were sentenced to jail for
+contempt of court by Federal Judge Goff. The handicap in West Virginia
+was offset by sympathy and aid from other quarters. Many unions
+throughout the country and even the general public sent the striking
+miners financial aid. In Illinois Governor John R. Tanner refused the
+requests for militia made by several sheriffs.
+
+The general strike of 1897 ended in the central competitive field after
+a twelve-weeks' struggle. The settlement was an unqualified victory for
+the union. It conceded the miners a 20 percent increase in wages, the
+establishment of the eight-hour day, the abolition of company stores,
+semi-monthly payments, and a restoration of the system of fixing
+Interstate wage rates in annual joint conferences with the operators,
+which meant official recognition of the United Mine Workers. The
+operators in West Virginia, however, refused to come in.
+
+The first of these Interstate conferences was held in January, 1898, at
+which the miners were conceded a further increase in wages. In addition,
+the agreement, which was to run for two years, established for Illinois
+the run-of-mine[53] system of payment, while the size of the screens of
+other states was regulated; and it also conceded the miners the
+check-off system[54] in every district, save that of Western
+Pennsylvania.[55] Such a comprehensive victory would not have been
+possible had it not been for the upward trend which coal prices had
+taken.
+
+But great as was the union's newly discovered power, it was spread most
+unevenly over the central competitive field. Its firmest grip was in
+Illinois. The well-filled treasury of the Illinois district has many
+times been called upon for large contributions or loans, to enable the
+union to establish itself in some other field. The weakest hold of the
+United Mine Workers has been in West Virginia. At the end of the general
+strike of 1897, the West Virginia membership was only about 4000.
+Moreover, a further spread of the organization met with unusual
+obstacles. A large percentage of the miners of West Virginia are Negroes
+or white mountaineers. These have proven more difficult to organize than
+recent Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who formed the majority
+in the other districts. And yet West Virginia as a growing mining state
+soon assumed a high strategic importance. A lower wage scale, the better
+quality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have made
+West Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in the
+central competitive field. Consequently West Virginia operators have
+been able to operate their mines more days during the year than
+elsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners
+have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States.
+But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West
+Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and in
+campaigns of organization. In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted at
+the behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company, a West Virginia
+concern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organize
+employes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers while
+in the employ of the company. The injunction was made permanent in 1913.
+The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court of
+Appeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in
+March 1917.[56] Recently the United States Steel Corporation became a
+dominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lent
+additional strength to the already strong anti-union determination of
+the employers.
+
+Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strict
+adherence to agreements made. This faithfulness to a pledged word, which
+justified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as much
+as it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasions
+by John Mitchell, the national President of the Union. The first test
+came in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the joint
+conference had adjourned. Although they might have won higher wages had
+they struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe test
+came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.[57] A special union
+convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners
+should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners
+in the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the convention
+voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the
+operators. The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when,
+in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, it
+accepted without a strike a reduction in wages in the central
+competitive field. However, as against the miners' conduct in these
+situations must be reckoned the many local strikes or "stoppages" in
+violation of agreements. The difficulty was that the machinery for the
+adjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome.
+
+In 1906 the trade agreement system encountered a new difficulty in the
+friction which developed between the operators of the several
+competitive districts. On the surface, the source of the friction was
+the attempt made by the Ohio and Illinois operators to organize a
+national coal operators' association to take the place of the several
+autonomous district organizations. The Pittsburgh operators, however,
+objected. They preferred the existing system of agreements under which
+each district organization possessed a veto power, since then they could
+keep the advantage over their competitors in Ohio and Indiana with which
+they had started under the original agreement of 1898. The miners in
+this emergency threw their power against the national operators'
+association. A suspension throughout most districts of the central
+competitive field followed. In the end, the miners won an increase in
+wages, but the Interstate agreement system was suspended, giving place
+to separate agreements for each district.
+
+In 1908 the situation of 1906 was repeated. This time the Illinois
+operators refused to attend the Interstate conference on the ground that
+the Interstate agreement severely handicapped Illinois. As said before,
+ever since 1897 payment in Illinois has been upon the run-of-mine basis;
+whereas in all other States of the central competitive field the miners
+were paid for screened coal only. With the operators of each State
+having one vote in the joint conference, it can be understood why the
+handicap against Illinois continued. Theoretically, of course, the
+Illinois operators might have voted against the acceptance of any
+agreement which gave an advantage to other States; however, against this
+weighed the fact that the union was strongest in Illinois. The Illinois
+operators, hence, preferred to deal separately with the United Mine
+Workers. Accordingly, an Interstate agreement was drawn up, applying
+only to Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
+
+In 1910, the Illinois operators again refused to enter the Interstate
+conference, but this time the United Mine Workers insisted upon a return
+to the Interstate agreement system of 1898. On April 1, 1910, operations
+were suspended throughout the central competitive field. By July
+agreements had been secured in every State save Illinois, the latter
+State holding out until September. This long struggle in Illinois was
+the first real test of strength between the operators and the miners
+since 1897. The miners' victory made it inevitable that the Illinois
+operators should eventually reenter the Interstate conference.
+
+In 1912, after repeated conferences, the net result was the restoration
+of the Interstate agreement as it existed before 1906. The special
+burden of which the Illinois operators had been complaining was not
+removed; yet they were compelled by the union to remain a party to the
+Interstate agreement. The union justified its special treatment of the
+operators in Illinois on the ground that the run-of-mine rates were 40
+percent below the screened coal rates, thus compensating them amply for
+the "slack" for which they had to pay under this system. The Federal
+report on "Restriction of Output" of 1904 substantiated the union's
+contention. Ultimately, the United Mine Workers unquestionably hoped to
+establish the run-of-mine system throughout the central competitive
+field.
+
+The union, incidentally to its policy of protecting the miners, has
+considerably affected the market or business structure of the industry.
+An outstanding policy of the union has been to equalize competitive
+costs over the entire area of a market by means of a system of grading
+tonnage rates paid to the miner, whereby competitive advantages of
+location, thickness of vein, and the like were absorbed in higher labor
+costs. This doubtless tended to eliminate cut-throat competition and
+thus stabilize the industry. On the other hand, it may have hindered the
+process of elimination of unprofitable mines, and therefore may be in
+some measure responsible for the present-day overdevelopment in the
+bituminous mining industry, which results in periodic unemployment and
+in idle mines.
+
+In the anthracite coal field in Eastern Pennsylvania the difficulties
+met by the United Mine Workers were at first far greater than in the
+bituminous branch of the industry. First, the working population was
+nearly all foreign-speaking, and the union thus lacked the fulcrum which
+it found in Illinois with its large proportion of English-speaking
+miners accustomed to organization and to carrying on a common purpose.
+Secondly, the employers, instead of being numerous and united only for
+joint dealing with labor, as in bituminous mining, were few in number
+besides being cemented together by a common selling policy on top of a
+common labor policy. In consequence, the union encountered a stone wall
+of opposition, which its loose ranks found for many years well-nigh
+impossible to overcome.
+
+During the general strike of 1897 the United Mine Workers made a
+beginning in organizing the anthracite miners. In September 1900, they
+called a general strike. Although at that time the union had only 8000
+members in this region, the strike order was obeyed by over 100,000
+miners; and within a few weeks the strike became truly general. Probably
+the union could not have won if it had to rely solely on economic
+strength. However, the impending Presidential election led to an
+interference by Senator Mark Hanna, President McKinley's campaign
+manager. Through him President John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers
+was informed that the operators would abolish the objectionable sliding
+scale system of wage payments, increase rates 10 percent and agree to
+meet committees of their employes for the adjustment of grievances.
+This, however, did not carry a formal recognition of the union; it was
+not a trade agreement but merely an unwritten understanding. A part of
+the same understanding was that the terms which had been agreed upon
+should remain in force until April, 1901. At its expiration the
+identical terms were renewed for another year, while the negotiations
+bore the same informal character.
+
+During 1902 the essential instability of the arrangement led to sharp
+friction. The miners claimed that many operators violated the unwritten
+agreement. The operators, on their part, charged that the union was
+using every means for practically enforcing the closed shop, which was
+not granted in the understanding. In the early months of 1902 the miners
+presented demands for a reduction of the hours of labor from 10 to 9,
+for a twenty percent increase in wages, for payment according to the
+weight of coal mined, and for the recognition of the union. The
+operators refused to negotiate, and on May 9 the famous anthracite
+strike of 1902 began.
+
+It is unnecessary to detail the events of the anthracite strike. No
+other strike is better known and remembered. More than 150,000 miners
+stood out for approximately five months. The strike was financed by a
+levy of one dollar per week upon all employed miners in the country,
+which yielded over $2,000,000. In addition several hundred thousand
+dollars came in from other trade unions and from the public generally.
+In October, when the country was facing a most serious coal famine,
+President Roosevelt took a hand. He called in the presidents of the
+anthracite railroads and the leading union officials for a conference in
+the White House and urged arbitration. At first he met with rebuff from
+the operators, but shortly afterward, with the aid of friendly pressure
+from New York financiers, the operators consented to accept the award of
+a commission to be appointed by himself. This was the well-known
+Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. Its appointment terminated the
+strike. Not until more than a half year later, however, was the award of
+the Commission made. It conceded the miners a 10 percent increase in
+wages, the eight and nine-hour day, and the privilege of having a union
+check-weighman at the scale where the coal sent up in cars by the miners
+is weighed. Recognition was not accorded the union, except that it was
+required to bear one-half of the expense connected with the maintenance
+of a joint arbitration board created by the Commission. When this award
+was announced there was much dissatisfaction with it among the miners.
+President Mitchell, however, put forth every effort to have the union
+accept the award. Upon a referendum vote the miners accepted his view.
+
+The anthracite coal strike of 1902 was doubtless the most important
+single event in the history of American trade unionism until that time
+and has since scarcely been surpassed. To be sure, events like the great
+railway strike of 1877 and the Chicago Anarchist bomb and trial in
+1886-1887 had equally forced the labor question into public attention.
+What distinguished the anthracite coal strike, however, was that for the
+first time a labor organization tied up for months a strategic industry
+and caused wide suffering and discomfort to the public without being
+condemned as a revolutionary menace to the existing social order calling
+for suppression by the government; it was, on the contrary, adjudged a
+force within the preserves of orderly society and entitled to public
+sympathy. The public identified the anthracite employers with the trust
+movement, which was then new and seemingly bent upon uprooting the
+traditional free American social order; by contrast, the striking miners
+appeared almost as champions of Old America. A strong contributory
+factor was the clumsy tactics of the employers who played into the hands
+of the leaders of the miners. The latter, especially John Mitchell,
+conducted their case with great skill.
+
+Yet the award of the Commission fell considerably short of what the
+union and its sympathizers outside the ranks of labor hoped for. For by
+refusing to grant formal recognition, the Commission failed to
+constitute unionism into a publicly recognized agency in the management
+of industry and declared by implication that the role of unionism ended
+with a presentation of grievances and complaints.
+
+For ten years after the strike of 1902 the union failed to develop the
+strength in the anthracite field which many believed would follow.
+Certain proof of the weakness of the union is furnished by the fact that
+the wage-scale in that field remained stationary until 1912 despite a
+rising cost of living. The wages of the anthracite miners in 1912 were
+slightly higher than in 1902, because coal prices had increased and the
+Anthracite Coal Strike Commission had reestablished a sliding scale
+system of tonnage rates.
+
+A great weakness, while the union still struggled for existence, was the
+lack of the "check-off." Membership would swell immediately before the
+expiration of the agreement but diminish with restoration of quiet. With
+no immediate outlook for a strike the Slav and Italian miners refused to
+pay union dues. The original award was to be in force until April 1,
+1906. In June, 1905, the union membership was less than 39,000. But by
+April 1, 1906, one-half of the miners were in the union. A month's
+suspension of operations followed. Early in May the union and the
+operators reached an agreement to leave the award of the Anthracite Coal
+Strike Commission in force for another three years.
+
+The following three years brought a duplication of the developments of
+1903-1906. Again membership fell off only to return in the spring of
+1909. Again the union demanded formal recognition, and again it was
+refused. Again the original award was extended for three more years.
+
+In the winter of 1912, when the time for renewing the agreement again
+drew near, the entire membership in the three anthracite districts was
+slightly above 29,000. Nevertheless, the union demanded a twenty percent
+raise, a complete recognition of the union, the check-off, and yearly
+agreements, in addition to a more expeditious system of settling local
+grievances to replace the slow and cumbersome joint arbitration boards
+provided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180,000 anthracite
+miners followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made no
+attempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basis
+of the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately
+10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in local
+disputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of recognition,
+but by no means a complete recognition. Nor was the check-off system
+granted. Strangest of all, the agreement called for a four-year
+contract, as against a one-year contract originally demanded by the
+union. In spite of the opposition of local leaders, the miners accepted
+the agreement. President White's chief plea for acceptance was the need
+to rebuild the union before anything ambitious could be attempted.
+
+After 1912 the union entered upon the work of organization in earnest.
+In the following two years the membership was more than quadrupled. With
+the stopping of immigration due to the European War, the power of the
+union was greatly increased. Consequently, in 1916, when the agreement
+was renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wage
+increase and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The United
+Mine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share of
+industrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of the
+country; while demonstrating beyond doubt that, with intelligent
+preparation and with sympathetic treatment, the polyglot immigrant
+masses from Southern and Eastern Europe, long thought to be impervious
+to the idea of labor organization, can be changed into reliable material
+for unionism.
+
+The growth of the union in general is shown by the following figures.
+In 1898 it was 33,000; in 1900, 116,000; in 1903, 247,000; in 1908,
+252,000; and in 1913, 378,000.[58]
+
+
+(2) _The Railway Men_
+
+The railway men are divided into three groups. One group comprises the
+Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railroad Conductors,
+the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, and the Brotherhood of
+Railroad Trainmen. These are the oldest and strongest railway men's
+organizations and do not belong to the American Federation of Labor. A
+second group are the shopmen, comprising the International Association
+of Machinists; the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop
+Forgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; the
+Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhood
+of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America; the
+International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the International
+Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and more
+miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of
+Railway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, the
+International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad
+Shop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. The
+organizations comprised in the latter two groups belong to the American
+Federation of Labor. For the period from 1898 to the outbreak of the
+War, the organizations, popularly known as the "brotherhoods," namely,
+those of the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trainmen, are of
+outstanding importance.
+
+The brotherhoods were unique among American labor organizations in that
+for many years they practically reproduced in most of their features the
+sort of unionism typified by the great "Amalgamated" unions of the
+fifties and sixties in England.[59] Like these unions the brotherhoods
+stressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did not
+actually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that the
+emphasis on insurance was due not to "philosophy," but to the practical
+consideration that, owing to the extra hazardous nature of their
+occupations, the men could get no insurance protection from ordinary
+commercial insurance companies.
+
+By the end of the eighties the brotherhoods began to press energetically
+for improvements in employment conditions and found the railways not
+disinclined to grant their demands in a measure. This was due in great
+measure to the strategic position of these trades, which have it in
+their power completely to tie up the industry when on strike, causing
+enormous losses to the carriers.[60] Accordingly, they were granted
+wages which fairly placed them among the lower professional groups in
+society as well as other privileges, notably "seniority" in promotion,
+that is promotion based on length of service and not on a free selection
+by the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the train
+personnel service is so organized that each employe will pass several
+times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung
+on the industrial ladder.[61] For instance, a typical passenger train
+engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on
+a passenger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to
+engineer on a passenger train. A similar sequence is arranged in
+advancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority the
+brotherhoods received the right of appeal in cases of discharge, which
+has done much to eliminate discrimination. Since they were enjoying such
+exceptional advantages relative to income, to the security of the job,
+and to the stability of their organization, it is not surprising, in
+view of the limited class solidarity among American laboring men in
+general, that these groups of workers should have chosen to stand alone
+in their wage bargaining and that their refusal to enter "entangling
+alliances" with other less favored groups should have gone even to the
+length of staying out of the American Federation of Labor.
+
+This condition of relative harmony between employer and employe,
+notwithstanding the energetic bargaining, continued for about fifteen
+years until it was disturbed by factors beyond the control of either
+railway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of living
+forced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages.
+At the same time an ever tightening regulation of railway rates by the
+Federal government since 1906 practically prevented a shift of increased
+costs to the shipper. "Class struggles" on the railways began in
+earnest.
+
+The new situation was brought home to the brotherhoods in the course of
+several wage arbitration cases in which they figured.[62] The outcome
+taught them that the public will give them only limited support in their
+efforts to maintain their real income at the old high level compared
+with other classes of workers.
+
+A most important case arose from a "concerted movement" in 1912[63] of
+the engineers and firemen on the 52 Eastern roads for higher wages. Two
+separate arbitration boards were appointed. The engineers' board
+consisted of seven members, one each for the interests involved and five
+representing the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers,
+first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because it
+contained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all wages of
+all railway employes fixed by a government commission, which implied a
+restriction of the right to strike. The award in the firemen's case,
+which was decided practically simultaneously with the engineers', failed
+to satisfy either side.
+
+The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move "in
+concert" for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoods
+decided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strike
+occasioned the passage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to
+the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation and
+with more specified conditions relative to the work of the arbitration
+boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit
+to arbitration.
+
+
+The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than
+one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for
+uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded
+time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to
+their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.
+
+Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen
+on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against
+arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the
+board of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath of
+this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the "neutrals" on
+the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with
+several concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities.
+Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded the
+eight-hour day, they categorically refused to consider arbitration.[64]
+The evolution to a fighting unionism had become complete.
+
+While the brotherhoods of the train service personnel were thus shifting
+their tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by the
+other unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the good
+fortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and
+"recognition." Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreements
+with the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole,
+however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of a
+precarious sort.
+
+To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they
+started about 1904 a movement for "system federations,"[65] that is,
+federations of all organized trades through the length of a given
+railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the
+Illinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federations
+sharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like the
+Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the
+separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In
+1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on
+the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system
+federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty
+systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentative
+Railway Employes' Department had been launched by the American
+Federation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rival
+organization and "illegal" or, at best, "extra-legal" from the
+standpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however,
+was too acute to permit the consideration of "legality" to enter. An
+adjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was
+"legitimatized" through fusion with the "Department," to which it gave
+its constitution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it took
+only its name. This is the now well-known Railway Employes' Department
+of the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important national
+unions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), and
+which, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took over
+the railways from their private owners eight months after America's
+entry into the World War.
+
+
+(3) _The Machinery and Metal Trades_
+
+Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in the
+machinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for
+"recognition" and trade agreements. The outstanding unions in the
+industry are the International Association of Machinists and the
+International Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small
+unions.[66] The molders' International united in the same union the
+stove molders, who as was seen had been "recognized" in 1891, and the
+molders of parts of machinery and other foundry products. The latter
+found the National Founders' Association as their antagonist or
+potential "co-partner" in the industry.
+
+The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth of
+trade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstate
+agreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmosphere
+favorable to trade agreements. For a time "recognition" and its
+implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the
+public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, in
+March 1899, the National Founders' Association (organized in the
+previous year and comprising foundrymen engaged principally in machinery
+manufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders' Union of North
+America met and drew up the following tersely worded agreement which
+became known as the New York Agreement:
+
+     "That in event of a dispute arising between members of the
+     respective organizations, a reasonable effort shall be made by the
+     parties directly at interest to effect a satisfactory adjustment of
+     the difficulty; failing to do which, either party shall have the
+     right to ask its reference to a Committee of Arbitration which
+     shall consist of the President of the National Founders'
+     Association and the President of the Iron Molders' Union or their
+     representatives, and two other representatives from each
+     organization appointed by the respective Presidents.
+
+     "The finding of this Committee of Arbitration by majority vote
+     shall be considered final in so far as the future action of the
+     respective organizations is concerned.
+
+     "Pending settlement by the Committee, there shall be no cessation
+     of work at the instance of either party to the dispute. The
+     Committee of Arbitration shall meet within two weeks after
+     reference of dispute to them."
+
+The agreement was a triumph for the principle of pure conciliation as
+distinct from arbitration by a third party. Both sides preferred to run
+the risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery to
+throwing decisions into the hands of an umpire, who would be an
+uncertain quantity both as regards special bias and understanding of the
+industry.
+
+The initial meeting of the arbitration committee was held in Cleveland,
+in May 1899, to consider the demand by the unions at Worcester,
+Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, for a minimum wage which
+the employers had refused. In each city one member of the National
+Founders' Association was involved and the men in these firms went to
+work pending the arbitration decision, while the others stayed out on
+strike.
+
+The meeting ended inauspiciously. The founders and molders seemed not
+to be able to settle their difficulties. Each side stood fast on its own
+principles and the arbitration committees regularly became deadlocked.
+The question of a minimum wage was the most important issue. From 1899
+to 1902 several joint conventions were held to discuss the wage
+question. In 1899 a settlement was made, which, however, proved of short
+duration. In November 1902, the two organizations met, differed, and
+arranged for a sub-committee to meet in March 1903. The sub-committee
+met but could reach no agreement.
+
+The two organizations clashed also on the question of apprentices. The
+founders contended that, because there were not enough molders to fill
+the present demand, the union restrictions as to the employment of
+apprentices should be removed. The union argued that a removal of the
+restriction would cause unlimited competition among molders and
+eventually the founders could employ them at their own price. They
+likewise failed to agree on the matter of classifying molders.
+
+Owing to the stalling of the conciliation machinery many strikes
+occurred in violation at least of the spirit of the agreement. July 1,
+1901, the molders struck in Cleveland for an increase in wages;
+arbitration committees were appointed but failed to make a settlement.
+In Chicago and San Francisco strikes occurred for the same reason.
+
+It was at last becoming evident that the New York agreement was not
+working well. In the autumn of 1903 business prosperity reached its high
+watermark and then came a sharp depression which lessened the demand for
+molders. Early in 1904 the National Founders' Association took advantage
+of this situation to reduce wages and finally practically abrogated the
+New York agreement. In April, 1904, the founders and molders tried to
+reach a decision as to how the agreement could be made effective, but
+gave it up after four days and nights of constant consideration. The
+founders claimed that the molders violated the agreement in 54 out of
+the 96 cases that came up during the five years of its life; and further
+justified their action on the ground that the union persistently refused
+to submit to arbitration by an impartial outsider the issues upon which
+the agreement was finally wrecked.
+
+An agreement similar to the New York one was concluded in 1900 between
+the National Metal Trades' Association and the International Association
+of Machinists. The National Metal Trades' Association had been organized
+in 1899 by members of the National Founders' Association, whose
+foundries formed only a part of their manufacturing plants. The spur to
+action was given by a strike called by the machinists in Chicago and
+other cities for the nine-hour day. After eight weeks of intense
+struggle the Association made a settlement granting a promise of the
+shorter day. Although hailed as one of the big agreements in labor
+history, it lasted only one year, and broke up on the issue of making
+the nine-hour day general in the Association shops. The machinists
+continued to make numerous agreements with individual firms, especially
+the smaller ones, but the general agreement was never renewed.
+Thereafter the National Metal Trades' Association became an
+uncompromising enemy of organized labor.
+
+In the following ten years both molders and machinists went on fighting
+for control and engaged in strikes with more or less success. But the
+industry as a whole never again came so near to embracing the idea of a
+joint co-partnership between organized capital and labor as in 1900.
+
+
+(4) _The Employers' Reaction_
+
+With the disruption of the agreement systems in the machinery producing
+and foundry industries, the idea of collective bargaining and union
+recognition suffered a setback; and the employers' uneasiness, which had
+already steadily been feeding on the unions' mounting pressure for
+control, now increased materially. As long, however, as business
+remained prosperous and a rising demand for labor favored the unions,
+most of the agreements were permitted to continue. Therefore, it was not
+until the industrial depression of 1907-1908 had freed the employers'
+hands that agreements were disrupted wholesale. In 1905 the Structural
+Erectors' Association discontinued its agreements with the Structural
+Iron Workers' Union, causing a dispute which continued over many years.
+In the course of this dispute the union replied to the victorious
+assaults of the employers by tactics of violence and murder, which
+culminated in the fatal explosion in the _Los Angeles Times_ Building in
+1911. In 1906 the employing lithographers discontinued their national
+agreement with the lithographers' union. In 1907 the United Typothetæ
+broke with the pressmen, and the stove founders with the stove mounters
+and stove polishers. In 1908 the agreements between the Lake Carriers
+and Lumber Carriers (both operating on the Great Lakes) and the
+seafaring and water front unions were terminated.
+
+In the operation of these unsuccessful agreements the most serious
+stumbling blocks were the union "working rules," that is to say, the
+restrictive rules which unions strove to impose on employers in the
+exercise of their managerial powers in the shop, and for which the
+latter adopted the sinister collective designation of "restriction of
+output."
+
+Successful trade unionism has always pressed "working rules" on the
+employer. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, the
+trade societies then existing tried to impose on the masters the closed
+shop and restrictions on apprenticeship along with higher wages and
+shorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral association to a
+stable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages to
+working rules. Unionists have discovered that on the whole wages are the
+unstable factor, going up or down, depending on fluctuating business
+conditions and cost of living; but that once they have established their
+power by making the employer accept their working rules, high wages will
+ultimately follow.
+
+These working rules are seldom improvisations of the moment, but, crude
+and one-sided as they often are, they are the product of a long labor
+experience and have taken many years to be shaped and hammered out.
+Since their purpose is protective, they can best be classified with
+reference to the particular thing in the workingman's life which they
+are designed to protect: the standard of living of the trade group,
+health, the security of the worker's job, equal treatment in the shop
+and an equal chance with other workmen in promotion, the bargaining
+power of the trade group, as a whole, and the safety of the union from
+the employer's attempts to undermine it. We shall mention only a few of
+these rules by way of illustration. Thus all rules relating to methods
+of wage payment, like the prohibition of piece work and of bonus
+systems (including those associated with scientific management
+systems), are primarily devices to protect the wage earner's rate of pay
+against being "nibbled away" by the employer; and in part also to
+protect his health against undue exertion. Other rules like the normal
+(usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the rule
+demanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or a
+guarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quantity of work
+available in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slack
+times among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary,
+the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuous
+employment based on "seniority" in the shop;--all these have for their
+common aim chiefly the protection of the job. Another sort of rules,
+like the obstruction to the splitting up of trades and the restrictions
+on apprenticeship, have in view the protection of the bargaining power
+of the craft group--through artificially maintaining an undiminished
+demand for skilled labor, as well as through a reduction of the number
+of competitors, present and future, for jobs. The protection of the
+union against the employer's designs, actual or potential, is sought by
+an insistence on the closed union shop, by the recognition of the right
+of appeal to grievance boards in cases of discharge to prevent
+anti-union discrimination, and through establishing a seniority right in
+promotion which binds the worker's allegiance to his union rather than
+to the employer.
+
+With these rigid rules, partly already enforced on the employer by
+strikes or threats to strike and partly as yet unrealized but
+energetically pushed, trade unionism enters the stage of the trade
+agreement. The problem of industrial government then becomes one of
+steady adjustment of the conflicting claims of employer and union for
+the province of shop control staked out by these working rules. When the
+two sides are approximately equal in bargaining strength (and lasting
+agreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promising
+line of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extend
+to the unions and their members in some form that will least obstruct
+shop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive to
+obtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employer
+might induce a union to give up or agree to mitigate its working rules
+designed to protect the job by offering a _quid pro quo_ in a guarantee
+of employment for a stated number of weeks during the year; and
+likewise, a union might hope to counteract the employer's natural
+hankering for being "boss in his own business," free of any union
+working rules, only provided it guaranteed him a sufficient output per
+unit of labor time and wage investment.
+
+However, compromises of this sort are pure experiments even at
+present--fifteen to twenty years after the dissolution of those
+agreements; and they certainly require more faith in government by
+agreement and more patience than one could expect in the participants in
+these earlier agreements. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
+short period of agreements after 1898 should in many industries have
+formed but a prelude to an "open-shop" movement.[67]
+
+After their breach with the union, the National Founders' Association
+and the National Metal Trades' Association have gone about the business
+of union wrecking in a systematic way. They have maintained a so-called
+"labor bureau," furnishing men to their members whenever additional help
+was needed, and keeping a complete card system record of every man in
+the employ of members. By this system occasion was removed for employers
+communicating with the business agents of the various unions when new
+men were wanted. The associations have had in their regular pay a large
+number of non-union men, or "strike-breakers," who were sent to the shop
+of any member whose employes were on strike.
+
+In addition to these and other national organizations, the trade unions
+were attacked by a large and important class of local employers'
+associations. The most influential association of this class was the
+Employers' Association of Dayton, Ohio. This association had a standing
+strike committee which, in trying to break a strike, was authorized to
+offer rewards to the men who continued at work, and even to compensate
+the employer for loss of production to the limit of one dollar per day
+for each man on strike. Also a system was adopted of issuing cards to
+all employes, which the latter, in case of changing employment, were
+obliged to present to the new employer and upon which the old employer
+inscribed his recommendation. The extreme anti-unionism of the Dayton
+Association is best attested by its policy of taking into membership
+employers who were threatened with strikes, notwithstanding the heavy
+financial obligations involved.
+
+Another class of local associations were the "Citizens' Alliances,"
+which did not restrict membership to employers but admitted all
+citizens, the only qualification being that the applicant be not a
+member of any labor organization. These organizations were frequently
+started by employers and secured cooperation of citizens generally. In
+some places there were two associations, an employers' and a Citizens'
+Alliance. A good example of this was the Citizens' Alliances of Denver,
+Colorado, organized in 1903. These "Citizens' Alliances," being by
+virtue of mixed membership more than a mere employers' organization,
+claimed in time of strikes to voice the sentiment of the community in
+general.
+
+So much for the employers' counter attacks on trade unions on the
+strictly industrial front. But there were also a legal front and a
+political front. In 1902 was organized the American Anti-Boycott
+Association, a secret body composed mainly of manufacturers. The purpose
+of the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts of
+trade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott.
+The energies of the association have been devoted mainly to taking
+certain typical cases to the courts in order thereby to create legal
+precedents. The famous Danbury Hatters' Case, in which the Sherman
+Anti-Trust law was invoked against the hatters' union, was fought in the
+courts by this Association.
+
+The employers' fight on the political front was in charge of the
+National Association of Manufacturers. This association was originally
+organized in 1895 for the pursuit of purely trade interests, but about
+1903, under the influence of the Dayton, Ohio, group of employers,
+turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with other
+employers' associations in the industrial and legal field, but its chief
+efforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it has
+succeeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in nullifying
+labor's political influence, especially in Congress. The National
+Association of Manufacturers saw to it that Congress and State
+Legislatures might not weaken the effect of court orders, injunctions
+and decisions on boycotts, closed shop, and related matters.
+
+The "open-shop movement" in its several aspects, industrial, legal, and
+political, continued strong from 1903 to 1909. Nevertheless, despite
+most persistent effort and despite the opportunity offered by the
+business depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, the
+results were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapid
+rate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogression
+from ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unions
+managed to prevent wage reductions in the organized trades
+notwithstanding the unemployment and distress of 1907-1908. On the whole
+trade unionism held its own against employers in strictly competitive
+industry. Different, however, was the outcome in industries in which the
+number of employers had been reduced by monopolistic or
+semi-monopolistic mergers.
+
+The steel industry is the outstanding instance.[68] The disastrous
+Homestead strike of 1892[69] had eliminated unionism from the steel
+plants of Pittsburgh. However, the Carnegie Steel Company was only a
+highly efficient and powerful corporation, not yet a "trust." The panic
+of 1893 dealt another blow to the Amalgamated Association of Iron &
+Steel Workers. The steel mills of Alleghany County, outside Pittsburgh,
+were all put upon a non-union basis before 1900. In Pittsburgh, the iron
+mills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to
+the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel
+mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron
+hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a
+gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials
+were alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an old
+enemy of unionism, would easily be first and would, they feared, insist
+on driving the union out of every mill in the combination. Then it
+occurred to President Shaffer and his associates that it might be a
+propitious time to press for recognition while the new corporation was
+forming. Anxious for public confidence and to float their securities,
+the companies could not afford a labor controversy.
+
+Accordingly, when the new scales were to be signed in July 1901, the
+Amalgamated Association demanded of the American Tin Plate Company that
+it sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as union
+but for all of its mills. This was agreed, provided the American Sheet
+Steel Company would agree to the same. The latter company refused, and a
+strike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American
+Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferences
+held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin
+mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the
+preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for
+all the hoop mills that had been signed for in the preceding year. This
+highly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representatives
+of the union; they demanded all the mills or none. The strike then went
+on in earnest. In August, President Shaffer called on all the men
+working in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out on
+strike.
+
+By the middle of August it was evident that the Association had made a
+mistake. Instead of finding their task easier because the United States
+Steel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation
+ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the
+organization. President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter,
+but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike was
+declared at an end.
+
+The steel industry was apparently closed to unionism.[70]
+
+
+(5) _Legislation, Courts, and Politics_
+
+While trade unionism was thus on the whole holding its ground against
+the employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influence
+on National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect its
+growing economic strength. The scant success with legislation resulted,
+on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new
+fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a
+still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the
+Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt
+directed his spectacular campaign. A good illustration is furnished by
+the attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work.
+
+In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance upon
+efforts to shorten the working day through legislation. The movement for
+shorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in the
+nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and
+social workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for
+women and children workers, but so far as adult male labor was
+concerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for the
+trade unions. The exception to the rule was the working day on public
+work.
+
+The Federal eight-hour day law began to receive attention from the
+Federation towards the end of the eighties. By that time the status of
+the law of 1868 which decreed the eight-hour day on Federal government
+work[71] had been greatly altered. In a decision rendered in 1887 the
+Supreme Court held that the eight-hour day law of 1868 was merely
+directory to the officials of the Federal government, but did not
+invalidate contracts made by them not containing an eight-hour clause.
+To counteract this decision a special law was passed in 1888, with the
+support of the Federation, establishing the eight-hour day in the United
+States Printing Office and for letter carriers. In 1892 a new general
+eight-hour law was passed, which provided that eight-hours should be the
+length of the working day on all public works of the United States,
+whether directed by the government or under contract or sub-contract.
+Within the next few years interpretations rendered by attorney generals
+of the United States practically rendered the law useless.
+
+In 1895 the Federation began to press in earnest for a satisfactory
+eight-hour law. In 1896 its eight-hour bill passed the House of
+Representatives unanimously. In the Senate it was introduced by Senator
+Kyle, the chairman of the committee on Education and Labor. After its
+introduction, however, hearings upon the bill were delayed so long that
+action was prevented during the long session. In the short session of
+1898-1899 the bill met the cruel fate of having its introducer, Senator
+Kyle, submit a minority report against it. Under the circumstances no
+vote upon the bill could be had in the Senate. In the next Congress,
+1899-1901, the eight-hour bill once more passed the House of
+Representatives only to be lost in the Senate by failure to come to a
+vote. In 1902, the bill again unanimously passed the House, but was not
+even reported upon by the Senate committee. In the hearings upon the
+eight-hour bill in that year the opposition of the National
+Manufacturers' Association was first manifested. In 1904 the House Labor
+Committee sidetracked a similar bill by recommending that the Department
+of Commerce and Labor should investigate its merits. Secretary Metcalf,
+however, declared that the questions submitted to his Department with
+reference to the eight-hour bill were "well-nigh unintelligible." In
+1906 the House Labor Committee, at a very late stage in the session,
+reported "favorably" upon the eight-hour bill. At the same time it
+eliminated all chances of passage of the bill through the failure of a
+majority of the members of the committee to sign the "favorable" report
+made. This session of Congress, also, allowed a "rider" to be added to
+the Panama Canal bill, exempting the canal construction from the
+provisions of the eight-hour law. In the next two Congresses no report
+could be obtained from the labor committees of either House upon the
+general eight-hour day bill, despite the fact that President Roosevelt
+and later President Taft recommended such legislation. In the sessions
+of the Congress of 1911-1913 the American Federation of Labor hit upon a
+new plan. This was the attachment of "riders" to departmental
+appropriation bills requiring that all work contracted for by these
+departments must be done under the eight-hour system. The most important
+"rider" of this character was that attached to the naval appropriation
+bill. Under its provisions the Attorney-General held that in all work
+done in shipyards upon vessels built for the Federal government the
+eight-hour rule must be applied. Finally, in June 1912, a Democratic
+House and a Republican Senate passed the eight-hour bill supported by
+the American Federation of Labor with some amendments, which the
+Federation did not find seriously objectionable; and President Taft
+signed it.
+
+Still better proof of the slight influence of the Federation upon
+government is furnished by the vicissitudes of its anti-injunction bills
+in Congress. The Federation had been awakened to the seriousness of the
+matter of the injunction by the Debs case. A bill of its sponsoring
+providing for jury trials in "indirect" contempt cases passed the Senate
+in 1896 only to be killed in the House. In 1900 only eight votes were
+recorded in the House against a bill exempting labor unions from the
+Sherman Anti-Trust Act; it failed, however, of passage in the Senate. In
+1902 an anti-injunction bill championed by the American Federation of
+Labor passed the House of Representatives. That was the last time,
+however, for many years to come when such a bill was even reported out
+of committee. Thereafter, for a decade, the controlling powers in
+Congress had their faces set against removal by law of the judicial
+interference in labor's use of its economic strength against employers.
+
+In the meantime, however, new court decisions made the situation more
+and more critical. A climax was reached in 1908-1909. In February 1908,
+came the Supreme Court decision in the Danbury Hatters' case, which held
+that members of a labor union could be held financially responsible to
+the full amount of their individual property under the Sherman
+Anti-Trust Act for losses to business occasioned by an interstate
+boycott.[72] By way of contrast, the Supreme Court within the same week
+held unconstitutional the portion of the Erdman Act which prohibited
+discrimination by railways against workmen on account of their
+membership in a union.[73] One year later, in the Buck's Stove and Range
+Company boycott case, Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison, the three most
+prominent officials of the American Federation of Labor, were sentenced
+by a lower court in the District of Columbia to long terms in prison for
+violating an injunction which prohibited all mention of the fact that
+the plaintiff firm had ever been boycotted.[74] Even though neither
+these nor subsequent court decisions had the paralyzing effect upon
+American trade unionism which its enemies hoped for and its friends
+feared, the situation called for a change in tactics. It thus came about
+that the Federation, which, as was seen, by the very principles of its
+program wished to let government alone,--as it indeed expected little
+good of government,--was obliged to enter into competition with the
+employers for controlling government; this was because one branch of the
+government, namely the judicial one, would not let it alone.
+
+A growing impatience with Congress was manifested in resolutions adopted
+by successive conventions. In 1902 the convention authorized the
+Executive Council to take "such further steps as will secure the
+nomination--and the election--of only such men as are fully and
+satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills" championed by the
+Federation. Accordingly, the Executive Council prepared a series of
+questions to be submitted to all candidates for Congress in 1904 by the
+local unions of each district.
+
+The Federation was more active in the Congressional election of 1906.
+Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use
+their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or
+conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's
+demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run
+independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands
+of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity
+and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the
+districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urge
+their defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefield
+of Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invaded
+his district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor.
+However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over the
+preceding election. The only positive success was the election of
+McDermott of the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. President
+Gompers, however, insisted that the cutting down of the majorities of
+the conspicuous enemies of labor's demands gave "more than a hint" of
+what organized labor "can and may do when thoroughly prepared to
+exercise its political strength." Nevertheless the next Congress was
+even more hostile than the preceding one. The convention of the
+Federation following the election approved the new tactics, but was
+careful at the same time to declare that the Federation was neither
+allied with any political party nor had any intention of forming an
+independent labor party.
+
+In the Presidential election of 1908, however, the Federation virtually
+entered into an alliance with the Democrats. At a "Protest Conference"
+in March, 1908, attended by the executive officers of most of the
+affiliated national unions as well as by the representatives of several
+farmers' organizations, the threat was uttered that organized labor
+would make a determined effort in the coming campaign to defeat its
+enemies, whether "candidates for President, for Congress, or other
+offices." The next step was the presentation of the demands of the
+Federation to the platform committees of the conventions of both
+parties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests that
+it had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, since
+it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of malicious
+conspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protect
+business rights, which had regularly been asked by the American
+Federation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted an
+indefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labor
+disputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed and a
+declaration in favor of jury trial on the charge of contempt of court.
+
+The Republicans paid scant attention to the planks of the Federation.
+Their platform merely reiterated the recognized law upon the allowance
+of equity relief; and as if to leave no further doubt in the minds of
+the labor leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft,
+who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some of
+the most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A year
+earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunction
+standard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic
+platform, on the other hand, _verbatim_ repeated the Federation plank on
+the injunction question and nominated Bryan.
+
+After the party conventions had adjourned the _American Federationist_
+entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate.
+President Gompers recognized that this was equivalent to an endorsement
+of Bryan, but pleaded that "in performing a solemn duty at this time in
+support of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a
+political party, but partisan to a principle." Substantially, all
+prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead.
+That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is
+apparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it is
+true that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centers
+was not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant the
+conclusion that Gompers may have "delivered to Bryan" not a few labor
+votes which would otherwise have gone to Debs.
+
+In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policy
+of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies." However, it avoided
+more successfully the appearance of partisanship. Many progressive
+Republicans received as strong support as did Democratic candidates.
+Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that the
+Federation was at last "on the inside" of one branch of the government.
+In addition, fifteen men holding cards of membership in unions, were
+elected to Congress, which was the largest number on record. Furthermore
+William B. Wilson, Ex-Secretary of the United Mine Workers, was
+appointed chairman of the important House Committee on Labor.
+
+The Congress of 1911-1913 with its Democratic House of Representatives
+passed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had been
+urging for fifteen years. It passed an eight-hour law on government
+contract work, as already noted, and a seaman's bill, which went far to
+grant to the sailors the freedom of contract enjoyed by other wage
+earners. It created a Department of Labor with a seat in the Cabinet. It
+also attached a "rider" to the appropriation bill for the Department of
+Justice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes of
+prosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and
+other Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointed
+to the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic House
+of Representatives and let the workers draw their own conclusions. The
+corner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legal
+exemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislation
+and from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yet
+to be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democratic
+administration was the logical means to that end.
+
+At last, with the election of Woodrow Wilson as President and of a
+Democratic Congress in 1912, the political friends of the Federation
+controlled all branches of government. William B. Wilson was given the
+place of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, the
+Federation was an "insider" in the national government. The road now
+seemed clear to the attainment by trade unions of freedom from court
+interference in struggles against employers--a judicial _laissez-faire_.
+The political program initiated in 1906 seemed to be bearing fruit.
+
+The drift into politics, since 1906, has differed essentially from that
+of earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from "on top," not
+from the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats in
+strikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led by
+local unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically in
+all preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the American
+Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file
+seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who
+held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions
+than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of
+court. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by the
+Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation
+leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the
+political parties by holding out a _quid pro quo_ of such an uncertain
+value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a mark
+of the instability of the general political alignment in the country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[44] The bricklayers became affiliated in 1917.
+
+[45] "The Growth of Labor Organizations in the United States,
+1897-1914," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, Aug., 1916, p. 780.
+
+[46] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
+Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.
+
+[47] _Ibid._
+
+[48] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
+Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.
+
+[49] The "federal labor unions" (mixed unions) and the directly
+affiliated local trade unions (in trades in which a national union does
+not yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designed
+for bringing in the more miscellaneous classes of labor. The membership
+in these has seldom reached over 100,000.
+
+[50] A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where the
+only anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found.
+
+[51] At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operators
+from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organized
+miners and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevail
+throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30,
+1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish
+to give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohio
+operators. Ohio was favored in the scale established by this first
+Interstate conference probably because more than half of the operators
+present came from that State, and because the chief strength of the
+miners' union also lay in that State. To prevent friction over the
+interpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and
+conciliation was established. This board consisted of five miners and
+five operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more from
+each of the States of this field. Such a board of arbitration and
+conciliation was provided for in all of the Interstate agreements of the
+period of the eighties. This system of Interstate agreement, in spite of
+the cut-throat competition raging between operators, was maintained for
+Pennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lost
+in 1887, and Indiana in 1888. It formed the real predecessor of the
+system established in 1898 and in vogue thereafter.
+
+[52] See above, 136.
+
+[53] The run-of-mine system means payment by weight of the coal as
+brought out of the mine including minute pieces and impurities.
+
+[54] The check-off system refers to collection of union dues. It means
+that the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner the
+amount of his union dues, thus constituting himself the union's
+financial agent.
+
+[55] In that district the check-off was granted in 1902.
+
+[56] Hitchman Coal and Coke Company _v._ Mitchell, 245 U.S. 232.
+
+[57] See below, 175-177.
+
+[58] The actual membership of the union is considerably above these
+figures, since they are based upon the dues-paying membership, and
+miners out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues. The
+number of miners who always act with the union is much larger still.
+Even in non-union fields the United Mine Workers have always been
+successful in getting thousands of miners to obey their order to strike.
+
+[59] See Webb, _History of Trade Unionism_, p. 205 ff.
+
+[60] This was demonstrated in the bitterly fought strike on the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1888. (See above, 130-131.)
+
+[61] Seniority also decides the assignment to "runs," which differ
+greatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior employes in
+keeping the job when it is necessary to lay men off.
+
+[62] The first arbitration act was passed by Congress in 1888. In 1898
+it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, which prescribed rules
+for mediation and voluntary arbitration.
+
+[63] Concerted movements began in 1907 as joint demands upon all
+railways in a single section of the country, like the East or the West,
+by a single group of employes; after 1912 two or more brotherhoods
+initiated common concerted movements, first in one section only, and at
+last covering all the railways of the country.
+
+[64] See below, 230-233.
+
+[65] Long before this, about the middle of the nineties, the first
+system federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confined
+to them only; they took up adjustment of grievances and related matters.
+
+[66] The International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Brotherhood of
+Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, the Pattern Makers' League, the
+International Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of Metal
+Polishers, Platers, Brass and Silver Workers, the International
+Federation of Draftsmen's Unions, and the International Brotherhood of
+Foundry Employes.
+
+[67] Professor Barnett attributes the failure of these agreements
+chiefly to faulty agreement machinery. The working rules, he points out,
+are rules made by the national union and therefore can be changed by the
+national union only. At the same time the agreements were national only
+in so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; the
+fixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the national
+employers' associations lacked the power to offer the unions an
+indispensable _quid pro quo_ in higher wages for a compromise on working
+rules. ("National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in the
+United States," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, May, 1912, pp. 425
+ff.)
+
+[68] The following account is taken from Chapter X of the _Steel
+Workers_ by John A. Fitch, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.
+
+[69] See above, 133-135.
+
+[70] The opposition of the Steel Corporation to unionism was an
+important factor in the disruption of the agreement systems in the
+structural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industry
+on the Great Lakes in 1908; in each of these industries the Corporation
+holds a place of considerable control.
+
+[71] See above, 47-49.
+
+[72] Loewe _v._ Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908).
+
+[73] Adair _v._ U.S., 208 U.S. 161 (1908).
+
+[74] 36 Wash. Law Rep. 436 (1909). Gompers was finally sentenced to
+imprisonment for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined
+$500 each. These penalties were later lifted by the Supreme Court on a
+technicality, 233 U.S. 604 (1914).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION"
+
+
+For ten years after 1904, when it reached its high point, the American
+Federation of Labor was obliged to stay on the defensive--on the
+defensive against the "open-shop" employers and against the courts. Even
+the periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves.
+This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the
+type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised
+the stock of the radical opposition.
+
+The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation. Inside it
+was the socialist "industrialist" who advocated a political labor party
+on a socialist platform, such as the Federation had rejected when it
+defeated the "program" of 1893,[75] together with a plan of organization
+by industry instead of by craft. Outside the Federation the opposition
+marched under the flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, which was
+launched by socialists but soon after birth fell into the hands of
+syndicalists.
+
+However, fully to understand the issue between conservatives and
+radicals in the Federation after 1905, one needs to go back much earlier
+for the "background."
+
+The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly assisted in the birth
+of the opportunistic trade unionism of Strasser and Gompers,[76] did
+not disappear, but remained throughout the eighties a handful of
+"intellectuals" and "intellectualized" wage earners, mainly Germans.
+These never abandoned the hope of better things for socialism in the
+labor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an attitude of
+enthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation in
+their wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistent
+though friendly "nudging" in the direction of socialism. During the
+greater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the trade
+unionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion of
+foreign born, principally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigar
+making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many
+socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations
+of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and
+other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in
+1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations.
+When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the
+issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade
+unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife
+caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either
+faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization
+went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since
+1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10,000, and its activities were
+non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but
+entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly
+in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued until
+there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who,
+had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism
+than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's
+outstanding revolutionary leaders. This man was Daniel DeLeon.
+
+DeLeon was of South American ancestry, who early immigrated to New York.
+For a time he was teacher of languages at Columbia College; later he
+devoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established his
+first connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886
+and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeon
+was impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by the
+socialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taught
+him that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements,
+had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of a
+supreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knights
+and the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would be
+used.
+
+By 1895 he learned that he was beaten in both organizations; not,
+however, without temporarily upsetting the groups in control. For, the
+only time when Samuel Gompers was defeated for President of the
+Federation was in 1894, when the socialists, angered by his part in the
+rejection of the socialist program at the convention,[77] joined with
+his enemies and voted another man into office. Gompers was reelected the
+next year and the Federation seemed definitely shut to socialism. DeLeon
+was now ready to go to the limit with the Federation. If the established
+unions refused to assume the part of the gravediggers of capitalism,
+designed for them, as he believed, by the very logic of history, so much
+the worse for the established trade unions.
+
+Out of this grew the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a life and
+death rival to the Federation. From the standpoint of socialism no more
+unfortunate step could have been taken. It immediately stamped the
+socialists as wilful destroyers of the unity of labor. To the trade
+unionists, yet fresh from the ordeal of the struggle against the Knights
+of Labor, the action of the socialists was an unforgivable crime. All
+the bitterness which has characterized the fight between socialist and
+anti-socialist in the Federation verily goes back to this gross
+miscalculation by DeLeon of the psychology of the trade union movement.
+DeLeon, on his part, attributed the action of the Federation to a
+hopelessly corrupt leadership and, since he failed to unseat it by
+working from within, he now felt justified in striking at the entire
+structure.
+
+The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was a failure from the outset.
+Only a small portion of even the socialist-minded trade unionists were
+willing to join in the venture. Many trade union leaders who had been
+allied with the socialists now openly sided with Gompers. In brief, the
+socialist "revolution" in the American labor world suffered the fate of
+all unsuccessful revolutions: it alienated the moderate sympathizers and
+forced the victorious majority into taking up a more uncompromising
+position than heretofore.
+
+Finally, the hopelessness of DeLeon's tactics became obvious. One
+faction in the Socialist Labor party, which had been in opposition ever
+since he assumed command, came out in revolt in 1898. A fusion took
+place between it and another socialist group, the so-called Debs-Berger
+Social Democracy,[78] which took the name of the Social Democratic
+Party. Later, at a "Unity Congress" in 1901, it became the Socialist
+Party of America. What distinguished this party from the Socialist Labor
+party (which, although it had lost its primacy in the socialist
+movement, has continued side by side with the Socialist party of
+America), was well expressed in a resolution adopted at the same "Unity"
+convention: "We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessity
+organized on neutral grounds as far as political affiliation is
+concerned." With this program, the socialists have been fairly
+successful in extending their influence in the American Federation of
+Labor so that at times they have controlled about one-third of the votes
+in the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiven
+the socialists their "original sin." In the country at large socialism
+made steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were cast
+for Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularly
+since 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and the
+difficulties created by the War and retrogressed.
+
+For a number of years DeLeon's failure kept possible imitators in check.
+However, in 1905, came another attempt in the shape of the Industrial
+Workers of the World. As with its predecessor, impatient socialists
+helped to set it afoot, but unlike the Alliance, it was at the same
+time an outgrowth of a particular situation in the actual labor
+movement, namely, of the bitter fight which was being waged by the
+Western Federation of Miners since the middle nineties.
+
+Beginning with a violent clash between miners and mine owners in the
+silver region of Coeur d'Alène, Idaho, in the early nineties, the mining
+States of the West became the scene of many labor struggles which were
+more like civil wars than like ordinary labor strikes.
+
+A most important contributing cause was a struggle, bolder than has been
+encountered elsewhere in the United States, for control of government in
+the interest of economic class. This was partly due to the absence of a
+neutral middle class, farmers or others, who might have been able to
+keep matters within bounds.
+
+The Western Federation of Miners was an organization of workers in and
+around the metaliferous mines. It also included workers in smelters. It
+held its first convention in 1893 in Butte, Montana. In 1894 the men
+employed in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold fields demanded a minimum
+wage of three dollars for an eight-hour day. After four months the
+strike resulted in a victory for the union. Other strikes occurred in
+1896 and 1897 at Leadville, in 1899 in the Coeur d'Alène mining
+district, and in 1901 at Rossland and Fernie, British Columbia, and also
+in the San Juan district in California.
+
+The most important strike of the Western Federation of Miners, however,
+began in 1903 at Colorado City, where the mill and smeltermen's union
+quit work in order to compel better working conditions. As the
+sympathetic strike was a recognized part of the policy of the Western
+Federation of Miners, all the miners in the Cripple Creek region were
+called out. The eight-hour day in the smelters was the chief issue. In
+1899 the Colorado legislature had passed an eight-hour law which was
+declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State. To overcome
+this difficulty, an amendment to the State constitution was passed in
+1902 by a large majority, but the legislature, after having thus
+received a direct command to establish the eight-hour law, adjourned
+without taking action. Much of the subsequent disorder and bloodshed in
+the Cripple Creek region during 1903-1904 is traceable to this failure
+on the part of the legislature to enact the eight-hour law. The struggle
+in Colorado helped to convince the Western miners that agreements with
+their employers were futile, that constitutional amendments and politics
+were futile, and from this they drew the conclusion that the
+revolutionary way was the only way. William D. Haywood, who became the
+central figure in the revolutionary movement of the Industrial Workers
+of the World since its launching in 1905, was a former national officer
+of the Western Federation of Miners and a graduate of the Colorado
+school of industrial experience.[79]
+
+Even before 1905 the Western Federation of Miners, which was out of
+touch with the American Federation of Labor for reasons of geography and
+of difference in policy and program, attempted to set up a national
+labor federation which would reflect its spirit. An American Labor Union
+was created in 1902, which by 1905 had a membership of about 16,000
+besides the 27,000 of the miners' federation. It was thus the precursor
+of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. In the latter the
+revolutionary miners from the West joined hands with radical socialists
+from the East and Middle West of both socialist parties, the Socialist
+party of America and DeLeon's Socialist Labor party.
+
+We shall forbear tracing here the complicated internal history of the
+I.W.W., that is the friction which immediately arose between the
+DeLeonites and the other socialists and later on the struggle between
+the socialists and the syndicalist-minded labor rebels from the West.
+Suffice it to say that the Western Federation of Miners, which was its
+very heart and body, convinced of the futility of it all, seceded in
+1907. In 1911 it joined the American Federation of Labor and after
+several hard-fought strikes, notably in Michigan in 1913, it practically
+became assimilated to the other unions in the American Federation of
+Labor.
+
+The remnant of the I.W.W. split in 1908 into two rival Industrial
+Workers of the World, with headquarters in Detroit and Chicago,
+respectively, on the issue of revolutionary political versus
+non-political or "direct" action. As a rival to the Federation of Labor
+the I.W.W. never materialized, but on the one hand, as an instrument of
+resistance by the migratory laborers of the West and, on the other hand,
+as a prod to the Federation to do its duty to the unorganized and
+unskilled foreign-speaking workers of the East, the I.W.W. will for long
+have a part to play.
+
+In fact, about 1912, it seemed as though the I.W.W. were about to repeat
+the performance of the Knights of Labor in the Great Upheaval of
+1885-1887. Its clamorous appearance in the industrial East, showing in
+the strikes by the non-English-speaking workers in the textile mills of
+Lawrence, Massachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and Little Falls, New
+York, on the one hand, and on the other, the less tangible but no less
+desperate strikes of casual laborers which occurred from time to time in
+the West, bore for the observer a marked resemblance to the Great
+Upheaval. Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federation
+espied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which would
+best be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation the
+very same elements to which the I.W.W. especially addressed itself.
+Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problem
+of organizing the unskilled occupied a place near the head of the list.
+But after the unsuccessful Paterson textile strikes in 1912 and 1913,
+the star of the Industrial Workers of the World set as rapidly as it had
+risen and the organization rapidly retrogressed. At no time did it roll
+up a membership of more than 60,000 as compared with the maximum
+membership of 750,000 of the Knights of Labor.
+
+The charge made by the I.W.W. against the Federation of Labor (and it is
+in relation to the latter that the I.W.W. has any importance at all) is
+mainly two-fold: on aim and on method. "Instead of the conservative
+motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,'" reads the Preamble,
+"We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition
+of the wage system.' It is the historic mission of the working class to
+do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not
+only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but to carry on
+production when capitalism shall have been overthrown." Then on method:
+"We find that the centering of management in industries into fewer and
+fewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever-growing
+power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs
+which allows one set of the workers to be pitted against another set of
+workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in
+wage wars.... These conditions must be changed and the interest of the
+working class upheld only by an organization founded in such a way that
+all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary,
+cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is in any department thereof,
+thus making an injury to one an injury to all." Lastly, "By organizing
+industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the
+shell of the old."
+
+This meant "industrialism" versus the craft autonomy of the Federation.
+"Industrialism" was a product of the intense labor struggles of the
+nineties, of the Pullman railway strike in 1894, of the general strike
+of the bituminous miners of 1898, and of a decade long struggle and
+boycott in the beer-brewing industry. Industrialism meant a united front
+against the employers in an industry regardless of craft; it meant doing
+away with the paralyzing disputes over jurisdiction amongst the several
+craft unions; it meant also stretching out the hand of fellowship to the
+unskilled worker who knowing no craft fitted into no craft union. But
+over and above these changes in structure there hovered a new spirit, a
+spirit of class struggle and of revolutionary solidarity in contrast
+with the spirit of "business unionism" of the typical craft union.
+Industrialism signified a challenge to the old leadership, to the
+leadership of Gompers and his associates, by a younger generation of
+leaders who were more in tune with the social ideas of the radical
+intellectuals and the labor movements of Europe than with the
+traditional policies of the Federation.
+
+But there is industrialism and industrialism, each answering the demands
+of a _particular stratum_ of the wage-earning class. The class lowest in
+the scale, the unskilled and "floaters," for which the I.W.W. speaks,
+conceives industrialism as "one big union," where not only trade but
+even industrial distinctions are virtually ignored with reference to
+action against employers, if not also with reference to the principle of
+organization. The native floater in the West and the unskilled foreigner
+in the East are equally responsive to the appeal to storm capitalism in
+a successive series of revolts under the banner of the "one big union."
+Uniting in its ranks the workers with the least experience in
+organization and with none in political action, the "one big union" pins
+its faith upon assault rather than "armed peace," upon the strike
+without the trade agreement, and has no faith whatsoever in political or
+legislative action.
+
+Another form of industrialism is that of the middle stratum of the
+wage-earning group, embracing trades which are moderately skilled and
+have had considerable experience in organization, such as brewing,
+clothing, and mining. They realize that, in order to attain an equal
+footing with the employers, they must present a front coextensive with
+the employers' association, which means that all trades in an industry
+must act under one direction. Hence they strive to assimilate the
+engineers and machinists, whose labor is essential to the continuance of
+the operation of the plant. They thus reproduce on a minor scale the
+attempt of the Knights of Labor during the eighties to engulf the more
+skilled trade unions.
+
+At the same time the relatively unprivileged position of these trades
+makes them keenly alive to the danger from below, from the unskilled
+whom the employer may break into their jobs in case of strikes. They
+therefore favor taking the unskilled into the organization. Their
+industrialism is consequently caused perhaps more by their own trade
+consideration than by an altruistic desire to uplift the unskilled,
+although they realize that the organization of the unskilled is required
+by the broader interests of the wage-earning class. However, their long
+experience in matters of organization teaches them that the "one big
+union" would be a poor medium. Their accumulated experience likewise has
+a moderating influence on their economic activity, and they are
+consequently among the strongest supporters inside the American
+Federation of Labor of the trade agreement. Nevertheless, opportunistic
+though they are in the industrial field, their position is not
+sufficiently raised above the unskilled to make them satisfied with the
+wage system. Hence, they are mostly controlled by socialists and are
+strongly in favor of political action through the Socialist party. This
+form of industrialism may consequently be called "socialist
+industrialism." In the annual conventions of the Federation,
+industrialists are practically synonymous with socialists.
+
+The best examples of the "middle stratum" industrialism are the unions
+in the garment industries. Enthusiastic admirers have proclaimed them
+the harbingers of a "new unionism" in America. One would indeed be
+narrow to withhold praise from organizations and leaders who in spite of
+a most chaotic situation in their industry have succeeded so brilliantly
+where many looked only for failure. Looking at the matter, however, from
+the wider standpoint of labor history, the contribution of this
+so-called "new unionism" resides chiefly, first, in that it has
+rationalized and developed industrial government by collective
+bargaining and trade agreements as no other unionism, and second, in
+that it has applied a spirit of broadminded all-inclusiveness to all
+workers in the industry. To put it in another way, its merit is in that
+it has made supreme use of the highest practical acquisition of the
+American Federation of Labor--namely, the trade agreement--while
+reinterpreting and applying the latter in a spirit of a broader labor
+solidarity than the "old unionism" of the Federation. As such the
+clothing workers point the way to the rest of the labor movement.
+
+The first successful application of the "new unionism" in the clothing
+trades was in 1910 by the workers on cloaks and suits in the
+International Ladies' Garment Workers Union of America, a constituent
+union of the American Federation of Labor. They established machinery of
+conciliation from the shop to the industry, which in spite of many
+tempests and serious crises, will probably live on indefinitely. Perhaps
+the greatest achievement to their credit is that they have jointly with
+the employers, through a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, wrought a
+revolution in the hygienic conditions in the shops.
+
+The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America have won great power in the
+men's clothing industry, through aggressive but constructive leadership.
+The nucleus of the union seceded from the United Garment Workers, an
+A.F. of L. organization, in 1914. The socialistic element within the
+organization was and still is numerically dominating. But in the
+practical process of collective bargaining, this union's revolutionary
+principles have served more as a bond to hold the membership together
+than as a severe guide in its relations with the employers.[80] As a
+result, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers attained trade agreements in
+all the large men's clothing centers. The American Federation of Labor,
+however, in spite of this union's success, has persistently refused to
+admit it to affiliation, on account of its original secessionist origin
+from a chartered international union.
+
+The unions of the clothing workers have demonstrated how immigrants (the
+majority in the industry are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians) may
+be successfully organized on the basis of a broad minded industrialism.
+On the issue of industrialism in the American Federation of Labor the
+last word has not yet been said. It appears, though, that the matter is
+being solved slowly but surely by a silent "counter-reformation" by the
+old leaders. For industrialism, or the adjustment of union structure to
+meet the employer with ranks closed on the front of an entire industry,
+is not altogether new even in the most conservative portion of the
+Federation, although it has never been called by that name.
+
+Long before industrialism entered the national arena as the economic
+creed of socialists, the unions of the skilled had begun to evolve an
+industrialism of their own. This species may properly be termed craft
+industrialism, as it sought merely to unite on an efficient basis the
+fighting strength of the unions of the skilled trades by devising a
+method for speedy solution of jurisdictional disputes between
+overlapping unions and by reducing the sympathetic strike to a science.
+The movement first manifested itself in the early eighties in the form
+of local building trades' councils, which especially devoted themselves
+to sympathetic strikes. This local industrialism grew, after a fashion,
+to national dimensions in the form of the International Building Trades'
+Council organized in St. Louis in 1897. The latter proved, however,
+ineffective, since, having for its basic unit the local building trades'
+council, it inevitably came into conflict with the national unions in
+the building trades. For the same reason it was barred from recognition
+of the American Federation of Labor. The date of the real birth of craft
+industrialism on a national scale, was therefore deferred to 1903, when
+a Structural Building Trades' Alliance was founded. The formation of the
+Alliance marks an event of supreme importance, not only because it
+united for the first time for common action all the important national
+unions in the building industry, but especially because it promulgated a
+new principle which, if generally adopted, was apparently destined to
+revolutionize the structure of American labor organizations. The
+Alliance purported to be a federation of the "basic" trades in the
+industry, and in reality it did represent an _entente_ of the big and
+aggressive unions. The latter were moved to federate not only for the
+purpose of forcing the struggle against the employers, but also of
+expanding at the expense of the "non-basic" or weak unions, besides
+seeking to annihilate the last vestiges of the International Building
+Trades' Council. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, probably the
+most aggressive union in the American Federation of Labor, was the
+leader in this movement. From the standpoint of the Federation, the
+Structural Alliance was at best an extra-legal organization, as it did
+not receive the latter's formal sanction, but the Federation could
+scarcely afford to ignore it as it had ignored the International
+Building Trades' Council. Thus in 1908 the Alliance was "legitimatized"
+and made a "Department" of the American Federation of Labor, under the
+name of the Building Trades' Department, with the settlement of
+jurisdictional disputes as its main function. It was accompanied by
+departments of metal trades, of railway employes, of miners, and by a
+"label" department.
+
+It is not, however, open to much doubt that the Department was not a
+very successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle.
+Jurisdictional disputes are caused either by technical changes, which
+play havoc with official "jurisdiction," or else by a plain desire on
+the part of the stronger union to encroach upon the province of the
+weaker one. When the former was the case and the struggle happened to be
+between unions of equal strength and influence, it generally terminated
+in a compromise. When, however, the combatants were two unions of
+unequal strength, the doctrine of the supremacy of the "basic" unions
+was generally made to prevail in the end. Such was the outcome of the
+struggle between the carpenters and joiners on the one side and the wood
+workers on the other and also between the plumbers and steam fitters. In
+each case it ended in the forced amalgamation of the weaker union with
+the stronger one, upon the principle that there must be only one union
+in each "basic" trade. In the case of the steam fitters, which was
+settled at the convention at Rochester in 1912, the Federation gave what
+might be interpreted as an official sanction of the new doctrine of one
+union in a "basic" trade.
+
+Notwithstanding these official lapses from the principle of craft
+autonomy, the socialist industrialists[81] are still compelled to abide
+by the letter and the spirit of craft autonomy. The effect of such a
+policy on the coming American industrialism may be as follows: The
+future development of the "department" may enable the strong "basic"
+unions to undertake concerted action against employers, while each
+retains its own autonomy. Such indeed is the notable "concerted
+movement" of the railway brotherhoods, which since 1907 has begun to set
+a type for craft industrialism. It is also probable that the majority of
+the craft unions will sufficiently depart from a rigid craft standard
+for membership to include helpers and unskilled workers working
+alongside the craftsmen.
+
+The clearest outcome of this silent "counter-reformation" in reply to
+the socialist industrialists is the Railway Employes' Department as it
+developed during and after the war-time period.[82] It is composed of
+all the railway men's organizations except the brotherhoods of
+engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen, telegraphers, and several
+minor organizations, which on the whole cooperate with the Department.
+It also has a place for the unskilled laborers organized in the United
+Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers.
+The Railway Employes' Department therefore demonstrates that under craft
+unionism the unskilled need not be left out in the cold. It also meets
+the charge that craft unionism renders it easy for the employers to
+defeat the unions one by one, since this Department has consolidated the
+constituent crafts into one bargaining and striking union[83]
+practically as well as could be done by an industrial union. Finally,
+the Railway Employes' Department has an advantage over an industrial
+union in that many of its constituent unions, like the machinists',
+blacksmiths', boiler-makers', sheet metal workers', and electrical
+workers', have large memberships outside the railway industry, which
+might by their dues and assessments come to the aid of the railway
+workers on strike. To be sure, the solidarity of the unions in the
+Department might be weakened through jurisdictional disputes, which is
+something to be considered. However, when unions have gone so far as to
+confederate for joint collective bargaining, that danger will probably
+never be allowed to become too serious.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] See above, 139-141.
+
+[76] See above, 76-79.
+
+[77] See above, 139-141.
+
+[78] Eugene V. Debs, after serving his sentence in prison for disobeying
+a court injunction during the Pullman strike of 1894, became a convert
+to socialism. It is said that his conversion was due to Victor Berger of
+Milwaukee. Berger had succeeded in building up a strong socialist party
+in that city and in the State of Wisconsin upon the basis of a thorough
+understanding with the trade unions and was materially helped by the
+predominance of the German-speaking element in the population. In 1910
+the Milwaukee socialists elected a municipal ticket, the first large
+city to vote the socialists into office.
+
+[79] In 1907 Haywood was tried and acquitted with two other officers of
+the Western Federation of Miners at Boisé, Idaho, on a murder charge
+which grew out of the same labor struggle. This was one of the several
+sensational trials in American labor history, on a par with the Molly
+Maguires' case in the seventies, the Chicago Anarchists' in 1887, and
+the McNamaras' case in 1912.
+
+[80] The same applies to the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
+Union.
+
+[81] Except the miners, brewers, and garment workers.
+
+[82] See above, 185-186.
+
+[83] This refers particularly to the six shopmen's unions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET
+
+
+The outbreak of the War in Europe in August 1914 found American labor
+passing through a period of depression. The preceding winter had seen
+much unemployment and considerable distress and in the summer industrial
+conditions became scarcely improved. In the large cities demonstrations
+by the unemployed were daily occurrences. A long and bloody labor
+struggle in the coal fields of Colorado, which was slowly drawing to an
+unsuccessful end in spite of sacrifices of the heaviest kind, seemed
+only to set into bold relief the generally inauspicious outlook. Yet the
+labor movement could doubtless find solace in the political situation.
+Owing to the support it had given the Democratic party in the
+Presidential campaign of 1912, the Federation could claim return favors.
+The demand which it was now urging upon its friends in office was the
+long standing one for the exemption of labor unions from the operation
+of the anti-trust legislation and for the reduction to a minimum of
+interference by Federal Courts in labor disputes through injunction
+proceedings.
+
+During 1914 the anti-trust bill introduced in the House by Clayton of
+Alabama was going through the regular stages preliminary to enactment
+and, although it finally failed to embody all the sweeping changes
+demanded by the Federation's lobbyists, it was pronounced at the time
+satisfactory to labor. The Clayton Act starts with the declaration that
+"The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce"
+and specifies that labor organizations shall not be construed as illegal
+combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under Federal
+anti-trust laws. It further proceeds to prescribe the procedure in
+connection with the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes as, for
+instance, limiting the time of effectiveness of temporary injunctions,
+making notice obligatory to persons about to be permanently enjoined,
+and somewhat limiting the power of the courts in contempt proceedings.
+The most vital section of the Act relating to labor disputes is Section
+20, which says "that no such restraining order or injunction shall
+prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from
+terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any
+work or labor or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by
+peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such
+person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully
+persuading any person to work or to abstain from working, or from
+recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful
+means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any
+person employed in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys or
+things of value; or from peacefully assembling in a lawful manner, or
+for lawful purposes, or from doing any act or things which might
+lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto;
+nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or
+held to be violations of any law of the United States."
+
+The government was also rendering aid to organized labor in another,
+though probably little intended, form, namely through the public
+hearings conducted by the United States Commission on Industrial
+Relations. This Commission had been authorized by Congress in 1912 to
+investigate labor unrest after a bomb explosion in the _Los Angeles
+Times_ Building, which was set off at the order of some of the national
+officers of the structural iron workers' union, incidental to a strike.
+The hearings which were conducted by the able and versatile chairman,
+Frank P. Walsh, with a particular eye for publicity, centering as they
+did around the Colorado outrages, served to popularize the trade union
+cause from one end of the country to the other. The report of the
+Commission or rather the minority report, which was signed by the
+chairman and the three labor members, and was known as the "staff"
+report, named _trade unionism_ as the paramount remedy--not compulsory
+arbitration which was advocated by the employer members, nor labor
+legislation and a permanent governmental industrial commission proposed
+by the economist on the commission. The immediate practical effects of
+the commission were _nil_, but its agitational value proved of great
+importance to labor. For the first time in the history of the United
+States the employing class seemed to be arrayed as a defendant before
+the bar of public opinion. Also, it was for the first time that a
+commission representing the government not only unhesitatingly
+pronounced the trade union movement harmless to the country's best
+interests but went to the length of raising it to the dignity of a
+fundamental and indispensable institution.
+
+The Commission on Industrial Relations on the whole reflected the
+favorable attitude of the Administration which came to power in 1912.
+The American Federation of Labor was given full sway over the Department
+of Labor and a decisive influence in all other government departments
+on matters relating to labor. Without a political party of its own, by
+virtue only of its "bargaining power" over the old parties, the American
+Federation of Labor seemed to have attained a position not far behind
+that of British labor after more than a decade of independent political
+action. Furthermore, fortunately for itself, labor in America had come
+into a political patrimony at a time when the country was standing on
+the threshold of a new era, during which government was destined to
+become the arbiter of industry.
+
+The War in Europe did not immediately improve industrial conditions in
+America. The first to feel its effects were the industries directly
+engaged in the making of munitions. The International Association of
+Machinists, the organization of the now all-important munition workers,
+actually had its membership somewhat decreased during 1915, but in the
+following year made a 50 percent increase. The greater part of the new
+membership came from the "munitions towns," such as Bridgeport,
+Connecticut, where, in response to the insatiable demand from the Allied
+nations, new enormous plants were erected during 1915 and shipment of
+munitions in mass began early the next year. Bridgeport and surrounding
+towns became a center of a successful eight-hour movement, in which the
+women workers newly brought into the industry took the initiative. The
+Federation as a whole lost three percent of its membership in 1915 and
+gained seven percent during 1916.
+
+On its War policy the Federation took its cue completely from the
+national government. During the greater part of the period of American
+neutrality its attitude was that of a shocked lover of peace who is
+desirous to maintain the strictest neutrality if the belligerents will
+persist in refusing to lend an ear to reason. To prevent a repetition
+of a similar catastrophe, the Federation did the obvious thing,
+pronouncing for open and democratized diplomacy; and proposed to the
+several national trade union federations that an international labor
+congress meet at the close of the war to determine the conditions of
+peace. However, both the British and Germans declined. The convention in
+1915 condemned the German-inspired propaganda for an embargo on
+shipments to all belligerents and the fomenting of strikes in
+munitions-making plants by German agents. The Federation refused to
+interpret neutrality to mean that the American wage earner was to be
+thrown back into the dumps of depression and unemployment, from which he
+was just delivered by the extensive war orders from the Allied
+governments.
+
+By the second half of 1916 the war prosperity was in full swing. Cost of
+living was rising rapidly and movements for higher wages became general.
+The practical stoppage of immigration enabled common labor to get a
+larger share than usual of the prosperity. Many employers granted
+increases voluntarily. Simultaneously, a movement for the eight-hour day
+was spreading from strictly munitions-making trades into others and was
+meeting with remarkable success. But 1916 witnessed what was doubtless
+the most spectacular move for the eight-hour day in American
+history--the joint eight-hour demand by the four railway brotherhoods,
+the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. The effectiveness
+acquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkable
+success with which these four organizations, with the full support of
+the whole labor movement at their back and aided by a not unfriendly
+attitude on the part of the national Administration, brought to bay the
+greatest single industry of the country and overcame the opposition of
+the entire business class.
+
+The four brotherhoods made a joint demand for an eight-hour day early in
+1916.[84] The railway officials claimed that the demand for the
+reduction of the work-day from ten to eight hours with ten hours' pay
+and a time and a half rate for overtime was not made in good faith.
+Since, they said, the employes ought to have known that the railways
+could not be run on an eight-hour day, the demand was but a covert
+attempt to gain a substantial increase in their wages, which were
+already in advance of any of the other skilled workers. On the other
+hand, the brotherhoods stoutly maintained during their direct
+negotiations with the railway companies and in the public press that
+their demand was a _bona fide_ demand and that they believed that the
+railway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on an
+eight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitration
+the demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. The
+brotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind past
+disappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up the
+whole transportation system of the country by a strike on Labor Day.
+
+When the efforts at mediation by the United States Board of Mediation
+and Conciliation came to naught, President Wilson invited to Washington
+the executives of the several railway systems and a convention of the
+several hundred division chairmen of the brotherhoods and attempted
+personal mediation. He urged the railway executives to accept the
+eight-hour day and proposed that a commission appointed by himself
+should investigate the demand for time and a half overtime. This the
+employes accepted, but the executives objected to giving the eight-hour
+day before an investigation was made. Meantime the brotherhoods had
+issued their strike order effective on Labor Day and the crisis became
+imminent. To obviate the calamity of a general strike, at a time when
+the country was threatened with troubles on the Mexican frontier and
+with the unsettled submarine controversy with Germany ready to flare up
+any moment, the President went before Congress and asked for a speedy
+enactment of an eight-hour law for train operatives without a reduction
+in wages but with no punitive overtime. He coupled it with a request for
+an authorisation of a special commission to report on the operation of
+such a law for a period of six months, after which the subject might be
+reopened. Lastly, he urged an amendment to the Newlands Act making it
+illegal to call a strike or a lockout pending an investigation of a
+controversy by a government commission. Spurred on by the danger of the
+impending strike, Congress quickly acceded to the first two requests by
+the President and passed the so-called Adamson law.[85] The strike was
+averted, but in the immediately following Presidential campaign labor's
+"hold-up" of the national government became one of the trump issues of
+the Republican candidate.
+
+This episode of the summer of 1916 had two sequels, one in the courts
+and the other one in a negotiated agreement between the railways and the
+brotherhoods. The former brought many suits in courts against the
+government and obtained from a lower court a decision that the Adamson
+law was unconstitutional. The case was then taken to the United States
+Supreme Court, but the decision was not ready until the spring of 1917.
+Meantime the danger of a strike had been renewed. However, on the same
+day when the Supreme Court gave out its decision, the railways and
+brotherhoods had signed, at the urging of the National Council of
+Defense, an agreement accepting the conditions of the Adamson law
+regardless of the outcome in court. When the decision became known it
+was found to be in favor of the Adamson law. The declaration of war
+against Germany came a few days later and opened a new era in the
+American labor situation.
+
+Previous to that, on March 12, 1917, when war seemed inevitable, the
+national officers of all important unions in the Federation met in
+Washington and issued a statement on "American Labor's Position in Peace
+or in War." They pledged the labor movement and the influence of the
+labor organizations unreservedly in support of the government in case of
+war. Whereas, they said, in all previous wars "under the guise of
+national necessity, labor was stripped of its means of defense against
+enemies at home and was robbed of the advantages, the protections, and
+guarantees of justice that had been achieved after ages of struggle";
+and "labor had no representatives in the councils authorized to deal
+with the conduct of the war"; and therefore "the rights, interests and
+welfare of workers were autocratically sacrificed for the slogan of
+national safety"; in this war "the government must recognize the
+organized labor movement as the agency through which it must cooperate
+with wage earners." Such recognition will imply first "representation on
+all agencies determining and administering policies of national
+defense" and "on all boards authorized to control publicity during war
+time." Second, that "service in government factories and private
+establishments, in transportation agencies, all should conform to trade
+union standards"; and that "whatever changes in the organization of
+industry are necessary upon a war basis, they should be made in accord
+with plans agreed upon by representatives of the government and those
+engaged and employed in the industry." Third, that the government's
+demand of sacrifice of their "labor power, their bodies or their lives"
+be accompanied by "increased guarantees and safe-guards," the imposing
+of a similar burden on property and the limitation of profits. Fourth,
+that "organization for industrial and commercial service" be "upon a
+different basis from military service" and "that military service should
+be carefully distinguished from service in industrial disputes," since
+"the same voluntary institutions that organized industrial, commercial
+and transportation workers in times of peace will best take care of the
+same problems in time of war." For, "wrapped up with the safety of this
+Republic are ideals of democracy, a heritage which the masses of the
+people received from our forefathers, who fought that liberty might live
+in this country--a heritage that is to be maintained and handed down to
+each generation with undiminished power and usefulness."
+
+We quote at such length because this document gives the quintessence of
+the wise labor statesmanship which this crisis brought so clearly to
+light. Turning away from the pacifism of the Socialist party, Samuel
+Gompers and his associates believed that victory over world militarism
+as well as over the forces of reaction at home depended on labor's
+unequivocal support of the government. And in reality, by placing the
+labor movement in the service of the war-making power of the nation they
+assured for it, for the time being at least, a degree of national
+prestige and a freedom to expand which could not have been conquered by
+many years of the most persistent agitation and strikes.
+
+The War, thus, far from being a trial for organized labor, proved
+instead a great opportunity. For the War released organized labor from a
+blind alley, as it were. The American Federation of Labor, as we saw,
+had made but slow progress in organization after 1905. At that time it
+had succeeded in organizing the skilled and some of the semi-skilled
+workers. Further progress was impeded by the anti-union employers
+especially in industries commonly understood to be dominated by
+"trusts." In none of the "trustified" industries, save anthracite coal,
+was labor organization able to make any headway. And yet the American
+Federation of Labor, situated as it is, is obliged to stake everything
+upon the power to organize.[86] The war gave it that all-important
+power. Soon after the Federal government became the arbiter of
+industry--by virtue of being the greatest consumer, and by virtue of a
+public opinion clearly outspoken on the subject--we see the Taft-Walsh
+War Labor Board[87] embody "the right to organize" into a code of rules
+for the guidance of the relations of labor and capital during War-time,
+along with the basic eight-hour day and the right to a living wage. In
+return for these gifts American labor gave up nothing so vital as
+British labor had done in the identical situation. The right to strike
+was left unmolested and remained a permanent threat hanging over slow
+moving officialdom and recalcitrant employers. And the only restraint
+accepted by labor was a promise of self-restraint. The Federation was
+not to strike until all other means for settlement had been tried, nor
+was it to press for the closed shop where such had not existed prior to
+the War declaration. But at the same time no employer was to interpose a
+check to its expansion into industries and districts heretofore
+unorganized. Nor could an employer discipline an employe for joining a
+union or inducing others to join.
+
+In 1916, when the President established the National Council of Defense,
+he appointed Samuel Gompers one of the seven members composing the
+Advisory Commission in charge of all policies dealing with labor and
+chairman of a committee on labor of his own appointment. Among the first
+acts of the Council of Defense was an emphatic declaration for the
+preservation of the standards of legal protection of labor against the
+ill-advised efforts for their suspension during War-time. The Federation
+was given representation on the Emergency Construction Board, the Fuel
+Administration Board, on the Woman's Board, on the Food Administration
+Board, and finally on the War Industries Board. The last named board was
+during the war the recognized arbiter of the country's industries, all
+labor matters being handled by its labor representative. The Department
+of Labor, which in the War emergency could rightly be considered the
+Federation's arm in the Administration, was placed in supreme charge of
+general labor administration. Also, in connection with the
+administration of the military conscription law, organized labor was
+given representation on each District Exemption Board. But perhaps the
+strongest expression of the official recognition of the labor movement
+was offered by President Wilson when he took time from the pressing
+business in Washington to journey to Buffalo in November 1917, to
+deliver an address before the convention of the American Federation of
+Labor.
+
+In addition to representation on boards and commissions dealing with
+general policies, the government entered with the Federation into a
+number of agreements relative to the conditions of direct and indirect
+employment by the government. In each agreement the prevalent trade
+union standards were fully accepted and provision was made for a
+three-cornered board of adjustment to consist of a representative of the
+particular government department, the public and labor. Such agreements
+were concluded by the War and Navy departments and by the United States
+Emergency Fleet Corporation. The Shipping Board sponsored a similar
+agreement between the shipping companies and the seafaring unions; and
+the War Department between the leather goods manufacturers and leather
+workers' union. When the government took over the railways on January 1,
+1918, it created three boards of adjustment on the identical principle
+of a full recognition of labor organizations. The spirit with which the
+government faced the labor problem was shown also in connection with the
+enforcement of the eight-hour law. The law of 1912 provided for an
+eight-hour day on contract government work but allowed exceptions in
+emergencies. In 1917 Congress gave the President the right to waive the
+application of the law, but provided that in such event compensation be
+computed on a "basic" eight-hour day. The War and Navy departments
+enforced these provisions not only to the letter but generally gave to
+them a most liberal interpretation.
+
+The taking over of the railways by the government revolutionized the
+railway labor situation. Under private management, as was seen, the four
+brotherhoods alone, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen
+enjoyed universal recognition, the basic eight-hour day (since 1916),
+and high wages. The other organizations of the railway workers, the
+shopmen, the yardmen, the maintenance of way men, the clerks, and the
+telegraphers were, at best, tolerated rather than recognized. Under the
+government administration the eight-hour day was extended to all grades
+of workers, and wages were brought up to a minimum of 68 cents per hour,
+with a considerable though not corresponding increase in the wages of
+the higher grades of labor. All discrimination against union men was
+done away with, so that within a year labor organization on the railways
+was nearing the hundred percent mark.
+
+The policies of the national railway administration of the open door to
+trade unionism and of recognition of union standards were successfully
+pressed upon other employments by the National War Labor Board. On March
+29, 1918, a National War Labor Conference Board, composed of five
+representatives of the Federation of Labor, five representatives of
+employers' associations and two joint chairmen, William H. Taft for the
+employers and Frank P. Walsh for the employes, reported to the Secretary
+of Labor on "Principles and Policies to govern Relations between Workers
+and Employers in War Industries for the Duration of the War." These
+"principles and policies," which were to be enforced by a permanent War
+Labor Board organized upon the identical principle as the reporting
+board, included a voluntary relinquishment of the right to strike and
+lockout by employes and employers, respectively, upon the following
+conditions: First, there was a recognition of the equal right of
+employes and employers to organize into associations and trade unions
+and to bargain collectively. This carried an undertaking by the
+employers not to discharge workers for membership in trade unions or for
+legitimate trade union activities, and was balanced by an undertaking of
+the workers, "in the exercise of their right to organize," not to "use
+coercive measures of any kind to induce persons to join their
+organizations, nor to induce employers to bargain or deal therewith."
+Second, both sides agreed upon the observance of the _status quo ante
+bellum_ as to union or open shop in a given establishment and as to
+union standards of wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.
+This carried the express stipulation that the right to organize was not
+to be curtailed under any condition and that the War Labor Board could
+grant improvement in labor conditions as the situation warranted. Third,
+the understanding was that if women should be brought into industry,
+they must be allowed equal pay for equal work. Fourth, it was agreed
+that "the basic eight-hour day was to be recognized as applying in all
+cases in which the existing law required it, while in all other cases
+the question of hours of labor was to be settled with due regard to
+government necessities and the welfare, health, and proper comfort of
+the workers." Fifth, restriction of output by trade unions was to be
+done away with. Sixth, in fixing wages and other conditions regard was
+to be shown to trade union standards. And lastly came the recognition of
+"the right of all workers, including common laborers, to a living wage"
+and the stipulation that in fixing wages, there will be established
+"minimum rates of pay which will insure the subsistence of the worker
+and his family in health and reasonable comfort."
+
+The establishment of the War Labor Board did not mean that the country
+had gone over to the principle of compulsory arbitration, for the Board
+could not force any party to a dispute to submit to its arbitration or
+by an umpire of its appointment. However, so outspoken was public
+opinion on the necessity of avoiding interruptions in the War industries
+and so far-reaching were the powers of the government over the employer
+as the administrator of material and labor priorities and over the
+employes as the administrator of the conscription law that the indirect
+powers of the Board sufficed to make its decision prevail in nearly
+every instance.
+
+The packing industry was a conspicuous case of the "new course" in
+industrial relations. This industry had successfully kept unionism out
+since an ill-considered strike in 1904, which ended disastrously for the
+strikers. Late in 1917, 60,000 employes in the packing houses went on
+strike for union recognition, the basic eight-hour day, and other
+demands. Intervention by the government led to a settlement, which,
+although denying the union formal recognition, granted the basic
+eight-hour day, a living wage, and the right to organize, together with
+all that it implied, and the appointment of a permanent arbitrator to
+adjudicate disputes. Thus an industry which had prohibited labor
+organization for fourteen years was made to open its door to trade
+unionism.[88] Another telling gain for the basic eight-hour day was made
+by the timber workers in the Northwest, again at the insistence of the
+government.
+
+What the aid of the government in securing the right to organize meant
+to the strength of trade unionism may be derived from the following
+figures. In the two years from 1917 to 1919 the organization of the meat
+cutters and butcher workmen increased its membership from less than
+10,000 to over 66,000; the boilermakers and iron shipbuilders from
+31,000 to 85,000; the blacksmiths from 12,000 to 28,000; the railway
+clerks from less than 7000 to over 71,000; the machinists from 112,000
+to 255,000; the maintenance of way employes from less than 10,000 to
+54,000; the railway carmen from 39,000 to 100,000; the railway
+telegraphers from 27,000 to 45,000; and the electrical workers from
+42,000 to 131,000. The trades here enumerated--mostly related to
+shipbuilding and railways--accounted for the greater part of the total
+gain in the membership of the Federation from two and a half million
+members in 1917 to over three and a third in 1919.
+
+An important aspect of the cooperation of the government with the
+Federation was the latter's eager self-identification with the
+government's foreign policy, which went to the length of choosing to
+play a lone hand in the Allied labor world. Labor in America had an
+implicit faith in the national government, which was shared by neither
+English nor French labor. Whereas the workers in the other Allied
+Nations believed that their governments needed to be prodded or forced
+into accepting the right road to a democratic peace by an international
+labor congress, which would take the entire matter of war and peace out
+of the diplomatic chancellories into an open conference of the
+representatives of the workers, the American workers were only too eager
+to follow the leadership of the head of the American nation. To this
+doubtless was added the usual fervor of a new convert to any cause (in
+this instance the cause of the War against Germany) and a strong
+distrust of German socialism, which American labor leaders have
+developed during their drawn-out struggle against the German-trained
+socialists inside the Federation who have persistently tried to
+"capture" the organization.
+
+When on January 8, 1918, President Wilson enunciated his famous Fourteen
+Points, the Federation of course gave them an enthusiastic endorsement.
+In the autumn of 1918 Gompers went to Europe and participated in an
+Inter-Allied labor conference. He refused, however, to participate in
+the first International Labor and Socialist Congress called since the
+War, which met at Berne, Switzerland, in March 1919, since he would not
+sit with the Germans while their country was not formally at peace with
+the United States. The convention of the Federation in June 1919 gave
+complete endorsement to the League of Nations Pact worked out at
+Versailles,--on general grounds and on the ground of its specific
+provisions for an international regulation of labor conditions designed
+to equalize labor standards and costs. Contrasting with this was the
+position of British labor, which regarded the Pact with a critical eye,
+frankly confessing disillusionment, but was willing to accept it for the
+sake of its future possibilities, when the Pact might be remodelled by
+more liberal and more democratic hands.
+
+The contrast in outlook between the mild evolutionism of the American
+Federation of Labor and the social radicalism of British labor stood out
+nowhere so strongly as in their respective programs for Reconstruction
+after the War. The chief claim of the British Labor party for
+recognition at the hands of the voter at the General Election in
+December 1918, was its well-thought-out reconstruction program put forth
+under the telling title of "Labour and the New Social Order." This
+program was above all a legislative program. It called for a
+thoroughgoing governmental control of industry by means of a control of
+private finance, natural resources, transportation, and international
+trade. To the workingmen such control would mean the right to steady
+employment, the right to a living wage, and the appropriation of
+economic surpluses by the state for the common good--be they in the form
+of rent, excessive profits, or overlarge personal incomes. Beyond this
+minimum program loomed the cooperative commonwealth with the private
+capitalist totally eliminated.
+
+Such was the program of British labor. What of the Reconstruction
+program of American labor? First of all, American labor thought of
+Reconstruction as a program to be carried out by the trade union, not by
+the government. Moreover, it did not see in Reconstruction the great
+break with the past which that meant to British labor. The American
+Federation of Labor applied to Reconstruction the same philosophy which
+lies at the basis of its ordinary, everyday activity. It concerned
+itself not with any far-reaching plan for social reorganization, but
+with a rising standard of living and an enlarged freedom for the union.
+The American equivalent of a government-guaranteed right to employment
+and a living wage was the "right to organize." Assure to labor that
+right, free the trade unions of court interference in strikes and
+boycotts, prevent excessive meddling by the government in industrial
+relations--and the stimulated activities of the "legitimate"
+organizations of labor, which will result therefrom, will achieve a far
+better Reconstruction than a thousand paper programs however beautiful.
+So reasoned the leaders of the American Federation of Labor. During the
+period of War, they of course gladly accepted directly from the
+government the basic eight-hour day and the high wages, which under
+other circumstances they could have got only by prolonged and bitter
+striking. But even more acceptable than these directly bestowed boons
+was the indirect one of the right to organize free from anti-union
+discriminations by employers. Having been arrested in its expansion, as
+we saw, by anti-union employers and especially "trusts," the American
+Federation of Labor took advantage of the War situation to overflow new
+territory. Once entrenched and the organization well in hand, it thought
+it could look to the future with confidence.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[84] For the developments which led up to this joint move see above,
+182-184.
+
+[85] Congress ignored the last-named recommendation which would have
+introduced in the United States the Canadian system of "Compulsory
+Investigation."
+
+[86] See below, 283-287.
+
+[87] See below, 238-240.
+
+[88] The unions again lost their hold upon the packing industry in the
+autumn of 1921.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
+
+
+The Armistice with Germany came suddenly and unexpectedly. To the
+organized workers the news was as welcome as to other citizens. But, had
+they looked at the matter from a special trade union standpoint, they
+would probably have found a longer duration of the War not entirely
+amiss. For coal had been unionized already before the War, the railways
+first during the War, but the third basic industry, steel, was not
+touched either before or during the War. However, it was precisely in
+the steel industry that opposition to unionism has found its chief seat,
+not only to unionism in that industry alone but to unionism in related
+or subsidiary industries as well.
+
+The first three months after the Armistice the general expectation was
+for a set-back in business conditions due to the withdrawal of the
+enormous government War-time demand. Employers and trade unions stood
+equally undecided. When, however, instead of the expected slump, there
+came a prosperity unknown even during the War, the trade unions resumed
+their offensive, now unrestrained by any other but the strictly economic
+consideration. As a matter of fact, the trade unions were not at all
+free agents, since their demands, frequent and considerable though they
+were, barely sufficed to keep wages abreast of the soaring cost of
+living. Through 1919 and the first half of 1920 profits and wages were
+going up by leaps and bounds; and the forty-four hour week,--no longer
+the mere eight-hour day,--became a general slogan and a partial reality.
+Success was especially notable in clothing, building, printing, and the
+metal trades. One cannot say the same, however, of the three basic
+industries, steel, coal, and railways. In steel the twelve-hour day and
+the seven-day week continued as before for approximately one-half of the
+workers and the unions were preparing for a battle with the "Steel
+Trust." While on the railways and in coal mining the unions now began to
+encounter opposition from an unexpected quarter, namely, the government.
+
+When in the summer of 1919 the railway shopmen demanded an increase in
+their wages, which had not been raised since the summer of 1918,
+President Wilson practically refused the demand, urging the need of a
+general deflation but binding himself to use all the powers of the
+government immediately to reduce the cost of living. A significant
+incident in this situation was a spontaneous strike of shopmen on many
+roads unauthorized by international union officials, which disarranged
+the movement of trains for a short time but ended with the men returning
+to work under the combined pressure of their leaders' threats and the
+President's plea.
+
+In September 1919, the United States Railroad Administration and the
+shopmen's unions entered into national agreements, which embodied the
+practices under the Administration as well as those in vogue on the more
+liberal roads before 1918, including recognition and a large number of
+"working rules." These "national agreements" became an important issue
+one year later, when their abolition began to be pressed by the railway
+executives before the Railroad Labor Board, which was established under
+the Transportation Act of 1920.
+
+In the summer of 1919 employers in certain industries, like clothing,
+grew aware of a need of a more "psychological" handling of their labor
+force than heretofore in order to reduce a costly high labor turnover
+and no less costly stoppages of work. This created a veritable Eldorado
+for "employment managers" and "labor managers," real and spurious.
+Universities and colleges, heretofore wholly uninterested in the problem
+of labor or viewing training in that problem as but a part of a general
+cultural education, now vied with one another in establishing "labor
+management" and "labor personnel" courses. One phase of the "labor
+personnel" work was a rather wide experimentation with "industrial
+democracy" plans. These plans varied in form and content, from simple
+provision for shop committees for collective dealing, many of which had
+already been installed during the War under the orders of the War Labor
+Board, to most elaborate schemes, some modelled upon the Constitution of
+the United States. The feature which they all had in common was that
+they attempted to achieve some sort of collective bargaining outside the
+channels of the established trade unions. The trade unionists termed the
+new fashioned expressions of industrial democracy "company unions." This
+term one may accept as technically correct without necessarily accepting
+the sinister connotation imputed to it by labor.
+
+The trade unions, too, were benefiting as organizations. The Amalgamated
+Clothing Workers' Union firmly established itself by formal agreement on
+the men's clothing "markets" of Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore, and New
+York. The membership of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union rose to
+175,000. Employers in general were complaining of increased labor
+unrest, a falling off of efficiency in the shop, and looked askance at
+the rapid march of unionization. The trade unions, on their part, were
+aware of their opportunity and eager for a final recognition as an
+institution in industry. As yet uncertainty prevailed as to whether
+enough had survived of the War-time spirit of give and take to make a
+struggle avoidable, or whether the issue must be solved by a bitter
+conflict of classes.
+
+A partial showdown came in the autumn of 1919. Three great events, which
+came closely together, helped to clear the situation: The steel strike,
+the President's Industrial Conference, and the strike of the soft coal
+miners. The great steel strike, prepared and directed by a Committee
+representing twenty-four national and international unions with William
+Z. Foster as Secretary and moving spirit, tried in September 1919 to
+wrest from the owners of the steel mills what the railway shopmen had
+achieved in 1918 by invitation of the government, namely, "recognition"
+and the eight-hour day. Three hundred thousand men went out on strike at
+the call of the committee. The industry came to a practical standstill.
+But in this case the twenty-four allied unions were not dealing with a
+government amenable to political pressure, nor with a loosely joined
+association of employers competing among themselves. Furthermore, the
+time had passed when the government had either the will or the power to
+interfere and order both sides to arbitrate their dispute. On the
+contrary, the unions were now dealing unaided with the strongest
+capitalist aggregation in the world.
+
+At the request of President Wilson, Gompers had urged the strike
+committee to postpone the strike until after the meeting of the national
+industrial conference called by the President in October, but the
+committee claimed that it could not have kept the men back after a
+summer of agitation and feverish organization had they even tried. The
+President's conference, modelled upon a similar conference which met
+earlier in Great Britain, was composed of three groups of
+representatives equal in number, one for capital, one for labor, and one
+for the general public. Decisions, to be held effective, had to be
+adopted by a majority in each group. The labor representation, dominated
+of course by Gompers, was eager to make the discussion turn on the steel
+strike. It proposed a resolution to this effect which had the support of
+the public group, but fearing a certain rejection by the employer group
+the matter was postponed. The issue upon which the alignment was
+effected was industrial control and collective bargaining. All three
+groups, the employer and public groups and of course the labor group,
+advocated collective bargaining,--but with a difference. The labor group
+insisted that collective bargaining is doomed to be a farce unless the
+employes are allowed to choose as their spokesmen representatives of the
+national trade union. In the absence of a powerful protector in the
+national union, they argued, the workers in a shop can never feel
+themselves on a bargaining equality with their employer, nor can they be
+represented by a spokesman of the necessary ability if their choice be
+restricted to those working in the same plant. The employers, now no
+longer dominated by the War-time spirit which caused them in 1917 to
+tolerate an expansion of unionism, insisted that no employer must be
+obliged to meet for the purpose of collective bargaining with other
+than his own employes.[89] After two weeks of uncertainty, when it had
+become clear that a resolution supported by both labor and public
+groups, which restated the labor position in a milder form, would be
+certain to be voted down by the employer group, the labor group withdrew
+from the conference, and the conference broke up. The period of the
+cooperation of classes had definitely closed.
+
+Meantime the steel strike continued. Federal troops patrolled the steel
+districts and there was no violence. Nevertheless, a large part of the
+country's press pictured the strike by the steel workers for union
+recognition and a normal workday as an American counterpart of the
+Bolshevist revolution in Russia. Public opinion, unbalanced and excited
+as it was over the whirlpool of world events, was in no position to
+resist. The strike failed.
+
+Nothing made so clear to the trade unionists the changed situation since
+the War ended as the strike of the bituminous coal miners which began
+November 1. The miners had entered, in October 1917, into a wage
+agreement with the operators for the duration of the War. The purchasing
+power of their wages having become greatly reduced by the ever rising
+cost of living, discontent was general in the union. A further
+complication arose from the uncertain position of the United States with
+reference to War and Peace, which had a bearing on the situation. The
+miners claimed that the Armistice had ended the War. The War having
+ended, the disadvantageous agreement expired with it. So argued the
+miners and demanded a sixty percent increase in tonnage rates, a
+corresponding one for yardmen and others paid by the day or hour, and a
+thirty-hour week to spread employment through the year. The operators
+maintained that the agreement was still in force, but intimated a
+readiness to make concessions if they were permitted to shift the cost
+to the consumer. At this point, the Fuel Administration, a War-time
+government body, already partly in the process of dissolution,
+intervened and attempted to dictate a settlement at a fourteen percent
+increase, which was entirely unacceptable to the union. The strike
+continued and the prospect of a dire coal famine grew nearer. To break
+the deadlock, on motion of Attorney-General Palmer, Judge Anderson of
+Indianapolis, under the War-time Lever Act, issued an injunction
+forbidding the union officials to continue conducting the strike. The
+strike continued, the strikers refusing to return to work, and a
+Bituminous Coal Commission appointed by the President finally settled it
+by an award of an increase of twenty-seven percent. But that the same
+Administration which had given the unions so many advantages during the
+War should now have invoked against them a War-time law, which had
+already been considered practically abrogated, was a clear indication of
+the change in the times. In a strike by anthracite coal miners in the
+following year an award was made by a Presidential board of three,
+representing the employers, the union, and the public. The strikers,
+however, refused to abide by it and inaugurated a "vacation-strike," the
+individual strikers staying away on a so-called vacation, nominally
+against the will of the union officers. They finally returned to work.
+
+Both the steel and coal strikes furnished occasions for considerable
+anti-union propaganda in the press. Public sentiment long favorable to
+labor became definitely hostile.[90] In Kansas the legislature passed a
+compulsory arbitration law and created an Industrial Relations Court to
+adjudicate trade disputes. Simultaneously an "anti-Red" campaign
+inaugurated by Attorney-General Palmer contributed its share to the
+public excitement and helped to prejudice the cause of labor more by
+implication than by making direct charges. It was in an atmosphere thus
+surcharged with suspicion and fear that a group of employers, led by the
+National Association of Manufacturers and several local employers'
+organizations, launched an open-shop movement with the slogan of an
+"American plan" for shops and industries. Many employers, normally
+opposed to unionism, who in War-time had permitted unionism to acquire
+scope, were now trying to reconquer their lost positions. The example of
+the steel industry and the fiasco of the President's Industrial
+Conference crystallized this reviving anti-union sentiment into action.
+
+Meanwhile the railway labor situation remained unsettled and fraught
+with danger. The problem was bound up with the general problem as to
+what to do with the railways. Many plans were presented to Congress,
+from an immediate return to private owners to permanent government
+ownership and management. The railway labor organizations, that is, the
+four brotherhoods of the train service personnel and the twelve unions
+united in the Railway Employes' Department of the American Federation
+of Labor, came before Congress with the so-called Plumb Plan, worked out
+by Glenn E. Plumb, the legal representative of the brotherhoods. This
+plan proposed that the government take over the railways for good,
+paying a compensation to the owners, and then entrust their operation to
+a board composed of government officials, union representatives, and
+representatives of the technical staffs.[91] So much for ultimate plans.
+On the more immediate wage problem proper, the government had clearly
+fallen down on its promise made to the shopmen in August 1919, when
+their demands for higher wages were refused and a promise was made that
+the cost of living would be reduced. Early in 1920 President Wilson
+notified Congress that he would return the roads to the owners on March
+1, 1920. A few days before that date the Esch-Cummins bill was passed
+under the name of the Transportation Act of 1920. Strong efforts were
+made to incorporate in the bill a prohibition against strikes and
+lockouts. In that form it had indeed passed the Senate. In the House
+bill, however, the compulsory arbitration feature was absent and the
+final law contained a provision for a Railroad Labor Board, of railway,
+union, and public representatives, to be appointed by the President,
+with the power of conducting investigations and issuing awards, but with
+the right to strike or lockout unimpaired either before, during, or
+after the investigation. It was the first appointed board of this
+description which was to pass on the clamorous demands by the railway
+employes for higher wages.[92]
+
+No sooner had the roads been returned under the new law, and before the
+board was even appointed, than a strike broke out among the switchmen
+and yardmen, whose patience had apparently been exhausted. The strike
+was an "outlaw" strike, undertaken against the wishes of national
+leaders and organized and led by "rebel" leaders risen up for the
+occasion. For a time it threatened not only to paralyze the country's
+railway system but to wreck the railway men's organizations as well. It
+was finally brought to an end through the efforts of the national
+leaders, and a telling effect on the situation was produced by an
+announcement by the newly constituted Railroad Labor Board that no
+"outlaw" organization would have standing before it. The Board issued an
+award on July 20, retroactive to May 1, increasing the total annual wage
+bill of the railways by $600,000,000. The award failed to satisfy the
+union, but they acquiesced.
+
+When the increase in wages was granted to the railway employes, industry
+in general and the railways in particular were already entering a period
+of slump. With the depression the open-shop movement took on a greater
+vigor. With unemployment rapidly increasing employers saw their chance
+to regain freedom from union control. A few months later the tide also
+turned in the movement of wages. Inside of a year the steel industry
+reduced wages thirty percent, in three like installments; and the
+twelve-hour day and the seven-day week, which had figured among the
+chief causes of the strike of 1919 and for which the United States Steel
+Corporation was severely condemned by a report of a Committee of the
+Interchurch World Movement,[93] has largely continued as before. In the
+New York "market" of the men's clothing industry, where the union faces
+the most complex and least stable condition mainly owing to the
+heterogeneous character of the employing group, the latter grasped the
+opportunity to break with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union. By
+the end of the spring of 1921 the clothing workers won their struggle,
+showing that a union built along new lines was at least as efficient a
+fighting machine as any of the older unions. It was this union also and
+several local branches of the related union in the ladies' garment
+industry, which realized the need of assuring to the employer at least a
+minimum of labor efficiency if the newly established level of wages was
+not to be materially lowered. Hence the acceptance of the principle of
+"standards of production" fixed with the aid of scientific managers
+employed jointly by the employers and the union.
+
+The spring and summer of 1921 were a time of widespread "readjustment"
+strikes, or strikes against cuts in wages, especially in the building
+trades. The building industry went through in 1921 and 1922 one of its
+periodic upheavals against the tyranny of the "walking delegates" and
+against the state of moral corruption for which some of the latter
+shared responsibility together with an unscrupulous element among the
+employers. In San Francisco, where the grip of the unions upon the
+industry was strongest, the employers turned on them and installed the
+"open-shop" after the building trades' council had refused to accept an
+award by an arbitration committee set up by mutual agreement. The union
+claimed, however, in self-justification that the Committee, by awarding
+a _reduction_ in the wages of fifteen crafts while the issue as
+originally submitted turned on a demand by these crafts for a _raise_
+in wages, had gone outside its legitimate scope. In New York City an
+investigation by a special legislative committee uncovered a state of
+reeking corruption among the leadership in the building trades' council
+and among an element in the employing group in connection with a
+successful attempt to establish a virtual local monopoly in building.
+Some of the leading corruptionists on both sides were given court
+sentences and the building trades' council accepted modifications in the
+"working rules" formulated by the counsel for the investigating
+committee. In Chicago a situation developed in many respects similar to
+the one in San Francisco. In a wage dispute, which was submitted by both
+sides to Federal Judge K.M. Landis for arbitration, the award authorized
+not only a wage reduction but a revision of the "working rules" as well.
+Most of the unionists refused to abide by the award and the situation
+developed into literal warfare. In Chicago the employers' side was
+aggressively upheld by a "citizens' committee" formed to enforce the
+Landis award. The committee claimed to have imported over 10,000
+out-of-town building mechanics to take the places of the strikers.
+
+In the autumn of 1921 the employers in the packing industry discontinued
+the arrangement whereby industrial relations were administered by an
+"administrator,"[94] Judge Alschuler of Chicago, whose rulings had
+materially restricted the employers' control in the shop. Some of the
+employers put into effect company union plans. This led to a strike, but
+in the end the unions lost their foothold in the industry, which the War
+had enabled them to acquire. By that time, however, the open-shop
+movement seemed already passing its peak, without having caused an
+irreparable breach in the position of organized labor. Evidently, the
+long years of preparation before the War and the great opportunity
+during the War itself, if they have failed to give trade unionism the
+position of a recognized national institution, have at least made it
+immune from destruction by employers, however general or skillfully
+managed the attack. In 1920 the total organized union membership,
+including the 871,000 in unions unaffiliated with the American
+Federation of Labor, was slightly short of 5,000,000, or over four
+million in the Federation itself. In 1921 the membership of the
+Federation declined slightly to 3,906,000, and the total organized
+membership probably in proportion. In 1922 the membership of the
+Federation declined to about 3,200,000, showing a loss of about 850,000
+since the high mark of 1920.
+
+The legal position of trade unions has continued as uncertain and
+unsatisfactory to the unions, as if no Clayton Act had been passed. The
+closed shop has been condemned as coercion of non-unionists. Yet in the
+Coppage case[95] the United States Supreme Court found that it is not
+coercion when an employer threatens discharge unless union membership is
+renounced. Similarly, it is unlawful for union agents to attempt
+organization, even by peaceful persuasion, when employes have signed
+contracts not to join the union as a condition of employment.[96] A
+decision which arouses strong doubt whether the Clayton Act made any
+change in the status of trade unions was given by the Supreme Court in
+the recent Duplex Printing case.[97] In this decision the union rested
+its defense squarely on the immunities granted by the Clayton Act.
+Despite this, the injunction was confirmed and the boycott again
+declared illegal, the court holding that the words "employer and
+employes" in the Act restrict its benefits only to "parties standing in
+proximate relation to a controversy," that is to the employes who are
+immediately involved in the dispute and not to the national union which
+undertakes to bring their employer to terms by causing their other
+members to boycott his goods.
+
+The prevailing judicial interpretation of unlawful union methods is
+briefly as follows: Strikes are illegal when they involve defamation,
+fraud, actual physical violence, threats of physical violence, or
+inducement of breach of contract. Boycotts are illegal when they bring
+third parties into the dispute by threats of strikes, or loss of
+business, publication of "unfair lists,"[98] or by interference with
+Interstate commerce. Picketing is illegal when accompanied by violence,
+threats, intimidation, and coercion. In December 1921 the Supreme Court
+declared mere numbers in groups constituted intimidation and, while
+admitting that circumstances may alter cases, limited peaceful picketing
+to one picket at each point of ingress or egress of the plant.[99] In
+another case the Court held unconstitutional an Arizona statute, which
+reproduced _verbatim_ the labor clauses of the Clayton Act;[100] this on
+the ground that concerted action by the union would be illegal if the
+means used were illegal and therefore the law which operated to make
+them legal deprived the plaintiff of his property without due process of
+law. In June 1922, in the Coronado case, the Court held that unions,
+although unincorporated, are in every respect like corporations and are
+liable for damages in their corporate capacity, including triple damages
+under the Sherman Anti-Trust law, and which may be collected from their
+funds.
+
+We have already pointed out that since the War ended the American labor
+movement has in the popular mind become linked with radicalism. The
+steel strike and the coal miners' strike in 1919, the revolt against the
+national leaders and "outlaw" strikes in the printing industry and on
+the railways in 1920, the advocacy by the organizations of the railway
+men of the Plumb Plan for nationalization of railways and its repeated
+endorsement by the conventions of the American Federation of Labor, the
+resolutions in favor of the nationalization of coal mines passed at the
+conventions of the United Mine Workers, the "vacation" strike by the
+anthracite coal miners in defiance of a government wage award, the
+sympathy expressed for Soviet Russia in a number of unions, notably of
+the clothing industry, have led many to see, despite the assertions of
+the leaders of the American Federation of Labor to the contrary, an
+apparent drift in the labor movement towards radicalism, or even the
+probability of a radical majority in the Federation in the not distant
+future.
+
+The most startling shift has been, of course, in the railway men's
+organizations, which have changed from a pronounced conservatism to an
+advocacy of a socialistic plan of railway nationalization under the
+Plumb Plan. The Plumb Plan raises the issue of socialism in its
+American form. In bare outline the Plan proposes government acquisition
+of the railroads at a value which excludes rights and privileges not
+specifically granted to the roads in their charters from the States. The
+government would then lease the roads to a private operating corporation
+governed by a tri-partite board of directors equally representing the
+consuming public, the managerial employes, and the classified employes.
+An automatic economy-sharing scheme was designed to assure efficient
+service at low rates calculated to yield a fixed return on a value shorn
+of capitalized privileges.
+
+The purpose of the Plumb Plan is to equalize the opportunities of labor
+and capital in using economic power to obtain just rewards for services
+rendered to the public. In this respect it resembles many of the land
+reform and other "panaceas" which are scattered through labor history.
+Wherein it differs is in making the trade unions the vital and organized
+representatives of producers' interests entitled to participate in the
+direct management of industry. An ideal of copartnership and
+self-employment was thus set up, going beyond the boundaries of
+self-help to which organized labor had limited itself in the eighties.
+
+But it is easy to overestimate the drift in the direction of radicalism.
+The Plumb Plan has not yet been made the _sine qua non_ of the American
+labor program. Although the American Federation of Labor endorsed the
+principle of government ownership of the railways at its conventions of
+1920 and 1921, President Gompers, who spoke against the Plan, was
+reelected and again reelected. And in obeying instructions to cooperate
+with brotherhood leaders, he found that they also thought it inopportune
+to press Plumb Plan legislation actively. So far as the railway men
+themselves are concerned, after the Railroad Labor Board set up under
+the Esch-Cummins act had begun to pass decisions actually affecting
+wages and working rules, the pressure for the Plumb Plan subsided.
+Instead, the activities of the organizations, though scarcely lessened
+in intensity, have become centered upon the issues of conditions of
+employment.
+
+The drift towards independent labor politics, which many anticipate,
+also remains quite inconclusive. A Farmer-Labor party, launched in 1920
+by influential labor leaders of Chicago (to be sure, against the wishes
+of the national leaders), polled not more than 350,000 votes. And in the
+same election, despite a wide dissatisfaction in labor circles with the
+change in the government's attitude after the passage of the War
+emergency and with a most sweeping use of the injunction in the coal
+strike, the vote for the socialist candidate for President fell below a
+million, that is behind the vote of 1912, notwithstanding a doubling of
+the electorate with women's suffrage. Finally, the same convention of
+the American Federation of Labor, which showed so much sympathy for the
+ideas of the Plumb Plan League, approved a rupture with the
+International Trade Union Federation, with headquarters in Amsterdam,
+Holland, mainly on account of the revolutionary character of the
+addresses issued by the latter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[89] The most plausible argument in favor of the position taken by the
+employing group is that no employer should be forced to decide matters
+as intimately connected with the welfare of his business as the ones
+relating to his labor costs and shop discipline with national union
+leaders, since the latter, at best, are interested in the welfare of the
+trade as a whole but rarely in the particular success of _his own_
+particular establishment.
+
+[90] The turn in public sentiment really dated from the threat of a
+strike for the eight-hour day by the four railway brotherhoods in 1916,
+which forced the passage of the Adamson law by Congress. The law was a
+victory for the brotherhoods, but also extremely useful to the enemies
+of organized labor in arousing public hostility to unionism.
+
+[91] See below, 259-261, for a more detailed description of the Plan.
+
+[92] The Transportation Act included a provision that prior to September
+1, 1920, the railways could not reduce wages.
+
+[93] A Protestant interdenominational organization of influence, which
+investigated the strike and issued a report.
+
+[94] The union had not been formally "recognized" at any time.
+
+[95] Coppage _v._ Kansas, 236 U.S. (1915).
+
+[96] Hitchman Coal and Coke Co. _v._ Mitchell et al, 245 U.S. 229
+(1917).
+
+[97] Duplex Printing Press Co. _v._ Deering, 41 Sup. Ct. 172 (1921).
+
+[98] Montana allows the "unfair list" and California allows all
+boycotts.
+
+[99] American Steel Foundries of Granite City, Illinois, _v._ Tri-City
+Central Trades' Council, 42 Sup. Ct. 72 (1921).
+
+[100] Truax et al. _v._ Corrigan, 42 Sup. Ct. 124 (1921).
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION
+
+
+To interpret the labor movement means to offer a theory of the struggle
+between labor and capital in our present society. According to Karl
+Marx, the founder of modern socialism, the efficient cause in all the
+class struggles of history has been technical progress. Progress in the
+mode of making a living or the growth of "productive forces," says Marx,
+causes the coming up of new classes and stimulates in each and all
+classes a desire to use their power for a maximum class advantage.
+Referring to the struggle between the class of wage earners and the
+class of employers, Marx brings out that modern machine technique has
+concentrated the social means of production under the ownership of the
+capitalist, who thus became absolute master. The laborer indeed remains
+a free man to dispose of his labor as he wishes, but, having lost
+possession of the means of production, which he had as a master-workman
+during the preceding handicraft stage of industry, his freedom is only
+an illusion and his bargaining power is no greater than if he were a
+slave.
+
+But capitalism, Marx goes on to say, while it debases the worker, at the
+same time produces the conditions of his ultimate elevation. Capitalism
+with its starvation wages and misery makes the workers conscious of
+their common interests as an exploited class, concentrates them in a
+limited number of industrial districts, and forces them to organize for
+a struggle against the exploiters. The struggle is for the complete
+displacement of the capitalists both in government and industry by the
+revolutionary labor class. Moreover, capitalism itself renders effective
+although unintended aid to its enemies by developing the following three
+tendencies: First, we have the tendency towards the concentration of
+capital and wealth in the hands of a few of the largest capitalists,
+which reduces the number of the natural supporters of capitalism.
+Second, we observe a tendency towards a steady depression of wages and a
+growing misery of the wage-earning class, which keeps revolutionary
+ardor alive. And lastly, the inevitable and frequent economic crises
+under capitalism disorganize it and hasten it on towards destruction.
+The last and gravest capitalistic industrial crisis will coincide with
+the social revolution which will bring capitalism to an end. The
+wage-earning class must under no condition permit itself to be diverted
+from its revolutionary program into futile attempts to "patch-up"
+capitalism. The labor struggle must be for the abolition of capitalism.
+
+American wage earners have steadily disappointed several generations of
+Marxians by their refusal to accept the Marxian theory of social
+development and the Marxian revolutionary goal. In fact, in their
+thinking, most American wage earners do not start with any general
+theory of industrial society, but approach the subject as bargainers,
+desiring to strike the best wage bargain possible. They also have a
+conception of what the bargain ought to yield them by way of real
+income, measured in terms of their customary standard of living, in
+terms of security for the future, and in terms of freedom in the shop or
+"self-determination." What impresses them is not so much the fact that
+the employer owns the employment opportunities but that he possesses a
+high degree of bargaining advantage over them. Viewing the situation as
+bargainers, they are forced to give their best attention to the menaces
+they encounter as bargainers, namely, to the competitive menaces; for on
+these the employer's own advantage as a bargainer rests. Their impulse
+is therefore not to suppress the employer, but to suppress those
+competitive menaces, be they convict labor, foreign labor, "green" or
+untrained workers working on machines, and so forth. To do so they feel
+they must organize into a union and engage in a "class struggle" against
+the employer.
+
+It is the employer's purpose to bring in ever lower and lower levels in
+competition among laborers and depress wages; it is the purpose of the
+union to eliminate those lower levels and to make them stay eliminated.
+That brings the union men face to face with the whole matter of
+industrial control. They have no assurance that the employer will not
+get the best of them in bargaining unless they themselves possess enough
+control over the shop and the trade to check him. Hence they will strive
+for the "recognition" of the union by the employer or the associated
+employers as an acknowledged part of the government of the shop and the
+trade. It is essential to note that in struggling for recognition, labor
+is struggling not for something absolute, as would be a struggle for a
+complete dispossession of the employer, but for the sort of an end that
+admits of relative differences and gradations. Industrial control may be
+divided in varying proportions,[101] reflecting at any one time the
+relative ratio of bargaining power of the contesting sides. It is
+labor's aim to continue increasing its bargaining power and with it its
+share of industrial control, just as it is the employer's aim to
+maintain a _status quo_ or better. Although this presupposes a
+continuous struggle, it is not a revolutionary but an "opportunist"
+struggle.
+
+Once we accept the view that a broadly conceived aim to control
+competitive menaces is the key to the conduct of organized labor in
+America, light is thrown on the causes of the American industrial class
+struggles. In place of looking for these causes, with the Marxians, in
+the domain of technique and production, we shall look for them on the
+market, where all developments which affect labor as a bargainer and
+competitor, of which technical change is one, are sooner or later bound
+to register themselves. It will then become possible to account for the
+long stretch of industrial class struggle in America prior to the
+factory system, while industry continued on the basis of the handicraft
+method of production. Also we shall be able to render to ourselves a
+clearer account of the changes, with time, in the intensity of the
+struggle, which, were we to follow the Marxian theory, would appear
+hopelessly irregular.
+
+We shall take for an illustration the shoe industry.[102] The ease with
+which shoes can be transported long distances, due to the relatively
+high money value contained in small bulk, rendered the shoe industry
+more sensitive to changes in marketing than other industries. Indeed we
+may say that the shoe industry epitomized the general economic evolution
+of the country.[103]
+
+We observe no industrial class struggle during Colonial times when the
+market remained purely local and the work was custom-order work. The
+journeyman found his standard of life protected along with the master's
+own through the latter's ability to strike a favorable bargain with the
+consumer. This was done by laying stress upon the quality of the work.
+It was mainly for this reason that during the custom-order stage of
+industry the journeymen seldom if ever raised a protest because the
+regulation of the craft, be it through a guild or through an informal
+organization, lay wholly in the hands of the masters. Moreover, the
+typical journeyman expected in a few years to set up with an apprentice
+or two in business for himself--so there was a reasonable harmony of
+interests.
+
+A change came when improvements in transportation, the highway and later
+the canal, had widened the area of competition among masters. As a first
+step, the master began to produce commodities in advance of the demand,
+laying up a stock of goods for the retail trade. The result was that his
+bargaining capacity over the consumer was lessened and so prices
+eventually had to be reduced, and with them also wages. The next step
+was even more serious. Having succeeded in his retail business, the
+master began to covet a still larger market,--the wholesale market.
+However, the competition in this wider market was much keener than it
+had been in the custom-order or even in the retail market. It was
+inevitable that both prices and wages should suffer in the process. The
+master, of course, could recoup himself by lowering the quality of the
+product, but when he did that he lost a telling argument in bargaining
+with the consumer or the retail merchant. Another result of this new way
+of conducting the business was that an increased amount of capital was
+now required for continuous operation, both in raw material and in
+credits extended to distant buyers.
+
+The next phase in the evolution of the market rendered the separation of
+the journeymen into a class by themselves even sharper as well as more
+permanent. The market had grown to such dimensions that only a
+specialist in marketing and credit could succeed in business, namely,
+the "merchant-capitalist." The latter now interposed himself permanently
+between "producer" and consumer and by his control of the market assumed
+a commanding position. The merchant-capitalist ran his business upon the
+principle of a large turn-over and a small profit per unit of product,
+which, of course, made his income highly speculative. He was accordingly
+interested primarily in low production and labor costs. To depress the
+wage levels he tapped new and cheaper sources of labor supply, in prison
+labor, low wage country-town labor, woman and child labor; and set them
+up as competitive menaces to the workers in the trade. The
+merchant-capitalist system forced still another disadvantage upon the
+wage earner by splitting up crafts into separate operations and tapping
+lower levels of skill. In the merchant-capitalist period we find the
+"team work" and "task" system. The "team" was composed of several
+workers: a highly skilled journeyman was in charge, but the other
+members possessed varying degrees of skill down to the practically
+unskilled "finisher." The team was generally paid a lump wage, which
+was divided by an understanding among the members. With all that the
+merchant-capitalist took no appreciable part in the productive process.
+His equipment consisted of a warehouse where the raw material was cut up
+and given out to be worked up by small contractors, to be worked up in
+small shops with a few journeymen and apprentices, or else by the
+journeyman at his home,--all being paid by the piece. This was the
+notorious "sweatshop system."
+
+The contractor or sweatshop boss was a mere labor broker deriving his
+income from the margin between the piece rate he received from the
+merchant-capitalist and the rate he paid in wages. As any workman could
+easily become a contractor with the aid of small savings out of wages,
+or with the aid of money advanced by the merchant-capitalist, the
+competition between contractors was of necessity of the cut-throat kind.
+The industrial class struggle was now a three-cornered one, the
+contractor aligning himself here with the journeymen, whom he was forced
+to exploit, there with the merchant-capitalist, but more often with the
+latter. Also, owing to the precariousness of the position of both
+contractor and journeyman, the class struggle now reached a new pitch of
+intensity hitherto unheard of. It is important to note, however, that as
+yet the tools of production had not undergone any appreciable change,
+remaining hand tools as before, and also that the journeyman still owned
+them. So that the beginning of class struggles had nothing to do with
+machine technique and a capitalist ownership of the tools of production.
+The capitalist, however, had placed himself across the outlets to the
+market and dominated by using all the available competitive menaces to
+both contractor and wage earner. Hence the bitter class struggle.
+
+The thirties witnessed the beginning of the merchant-capitalist system
+in the cities of the East. But the situation grew most serious during
+the forties and fifties. That was a period of the greatest
+disorganization of industry. The big underlying cause was the rapid
+extension of markets outrunning the technical development of industry.
+The large market, opened first by canals and then by railroads,
+stimulated the keenest sort of competition among the
+merchant-capitalists. But the industrial equipment at their disposal had
+made no considerable progress. Except in the textile industry, machinery
+had not yet been invented or sufficiently perfected to make its
+application profitable. Consequently industrial society was in the
+position of an antiquated public utility in a community which
+persistently forces ever lower and lower rates. It could continue to
+render service only by cutting down the returns to the factors of
+production,--by lowering profits, and especially by pressing down wages.
+
+In the sixties the market became a national one as the effect of the
+consolidation into trunk lines of the numerous and disconnected railway
+lines built during the forties and fifties. Coincident with the
+nationalized market for goods, production began to change from a
+handicraft to a machine basis. The former sweatshop boss having
+accumulated some capital, or with the aid of credit, now became a small
+"manufacturer," owning a small plant and employing from ten to fifty
+workmen. Machinery increased the productivity of labor and gave a
+considerable margin of profits, which enabled him to begin laying a
+foundation for his future independence of the middleman. As yet he was,
+however, far from independent.
+
+The wider areas over which manufactured products were now to be
+distributed, called more than ever before for the services of the
+specialist in marketing, namely, the wholesale-jobber. As the market
+extended, he sent out his traveling men, established business
+connections, and advertised the articles which bore his trade mark. His
+control of the market opened up credit with the banks, while the
+manufacturer, who with the exception of his patents possessed only
+physical capital and no market opportunities, found it difficult to
+obtain credit. Moreover, the rapid introduction of machinery tied up all
+of the manufacturers' available capital and forced him to turn his
+products into money as rapidly as possible, with the inevitable result
+that the merchant was given an enormous bargaining advantage over him.
+Had the extension of the market and the introduction of machinery
+proceeded at a less rapid pace, the manufacturer probably would have
+been able to obtain greater control over the market opportunities, and
+the larger credit which this would have given him, combined with the
+accumulation of his own capital, might have been sufficient to meet his
+needs. However, as the situation really developed, the merchant obtained
+a superior bargaining power and, by playing off the competing
+manufacturers one against another, produced a cut-throat competition,
+low prices, low profits, and consequently a steady and insistent
+pressure upon wages. This represents the situation in the seventies and
+eighties.
+
+For labor the combination of cut-throat competition among employers with
+the new machine technique brought serious consequences. In this era of
+machinery the forces of technical evolution decisively joined hands
+with the older forces of marketing evolution to depress the conditions
+of the wage bargain. It is needless to dilate upon the effects of
+machine technique on labor conditions--they have become a commonplace of
+political economy. The shoemakers were first among the organized trades
+to feel the effects. In the later sixties they organized what was then
+the largest trade union in the world, the Order of the Knights of St.
+Crispin,[104] to ward off the menace of "green hands" set to work on
+machines. With the machinists and the metal trades in general, the
+invasion of unskilled and little skilled competitors began a decade
+later. But the main and general invasion came in the eighties, the
+proper era from which to date machine production in America. It was
+during the eighties that we witness an attempted fusion into one
+organization, the Order of the Knights of Labor, of the machine-menaced
+mechanics and the hordes of the unskilled.[105]
+
+With the nineties a change comes at last. The manufacturer finally wins
+his independence. Either he reaches out directly to the ultimate
+consumer by means of chains of stores or other devices, or else, he
+makes use of his control over patents and trade marks and thus succeeds
+in reducing the wholesale-jobber to a position which more nearly
+resembles that of an agent working on a commission basis than that of
+the _quondam_ industrial ruler. The immediate outcome is, of course, a
+considerable increase in the manufacturer's margin of profit. The
+industrial class struggle begins to abate in intensity. The employer,
+now comparatively free of anxiety that he may be forced to operate at a
+loss, is able to diminish pressure on wages. But more than this: the
+greater certainty about the future, now that he is a free agent, enables
+him to enter into time agreements with a trade union. At first he is
+generally disinclined to forego any share of his newly acquired freedom
+by tying himself up with a union. But if the union is strong and can
+offer battle, then he accepts the situation and "recognizes" it. Thus
+the class struggle instead of becoming sharper and sharper with the
+advance of capitalism and leading, as Marx predicted, to a social
+revolution, in reality, grows less and less revolutionary and leads to a
+compromise or succession of compromises,--namely, collective trade
+agreements.
+
+But the manufacturer's emancipation from the middleman need not always
+lead to trade agreements. In the shoe industry this process did not do
+away with competition. In other industries such an emancipation was
+identical with the coming in of the "trust," or a combination of
+competing manufacturers into a monopoly. As soon as the "trust" becomes
+practically the sole employer of labor in an industry, the relations
+between labor and capital are thrown almost invariably back into the
+state of affairs which characterized the merchant-capitalist system at
+its worst, but with one important difference. Whereas under the
+merchant-capitalist system the employer was _obliged_ to press down on
+wages and fight unionism to death owing to cut-throat competition, the
+"trust," its strength supreme in both commodity and labor market, can do
+so and usually does so _of free choice_.
+
+The character of the labor struggle has been influenced by cyclical
+changes in industry as much as by the permanent changes in the
+organization of industry and market. In fact, whereas reaction to the
+latter has generally been slow and noticeable only over long periods of
+time, with a turn in the business cycle, the labor movement reacted
+surely and instantaneously.
+
+We observed over the greater part of the history of American labor an
+alternation of two planes of thought and action, an upper and a lower.
+On the upper plane, labor thought was concerned with ultimate goals,
+self-employment or cooperation, and problems arising therefrom, while
+action took the form of politics. On the lower plane, labor abandoned
+the ultimate for the proximate, centering on betterments within the
+limits of the wage system and on trade-union activity. Labor history in
+the past century was largely a story of labor's shifting from one plane
+to another, and then again to the first. It was also seen that what
+determined the plane of thought and action at any one time was the state
+of business measured by movements of wholesale and retail prices and
+employment and unemployment. When prices rose and margins of employers'
+profits were on the increase, the demand for labor increased and
+accordingly also labor's strength as a bargainer; at the same time,
+labor was compelled to organize to meet a rising cost of living. At such
+times trade unionism monopolized the arena, won strikes, increased
+membership, and forced "cure-alls" and politics into the background.
+When, however, prices fell and margins of profit contracted, labor's
+bargaining strength waned, strikes were lost, trade unions faced the
+danger of extinction, and "cure-alls" and politics received their day in
+court. Labor would turn to government and politics only as a last
+resort, when it had lost confidence in its ability to hold its own in
+industry. This phenomenon, noticeable also in other countries, came out
+with particular clearness in America.
+
+For, as a rule, down to the World War, prices both wholesale and retail,
+fluctuated in America more violently than in England or the Continent.
+And twice, once in the thirties and again in the sixties, an
+irredeemable paper currency moved up the water mark of prices to
+tremendous heights followed by reactions of corresponding depth. From
+the war of 1812, the actual beginning of an industrial America, to the
+end of the century, the country went through several such complete
+industrial and business cycles. We therefore conveniently divide labor
+and trade union history into periods on the basis of the industrial
+cycle. It was only in the nineties, as we saw, that the response of the
+labor movement to price fluctuations ceased to mean a complete or nearly
+complete abandonment of trade unionism during depressions. A continuous
+and stable trade union movement consequently dates only from the
+nineties.
+
+The cooperative movement which was, as we saw, far less continuous than
+trade unionism, has also shown the effects of the business cycle. The
+career of distributive cooperation in America has always been intimately
+related to the movements of retail prices and wages. If, in the advance
+of wages and prices during the ascending portion of the industrial
+cycle, the cost of living happened to outdistance wages by a wide
+margin, the wage earners sought a remedy in distributive cooperation.
+They acted likewise during the descending portion of the industrial
+cycle, when retail prices happened to fall much less slowly than wages.
+
+Producers' cooperation in the United States has generally been a "hard
+times" remedy. When industrial prosperity has passed its high crest and
+strikes have begun to fail, producers' cooperation has often been used
+as a retaliatory measure to bring the employer to terms by menacing to
+underbid him in the market. Also, when in the further downward course of
+industry the point has been reached where cuts in wages and unemployment
+have become quite common, producers' cooperation has sometimes come in
+as an attempt to enable the wage earner to obtain both employment and
+high earnings bolstered through cooperative profits.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[101] The struggle for control, as carried on by trade unions, centers
+on such matters as methods of wage determination, the employer's right
+of discharge, hiring and lay-off, division of work, methods of enforcing
+shop discipline, introduction of machinery and division of labor,
+transfers of employes, promotions, the union or non-union shop, and
+similar subjects.
+
+[102] The first trade societies were organized by shoemakers. (See
+above, 4-7.)
+
+[103] See Chapter on "American Shoemakers," in _Labor and
+Administration_, by John R. Commons (Macmillan, 1913).
+
+[104] See Don D. Lescohier, _The Order of the Knights of St. Crispin_.
+
+[105] See above, 114-116.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+THE IDEALISTIC FACTOR
+
+
+The puzzling fact about the American labor movement is, after all, its
+limited objective. As we saw before, the social order which the typical
+American trade unionist considers ideal is one in which organized labor
+and organized capital possess equal bargaining power. The American trade
+unionist wants, first, an equal voice with the employer in fixing wages
+and, second, a big enough control over the productive processes to
+protect job, health, and organization. Yet he does not appear to wish to
+saddle himself and fellow wage earners with the trouble of running
+industry without the employer.
+
+But materialistic though this philosophy appears, it is nevertheless the
+product of a long development to which the spiritual contributed no less
+than the material. In fact the American labor movement arrived at an
+opportunist trade unionism only after an endeavor spread over more than
+seventy years to realize a more idealistic program.
+
+American labor started with the "ideology" of the Declaration of
+Independence in 1776. Intended as a justification of a political
+revolution, the Declaration was worded by the authors as an expression
+of faith in a social revolution. To controvert the claims of George III,
+Thomas Jefferson quoted Rousseau. To him Rousseau was in all probability
+little more than an abstract "beau idéal," but Rousseau's abstractions
+were no mere abstractions to the pioneer American farmer. To the latter
+the doctrine that all men are born free and equal seemed to have grown
+directly out of experience. So it appeared, two or three generations
+later, to the young workmen when they for the first time achieved
+political consciousness. And, if reality ceased to square with the
+principles of the Declaration, it became, they felt, the bounden duty of
+every true American to amend reality.
+
+Out of a combination of the principles of individual rights, individual
+self-determination, equality of opportunity, and political equality
+enumerated and suggested in the Declaration, arose the first and most
+persistent American labor philosophy. This philosophy differed in no
+wise from the philosophy of the old American democracy except in
+emphasis and particular application, yet these differences are highly
+significant. Labor read into the Declaration of Independence a
+condemnation of the wage system as a permanent economic régime; sooner
+or later in place of the wage system had to come _self-employment_.
+Americanism to them was a social and economic as well as a political
+creed. Economic self-determination was as essential to the individual as
+political equality. Just as no true American will take orders from a
+king, so he will not consent forever to remain under the orders of a
+"boss." It was the _uplifting_ force of this social ideal as much as the
+propelling force of the changing economic environment that molded the
+American labor program.
+
+We find it at work at first in the decade of the thirties at the very
+beginning of the labor movement. It then took the form of a demand for a
+free public school system. These workingmen in Philadelphia and New York
+discovered that in the place of the social democracy of the
+Declaration, America had developed into an "aristocracy." They thought
+that the root of it all lay in "inequitable" legislation which fostered
+"monopoly," hence the remedy lay in democratic legislation. But they
+further realized that a political and social democracy must be based on
+an educated and intelligent working class. No measure, therefore, could
+be more than a palliative until they got a "Republican" system of
+education. The workingmen's parties of 1828-1831 failed as parties, but
+humanitarians like Horace Mann took up the struggle for free public
+education and carried it to success.
+
+If in the thirties the labor program was to restore a social and
+political democracy by means of the public school, in the forties the
+program centered on economic democracy, on equality of economic
+opportunity. This took the form of a demand of a grant of public land
+free of charge to everyone willing to brave the rigors of pioneer life.
+The government should thus open an escape to the worker from the wage
+system into self-employment by way of free land. After years of
+agitation, the same cry was taken up by the Western States eager for
+more settlers to build up their communities and this combined agitation
+proved irresistible and culminated in the Homestead law of 1862.
+
+The Homestead law opened up the road to self-employment by way of free
+land and agriculture. But in the sixties the United States was already
+becoming an industrial country. In abandoning the city for the farm, the
+wage earner would lose the value of his greatest possession--his skill.
+Moreover, as a homesteader, his problem was far from solved by mere
+access to free land. Whether he went on the land or stayed in industry,
+he needed access to reasonably free credit. The device invented by
+workingmen to this end was the bizarre "greenback" idea which held their
+minds as if in a vise for nearly twenty years. "Greenbackism" left no
+such permanent trace on American social and economic structure as
+"Republican education" or "free land."
+
+The lure of "greenbackism" was that it offered an opportunity for
+self-employment. But already in the sixties, it became clear that the
+workingman could not expect to attain self-employment as an individual,
+but if at all, it had to be sought on the basis of producers'
+cooperation. In the eighties, it became doubly clear that industry had
+gone beyond the one-man-shop stage; self-employment had to stand or fall
+with the cooperative or self-governing workshop. The protagonist of this
+most interesting and most idealistic striving of American labor was the
+"Noble Order of the Knights of Labor," which reached its height in the
+middle of the eighties.
+
+The period of the greatest enthusiasm for cooperation was between 1884
+and 1887; and by 1888 the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle
+of life and succumbed. The failure of cooperation proved a turning point
+in the evolution of the American labor program. Whatever the special
+causes of failure, the idealistic unionism, for which the ideas of the
+Declaration of Independence served as a fountain head, suffered in the
+eyes of labor, a degree of discredit so overwhelming that to regain its
+old position was no longer possible. The times were ripe for the
+opportunistic unionism of Gompers and the trade unionists.
+
+These latter, having started in the seventies as Marxian socialists, had
+been made over into opportunistic unionists by their practical contact
+with American conditions. Their philosophy was narrower than that of the
+Knights and their concept of labor solidarity narrower still. However,
+these trade unionists demonstrated that they could win strikes. It was
+to this practical trade unionism, then, that the American labor movement
+turned, about 1890, when the idealism of the Knights of Labor had
+failed. From groping for a cooperative economic order or
+self-employment, labor turned with the American Federation of Labor to
+developing bargaining power for use against employers. This trade
+unionism stood for a strengthened group consciousness. While it
+continued to avow sympathy with the "anti-monopoly" aspirations of the
+"producers," who fought for the opportunity of self-employment, it also
+declared that the interests of democracy will be best served if the wage
+earners organized by themselves.
+
+This opportunist unionism, now at last triumphant over the idealistic
+unionism induced by America's spiritual tradition, soon was obliged to
+fight against a revolutionary unionism which, like itself, was an
+offshoot of the socialism of the seventies. At first, the American
+Federation of Labor was far from hostile to socialism as a philosophy.
+Its attitude was rather one of mild contempt for what it considered to
+be wholly impracticable under American conditions, however necessary or
+efficacious under other conditions. When, about 1890, the socialists
+declared their policy of "boring from within," that is, of capturing the
+Federation for socialism by means of propaganda in Federation ranks,
+this attitude remained practically unchanged. Only when, dissatisfied
+with the results of boring from within, the socialists, now led by a
+more determined leadership, attempted in 1895 to set up a rival to the
+Federation in the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, was there a sharp
+line drawn between socialist and anti-socialist in the Federation. The
+issue once having become a fighting issue, the leaders of the Federation
+experienced the need of a positive and well rounded-out social
+philosophy capable of meeting socialism all along the front instead of
+the former self-imposed super-pragmatism.
+
+By this time, the Federation had become sufficiently removed in point of
+time from its foreign origin to turn to the social ideal derived from
+pioneer America as the philosophy which it hoped would successfully
+combat an aggressive and arrogant socialism. Thus it came about that the
+front against socialism was built out from the immediate and practical
+into the ultimate and spiritual; and that inferences drawn from a
+reading of Jefferson's Declaration, with its emphasis on individual
+liberty, were pressed into service against the seductive collectivist
+forecasts of Marx.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY
+
+
+The question of a political labor party hinges, in the last analysis, on
+the benefits which labor expects from government. If, under the
+constitution, government possesses considerable power to regulate
+industrial relations and improve labor conditions, political power is
+worth striving for. If, on the contrary, the power of the government is
+restricted by a rigid organic law, the matter is reversed. The latter is
+the situation in the United States. The American constitutions, both
+Federal and State, contain bills of rights which embody in fullness the
+eighteenth-century philosophy of economic individualism and governmental
+_laissez-faire_. The courts, Federal and State, are given the right to
+override any law enacted by Congress or the State legislatures which may
+be shown to conflict with constitutional rights.
+
+In the exercise of this right, American judges have always inclined to
+be very conservative in allowing the legislature to invade the province
+of economic freedom. At present after many years of agitation by
+humanitarians and trade unionists, the cause of legislative protection
+of child and woman laborers seems to be won in principle. But this
+progress has been made because it has been shown conclusively that the
+protection of these most helpless groups of the wage-earning class
+clearly falls within the scope of public purpose and is therefore a
+lawful exercise of the state's police power within the meaning of the
+constitution. However, adult male labor offers a far different case.
+Moreover, should the unexpected happen and the courts become converted
+to a broader view, the legislative standards would be small compared
+with the standards already enforced by most of the trade unions.
+Consequently, so far as adult male workers are concerned (and they are
+of course the great bulk of organized labor), labor in America would
+scarcely be justified in diverting even a part of its energy from trade
+unionism to a relatively unprofitable seeking of redress through
+legislatures and courts.[106]
+
+But this is no more than half the story. Granting even that political
+power may be worth having, its attainment is beset with difficulties and
+dangers more than sufficient to make responsible leaders pause. The
+causes reside once more in the form of government, also in the general
+nature of American politics, and in political history and tradition. To
+begin with, labor would have to fight not on one front, but on
+forty-nine different fronts.[107]
+
+Congress and the States have power to legislate on labor matters; also,
+in each, power is divided between an executive and the two houses of the
+legislature. Decidedly, government in America was built not for strength
+but for weakness. The splitting up of sovereignty does not especially
+interfere with the purposes of a conservative party, but to a party of
+social and industrial reform it offers a disheartening obstacle. A labor
+party, to be effective, would be obliged to capture all the diffused
+bits of sovereignty at the same time. A partial gain is of little avail,
+since it is likely to be lost at the next election even simultaneously
+with a new gain. But we have assumed here that the labor party had
+reached the point where its trials are the trials of a party in power or
+nearing power. In reality, American labor parties are spared this sort
+of trouble by trials of an anterior order residing in the nature of
+American politics.
+
+The American political party system antedates the formation of modern
+economic classes, especially the class alignment of labor and capital.
+Each of the old parties represents, at least in theory, the entire
+American community regardless of class. Party differences are considered
+differences of opinion or of judgment on matters of public policy, not
+differences of class interest. The wage earner in America, who never had
+to fight for his suffrage but received it as a free gift from the
+Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democratic movements and who did not
+therefore develop the political class consciousness which was stamped
+into the workers in Europe by the feeling of revolt against an upper
+ruling class, is prone to adopt the same view of politics. Class parties
+in America have always been effectively countered by the old established
+parties with the charge that they tend to incite class against class.
+
+But the old parties had on numerous occasions, as we saw, an even more
+effective weapon. No sooner did a labor party gain a foothold, than the
+old party politician, the "friend of labor," did appear and start a
+rival attraction by a more or less verbal adherence to one or more
+planks of the rising party. Had he been, as in Europe, a branded
+spokesman of a particular economic class or interest, it would not have
+been difficult to ward him off. But here in America, he said that he too
+was a workingman and was heart and soul for the workingman. Moreover,
+the workingman was just as much attached to an old party label as any
+average American. In a way he considered it an assertion of his social
+equality with any other group of Americans that he could afford to take
+the same "disinterested" and tradition-bound view of political struggles
+as the rest. This is why labor parties generally encountered such
+disheartening receptions at the hands of workingmen; also why it was
+difficult to "deliver the labor vote" to any party. This, on the whole,
+describes the condition of affairs today as it does the situations in
+the past.
+
+In the end, should the workingman be pried loose from his traditional
+party affiliation by a labor event of transcendent importance for the
+time being, should he be stirred to political revolt by an oppressive
+court decision, or the use of troops to break a strike; then, at the
+next election, when the excitement has had time to subside, he will
+usually return to his political normality. Moreover, should labor
+discontent attain depth, it may be safely assumed that either one or the
+other of the old parties or a faction therein will seek to divert its
+driving force into its own particular party channel. Should the labor
+party still persist, the old party politicians, whose bailiwick it will
+have particularly invaded, will take care to encourage, by means not
+always ethical but nearly always effective, strife in its ranks. Should
+that fail, the old parties will in the end "fuse" against the upstart
+rival. If they are able to stay "fused" during enough elections and also
+win them, the fidelity of the adherent of the third party is certain to
+be put to a hard and unsuccessful test. To the outsider these
+conclusions may appear novel, but labor in America learned these lessons
+through a long experience, which began when the first workingmen's
+parties were attempted in 1828-1832. The limited potentialities of labor
+legislation together with the apparent hopelessness of labor party
+politics compelled the American labor movement to develop a sort of
+non-partisan political action with limited objectives thoroughly
+characteristic of American conditions. Labor needs protection from
+interference by the courts in the exercise of its economic weapons, the
+strike and the boycott, upon which it is obviously obliged to place
+especial reliance. In other words, though labor may refuse to be drawn
+into the vortex of politics for the sake of positive attainments, or,
+that is to say, labor legislation, it is compelled to do so for the sake
+of a _negative_ gain--a judicial _laissez-faire_. That labor does by
+pursuing a policy of "reward your friends" and "punish your enemies" in
+the sphere of politics. The method itself is an old one in the labor
+movement; we saw it practiced by George Henry Evans and the land
+reformers of the forties as well as by Steward and the advocates of the
+eight-hour day by law in the sixties. The American Federation of Labor
+merely puts it to use in connection with a new objective, namely,
+freedom from court interference. Although the labor vote is largely
+"undeliverable," still where the parties are more or less evenly matched
+in strength, that portion of the labor vote which is politically
+conscious of its economic interests may swing the election to whichever
+side it turns. Under certain conditions[108] labor has been known even
+to attain through such indirection in excess of what it might have won
+had it come to share in power as a labor party.
+
+The controversy around labor in politics brings up in the last analysis
+the whole problem of leadership in labor organizations, or to be
+specific, the role of the intellectual in the movement. In America his
+role has been remarkably restricted. For a half century or more the
+educated classes had no connection with the labor movement, for in the
+forties and fifties, when the Brook Farm enthusiasts and their
+associates took up with fervor the social question, they were really
+alone in the field, since the protracted trade depression had laid all
+labor organization low. It was in the eighties, with the turmoil of the
+Knights of Labor and the Anarchist bomb in Chicago, that the
+"intellectuals" first awakened to the existence of a labor problem. To
+this awakening no single person contributed more than the economist
+Professor Richard T. Ely, then of Johns Hopkins University. His pioneer
+work on the _Labor Movement in America_ published in 1886, and the works
+of his many capable students gave the labor movement a permanent place
+in the public mind, besides presenting the cause of labor with
+scientific precision and with a judicious balance. Among the other
+pioneers were preachers like Washington Gladden and Lyman Abbott, who
+conceived their duty as that of mediators between the business class and
+the wage earning class, exhorting the former to deal with their employes
+according to the Golden Rule and the latter to moderation in their
+demands. Together with the economists they helped to break down the
+prejudice against labor unionism in so far as the latter was
+non-revolutionary. And though their influence was large, they understood
+that their maximum usefulness would be realized by remaining sympathetic
+outsiders and not by seeking to control the course of the labor
+movement.
+
+In recent years a new type of intellectual has come to the front. A
+product of a more generalized mental environment than his predecessor,
+he is more daring in his retrospects and his prospects. He is just as
+ready to advance an "economic interpretation of the constitution" as to
+advocate a collectivistic panacea for the existing industrial and social
+ills. Nor did this new intellectual come at an inopportune time for
+getting a hearing. Confidence in social conservatism has been undermined
+by an exposure in the press and through legislative investigations of
+the disreputable doings of some of the staunchest conservatives. At such
+a juncture "progressivism" and a "new liberalism" were bound to come
+into their own in the general opinion of the country.
+
+But the labor movement resisted. American labor, both during the periods
+of neglect and of moderate championing by the older generation of
+intellectuals, has developed a leadership wholly its own. This
+leadership, of which Samuel Gompers is the most notable example, has
+given years and years to building up a united fighting _morale_ in the
+army of labor. And because the _morale_ of an army, as these leaders
+thought, is strong only when it is united upon one common attainable
+purpose, the intellectual with his new and unfamiliar issues has been
+given the cold shoulder by precisely the trade unionists in whom he had
+anticipated to find most eager disciples. The intellectual might go from
+success to success in conquering the minds of the middle classes; the
+labor movement largely remains closed to him.
+
+To make matters worse the intellectual has brought with him a psychology
+which is particularly out of fit with the American labor situation. We
+noted that the American labor movement became shunted from the political
+arena into the economic one by virtue of fundamental conditions of
+American political institutions and political life. However, it is
+precisely in political activity where the intellectual is most at home.
+The clear-cut logic and symmetry of political platforms based on general
+theories, the broad vistas which it may be made to encompass, and lastly
+the opportunity for eloquent self-expression offered by parliamentary
+debates, all taken together exert a powerful attraction for the
+intellectualized mind. Contrast with this the prosaic humdrum work of a
+trade union leader, the incessant wrangling over "small" details and
+"petty" grievances, and the case becomes exceedingly clear. The mind of
+the typical intellectual is too generalized to be lured by any such
+alternative. He is out of patience with mere amelioration, even though
+it may mean much in terms of human happiness to the worker and his
+family.
+
+When in 1906, in consequence of the heaping up of legal disabilities
+upon the trade unions, American labor leaders turned to politics to seek
+a restraining hand upon the courts,[109] the intellectuals foresaw a
+political labor party in the not distant future. They predicted that one
+step would inevitably lead to another, that from a policy of bartering
+with the old parties for anti-injunction planks in their platforms,
+labor would turn to a political party of its own. The intellectual
+critic continues to view the political action of the American
+Federation of Labor as the first steps of an invalid learning to walk;
+and hopes that before long he will learn to walk with a firmer step,
+without feeling tempted to lean upon the only too willing shoulders of
+old-party politicians. On the contrary, the Federation leaders, as we
+know, regard their political work as a necessary evil, due to an
+unfortunate turn of affairs, which forces them from time to time to step
+out of their own trade union province in order that their natural enemy,
+the employing class, might get no aid and comfort from an outside ally.
+
+Of late a _rapprochement_ between the intellectual and trade unionist
+has begun to take place. However, it is not founded on the relationship
+of leader and led, but only on a business relationship, or that of giver
+and receiver of paid technical advice. The role of the trained economist
+in handling statistics and preparing "cases" for trade unionists before
+boards of arbitration is coming to be more and more appreciated. The
+railway men's organizations were first to put the intellectual to this
+use, the miners and others followed. From this it is still a far cry to
+the role of such intellectuals as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, G.D.H. Cole
+and the Fabian Research group in England, who have really permeated the
+British labor movement with their views on labor policy. However, there
+is also a place for the American intellectual as an ally of trade
+unionism, not only as its paid servant. The American labor movement has
+committed a grave and costly error because it has not made use of the
+services of writers, journalists, lecturers, and speakers to popularize
+its cause with the general public. Some of its recent defeats, notably
+the steel strike of 1919, were partly due to the neglect to provide a
+sufficient organization of labor publicity to counteract the anti-union
+publicity by the employers.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[106] This assumes that the legislative program of labor would deal
+primarily with the regulation of labor conditions in private employment
+analogous to the legislative program of the British trade unions until
+recent years. Should labor in America follow the newer program of labor
+in Britain and demand the taking over of industries by government with
+compensation, it is not certain that the courts would prove as serious a
+barrier as in the other case. However, the situation would remain
+unchanged so far as the difficulties discussed in the remainder of this
+chapter are concerned.
+
+[107] For the control of the national government and of the forty-eight
+State governments.
+
+[108] Such as a state of war; see above, 235-236.
+
+[109] See above, 203-204.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND TRADE UNIONISM
+
+
+The rise of a political and economic dictatorship by the wage-earning
+class in revolutionary Russia in 1917 has focussed public opinion on the
+labor question as no other event ever did. But one will scarcely say
+that it has tended to clarity of thought. On the one hand, the
+conservative feels confirmed in his old suspicions that there is
+something inherently revolutionary in any labor movement. The extreme
+radical, on the other hand, is as uncritically hopeful for a Bolshevist
+upheaval in America as the conservative or reactionary is uncritically
+fearful. Both forget that an effective social revolution is not the
+product of mere chance and "mob psychology," nor even of propaganda
+however assiduous, but always of a new preponderance of power as between
+contending economic classes.
+
+To students of the social sciences, it is self-evident that the
+prolonged rule of the proletariat in Russia in defiance of nearly the
+whole world must be regarded as a product of Russian life, past and
+present. In fact, the continued Bolshevist rule seems to be an index of
+the relative fighting strength of the several classes in Russian
+society--the industrial proletariat, the landed and industrial
+propertied class, and the peasantry.
+
+It is an irony of fate that the same revolution which purports to enact
+into life the Marxian social program should belie the truth of Marx's
+materialistic interpretation of history and demonstrate that history is
+shaped by both economic and non-economic forces. Marx, as is well known,
+taught that history is a struggle between classes, in which the landed
+aristocracy, the capitalist class, and the wage earning class are raised
+successively to rulership as, with the progress of society's technical
+equipment, first one and then another class can operate it with the
+maximum efficiency. Marx assumed that when the time has arrived for a
+given economic class to take the helm, that class will be found in full
+possession of all the psychological attributes of a ruling class,
+namely, an indomitable will to power, no less than the more vulgar
+desire for the emoluments that come with power. Apparently, Marx took
+for granted that economic evolution is inevitably accompanied by a
+corresponding development of an effective will to power in the class
+destined to rule. Yet, whatever may be the case in the countries of the
+West, in Russia the ruling classes, the gentry and the capitalists,
+clearly failed in the psychological test at the critical time. This
+failure is amply attested by the manner in which they submitted
+practically without a fight after the Bolshevist coup _d'état_.
+
+To get at the secret of this apparent feebleness and want of spunk in
+Russia's ruling class one must study a peculiarity of her history,
+namely, the complete dominance of Russia's development by organized
+government. Where the historian of the Western countries must take
+account of several independent forces, each standing for a social class,
+the Russian historian may well afford to station himself on the high
+peak of government and, from this point of vantage, survey the hills and
+vales of the society which it so thoroughly dominated.
+
+Apolitism runs like a red thread through the pages of Russian history.
+Even the upper layer of the old noble class, the "Boyars," were but a
+shadow of the Western contemporary medieval landed aristocracy. When the
+several principalities became united with the Czardom of Muscovy many
+centuries ago, the Boyar was in fact no more than a steward of the
+Czar's estate and a leader of a posse defending his property; the most
+he dared to do was surreptitiously to obstruct the carrying out of the
+Czar's intentions; he dared not try to impose the will of his class upon
+the crown. The other classes were even more apolitical. So little did
+the several classes aspire to domination that they missed many golden
+opportunities to seize and hold a share of the political power. In the
+seventeenth century, when the government was exceptionally weak after
+what is known as the "period of troubles," it convoked periodical
+"assemblies of the land" to help administer the country. But, as a
+matter of fact, these assemblies considered themselves ill used because
+they were asked to take part in government and not once did they aspire
+to an independent position in the Russian body politic. Another and
+perhaps even more striking instance we find a century and a half later.
+Catherine the Great voluntarily turned over the local administration to
+the nobles and to that end decreed that the nobility organize themselves
+into provincial associations. But so little did the nobility care for
+political power and active class prerogative that, in spite of the
+broadest possible charters, the associations of nobles were never more
+than social organizations in the conventional sense of the word.
+
+Even less did the commercial class aspire to independence. In the West
+of Europe mercantilism answered in an equal measure the needs of an
+expanding state and of a vigorous middle class, the latter being no less
+ardent in the pursuit of gain than the former in the pursuit of
+conquest. In Russia, on the other hand, when Peter the Great wanted
+manufacturing, he had to introduce it by government action. Hence,
+Russian mercantilism was predominantly a state mercantilism. Even where
+Peter succeeded in enlisting private initiative by subsidies, instead of
+building up a class of independent manufacturers, he merely created
+industrial parasites and bureaucrats without initiative of their own,
+who forever kept looking to the government.
+
+Coming to more recent times, we find that the modern Russian factory
+system likewise owes its origin to governmental initiative, namely, to
+the government's railway-building policy. The government built the
+railways for strategic and fiscal reasons but incidentally created a
+unified internal market which made mass-production of articles of common
+consumption profitable for the first time. But, even after Russian
+capitalism was thus enabled to stand on its own feet, it did not unlearn
+the habit of leaning on the government for advancement rather than
+relying on its own efforts. On its part the autocratic government was
+loath to let industry alone. The government generously dispensed to the
+capitalists tariff protection and bounties in the form of profitable
+orders, but insisted on keeping industry under its thumb. And though
+they might chafe, still the capitalists never neglected to make the best
+of the situation. For instance, when the sugar producers found
+themselves running into a hole from cut-throat competition, they
+appealed to the Minister of Finances, who immediately created a
+government-enforced "trust" and assured them huge dividends. Since
+business success was assured by keeping on the proper footing with a
+generous government rather than by relying on one's own vigor, it stands
+to reason that, generally speaking, the capitalists and especially the
+larger capitalists, could develop only into a class of industrial
+courtiers. And when at last the autocracy fell, the courtiers were not
+to be turned overnight into stubborn champions of the rights of their
+class amid the turmoil of a revolution. To be sure, Russia had entered
+the capitalistic stage as her Marxians had predicted, but nevertheless
+her capitalists were found to be lacking the indomitable will to power
+which makes a ruling class.
+
+The weakness of the capitalists in the fight on behalf of private
+property may be explained in part by their want of allies in the other
+classes in the community. The Russian peasant, reared in the atmosphere
+of communal land ownership, was far from being a fanatical defender of
+private property. No Thiers could have rallied a Russian peasant army
+for the suppression of a communistic industrial wage-earning class by an
+appeal to their property instinct. To make matters worse for the
+capitalists, the peasant's strongest craving was for more land, all the
+land, without compensation! This the capitalists, being capitalists,
+were unable to grant. Yet it was the only sort of currency which the
+peasant would accept in payment for his political support. In November,
+1917, when the Bolsheviki seized the government, one of their first acts
+was to satisfy the peasant's land hunger by turning over to his use all
+the land. The "proletariat" had then a free hand so far as the most
+numerous class in Russia was concerned.
+
+Just as the capitalist class reached the threshold of the revolution
+psychologically below par, so the wage-earning class in developing the
+will to rule outran all expectations and beat the Marxian time-schedule.
+Among the important contributing factors was the unity of the industrial
+laboring class, a unity broken by no rifts between highly paid skilled
+groups and an inferior unskilled class, or between a well-organized
+labor aristocracy and an unorganized helot class. The economic and
+social oppression under the old régime had seen to it that no group of
+laborers should possess a stake in the existing order or desire to
+separate from the rest. Moreover, for several decades, and especially
+since the memorable days of the revolution of 1905, the laboring class
+has been filled by socialistic agitators and propagandists with ideas of
+the great historical role of the proletariat. The writer remembers how
+in 1905 even newspapers of the moderately liberal stamp used to speak of
+the "heroic proletariat marching in the van of Russia's progress." No
+wonder then that, when the revolution came, the industrial wage earners
+had developed such self-confidence as a class that they were tempted to
+disregard the dictum of their intellectual mentors that this was merely
+to be a bourgeois revolution--with the social revolution still remote.
+Instead they listened to the slogan "All power to the Soviets."
+
+The idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" reached maturity in
+the course of the abortive revolution of 1905-1906. After a victory for
+the people in October, 1905, the bourgeoisie grew frightened over the
+aggressiveness of the wage-earning class and sought safety in an
+understanding with the autocracy. An order by the Soviet of Petrograd
+workmen in November, 1905, decreeing the eight-hour day in all factories
+sufficed to make the capitalists forego their historical role of
+champions of popular liberty against autocracy. If the bourgeoisie
+itself will not fight for a democracy, reasoned the revolutionary
+socialists, why have such a democracy at all? Have we not seen the
+democratic form of government lend itself to ill-concealed plutocracy in
+Europe and America? Why run at all the risk of corruption of the
+post-revolutionary government at the hands of the capitalists? Why first
+admit the capitalists into the inner circle and then spend time and
+effort in preventing them from coming to the top? Therefore, they
+declined parliamentarism with thanks and would accept nothing less than
+a government by the representative organ of the workers--the Soviets.
+
+If we are right in laying the emphasis on the relative fighting will and
+fighting strength of the classes struggling for power rather than on the
+doctrines which they preach and the methods, fair or foul, which they
+practice, then the American end of the problem, too, appears in a new
+light. No longer is it in the main a matter of taking sides for or
+against the desirability of a Bolshevist rule or a dictatorship by the
+proletariat, but a matter of ascertaining the relative strength and
+probable behavior of the classes in a given society. It is as futile to
+"see red" in America because of Bolshevism in Russia as to yearn for
+Bolshevism's advent in the United States. Either view misses the
+all-important point that so far as social structure is concerned America
+is the antipodes of Russia, where the capitalists have shown little
+fighting spirit, where the tillers of the soil are only first awakening
+to a conscious desire for private property and are willing to forego
+their natural share in government for a gift of land, and where the
+industrial proletariat is the only class ready and unafraid to fight.
+Bolshevism is unthinkable in America, because, even if by some
+imaginable accident the government were overthrown and a labor
+dictatorship declared, it could never "stay put." No one who knows the
+American business class will even dream that it would under any
+circumstances surrender to a revolution perpetrated by a minority, or
+that it would wait for foreign intervention before starting hostilities.
+A Bolshevist _coup d'état_ in America would mean a civil war to the
+bitter end, and a war in which the numerous class of farmers would join
+the capitalists in the defense of the institution of private
+property.[110]
+
+But it is not only because the preponderance of social power in the
+United States is so decisively with private property that America is
+proof against a social upheaval like the Russian one. Another and
+perhaps as important a guarantee of her social stability is found in her
+four million organized trade unionists. For, however unjustly they may
+feel to have been treated by the employers or the government; however
+slow they may find the realization of their ideals of collective
+bargaining in industry; their stakes in the existing order, both
+spiritual and material, are too big to reconcile them to revolution. The
+truth is that the revolutionary labor movement in America looms up much
+bigger than it actually is. Though in many strikes since the famous
+textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1911, the leadership was
+revolutionary, it does not follow that the rank and file was animated by
+the same purpose. Given an inarticulate mass of grievously exploited
+workers speaking many foreign tongues and despised alike by the
+politician, the policeman, and the native American labor organizer;
+given a group of energetic revolutionary agitators who make the cause of
+these workers their own and become their spokesmen and leaders; and a
+situation will clearly arise where thousands of workmen will be
+apparently marshalled under the flag of revolution while in reality it
+is the desire for a higher wage and not for a realization of the
+syndicalist program that reconciles them to starving their wives and
+children and to shedding their blood on picket duty. If they follow a
+Haywood or an Ettor, it is precisely because they have been ignored by a
+Golden or a Gompers.
+
+Withal, then, trade unionism, despite an occasional revolutionary facet
+and despite a revolutionary clamor especially on its fringes, is a
+conservative social force. Trade unionism seems to have the same
+moderating effect upon society as a wide diffusion of private property.
+In fact the gains of trade unionism are to the worker on a par with
+private property to its owner. The owner regards his property as a
+protective dyke between himself and a ruthless biological struggle for
+existence; his property means liberty and opportunity to escape
+dictation by another man, an employer or "boss," or at least a chance to
+bide his time until a satisfactory alternative has presented itself for
+his choice. The French peasants in 1871 who flocked to the army of the
+government of Versailles to suppress the Commune of Paris (the first
+attempt in history of a proletarian dictatorship), did so because they
+felt that were the workingmen to triumph and abolish private property,
+they, the peasants, would lose a support in their daily struggle for
+life for the preservation of which it was worth endangering life itself.
+And having acquired relative protection in their private property, small
+though it might be, they were unwilling to permit something which were
+it to succeed would lose them their all.
+
+Now with some exceptions every human being is a "protectionist,"
+provided he does possess anything at all which protects him and which is
+therefore worth being protected by him in turn. The trade unionist, too,
+is just such a protectionist. When his trade union has had the time and
+opportunity to win for him decent wages and living conditions, a
+reasonable security of the job, and at least a partial voice in shop
+management, he will, on the relatively high and progressive level of
+material welfare which capitalism has called into being, be chary to
+raze the existing economic system to the ground on the chance of
+building up a better one in its place. A reshuffling of the cards, which
+a revolution means, might conceivably yield him a better card, but then
+again it might make the entire stack worthless by destroying the stakes
+for which the game is played. But the revolution might not even succeed
+in the first round; then the ensuing reaction would probably destroy the
+trade union and with it would go the chance of a recovery of the
+original ground, modest though that may have been. In practice,
+therefore, the trade union movements in nearly all nations[111] have
+served as brakes upon the respective national socialist movements; and,
+from the standpoint of society interested in its own preservation
+against catastrophic change, have played and are playing a role of
+society's policemen and watch-dogs over the more revolutionary groups in
+the wage-earning class. These are largely the unorganized and
+ill-favored groups rendered reckless because, having little to lose from
+a revolution, whatever the outcome might be, they fear none.
+
+In America, too, there is a revolutionary class which, unlike the
+striking textile workers in 1911-1913, owes its origin neither to chance
+nor to neglect by trade union leaders. This is the movement of native
+American or Americanized workers in the outlying districts of the West
+or South--the typical I.W.W., the migratory workers, the industrial
+rebels, and the actors in many labor riots and lumber-field strikes.
+This type of worker has truly broken with America's spiritual past. He
+has become a revolutionist either because his personal character and
+habits unfit him for success under the exacting capitalistic system; or
+because, starting out with the ambitions and rosy expectations of the
+early pioneer, he found his hopes thwarted by a capitalistic preemptor
+of the bounty of nature, who dooms to a wage-earner's position all who
+came too late. In either case he is animated by a genuine passion for
+revolution, a passion which admits no compromise. Yet his numbers are
+too few to threaten the existing order.
+
+In conclusion, American trade unionism, no matter whether the American
+Federation of Labor keeps its old leaders or replaces them by
+"progressives" or socialists, seems in a fair way to continue its
+conservative function--so long as no overpowering open-shop movement or
+"trustification" will break up the trade unions or render them sterile.
+The hope of American Bolshevism will, therefore, continue to rest with
+the will of employers to rule as autocrats.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[110] Though writers and public speakers of either extreme have often
+overlooked the fundamental consideration of where the preponderance of
+social power lies in their prognostications of revolutions, this has not
+escaped the leaders of the American labor movement. The vehemence with
+which the leaders of the American Federation of Labor have denounced
+Sovietism and Bolshevism, and which has of late been brought to a high
+pitch by a fear lest a shift to radicalism should break up the
+organization, is doubtless sincere. But one cannot help feeling that in
+part at least it aimed to reassure the great American middle class on
+the score of labor's intentions. The great majority of organized labor
+realize that, though at times they may risk engaging in unpopular
+strikes, it will never do to permit their enemies to tar them with the
+pitch of subversionism in the eyes of the great American majority--a
+majority which remains wedded to the régime of private property and
+individual enterprise despite the many recognized shortcomings of the
+institution.
+
+[111] Notably in Germany since the end of the World War.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+The first seven chapters of the present work are based on the _History
+of Labour in the United States_ by John R. Commons and Associates,[112]
+published in 1918 in two volumes by the Macmillan Company, New York. The
+major portion of the latter was in turn based on _A Documentary History
+of the American Industrial Society_, edited by Professor Commons and
+published in 1910 in ten volumes by Clark and Company, Cleveland. In
+preparing chapters 8 to 11, dealing with the period since 1897, which is
+not covered in the _History of Labour_, the author used largely the same
+sort of material as that in the preparation of the above named works;
+namely, original sources such as proceedings of trade union conventions,
+labor and employer papers, government reports, etc. There are, however,
+many excellent special histories relating to the recent period in the
+labor movement, especially histories of unionism in individual trades or
+industries, to which the author wishes to refer the reader for more
+ample accounts of the several phases of the subject, which he himself
+was of necessity obliged to treat but briefly. The following is a
+selected list of such works together with some others relating to
+earlier periods:
+
+
+BARNETT, GEORGE E., _The Printers--A Study in American Trade Unionism_,
+American Economic Association, 1909.
+
+BING, ALEXANDER M., _War-Time Strikes and their Adjustment_, Dutton and
+Co., 1921.
+
+BONNETT, CLARENCE E., _Employers' Associations in the United States_,
+Macmillan, 1922.
+
+BRISSENDEN, PAUL F., _The I.W.W.--A Study in American Syndicalism_,
+Columbia University, 1920.
+
+BROOKS, JOHN G., _American Syndicalism: The I.W.W._, Macmillan, 1913.
+
+BUDISH AND SOULE, _The New Unionism in the Clothing Industry_, Harcourt,
+1920.
+
+CARLTON, FRANK T., _Economic Influences upon Educational Progress in
+the United States, 1820-1850_, University of Wisconsin, 1908.
+
+DEIBLER, FREDERICK S., _The Amalgamated Wood Workers' International
+Union of America_, University of Wisconsin, 1912.
+
+FITCH, JOHN L., _The Steel Workers_, Russell Sage Foundation, 1911.
+
+HOAGLAND, HENRY E., _Wage Bargaining on the Vessels of the Great Lakes_,
+University of Illinois, 1915.
+
+------, _Collective Bargaining in the Lithographic Industry_, Columbia
+University, 1917.
+
+INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT, Commission of Inquiry, Report on the Steel
+Strike of 1919, Harcourt, 1920.
+
+LAIDLER, HARRY, _Socialism in Thought and Action_, Macmillan, 1920.
+
+ROBBINS, EDWIN C., _Railway Conductors--A Study in Organized Labor_,
+Columbia University, 1914.
+
+SCHLÜTER, HERMAN, _The Brewing Industry and the Brewery Workmen's
+Movement in America_, International Union of Brewery Workmen, 1910.
+
+SUFFERN, ARTHUR E., _Conciliation and Arbitration in the Coal Mining
+Industry in America_, Mifflin, 1915.
+
+SYDENSTRICKER, EDGAR, _Collective Bargaining in the Anthracite Coal
+Industry_, Bulletin No. 191 of the United States Bureau of Labor
+Statistics, 1916.
+
+WOLMAN, LEO, _The Boycott in American Trade Unions_, Johns Hopkins
+University, 1916.
+
+
+_Labor Encyclopedias_:
+
+AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, _History, Encyclopedia, Reference Book_,
+American Federation of Labor, 1919.
+
+BROWNE, WALDO R., _What's What in the Labor Movement_, Huebsch, 1921.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[112] See Author's Preface.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Trade Unionism in the
+United States, by Selig Perlman
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Trade Unionism in the United
+States, by Selig Perlman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A History of Trade Unionism in the United States
+
+Author: Selig Perlman
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14458]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by William Boerst, Martin Pettit and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2>Social Science Text-Books</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>EDITED BY RICHARD T. ELY</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1><a name="A_HISTORY_OF_TRADE_UNIONISM_IN_THE_UNITED_STATES"
+id="A_HISTORY_OF_TRADE_UNIONISM_IN_THE_UNITED_STATES" />A HISTORY
+OF TRADE UNIONISM IN THE UNITED STATES</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>SELIG PERLMAN, PH.D.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>Assistant Professor of Economics in the University of Wisconsin;
+Co-author of the History of Labour in the United States</p>
+
+<h3>New York</h3>
+
+<h3>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922</h3>
+
+
+<p class='center'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p>
+
+<p class='center'>1922</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Set up and electrotyped. October, 1922.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="AUTHORS_PREFACE" id="AUTHORS_PREFACE" />AUTHOR'S PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>The present <i>History of Trade Unionism in the United States</i> is in part
+a summary of work in labor history by Professor John R. Commons and
+collaborators at the University of Wisconsin from 1904 to 1918, and in
+part an attempt by the author to carry the work further. Part I of the
+present book is based on the <i>History of Labour in the United States</i> by
+Commons and Associates (Introduction: John R. Commons; Colonial and
+Federal Beginnings, to 1827: David J. Saposs; Citizenship, 1827-1833:
+Helen L. Summer; Trade Unionism, 1833-1839: Edward B. Mittelman;
+Humanitarianism, 1840-1860: Henry E. Hoagland; Nationalization,
+1860-1877: John B. Andrews; and Upheaval and Reorganization, 1876-1896:
+by the present author), published by the Macmillan Company in 1918 in
+two volumes.</p>
+
+<p>Part II, &quot;The Larger Career of Unionism,&quot; brings the story from 1897
+down to date; and Part III, &quot;Conclusions and Inferences,&quot; is an attempt
+to bring together several of the general ideas suggested by the History.
+Chapter 12, entitled &quot;An Economic Interpretation,&quot; follows the line of
+analysis laid down by Professor Commons in his study of the American
+shoemakers, 1648-1895.<a name="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>The author wishes to express his strong gratitude to Professors Richard
+T. Ely and John R. Commons for their kind aid at every stage of this
+work. He also wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. Edwin E.
+Witte, Director of the Wisconsin State Legislative Reference Library,
+upon whose extensive and still unpublished researches he based his
+summary of the history of the injunction; and to Professor Frederick L.
+Paxson, who subjected the manuscript to criticism from the point of view
+of General American History.</p>
+
+<p class='right'>S.P.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTE:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1">[1]</a> See his <i>Labor and Administration</i>, Chapter XIV (Macmillan, 1913).</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS" />CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<ul>
+	<li><a href="#AUTHORS_PREFACE">PREFACE</a>
+        </li>
+        <li><br /><a href="#PART_I">PART I</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_1">CHAPTER 1</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;LABOR MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
+        <ul>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_3">(1).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Early Beginnings, to 1827
+                </li>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_9">(2).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832
+                </li>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_18">(3).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Period of the "Wild-Cat" Prosperity, 1833-1837
+                </li>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_29">(4).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Long Depression, 1837-1862
+                </li>
+        </ul>
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_2">CHAPTER 2</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE "GREENBACK" PERIOD, 1862-1879
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_3">CHAPTER 3</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_4">CHAPTER 4</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_5">CHAPTER 5</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL FAILURE OF PRODUCERS' COOPERATION
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_6">CHAPTER 6</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;STABILIZATION, 1888-1897
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_7">CHAPTER 7</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS
+        </li>
+        <li><br /><a href="#PART_II">PART II</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_8">CHAPTER 8</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES, 1898-1914
+        <ul>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_167">(1).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Miners
+                </li>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_180">(2).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Railway Men
+                </li>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_186">(3).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Machinery and Metal Trades
+                </li>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_190">(4).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Employers' Reaction
+                </li>
+		<li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_198">(5).</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Legislation, Courts, and Politics
+                </li>
+        </ul>
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_9">CHAPTER 9</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION"
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_10">CHAPTER 10</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_11">CHAPTER 11</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
+        </li>
+        <li><br /><a href="#PART_III">PART III</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_12">CHAPTER 12</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_13">CHAPTER 13</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE IDEALISTIC FACTOR
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_14">CHAPTER 14</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#CHAPTER_15">CHAPTER 15</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND TRADE UNIONISM
+        </li>
+        <li><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a>
+        </li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I" /><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2" />PART I</h2>
+
+<h2>THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3" />HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM IN THE U.S.</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_1" id="CHAPTER_1" />CHAPTER 1</h2>
+
+<h2>LABOR MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR</h2>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(1) <i>Early Beginnings, to 1827</i></p>
+
+<p>The customary chronology records the first American labor strike in
+1741. In that year the New York bakers went out on strike. A closer
+analysis discloses, however, that this outbreak was a protest of master
+bakers against a municipal regulation of the price of bread, not a wage
+earners' strike against employers. The earliest genuine labor strike in
+America occurred, as far as known, in 1786, when the Philadelphia
+printers &quot;turned out&quot; for a minimum wage of six dollars a week. The
+second strike on record was in 1791 by Philadelphia house carpenters for
+the ten-hour day. The Baltimore sailors were successful in advancing
+their wages through strikes in the years 1795, 1805, and 1807, but their
+endeavors were recurrent, not permanent. Even more ephemeral were
+several riotous sailors' strikes as well as a ship builders' strike in
+1817 at Medford, Massachusetts. Doubtless many other such outbreaks
+occurred during the period to 1820, but left no record of their
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>A strike undoubtedly is a symptom of discontent. <a name="Page_4" id="Page_4" />However, one can
+hardly speak of a beginning of trade unionism until such discontent has
+become expressed in an organization that keeps alive after a strike, or
+between strikes. Such permanent organizations existed prior to the
+twenties only in two trades, namely, shoemaking and printing.</p>
+
+<p>The first continuous organization of wage earners was that of the
+Philadelphia shoemakers, organized in 1792. This society, however,
+existed for less than a year and did not even leave us its name. The
+shoemakers of Philadelphia again organized in 1794 under the name of the
+Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers and maintained their existence
+as such at least until 1806. In 1799 the society conducted the first
+organized strike, which lasted nine or ten weeks. Prior to 1799, the
+only recorded strikes of any workmen were &quot;unorganized&quot; and, indeed,
+such were the majority of the strikes that occurred prior to the decade
+of the thirties in the nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>The printers organized their first society in 1794 in New York under the
+name of The Typographical Society and it continued in existence for ten
+years and six months. The printers of Philadelphia, who had struck in
+1786, neglected to keep up an organization after winning their demands.
+Between the years 1800 and 1805, the shoemakers and the printers had
+continuous organizations in Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. In
+1809 the shoemakers of Pittsburgh and the Boston printers were added to
+the list, and somewhat later the Albany and Washington printers. In 1810
+the printers organized in New Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>The separation of the journeymen from the masters, first shown in the
+formation of these organizations, was empha<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5" />sized in the attitude toward
+employer members. The question arose over the continuation in membership
+of those who became employers. The shoemakers excluded such members from
+the organization. The printers, on the other hand, were more liberal.
+But in 1817 the New York society put them out on the ground that &quot;the
+interests of the journeymen are <i>separate</i> and in some respects
+<i>opposite</i> to those of the employers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The strike was the chief weapon of these early societies. Generally a
+committee was chosen by the society to present a price list or scale of
+wages to the masters individually. The first complete wage scale
+presented in this country was drawn up by the organized printers of New
+York in 1800. The strikes were mainly over wages and were generally
+conducted in an orderly and comparatively peaceful manner. In only one
+instance, that of the Philadelphia shoemakers of 1806, is there evidence
+of violence and intimidation. In that case &quot;scabs&quot; were beaten and
+employers intimidated by demonstrations in front of the shop or by
+breaking shop windows. During a strike the duties of &quot;picketing&quot; were
+discharged by tramping committees. The Philadelphia shoemakers, however,
+as early as 1799, employed for this purpose a paid officer. This strike
+was for higher wages for workers on boots. Although those who worked on
+shoes made no demands of their own, they were obliged to strike, much
+against their will. We thus meet with the first sympathetic strike on
+record. In 1809 the New York shoemakers, starting with a strike against
+one firm, ordered a general strike when they discovered that that firm
+was getting its work done in other shops. The payment of strike benefits
+dates from the first authenticated strike, namely in 1786. The method of
+payment varied <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6" />from society to society, but the constitution of the New
+York shoemakers, as early as 1805, provided for a permanent strike fund.</p>
+
+<p>The aggressive trade unionism of these early trade societies forced the
+masters to combine against them. Associations of masters in their
+capacity as merchants had usually preceded the journeymen's societies.
+Their function was to counteract destructive competition from
+&quot;advertisers&quot; and sellers in the &quot;public market&quot; at low prices. As soon,
+however, as the wage question became serious, the masters' associations
+proceeded to take on the function of dealing with labor&mdash;mostly aiming
+to break up the trade societies. Generally they sought to create an
+available force of non-union labor by means of advertising, but often
+they turned to the courts and brought action against the journeymen's
+societies on the ground of conspiracy.</p>
+
+<p>The bitterness of the masters' associations against the the journeymen's
+societies perhaps was caused not so much by their resistance to
+reductions in wages as by their imposition of working rules, such as the
+limitation of the number of apprentices, the minimum wage, and what we
+would now call the &quot;closed shop.&quot; The conspiracy trials largely turned
+upon the &quot;closed shop&quot; and in these the shoemakers figured
+exclusively.<a name="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>Altogether six criminal conspiracy cases are recorded against the
+shoemakers from 1806 to 1815. One occurred in Philadelphia in 1806; one
+in New York in 1809; two in Baltimore in 1809; and two in Pittsburgh,
+the first in 1814 and the other in 1815. Each case was tried before a
+jury which was judge both of law and fact. Four of the cases were
+decided against the journeymen. <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7" />In one of the Baltimore cases judgment
+was rendered in favor of the journeymen. The Pittsburgh case of 1815 was
+compromised, the shoemakers paying the costs and returning to work at
+the old wages. The outcome in the other cases is not definitely known.
+It was brought out in the testimony that the masters financed, in part
+at least, the New York and Pittsburgh prosecutions.</p>
+
+<p>Effective as the convictions in court for conspiracy may have been in
+checking the early trade societies, of much greater consequence was the
+industrial depression which set in after the conclusion of the
+Napoleonic Wars. The lifting of the Embargo enabled the foreign traders
+and manufacturers to dump their products upon the American market. The
+incipient American industries were in no position to withstand this
+destructive competition. Conditions were made worse by past over
+investment and by the collapse of currency inflation.</p>
+
+<p>Trade unionism for the time being had to come to an end. The effect on
+the journeymen's societies was paralyzing. Only those survived which
+turned to mutual insurance. Several of the printers' societies had
+already instituted benefit features, and these now helped them
+considerably to maintain their organization. The shoe-makers' societies
+on the other hand had remained to the end purely trade-regulating
+organizations and went to the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Depression reached its ebb in 1820. Thereafter conditions improved,
+giving rise to aggressive organizations of wage earners in several
+industries. We find strikes and permanent organizations among hatters,
+tailors, weavers, nailers, and cabinet makers. And for the first time we
+meet with organizations of factory workers&mdash;female workers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8" />Beginning with 1824 and running through 1825, the year which saw the
+culmination of a period of high prices, a number of strikes occurred in
+the important industrial centers. The majority were called to enforce
+higher wages. In Philadelphia, 2900 weavers out of about 4500 in the
+city were on strike. But the strike that attracted the most public
+attention was that of the Boston house carpenters for the ten-hour day
+in 1825.</p>
+
+<p>The Boston journeymen carpenters chose the most strategic time for their
+strike. They called it in the spring of the year when there was a great
+demand for carpenters owing to a recent fire. Close to six hundred
+journeymen were involved in this struggle. The journeymen's demand for
+the ten-hour day drew a characteristic reply from the &quot;gentlemen engaged
+in building,&quot; the customers of the master builders. They condemned the
+journeymen on the moral ground that an agitation for a shorter day would
+open &quot;a wide door for idleness and vice&quot;; hinted broadly at the foreign
+origin of the agitation; declared that all combinations intending to
+regulate the value of labor by abridging the working day were in a high
+degree unjust and injurious to the other classes in the community;
+announced their resolution to support the masters at the sacrifice of
+suspending building altogether; and bound themselves not to employ any
+journeyman or master who might enforce the ten-hour day. The strike
+failed.</p>
+
+<p>The renewed trade-union activities brought forth a fresh crop of trials
+for conspiracy.<a name="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3">[3]</a> One case involved Philadelphia master shoemakers who
+combined to reduce wages, two were against journeymen tailors in
+Philadelphia and Buffalo and the fourth was a hatters' case in <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9" />New
+York. The masters were acquitted and the hatters were found guilty of
+combining to deprive a non-union man of his livelihood. In the
+Philadelphia tailors' case, the journeymen were convicted on the charge
+of intimidation. Of the Buffalo tailors' case it is only known that it
+ended in the conviction of the journeymen.</p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(2) <i>Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832</i></p>
+
+<p>So far we have dealt only with trade societies but not yet with a labor
+movement. A labor movement presupposes a feeling of solidarity which
+goes beyond the boundaries of a single trade and extends to other wage
+earners. The American labor movement began in 1827, when the several
+trades in Philadelphia organized the Mechanics' Union of Trade
+Associations, which was, so far as now known, the first city central
+organization of trades in the world. This Union, originally intended as
+an economic organization, changed to a political one the following year
+and initiated what was probably the most interesting and most typically
+American labor movement&mdash;a struggle for &quot;equality of citizenship.&quot; It
+was brought to a head by the severe industrial depression of the time.
+But the decisive impulse came from the nation-wide democratic upheaval
+led by Andrew Jackson, for which the poorer classes in the cities
+displayed no less enthusiasm than the agricultural West. To the wage
+earner this outburst of democratic fervor offered an opportunity to try
+out his recently acquired franchise. Of the then industrial States,
+Massachusetts granted suffrage to the workingmen in 1820 and New York in
+1822. In Pennsylvania the constitution of 1790 had extended the right of
+suffrage to those who paid any kind of a state or county tax, however
+small.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10" />The wage earners' Jacksonianism struck a note all its own. If the
+farmer and country merchant, who had passed through the abstract stage
+of political aspiration with the Jeffersonian democratic movement, were
+now, with Jackson, reaching out for the material advantages which
+political power might yield, the wage earners, being as yet novices in
+politics, naturally were more strongly impressed with that aspect of the
+democratic upheaval which emphasized the rights of man in general and
+social equality in particular. If the middle class Jacksonian was
+probably thinking first of reducing the debt on his farm or perchance of
+getting a political office, and only as an after-thought proceeding to
+look for a justification in the Declaration of Independence, as yet the
+wage earner was starting with the abstract notion of equal citizenship
+as contained in the Declaration, and only then proceeding to search for
+the remedies which would square reality with the idea. Hence it was that
+the aspiration toward equal citizenship became the keynote of labor's
+earliest political movement. The issue was drawn primarily between the
+rich and the poor, not between the functional classes, employers and
+employes. While the workmen took good care to exclude from their ranks
+&quot;persons not living by some useful occupation, such as bankers, brokers,
+rich men, etc.,&quot; they did not draw the line on employers as such, master
+workmen and independent &quot;producers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The workingmen's bill of complaints, as set forth in the Philadelphia
+<i>Mechanic's Free Press</i> and other labor papers, clearly marks off the
+movement as a rebellion by the class of newly enfranchised wage earners
+against conditions which made them feel degraded in their own eyes as
+full fledged citizens of the commonwealth.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11" />The complaints were of different sorts but revolved around the charge
+of the usurpation of government by an &quot;aristocracy.&quot; Incontrovertible
+proof of this charge was found in special legislation chartering banks
+and other corporations. The banks were indicted upon two counts. First,
+the unstable bank paper money defrauded the wage earner of a
+considerable portion of the purchasing power of his wages. Second, banks
+restricted competition and shut off avenues for the &quot;man on the make.&quot;
+The latter accusation may be understood only if we keep in mind that
+this was a period when bank credits began to play an essential part in
+the conduct of industry; that with the extension of the market into the
+States and territories South and West, with the resulting delay in
+collections, business could be carried on only by those who enjoyed
+credit facilities at the banks. Now, as credit generally follows access
+to the market, it was inevitable that the beneficiary of the banking
+system should not be the master or journeyman but the merchant for whom
+both worked.<a name="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4">[4]</a> To the uninitiated, however, this arrangement could only
+appear in the light of a huge conspiracy entered into by the chartered
+monopolies, the banks, and the unchartered monopolist, the merchant, to
+shut out the possible competition by the master and journeyman. The
+grievance appeared all the more serious since all banks were chartered
+by special enactments of the legislature, which thus appeared as an
+accomplice in the conspiracy.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to giving active help to the rich, the workingmen argued,
+the government was too callous to the suffering of the poor and pointed
+to the practice of imprisonment for debt. The Boston Prison Discipline
+So<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12" />ciety, a philanthropic organization, estimated in 1829 that about
+75,000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United States.
+Many of these were imprisoned for very small debts. In one Massachusetts
+prison, for example, out of 37 cases, 20 were for less than $20. The
+Philadelphia printer and philanthropist, Mathew Carey, father of the
+economist Henry C. Carey, cited a contemporary Boston case of a blind
+man with a family dependent on him imprisoned for a debt of six dollars.
+A labor paper reported an astounding case of a widow in Providence,
+Rhode Island, whose husband had lost his life in a fire while attempting
+to save the property of the man who later caused her imprisonment for a
+debt of 68 cents. The physical conditions in debtors' jails were
+appalling, according to unimpeachable contemporary reports. Little did
+such treatment of the poor accord with their newly acquired dignity as
+citizens.</p>
+
+<p>Another grievance, particularly exasperating because the government was
+responsible, grew in Pennsylvania out of the administration of the
+compulsory militia system. Service was obligatory upon all male citizens
+and non-attendance was punished by fine or imprisonment. The rich
+delinquent did not mind, but the poor delinquent when unable to pay was
+given a jail sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Other complaints by workingmen went back to the failure of government to
+protect the poorer citizen's right to &quot;life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness.&quot; The lack of a mechanic's lien law, which would protect his
+wages in the case of his employer's bankruptcy, was keenly felt by the
+workingmen. A labor paper estimated in 1829 that, owing to the lack of a
+lien law on buildings, not less than three or four hundred thousand
+dollars in wages were annually lost.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13" />But the most distinctive demands of the workingmen went much further.
+This was an age of egalitarianism. The Western frontiersmen demanded
+equality with the wealthy Eastern merchant and banker, and found in
+Andrew Jackson an ideal spokesman. For a brief moment it seemed that by
+equality the workingmen meant an equal division of all property. That
+was the program which received temporary endorsement at the first
+workingmen's meeting in New York in April 1829. &quot;Equal division&quot; was
+advocated by a self-taught mechanic by the name of Thomas Skidmore, who
+elaborated his ideas in a book bearing the self-revealing title of &quot;<i>The
+Rights of Man to Property: being a Proposition to make it Equal among
+the Adults of the Present Generation: and to Provide for its Equal
+Transmission to Every Individual of Each Succeeding Generation, on
+Arriving at the Age of Maturity</i>,&quot; published in 1829. This Skidmorian
+program was better known as &quot;agrarianism,&quot; probably from the title of a
+book by Thomas Paine, <i>Agrarian Justice, as Opposed to Agrarian Law and
+to Agrarian Monopoly</i>, published in 1797 in London, which advocated
+equal division by means of an inheritance tax. Its adoption by the New
+York workingmen was little more than a stratagem, for their intention
+was to forestall any attempts by employers to lengthen the working day
+to eleven hours by raising the question of &quot;the nature of the tenure by
+which all men hold title to their property.&quot; Apparently the stratagem
+worked, for the employers immediately dropped the eleven-hour issue.
+But, although the workingmen quickly thereafter repudiated agrarianism,
+they succeeded only too well in affixing to their movement the mark of
+the beast in the eyes of their opponents and the general public.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14" />Except during the brief but damaging &quot;agrarian&quot; episode, the demand for
+free public education or &quot;Republican&quot; education occupied the foreground.
+We, who live in an age when free education at the expense of the
+community is considered practically an inalienable right of every child,
+find it extremely difficult to understand the vehemence of the
+opposition which the demand aroused on the part of the press and the
+&quot;conservative&quot; classes, when first brought up by the workingmen. The
+explanation lies partly in the political situation, partly in the moral
+character of the &quot;intellectual&quot; spokesmen for the workingmen, and partly
+in the inborn conservatism of the tax-paying classes upon whom the
+financial burden would fall. That the educational situation was
+deplorable much proof is unnecessary. Pennsylvania had some public
+schools, but parents had to declare themselves too poor to send their
+children to a private school before they were allowed the privilege of
+sending them there. In fact so much odium attached to these schools that
+they were practically useless and the State became distinguished for the
+number of children not attending school. As late as 1837 a labor paper
+estimated that 250,000 out of 400,000 children in Pennsylvania of school
+age were not in any school. The Public School Society of New York
+estimated in a report for 1829 that in New York City alone there were
+24,200 children between the ages of five and fifteen years not attending
+any school whatever.</p>
+
+<p>To meet these conditions the workingmen outlined a comprehensive
+educational program. It was not merely a literary education that the
+workingmen desired. The idea of industrial education, or training for a
+vocation, which is even now young in this country, was undoubtedly first
+introduced by the leaders of this early labor move<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15" />ment. They demanded a
+system of public education which would &quot;combine a knowledge of the
+practical arts with that of the useful sciences.&quot; The idea of industrial
+education appears to have originated in a group of which two
+&quot;intellectuals,&quot; Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright, were the leading
+spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Dale Owen was the eldest son of Robert Owen, the famous English
+manufacturer-philanthropist, who originated the system of socialism
+known as &quot;Owenism.&quot; Born in Scotland, he was educated at Hofwyl,
+Switzerland, in a school conducted by Emmanuel von Fellenberg, the
+associate of the famous Pestalozzi, as a self-governing children's
+republic on the manner of the present &quot;Julior Republics.&quot; Owen himself
+said that he owed his abiding faith in human virtue and social progress
+to his years at Hofwyl. In 1825 Robert Dale left England to join his
+father in a communistic experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, and together
+they lived through the vicissitudes which attended that experiment.
+There he met Frances Wright, America's first suffragist, with whom he
+formed an intimate friendship lasting through many years. The failure at
+New Harmony convinced him that his father had overlooked the importance
+of the anti-social habits which the members had formed before they
+joined; and he concluded that those could be prevented only by applying
+a rational system of education to the young. These conclusions, together
+with the recollections of his experience at Hofwyl, led him to advocate
+a new system of education, which came to be called &quot;state guardianship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>State guardianship was a demand for the establishment by the state of
+boarding schools where children should receive, not only equal
+instruction, general as well <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16" />as industrial, but equal food and equal
+clothing at the public expense. Under this system, it was asserted,
+public schools would become &quot;not schools of charity, but schools of the
+nation, to the support of which all would contribute; and instead of
+being almost a disgrace, it would become an honor to have been educated
+there.&quot; It was urged as an especial advantage that, as children would be
+clothed and cared for at all times, the fact that poor parents could not
+afford to dress their children &quot;as decently as their neighbors&quot; would
+not prevent their attendance.</p>
+
+<p>State guardianship became the battle cry of an important faction in the
+Workingmen's party in New York. Elsewhere a less radical program was
+advocated. In Philadelphia the workingmen demanded only that high
+schools be on the Hofwyl model, whereas in the smaller cities and towns
+in both Pennsylvania and New York the demand was for &quot;literary&quot; day
+schools. Yet the underlying principle was the same everywhere. A labor
+candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District of
+Philadelphia in 1830 expressed it succinctly during his campaign. He
+made his plea on the ground that &quot;he is the friend and indefatigable
+defender of a system of general education, which will place the citizens
+of this extensive Republic on an equality; a system that will fit the
+children of the poor, as well as the rich, to become our future
+legislators; a system that will bring the children of the poor and the
+rich to mix together as a band of Republican brethren.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In New England the workingmen's movement for equal citizenship was
+simultaneously a reaction against the factory system. To the cry for a
+Republican system of education was added an anti-child labor crusade.
+One <a name="Page_17" id="Page_17" />who did more than any other to call attention to the evils of the
+factory system of that day was a lawyer by the name of Seth Luther, who,
+according to his own account, had &quot;for years lived among cotton mills,
+worked in them, travelled among them.&quot; His &quot;<i>Address to the Working Men
+of New England on the State of Education, and on the Condition of the
+Producing Classes in Europe and America, with Particular Reference to
+the Effect of Manufacturing (as now conducted) on the Health and
+Happiness of the Poor, and on the Safety of our Republic</i>&quot; was delivered
+widely and undoubtedly had considerable influence over the labor
+movement of the period. The average working day in the best factories at
+that time was nearly thirteen hours. For the children who were sent into
+the factories at an early age these hours precluded, of course, any
+possibility of obtaining even the most rudimentary education.</p>
+
+<p>The New England movement was an effort to unite producers of all kinds,
+including not only farmers but factory workers with mechanics and city
+workingmen. In many parts of the State of New York the workingmen's
+parties included the three classes&mdash;&quot;farmers, mechanics, and working
+men,&quot;&mdash;but New England added a fourth class, the factory operatives. It
+was early found, however, that the movement could expect little or no
+help from the factory operatives, who were for the most part women and
+children.</p>
+
+<p>The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor movements
+and labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first workingmen's party,
+then came New York and Boston, and finally state-wide movements and
+political organizations in each of the three States. In New York the
+workingmen scored their most striking <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18" />single success, when in 1829 they
+cast 6000 votes out of a total of 21,000. In Philadelphia the labor
+ticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance of
+power in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupled
+with machinations on the part of &quot;designing men&quot; of both older parties
+soon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany made
+the demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that it
+became enacted into law. In New York, also, the situation became
+complicated by factional strife between the Skidmorian &quot;agrarians,&quot; the
+Owenite state guardianship faction, and a third faction which eschewed
+either &quot;panacea.&quot; Then, too, the opposition parties and press seized
+upon agrarianism and Owen's alleged atheism to brand the whole labor
+movement. The labor party was decidedly unfortunate in its choice of
+intellectuals and &quot;ideologists.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It would be, however, a mistake to conclude that the Philadelphia, New
+York, or New England political movements were totally without results.
+Though unsuccessful in electing their candidates to office, they did
+succeed in placing their demands to advantage before the public.
+Humanitarians, like Horace Mann, took up independently the fight for
+free public education and carried it to success. In Pennsylvania, public
+schools, free from the taint of charity, date since 1836. In New York
+City the public school system was established in 1832. The same is true
+of the demand for a mechanics' lien law, of the abolition of
+imprisonment for debt, and of others.</p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(3) <i>The Period of the &quot;Wild-cat&quot; Prosperity, 1833-1837</i></p>
+
+<p>With the break-up of the workingmen's parties, labor's newly acquired
+sense of solidarity was temporarily <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19" />lost, leaving only the restricted
+solidarity of the isolated trade society. Within that limit, however,
+important progress began to be made. In 1833, there were in New York
+twenty-nine organized trades; in Philadelphia, twenty-one; and in
+Baltimore, seventeen. Among those organized in Philadelphia were
+hand-loom weavers, plasterers, bricklayers, black and white smiths,
+cigar makers, plumbers, and women workers including tailoresses,
+seamstresses, binders, folders, milliners, corset makers, and mantua
+workers. Several trades, such as the printers and tailors in New York
+and the Philadelphia carpenters, which formerly were organized upon the
+benevolent basis, were now reorganized as trade societies. The
+benevolent New York Typographical Society was reduced to secondary
+importance by the appearance in 1831 of the New York Typographical
+Association.</p>
+
+<p>But the factor that compelled labor to organize on a much larger scale
+was the remarkable rise in prices from 1835 to 1837. This rise in prices
+was coincident with the &quot;wild-cat&quot; prosperity, which followed a rapid
+multiplication of state banks with the right of issue of paper
+currency&mdash;largely irredeemable &quot;wild-cat&quot; currency. Cost of living
+having doubled, the subject of wages became a burning issue. At the same
+time the general business prosperity rendered demands for higher wages
+easily attainable. The outcome was a luxuriant growth of trade unionism.</p>
+
+<p>In 1836 there were in Philadelphia fifty-eight trade unions; in Newark,
+New Jersey, sixteen; in New York, fifty-two; in Pittsburgh, thirteen; in
+Cincinnati, fourteen; and in Louisville, seven. In Buffalo the
+journeymen builders' association included all the building trades. The
+tailors of Louisville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis made <a name="Page_20" id="Page_20" />a concentrated
+effort against their employers in these three cities.</p>
+
+<p>The wave of organization reached at last the women workers. In 1830 the
+well-known Philadelphia philanthropist, Mathew Carey, asserted that
+there were in the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and
+Baltimore about 20,000 women who could not by constant employment for
+sixteen hours out of twenty-four earn more than $1.25 a week. These were
+mostly seamstresses and tailoresses, umbrella makers, shoe binders,
+cigar makers, and book binders. In New York there was in 1835 a Female
+Union Association, in Baltimore a United Seamstresses' Society, and in
+Philadelphia probably the first federation of women workers in this
+country. In Lynn, Massachusetts, a &quot;Female Society of Lynn and Vicinity
+for the Protection and Promotion of Female Industry&quot; operated during
+1833 and 1834 among the shoe binders and had at one time 1000 members,
+who, like the seamstresses, were home workers and earned scanty wages.</p>
+
+<p>Where nearly every trade was in motion, it did not take long to discover
+a common direction and a common purpose. This was expressed in city
+&quot;trades' unions,&quot; or federations of all organized trades in a city, and
+in its ascendency over the individual trade societies.</p>
+
+<p>The first trades' union was organized August 14, 1833, in New York.
+Baltimore followed in September, Philadelphia in November, and Boston in
+March 1834. New York after 1820 was the metropolis of the country and
+also the largest industrial and commercial center. There the house
+carpenters had struck for higher wages in the latter part of May 1833,
+and fifteen other trades met and pledged their support. Out of this grew
+the New York Trades' Union. It had an official organ in a weekly, <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21" />the
+<i>National Trades' Union</i>, published from 1834 to 1836, and a daily, <i>The
+Union</i>, issued in 1836. Ely Moore, a printer, was made president. Moore
+was elected a few months later as the first representative of labor in
+Congress.</p>
+
+<p>In addition, trades' unions were organized in Washington; in New
+Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey; in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, New
+York; and in the &quot;Far West&quot;&mdash;Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville.</p>
+
+<p>Except in Boston, the trades' unions felt anxious to draw the line
+between themselves and the political labor organizations of the
+preceding years. In Philadelphia, where as we have seen, the formation
+of an analogous organization, the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations
+of 1828, had served as a preliminary for a political movement, the
+General Trades' Union took especial precaution and provided in the
+constitution that &quot;no party, political or religious questions shall at
+any time be agitated in or acted upon in the Union.&quot; Its official organ,
+the <i>National Laborer</i>, declared that &quot;<i>the Trades' Union never will be
+political</i> because its members have learned from experience that the
+introduction of politics into their societies has thwarted every effort
+to ameliorate their conditions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The repudiation of active politics did not carry with it a condemnation
+of legislative action or &quot;lobbying.&quot; On the contrary, these years
+witnessed the first sustained legislative campaign that was ever
+conducted by a labor organization, namely the campaign by the New York
+Trades' Union for the suppression of the competition from prison-made
+goods. Under the pressure of the New York Union the State Legislature
+created in 1834 a special commission on prison labor with its president,
+<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22" />Ely Moore, as one of the three commissioners. On this question of
+prison labor the trade unionists clashed with the humanitarian prison
+reformers, who regarded productive labor by prisoners as a necessary
+means of their reform to an honest mode of living; and the humanitarian
+won. After several months' work the commission submitted what was to the
+Union an entirely unsatisfactory report. It approved the prison-labor
+system as a whole and recommended only minor changes. Ely Moore signed
+the report, but a public meeting of workingmen condemned it.</p>
+
+<p>The rediscovered solidarity between the several trades now embodied in
+the city trades' unions found its first expression on a large scale in a
+ten-hour movement.</p>
+
+<p>The first concerted demand for the ten-hour day was made by the
+workingmen of Baltimore in August 1833, and extended over seventeen
+trades. But the mechanics' aspiration for a ten-hour day&mdash;perhaps the
+strongest spiritual inheritance from the preceding movement for equal
+citizenship,<a name="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5">[5]</a> had to await a change in the general condition of
+industry to render trade union effort effective before it could turn
+into a well sustained movement. That change finally came with the
+prosperous year of 1835.</p>
+
+<p>The movement was precipitated in Boston. There, as we saw, the
+carpenters had been defeated in an effort to establish a ten-hour day in
+1825,<a name="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6">[6]</a> but made another attempt in the spring of 1835. This time,
+however, they did not stand alone but were joined by the masons and
+stone-cutters. As before, the principal attack was di<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23" />rected against the
+&quot;capitalists,&quot; that is, the owners of the buildings and the real estate
+speculators. The employer or small contractor was viewed
+sympathetically. &quot;We would not be too severe on our employers,&quot; said the
+strikers' circular, which was sent out broadcast over the country, &quot;they
+are slaves to the capitalists, as we are to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The strike was protracted. The details of it are not known, but we know
+that it won sympathy throughout the country. A committee visited in July
+the different cities on the Atlantic coast to solicit aid for the
+strikers. In Philadelphia, when the committee arrived in company with
+delegates from New York, Newark, and Paterson, the Trades' Union held a
+special meeting and resolved to stand by the &quot;Boston House Wrights&quot; who,
+&quot;in imitation of the noble and decided stand taken by their
+Revolutionary Fathers, have determined to throw off the shackles of more
+mercenary tyrants than theirs.&quot; Many societies voted varying sums of
+money in aid of the strikers.</p>
+
+<p>The Boston strike was lost, but the sympathy which it evoked among
+mechanics in various cities was quickly turned to account. Wherever the
+Boston circular reached, it acted like a spark upon powder. In
+Philadelphia the ten-hour movement took on the aspect of a crusade. Not
+only the building trades, as in Boston, but most of the mechanical
+branches were involved. Street parades and mass meetings were held. The
+public press, both friendly and hostile, discussed it at length. Work
+was suspended and after but a brief &quot;standout&quot; the whole ended in a
+complete victory for the workingmen. Unskilled laborers, too, struck for
+the ten-hour day and, in the attempt to prevent others from taking their
+jobs, riotous scenes <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24" />occurred which attracted considerable attention.
+The movement proved so irresistible that the Common Council announced a
+ten-hour day for public servants. Lawyers, physicians, merchants, and
+politicians took up the cause of the workingmen. On June 8 the master
+carpenters granted the ten-hour day and by June 22 the victory was
+complete.</p>
+
+<p>The victory in Philadelphia was so overwhelming and was given so much
+publicity that its influence extended to many smaller towns. In fact,
+the ten-hour system, which remained in vogue in this country in the
+skilled trades until the nineties, dates largely from this movement in
+the middle of the thirties.</p>
+
+<p>The great advance in the cost of living during 1835 and 1836 compelled
+an extensive movement for higher wages. Prices had in some instances
+more than doubled. Most of these strikes were hastily undertaken.
+Prices, of course, were rising rapidly but the societies were new and
+lacked balance. A strike in one trade was an example to others to
+strike. In a few instances, however, there was considerable planning and
+reserve.</p>
+
+<p>The strike epidemic affected even the girls who worked in the textile
+factories. The first strike of factory girls on record had occurred in
+Dover, New Hampshire, in 1828. A factory strike in Paterson, New Jersey,
+which occurred in the same year, occasioned the first recorded calling
+out of militia to quell labor disturbances. There the strikers were,
+however, for the most part men. But the factory strike which attracted
+the greatest public attention was the Lowell strike in February, 1834,
+against a 15 percent reduction in wages. The strike was short and
+unsuccessful, notwithstanding that 800 striking girls at first exhibited
+a determination to carry their struggle <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25" />to the end. It appears that
+public opinion in New England was disagreeably impressed by this early
+manifestation of feminism. Another notable factory strike was one in
+Paterson in July 1835. Unlike similar strikes, it had been preceded by
+an organization. The chief demand was the eleven-hour day. The strike
+involved twenty mills and 2000 persons. Two weeks later the employers
+reduced hours from thirteen and a half to twelve hours for five days and
+to nine hours on Saturday. This broke the strike. The character of the
+agitation among the factory workers stamps it as ephemeral. Even more
+ephemeral was the agitation among immigrant laborers, mostly Irish, on
+canals and roads, which usually took the form of riots.</p>
+
+<p>As in the preceding period, the aggressiveness of the trade societies
+eventually gave rise to combative masters' associations. These, goaded
+by restrictive union practices, notably the closed shop, appealed to the
+courts for relief. By 1836 employers' associations appeared in nearly
+every trade in which labor was aggressive; in New York there were at
+least eight and in Philadelphia seven. In Philadelphia, at the
+initiative of the master carpenters and cordwainers, there came to exist
+an informal federation of the masters' associations in the several
+trades.</p>
+
+<p>From 1829 to 1842 there were eight recorded prosecutions of labor
+organizations for conspiracy. The workingmen were convicted in two
+cases; in two other cases the courts sustained demurrers to the
+indictments; in three cases the defendants were acquitted after jury
+trials; and the outcome of one case is unknown. Finally, in 1842, long
+after the offending societies had gone out of existence under the stress
+of unemployment and depressions, the Supreme Judicial Court of
+Massachusetts <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26" />handed down a decision, which for forty years laid to
+rest the doctrine of conspiracy as applied to labor unions.<a name="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>The unity of action of the several trades displayed in the city trades'
+unions engendered before long a still wider solidarity in the form of a
+National Trades' Union. It came together in August 1834, in New York
+City upon the invitation of the General Trades' Union of New York. The
+delegates were from the trades' unions of New York, Philadelphia,
+Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Newark. Ely Moore, then labor
+candidate for Congress, was elected president. An attempt by the only
+&quot;intellectual&quot; present, a Doctor Charles Douglass, representing the
+Boston Trades' Union, to strike a political note was immediately
+squelched. A second convention was held in 1835 and a third one in 1837.</p>
+
+<p>The National Trades' Union played a conspicuous part in securing the
+ten-hour day for government employes. The victory of the ten-hour
+principle in private employment in 1835 generally led to its adoption by
+states and municipalities. However, the Federal government was slow to
+follow the example, since Federal officials were immune from the direct
+political pressure which the workingmen were able to use with advantage
+upon locally elected office holders.</p>
+
+<p>In October 1835, the mechanics employed in the New York and Brooklyn
+Navy Yards petitioned the Secretary of the Navy for a reduction of the
+hours of labor to ten. The latter referred the petition to the Board of
+Navy Commissioners, who returned the petition with the opinion that it
+would be detrimental to the government to accede to their request. This
+forced the matter into the atten<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27" />tion of the National Trades' Union. At
+its second convention in 1835 it decided to petition Congress for a
+ten-hour day for employes on government works. The petition was
+introduced by the labor Congressman from New York, Ely Moore. Congress
+curtly replied, however, that it was not a matter for legislation but
+&quot;that the persons employed should redress their own grievances.&quot; With
+Congress in such a mood, the hopes of the workingmen turned to the
+President.</p>
+
+<p>A first step was made in the summer of 1836, when the workers in the
+Navy Yard at Philadelphia struck for a ten-hour day and appealed to
+President Jackson for relief. They would have nothing further to do with
+Congress. They had supported President Jackson in his fight against the
+United States Bank and now sought a return favor. At a town meeting of
+&quot;citizens, mechanics, and working men,&quot; a committee was appointed to lay
+the issue before him. He proved indeed more responsive than Congress and
+ordered the ten-hour system established.</p>
+
+<p>But the order applied only to the localities where the strike occurred.
+The agitation had been chiefly local. Besides Philadelphia and New York
+the mechanics secured the ten-hour day in Baltimore and Annapolis, but
+in the District of Columbia and elsewhere they were still working twelve
+or fourteen hours. In other words, the ten-hour day was secured only
+where trade societies existed.</p>
+
+<p>But the organized labor movement did not rest with a partial success.
+The campaign of pressure on the President went on. Finally, although
+somewhat belatedly, President Van Buren issued on March 31, 1840, the
+famous executive order establishing the ten-hour day on government work
+without a reduction in wages.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28" />The victory came after the National Trades' Union had gone out of
+existence and should be, more correctly, correlated with a labor
+political movement. Early in 1837 came a financial panic. The industrial
+depression wiped out in a short time every form of labor organization
+from the trade societies to the National Trades' Union. Labor stood
+defenseless against the economic storm. In this emergency it turned to
+politics as a measure of despair.</p>
+
+<p>The political dissatisfaction assumed the form of hostility towards
+banks and corporations in general. The workingmen held the banks
+responsible for the existing anarchy in currency, from which they
+suffered both as consumers and producers. Moreover, they felt that there
+was something uncanny and threatening about corporations with their
+continuous existence and limited liability. Even while their attention
+had been engrossed by trade unionism, the workingmen were awake to the
+issue of monopoly. Together with their employers they had therefore
+supported Jackson in his assault upon the largest &quot;monster&quot; of them
+all&mdash;the Bank of the United States. The local organizations of the
+Democratic party, however, did not always remain true to faith. In such
+circumstances the workingmen, again acting in conjunction with their
+masters, frequently extended their support to the &quot;insurgent&quot;
+anti-monopoly candidates in the Democratic party conventions. Such a
+revolt took place in Philadelphia in 1835; and in New York, although
+Tammany had elected Ely Moore, the President of the General Trades'
+Union of New York, to Congress in 1834, a similar revolt occurred. The
+upshot was a triumphant return of the rebels into the fold of Tammany in
+1837. During the next twenty years, Tammany came nearer <a name="Page_29" id="Page_29" />to being a
+workingmen's organization than at any other time in its career.</p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(4) <i>The Long Depression, 1837-1862</i></p>
+
+<p>The twenty-five years which elapsed from 1837 to 1862 form a period of
+business depression and industrial disorganization only briefly
+interrupted during 1850-1853 by the gold discoveries in California. The
+aggressive unions of the thirties practically disappeared. With industry
+disorganized, trade unionism, or the effort to protect the standard of
+living by means of strikes, was out of question. As the prospect for
+immediate amelioration became dimmed by circumstances, an opportunity
+arrived for theories and philosophies of radical social reform. Once the
+sun with its life-giving heat has set, one begins to see the cold and
+distant stars.</p>
+
+<p>The uniqueness of the period of the forties in the labor movement
+proceeds not only from the large volume of star-gazing, but also from
+the accompanying fact that, for the first and only time in American
+history, the labor movement was dominated by men and women from the
+educated class, the &quot;intellectuals,&quot; who thus served in the capacity of
+expert astrologers.</p>
+
+<p>And there was no lack of stars in the heaven of social reform to occupy
+both intellectual and wage earner. First, there was the efficiency
+scheme of the followers of Charles Fourier, the French socialist, or, as
+they preferred to call themselves, the Associationists. Theirs was a
+proposal aiming directly to meet the issue of the prevailing industrial
+disorganization and wasteful competition. Albert Brisbane, Horace
+Greeley, and the Brook Farm enthusiasts and &quot;Associationists&quot; of the
+forties, made famous by their intimate association with Ralph Waldo
+<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30" />Emerson, had much in common with the present-day efficiency engineers.
+This &quot;old&quot; efficiency of theirs, like the new one, was chiefly concerned
+with increasing the production of wealth through the application of the
+&quot;natural&quot; laws of human nature. With the enormous increase in production
+to be brought about by &quot;Fourierism&quot; and &quot;Association,&quot; the question of
+justice in distribution was relegated to a secondary place. Where they
+differed from the new efficiency was in method, for they believed
+efficiency would be attained if only the human instincts or &quot;passions&quot;
+were given free play, while the efficiency engineers of today trust less
+to unguided instinct and more to &quot;scientific management&quot; of human
+&quot;passions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Midway between trade unionism and the simon-pure, idealistic reform
+philosophies stood producers' and consumers' cooperation. It had the
+merit of being a practical program most suitable to a time of
+depression, while on its spiritual side it did not fail to satisfy the
+loftiest intellectual. It was the resultant of the two most potent
+forces which acted upon the movement of the forties, the pressure of an
+inadequate income of the wage earner and the influence of the
+intellectuals. During no other period has there been, relatively
+speaking, so much effort along that line.</p>
+
+<p>Although, as we shall see, the eighties were properly the era of
+producers' cooperation on a large scale, the self-governing workshop had
+always been familiar to the American labor movement. The earliest
+attempt, as far as we have knowledge, occurred in Philadelphia in 1791,
+when the house carpenters out on strike offered by way of retaliation
+against their employers to undertake contracts at 25 percent less than
+the price charged by the <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31" />masters. Fourteen years later, in 1806, the
+journeymen cordwainers of the same city, following their conviction in
+court on the charge of conspiracy brought in by their masters, opened up
+a cooperative shoe warehouse and store. As a rule the workingmen took up
+productive cooperation when they had failed in strikes.</p>
+
+<p>In 1836 many of the trade societies began to lose their strikes and
+turned to cooperation. The cordwainers working on ladies' shoes entered
+upon a strike for higher wages in March 1836, and opened three months
+later a &quot;manufactory&quot; or a warehouse of their own. The handloom weavers
+in two of the suburbs of Philadelphia started cooperative associations
+at the same time. At the end of 1836 the hand-loom weavers of
+Philadelphia proper had two cooperative shops and were planning to open
+a third. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the journeymen cordwainers opened
+a shop after an unsuccessful strike early in 1836; likewise the tailors
+of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville. In New York the carpenters had
+done so already in 1833, and the painters of New York and Brooklyn
+opened their shops in 1837.</p>
+
+<p>Before long the spirit became so contagious that the Trades' Union of
+Philadelphia, the city federation of trade societies, was obliged to
+take notice. Early in 1837 a conference of about 200 delegates requested
+each trade society to submit estimates for a shop to employ ten members.
+However, further steps were prevented by the financial panic and
+business depression.</p>
+
+<p>The forties witnessed several similar attempts. When the iron molders of
+Cincinnati failed to win a strike in the autumn of 1847, a few of their
+number collected what funds they could and organized a sort of
+joint-stock company which they called &quot;The Journeymen Molders' Union
+<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32" />Foundry.&quot; Two local philanthropists erected their buildings. In
+Pittsburgh a group of puddlers tried to raise money by selling stock to
+anyone who wished to take an interest in their cooperative venture.</p>
+
+<p>The cooperative ventures multiplied in 1850 and 1851, following a
+widespread failure of strikes and were entered upon with particular
+readiness by the German immigrants. Among the Germans was an attitude
+towards producers' cooperation, based more nearly on general principles
+than the practical exigencies of a strike. Fresh from the scenes of
+revolutions in Europe, they were more given to dreams about
+reconstructing society and more trustful in the honesty and integrity of
+their leaders. The cooperative movement among the Germans was identified
+with the name of Wilhelm Weitling, the well-known German communist, who
+settled in America about 1850. This movement centered in and around New
+York. The cooperative principle met with success among the
+English-speaking people only outside the larger cities. In Buffalo,
+after an unsuccessful strike, the tailors formed an association with a
+membership of 108 and in October 1850, were able to give employment to
+80 of that number.</p>
+
+<p>Again, following an unsuccessful Pittsburgh strike of iron founders in
+1849, about a dozen of the strikers went to Wheeling, Virginia, each
+investing $3000, and opened a cooperative foundry shop. Two other
+foundries were opened on a similar basis in Stetsonville, Ohio, and
+Sharon, Pennsylvania. These associations of iron founders, however,
+might better be called association of small capitalists or
+master-workmen.</p>
+
+<p>During the forties, consumers' or distributive cooperation was also
+given a trial. The early history of con<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33" />sumers' cooperation is but
+fragmentary and, so far as we know, the first cooperative attempt which
+had for its exclusive aim &quot;competence to purchaser&quot; was made in
+Philadelphia early in 1829. A store was established on North Fifth
+Street, which sold goods at wholesale prices to members, who paid twenty
+cents a month for its privileges.</p>
+
+<p>In 1831 distributive cooperation was much discussed in Boston by a &quot;New
+England Association of Farmers, Mechanics, and Other Working Men.&quot; A
+half dozen cooperative attempts are mentioned in the Cooperator,
+published in Utica in 1832, but only in the case of the journeymen
+cordwainers of Lynn do we discover an undertaking which can with
+certainty be considered as an effort to achieve distributive
+cooperation. Several germs of cooperative effort are found between 1833
+and 1845, but all that is known about them is that their promoters
+sought to effect a saving by the purchase of goods in large quantities
+which were then broken up and distributed at a slight advance above
+original cost in order to meet expenses. The managers were unpaid, the
+members' interest in the business was not maintained, and the stores
+soon failed, or passed into the possession of private owners.</p>
+
+<p>It was the depression of 1846-1849 which supplied the movement for
+distributive cooperation with the needed stimulus, especially in New
+England. Although the matter was discussed in New York, New Jersey,
+Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even as far west as Ohio and Illinois, yet
+in none of the industrial centers of these States, except perhaps in New
+York, was it put into successful operation.</p>
+
+<p>In New England, however, the conditions were ex<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34" />ceptionally favorable. A
+strike movement for higher wages during a partial industrial revival of
+1843-1844 had failed completely. This failure, added to the fact that
+women and girls were employed under very unsatisfactory conditions,
+strengthened the interest of humanitarians in the laboring people and
+especially in cooperation as a possible means of alleviating their
+distress.</p>
+
+<p>Under the stimulus of these agitations, the New England Protective Union
+was formed in 1845. Until 1849, however, it bore the name of the Working
+Men's Protective Union. As often happens, prosperity brought disunion
+and, in 1853, a schism occurred in the organization due to personal
+differences. The seceders formed a separate organization known as the
+American Protective Union.</p>
+
+<p>The Working Men's Protective Union embodied a larger conception of the
+cooperative idea than had been expressed before. The important thought
+was that an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase of
+commodities was a poor way out of labor difficulties, but was valuable
+only as a preparation for something better.</p>
+
+<p>Though the resources of these laborers were small, they began the work
+with great hopes. This business, starting so unpretentiously, assumed
+larger and increasing proportions until in October, 1852, the Union
+embraced 403 divisions of which 167 reported a capital of $241,712 and
+165 of these announced annual sales amounting to $1,696,825. Though the
+schism of 1853, mentioned above, weakened the body, the agent of the
+American Protective Union claimed for the divisions comprising it sales
+aggregating in value over nine and one-fourth millions dollars in the
+seven years ending in 1859.</p>
+
+<p>It is not possible to tell what might have been the out<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35" />come of this
+cooperative movement had the peaceful development of the country
+remained uninterrupted. As it happened, the disturbed era of the Civil
+War witnessed the near annihilation of all workingmen's cooperation.</p>
+
+<p>It is not difficult to see the causes which led to the destruction of
+the still tender plant. Men left their homes for the battle field,
+foreigners poured into New England towns and replaced the Americans in
+the shops, while share-holders frequently became frightened at the state
+of trade and gladly saw the entire cooperative enterprise pass into the
+hands of the storekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>This first American cooperative movement on a large scale resembled the
+British movement in many respects, namely open membership, equal voting
+by members irrespective of number of shares, cash sales and federation
+of societies for wholesale purchases, but differed in that goods were
+sold to members nearly at cost rather than at the market price. Dr.
+James Ford in his <i>Cooperation in New England, Urban and Rural</i>,<a name="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8">[8]</a>
+describes two survivals from this period, the Central Union Association
+of New Bedford, Massachusetts, founded in 1848, and the Acushnet
+Cooperative Association, also of New Bedford, which began business in
+1849.</p>
+
+<p>But the most characteristic labor movement of the forties was a
+resurgence of the old Agrarianism of the twenties.</p>
+
+<p>Skidmore's &quot;equal division&quot; of all property appealed to the workingmen
+of New York because it seemed to be based on equality of opportunity.
+One of Skidmore's temporary associates, a Welshman by the name of George
+Henry Evans, drew from him an inspiration for a new kind of agrarianism
+to which few could object. <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36" />This new doctrine was a true Agrarianism,
+since it followed in the steps of the original &quot;Agrarians,&quot; the brothers
+Gracchi in ancient Rome. Like the Gracchi, Evans centered his plan
+around the &quot;ager publicum&quot;&mdash;the vast American public domain. Evans began
+his agitation about 1844.</p>
+
+<p>Man's right to life, according to Evans, logically implied his right to
+use the materials of nature necessary for being. For practical reasons
+he would not interfere with natural resources which have already passed
+under private ownership. Evans proposed instead that Congress give each
+would-be settler land for a homestead free of charge.</p>
+
+<p>As late as 1852 debaters in Congress pointed out that in the preceding
+sixty years only 100,000,000 acres of the public lands had been sold and
+that 1,400,000,000 acres still remained at the disposal of the
+government. Estimates of the required time to dispose of this residuum
+at the same rate of sale varied from 400 or 500 to 900 years. With the
+exaggerated views prevalent, it is no wonder that Evans believed that
+the right of the individual to as much land as his right to live calls
+for would remain a living right for as long a period in the future as a
+practical statesman may be required to take into account.</p>
+
+<p>The consequences of free homesteads were not hard to picture. The
+landless wage earners could be furnished transportation and an outfit,
+for the money spent for poor relief would be more profitably expended in
+sending the poor to the land. Private societies and trade unions, when
+laborers were too numerous, could aid in transporting the surplus to the
+waiting homesteads and towns that would grow up. With the immobility of
+labor thus <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37" />offering no serious obstacle to the execution of the plan,
+the wage earners of the East would have the option of continuing to work
+for wages or of taking up their share of the vacant lands. Moreover,
+mechanics could set up as independent producers in the new settlements.
+Enough at least would go West to force employers to offer better wages
+and shorter hours. Those unable to meet the expenses of moving would
+profit by higher wages at home. An equal opportunity to go on land would
+benefit both pioneer and stay-at-home.</p>
+
+<p>But Evans would go still further in assuring equality of opportunity. He
+would make the individual's right to the resources of nature safe
+against the creditors through a law exempting homesteads from attachment
+for debts and even against himself by making the homestead inalienable.
+Moreover to assure that right to the American people <i>in perpetuo</i> he
+would prohibit future disposal of the public land in large blocks to
+moneyed purchasers as practiced by the government heretofore. Thus the
+program of the new agrarianism: free homesteads, homestead exemption,
+and land limitation.</p>
+
+<p>Evans had a plan of political action, which was as unique as his
+economic program. His previous political experiences with the New York
+Workingmen's party had taught him that a minority party could not hope
+to win by its own votes and that the politicians cared more for offices
+than for measures. They would endorse any measure which was supported by
+voters who held the balance of power. His plan of action was, therefore,
+to ask all candidates to pledge their support to his measures. In
+exchange for such a pledge, the candidates would receive the votes of
+the workingmen. In case neither candidate would sign the pledge, it
+might be necessary to nomi<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38" />nate an independent as a warning to future
+candidates; but not as an indication of a new party organization.</p>
+
+<p>Evans' ideas quickly won the adherence of the few labor papers then
+existing. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune endorsed the homestead
+movement as early as 1845. The next five years witnessed a remarkable
+spread of the ideas of the free homestead movement in the press of the
+country. It was estimated in 1845 that 2000 papers were published in the
+United States and that in 1850, 600 of these supported land reform.</p>
+
+<p>Petitions and memorials having proved of little avail, the land
+reformers tried Evans' pet plan of bargaining votes for the support of
+their principles. Tammany was quick to start the bidding. In May, 1851,
+a mass-meeting was held at Tammany Hall &quot;of all those in favor of land
+and other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidential
+contest of 1852.&quot; A platform was adopted which proclaimed man's right to
+the soil and urged that freedom of the public lands be endorsed by the
+Democratic party. Senator Isaac A. Walker of Wisconsin was nominated as
+the candidate of the party for President.</p>
+
+<p>For a while the professional politician triumphed over the too trusting
+workingman reformer. But the cause found strong allies in the other
+classes of the American community. From the poor whites of the upland
+region of the South came a similar demand formulated by the Tennessee
+tailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, who
+introduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneers
+and settlers came the demand for increased population and development of
+resources, leading both to homesteads for settlers and land grants for
+railways. The opposition came from manu<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39" />facturers and landowners of the
+East and from the Southern slave owners. The West and East finally
+combined and the policy of the West prevailed, but not before the South
+had seceded from the Union.</p>
+
+<p>Not the entire reform was accepted. The Western spirit dominated. The
+homestead law, as finally adopted in 1862, granted one hundred and sixty
+acres as a free gift to every settler. But the same Congress launched
+upon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homestead
+legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those which
+sprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did not
+carry out the broad principles of inalienability and land limitation of
+the original Agrarians.</p>
+
+<p>Their principle of homestead exemption, however, is now almost
+universally adopted. Thus the homestead agitation begun by Evans and a
+group of wage earners and farmers in 1844 was carried to victory, though
+to an incomplete victory. It contained a fruitful lesson to labor in
+politics. The vested interests in the East were seen ultimately to
+capitulate before a popular movement which at no time aspired toward
+political power and office, but, concentrating on one issue, endeavored
+instead to permeate with its ideas the public opinion of the country at
+large.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the &quot;isms&quot; so prevalent during the forties, &quot;Agrarianism&quot; alone
+came close to modern socialism, as it alone advocated class struggle and
+carried it into the political field, although, owing to the peculiarity
+of the American party structure, it urged a policy of &quot;reward your
+friends, and punish your enemies&quot; rather than an out and out labor
+party. It is noteworthy that of all social reform movements of the
+forties Agrarianism alone <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40" />was not initiated by the intellectuals. On
+the other hand, another movement for legislative reform, namely the
+shorter-hour movement for women and children working in the mills and
+factories, was entirely managed by humanitarians. Its philosophy was the
+furthest removed from the class struggle idea.</p>
+
+<p>For only a short year or two did prosperity show itself from behind the
+clouds to cause a mushroom growth of trade unions, once in 1850-1851 and
+again in 1853-1854, following the gold discoveries in California. During
+these few years unionism disentangled itself from humanitarianism and
+cooperationism and came out in its wholly modern form of restrictive
+craft unionism, only to be again suppressed by the business depressions
+that preceded and followed the panic of 1857. Considered as a whole,
+however, the period of the forties and fifties was the zenith in
+American history of theories of social reform, of &quot;panaceas,&quot; of
+humanitarianism.</p>
+
+<p>The trade union wave of the fifties was so short lived and the trade
+unionists were so preoccupied with the pressing need of advancing their
+wages to keep pace with the soaring prices caused by the influx of
+California gold, that we miss the tendency which was so strong in the
+thirties to reach out for a wider basis of labor organization in city
+trades' unions, and ultimately in a National Trades' Union. On the other
+hand, the fifties foreshadowed a new form of expansion of labor
+organization&mdash;the joining together in a nation-wide organization of all
+local unions of one trade. The printers<a name="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9">[9]</a> organized na<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41" />tionally in
+1850, the locomotive engineers and the hat-finishers in 1854; and the
+iron molders, and the machinists and blacksmiths in 1859; in addition
+there were at least a half dozen less successful attempts in other
+trades.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2">[2]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_147">147-148.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3">[3]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_148">148-149.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4">[4]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_270">270-272.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5">[5]</a> The workingmen felt that they required leisure to be able to
+exercise their rights of citizens.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6">[6]</a> The ship carpenters had been similarly defeated in 1832.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7">[7]</a> For a detailed discussion of these trials see below, <a href="#Page_149">149-152.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8">[8]</a> Published in 1916 by the Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 16-18.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9">[9]</a> The printers had organized nationally for the first time in 1836,
+but the organization lasted less than two years; likewise the
+cordwainers or shoemakers. But we must keep in mind that what
+constituted national organization in the thirties would pass only for
+regional or sectional organization in later years.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_2" id="CHAPTER_2" />CHAPTER 2</h2>
+
+<h2>THE &quot;GREENBACK&quot; PERIOD, 1862-1879</h2>
+
+
+<p>The few national trade unions which were formed at the close of the
+fifties did not constitute by themselves a labor movement. It needed the
+industrial prosperity caused by the price inflation of the Civil War
+time to bring forth again a mass movement of labor.</p>
+
+<p>We shall say little of labor's attitude towards the question of war and
+peace before the War had started. Like many other citizens of the North
+and the Border States the handful of organized workers favored a
+compromise. They held a labor convention in Philadelphia, in which a
+great labor leader of the sixties, William H. Sylvis, President of the
+International Molders' Union, took a prominent part and pronounced in
+favor of the compromise solution advanced by Congressman Crittenden of
+Kentucky. But no sooner had Fort Sumter been fired upon by the
+secessionists than labor rallied to the support of the Federal Union.
+Entire local unions enlisted at the call of President Lincoln, and
+Sylvis himself assisted in recruiting a company composed of molders.</p>
+
+<p>The first effect of the War was a paralysis of business and an increase
+of unemployment. The existing labor organizations nearly all went to the
+wall. The period of industrial stagnation, however, lasted only until
+the middle of 1862.</p>
+
+<p>The legal tender acts of 1862 and 1863 authorized the issue of paper
+currency of &quot;greenbacks&quot; to the amount <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43" />of $1,050,000,000, and
+immediately prices began to soar. For the next sixteen years, namely
+until 1879, when the government resumed the redemption of greenbacks in
+gold, prices of commodities and labor expressed in terms of paper money
+showed varying degrees of inflation; hence the term &quot;greenback&quot; period.
+During the War the advance in prices was due in part to the
+extraordinary demand by the government for the supply of the army and,
+of course, to speculation.</p>
+
+<p>In July 1863, retail prices were 43 percent above those of 1860 and
+wages only 12 percent above; in July 1864, retail prices rose to 70
+percent and wages to 30 percent above 1860; and in July 1865, prices
+rose to 76 percent and wages only to 50 percent above the level of 1860.
+The unequal pace of the price movement drove labor to organize along
+trade-union lines.</p>
+
+<p>The order observed in the thirties was again followed out. First came a
+flock of local trade unions; these soon combined in city centrals&mdash;or as
+they came to be called, trades' assemblies&mdash;paralleling the trades'
+union of the thirties; and lastly, came an attempt to federate the
+several trades' assemblies into an International Industrial Assembly of
+North America. Local trade unions were organized literally in every
+trade beginning in the second half of 1862. The first trades' assembly
+was formed in Rochester, New York, in March 1863; and before long there
+was one in every town of importance. The International Industrial
+Assembly was attempted in 1864, but failed to live up to the
+expectations: The time had passed for a national federation of city
+centrals. As in the thirties the spread of unionism over the breadth of
+the land called out as a counterpart a widespread movement of employers'
+associations. The latter differed, however, <a name="Page_44" id="Page_44" />from their predecessors in
+the thirties in that they made little use of the courts in their fight
+against the unions.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of the national trade unions was a true index of the
+condition of business. Four were organized in 1864 as compared to two
+organized in 1863, none in 1862, and one in 1861. During 1865, which
+marked the height of the intense business activity, six more national
+unions were organized. In 1866 industry entered upon a period of
+depression, which reached its lowest depth in 1867 and continued until
+1869. Accordingly, not a single national union was organized in 1866 and
+only one in 1867. In 1868 two new national labor unions were organized.
+In 1869 two more unions were formed&mdash;a total of seven for the four
+depressed years, compared with ten in the preceding two prosperous
+years. In the summer of 1870 business became good and remained good for
+approximately three years. Nine new national unions appeared in these
+three years. These same years are marked also by a growth of the unions
+previously organized. For instance, the machinists and blacksmiths, with
+only 1500 members in 1870, had 18,000 in 1873. Other unions showed
+similar gains.</p>
+
+<p>An estimate of the total trade union membership at any one time (in view
+of the total lack of reliable statistics) would be extremely hazardous.
+The New York <i>Herald</i> estimated it in August 1869, to be about 170,000.
+A labor leader claimed at the same time that the total was as high as
+600,000. Probably 300,000 would be a conservative estimate for the time
+immediately preceding the panic of 1873.</p>
+
+<p>Although the strength of labor was really the strength of the national
+trade unions, especially during the depression of the later sixties, far
+greater attention was at<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45" />tracted outside as well as inside the labor
+movement by the National Labor Union, a loosely built federation of
+national trade unions, city trades' assemblies, local trade unions, and
+reform organizations of various descriptions, from philosophical
+anarchists to socialists and woman suffragists. The National Labor Union
+did not excel in practical activity, but it formed an accurate mirror of
+the aspirations and ideals of the American mechanics of the time of the
+Civil War and after. During its six years' existence it ran the gamut of
+all important issues which agitated the labor movement of the time.</p>
+
+<p>The National Labor Union came together in its first convention in 1866.
+The most pressing problem of the day was unemployment due to the return
+of the demobilized soldiers and the shutting down of war industries. The
+convention centered on the demand to reduce the working day to eight
+hours. But eight hours had by that time come to signify more than a
+means to increase employment. The eight-hour movement drew its
+inspiration from an economic theory advanced by a self-taught Boston
+machinist, Ira Steward. And so naturally did this theory flow from the
+usual premises in the thinking of the American workman that once
+formulated by Steward it may be said to have become an official theory
+of the labor movement.</p>
+
+<p>Steward's doctrine is well expressed by a couplet which was very popular
+with the eight-hour speakers of that period: &quot;Whether you work by the
+piece or work by the day, decreasing the hours increases the pay.&quot;
+Steward believed that the amount of wages is determined by no other
+factor than the worker's standard of living. He held that wages cannot
+fall below the standard of living not because, as the classical
+economists said, it would <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46" />cause late marriages and a reduction in the
+supply of labor, but solely because the wage earner will refuse to work
+for less than enough to maintain his standard of living. Steward
+possessed such abundant faith in this purely psychological check on the
+employer that he made it the cornerstone of his theory of social
+progress. Raise the worker's standard of living, he said, and the
+employer will be immediately forced to raise wages; no more can wages
+fall below the level of the worker's standard of living than New England
+can be ruled against her will. The lever for raising the standard of
+living was the eight-hour day. Increase the worker's leisure and you
+will increase his wants; increase his wants and you will immediately
+raise his wages. Although he occasionally tried to soften his doctrine
+by the argument that a shorter work-day not only does not decrease but
+may actually increase output, his was a distinctly revolutionary
+doctrine; he aimed at the total abolition of profits through their
+absorption into wages. But the instrument was nothing more radical than
+a progressive universal shortening the hours.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the general policy. To bring it to pass two alternatives
+were possible: trade unionism or legislation. Steward chose the latter
+as the more hopeful and speedy one. Steward knew that appeals to the
+humanity of the employers had largely failed; efforts to secure the
+reform by cooperation had failed; the early trade unions had failed; and
+there seemed to be no recourse left now but to accomplish the reduction
+of hours by legislative enactment.</p>
+
+<p>In 1866 Steward organized the Grand Eight-Hour League of Massachusetts
+as a special propagandist organization of the eight-hour philosophy. The
+League <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47" />was a secret organization with pass words and obligations,
+intended as the central organization of a chain of subordinate leagues
+in the State, afterwards to be created. Of a total of about eighty local
+leagues in existence from 1865 to 1877, about twenty were in
+Massachusetts, eight elsewhere in New England, at least twenty-five in
+Michigan, four or five in Pennsylvania, about seven in Illinois, as many
+in Wisconsin, and smaller numbers in Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, and
+California. Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Pennsylvania had each a Grand
+Eight-Hour League. Practically all of these organizations disappeared
+soon after the panic of 1873.</p>
+
+<p>The National Labor Union centered on the passage of an eight-hour law
+for employes of the Federal government. It was believed, perhaps not
+without some justice, that the effect of such law would eventually lead
+to the introduction of the same standard in private employment&mdash;not
+indeed through the operation of the law of supply and demand, for it was
+realized that this would be practically negligible, but rather through
+its contagious effect on the minds of employes and even employers. It
+will be recalled that, at the time of the ten-hour agitation of the
+thirties, the Federal government had lagged about five years behind
+private employers in granting the demanded concession. That in the
+sixties the workingmen chose government employment as the entering wedge
+shows a measure of political self-confidence which the preceding
+generation of workingmen lacked.</p>
+
+<p>The first bill in Congress was introduced by Senator Gratz Brown of
+Missouri in March 1866. In the summer a delegation from the National
+Labor Union was received by President Andrew Johnson. The President
+pointed to his past record favorable to the workingmen but refrained
+<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48" />from any definite promises. Finally, an eight-hour bill for government
+employes was passed by the House in March 1867, and by the Senate in
+June 1868. On June 29, 1868, President Johnson signed it and it went
+into effect immediately.</p>
+
+<p>The result of the eight-hour law was not all that the friends of the
+bill hoped. The various officials in charge of government work put their
+own interpretations upon it and there resulted much diversity in its
+observance, and consequently great dissatisfaction. There seemed to be
+no clear understanding as to the intent of Congress in enacting the law.
+Some held that the reduction in working hours must of necessity bring
+with it a corresponding reduction in wages. The officials' view of the
+situation was given by Secretary Gideon Wells. He pointed out that
+Congress, by reducing the hours of labor in government work, had forced
+upon the department of the Navy the employment of a larger number of men
+in order to accomplish the necessary work; and that at the same time
+Congress had reduced the appropriation for that department. This had
+rendered unavoidable a twenty percent reduction in wages paid employes
+in the Navy Yard. Such a state of uncertainty continued four years
+longer. At last on May 13, 1872, President Grant prohibited by
+proclamation any wage reductions in the execution of the law. On May 18,
+1872, Congress passed a law for the restitution of back pay.</p>
+
+<p>The expectations of the workingmen that the Federal law would blaze the
+way for the eight-hour system in private employment failed to
+materialize. The depression during the seventies took up all the impetus
+in that direction which the law may have generated. Even as far as
+government work is concerned forty years had to elapse <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49" />before its
+application could be rounded out by extending it to contract work done
+for the government by private employers.</p>
+
+<p>We have dealt at length with this subject because it marked an important
+landmark. It demonstrated to the wage earners that, provided they
+concentrated on a modest object and kept up a steady pressure, their
+prospects for success were not entirely hopeless, hard as the road may
+seem to travel. The other and far more ambitious object of the
+workingman of the sixties, that of enacting general eight-hour laws in
+the several States, at first appeared to be within easy reach&mdash;so
+yielding political parties and State legislatures seemed to be to the
+demands of the organized workmen. Yet before long these successes proved
+to be entirely illusory.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1867 was the banner year for such State legislation. Eight-hour
+laws were passed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Missouri, and New
+York. California passed such a law in 1868. In Pennsylvania, Michigan,
+Maryland, and Minnesota bills were introduced but were defeated. Two
+common features characterized these laws, whether enacted or merely
+proposed to the legislatures. There were none which did not permit of
+longer hours than those named in the law, provided they were so
+specified in the contract. A contract requiring ten or more hours a day
+was perfectly legal. The eight-hour day was the legal day only &quot;when the
+contract was silent on the subject or where there is no express contract
+to the contrary,&quot; as stated in the Wisconsin law. But the greatest
+weakness was a lack of a provision for enforcement. New York's
+experience is typical and characteristic. When the workingmen appealed
+to Governor Fenton to enforce the law, he replied that the act had
+<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50" />received his official signature and he felt that it &quot;would be an
+unwarrantable assumption&quot; on his part to take any step requiring its
+enforcement. &quot;Every law,&quot; he said, &quot;was obligatory by its own nature,
+and could derive no additional force from any further act of his.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In Massachusetts, however, the workingmen succeeded after hard and
+protracted labor in obtaining an enforceable ten-hour law for women&mdash;the
+first effective law of its kind passed in any American State. This law,
+which was passed in 1874, provides that &quot;no minor under the age of
+eighteen years, and no woman over that age&quot; shall be employed more than
+ten hours in one day or sixty hours in any one week in any manufacturing
+establishment in the State. The penalty for each violation was fixed at
+fifty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>The repeated disappointments with politics and legislation led in the
+early seventies to a revival of faith in trade unionism. Even in the
+early sixties we find not a few unions, national and local, limiting
+their hours by agreement with employers. The national unions, however,
+for the most part left the matter to the local unions for settlement as
+their strength or local conditions might dictate. In some cases the
+local unions were advised to accept a reduction of wages in order to
+secure the system, showing faith in Steward's theory that such reduction
+could not be permanent.</p>
+
+<p>The movement to establish the eight-hour day through trade unionism
+reached its climax in the summer of 1872, when business prosperity was
+at its height. This year witnessed in New York City a general eight-hour
+strike. However, it succeeded in only a few trades, and even there the
+gain was only temporary, since it was lost <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51" />during the years of
+depression which followed the financial panic of 1873.</p>
+
+<p>To come back to the National Labor Union. At the second convention in
+1867 the enthusiasm was transferred from eight-hour laws to the bizarre
+social reform philosophy known as &quot;greenbackism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Greenbackism&quot; was, in substance, a plan to give the man without capital
+an equal opportunity in business with his rich competitor. It meant
+taking away from bankers and middlemen their control over credit and
+thereby furnishing credit and capital through the aid of the government
+to the producers of physical products. On its face greenbackism was a
+program of currency reform and derived its name from the so-called
+&quot;greenback,&quot; the paper money issued during the Civil War. But it was
+more than currency reform&mdash;it was industrial democracy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Greenbackism&quot; was the American counterpart of the contemporary
+radicalism of Europe. Its program had much in common with that of
+Lassalle in Germany who would have the state lend its credit to
+cooperative associations of workingmen in the confident expectation that
+with such backing they would drive private capitalism out of existence
+by the competitive route. But greenbackism differed from the scheme of
+Lassalle in that it would utilize the government's enormous Civil War
+debt, instead of its taxing power, as a means of furnishing capital to
+labor. This was to be done by reducing the rate of interest on the
+government bonds to three percent and by making them convertible into
+legal tender currency and convertible back into bonds, at the will of
+the holder of either. In other words, the greenback currency, instead of
+being, as it was at the time, an irredeemable <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52" />promise to pay in specie,
+would be redeemable in government bonds. On the other hand, if a
+government bondholder could secure slightly more than three percent by
+lending to a private borrower, he would return his bonds to the
+government, take out the corresponding amount in greenbacks and lend it
+to the producer on his private note or mortgage. This would involve, of
+course, the possible inflation of legal tender currency to the amount of
+outstanding bonds. But inflation was immaterial, since all prices would
+be affected alike and meanwhile the farmers, the workingmen, and their
+cooperative establishments would be able to secure capital at slightly
+more than three percent instead of the nine or twelve percent which they
+were compelled to pay at the bank. Thereby they would be placed on a
+competitive level with the middleman, and the wage earner would be
+assisted to escape the wage system into self-employment.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the curious doctrine which captured the leaders of the
+organized wage earners in 1867. The way had indeed been prepared for it
+in 1866, when the wage earners espoused producers' cooperation as the
+only solution. But, in the following year, 1867, they concluded that no
+system of combination or cooperation could secure to labor its natural
+rights as long as the credit system enabled non-producers to accumulate
+wealth faster than labor was able to add to the national wealth.
+Cooperation would follow &quot;as a natural consequence,&quot; if producers could
+secure through legislation credit at a low rate of interest. The
+government was to extend to the producer &quot;free capital&quot; in addition to
+free land which he received with the Homestead Act.</p>
+
+<p>The producers' cooperation, which offered the occasion for the espousal
+of greenbackism, was itself preceded by <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53" />a movement for consumers'
+cooperation. Following the upward sweep of prices, workmen had begun
+toward the end of 1862 to make definite preparations for distributive
+cooperation. They endeavored to cut off the profits of the middleman by
+establishing cooperative grocery stores, meat markets, and coal yards.
+The first substantial effort of this kind to attract wide attention was
+the formation in December 1862, of the Union Cooperative Association of
+Philadelphia, which opened a store. The prime mover and the financial
+secretary of this organization was Thomas Phillips, a shoemaker who came
+from England in 1852, fired with the principles of the Rochdale
+pioneers, that is, cash sales, dividends on purchases rather than on
+stock, and &quot;one man, one vote.&quot; By 1866 the movement had extended until
+practically every important industrial town between Boston and San
+Francisco had some form of distributive cooperation. This was the high
+tide of the movement. Unfortunately, the condition of the country was
+unfavorable to these enterprises and they were destined to early
+collapse. The year 1865 witnessed disastrous business failures. The
+country was in an uncertain condition and at the end of the sixties the
+entire movement had died out.</p>
+
+<p>From 1866 to 1869 experiments in productive cooperation were made by
+practically all leading trades including the bakers, coach makers,
+collar makers, coal miners, shipwrights, machinists and blacksmiths,
+foundry workers, nailers, ship carpenters, and calkers, glass blowers,
+hatters, boiler makers, plumbers, iron rollers, tailors, printers,
+needle women, and molders. A large proportion of these attempts grew out
+of unsuccessful strikes. The most important undertakings were among the
+workers in iron, undoubtedly due in large measure to the inde<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54" />fatigable
+efforts of William H. Sylvis, the founder of the Iron Molders'
+International Union.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of 1869 members of the Iron Molders' International Union
+owned and operated many cooperative foundries chiefly in New York and
+Pennsylvania. The first of the foundries established at Troy in the
+early summer of 1866 was followed quickly by one in Albany and then
+during the next eighteen months by ten more&mdash;one each in Rochester,
+Chicago, Quincy, Louisville, Somerset, Pittsburgh, and two each in Troy
+and Cleveland. The original foundry at Troy was an immediate financial
+success and was hailed with joy by those who believed that under the
+name of cooperationists the baffled trade unionists might yet conquer.
+The New York <i>Sun</i> congratulated the iron molders of Troy and declared
+that Sylvis had checkmated the association of stove manufacturers and,
+by the establishment of this cooperative foundry, had made the greatest
+contribution of the year to the labor cause.</p>
+
+<p>But the results of the Troy experiment, typical of the others, show how
+far from a successful solution of the labor problem is productive
+cooperation. Although this &quot;Troy Cooperative Iron Founders' Association&quot;
+was planned with great deliberation and launched at a time when the
+regular stove manufacturers were embarrassed by strikes, and although it
+was regularly incorporated with a provision that each member was
+entitled to but one vote whether he held one share at $100, or the
+maximum privilege of fifty in the total of two thousand shares, it
+failed as did the others in furnishing permanent relief to the workers
+as a class. At the end of the third year of this enterprise, the
+<i>American Workman</i> published a sympathetic account of its progress
+uncon<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55" />sciously disclosing its fatal weakness, namely, the inevitable
+tendency of cooperators to adopt the capitalistic view. The writer of
+this account quotes from these cooperators to show that &quot;the fewer the
+stockholders in the company the greater its success.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A similar instance is furnished by the Cooperative Foundry Company of
+Rochester. This venture has also been a financial success, though a
+partial failure as a cooperative enterprise. When it was established in
+1867 all employes were stockholders and profits were divided as follows:
+Twelve percent on capital and the balance in proportion to the earnings
+of the men. But the capitalist was stronger than the cooperative
+brother. Dividends on capital were advanced in a few years to seventeen
+and one-half percent, then to twenty-five, and finally the distribution
+of any part of the profits in proportion to wages was discontinued.
+Money was made every year and dividends paid, which in 1884 amounted to
+forty percent on the capital. At that time about one-fifth of the
+employes were stockholders. Also in this case cooperation did not
+prevent the usual conflict between employer and employe, as is shown in
+a strike of three and a half months' duration. It is interesting to
+notice that one of the strikers, a member of the Molders' Union, owned
+stock to the amount of $7000.</p>
+
+<p>The machinists, too, throughout this period took an active interest in
+cooperation. Their convention which met in October, 1865, appointed a
+committee to report on a plan of action to establish a cooperative shop
+under the auspices of the International Union. The plan failed of
+adoption, but of machinists' shops on the joint-stock plan there were a
+good many. Two other trades noted for their enthusiasm for cooperation
+at this time were <a name="Page_56" id="Page_56" />the shoemakers and the coopers. The former, organized
+in the Order of St. Crispin, then the largest trade union in the
+country, advocated cooperation even when their success in strikes was at
+its height. &quot;The present demand of the Crispin is steady employment and
+fair wages, but his future is self-employment&quot; was one of their mottoes.
+During the seventies they repeatedly attempted to carry this motto into
+effect. The seventies also saw the beginning of the most successful
+single venture in productive cooperation ever undertaken in this
+country, namely, the eight cooperative cooperage shops in Minneapolis,
+which were established at varying intervals from 1874 to 1886. The
+coopers took care to enforce true cooperation by providing for equal
+holding of stock and for a division of ordinary profits and losses in
+proportion to wages. The cooper shops prospered, but already ten years
+later four out of the eight existing in 1886 had passed into private
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>In 1866 when the eight-hour demand was as yet uppermost, the National
+Labor Union resolved for an independent labor party. The espousal of
+greenbackism in 1867 only reenforced that resolution. The leaders
+realized only too well that neither the Republican nor Democratic party
+would voluntarily make an issue of a scheme purporting to assist the
+wage earner to become an independent producer. Accordingly, the history
+of the National Labor Union became largely the history of labor's first
+attempt to play a lone political hand on a national scale.</p>
+
+<p>Each annual session of the National Labor Union faithfully reaffirmed
+the decision to &quot;cut loose&quot; from the old parties. But such a vast
+undertaking demanded time. It was not until 1872 that the National Labor
+Union met <a name="Page_57" id="Page_57" />as a political convention to nominate a national ticket. From
+the first the stars were inauspicious. Charges were made that political
+aspirants sought to control the convention in order to influence
+nominations by the Republican and Democratic parties. A &quot;greenback&quot;
+platform was adopted as a matter of course and the new party was
+christened the National Labor and Reform Party. On the first formal
+ballot for nomination for President, Judge David Davis of Illinois, a
+personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, received 88 votes, Wendell Phillips,
+the abolitionist, 52, and the remainder scattered. On the third ballot
+Davis was nominated. Governor J. Parker of New Jersey was nominated for
+Vice-President. At first Judge Davis accepted the nomination, but
+resigned after the Democrats had nominated Horace Greeley. The loss of
+the candidate spelled the death of the party. The National Labor Union
+itself had been only an empty shell since 1870, when the national trade
+unions, disaffected with the turn towards politics, withdrew. Now, its
+pet project a failure, it, too, broke up.</p>
+
+<p>In 1873, on the eve of the financial panic, the national trade unions
+attempted to reconstruct a national labor federation on a purely
+trade-union basis in the form of a National Industrial Congress. But the
+economic disaster of the panic nipped it in the bud just as it cut off
+the life of the overwhelming majority of the existing labor
+organizations. Another attempt to get together on a national basis was
+made in the National Labor Congress at Pittsburgh in 1876. But those who
+responded were not interested in trade unionism and, mirroring the
+prevailing labor sentiment during the long years of depressions, had
+only politics on their mind, greenback or socialist. As neither
+greenbacker nor socialist would <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58" />meet the other half-way, the attempt
+naturally came to naught.</p>
+
+<p>Greenbackism was popular with the working people during the depressed
+seventies because it now meant to them primarily currency inflation and
+a rise of prices and, consequently, industrial prosperity&mdash;not the
+phantastic scheme of the National Labor Union. Yet in the Presidential
+election of 1876 the Greenback party candidate, Peter Cooper, the well
+known manufacturer and philanthropist, drew only a poor 100,000, which
+came practically from the rural districts only. It was not until the
+great strikes of 1877 had brought in their train a political labor
+upheaval that the greenback movement assumed a formidable form.</p>
+
+<p>The strikes of 1877, which on account of the wide area affected, the
+degree of violence displayed, and the amount of life and property lost,
+impressed contemporaries as being nothing short of social revolution,
+were precipitated by a general ten percent reduction in wages on the
+three trunk lines running West, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore &amp; Ohio,
+and the New York Central, in June and July 1877. This reduction came on
+top of an earlier ten percent reduction after the panic. The railway men
+were practically unorganized so that the steadying influence of previous
+organization was totally lacking in the critical situation of unrest
+which the newly announced wage reduction created. One must take also
+into account that in the four terrible years which elapsed since the
+panic, America had developed a new type of a man&mdash;the tramp&mdash;who
+naturally gravitated towards places where trouble was expected.</p>
+
+<p>The first outbreak occurred at Martinsburg, West Virginia, on July 17,
+the day after the ten percent re<a name="Page_59" id="Page_59" />duction had gone into effect. The
+strike spread like wildfire over the adjacent sections of the Baltimore
+&amp; Ohio road, the strikers assuming absolute control at many points. The
+militia was either unwilling or powerless to cope with the violence. In
+Baltimore, where in the interest of public safety all the freight trains
+had stopped running, two companies of militia were beleaguered by a mob
+to prevent their being dispatched to Cumberland, where the strikers were
+in control. Order was restored only when Federal troops arrived.</p>
+
+<p>But these occurrences fade into insignificance when compared with the
+destructive effects of the strike on the Pennsylvania in and around
+Pittsburgh. The situation there was aggravated by a hatred of the
+Pennsylvania railway corporation shared by nearly all residents on the
+ground of an alleged rate discrimination against the city. The
+Pittsburgh militia fraternized with the strikers, and when 600 troops
+which arrived from Philadelphia attempted to restore order and killed
+about twenty rioters, they were besieged in a roundhouse by a furious
+mob. In the battle the railway yards were set on fire. Damages amounting
+to about $5,000,000 were caused. The besieged militia men finally gained
+egress and retreated fighting rear-guard actions. At last order was
+restored by patrols of citizens. The strike spread also to the Erie
+railway and caused disturbances in several places, but not nearly of the
+same serious nature as on the Baltimore &amp; Ohio and the Pennsylvania. The
+other places to which the strike spread were Toledo, Louisville,
+Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco.</p>
+
+<p>The strikes failed in every case but their moral effect was enormous.
+The general public still retained a fresh memory of the Commune of Paris
+of 1871 and feared for <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60" />the foundations of the established order. The
+wage earners, on the other hand, felt that the strikers had not been
+fairly dealt with. It was on this intense labor discontent that the
+greenback agitation fed and grew.</p>
+
+<p>Whereas in 1876 the greenback labor vote was negligible, notwithstanding
+the exhortations by many of the former trade union leaders who turned
+greenback agitators, now, following the great strikes, greenbackism
+became primarily a labor movement. Local Greenback-Labor parties were
+being organized everywhere and a national Greenback-Labor party was not
+far behind in forming. The continued industrial depression was a
+decisive factor, the winter of 1877-1878 marking perhaps the point of
+its greatest intensity. Naturally the greenback movement was growing
+apace. One of the notable successes in the spring of 1878 was the
+election of Terence V. Powderly, later Grand Master Workman of the
+Knights of Labor, as mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p>The Congressional election in the autumn of 1878 marked the zenith of
+the movement. The aggregate greenback vote cast in the election exceeded
+a million, and fourteen Representatives were sent to Congress. In New
+England the movement was strong enough to poll almost a third of the
+total vote in Maine, over 8 percent of the total vote in both
+Connecticut and New Hampshire, and from 4 to 6 percent, in the other
+States. In Maine the greenbackers elected 32 members of the upper house
+and 151 members of the lower house and one Congressman, Thompson Murch
+of Rochland, who was secretary of the National Granite Cutters' Union.
+However, the bulk of the vote in that State was obviously agricultural.
+In Massachusetts, the situation was dominated by General Benjamin F.
+Butler, lifelong Republican politician, <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61" />who had succeeded in getting
+the Democratic nomination for governor and was endorsed by the Greenback
+convention. He received a large vote but was defeated for office.</p>
+
+<p>But just as the Greenback-Labor movement was assuming promising
+proportions a change for the better in the industrial situation cut
+under the very roots of its existence. In addition, one month after the
+election of 1878, its principal issue disappeared. January 1, 1879, was
+the date fixed by the act for resumption of redemption of greenbacks in
+gold and on December 17, 1878, the premium on gold disappeared. From
+that day on, the greenback became a dead issue.</p>
+
+<p>Another factor of great importance was the large increase in the volume
+of the currency. In 1881 the currency, which had averaged about
+$725,000,000 for the years 1876-1878, reached over $1,111,000,000. Under
+these conditions, all that remained available to the platform-makers and
+propagandists of the party was their opposition to the so-called
+&quot;monopolistic&quot; national banks with their control over currency and to
+the refunding of the bonded debt of the government.</p>
+
+<p>The disappearance of the financial issue snapped the threads which had
+held together the farmer and the wage-worker. So long as depression
+continued, the issue was financial and the two had, as they thought, a
+common enemy&mdash;the banker. The financial issue once settled, or at least
+suspended, the object of the attack by labor became the employer, and
+that of the attack by the farmer&mdash;the railway corporation and the
+warehouse man. Prosperity had mitigated the grievances of both classes,
+but while the farmer still had a great deal to expect from politics in
+the form of state regulation of railway rates, the wage <a name="Page_62" id="Page_62" />earners'
+struggle now turned entirely economic and not political.</p>
+
+<p>In California, as in the Eastern industrial States, the railway strikes
+of 1877 precipitated a political movement. California had retained gold
+as currency throughout the entire period of paper money, and the labor
+movement at no time had accepted the greenback platform. The political
+issue after 1877 was racial, not financial, and the weapon was not
+merely the ballot, but also &quot;direct action&quot;&mdash;violence. The anti-Chinese
+agitation in California, culminating as it did in the Exclusion Law
+passed by Congress in 1882, was doubtless the most important single
+factor in the history of American labor, for without it the entire
+country might have been overrun by Mongolian labor and the labor
+movement might have become a conflict of races instead of one of
+classes.<a name="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>The seventies witnessed another of those recurring attempts of
+consumers' cooperation already noticed in the forties and sixties. This
+time the movement was organized by the &quot;Sovereigns of Industry,&quot; a
+secret order, founded at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1874 by one
+William H. Earle. The spirit of the Order was entirely peaceful and
+unobtrusive as expressed in the first paragraph of the Declaration of
+Purposes which reads as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Order of the Sovereigns of Industry is an association of the
+industrial or laboring classes, without regard to race, sex, color,
+nationality, or occupation; not founded for the purpose of waging any
+war of aggression upon any other class, or for fostering any antagonism
+<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63" />of labor against capital, or of arraying the poor against the rich; but
+for mutual assistance in self-improvement and self-protection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The scheme of organization called for a local council including members
+from the town or district, a state council, comprising representatives
+from the local councils and a National Council in which the States were
+represented. The president of the National Council was the founder of
+the Order, William H. Earle.</p>
+
+<p>Success accompanied the efforts of the promoters of the Sovereigns of
+Industry for a few years. The total membership in 1875-1876 was 40,000,
+of whom seventy-five percent were in New England and forty-three percent
+in Massachusetts. Though the Order extended into other States and even
+reached the territories, its chief strength always remained in New
+England and the Middle States. During the last period of its existence a
+national organ was published at Washington, but the Order does not
+appear to have gained a foothold in any of the more Southern sections of
+the country.</p>
+
+<p>In 1875, 101 local councils reported as having some method of supplying
+members with goods, 46 of whom operated stores. The largest store
+belonged to the council at Springfield, Massachusetts, which in 1875
+built the &quot;Sovereign Block&quot; at a cost of $35,500. In his address at the
+fourth annual session in Washington, President Earle stated that the
+store in Springfield led all the others with sales amounting to $119,000
+for the preceding year. About one-half of the councils failed to report,
+but at the Congress of 1876 President Earle estimated the annual trade
+at $3,000,000.</p>
+
+<p>Much enthusiasm accompanied the progress of the movement. The hall in
+&quot;Sovereign Block&quot; at Springfield <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64" />was dedicated amid such jubilation as
+marks an event thought to be the forerunner of a new era. There is
+indeed a certain pathos in the high hopes expressed in the Address of
+Dedication by President Earle, for, though the Order continued to thrive
+until 1878, shortly after a decline began, and dissolution was its fate
+in 1880.</p>
+
+<p>The failure of the Sovereigns marked the latest attempt on a large
+scale<a name="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11">[11]</a> to inoculate the American workingmen with the sort of
+cooperative spirit which proved so successful in England.<a name="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65" />This failure of distributive cooperation to gain the strong and lasting
+foothold in this country that it has abroad has been accounted for in
+various ways by different writers. Great emphasis has been laid upon the
+lack of capital, the lack of suitable legislation on the subject of
+cooperation, the mutual isolation of the educated and wage-earning
+classes, the lack of business ability among wage earners, and the
+altogether too frequent venality and corruption among cooperators.</p>
+
+<p>Probably the lack of adequate leadership has played as important a part
+as any. It is peculiar to America that the wage earner of exceptional
+ability can easily find a way for escaping into the class of independent
+producers or even employers of labor. The American trade union movement
+has suffered much less from this difficulty. The trade unions are
+fighting organizations; they demand the sort of leader who is of a
+combative spirit, who possesses the organizing ability and the &quot;personal
+magnetism&quot; to keep his men in line; and for this kind of ability the
+business world offers no particular demand. On the other hand, the
+qualifications which go to make a successful manager of a cooperative
+store, namely, steadiness, conservatism of judgment, attention to detail
+and business punctuality always will be in great demand in the business
+world. Hence, when no barrier is interposed in the form of preempted
+opportunities or class bias, the exceptional workingman who possesses
+these qualifications will likely desert his class and set up in business
+for him<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66" />self. In England, fortunately for the cooperative movement, such
+an escape is very difficult.</p>
+
+<p>The failure of consumers' cooperation in America was helped also by two
+other peculiarly American conditions. European economists, when speaking
+of the working class, assume generally that it is fixed in residence and
+contrast it with capital, which they say is fluid as between city and
+city and even between country and country. American labor, however,
+native as well as immigrant, is probably more mobile than capital; for,
+tradition and habit which keep the great majority of European wage
+earners in the place where their fathers and forefathers had lived
+before them are generally absent in this country, except perhaps in
+parts of New England and the South. It is therefore natural that the
+cooperative spirit, which after all is but an enlarged and more
+generalized form of the old spirit of neighborliness and mutual trust,
+should have failed to develop to its full strength in America.</p>
+
+<p>Another condition fatal to the development of the cooperative spirit is
+the racial heterogeneity of the American wage-earning class, which
+separates it into mutually isolated groups even as the social classes of
+England and Scotland are separated by class spirit. As a result, we find
+a want of mutual trust which depends so much on &quot;consciousness of kind.&quot;
+This is further aggravated by competition and a continuous displacement
+in industry of nationalities of a high standard of living by those of a
+lower one. This conflict of nationalities, which lies also at the root
+of the closed shop policy of many of the American trade unions, is
+probably the most effective carrier that there is to a widespread growth
+of the cooperative spirit among American wage earners. This is further
+hindered by other national characteristics <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67" />which more or less pervade
+all classes of society, namely, the traditional individualism&mdash;the
+heritage of puritanism and the pioneer days, and the emphasis upon
+earning capacity with a corresponding aversion to thrift.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10">[10]</a> The National Labor Union came out against Chinese immigration in
+1869, when the issue was brought home to the Eastern wage earners
+following the importation by a shoe manufacturer in North Adams,
+Massachusetts, of Chinese strike breakers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11">[11]</a> There were many cooperative stores in the eighties and a concerted
+effort to duplicate the venture of the Sovereigns was attempted as late
+as 1919 under the pressure of the soaring cost of living.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12">[12]</a> Where Consumers' Cooperation has worked under most favorable
+conditions as in England, its achievements have been all that its most
+ardent champions could have desired. Such is the picture presented by
+Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb in the following glowing terms:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The organization of industry by Associations of Consumers offers, as
+far as it goes, a genuine alternative to capitalist ownership, because
+it supersedes the capitalist power, whether individual or joint-stock,
+alike in the control of the instruments of production by which the
+community lives, and in the absorption of the profits, which otherwise
+support a capitalist class. The ownership and control are vested in, and
+the profits are distributed among, the whole community of consumers,
+irrespective of their industrial wealth. Through the device of dividend
+on purchases the Cooperative Movement maintains an open democracy,
+through the control of this democracy of consumers it has directly or
+indirectly kept down prices, and protected the wage-earning class from
+exploitation by the Credit System and from the extortions of monopolist
+traders and speculators. By this same device on purchases, and the
+automatic accumulation of part of the profit in the capital of each
+society and in that of the Wholesales, it has demonstratedly added to
+the personal wealth of the manual working class, and has, alike in Great
+Britain, and in other countries, afforded both a valuable financial
+reserve to the wage earners against all emergencies and an instrument
+for their elevation from the penury to which competition is always
+depressing them. By making possible the upgrowth of great business
+enterprises in working class hands, the Cooperative Movement has,
+without divorcing them from their fellows, given to thousands of the
+manual workers both administrative experience and a well-grounded
+confidence; and has thus enabled them to take a fuller part in political
+and social life than would otherwise have been probable.&quot;&mdash;<i>New
+Statesman</i>, May 30, 1916. &quot;Special Supplement on the Cooperative
+Movement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Indeed the success of the consumer's cooperative movement in European
+countries has been marvellous, even measured by bare figures. In all
+Europe in 1914, there were about 9,000,000 cooperators of whom one-third
+lived in Great Britain and not less than two and a half millions in
+Germany. In England and Scotland alone, the 1400 stores and two
+Wholesale Cooperative Societies controlled in 1914 about 420 million
+dollars of retail distributive trade and employed nearly 50,000
+operatives in processes of production in their own workshops and
+factories.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_3" id="CHAPTER_3" />CHAPTER 3</h2>
+
+<h2>THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF
+LABOR</h2>
+
+
+<p>With the practical disintegration of the organized labor movement in the
+seventies, two nuclei held together and showed promise of future growth.
+One was the &quot;Noble Order of the Knights of Labor&quot; and the other a small
+trade union movement grouped around the International Cigar Makers'
+Union.</p>
+
+<p>The &quot;Noble Order of the Knights of Labor,&quot; while it first became
+important in the labor movement after 1873, was founded in 1869 by Uriah
+Smith Stephens, a tailor who had been educated for the ministry, as a
+secret organization. Secrecy was adopted as a protection against
+persecutions by employers.</p>
+
+<p>The principles of the Order were set forth by Stephens in the secret
+ritual. &quot;Open and public association having failed after a struggle of
+centuries to protect or advance the interest of labor, we have lawfully
+constituted this Assembly,&quot; and &quot;in using this power of organized effort
+and cooperation, we but imitate the example of capital heretofore set in
+numberless instances;&quot; for, &quot;in all the multifarious branches of trade,
+capital has its combinations, and, whether intended or not, it crushes
+the manly hopes of labor and tramples poor humanity into the dust.&quot;
+However, &quot;we mean no conflict with legitimate <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69" />enterprise, no antagonism
+to necessary capital.&quot; The remedy consists first in work of education:
+&quot;We mean to create a healthy public opinion on the subject of labor (the
+only creator of values or capital) and the justice of its receiving a
+full, just share of the values or capital it has created.&quot; The next
+remedy was legislation: &quot;We shall, with all our strength, support laws
+made to harmonize the interests of labor and capital, for labor alone
+gives life and value to capital, and also those laws which tend to
+lighten the exhaustiveness of toil.&quot; Next in order were mutual benefits.
+&quot;We shall use every lawful and honorable means to procure and retain
+employ for one another, coupled with a just and fair remuneration, and,
+should accident or misfortune befall one of our number, render such aid
+as lies within our power to give, without inquiring his country or his
+creed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For nine years the Order remained a secret organization and showed but a
+slow growth. In 1878 it was forced to abolish secrecy. The public mind
+was rendered uneasy by the revolutionary uprising of workingmen of Paris
+who set up the famous &quot;Commune of Paris&quot; of 1871, by the destructive
+great railway strikes in this country in 1877 and, lastly, by a wave of
+criminal disorders in the anthracite coal mining region in Eastern
+Pennsylvania,<a name="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13">[13]</a> and became only too prone to attribute revolutionary
+and criminal intents to any labor organization that cloaked itself in
+secrecy. Simultaneously with coming out into the open, the Knights
+adopted a new program, called the Preamble of the Knights of Labor, in
+place of <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70" />the vague Secret Ritual which hitherto served as the
+authoritative expression of aims.</p>
+
+<p>This Preamble recites how &quot;wealth,&quot; with its development, has become so
+aggressive that &quot;unless checked&quot; it &quot;will inevitably lead to the
+pauperisation and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses.&quot; Hence, if
+the toilers are &quot;to enjoy the blessings of life,&quot; they must organize
+&quot;every department of productive industry&quot; in order to &quot;check&quot; the power
+of wealth and to put a stop to &quot;unjust accumulation.&quot; The battle cry in
+this fight must be &quot;moral worth not wealth, the true standard of
+individual and national greatness.&quot; As the &quot;action&quot; of the toilers ought
+to be guided by &quot;knowledge,&quot; it is necessary to know &quot;the true condition
+of the producing masses&quot;; therefore, the Order demands &quot;from the various
+governments the establishment of bureaus of labor statistics.&quot; Next in
+order comes the &quot;establishment of cooperative institutions productive
+and distributive.&quot; Union of all trades, &quot;education,&quot; and producers'
+cooperation remained forever after the cardinal points in the Knights of
+Labor philosophy and were steadily referred to as &quot;First Principles,&quot;
+namely principles bequeathed to the Order by Uriah Stephens and the
+other &quot;Founders.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71" />These idealistic &quot;First Principles&quot; found an ardent champion in Terence
+V. Powderly, a machinist by trade and twice mayor of Scranton,
+Pennsylvania, on a labor ticket, who succeeded Stephens in 1878 to the
+headship of the Order. Powderly bore unmistakably the stamp of this sort
+of idealism throughout all the time when he was the foremost labor
+leader in the country. Unlike Samuel Gompers, who came to supplant him
+about 1890, he was foreign to that spirit of combative unionism which
+accepts the wage system but concentrates on a struggle to wrest
+concessions from the employers. Even when circumstances which were
+largely beyond his control made Powderly a strike leader on a huge
+scale, his heart lay elsewhere&mdash;in circumventing the wage system by
+opening to the worker an escape into self-employment through
+cooperation.</p>
+
+<p>Producers' cooperation, then, was the ambitious program by which the
+Order of the Knights of Labor expected to lead the American wage-earning
+class out of the bondage of the wage system into the Canaan of
+self-employment. Thus the Order was the true successor of the
+cooperative movement in the forties and sixties. Its motto was
+&quot;Cooperation of the Order, by the Order, and for the Order.&quot; Not
+scattered local initiative, but the Order as a whole was to carry on the
+work. The plan resembled the Rochdale system of England in that it
+proposed to start with an organization of consumers&mdash;the large and
+ever-growing membership of the Order. But it departed radically from the
+English prototype in that instead of setting out to save money for the
+consumer, <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72" />it primarily aimed to create a market for the productive
+establishments which were to follow. Consumers' cooperation was to be
+but a stepping stone to producers' self-employment. Eventually when the
+Order had grown to include nearly all useful members of society&mdash;so the
+plan contemplated&mdash;it would control practically the whole market and
+cooperative production would become the rule rather than the exception.
+So far, therefore, as &quot;First Principles&quot; went, the Order was not an
+instrument of the &quot;class struggle,&quot; but an association of idealistic
+cooperators. It was this pure idealism which drew to the Order of the
+Knights of Labor the sympathetic interest of writers on social subjects
+and university teachers, then unfortunately too few in number, like Dr.
+Richard T. Ely<a name="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15">[15]</a> and President John Bascom of Wisconsin.</p>
+
+<p>The other survival in the seventies of the labor movement of the
+sixties, which has already been mentioned, namely the trade union
+movement grouped around the Cigar Makers' Union, was neither so purely
+American in its origin as the Knights of Labor nor so persistently
+idealistic. On the contrary, its first membership was foreign and its
+program, as we shall see, became before long primarily opportunist and
+&quot;pragmatic.&quot; The training school for this opportunistic trade unionism
+was the socialist movement during the sixties and seventies,
+particularly the American branch of the International Workingmen's
+Association, the &quot;First <i>Internationale</i>,&quot; which was founded by Karl
+Marx in London in 1864. The conception of <i>economic</i> labor organization
+which was ad<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73" />vanced by the <i>Internationale</i> in a socialistic formulation
+underwent in the course of years a process of change: On the one hand,
+through constant conflict with the rival conception of <i>political</i> labor
+organization urged by American followers of the German socialist,
+Ferdinand Lassalle, and on the other hand, through contact with American
+reality. Out of that double contact emerged the trade unionism of the
+American Federation of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Internationale</i> is generally reputed to have been organized by Karl
+Marx for the propaganda of international socialism. As a matter of fact,
+its starting point was the practical effort of British trade union
+leaders to organize the workingmen of the Continent and to prevent the
+importation of Continental strike-breakers. That Karl Marx wrote its
+<i>Inaugural Address</i> was merely incidental. It chanced that what he wrote
+was acceptable to the British unionists rather than the draft of an
+address representing the views of Giuseppe Mazzini, the leader of the
+&quot;New Italy&quot; and the &quot;New Europe,&quot; which was submitted to them at the
+same time and advocated elaborate plans of cooperation. Marx emphasized
+the class solidarity of labor against Mazzini's harmony of capital and
+labor. He did this by reciting what British labor had done through the
+Rochdale system of cooperation without the help of capitalists and what
+the British Parliament had done in enacting the ten-hour law of 1847
+against the protest of capitalists. Now that British trade unionists in
+1864 were demanding the right of suffrage and laws to protect their
+unions, it followed that Marx merely stated their demands when he
+affirmed the independent economic and political organization of labor in
+all lands. His <i>Inaugural Address</i> was a trade union document, not a
+<i>Communist Manifesto</i>. Indeed not until <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74" />Bakunin and his following of
+anarchists had nearly captured the organization in the years 1869 to
+1872 did the program of socialism become the leading issue.</p>
+
+<p>The philosophy of the <i>Internationale</i> at the period of its ascendency
+was based on the economic organization of the working class in trade
+unions. These must precede the political seizure of the government by
+labor. Then, when the workingmen's party should achieve control, it
+would be able to build up successively the socialist state on the
+foundation of a sufficient number of existing trade unions.</p>
+
+<p>This conception differed widely from the teaching of Ferdinand Lassalle.
+Lassallean socialism was born in 1863 with Lassalle's <i>Open Letter</i> to a
+workingmen's committee in Leipzig. It sprang from his antagonism to
+Schultze-Delizsch's<a name="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16">[16]</a> system of voluntary cooperation. In Lassalle's
+eagerness to condemn the idea of the harmony of capital and labor, which
+lay at the basis of Schultze's scheme for cooperation, he struck at the
+same time a blow against all forms of non-political organization of wage
+earners. Perhaps the fact that he was ignorant of the British trade
+unions accounts for his insufficient appreciation of trade unionism. But
+no matter what the cause may have been, to Lassalle there was but one
+means of solving the labor problem-political action. When political
+control was finally achieved, the labor party, with the aid of state
+credit, would build up a network of cooperative societies into which
+eventually all industry would pass.</p>
+
+<p>In short, the distinction between the ideas of the <i>Internationale</i> and
+of Lassalle consisted in the fact that the <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75" />former advocated trade
+unionism prior to and underlying political organization, while the
+latter considered a political victory as the basis of socialism. These
+antagonistic starting points are apparent at the very beginning of
+American socialism as well as in the trade unionism and socialism of
+succeeding years.</p>
+
+<p>Two distinct phases can be seen in the history of the <i>Internationale</i>
+in America. During the first phase, which began in 1866 and lasted until
+1870, the <i>Internationale</i> had no important organization of its own on
+American soil, but tried to establish itself through affiliation with
+the National Labor Union. The inducement held out to the latter was of a
+practical nature, the international regulation of immigration. During
+the second phase the <i>Internationale</i> had its &quot;sections&quot; in nearly every
+large city of the country, centering in New York and Chicago, and the
+practical trade union part of its work receded before its activity on
+behalf of the propaganda of socialism.</p>
+
+<p>These &quot;sections,&quot; with a maximum membership which probably never
+exceeded a thousand, nearly all foreigners, became a preparatory school
+in trade union leadership for many of the later organizers and leaders
+of the American Federation of Labor: for example, Adolph Strasser, the
+German cigar maker, whose organization became the new model in trade
+unionism, and P.J. McGuire, the American-born carpenter, who founded the
+Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and who was for many years the
+secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>Fate had decreed that these sections of a handful of immigrants should
+play for a time high-sounding parts in the world labor movement. When,
+at the World Con<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76" />gress of the International Workingmen's Association at
+the Hague in 1872, the anarchist faction led by Bakunin had shown such
+strength that Marx and his socialist faction deemed it wise to move the
+General Council out of mischief's way, they removed it to New York and
+entrusted its powers into the hands of the faithful German Marxians on
+this side of the Atlantic. This spelled the end of the <i>Internationale</i>
+as a world organization, but enormously increased the stakes of the
+factional fights within the handful of American Internationalists. The
+organization of the workers into trade unions, the <i>Internationale's</i>
+first principle, was forgotten in the heat of intemperate struggles for
+empty honors and powerless offices. On top of that, with the panic of
+1873 and the ensuing prolonged depression, the political drift asserted
+itself in socialism as it had in the labor movement in general and the
+movement, erstwhile devoted primarily to organization of trade unions,
+entered, urged on by the Lassalleans, into a series of political
+campaigns somewhat successful at first but soon succumbing to the
+inevitable fate of all amateurish attempts. Upon men of Strasser's
+practical mental grasp these petty tempests in the melting pot could
+only produce an impression of sheer futility, and he turned to trade
+unionism as the only activity worth his while. Strasser had been elected
+president of the Cigar Makers' International Union in 1877, in the midst
+of a great strike in New York against the tenement-house system.</p>
+
+<p>The president of the local New York union of cigar makers was at the
+time Samuel Gompers, a young man of twenty-seven, who was born in
+England and came to America in 1862. In his endeavor to build up a model
+for the &quot;new&quot; unionism and in his almost uninterrupted <a name="Page_77" id="Page_77" />headship of that
+movement for forty years is indicated Gompers' truly representative
+character. Born of Dutch-Jewish parents in England in 1850, he typifies
+the cosmopolitan origins of American unionism. His early contact in the
+union of his trade with men like Strasser, upon whom the ideas of Marx
+and the International Workingmen's Association had left an indelible
+stamp, and his thorough study of Marx gave him that grounding both in
+idealism and class consciousness which has produced many strong leaders
+of American unions and saved them from defection to other interests.
+Aggressive and uncompromising in a perpetual fight for the strongest
+possible position and power of trade unions, but always strong for
+collective agreements with the opposing employers, he displays the
+business tactics of organized labor. At the head of an organization
+which denies itself power over its constituent unions, he has brought
+and held together the most widely divergent and often antagonistic
+unions, while permitting each to develop and even to change its
+character to fit the changing industrial conditions.</p>
+
+<p>The dismal failure of the strike against the tenement house system in
+cigar making brought home to both Strasser and Gompers the weakness of
+the plan of organization of their union as well as that of American
+trade unions in general. They consequently resolved to rebuild their
+union upon the pattern of the British unions, although they firmly
+intended that it should remain a militant organization. The change
+involved, first, complete authority over the local unions in the hands
+of the international officers; second, an increase in the membership
+dues for the purpose of building up a large fund; and, third, the
+adoption of a far-reaching benefit system <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78" />in order to assure stability
+to the organization. This was accomplished at the convention held in
+August, 1879. This convention simultaneously adopted the British idea of
+the &quot;equalization of funds,&quot; which gave the international officers the
+power to order a well-to-do local union to transfer a portion of its
+funds to another local union in financial straits. With the various
+modifications of the feature of &quot;equalization of funds,&quot; the system of
+government in the Cigar Makers' International Union was later used as a
+model by the other national and international trade unions.</p>
+
+<p>As Strasser and men of his ilk grew more and more absorbed in the
+practical problems of the everyday struggle of the wage-earners for
+better conditions of employment, the socialistic portion of their
+original philosophy kept receding further and further into the
+background until they arrived at pure trade unionism. But their trade
+unionism differed vastly from the &quot;native&quot; American trade unionism of
+their time, which still hankered for the haven of producers'
+cooperation. The philosophy which these new leaders developed might be
+termed a philosophy of pure wage-consciousness. It signified a labor
+movement reduced to an opportunistic basis, accepting the existence of
+capitalism and having for its object the enlarging of the bargaining
+power of the wage earner in the sale of his labor. Its opportunism was
+instrumental&mdash;its idealism was home and family and individual
+betterment. It also implied an attitude of aloofness from all those
+movements which aspire to replace the wage system by cooperation,
+whether voluntary or subsidized by government, whether greenbackism,
+socialism, or anarchism.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most concise definition of this philosophy <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79" />is to be found
+in Strasser's testimony before the Senate Committee on Education and
+Labor in 1883:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;<i>Q.</i> You are seeking to improve home matters first?</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;<i>A.</i> Yes, sir, I look first to the trade I represent; I look first
+     to cigars, to the interests of men who employ me to represent their
+     interest.</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;<i>Chairman</i>: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;<i>Witness</i>: We have no ultimate ends. We are going on from day to
+     day. We are fighting only for immediate objects&mdash;objects that can
+     be realized in a few years.</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;By Mr. Call: <i>Q.</i> You want something better to eat and to wear,
+     and better houses to live in?</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;<i>A.</i> Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and become
+     better citizens generally.</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;<i>The Chairman</i>: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it
+     should be thought that you are a mere theoriser, I do not look upon
+     you in that light at all.</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;<i>The Witness</i>: Well, we say in our constitution that we are
+     opposed to theorists, and I have to represent the organization
+     here. We are all practical men.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another offshoot of the same Marxian <i>Internationale</i> were the &quot;Chicago
+Anarchists.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17">[17]</a> The <i>Internationale</i>, as we saw, emphasized trade
+unionism as the first step in the direction of socialism, in opposition
+to the political socialism of Lassalle, which ignored the trade union
+and would start with a political party outright. Shorn of its
+socialistic futurity this philosophy became non-political &quot;business&quot;
+unionism; but, when combined with a strong revolutionary spirit, it
+became a non-political revolutionary unionism, or syndicalism.</p>
+
+<p>The organization of those industrial revolutionaries was called the
+International Working People's Associa<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80" />tion, also known as the &quot;Black&quot;
+or anarchist International, which was formed at Pittsburgh in 1883. Like
+the old <i>Internationale</i> it busied itself with forming trade unions, but
+insisted that they conform to a revolutionary model. Such a &quot;model&quot;
+trade union was the Federation of Metal Workers of America, which was
+organized in 1885. It said in its Declaration of Principles that the
+entire abolition of the present system of society can alone emancipate
+the workers, but under no consideration should they resort to politics;
+&quot;our organization should be a school to educate its members for the new
+condition of society, when the workers will regulate their own affairs
+without any interference by the few. Since the emancipation of the
+productive classes must come by their own efforts, it is unwise to
+meddle in present politics.... All <i>direct</i> struggles of the laboring
+masses have our fullest sympathy.&quot; Alongside the revolutionary trade
+unions were workers' armed organizations ready to usher in the new order
+by force. &quot;By force,&quot; recited the Pittsburgh Manifesto of the Black
+International, &quot;our ancestors liberated themselves from political
+oppression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves
+from economic bondage. It is, therefore, your right, it is your duty,
+says Jefferson,&mdash;to arms!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The following ten years were to decide whether the leadership of the
+American labor movement was to be with the &quot;practical men of the trade
+unions&quot; or with the cooperative idealists of the Knights of Labor.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13">[13]</a> After the defeat of a strong anthracite miners' union in 1869,
+which was an open organization, the fight against the employers was
+carried on by a secret organization known as the Molly Maguires, which
+used the method of terrorism and assassination. It was later exposed and
+many were sentenced and executed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14">[14]</a> The Preamble further provides that the Order will stand for the
+reservation of all lands for actual settlers; the &quot;abrogation of all
+laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, the removal of
+unjust technicalities, delays, and discriminations in the administration
+of justice, and the adopting of measures providing for the health and
+safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, or building pursuits&quot;;
+the enactment of a weekly pay law, a mechanics' lien law, and a law
+prohibiting child labor under fourteen years of age; the abolition of
+the contract system on national, state, and municipal work, and of the
+system of leasing out convicts; equal pay for equal work for both sexes;
+reduction of hours of labor to eight per day; &quot;the substitution of
+arbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employees
+are willing to meet on equitable grounds&quot;; the establishment of &quot;a
+purely national circulating medium based upon the faith and resources of
+the nation, issued directly to the people, without the intervention of
+any system of banking corporations, which money shall be a legal tender
+in payment of all debts, public or private&quot;.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15">[15]</a> Dr. Ely in his pioneer work, <i>The Labor Movement in America</i>,
+published in 1886, showed a most genuine sympathy for the idealistic
+strivings and gropings of labor for a better social order. He even
+advised some of his pupils at the Johns Hopkins University to join the
+Knights of Labor in order to gain a better understanding of the labor
+movement.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16">[16]</a> Schultze-Delizsch was a German thinker and practical reformer of
+the liberal school.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17">[17]</a> The Anarchists who were tried and executed after the Haymarket
+Square bomb in Chicago in May, 1886. See below, <a href="#Page_91">91-93.</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_4" id="CHAPTER_4" />CHAPTER 4</h2>
+
+<h2>REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887</h2>
+
+
+<p>With the return of business prosperity in 1879, the labor movement
+revived. The first symptom of the upward trend was a rapid
+multiplication of city federations of organized trades, variously known
+as trade councils, amalgamated trade and labor unions, trades
+assemblies, and the like. Practically all of these came into existence
+after 1879, since hardly any of the &quot;trades' assemblies&quot; of the sixties
+had survived the depression.</p>
+
+<p>As was said above, the national trade unions existed during the sixties
+and seventies in only about thirty trades. Eighteen of these had either
+retained a nucleus during the seventies or were first formed during that
+decade. The following is a list of the national unions in existence in
+1880 with the year of formation: Typographical (1850), Hat Finishers
+(1854), Iron Molders (1859), Locomotive Engineers (1863), Cigar Makers
+(1864), Bricklayers and Masons (1865), Silk and Fur Hat Finishers
+(1866), Railway Conductors (1868), Coopers (1870), German-American
+Typographia (1873), Locomotive Firemen (1873), Horseshoers (1874),
+Furniture Workers (1873), Iron and Steel Workers (1876), Granite Cutters
+(1877), Lake Seamen (1878), Cotton Mill Spinners (1878), New England
+Boot and Shoe Lasters (1879).</p>
+
+<p>In 1880 the Western greenbottle blowers' national union was established;
+in 1881 the national unions of <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82" />boiler makers and carpenters; in 1882,
+plasterers and metal workers; in 1883, tailors, lithographers, wood
+carvers, railroad brakemen, and silk workers.</p>
+
+<p>An illustration of the rapid growth in trade union membership during
+this period is given in the following figures: the bricklayers' union
+had 303 in 1880; 1558 in 1881; 6848 in 1882; 9193 in 1883. The
+typographical union had 5968 members in 1879; 6520 in 1880; 7931 in
+1881; 10,439 in 1882; 12,273 in 1883. The total trade union membership
+in the country, counting the three railway organizations and those
+organized only locally, amounted to between 200,000 and 225,000 in 1883
+and probably was not below 300,000 in the beginning of 1885.</p>
+
+<p>A distinguishing characteristic of the trade unions of this time was the
+predominance in them of the foreign element. The Illinois Bureau of
+Labor describes the ethnical composition of the trade unions of that
+State during 1886, and states that 21 percent were American, 33 percent
+German, 19 percent Irish, 10 percent British other than Irish, 12
+percent Scandinavian, and the Poles, Bohemians, and Italians formed
+about 5 percent. The strong predominance of the foreign element in
+American trade unions should not appear unusual, since, owing to the
+breakdown of the apprenticeship system, the United States had been
+drawing its supply of skilled labor from abroad.</p>
+
+<p>The Order of the Knights of Labor, despite its &quot;First Principles&quot; based
+on the cooperative ideal, was soon forced to make concessions to a large
+element of its membership which was pressing for strikes. With the
+advent of prosperity, the Order expanded, although the Knights of Labor
+played but a subordinate part in the labor movement of the early
+eighties. The membership was <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83" />20,151 in 1879; 28,136 in 1880; 19,422 in
+1881; 42,517 in 1882; 51,914 in 1883; showing a steady and rapid growth,
+with the exception of the year 1881. But these figures are decidedly
+deceptive as a means of measuring the strength of the Order, for the
+membership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached
+50,000 no less than one-half of this number passed in and out of the
+organization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducing
+the economic strength of the Order, brought large masses of people under
+its influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle of
+the eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention of the public
+press. The labor press gave the Order great publicity, but the Knights
+did not rely on gratuitous newspaper publicity. They set to work a host
+of lecturers, who held public meetings throughout the country adding
+recruits and advertising the Order.</p>
+
+<p>The most important Knights of Labor strike of this period was the
+telegraphers' strike in 1883. The telegraphers had a national
+organization in 1870, which soon collapsed. In 1882 they again organized
+on a national basis and affiliated with the Order as District Assembly
+45.<a name="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18">[18]</a> The strike was declared on June 19, 1883, against all commercial
+telegraph companies in the country, among which the Western Union, with
+about 4000 operators, was by far the largest. The demands were one day's
+rest in seven, an eight-hour day shift and a seven-hour night shift, and
+a general increase of 15 percent in wages. The public and a large
+portion of the press gave their sympathy to the strikers, not so much on
+account of the oppressed condition of the telegraphers as of the general
+<a name="Page_84" id="Page_84" />hatred that prevailed against Jay Gould, who then controlled the
+Western Union Company. This strike was the first in the eighties to call
+the attention of the general American public to the existence of a labor
+question, and received considerable attention at the hands of the Senate
+Committee on Education and Labor. By the end of July, over a month after
+the beginning of the strike, the men who escaped the blacklist went back
+to work on the old terms.</p>
+
+<p>From 1879 till 1882 the labor movement was typical of a period of rising
+prices. It was practically restricted to skilled workmen, who organized
+to wrest from employers still better conditions than those which
+prosperity would have given under individual bargaining. The movement
+was essentially opportunistic and displayed no particular class feeling
+and no revolutionary tendencies. The solidarity of labor was not denied
+by the trade unions, but they did not try to reduce the idea to
+practice: each trade coped more or less successfully with its own
+employers. Even the Knights of Labor, the organization <i>par excellence</i>
+of the solidarity of labor, was at this time, in so far as practical
+efforts went, merely a faint echo of the trade unions.</p>
+
+<p>But the situation radically changed during the depression of 1884-1885.
+The unskilled and the semi-skilled, affected as they were by wage
+reductions and unemployment even in a larger measure than the skilled,
+were drawn into the movement. Labor organizations assumed the nature of
+a real class movement. The idea of the solidarity of labor ceased to be
+merely verbal and took on life! General strikes, sympathetic strikes,
+nationwide boycotts and nation-wide political movements became the order
+of the day. The effects of an unusually <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85" />large immigration joined hands
+with the depression. The eighties were the banner decade of the entire
+century for immigration. The aggregate number of immigrants arriving was
+5,246,613&mdash;two and a half millions larger than during the seventies and
+one million and a half larger than during the nineties. The eighties
+witnessed the highest tide of immigration from Great Britain and the
+North of Europe and the beginning of the tide of South and East European
+immigration.</p>
+
+<p>However, the depression of 1883-1885 had one redeeming feature by which
+it was distinguished from other depressions. With falling prices,
+diminishing margins of profit, and decreasing wages, the amount of
+employment was not materially diminished. Times continued hard during
+1885, a slight improvement showing itself only during the last months of
+the year. The years 1886 and 1887 were a period of gradual recovery, and
+normal conditions may be said to have returned about the middle of 1887.
+Except in New England, the old wages, which had been reduced during the
+bad years, were won again by the spring of 1887.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1884 was one of decisive failure in strikes. They were
+practically all directed against reductions in wages and for the right
+of organization. The most conspicuous strikes were those of the Fall
+River spinners, the Troy stove mounters, the Cincinnati cigar makers and
+the Hocking Valley coal miners.</p>
+
+<p>The failure of strikes brought into use the other weapon of labor&mdash;the
+boycott. But not until the latter part of 1884, when the failure of the
+strike as a weapon became apparent, did the boycott assume the nature of
+an epidemic. The boycott movement was a truly national one, affecting
+the South and the Far West as well as the <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86" />East and Middle West. The
+number of boycotts during 1885 was nearly seven times as large as during
+1884. Nearly all of the boycotts either originated with, or were taken
+up by, the Knights of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The strike again came into prominence in the latter half of 1885. This
+coincided with the beginning of an upward trend in general business
+conditions. The strikes of 1885, even more than those of the preceding
+year, were spontaneous outbreaks of unorganized masses.</p>
+
+<p>The frequent railway strikes were a characteristic feature of the labor
+movement in 1885. Most notable was the Gould railway strike in March,
+1885. On February 26, a cut of 10 percent was ordered in the wages of
+the shopmen of the Wabash road. A similar reduction had been made in
+October, 1884, on the Missouri, Kansas &amp; Texas. Strikes occurred on the
+two roads, one on February 27 and the other March 9, and the strikers
+were joined by the men on the third Gould road, the Missouri Pacific, at
+all points where the two lines touched, making altogether over 4500 men
+on strike. The train service personnel, that is, the locomotive
+engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors, supported the strikers and
+to this fact more than to any other was due their speedy victory. The
+wages were restored and the strikers reemployed. But six months later
+this was followed by a second strike. The road, now in the hands of a
+receiver, reduced the force of shopmen at Moberly, Missouri, to the
+lowest possible limit, which virtually meant a lockout of the members of
+the Knights of Labor in direct violation of the conditions of settlement
+of the preceding strike. The General Executive Board of the Knights,
+after a futile attempt to have a conference with the receiver, declared
+a boycott on Wabash rolling stock. <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87" />This order, had it been carried out,
+would have affected over 20,000 miles of railway and would have equalled
+the dimensions of the great railway strike of 1877. But Jay Gould would
+not risk a general strike on his lines at this time. According to an
+appointment made between him and the executive board of the Knights of
+Labor, a conference was held between that board and the managers of the
+Missouri Pacific and the Wabash railroads, at which he threw his
+influence in favor of making concessions to the men. He assured the
+Knights that in all troubles he wanted the men to come directly to him,
+that he believed in labor organizations and in the arbitration of all
+difficulties and that he &quot;would always endeavor to do what was right.&quot;
+The Knights demanded the discharge of all new men hired in the Wabash
+shops since the beginning of the lockout, the reinstatement of all
+discharged men, the leaders being given priority, and an assurance that
+no discrimination against the members of the Order would be made in the
+future. A settlement was finally made at another conference, and the
+receiver of the Wabash road agreed, under pressure by Jay Gould, to
+issue an order conceding the demands of the Knights of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The significance of the second Wabash strike in the history of railway
+strikes was that the railway brotherhoods (engineers, firemen, brakemen,
+and conductors), in contrast with their conduct during the first Wabash
+strike, now refused to lend any aid to the striking shopmen, although
+many of the members were also Knights of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>But far more important was the effect of the strike upon the general
+labor movement. Here a labor organization for the first time dealt on an
+equal footing with probably the most powerful capitalist in the country.
+It <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88" />forced Jay Gould to recognize it as a power equal to himself, a fact
+which he conceded when he declared his readiness to arbitrate all labor
+difficulties that might arise. The oppressed laboring masses finally
+discovered a powerful champion. All the pent-up feeling of bitterness
+and resentment which had accumulated during the two years of depression,
+in consequence of the repeated cuts in wages and the intensified
+domination by employers, now found vent in a rush to organize under the
+banner of the powerful Knights of Labor. To the natural tendency on the
+part of the oppressed to exaggerate the power of a mysterious
+emancipator whom they suddenly found coming to their aid, there was
+added the influence of sensational reports in the public press. The
+newspapers especially took delight in exaggerating the powers and
+strength of the Order.</p>
+
+<p>In 1885 the New York <i>Sun</i> detailed one of its reporters to &quot;get up a
+story of the strength and purposes of the Knights of Labor.&quot; This story
+was copied by newspapers and magazines throughout the country and aided
+considerably in bringing the Knights of Labor into prominence. The
+following extract illustrates the exaggerated notion of the power of the
+Knights of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Five men in this country control the chief interests of five hundred
+thousand workingmen, and can at any moment take the means of livelihood
+from two and a half millions of souls. These men compose the executive
+board of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor of America. The ability
+of the president and cabinet to turn out all the men in the civil
+service, and to shift from one post to another the duties of the men in
+the army and navy, is a petty authority compared with that of these five
+<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89" />Knights. The authority of the late Cardinal was, and that of the
+bishops of the Methodist Church is, narrow and prescribed, so far as
+material affairs are concerned, in comparison with that of these five
+rulers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They can stay the nimble touch of almost every telegraph operator; can
+shut up most of the mills and factories, and can disable the railroads.
+They can issue an edict against any manufactured goods so as to make
+their subjects cease buying them, and the tradesmen stop selling them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They can array labor against capital, putting labor on the offensive or
+the defensive, for quiet and stubborn self-protection, or for angry,
+organized assault, as they will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Before long the Order was able to benefit by this publicity in quarters
+where the tale of its great power could only attract unqualified
+attention, namely, in Congress. The Knights of Labor led in the
+agitation for prohibiting the immigration of alien contract laborers.
+The problem of contract immigrant labor rapidly came to the front in
+1884, when such labor began frequently to be used to defeat strikes.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty persons appeared to testify before the committee in favor of the
+bill, of whom all but two or three belonged to the Knights of Labor. The
+anti-contract labor law which was passed by Congress on February 2,
+1885, therefore, was due almost entirely to the efforts of the Knights
+of Labor. The trade unions gave little active support, for to the
+skilled workingmen the importation of contract Italian and Hungarian
+laborers was a matter of small importance. On the other hand, to the
+Knights of Labor with their vast contingent of unskilled it was a strong
+menace. Although the law could not be enforced <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90" />and had to be amended in
+1887 in order to render it effective, its passage nevertheless attests
+the political influence already exercised by the Order in 1885.</p>
+
+<p>The outcome of the Gould strike of 1885 and the dramatic exaggeration of
+the prowess of the Order by press and even by pulpit were largely
+responsible for the psychological setting that called forth and
+surrounded the great upheaval of 1886. This upheaval meant more than the
+mere quickening of the pace of the movement begun in preceding years and
+decades. It signalled the appearance on the scene of a new class which
+had not hitherto found a place in the labor movement, namely the
+unskilled. All the peculiar characteristics of the dramatic events in
+1886 and 1887, the highly feverish pace at which organizations grew, the
+nation-wide wave of strikes, particularly sympathetic strikes, the wide
+use of the boycott, the obliteration, apparently complete, of all lines
+that divided the laboring class, whether geographic or trade, the
+violence and turbulence which accompanied the movement&mdash;all of these
+were the signs of a great movement by the class of the unskilled, which
+had finally risen in rebellion. This movement, rising as an elemental
+protest against oppression and degradation, could be but feebly
+restrained by any considerations of expediency and prudence; nor, of
+course, could it be restrained by any lessons from experience. But, if
+the origin and powerful sweep of this movement were largely spontaneous
+and elemental, the issues which it took up were supplied by the existing
+organizations, namely the trade unions and the Knights of Labor. These
+served also as the dykes between which the rapid streams were gathered
+and, if at times it seemed that they must burst under the pressure,
+still they gave form and direction to the move<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91" />ment and partly succeeded
+in introducing order where chaos had reigned. The issue which first
+brought unity in this great mass movement was a nation-wide strike for
+the eight-hour day declared for May 1, 1886.</p>
+
+<p>The initiative in this strike was taken not by the Order but by the
+trade unionists and on the eve of the strike the general officers of the
+Knights adopted an attitude of hostility. But if the slogan failed to
+arouse the enthusiasm of the national leaders of the Knights, it
+nevertheless found ready response in the ranks of labor. The great class
+of the unskilled and unorganized, which had come to look upon the
+Knights of Labor as the all-powerful liberator of the laboring masses
+from oppression, now eagerly seized upon this demand as the issue upon
+which the first battle with capital should be fought.</p>
+
+<p>The agitation assumed large proportions in March. The main argument for
+the shorter day was work for the unemployed. With the exception of the
+cigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organizations.
+The Knights of Labor as an organization figured far less prominently
+than the trade unions, and among the latter the building trades and the
+German-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front of
+the movement. Early in the strike the workingmen's cause was gravely
+injured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributed
+to anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen.</p>
+
+<p>The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which had
+heretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity. For
+what many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval in
+a less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoretical
+justification, the contemporary Chicago &quot;an<a name="Page_92" id=
+"Page_92" />archists,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19">[19]</a> the largest
+branch of the &quot;Black International,&quot; had elevated into a well
+rounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Labor
+upheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of the
+eighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalism
+was characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with which
+minor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades and
+large territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, to
+enter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by a
+ready resort to violence. In 1886 the membership of the Black
+International probably was about 5000 or 6000 and of this number about
+1000 were English speaking.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances of the bomb explosion were the following. A strikers'
+meeting was held near the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago, late on the
+third of May. About this time strike-breakers employed in these works
+began to leave for home and were attacked by strikers. The police
+arrived in large numbers and upon being received with stones, fired and
+killed four and wounded many. The same evening the International issued
+a call in which appeared the word <i>&quot;Revenge&quot;</i> with the appeal:
+&quot;Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force.&quot; A protest mass
+meeting met the next day on Haymarket Square and was addressed by
+Internationalists. The police were present in numbers and, as they
+formed in line and advanced on the crowd, some unknown hand hurled a
+bomb into their midst killing and wounding many.</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to describe here the period of police terror in
+Chicago, the hysterical attitude of the press, <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93" />or the state of panic
+that came over the inhabitants of the city. Nor is it necessary to deal
+in detail with the trial and sentence of the accused. Suffice it to say
+that the Haymarket bomb showed to the labor movement what it might
+expect from the public and the government if it combined violence with a
+revolutionary purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Although the bomb outrage was attributed to the anarchists and not
+generally to the strikers for the eight-hour day, it did materially
+reduce the sympathy of the public as well as intimidate many strikers.
+Nevertheless, <i>Bradstreet's</i> estimated that no fewer than 340,000 men
+took part in the movement; 190,000 actually struck, only 42,000 of this
+number with success, and 150,000 secured shorter hours without a strike.
+Thus the total number of those who secured with or without strikes the
+eight-hour day was something less than 200,000. But even those who for
+the present succeeded, whether with or without striking, soon lost the
+concession, and <i>Bradstreet's</i> estimated in January, 1887, that, so far
+as the payment of former wages for a shorter day's work is concerned,
+the grand total of those retaining the concession did not exceed, if it
+equalled, 15,000.</p>
+
+<p>American labor movements have never experienced such a rush to organize
+as the one in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. During 1886 the
+combined membership of labor organizations was exceptionally large and
+for the first time came near the million mark. The Knights of Labor had
+a membership of 700,000 and the trade unions at least 250,000, the
+former composed largely of unskilled and the latter of skilled. The
+Knights of Labor gained in a remarkably short time&mdash;in a few
+months&mdash;over 600,000 new members and grew from 1610 local assemblies
+with 104,066 members in good <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94" />standing in July 1885, to 5892 assemblies
+with 702,924 members in July 1886. The greatest portion of this growth
+occurred after January 1, 1886. In the state of New York there were in
+July 1886, about 110,000 members (60,809 in District Assembly 49 of New
+York City alone); in Pennsylvania, 95,000 (51,557 in District Assembly
+1, Philadelphia, alone); in Massachusetts, 90,000 (81,191 in District
+Assembly 30 of Boston); and in Illinois, 32,000.</p>
+
+<p>In the state of Illinois, for which detailed information for that year
+is available, there were 204 local assemblies with 34,974 members, of
+which 65 percent were found in Cook County (Chicago) alone. One hundred
+and forty-nine assemblies were mixed, that is comprised members of
+different trades including unskilled and only 55 were trade assemblies.
+Reckoned according to country of birth the membership was 45 percent
+American, 16 percent German, 13 percent Irish, 10 percent British, 5
+percent Scandinavian, and the remaining 2 percent scattered. The trade
+unions also gained many members but in a considerably lesser proportion.</p>
+
+<p>The high water mark was reached in the autumn of 1886. But in the early
+months of 1887 a reaction became visible. By July 1, the membership of
+the Order had diminished to 510,351. While a share of this retrogression
+may have been due to the natural reaction of large masses of people who
+had been suddenly set in motion without experience, a more immediate
+cause came from the employers. Profiting by past lessons, they organized
+strong associations. The main object of these employers' associations
+was the defeat of the Knights. They were organized sectionally and
+nationally. In small localities, where the power of the Knights was
+especially great, all <a name="Page_95" id="Page_95" />employers regardless of industry joined in a
+single association. But in large manufacturing centers, where the rich
+corporation prevailed, they included the employers of only one industry.
+To attain their end these associations made liberal use of the lockout,
+the blacklist, and armed guards and detectives. Often they treated
+agreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress.
+The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearly
+foreshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gould
+railways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886.</p>
+
+<p>As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould
+system in March 1885, the employes were assured that the road would
+institute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it
+is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by
+minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated
+in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car
+shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas &amp; Pacific Road, which had shortly
+before passed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over the
+entire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that the
+Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two months
+before the strike. District Assembly 101, the organization embracing the
+employes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and
+authorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might find
+opportune to enforce the two following demands: first, the formal
+&quot;recognition&quot; of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the
+unskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights
+of Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in the
+movement. But <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96" />evidently the organization preferred to make the issue
+turn on discrimination against members. Another peculiarity which marked
+off this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility with
+which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and all
+leased and operated lines. This strike broke out simultaneously over the
+entire system on March 6. It affected more than 5000 miles of railway
+situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska.
+The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but
+actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic
+&quot;killing&quot; of engines, that is removing some indispensable part,
+effectively stopped all the freight traffic. The number of men actively
+on strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all of
+the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen,
+brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to
+leave their posts under threats from the strikers.</p>
+
+<p>The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the
+strikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his attitude was
+overbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, a
+strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labor
+contract, but necessarily assumed the aspect of a crusade against
+capital. Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take were
+excluded.</p>
+
+<p>Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the
+dispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months of
+sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left,
+however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the
+impression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97" />a
+Congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.</p>
+
+<p>The disputes during the second half of 1886 ended, for the most part,
+disastrously to labor. The number of men involved in six months, was
+estimated at 97,300. Of these, about 75,300 were in nine great lockouts,
+of whom 54,000 suffered defeat at the hands of associated employers. The
+most important lockouts were against 15,000 laundry workers at Troy, New
+York, in June; against 20,000 Chicago packing house workers; and against
+20,000 knitters at Cohoes, New York, both in October.</p>
+
+<p>The lockout of the Chicago butcher workmen attracted the most attention.
+These men had obtained the eight-hour day without a strike during May. A
+short time thereafter, upon the initiative of Armour &amp; Company, the
+employers formed a packers' association and, in the beginning of
+October, notified the men of a return to the ten-hour day on October 11.
+They justified this action on the ground that they could not compete
+with Cincinnati and Kansas City, which operated on the ten-hour system.
+On October 8, the men, who were organized in District Assemblies 27 and
+54, suspended work, and the memorable lockout began. The packers'
+association rejected all offers of compromise and on October 18 the men
+were ordered to work on the ten-hour basis. But the dispute in October,
+which was marked by a complete lack of ill-feeling on the part of the
+men and was one of the most peaceable labor disputes of the year, was in
+reality a mere prelude to a second disturbance which broke out in the
+plant of Swift &amp; Company on November 2 and became general throughout the
+stockyards on November 6. The men demanded a return to the eight-hour
+<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98" />day, but the packers' association, which was now joined by Swift &amp;
+Company, who formerly had kept aloof, not only refused to give up the
+ten-hour day, but declared that they would employ no Knights of Labor in
+the future. The Knights retaliated by declaring a boycott on the meat of
+Armour &amp; Company. The behavior of the men was now no longer peaceable as
+before, and the employers took extra precautions by prevailing upon the
+governor to send two regiments of militia in addition to the several
+hundred Pinkerton detectives employed by the association. To all
+appearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for on
+November 10 the packers' association rescinded its decision not to
+employ Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out of
+a clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderly
+ordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider the
+reports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on the
+ground, but, as was charged by them, was guided instead by the advice of
+a priest who had appealed to him to call off the strike and thus put an
+end to the suffering of the men and their families.</p>
+
+<p>New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strike
+and on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separate
+strikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New York
+with coal and the other by longshoremen on the New York water front;
+both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed by
+the Philadelphia &amp; Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of
+Labor, struck against a reduction of 2&frac12; cents an hour in the wages of
+the &quot;top-men&quot; and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances of
+their own. Soon the strike spread <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99" />to the other roads and the number of
+striking coal-handlers reached 3000. The longshoremen's strike was begun
+by 200 men, employed by the Old Dominion Steamship Company, against a
+reduction in wages and the hiring of cheap men by the week. The strikers
+were not organized, but the Ocean Association, a part of the Knights of
+Labor, took up their cause and was assisted by the longshoremen's union.
+Both strikes soon widened out through a series of sympathetic strikes of
+related trades and finally became united into one. The Ocean Association
+declared a boycott on the freight of the Old Dominion Company and this
+was strictly obeyed by all of the longshoremen's unions. The
+International Boatmen's Union refused to allow their boats to be used
+for &quot;scab coal&quot; or to permit their members to steer the companies'
+boats. The longshoremen joined the boatmen in refusing to handle coal,
+and the shovelers followed. Then the grain handlers on both floating and
+stationary elevators refused to load ships with grain on which there was
+scab coal, and the bag-sewers stood with them. The longshoremen now
+resolved to go out and refused to work on ships which received scab
+coal, and finally they decided to stop work altogether on all kinds of
+craft in the harbor until the trouble should be settled. The strike
+spirit spread to a large number of freight handlers working for
+railroads along the river front, so that in the last week of January the
+number of strikers in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, reached
+approximately 28,000; 13,000 longshoremen, 1000 boatmen, 6000 grain
+handlers, 7500 coal-handlers, and 400 bag-sewers.</p>
+
+<p>On February 11, August Corbin, president and receiver of the
+Philadelphia &amp; Reading Railroad Company, fearing a strike by the miners
+working in the coal mines operated <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100" />by that road, settled the strike by
+restoring to the eighty-five coal-handlers, the original strikers, their
+former rate of wages. The Knights of Labor felt impelled to accept such
+a trivial settlement for two reasons. The coal-handlers' strike, which
+drove up the price of coal to the consumer, was very unpopular, and the
+strike itself had begun to weaken when the brewers and stationary
+engineers, who for some obscure reason had been ordered to strike in
+sympathy, refused to come out. The situation was left unchanged, as far
+as the coal-handlers employed by the other companies, the longshoremen,
+and the many thousands of men who went out on sympathetic strike were
+concerned. The men began to return to work by the thousands and the
+entire strike collapsed.</p>
+
+<p>The determined attack and stubborn resistance of the employers'
+associations after the strikes of May 1886, coupled with the obvious
+incompetence displayed by the leaders, caused the turn of the tide in
+the labor movement in the first half of 1887. This, however, manifested
+itself during 1887 exclusively in the large cities, where the movement
+had borne in the purest form the character of an uprising by the class
+of the unskilled and where the hardest battles were fought with the
+employers. District Assembly 49, New York, fell from its membership of
+60,809 in June 1886, to 32,826 in July 1887. During the same interval,
+District Assembly 1, Philadelphia, decreased from 51,557 to 11,294, and
+District Assembly 30, Boston, from 81,197 to 31,644. In Chicago there
+were about 40,000 Knights immediately before the packers' strike in
+October 1886, and only about 17,000 on July 1, 1887. The falling off of
+the largest district assemblies in 10 large cities practically equalled
+the total loss of the Order, which amounted approximately to 191,000. At
+<a name="Page_101" id="Page_101" />the same time the membership of the smallest district assemblies, which
+were for the most part located in small cities, remained stationary and,
+outside of the national and district trade assemblies which were formed
+by separation from mixed district assemblies, thirty-seven new district
+assemblies were formed, also mostly in rural localities. In addition,
+state assemblies were added in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana,
+Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, and
+Wisconsin, with an average membership of about 2000 each.</p>
+
+<p>It thus becomes clear that by the middle of 1887, the Great Upheaval of
+the unskilled and semi-skilled portions of the working class had already
+subsided beneath the strength of the combined employers and the
+unwieldiness of their own organization. After 1887 the Knights of Labor
+lost its hold upon the large cities with their wage-conscious and
+largely foreign population, and became an organization predominantly of
+country people, of mechanics, small merchants, and farmers,&mdash;a class of
+people which was more or less purely American and decidedly middle class
+in its philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>The industrial upheaval in the middle of the eighties had, like the
+great strike of 1877, a political reverberation. Although the latter was
+heard throughout the entire country, it centered in the city of New
+York, where the situation was complicated by court interference in the
+labor struggle.</p>
+
+<p>A local assembly of the Knights of Labor had declared a boycott against
+one George Theiss, a proprietor of a music and beer garden. The latter
+at first submitted and paid a fine of $1000 to the labor organization,
+but later brought action in court against the officers charging them
+with intimidation and extortion.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102" />The judge, George C. Barrett, in his charge to the jury, conceded that
+striking, picketing, and boycotting as such were not prohibited by law,
+if not accompanied by force, threats, or intimidation. But in the case
+under consideration the action of the pickets in advising passers-by not
+to patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circulars
+constituted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained by
+fear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theiss
+inflicted by the &quot;boycott,&quot; the case was one of extortion covered by the
+penal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated by
+the defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to their
+organization. The jury, which reflected the current public opinion
+against boycotts, found all of the five defendants guilty of extortion,
+and Judge Barrett sentenced them to prison for terms ranging from one
+year and six months to three years and eight months.</p>
+
+<p>The Theiss case, coming as it did at a time of general restlessness of
+labor and closely after the defeat of the eight-hour movement, greatly
+hastened the growth of the sentiment for an independent labor party. The
+New York Central Labor Union, the most famous and most influential
+organization of its kind in the country at the time, with a membership
+estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000, placed itself at the head of the
+movement in which both socialists and non-socialists joined. Henry
+George, the originator of the single tax movement, was nominated by the
+labor party for Mayor of New York and was allowed to draw up his own
+platform, which he made of course a simon-pure single tax platform. The
+labor demands were compressed into one plank. They were as follows: The
+reform of court procedure so that &quot;the <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103" />practice of drawing grand jurors
+from one class should cease, and the requirements of a property
+qualification for trial jurors should be abolished&quot;; the stopping of the
+&quot;officious intermeddling of the police with peaceful assemblages&quot;; the
+enforcement of the laws for safety and the sanitary inspection of
+buildings; the abolition of contract labor on public work; and equal pay
+for equal work without distinction of sex on such work.</p>
+
+<p>The George campaign was more in the nature of a religious revival than
+of a political election campaign. It was also a culminating point in the
+great labor upheaval. The enthusiasm of the laboring people reached its
+highest pitch. They felt that, baffled and defeated as they were in
+their economic struggle, they were now nearing victory in the struggle
+for the control of government. Mass meetings were numerous and large.
+Most of them were held in the open air, usually on the street corners.
+From the system by which one speaker followed another, speaking at
+several meeting places in a night, the labor campaign got its nickname
+of the &quot;tailboard campaign.&quot; The common people, women and men, gathered
+in hundreds and often thousands around trucks from which the shifting
+speakers addressed the crowd. The speakers were volunteers, including
+representatives of the liberal professions, lawyers, physicians,
+teachers, ministers, and labor leaders. At such mass meetings George did
+most of his campaigning, making several speeches a night, once as many
+as eleven. The single tax and the prevailing political corruption were
+favorite topics. Against George and his adherents were pitted the
+powerful press of the city of New York, all the political power of the
+old parties, and all the influence of the business class. George's
+opponents were Abram S. Hewitt, an anti-Tammany <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104" />Democrat whom Tammany
+had picked for its candidate in this emergency, and Theodore Roosevelt,
+then as yet known only as a courageous young politician.</p>
+
+<p>The vote cast was 90,000 for Hewitt, 68,000 for George, and 60,000 for
+Roosevelt. There is possible ground for the belief that George was
+counted out of thousands of votes. The nature of the George vote can be
+sufficiently gathered from an analysis of the pledges to vote for him.
+An apparently trustworthy investigation was made by a representative of
+the New York Sun. He drew the conclusion that the vast majority were not
+simply wage earners, but also naturalized immigrants, mainly Irish,
+Germans, and Bohemians, the native element being in the minority. While
+the Irish were divided between George and Hewitt, the majority of the
+German element had gone over to Henry George. The outcome was hailed as
+a victory by George and his supporters and this view was also taken by
+the general press.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this propitious beginning the political labor movement soon
+suffered the fate of all reform political movements. The strength of the
+new party was frittered away in doctrinaire factional strife between the
+single taxers and the socialists. The trade union element became
+discouraged and lost interest. So that at the next State election, in
+which George ran for Secretary of State, presumably because that office
+came nearest to meeting the requirement for a single taxer seeking a
+practical scope of action, the vote in the city fell to 37,000 and in
+the whole State amounted only to 72,000. This ended the political labor
+movement in New York.</p>
+
+<p>Outside of New York the political labor movement was not associated
+either with the single tax or any other &quot;ism.&quot; As in New York it was a
+spontaneous expression <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105" />of dissatisfaction brought on by failure in
+strikes. The movement scored a victory in Milwaukee, where it elected a
+mayor, and in Chicago where it polled 25,000 out of a total of 92,000.
+But, as in New York, it fell to pieces without leaving a permanent
+trace.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18">[18]</a> See the next chapter for the scheme of organization followed by the
+Order.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19">[19]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_79">79-80.</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_5" id="CHAPTER_5" />CHAPTER 5</h2>
+
+<h2>THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL FAILURE OF PRODUCERS'
+COOPERATION</h2>
+
+
+<p>We now come to the most significant aspect of the Great Upheaval: the
+life and death struggle between two opposed principles of labor
+organization and between two opposed labor programs. The Upheaval
+offered the practical test which the labor movement required for an
+intelligent decision between the rival claims of Knights and trade
+unionists. The test as well as the conflict turned principally on
+&quot;structure,&quot; that is on the difference between &quot;craft autonomists&quot; and
+those who would have labor organized &quot;under one head,&quot; or what we would
+now call the &quot;one big union&quot; advocates.</p>
+
+<p>As the issue of &quot;structure&quot; proved in the crucial eighties, and has
+remained ever since, the outstanding factional issue in the labor
+movement, it might be well at this point to pass in brief review the
+structural developments in labor organization from the beginning and try
+to correlate them with other important developments.</p>
+
+<p>The early<a name="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20">[20]</a> societies of shoemakers and printers were purely local in
+scope and the relations between &quot;locals&quot; extended only to feeble
+attempts to deal with the competition of traveling journeymen.
+Occasionally, they corresponded on trade matters, notifying each other
+of their purposes and the nature of their demands, or expressing
+<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107" />fraternal greetings; chiefly for the purpose of counteracting
+advertisements by employers for journeymen or keeping out dishonest
+members and so-called &quot;scabs.&quot; This mostly relates to printers. The
+shoemakers, despite their bitter contests with their employers, did even
+less. The Philadelphia Mechanics' Trades Association in 1827, which we
+noted as the first attempted federation of trades in the United States
+if not in the world, was organized as a move of sympathy for the
+carpenters striking for the ten-hour day. During the period of the
+&quot;wild-cat&quot; prosperity the local federation of trades, under the name of
+&quot;Trades' Union,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21">[21]</a> comes to occupy the center of the stage in New
+York, Philadelphia, Boston, and appeared even as far &quot;West&quot; as
+Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The constitution of the New York
+&quot;Trades' Union&quot; provided, among other things, that each society should
+pay a monthly per capita tax of 6&frac14; cents to be used as a strike fund.
+Later, when strikes multiplied, the Union limited the right to claim
+strike aid and appointed a standing committee on mediation. In 1835 it
+discussed a plan for an employment exchange or a &quot;call room.&quot; The
+constitution of the Philadelphia Union required that a strike be
+endorsed by a two-thirds majority before granting aid.</p>
+
+<p>The National Trades' Union, the federation of city trades' unions,
+1834-1836, was a further development of the same idea. Its first and
+second conventions went little beyond the theoretical. The latter,
+however, passed a significant resolution urging the trade societies to
+observe a uniform wage policy throughout the country and, <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108" />should the
+employers combine to resist it, the unions should make &quot;one general
+strike.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The last convention in 1836 went far beyond preceding conventions in its
+plans for solidifying the workingmen of the country. First and foremost,
+a &quot;national fund&quot; was provided for, to be made up of a levy of two cents
+per month on each of the members of the trades' unions and local
+societies represented. The policies of the National Trades' Union
+instead of merely advisory were henceforth to be binding. But before the
+new policies could be tried, as we know, the entire trade union movement
+was wiped out by the panic.</p>
+
+<p>The city &quot;trades' union&quot; of the thirties accorded with a situation where
+the effects of the extension of the market were noticeable in the labor
+market, and little as yet in the commodity market; when the competitive
+menace to labor was the low paid out-of-town mechanic coming to the
+city, not the out-of-town product made under lower labor costs selling
+in the same market as the products of unionized labor. Under these
+conditions the local trade society, reenforced by the city federation of
+trades, sufficed. The &quot;trades' union,&quot; moreover, served also as a source
+of reserve strength.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty years later the whole situation was changed. The fifties were a
+decade of extensive construction of railways. Before 1850 there was more
+traffic by water than by rail. After 1860 the relative importance of
+land and water transportation was reversed. Furthermore, the most
+important railway building during the ten years preceding 1860 was the
+construction of East and West trunk lines; and the sixties were marked
+by the establishment of through lines for freight and the consolidation
+of connecting lines. The through freight lines greatly <a name="Page_109" id="Page_109" />hastened freight
+traffic and by the consolidations through transportation became doubly
+efficient.</p>
+
+<p>Arteries of traffic had thus extended from the Eastern coast to the
+Mississippi Valley. Local markets had widened to embrace half a
+continent. Competitive menaces had become more serious and threatened
+from a distance. Local unionism no longer sufficed. Consequently, as we
+saw, in the labor movement of the sixties the national trade union was
+supreme.</p>
+
+<p>There were four distinct sets of causes which operated during the
+sixties to bring about nationalization; two grew out of the changes in
+transportation, already alluded to, and two were largely independent of
+such changes.</p>
+
+<p>The first and most far-reaching cause, as illustrated by the stove
+molders, was the competition of the products of different localities
+side by side in the same market. Stoves manufactured in Albany, New
+York, were now displayed in St. Louis by the side of stoves made in
+Detroit. No longer could the molder in Albany be indifferent to the fate
+of his fellow craftsman in Louisville. With the molders the
+nationalization of the organization was destined to proceed to its
+utmost length. In order that union conditions should be maintained even
+in the best organized centers, it became necessary to equalize
+competitive conditions in the various localities. That led to a
+well-knit national organization to control working conditions, trade
+rules, and strikes. In other trades, where the competitive area of the
+product was still restricted to the locality, the paramount
+nationalizing influence was a more intensive competition for employment
+between migratory out-of-town journeymen and the locally organized
+mechanics. This describes the situation in the printing trade, where the
+bulk of work was newspaper and not book and job <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110" />printing. Accordingly,
+the printers did not need to entrust their national officers with
+anything more than the control of the traveling journeymen and the
+result was that the local unions remained practically independent.</p>
+
+<p>The third cause of concerted national action in a trade union was the
+organization of employers. Where the power of a local union began to be
+threatened by an employers' association, the next logical step was to
+combine in a national union.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth cause was the application of machinery and the introduction
+of division of labor, which split up the established trades and laid
+industry open to invasion by &quot;green hands.&quot; The shoemaking industry,
+which during the sixties had reached the factory stage, illustrates this
+in a most striking manner. Few other industries experienced anything
+like a similar change during this period.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, none of the causes of nationalization here enumerated
+operated in entire isolation. In some trades one cause, in other trades
+other causes, had the predominating influence. Consequently, in some
+trades the national union resembled an agglomeration of loosely allied
+states, each one reserving the right to engage in independent action and
+expecting from its allies no more than a benevolent neutrality. In other
+trades, on the contrary, the national union was supreme in declaring
+industrial war and in making peace, and even claimed absolute right to
+formulate the civil laws of the trade for times of industrial peace.</p>
+
+<p>The national trade union was, therefore, a response to obvious and
+pressing necessity. However slow or imperfect may have been the
+adjustment of internal organiza<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111" />tions to the conditions of the trade,
+still the groove was defined and consequently the amount of possible
+floundering largely limited. Not so with the next step, namely the
+national federation of trades. In the sixties we saw the national trade
+unions join with other local and miscellaneous labor organizations in
+the National Labor Union upon a political platform of eight-hours and
+greenbackism. In 1873 the same national unions asserted their rejection
+of &quot;panaceas&quot; and politics by attempting to create in the National Labor
+Congress a federation of trades of a strictly economic character. The
+panic and depression nipped that in the bud. When trade unionism revived
+in 1879 the national trade unions returned to the idea of a national
+federation of labor, but this time they followed the model of the
+British Trades Union Congress, the organization which cares for the
+legislative interests of British labor. This was the &quot;Federation of
+Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada,&quot;
+which was set up in 1881.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to understand why the unions of the early eighties did not
+feel the need of a federation on economic lines. The trade unions of
+today look to the American Federation of Labor for the discharge of
+important economic functions, therefore it is primarily an economic
+organization. These functions are the assistance of national trade
+unions in organizing their trades, the adjustment of disputes between
+unions claiming the same &quot;jurisdiction,&quot; and concerted action in matters
+of especial importance such as shorter hours, the &quot;open-shop,&quot; or
+boycotts. None of these functions would have been of material importance
+to the trade unions of the early eighties. Existing in well-defined
+trades, which were not affected by technical changes, they had no
+&quot;jurisdic<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112" />tional&quot; disputes; operating at a period of prosperity with
+full employment and rising wages, they did not realize a necessity for
+concerted action; the era of the boycotts had not yet begun. As for
+having a common agency to do the work of organizing, the trade unions of
+the early eighties had no keen desire to organize any but the skilled
+workmen; and, since the competition of workmen in small towns had not
+yet made itself felt, each national trade union strove to organize
+primarily the workmen of its trade in the larger cities, a function for
+which its own means were adequate.</p>
+
+<p>The new organization of 1881 was a loose federation of trade and labor
+unions with a legislative committee at the head, with Samuel Gompers of
+the cigar makers as a member. The platform was purely legislative and
+demanded legal incorporation for trade unions,<a name="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22">[22]</a> compulsory education
+for children, the prohibition of child labor under fourteen, uniform
+apprentice laws, the enforcement of the national eight-hour law, prison
+labor reform, abolition of the &quot;truck&quot; and &quot;order&quot; system, mechanics'
+lien, abolition of conspiracy laws as applied to labor organizations, a
+national bureau of labor statistics, a protective tariff for American
+labor, an anti-contract immigrant law, and recommended &quot;all trade and
+labor organizations to secure proper representation in all law-making
+bodies by means of the ballot, and to use all honorable measures by
+which this result can be accomplished.&quot; Although closely related to the
+present American Federation of Labor in point of time and personnel of
+leadership, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the
+United States and Canada was in reality the precursor of the present
+state federations <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113" />of labor, which as specialized parts of the national
+federation now look after labor legislation.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three years later it became evident that the Federation as a
+legislative organization proved a failure.<a name="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23">[23]</a> Manifestly the trade
+unions felt no great interest in national legislation. The indifference
+can be measured by the fact that the annual income of the Federation
+never exceeded $700 and that, excepting in 1881, none of its conventions
+represented more than one-fourth of the trade union membership of the
+country. Under such conditions the legislative influence of the
+Federation naturally was infinitesimal. The legislative committee
+carried out the instructions of the 1883 convention and communicated to
+the national committees of the Republican and Democratic parties the
+request that they should define their position upon the enforcement of
+the eight-hour law and other measures. The letters were not even
+answered. A subcommittee of the legislative committee appeared before
+the two political conventions, but received no greater attention.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the majority of the national trade unions came under
+the menace of becoming forcibly absorbed by the Order of the Knights of
+Labor that a basis appeared for a vigorous federation.</p>
+
+<p>The Knights of Labor were built on an opposite principle from the
+national trade unions. Whereas the latter started with independent
+crafts and then with hesitating hands tried, as we saw, to erect some
+sort of a common superstructure that should express a higher solidarity
+of labor, the former was built from the beginning upon a denial of craft
+lines and upon an absolute unity of all <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114" />classes of labor under one
+guiding head. The subdivision was territorial instead of occupational
+and the government centralized.</p>
+
+<p>The constitution of the Knights of Labor was drawn in 1878 when the
+Order laid aside the veil of secrecy to which it had clung since its
+foundation in 1869. The lowest unit of organization was the local
+assembly of ten or more, at least three-fourths of whom had to be wage
+earners at any trade. Above the local assembly was the &quot;district
+assembly&quot; and above it the &quot;General Assembly.&quot; The district assembly had
+absolute power over its local assemblies and the General Assembly was
+given &quot;full and final jurisdiction&quot; as &quot;the highest tribunal&quot; of the
+Order.<a name="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24">[24]</a> Between sessions of the General Assembly the power was vested
+in a General Executive Board, presided over by a Grand Master Workman.</p>
+
+<p>The Order of the Knights of Labor in practice carried out the idea which
+is now advocated so fervently by revolutionary unionists, namely the
+&quot;One Big Union,&quot; since it avowedly aimed to bring into one organization
+&quot;all productive labor.&quot; This idea in organization was aided by the
+weakness of the trade unions during the long depression of the
+seventies, which led many to hope for better things from a general
+pooling of labor strength. But its main appeal rested on a view that
+machine technique tends to do away with all distinctions of trades by
+reducing all workers to the level of unskilled machine tenders. To its
+protagonists therefore the &quot;one big union&quot; stood for an adjustment to
+the new technique.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115" />First to face the problem of adjustment to the machine technique of the
+factory system were the shoemakers. They organized in 1867 the Order of
+the Knights of St. Crispin, mainly for the purpose of suppressing the
+competitive menace of &quot;green hands,&quot; that is unskilled workers put to
+work on shoe machines. At its height in 1872, the Crispins numbered
+about 50,000, perhaps the largest union in the whole world at that time.
+The coopers began to be menaced by machinery about the middle of the
+sixties, and about the same time the machinists and blacksmiths, too,
+saw their trade broken up by the introduction of the principle of
+standardized parts and quantity production in the making of machinery.
+From these trades came the national leaders of the Knights of Labor and
+the strongest advocates of the new principle in labor organization and
+of the interests of the unskilled workers in general. The conflict
+between the trade unions and the Knights of Labor turned on the question
+of the unskilled workers.</p>
+
+<p>The conflict was held in abeyance during the early eighties. The trade
+unions were by far the strongest organizations in the field and scented
+no particular danger when here or there the Knights formed an assembly
+either contiguous to the sphere of a trade union or even at times
+encroaching upon it.</p>
+
+<p>With the Great Upheaval, which began in 1884, and the inrushing of
+hundreds of thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled workers into the
+Order, a new situation was created. The leaders of the Knights realized
+that mere numbers were not sufficient to defeat the employers and that
+control over the skilled, and consequently the more strategic
+occupations, was required before the unskilled and semi-skilled could
+expect to march to victory. Hence, <a name="Page_116" id="Page_116" />parallel to the tremendous growth of
+the Knights in 1886, there was a constantly growing effort to absorb the
+existing trade unions for the purpose of making them subservient to the
+interests of the less skilled elements. It was mainly that which
+produced the bitter conflict between the Knights and the trade unions
+during 1886 and 1887. Neither the jealousy aroused by the success of the
+unions nor the opposite aims of labor solidarity and trade separatism
+gives an adequate explanation of this conflict. The one, of course,
+aggravated the situation by introducing a feeling of personal
+bitterness, and the other furnished an appealing argument to each side.
+But the struggle was one between groups within the working class, in
+which the small but more skilled group fought for independence of the
+larger but weaker group of the unskilled and semi-skilled. The skilled
+men stood for the right to use their advantage of skill and efficient
+organization in order to wrest the maximum amount of concessions for
+themselves. The Knights of Labor endeavored to annex the skilled men in
+order that the advantage from their exceptional fighting strength might
+lift up the unskilled and semi-skilled. From the point of view of a
+struggle between principles, this was indeed a clash between the
+principle of solidarity of labor and that of trade separatism, but, in
+reality, each of the principles reflected only the special interest of a
+certain portion of the working class. Just as the trade unions, when
+they fought for trade autonomy, really refused to consider the unskilled
+men, so the Knights of Labor overlooked the fact that their scheme would
+retard the progress of the skilled trades.</p>
+
+<p>The Knights were in nearly every case the aggressors, and it is
+significant that among the local organizations of <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117" />the Knights inimical
+to trade unions, District Assembly 49, of New York, should prove the
+most relentless. It was this assembly which conducted the longshoremen's
+and coal miners' strike in New York in 1887 and which, as we saw,<a name="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25">[25]</a>
+did not hesitate to tie up the industries of the entire city for the
+sake of securing the demands of several hundred unskilled workingmen.
+Though District Assembly 49, New York, came into conflict with not a few
+of the trade unions in that city, its battle royal was fought with the
+cigar makers' unions. There were at the time two factions among the
+cigar makers, one upholding the International Cigar Makers' Union with
+Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers as leaders, the other calling itself
+the Progressive Union, which was more socialistic in nature and composed
+of more recent immigrants and less skilled workers. District Assembly 49
+of the Knights of Labor took a hand in the struggle to support the
+Progressive Union and by skillful management brought the situation to
+the point where the latter had to allow itself to be absorbed into the
+Knights of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The events in the cigar making trade in New York brought to a climax the
+sporadic struggles that had been going on between the Order and the
+trade unions. The trade unions demanded that the Knights of Labor
+respect their &quot;jurisdiction&quot; and proposed a &quot;treaty of peace&quot; with such
+drastic terms that had they been accepted the trade unions would have
+been left in the sole possession of the field. The Order was at first
+more conciliatory. It would not of course cease to take part in
+industrial disputes and industrial matters, but it proposed a <i>modus
+vivendi</i> on a basis of an interchange of &quot;working cards&quot; and common
+action against employers. At the same time <a name="Page_118" id="Page_118" />it addressed separately to
+each national trade union a gentle admonition to think of the unskilled
+workers as well as of themselves. The address said: &quot;In the use of the
+wonderful inventions, your organization plays a most important part.
+Naturally it embraces within its ranks a very large proportion of
+laborers of a high grade of skill and intelligence. With this skill of
+hand, guided by intelligent thought, comes the right to demand that
+excess of compensation paid to skilled above the unskilled labor. But
+the unskilled labor must receive attention, or in the hour of difficulty
+the employer will not hesitate to use it to depress the compensation you
+now receive. That skilled or unskilled labor may no longer be found
+unorganized, we ask of you to annex your grand and powerful corps to the
+main army that we may fight the battle under one flag.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the trade unions, who had formerly declared that their purpose was
+&quot;to protect the skilled trades of America from being reduced to
+beggary,&quot; evinced no desire to be pressed into the service of lifting up
+the unskilled and voted down with practical unanimity the proposal.
+Thereupon the Order declared open war by commanding all its members who
+were also members of the cigar makers' union to withdraw from the latter
+on the penalty of expulsion.</p>
+
+<p>Later events proved that the assumption of the aggressive was the
+beginning of the undoing of the Order. It was, moreover, an event of
+first significance in the labor movement since it forced the trade
+unions to draw closer together and led to the founding in the same year,
+1886, of the American Federation of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>Another highly important effect of this conflict was the ascendency in
+the trade union movement of Samuel <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119" />Gompers as the foremost leader.
+Gompers had first achieved prominence in 1881 at the time of the
+organization of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. But
+not until the situation created by the conflict with the Knights of
+Labor did he get his first real opportunity, both to demonstrate his
+inborn capacity for leadership and to train and develop that capacity by
+overcoming what was perhaps the most serious problem that ever
+confronted American organized labor.</p>
+
+<p>The new Federation avoided its predecessor's mistake of emphasizing
+labor legislation above all. Its prime purpose was economic. The
+legislative interests of labor were for the most part given into the
+care of subordinate state federations of labor. Consequently, the
+several state federations, not the American Federation of Labor,
+correspond in America to the British Trades Union Congress. But in the
+conventions of the American Federation of Labor the state federations
+are represented only nominally. The Federation is primarily a federation
+of national and international (including Canada and Mexico) trade
+unions.</p>
+
+<p>Each national and international union in the new Federation was
+acknowledged a sovereignty unto itself, with full powers of discipline
+over its members and with the power of free action toward the employers
+without any interference from the Federation; in other words, its full
+autonomy was confirmed. Like the British Empire, the Federation of Labor
+was cemented together by ties which were to a much greater extent
+spiritual than they were material. Nevertheless, the Federation's
+authority was far from being a shadowy one. If it could not order about
+the officers of the constituent unions, it could so mobilize the general
+labor sentiment in the country on behalf of <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120" />any of its constituent
+bodies that its good will would be sought even by the most powerful
+ones. The Federation guaranteed to each union a certain jurisdiction,
+generally coextensive with a craft, and protected it against
+encroachments by adjoining unions and more especially by rival unions.
+The guarantee worked absolutely in the case of the latter, for the
+Federation knew no mercy when a rival union attempted to undermine the
+strength of an organized union of a craft. The trade unions have learned
+from experience with the Knights of Labor that their deadliest enemy
+was, after all, not the employers' association but the enemy from within
+who introduced confusion in the ranks. They have accordingly developed
+such a passion for &quot;regularity,&quot; such an intense conviction that there
+must be but one union in a given trade that, on occasions, scheming
+labor officials have known how to checkmate a justifiable insurgent
+movement by a skillful play upon this curious hypertrophy of the feeling
+of solidarity. Not only will a rival union never be admitted into the
+Federation, but no subordinate body, state or city, may dare to extend
+any aid or comfort to a rival union.</p>
+
+<p>The Federation exacted but little from the national and international
+unions in exchange for the guarantee of their jurisdiction: A small
+annual per capita tax; a willing though a not obligatory support in the
+special legislative and industrial campaigns it may undertake; an
+adherence to its decisions on general labor policy; an undertaking to
+submit to its decision in the case of disputes with other unions, which
+however need not in every case be fulfilled; and lastly, an unqualified
+acceptance of the principle of &quot;regularity&quot; relative to labor
+organization. Obviously, judging from constitutional powers <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121" />alone, the
+Federation was but a weak sort of a government. Yet the weakness was not
+the forced weakness of a government which was willing to start with
+limited powers hoping to increase its authority as it learned to stand
+more firmly on its own feet; it was a self-imposed weakness suggested by
+the lessons of labor history.</p>
+
+<p>By contrast the Order of the Knights of Labor, as seen already, was
+governed by an all-powerful General Assembly and General Executive
+Board. At a first glance a highly centralized form of government would
+appear a promise of assured strength and a guarantee of coherence
+amongst the several parts of the organization. Perhaps, if America's
+wage earners were cemented together by as strong a class consciousness
+as the laboring classes of Europe, such might have been the case.</p>
+
+<p>But America's labor movement lacked the unintended aid which the sister
+movements in Europe derived from a caste system of society and political
+oppression. Where the class lines were not tightly drawn, the
+centrifugal forces in the labor movement were bound to assert
+themselves. The leaders of the American Federation of Labor, in their
+struggle against the Knights of Labor, played precisely upon this
+centrifugal tendency and gained a victory by making an appeal to the
+natural desire for autonomy and self-determination of any distinctive
+group. But originally perhaps intended as a mere &quot;strategic&quot; move, this
+policy succeeded in creating a labor movement which was, on
+fundamentals, far more coherent than the Knights of Labor even in the
+heyday of their glory. The officers and leaders of the Federation,
+knowing that they could not command, set themselves to developing a
+unified labor will and purpose by means of moral suasion and propaganda.
+Where a bare order would breed re<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122" />sentment and backbiting, an appeal,
+which is reinforced by a carefully nurtured universal labor sentiment,
+will eventually bring about common consent and a willing acquiescence in
+the policy supported by the majority. So each craft was made a
+self-determining unit and &quot;craft autonomy&quot; became a sacred shibboleth in
+the labor movement without interfering with unity on essentials.</p>
+
+<p>The principle of craft autonomy triumphed chiefly because it recognized
+the existence of a considerable amount of group selfishness. The Knights
+of Labor held, as was seen, that the strategic or bargaining strength of
+the skilled craftsman should be used as a lever to raise the status of
+the semi-skilled and unskilled worker. It consequently grouped them
+promiscuously in &quot;mixed assemblies&quot; and opposed as long as it could the
+demand for &quot;national trade assemblies.&quot; The craftsman, on the other
+hand, wished to use his superior bargaining strength for his own
+purposes and evinced little desire to dissipate it in the service of his
+humbler fellow worker. To give effect to that, he felt obliged to
+struggle against becoming entangled with undesirable allies in the
+semi-skilled and unskilled workers for whom the Order spoke. Needless to
+say, the individual self-interest of the craft leaders worked hand in
+hand with the self-interest of the craft as a whole, for had they been
+annexed by the Order they would have become subject to orders from the
+General Master Workman or the General Assembly of the Order.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to platonic stirrings for &quot;self-determination&quot; and to narrow
+group interest, there was a motive for craft autonomy which could pass
+muster both as strictly social and realistic. The fact was that the
+<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123" />autonomous craft union could win strikes where the centralized
+promiscuous Order merely floundered and suffered defeat after defeat.
+The craft union had the advantage, on the one hand, of a leadership
+which was thoroughly familiar with the bit of ground upon which it
+operated, and, on the other hand, of handling a group of people of equal
+financial endurance and of identical interest. It has already been seen
+how dreadfully mismanaged were the great Knights of Labor strikes of
+1886 and 1887. The ease with which the leaders were able to call out
+trade after trade on a strike of sympathy proved more a liability than
+an asset. Often the choice of trades to strike bore no particular
+relation to their strategic value in the given situation; altogether one
+gathers the impression that these great strikes were conducted by
+blundering amateurs who possessed more authority than was good for them
+or for the cause. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the compact
+craft unions led by specialists scored successes where the heterogeneous
+mobs of the Knights of Labor had been doomed from the first. Clearly
+then the survival of the craft union was a survival of the fittest; and
+the Federation's attachment to the principle of craft autonomy was, to
+say the least, a product of an evolutionary past, whatever one may hold
+with reference to its fitness in our own time.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever reasons moved the trade unions of the skilled to battle with
+the Order for their separate and autonomous existence were bound sooner
+or later to induce those craftsmen who were in the Order to seek a
+similar autonomy. From the very beginning the more skilled and better
+organized trades in the Knights sought to separate from the mixed
+&quot;district assemblies&quot; and to create within the framework of the Order
+&quot;national trade as<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124" />semblies.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26">[26]</a> However, the national officers, who
+looked upon such a move as a betrayal of the great principle of the
+solidarity of all labor, were able to stem the tide excepting in the
+case of the window glass blowers, who were granted their autonomy in
+1880.</p>
+
+<p>The obvious superiority of the trade union form of organization over the
+mixed organization, as revealed by events in 1886 and 1887, strengthened
+the separatist tendency. Just as the struggle between the Knights of
+Labor and the trade unions on the outside had been fundamentally a
+struggle between the unskilled and the skilled portions of the
+wage-earning class, so the aspiration toward the national trade assembly
+within the Order represented the effort of the more or less skilled men
+for emancipation from the dominance of the unskilled. But the Order
+successfully fought off such attempts until after the defeat of the
+mixed district assemblies, or in other words of the unskilled class, in
+the struggle with the employers. With the withdrawal of a very large
+portion of this class, as shown in 1887,<a name="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27">[27]</a> the demand for the national
+trade assembly revived and there soon began a veritable rush to organize
+by trades. The stampede was strongest in the city of New York where the
+incompetence of the mixed District Assembly 49 had become patent. At the
+General Assembly in 1887 at Minneapolis all obstacles were removed from
+forming national trade assemblies, but this came too late to stem the
+exodus of the skilled element from the order into the American
+Federation of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The victory of craft autonomy over the &quot;one big union&quot; was decisive and
+complete.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125" />The strike activities of the Knights were confessedly a deviation from
+&quot;First Principles.&quot; Yet the First Principles with their emphasis on
+producers' cooperation were far from forgotten even when the enthusiasm
+for strikes was at its highest. Whatever the actual feelings of the
+membership as a whole, the leaders neglected no opportunity to promote
+cooperation. T.V. Powderly, the head of the Order since 1878, in his
+reports to the annual General Assembly or convention, consistently urged
+that practical steps be taken toward cooperation. In 1881, while the
+general opinion in the Order was still undecided, the leaders did not
+scruple to smuggle into the constitution a clause which made cooperation
+compulsory.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding Powderly's exhortations, the Order was at first slow in
+taking it up. In 1882 a general cooperative board was elected to work
+out a plan of action, but it never reported, and a new board was chosen
+in its place at the Assembly of 1883. In that year, the first practical
+step was taken in the purchase by the Order of a coal mine at
+Cannelburg, Indiana, with the idea of selling the coal at reduced prices
+to the members. Soon thereafter a thorough change of sentiment with
+regard to the whole matter of cooperation took place, contemporaneously
+with the industrial depression and unsuccessful strikes. The rank and
+file, who had hitherto been indifferent, now seized upon the idea with
+avidity. The enthusiasm ran so high in Lynn, Massachusetts, that it was
+found necessary to raise the shares of the Knights of Labor Cooperative
+Shoe Company to $100 in order to prevent a large influx of &quot;unsuitable
+members.&quot; In 1885 Powderly complained that &quot;many of our members grow
+impatient and unreasonable because <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126" />every avenue of the Order does not
+lead to cooperation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The impatience for immediate cooperation, which seized the rank and file
+in practically every section of the country, caused an important
+modification in the official doctrine of the Order. Originally it had
+contemplated centralized control under which it would have taken years
+before a considerable portion of the membership could realize any
+benefit. This was now dropped and a decentralized plan was adopted.
+Local organizations and, more frequently, groups of members with the
+financial aid of their local organizations now began to establish shops.
+Most of the enterprises were managed by the stockholders, although, in
+some cases, the local organization of the Knights of Labor managed the
+plant.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the cooperative enterprises were conducted on a small scale.
+Incomplete statistics warrant the conclusion that the average amount
+invested per establishment was about $10,000. From the data gathered it
+seems that cooperation reached its highest point in 1886, although it
+had not completely spent itself by the end of 1887. The total number of
+ventures probably reached two hundred. The largest numbers were in
+mining, cooperage, and shoes. These industries paid the poorest wages
+and treated their employes most harshly. A small amount of capital was
+required to organize such establishments.</p>
+
+<p>With the abandonment of centralized cooperation in 1884, the role of the
+central cooperative board changed correspondingly. The leading member of
+the board was now John Samuel, one of those to whom cooperation meant
+nothing short of a religion. The duty of the board was to educate the
+members of the Order in the <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127" />principles of cooperation; to aid by
+information and otherwise prospective and actual cooperators; in brief,
+to coordinate the cooperative movement within the Order. It issued forms
+of a constitution and by-laws which, with a few modifications, could be
+adopted by any locality. It also published articles on the dangers and
+pitfalls in cooperative ventures, such as granting credit, poor
+management, etc., as well as numerous articles on specific kinds of
+cooperation. The Knights of Labor label was granted for the use of
+cooperative goods and a persistent agitation was steadily conducted to
+induce purchasers to give a preference to cooperative products.</p>
+
+<p>As a scheme of industrial regeneration, cooperation never materialized.
+The few successful shops sooner or later fell into the hands of an
+&quot;inner group,&quot; who &quot;froze out&quot; the others and set up capitalistic
+partnerships. The great majority went on the rocks even before getting
+started. The causes of failure were many: Hasty action, inexperience,
+lax shop discipline, internal dissensions, high rates of interest upon
+the mortgage of the plant, and finally discriminations instigated by
+competitors. Railways were heavy offenders, by delaying side tracks and,
+on some pretext or other, refusing to furnish cars or refusing to haul
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The Union Mining Company of Cannelburg, Indiana, owned and operated by
+the Order as its sole experiment of the centralized kind of cooperation,
+met this fate. After expending $20,000 in equipping the mine, purchasing
+land, laying tracks, cutting and sawing timber on the land and mining
+$1000 worth of coal, they were compelled to lie idle for nine months
+before the railway company saw fit to connect their switch with the main
+track. When they were ready to ship their product, it <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128" />was learned that
+their coal could be utilized for the manufacture of gas only, and that
+contracts for supply of such coal were let in July, that is nine months
+from the time of connecting the switch with the main track. In addition,
+the company was informed that it must supply itself with a switch engine
+to do the switching of the cars from its mine to the main track, at an
+additional cost of $4000. When this was accomplished they had to enter
+the market in competition with a bitter opponent who had been fighting
+them since the opening of the mine. Having exhausted their funds and not
+seeing their way clear to securing additional funds for the purchase of
+a locomotive and to tide over the nine months ere any contracts for coal
+could be entered into, they sold out to their competitor.</p>
+
+<p>But a cause more fundamental perhaps than all other causes of the
+failure of cooperation in the United States is to be found in the
+difficulties of successful entrepreneurship. In the labor movement in
+the United States there has been a failure, generally speaking, to
+appreciate the significance of management and the importance which must
+be imputed to it. Glib talk often commands an undeserved confidence and
+misleads the wage earner. Thus by 1888, three or four years after it had
+begun, the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle of life and
+succumbed. The failure, as said, was hastened by external causes and
+discrimination. But the experiments had been foredoomed anyway,&mdash;through
+the incompatibility of producers' cooperation with trade unionism. The
+cooperators, in their eagerness to get a market, frequently undersold
+the private employer expecting to recoup their present losses in future
+profits. In consequence, the privately employed wage earners had to bear
+<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129" />reductions in their wages. A labor movement which endeavors to practice
+producers' cooperation and trade unionism at the same time is actually
+driving in opposite directions.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20">[20]</a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_1">Chapter 1.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21">[21]</a> In the thirties the term &quot;union&quot; was reserved for the city
+federations of trades. What is now designated as a trade union was
+called trade society. In the sixties the &quot;Union&quot; became the &quot;trades'
+assembly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22">[22]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_152">152-154.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23">[23]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_285">285-290</a>, for a discussion why American labor looks away
+from legislation.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24">[24]</a> The Constitution read as follows: &quot;It alone possesses the power and
+authority to make, amend, or repeal the fundamental and general laws and
+regulations of the Order; to finally decide all controversies arising in
+the Order; to issue all charters.... It can also tax the members of the
+Order for its maintenance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25">[25]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_98">98-100.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26">[26]</a> The &quot;local assemblies&quot; generally followed in practice trade lines,
+but the district assemblies were &quot;mixed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27">[27]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_100">100-101.</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_6" id="CHAPTER_6" />CHAPTER 6</h2>
+
+<h2>STABILIZATION, 1888-1897</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Great Upheaval of 1886 had, as we saw, suddenly swelled the
+membership of trade unions; consequently, during several years
+following, notwithstanding the prosperity in industry, further growth
+was bound to proceed at a slower rate.</p>
+
+<p>The statistics of strikes during the later eighties, like the figures of
+membership, show that after the strenuous years from 1885 to 1887 the
+labor movement had entered a more or less quiet stage. Most prominent
+among the strikes was the one of 60,000 iron and steel workers in
+Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the West, which was carried to a successful
+conclusion against a strong combination of employers. The Amalgamated
+Association of Iron and Steel Workers stood at the zenith of its power
+about this time and was able in 1889, by the mere threat of a strike, to
+dictate terms to the Carnegie Steel Company. The most noted and last
+great strike of a railway brotherhood was the one of the locomotive
+engineers on the Chicago, Burlington &amp; Quincy Railroad Company. The
+strike was begun jointly on February 27, 1888, by the brotherhoods of
+locomotive engineers and locomotive firemen. The main demands were made
+by the engineers, who asked for the abandonment of the system of
+classification and for a new wage scale. Two months previously, the
+Knights of Labor had declared a miners' strike against the Philadelphia
+&amp; Reading Railroad Company, <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131" />employing 80,000 anthracite miners, and the
+strike had been accompanied by a sympathetic strike of engineers and
+firemen belonging to the Order. The members of the brotherhoods had
+filled their places and, in retaliation, the former Reading engineers
+and firemen now took the places of the Burlington strikers, so that on
+March 15 the company claimed to have a full contingent of employes. The
+brotherhoods ordered a boycott upon the Burlington cars, which was
+partly enforced, but they were finally compelled to submit. The strike
+was not officially called off until January 3, 1889. Notwithstanding the
+defeat of the strikers, the damage to the railway was enormous, and
+neither the railways of the country nor the brotherhoods since that date
+have permitted a serious strike of their members to occur.</p>
+
+<p>The lull in the trade union movement was broken by a new concerted
+eight-hour movement managed by the Federation, which culminated in 1890.</p>
+
+<p>Although on the whole the eight-hour movement in 1886 was a failure, it
+was by no means a disheartening failure. It was evident that the
+eight-hour day was a popular demand, and that an organization desirous
+of expansion might well hitch its wagon to this star. Accordingly, the
+convention of the American Federation of Labor in 1888 declared that a
+general demand should be made for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890. The
+chief advocates of the resolution were the delegates of the carpenters,
+who announced a readiness to lead the way for a general eight-hour day
+in 1890.</p>
+
+<p>The Federation at once inaugurated an aggressive campaign. For the first
+time in its history it employed special salaried organizers. Pamphlets
+were issued and widely distributed. On every important holiday mass
+<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132" />meetings were held in the larger cities. On Labor Day 1889, no less
+than 420 such mass meetings were held throughout the country. Again the
+Knights of Labor came out against the plan.</p>
+
+<p>The next year the plan of campaign was modified. The idea of a general
+strike for the eight-hour day in May 1890, was abandoned in favor of a
+strike trade by trade. In March 1890, the carpenters were chosen to make
+the demand on May 1 of the same year, to be followed by the miners at a
+later date.</p>
+
+<p>The choice of the carpenters was indeed fortunate. Beginning with 1886,
+that union had a rapid growth and was now the largest union affiliated
+with the Federation. For several years it had been accumulating funds
+for the eight-hour day, and, when the movement was inaugurated in May
+1890, it achieved a large measure of success. The union officers claimed
+to have won the eight-hour day in 137 cities and a nine-hour day in most
+other places.</p>
+
+<p>However, the selection of the miners to follow on May 1, 1891, was a
+grave mistake. Less than one-tenth of the coal miners of the country
+were then organized. For years the miners' union had been losing ground,
+with the constant decline of coal prices. Some months before May 1,
+1891, the United Mine Workers had become involved in a disastrous strike
+in the Connelsville coke region, and the plan for an eight-hour strike
+was abandoned. In this manner the eight-hour movement inaugurated by the
+convention of the Federation in 1888 came to an end. Apart from the
+strike of the carpenters in 1890, it had not led to any general movement
+to gain the eight-hour work day. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of
+workingmen had won reduced hours of labor, especially in the building
+trades. By 1891 the eight-hour day had been secured <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133" />for all building
+trades in Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Indianapolis, and San Francisco.
+In New York and Brooklyn the carpenters, stone-cutters, painters, and
+plasterers worked eight hours, while the bricklayers, masons, and
+plumbers worked nine. In St. Paul the bricklayers alone worked nine
+hours, the remaining trades eight.</p>
+
+<p>In 1892 the labor movement faced for the first time a really modern
+manufacturing corporation with its practically boundless resources of
+war, namely the Carnegie Steel Company, in the strike which has become
+famous under the name of the Homestead Strike. The Amalgamated
+Association of Iron and Steel Workers, with a membership of 24,068 in
+1891, was probably the strongest trade union in the entire history of
+the American labor movement. Prior to 1889 the relations between the
+union and the Carnegie firm had been invariably friendly. In January
+1889, H.C. Frick, who, as owner of the largest coke manufacturing plant,
+had acquired a reputation of a bitter opponent of organized labor,
+became chairman of Carnegie Brothers and Company. In the same year,
+owing to his assumption of management, as the union men believed, the
+first dispute occurred between them and the company. Although the
+agreement was finally renewed for three years on terms dictated by the
+Association, the controversy left a disturbing impression upon the minds
+of the men, since during the course of the negotiations Frick had
+demanded the dissolution of the union.</p>
+
+<p>Negotiations for the new scale presented to the company began in
+February 1892. A few weeks later the company presented a scale to the
+men providing for a reduction and besides demanded that the date of the
+termination of the scale be changed from July 1 to <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134" />January 1. A number
+of conferences were held without result; and on May 30 the company
+submitted an ultimatum to the effect that, if the scale were not signed
+by June 29, they would treat with the men as individuals. At a final
+conference which was held on June 23, the company raised its offer from
+$22 per ton to $23 as the minimum base of the scale, and the union
+lowered its demand from $25, the rate formerly paid, to $24. But no
+agreement could be reached on this point nor on others and the strike
+began June 29 upon the definite issue of the preservation of the union.</p>
+
+<p>Even before the negotiations were broken up, Frick had arranged with the
+Pinkerton detective agency for 300 men to serve as guards. These men
+arrived at a station on the Ohio River below Pittsburgh near midnight of
+July 5. Here they embarked on barges and were towed up the river to
+Pittsburgh and taken up the Monangahela River to Homestead, which they
+approached about four o'clock on the morning of July 6. The workmen had
+been warned of their coming and, when the boat reached the landing back
+of the steel works, nearly the whole town was there to meet them and to
+prevent their landing. Passion ran high. The men armed themselves with
+guns and gave the Pinkertons a pitched battle. When the day was over, at
+least half a dozen men on both sides had been killed and a number were
+seriously wounded. The Pinkertons were defeated and driven away and,
+although there was no more disorder of any sort, the State militia
+appeared in Homestead on July 12 and remained for several months.</p>
+
+<p>The strike which began in Homestead soon spread to other mills. The
+Carnegie mills at 29th and 33d Streets, Pittsburgh, went on strike. The
+strike at Homestead <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135" />was finally declared off on November 20, and most
+of the men went back to their old positions as non-union men. The
+treasury of the union was depleted, winter was coming, and it was
+finally decided to consider the battle lost.</p>
+
+<p>The defeat meant not only the loss by the union of the Homestead plant
+but the elimination of unionism in most of the mills in the Pittsburgh
+region. Where the great Carnegie Company led, the others had to follow.
+The power of the union was henceforth broken and the labor movement
+learned the lesson that even its strongest organization was unable to
+withstand an onslaught by the modern corporation. The Homestead strike
+stirred the labor movement as few other single events. It had its
+political reverberation, since it drove home to the workers that an
+industry protected by high tariff will not necessarily be a haven to
+organized labor, notwithstanding that the union had actively assisted
+the iron and steel manufacturers in securing the high protection granted
+by the McKinley tariff bill of 1890. Many of the votes which would
+otherwise have gone to the Republican candidate for President went in
+1892 to Grover Cleveland, who ran on an anti-protective tariff issue. It
+is not unlikely that the latter's victory was materially advanced by the
+disillusionment brought on by the Homestead defeat.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1893 occurred the financial panic. The panic and the
+ensuing crisis furnished a conclusive test of the strength and stability
+of the American labor movement. Gompers in his presidential report at
+the convention of 1899, following the long depression, said: &quot;It is
+noteworthy, that while in every previous industrial crisis the trade
+unions were literally mowed down and swept out of existence, the unions
+now in existence have <a name="Page_136" id="Page_136" />manifested, not only the power of resistance, but
+of stability and permanency,&quot; and he assigned as the most prominent
+cause the system of high dues and benefits which had come into vogue in
+a large number of trade unions. He said: &quot;Beyond doubt the superficial
+motive of continued membership in unions organized upon this basis was
+the monetary benefits the members were entitled to; but be that as it
+may, the results are the same, that is, <i>membership is maintained, the
+organization remains intact during dull periods of industry, and is
+prepared to take advantage of the first sign of an industrial revival</i>.&quot;
+Gompers may have overstated the power of resistance of the unions, but
+their holding power upon the membership cannot be disputed. The
+aggregate membership of all unions affiliated with the Federation
+remained near the mark of 275,000 throughout the period of depression
+from 1893 to 1897. At last the labor movement had become stabilized.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1894 was exceptional for labor disturbances. The number of
+employes involved reached nearly 750,000, surpassing even the mark set
+in 1886. However, in contradistinction to 1886, the movement was
+defensive. It also resulted in greater failure. The strike of the coal
+miners and the Pullman strike were the most important ones. The United
+Mine Workers began their strike in Ohio on April 21. The membership did
+not exceed 20,000, but about 125,000 struck. At first the demand was
+made that wages should be restored to the level at which they were in
+May 1893. But within a month the union in most regions was struggling to
+prevent a further reduction in wages. By the end of July the strike was
+lost.</p>
+
+<p>The Pullman strike marks an era in the American <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137" />labor movement because
+it was the only attempt ever made in America of a revolutionary strike
+on the Continental European model. The strikers tried to throw against
+the associated railways and indeed against the entire existing social
+order the full force of a revolutionary labor solidarity embracing the
+entire American wage-earning class brought to the point of exasperation
+by unemployment, wage reductions, and misery. That in spite of the
+remarkable favorable conjuncture the dramatic appeal failed to shake the
+general labor movement out of its chosen groove is proof positive of the
+completion of the stabilization process which had been going on since
+the early eighties.</p>
+
+<p>The Pullman strike began May 11, 1894, and grew out of a demand of
+certain employes in the shops of the Pullman Palace Car Company,
+situated at Pullman, Illinois, for a restoration of the wages paid
+during the previous year. In March 1894, the Pullman employes had voted
+to join the American Railway Union. The American Railway Union was an
+organization based on industrial lines, organized in June 1893, by
+Eugene V. Debs. Debs, as secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of
+Locomotive Firemen, had watched the failure of many a strike by only one
+trade and resigned this office to organize all railway workers in one
+organization. The American Railway Union was the result. Between June 9
+and June 26 the latter held a convention in Chicago. The Pullman matter
+was publicly discussed before and after its committee reported their
+interviews with the Pullman Company. On June 21, the delegates under
+instructions from their local unions, feeling confident after a victory
+over the Great Northern in April, unanimously voted that the members
+should stop handling Pullman <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138" />cars on June 26 unless the Pullman Company
+would consent to arbitration.</p>
+
+<p>On June 26 the railway strike began. It was a purely sympathetic strike
+as no demands were made. The union found itself pitted against the
+General Managers' Association, representing twenty-four roads centering
+or terminating in Chicago, which were bound by contracts with the
+Pullman Company. The association had been organized in 1886, its main
+business being to determine a common policy as to traffic and freight
+rates, but incidentally it dealt also with wages. The strike soon spread
+over an enormous territory. Many of the members of the brotherhoods
+joined in, although their organizations were opposed to the strike. The
+lawless element in Chicago took advantage of the opportunity to rob,
+burn, and plunder, so that the scenes of the great railway strike of
+1877 were now repeated. The damages in losses of property and business
+to the country have been estimated at $80,000,000. On July 7, E.V. Debs,
+president, and other principal officers of the American Railway Union
+were indicted, arrested, and held under $10,000 bail. On July 13 they
+were charged with contempt of the United States Court in disobeying an
+injunction which enjoined them, among other things, from compelling or
+inducing by threats railway employes to strike. The strike had already
+been weakening for some days. On July 12, at the request of the American
+Railway Union, about twenty-five of the executive officers of national
+and international labor unions affiliated with the American Federation
+of Labor met in conference in Chicago to discuss the situation. Debs
+appeared and urged a general strike by all labor organizations. But the
+conference decided that &quot;it would be unwise and disastrous to the
+interests <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139" />of labor to extend the strike any further than it had already
+gone,&quot; and advised the strikers to return to work. On July 13, the
+American Railway Union, through the Mayor of Chicago, offered the
+General Managers' Association to declare the strike off, provided the
+men should be restored to their former positions without prejudice,
+except in cases where they had been convicted of crime. But the
+Association refused to deal with the union. The strike was already
+virtually beaten by the combined moral effect of the indictment of the
+leaders and of the arrival in Chicago of United States troops, which
+President Cleveland sent in spite of the protest of Governor Altgeld of
+Illinois.</p>
+
+<p>The labor organizations were taught two important lessons. First, that
+nothing can be gained through revolutionary striking, for the government
+was sufficiently strong to cope with it; and second, that the employers
+had obtained a formidable ally in the courts.<a name="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>Defeats in strikes, depression in trade, a rapidly falling labor market
+and court prosecutions were powerful allies of those socialistic and
+radical leaders inside the Federation who aspired to convert it from a
+mere economic organization into an economic-political one and make it
+embark upon the sea of independent politics.</p>
+
+<p>The convention of 1893 is memorable in that it submitted to the
+consideration of affiliated unions a &quot;political programme.&quot; The preamble
+to the &quot;programme&quot; recited that the English trade unions had recently
+launched upon independent politics &quot;as auxiliary to their economic
+action.&quot; The eleven planks of the program demanded: compulsory
+education; the right of popular initiative in legislation; a legal
+eight-hour work-day; <a name="Page_140" id="Page_140" />governmental inspection of mines and workshops;
+abolition of the sweating system; employers' liability laws; abolition
+of the contract system upon public work; municipal ownership of electric
+light, gas, street railway, and water systems; the nationalization of
+telegraphs, telephones, railroads, and mines; &quot;the collective ownership
+by the people of all means of production and distribution&quot;; and the
+referendum upon all legislation.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after the convention of 1893 affiliated unions began to give
+their endorsement to the political program. Not until comparatively late
+did any opposition make itself manifest. Then it took the form of a
+demand by such conservative leaders as Gompers, McGuire, and Strasser,
+that plank 10, with its pledge in favor of &quot;the collective ownership by
+the people of all means of production and distribution,&quot; be stricken
+out. Notwithstanding this, the majority of national trade unions
+endorsed the program.</p>
+
+<p>During 1894 the trade unions were active participants in politics. In
+November, 1894, the <i>Federationist</i> gave a list of more than 300 union
+members candidates for some elective office. Only a half dozen of these,
+however, were elected. It was mainly to these local failures that
+Gompers pointed in his presidential address at the convention of 1894 as
+an argument against the adoption of the political program by the
+Federation. His attitude clearly foreshadowed the destiny of the program
+at the convention. The first attack was made upon the preamble, on the
+ground that the statement therein that the English trade unions had
+declared for independent political action was false. By a vote of 1345
+to 861 the convention struck out the preamble. Upon motion of the
+typographical union, a substitute was adopted call<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141" />ing for the
+&quot;abolition of the monopoly system of land holding and the substitution
+therefor of a title of occupancy and use only.&quot; Some of the delegates
+seem to have interpreted this substitute as a declaration for the single
+tax; but the majority of those who voted in its favor probably acted
+upon the principle &quot;anything to beat socialism.&quot; Later the entire
+program was voted down. That sealed the fate of the move for an
+independent labor party.</p>
+
+<p>The American Federation of Labor was almost drawn into the whirlpool of
+partisan politics during the Presidential campaign of 1896. Three
+successive conventions had declared in favor of the free coinage of
+silver; and now the Democratic party had come out for free coinage. In
+this situation very many prominent trade union leaders declared publicly
+for Bryan. President Gompers, however, issued a warning to all
+affiliated unions to keep out of partisan politics. Notwithstanding this
+Secretary McGraith, at the next convention of the Federation, charged
+President Gompers with acting in collusion with the Democratic
+headquarters throughout the campaign in aid of Bryan's candidacy. After
+a lengthy secret session the convention approved the conduct of Gompers.
+Free silver continued to be endorsed annually down to the convention of
+1898, when the return of industrial prosperity and rising prices put an
+end to it as a demand advocated by labor.</p>
+
+<p>The depressed nineties demonstrated conclusively that a new era had
+arrived. No longer was the labor movement a mere plaything of the
+alternating waves of prosperity and depression. Formerly, as we saw, it
+had centered on economic or trade-union action during prosperity only to
+change abruptly to &quot;panaceas&quot; and poli<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142" />tics with the descent of
+depression. Now the movement, notwithstanding possible changes in
+membership, and persistent political leanings in some portions of it, as
+a whole for the first time became stable in purpose and action. Trade
+unionism has won over politics.</p>
+
+<p>This victory was synchronous with the first successful working out of a
+national trade agreement and the institutionalization of trade unionism
+in a leading industry, namely stove molding. While one of the earliest
+stable trade agreements in a conspicuous trade covering a local field
+was a bricklayers' agreement in Chicago in 1887, the era of trade
+agreements really dates from the national system established in the
+stove foundry industry in 1891. It is true also that the iron and steel
+workers had worked under a national trade agreement since 1866. However,
+that trade was too exceptionally strong to be typical.</p>
+
+<p>The stove industry had early reached a high degree of development and
+organization. There had existed since 1872 the National Association of
+Stove Manufacturers, an organization dealing with prices and embracing
+in its membership the largest stove manufacturers of the country. The
+stove foundrymen, therefore, unlike the manufacturers in practically all
+other industries at that time, controlled in a large measure their own
+market. Furthermore, the product had been completely standardized and
+reduced to a piecework basis, and machinery had not taken the place of
+the molders' skill. It consequently was no mere accident that the stove
+industry was the first to develop a system of permanent industrial
+peace. But, on the other hand, this was not automatically established as
+soon as the favorable external conditions were provided. In reality,
+only after years of <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143" />struggle, of strikes and lockouts, and after the
+two sides had fought each other &quot;to a standstill,&quot; was the system
+finally installed.</p>
+
+<p>The eighties abounded in stove molders' strikes, and in 1886 the
+national union began to render effective aid. The Stove Founders'
+National Defense Association was formed in 1886 as an employers'
+association of stove manufacturers. The Defense Association aimed at a
+national labor policy; it was organized for &quot;resistance against any
+unjust demands of their workmen, and such other purposes as may from
+time to time prove or appear to be necessary for the benefit of the
+members thereof as employers of labor.&quot; Thus, after 1886, the alignment
+was made national on both sides. The great battle was fought the next
+year.</p>
+
+<p>March 8, 1887, the employes of the Bridge and Beach Manufacturing
+Company in St. Louis struck for an advance in wages and the struggle at
+once became one between the International Union and the National Defense
+Association. The St. Louis company sent its patterns to foundries in
+other districts, but the union successfully prevented their use. This
+occasioned a series of strikes in the West and of lockouts in the East,
+affecting altogether about 5000 molders. It continued thus until June,
+when the St. Louis patterns were recalled, the Defense Association
+having provided the company with a sufficient number of strike-breakers.
+Each side was in a position to claim the victory for itself; so evenly
+matched were the opposing forces.</p>
+
+<p>During the next four years disputes in Association plants were rare. In
+August 1890, a strike took place in Pittsburgh and, for the first time
+in the history of the industry, it was settled by a written trade
+agreement with <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144" />the local union. This supported the idea of a national
+trade agreement between the two organizations. Since the dispute of
+1887, negotiations with this object were from time to time conducted,
+the Defense Association invariably taking the initiative. Finally, the
+national convention of the union in 1890 appointed a committee to meet a
+like committee of the Defense Association. The conference took place
+March 25, 1891, and worked out a complete plan of organization for the
+stove molding industry. Every year two committees of three members each,
+chosen respectively by the union and the association, were to meet in
+conference and to draw up general laws for the year. In case of a
+dispute arising in a locality, if the parties immediately concerned were
+unable to arrive at common terms, the chief executives of both
+organizations, the president of the union and the president of the
+association, were to step in and try to effect an adjustment. If,
+however, they, too, failed, a conference committee composed of an equal
+number of members from each side was to be called in and its findings
+were to be final. Meanwhile the parties were enjoined from engaging in
+hostilities while the matter at dispute was being dealt with by the duly
+appointed authorities. Each organization obligated itself to exercise
+&quot;police authority&quot; over its constituents, enforcing obedience to the
+agreement. The endorsement of the plan by both organizations was
+practically unanimous, and has continued in operation without
+interruption for thirty years until the present day.</p>
+
+<p>Since the end of the nineties the trade agreement has become one of the
+most generally accepted principles and aspirations of the American labor
+movement. However, it is not to be understood that by accepting the
+principle <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145" />of the trade agreement the labor movement has committed
+itself to unlimited arbitration of industrial disputes. The basic idea
+of the trade agreement is that of collective bargaining rather than
+arbitration. The two terms are not always distinguished, but the
+essential difference is that in the trade agreement proper no outside
+party intervenes to settle the dispute and make an award. The agreement
+is made by direct negotiation between the two organized groups and the
+sanction which each holds over the head of the other is the strike or
+lockout. If no agreement can be reached, the labor organization as well
+as the employers' association, insists on its right to refuse
+arbitration, whether it be &quot;voluntary&quot; or so-called &quot;compulsory.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The clarification of the conception of the trade agreement was perhaps
+the main achievement of the nineties. Without the trade agreement the
+labor movement could hardly come to eschew &quot;panaceas&quot; and to
+reconstitute itself upon the basis of opportunism. The coming in of the
+trade agreement, whether national, sectional, or local, was also the
+chief factor in stabilizing the movement against industrial depressions.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146" />FOOTNOTE:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28">[28]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_159">159-160.</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_7" id="CHAPTER_7" />CHAPTER 7</h2>
+
+<h2>TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS</h2>
+
+
+<p>While it was in the nineties that trade unionists first tasted the
+sweets of institutionalization in industry through &quot;recognition&quot; by
+employers, it was also during the later eighties and during the nineties
+that they experienced a revival of suspicion and hostility on the part
+of the courts and a renewal of legal restraints upon their activities,
+which were all the more discouraging since for a generation or more they
+had practically enjoyed non-interference from that quarter. It was at
+this period that the main legal weapons against trade unionism were
+forged and brought to a fine point in practical application. The history
+of the courts' attitude to trade unionism may therefore best be treated
+from the standpoint of the nineties.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of court interference was not altogether new in the
+eighties. We took occasion to point out the effect of court interference
+in labor disputes in the first and second decades of the nineteenth
+century and again in the thirties. Mention was made also of the court's
+decision in the Theiss boycott case in New York in 1886, which proved a
+prime moving factor in launching the famous Henry George campaign for
+Mayor. And we gave due note to the role of court injunctions in the Debs
+strike of 1894 and in other strikes. Our present interest is, however,
+more in the court doctrines than in their effects: more concerned with
+the development of the legal <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147" />thought underlying the policies of the
+courts than with the reactions of the labor movement to the policies
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest case on record, namely the Philadelphia shoemakers' strike
+case in 1806,<a name="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29">[29]</a> charged two offences; one was a combination to raise
+wages, the other a combination to injure others; both offences were
+declared by the judge to be forbidden by the common law. To the public
+at large the prosecution seemed to rest solely upon the charge that the
+journeymen combined to raise wages. The defense took advantage of this
+and tried to make use of it for its own purposes. The condemnation of
+the journeymen on this ground gave rise to a vehement protest on the
+part of the journeymen themselves and their friends. It was pointed out
+that the journeymen were convicted for acts which are considered lawful
+when done by masters or merchants. Therefore when the next conspiracy
+case in New York in 1809 was decided, the court's charge to the jury was
+very different. Nothing was said about the illegality of the
+combinations to raise wages; on the contrary, the jury was instructed
+that this was not the question at issue. The issue was stated to be
+whether the defendants had combined to secure an increase in their wages
+by unlawful means. To the question what means were unlawful, in this
+case the answer was given in general terms, namely that &quot;coercive and
+arbitrary&quot; means are unlawful. The fines imposed upon the defendants
+were only nominal.</p>
+
+<p>A third notable case of the group, namely the Pittsburgh case in 1815,
+grew out of a strike for higher wages, as did the preceding cases. The
+charges were the same as in those and the judge took the identical view
+that was <a name="Page_148" id="Page_148" />taken by the court in the New York case. However, he explained
+more fully the meaning of &quot;coercive and arbitrary&quot; action. &quot;Where
+diverse persons,&quot; he said, &quot;confederate together by direct means to
+impoverish or prejudice a third person, or to do acts prejudicial to the
+community,&quot; they are engaged in an unlawful conspiracy. Concretely, it
+is unlawful to &quot;conspire to compel an employer to hire a certain
+description of persons,&quot; or to &quot;conspire to prevent a man from freely
+exercising his trade in a particular place,&quot; or to &quot;conspire to compel
+men to become members of a particular society, or to contribute toward
+it,&quot; or when persons &quot;conspire to compel men to work at certain prices.&quot;
+Thus it was the effort of the shoemakers' society to secure a closed
+shop which fell chiefly under the condemnation of the court.</p>
+
+<p>The counsel for the defense argued in this case that whatever is lawful
+for one individual is lawful also for a combination of individuals. The
+court, however, rejected the arguments on the ground that there was a
+basic difference between an individual doing a thing and a combination
+of individuals doing the same thing. The doctrine of conspiracy was thus
+given a clear and unequivocal definition.</p>
+
+<p>Another noteworthy feature of the Pittsburgh case was the emphasis given
+to the idea that the defendants' conduct was harmful to the public. The
+judge condemned the defendants because they tended &quot;to create a monopoly
+or to restrain the entire freedom of the trade.&quot; What a municipality is
+not allowed to do, he argued, a private association of individuals must
+not be allowed to do.</p>
+
+<p>Of the group of cases which grew out of the revival of trade union
+activity in the twenties, the first, a case <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149" />against Philadelphia master
+shoemakers, was decided in 1821, and the judge held that it was lawful
+for the masters, who had recently been forced by employes to a wage
+increase, to combine in order to restore wages to their &quot;natural level.&quot;
+But he also held that had the employers combined to depress wages of
+journeymen below the level fixed by free competition, it would have been
+criminal.</p>
+
+<p>Another Pennsylvania case resulted from a strike by Philadelphia tailors
+in 1827 to secure the reinstatement of six discharged members. As in
+previous cases the court rejected the plea that a combination to raise
+wages was illegal, and directed the attention of the jury to the
+question of intimidation and coercion, especially as it affected third
+parties. The defendants were found guilty.</p>
+
+<p>In a third, a New York hatters' case of 1823, the charge of combining to
+raise wages was entirely absent from the indictment. The issue turned
+squarely on the question of conspiring to injure others by coercion and
+intimidation. The hatters were adjudged guilty of combining to deprive a
+non-union workman of his livelihood.</p>
+
+<p>The revival of trade unionism in the middle of the thirties brought in,
+as we saw, another crop of court cases.</p>
+
+<p>In 1829 New York State had made &quot;conspiracy to commit any act injurious
+to public morals or to trade or commerce&quot; a statutory offence, thus
+reenforcing the existing common law. In 1835 the shoemakers of Geneva
+struck to enforce the closed shop against a workman who persisted in
+working below the union rate. The indictment went no further than
+charging this offence. The journeymen were convicted in a lower court
+and appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. Chief Justice Savage, in
+his decision condemning the journeymen, <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150" />broadened the charge to include
+a conspiracy to raise wages and condemned both as &quot;injurious to trade or
+commerce&quot; and thus expressly covered by statute.</p>
+
+<p>The far-reaching effects of this decision came clearly to light in a
+tailor's case the next year. The journeymen were charged with practising
+intimidation and violence, while picketing their employers' shops during
+a prolonged strike against a reduction in wages. Judge Edwards, the
+trial judge, in his charge to the jury, stigmatized the tailors' society
+as an illegal combination, largely basing himself upon Judge Savage's
+decision. The jury handed in a verdict of guilty, but recommended mercy.
+The judge fined the president of the society $150, one journeyman $100,
+and the others $50 each. The fines were immediately paid with the aid of
+a collection taken up in court.</p>
+
+<p>The decisions produced a violent reaction among the workingmen. They
+held a mass-meeting in City Hall Park, with an estimated attendance of
+27,000, burned Judge Savage and Judge Edwards in effigy, and resolved to
+call a state convention to form a workingmen's party.</p>
+
+<p>So loud, indeed, was the cry that justice had been thwarted that juries
+were doubtless influenced by it. Two cases came up soon after the
+tailors' case, the Hudson, New York, shoemakers' in June and the
+Philadelphia plasterers' in July 1836. In both the juries found a
+verdict of not guilty. Of all journeymen indicted during this period the
+Hudson shoemakers had been the most audacious ones in enforcing the
+closed shop. They not only refused to work for employers who hired
+non-society men, but fined them as well; yet they were acquitted.</p>
+
+<p>Finally six years later, in 1842, long after the offending trade
+societies had gone out of existence under the <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151" />stress of unemployment
+and depression, came the famous decision in the Massachusetts case of
+Commonwealth <i>v.</i> Hunt.</p>
+
+<p>This was a shoemakers' case and arose out of a strike. The decision in
+the lower court was adverse to the defendants. However, it was reversed
+by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The decision, written by
+Chief Justice Shaw, is notable in that it holds trade unions to be legal
+organizations. In the earlier cases it was never in so many words held
+that trade unions were unlawful, but in all of them there were
+suggestions to this effect. Now it was recognized that trade unions are
+<i>per se</i> lawful organizations and, though men may band themselves
+together to effect a criminal object under the disguise of a trade
+union, such a purpose is not to be assumed without positive evidence. On
+the contrary, the court said that &quot;when an association is formed for
+purposes actually innocent, and afterwards its powers are abused by
+those who have the control and management of it to purposes of
+oppression and injustice, it will be criminal in those who misuse it, or
+give consent thereto, but not in other members of the association.&quot; This
+doctrine that workingmen may lawfully organize trade unions has since
+Commonwealth <i>v.</i> Hunt been adopted in nearly every case.</p>
+
+<p>The other doctrine which Justice Shaw advanced in this case has been
+less generally accepted. It was that the members of a union may procure
+the discharge of non-members through strikes for this purpose against
+their employers. This is the essence of the question of the closed shop;
+and Commonwealth <i>v.</i> Hunt goes the full length of regarding strikes for
+the closed shop as legal. Justice Shaw said that there is nothing
+unlawful about <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152" />such strikes, if they are conducted in a peaceable
+manner. This was much in advance of the position which is taken by many
+courts upon this question even at the present day.</p>
+
+<p>After Commonwealth <i>v.</i> Hunt came a forty years' lull in the courts'
+application of the doctrine of conspiracy to trade unions. In fact so
+secure did trade unionists feel from court attacks that in the seventies
+and early eighties their leaders advocated the legal incorporation of
+trade unions. The desire expressed for incorporation is of extreme
+interest compared with the opposite attitude of the present day. The
+motive behind it then was more than the usual one of securing protection
+for trade union funds against embezzlement by officers. A full
+enumeration of other motives can be obtained from the testimony of the
+labor leaders before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in
+1883. McGuire, the national secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters
+and Joiners, argued before the committee for a national incorporation
+law mainly for the reason that such a law passed by Congress would
+remove trade unions from the operation of the conspiracy laws that still
+existed though in a dormant state on the statute books of a number of
+Slates, notably New York and Pennsylvania. He pleaded that &quot;if it
+(Congress) had not the power, it shall assume the power; and, if
+necessary, amend the constitution to do it.&quot; Adolph Strasser of the
+cigar makers raised the point of protection for union funds and gave as
+a second reason that it &quot;will give our organization more stability, and
+in that manner we shall be able to avoid strikes by perhaps settling
+with our employers, when otherwise we should be unable to do so, because
+when our employers know that we are to be legally recognized that will
+exer<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153" />cise such moral force upon them that they cannot avoid recognizing
+us themselves.&quot; W.H. Foster, the secretary of the Legislative Committee
+of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, stated that in
+Ohio the law provided for incorporation at a slight cost, but he wanted
+a national law to &quot;legalize arbitration,&quot; by which he meant that &quot;when a
+question of dispute arose between the employers and the employed,
+instead of having it as now, when the one often refuses to even
+acknowledge or discuss the question with the other, if they were
+required to submit the question to arbitration, or to meet on the same
+level before an impartial tribunal, there is no doubt but what the
+result would be more in our favor than it is now, when very often public
+opinion cannot hear our cause.&quot; He, however, did not desire to have
+compulsory arbitration, but merely compulsory dealing with the union, or
+compulsory investigation by an impartial body, both parties to remain
+free to accept the award, provided, however, &quot;that once they do agree
+the agreement shall remain in force for a fixed period.&quot; Like Foster,
+John Jarrett, the President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and
+Steel Workers, argued for an incorporation law before the committee
+solely for its effect upon conciliation and arbitration. He, too, was
+opposed to compulsory arbitration, but he showed that he had thought out
+the point less clearly than Foster.</p>
+
+<p>The young and struggling trade unions of the early eighties saw only the
+good side of incorporation without its pitfalls; their subsequent
+experience with courts converted them from exponents into ardent
+opponents of incorporation and of what Foster termed &quot;legalized
+arbitration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During the eighties there was much legislation ap<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154" />plicable to labor
+disputes. The first laws against boycotting and blacklisting and the
+first laws which prohibited discrimination against members who belonged
+to a union were passed during this decade. At this time also were passed
+the first laws to promote voluntary arbitration and most of the laws
+which allowed unions to incorporate. Only in New York and Maryland were
+the conspiracy laws repealed. Four States enacted such laws and many
+States passed laws against intimidation. Statutes, however, played at
+that time, as they do now, but a secondary role. The only statute which
+proved of much importance was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. When Congress
+passed this act in 1890, few people thought it had application to labor
+unions. In 1893-1894, as we shall see, however, this act was
+successfully invoked in several labor controversies, notably in the Debs
+case.</p>
+
+<p>The bitterness of the industrial struggle during the eighties made it
+inevitable that the labor movement should acquire an extensive police
+and court record. It was during that decade that charges like &quot;inciting
+to riot,&quot; &quot;obstructing the streets,&quot; &quot;intimidation,&quot; and &quot;trespass&quot; were
+first extensively used in connection with labor disputes. Convictions
+were frequent and penalties often severe. What attitude the courts at
+that time took toward labor violence was shown most strikingly, even if
+in too extreme a form to be entirely typical, in the case of the Chicago
+anarchists.<a name="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>But the significance of the eighties in the development of relations of
+the courts to organized labor came not from these cases which were,
+after all, nothing but ordinary police cases magnified to an unusual
+degree by the <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155" />intensity of the industrial struggle and by the excited
+state of public opinion, but in the new lease of life to the doctrine of
+conspiracy as affecting labor disputes. During the eighties and nineties
+there seemed to have been more conspiracy cases than during all the rest
+of the century. It was especially in 1886 and 1887 that organized labor
+found court interference a factor. At this time, as we saw, there was
+also passed voluminous state legislation strengthening the application
+of the common law doctrine of conspiracy to labor disputes. The
+conviction of the New York boycotters in 1886 and many similar
+convictions, though less widely known, of participants in strikes and
+boycotts were obtained upon this ground.</p>
+
+<p>Where the eighties witnessed a revolution was in a totally new use made
+of the doctrine of conspiracy by the courts when they began to issue
+injunctions in labor cases. Injunctions were an old remedy, but not
+until the eighties did they figure in the struggles between labor and
+capital. In England an injunction was issued in a labor dispute as early
+as 1868;<a name="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31">[31]</a> but this case was not noticed in the United States and had
+nothing whatever to do with the use of injunctions in this country. When
+and where the first labor injunction was issued in the United States is
+not known. An injunction was applied for in a New York case as early as
+1880 but was denied.<a name="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32">[32]</a> An injunction was granted in Iowa in 1884, but
+not until the Southwest railway strike in 1886 were injunctions used
+extensively. By 1890 the public had yet heard little of injunctions in
+connection with labor disputes, but such use was already fortified by
+numerous precedents.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156" />The first injunctions that attained wide publicity were those issued by
+Federal courts during the strike of engineers against the Chicago,
+Burlington, &amp; Quincy Railroad<a name="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33">[33]</a> in 1888 and during the railway strikes
+of the early nineties. Justification for these injunctions was found in
+the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust
+Act. Often the State courts used these Federal cases as precedents, in
+disregard of the fact that there the issuance of injunctions was based
+upon special statutes. In other cases the more logical course was
+followed of justifying the issuance of injunctions upon grounds of
+equity. But most of the acts which the courts enjoined strikers from
+doing were already prohibited by the criminal laws. Hence organized
+labor objected that these injunctions violated the old principle that
+equity will not interfere to prevent crime. No such difficulties arose
+when the issuance of injunctions was justified as a measure for the
+protection of property. In the Debs case,<a name="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34">[34]</a> when the Supreme Court of
+the United States passed upon the issuance of injunctions in labor
+disputes, it had recourse to this theory.</p>
+
+<p>But the theory of protection to property also presented some
+difficulties. The problem was to establish the principle of irreparable
+injury to the complainant's property. This was a simple matter when the
+strikers were guilty of trespass, arson, or sabotage. Then they damaged
+the complainant's physical property and, since they were usually men
+against whom judgments are worthless, any injury they might do was
+irreparable. But these were exceptional cases. Usually injunctions <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157" />were
+sought to prevent not violence, but strikes, picketing, or boycotting.
+What is threatened by strikes and picketing is not the employer's
+physical property, but the relations he has established as an employer
+of labor, summed up in his expectancy of retaining the services of old
+employes and of obtaining new ones. Boycotting, obviously, has no
+connection with acts of violence against physical property, but is
+designed merely to undermine the profitable relations which the employer
+had developed with his customers. These expectancies are advantages
+enjoyed by established businesses over new competitors and are usually
+transferable and have market value. For these reasons they are now
+recognized as property in the law of good-will and unfair competition
+for customers, having been first formulated about the middle of the
+nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>The first case which recognized these expectancies of a labor market was
+Walker <i>v.</i> Cronin,<a name="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35">[35]</a> decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
+Court in 1871. It held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover
+damages from the defendants, certain union officials, because they had
+induced his employes, who were free to quit at will, to leave his employ
+and had also been instrumental in preventing him from getting new
+employes. But as yet these expectancies were not considered property in
+the full sense of the word. A transitional case is that of Brace Bros.
+<i>v.</i> Evans in 1888.<a name="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36">[36]</a> In that case an injunction against a boycott was
+justified on the ground that the value of the complainant's physical
+property was being destroyed when the market was cut off. Here the
+expectancies based upon relations which customers and employes were
+<a name="Page_158" id="Page_158" />thought of as giving value to the physical property, but they were not
+yet recognized as a distinct asset which in itself justifies the
+issuance of injunctions.</p>
+
+<p>This next step was taken in the Barr<a name="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37">[37]</a> case in New Jersey in 1893.
+Since then there have been frequent statements in labor injunction cases
+to the effect that both the expectancies based upon the
+merchant-function and the expectancies based upon the employer-function
+are property.</p>
+
+<p>But the recognition of &quot;probable expectancies&quot; as property was not in
+itself sufficient to complete the chain of reasoning that justifies
+injunctions in labor disputes. It is well established that no recovery
+can be had for losses due to the exercise by others of that which they
+have a lawful right to do. Hence the employers were obliged to charge
+that the strikes and boycotts were undertaken in pursuance of an
+unlawful conspiracy. Thus the old conspiracy doctrine was combined with
+the new theory, and &quot;malicious&quot; interference with &quot;probable
+expectancies&quot; was held unlawful. Earlier conspiracy had been thought of
+as a criminal offence, now it was primarily a civil wrong. The emphasis
+had been upon the danger to the public, now it was the destruction of
+the employer's business. Occasionally the court went so far as to say
+that all interference with the business of employers is unlawful. The
+better view developed was that interference is <i>prima facie</i> unlawful
+but may be justified. But even this view placed the burden of proof upon
+the workingmen. It actually meant that the court opened for itself the
+way for holding the conduct of the workingmen to be lawful only when it
+sympathized with their demands.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159" />During the eighties, despite the far-reaching development of legal
+theories on labor disputes, the issuance of injunctions was merely
+sporadic, but a veritable crop came up during 1893-1894. Only the
+best-known injunctions can be here noted. The injunctions issued in the
+course of the Southwest railway strike in 1886 and the Burlington strike
+in 1888 have already received mention. An injunction was also issued by
+a Federal court during a miners' strike at Coeur d'Al&egrave;ne, Idaho, in
+1892.<a name="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38">[38]</a> A famous injunction was the one of Judges Taft and Rickes in
+1893, which directed the engineers, who were employed by connecting
+railways, to handle the cars of the Ann Arbor and Michigan railway,
+whose engineers were on strike.<a name="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39">[39]</a> This order elicited much criticism
+because it came close to requiring men to work against their will. This
+was followed by the injunction of Judge Jenkins in the Northern Pacific
+case, which directly prohibited the quitting of work.<a name="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40">[40]</a> From this
+injunction the defendants took an appeal, with the result that in Arthur
+<i>v.</i> Oakes<a name="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41">[41]</a> it was once for all established that the quitting of work
+may not be enjoined.</p>
+
+<p>During the Pullman strike numerous injunctions, most sweeping in
+character, were issued by the Federal courts upon the initiative of the
+Department of Justice. Under the injunction which was issued in Chicago
+arose the famous contempt case against Eugene V. Debs,<a name="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42">[42]</a> which was
+carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of the
+court in this case is notable, because it covered the main points of
+doubt above mentioned and <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160" />placed the use of injunctions in labor
+disputes upon a firm legal basis.</p>
+
+<p>Another famous decision of the Supreme Court growing out of the railway
+strikes of the early nineties was in the Lennon case<a name="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43">[43]</a> in 1897.
+Therein the court held that all persons who have actual notice of the
+issuance of an injunction are bound to obey its terms, whether they were
+mentioned by name or not; in other words, the courts had evolved the
+&quot;blanket injunction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the nineties, the labor movement, enriched on the one side
+by the lessons of the past and by the possession of a concrete goal in
+the trade agreement, but pressed on the other side by a new form of
+legal attack and by the growing consolidation of industry, started upon
+a career of new power but faced at the same time new difficulties.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29">[29]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_6">6.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30">[30]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_91">91-93.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31">[31]</a> Springhead Spinning Co. <i>v.</i> Riley, L.R. 6 E. 551 (1868).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32">[32]</a> Johnson Harvester Co. <i>v.</i> Meinhardt, 60 How. Pr. 171.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33">[33]</a> Chicago, Burlington, etc., R.R. Co. <i>v.</i> Union Pacific R.R. Co.,
+U.S. Dist. Ct., D. Neb. (1888).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34">[34]</a> In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35">[35]</a> 107 Mass. 555 (1871).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36">[36]</a> 5 Pa. Co. Ct. 163 (1888).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37">[37]</a> Barr <i>v.</i> Trades' Council, 53 N.J.E. 101 (1894).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38">[38]</a> Coeur d'Al&egrave;ne Mining Co. <i>v.</i> Miners' Union, 51 Fed. 260 (1892).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39">[39]</a> Toledo, etc. Co. <i>v.</i> Penn. Co., 54 Fed. 730 (1893).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40">[40]</a> Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. <i>v.</i> N.P.R. Co., 60 Fed. 803 (1895).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41">[41]</a> 64 Fed. 310 (1894).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42">[42]</a> In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1894).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43">[43]</a> In re Lennon, 166 U.S. 548 (1897).</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II" />PART II</h2>
+
+<h2>THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162" /><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163" /></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_8" id="CHAPTER_8" />CHAPTER 8</h2>
+
+<h2>PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES, 1898-1914</h2>
+
+
+<p>When, in 1898, industrial prosperity returned, there came with it a
+rapid expansion of labor organization. At no time in its history, prior
+to the World War, not excepting the Great Upheaval in the eighties, did
+labor organizations make such important gains as during the following
+five years. True, in none of these years did the labor movement add over
+half a million members as in the memorable year of 1886; nevertheless,
+from the standpoint of permanence, the upheaval during the eighties can
+scarcely be classed with the one which began in the late nineties.</p>
+
+<p>During 1898 the membership of the American Federation of Labor remained
+practically stationary, but during 1899 it increased by about 70,000 (to
+about 350,000); in 1900, it increased by 200,000; in 1901, by 240,000;
+in 1902, by 237,000; in 1903, by 441,000; in 1904, by 210,000, bringing
+the total to 1,676,000. In 1905 a backward tide set in; and the
+membership decreased by nearly 200,000 during that year. It remained
+practically stationary until 1910, when the upward movement was resumed,
+finally bringing the membership to near the two million mark, to
+1,996,000, in 1913. If we include organizations unaffiliated with the
+Federation, <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164" />among them the bricklayers<a name="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44">[44]</a> and the four railway
+brotherhoods, with about 700,000 members, the union membership for 1913
+will be brought near a total of 2,700,000.</p>
+
+<p>A better index of progress is the proportion of organized workers to
+organizable workers. Two such estimates have been made. Professor George
+E. Barnett figures the organizable workers in 1900 at 21,837,000; in
+1910 at 30,267,000. On this basis wage earners were 3.5 percent
+organized in 1900 and 7 percent in 1910.<a name="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45">[45]</a> Leo Wolman submits more
+detailed figures for 1910. Excluding employers, the salaried group,
+agricultural and clerical workers, persons engaged in personal or
+domestic service, and those below twenty years of age (unorganizable
+workers), the organizable total was 11,490,944. With an estimated trade
+union strength of 2,116,317 for 1910 the percentage of the organized was
+18.4.<a name="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46">[46]</a> Excluding only employers and salaried persons, his percentage
+was 7.7, which compares closely with Professor Barnett's.</p>
+
+<p>Of greater significance are Wolman's figures for organization by
+industries. These computations show that in 1910 the breweries had 88.8
+percent, organized, printing and book binding 34.3 percent, mining 30.5
+percent, transportation 17.3 percent, clothing 16.9 percent, building
+trades 16.2 percent, iron and steel 9.9 percent, metal 4.7 percent, and
+textile 3.7 percent.<a name="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47">[47]</a> By separate occupations, railway conductors,
+brakemen, and locomotive engineers were from 50-100 percent <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165" />organized;
+printers, locomotive firemen, molders and plasterers, from 30-50
+percent; bakers, carpenters, plumbers, from 15-30 percent organized.<a name="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48">[48]</a></p>
+
+<p>Accompanying the numerical growth of labor organizations was an
+extension of organization into heretofore untouched trades as well as a
+branching out into new geographical regions, the South and the West. On
+the whole, however, though the Federation was not unmindful of the
+unskilled, still, during the fifteen years after 1898 it brought into
+its fold principally the upper strata of semi-skilled labor. Down to the
+&quot;boom&quot; period brought on by the World War, the Federation did not
+comprise to any great extent either the totally unskilled, or the
+partially skilled foreign-speaking workmen, with the exception of the
+miners and the clothing workers. In other words, those below the level
+of the skilled trades, which did gain admittance, were principally the
+same elements which had asserted their claim to organization during the
+stormy period of the Knights of Labor.<a name="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49">[49]</a> The new accretions to the
+American wage-earning class since the eighties, the East and South
+Europeans, on the one hand, and the ever-growing contingent of
+&quot;floaters&quot; of native and North and West European stock, on the other
+hand, were still largely outside the organization.</p>
+
+<p>The years of prosperity brought an intensified activity of the trade
+unions on a scale hitherto unknown. Wages were raised and hours reduced
+all along the line. The new strength of the trade unions received a
+brilliant test <a name="Page_166" id="Page_166" />during the hard times following the financial panic of
+October 1907, when they successfully fought wage reductions. As good a
+test is found in the conquest of the shorter day. By 1900 the eight-hour
+day was the rule in the building trades, in granite cutting and in
+bituminous coal mining. The most spectacular and costly eight-hour fight
+was waged by the printers. In the later eighties and early nineties, the
+Typographical Union had endeavored to establish a nine-hour day in the
+printing offices. This was given a setback by the introduction of the
+linotype machine during the period of depression, 1893-1897. In spite of
+this obstacle, however, the Typographical Union held its ground.
+Adopting the policy that only journeymen printers must operate the
+linotype machines, the union was able to meet the situation. And,
+furthermore, in 1898, through agreement with the United Typothet&aelig; of
+America, the national association of employers in book and job printing,
+the union was able to gain the nine-hour day in substantially all book
+and job offices. In 1903 the union demanded the eight-hour day in all
+printing offices to become effective January 1, 1906. To gain an
+advantage over the union, the United Typothet&aelig;, late in the summer of
+1905, locked out all its union men. This at once precipitated a strike
+for the eight-hour day. The American Federation of Labor levied a
+special assessment on all its members in aid of the strikers. By 1907
+the Typographical Union won its demand all along the line, although at a
+tremendous cost of money running into several million dollars, and in
+1909 the United Typothet&aelig; formally conceded the eight-hour day.</p>
+
+<p>Another proof of trade union progress is found in the spread of trade
+agreements. The idea of a joint partner<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167" />ship of organized labor and
+organized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since the
+fifties, had been struggling for acceptance, finally showed definite
+signs of coming to be materialized.</p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(1) <i>The Miners</i></p>
+
+<p>In no other industry has a union's struggle for &quot;recognition&quot; offered a
+richer and more instructive picture of the birth of the new order with
+its difficulties as well as its promises than in coal mining. Faced in
+the anthracite field<a name="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50">[50]</a> by a small and well knitted group of employers,
+generally considered a &quot;trust,&quot; and by a no less difficult situation in
+bituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mine
+operators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a space of fifteen
+years in unionizing the one as well as the other; while at the same time
+successfully and progressively solving the gigantic internal problem of
+welding a polyglot mass of workers into a well disciplined and obedient
+army.</p>
+
+<p>The miners' union attained its first successes in the so-called central
+bituminous competitive field, including Western Pennsylvania, West
+Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. In this field a
+beginning had been made in 1886 when the coal operators and the union
+entered into a collective agreement. However, its scope was practically
+confined to Ohio and even that limited agreement went under in 1890.
+<a name="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51">[51]</a>
+With the breakdown of <a name="Page_168" id="Page_168" />this agreement, the membership dwindled so that
+by the time of a general strike in 1894, the total paid-up membership
+was barely 13,000. This strike was undertaken to restore the wage-scale
+of 1893, but during the ensuing years of depression wages were cut still
+further.<a name="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52">[52]</a></p>
+
+<p>The turn came as suddenly as it was spectacular. In 1897, with a
+membership which had dropped to 10,000 and of which 7000 were in Ohio
+and with an empty treasury, the United Mine Workers called a general
+strike trusting to a rising market and to an awakened spirit of
+solidarity in the majority of the unorganized after four years of
+unemployment and distress. In fact the leaders had not miscalculated.
+One hundred thousand or more coal miners obeyed the order to go on a
+strike. In Illinois the union had but a handful of members when the
+strike started, but the miners struck to a man. The tie-up was
+practically complete except in West Virginia. That State had early
+become recognized as the weakest spot in the miners' union's armor.
+Notwithstanding the American Federation of Labor threw almost its entire
+force of organizers into that limited area, which was then only
+beginning to assume its present day importance in the coal mining
+industry, barely one-third of the miners <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169" />were induced to strike. A
+contributing factor was a more energetic interference from the courts
+than in other States. All marching upon the highways and all assemblages
+of the strikers in large gatherings were forbidden by injunctions. On
+one occasion more than a score of men were sentenced to jail for
+contempt of court by Federal Judge Goff. The handicap in West Virginia
+was offset by sympathy and aid from other quarters. Many unions
+throughout the country and even the general public sent the striking
+miners financial aid. In Illinois Governor John R. Tanner refused the
+requests for militia made by several sheriffs.</p>
+
+<p>The general strike of 1897 ended in the central competitive field after
+a twelve-weeks' struggle. The settlement was an unqualified victory for
+the union. It conceded the miners a 20 percent increase in wages, the
+establishment of the eight-hour day, the abolition of company stores,
+semi-monthly payments, and a restoration of the system of fixing
+Interstate wage rates in annual joint conferences with the operators,
+which meant official recognition of the United Mine Workers. The
+operators in West Virginia, however, refused to come in.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these Interstate conferences was held in January, 1898, at
+which the miners were conceded a further increase in wages. In addition,
+the agreement, which was to run for two years, established for Illinois
+the run-of-mine<a name="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53">[53]</a> system of payment, while the size of the screens of
+other states was regulated; and it also conceded the miners the
+check-off system<a name="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54">[54]</a> in every district, <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170" />save that of Western
+Pennsylvania.<a name="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55">[55]</a> Such a comprehensive victory would not have been
+possible had it not been for the upward trend which coal prices had
+taken.</p>
+
+<p>But great as was the union's newly discovered power, it was spread most
+unevenly over the central competitive field. Its firmest grip was in
+Illinois. The well-filled treasury of the Illinois district has many
+times been called upon for large contributions or loans, to enable the
+union to establish itself in some other field. The weakest hold of the
+United Mine Workers has been in West Virginia. At the end of the general
+strike of 1897, the West Virginia membership was only about 4000.
+Moreover, a further spread of the organization met with unusual
+obstacles. A large percentage of the miners of West Virginia are Negroes
+or white mountaineers. These have proven more difficult to organize than
+recent Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who formed the majority
+in the other districts. And yet West Virginia as a growing mining state
+soon assumed a high strategic importance. A lower wage scale, the better
+quality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have made
+West Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in the
+central competitive field. Consequently West Virginia operators have
+been able to operate their mines more days during the year than
+elsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners
+have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States.
+But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West
+Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and in
+campaigns of organization. In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted at
+the behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171" />Company, a West Virginia
+concern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organize
+employes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers while
+in the employ of the company. The injunction was made permanent in 1913.
+The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court of
+Appeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in
+March 1917.<a name="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56">[56]</a> Recently the United States Steel Corporation became a
+dominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lent
+additional strength to the already strong anti-union determination of
+the employers.</p>
+
+<p>Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strict
+adherence to agreements made. This faithfulness to a pledged word, which
+justified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as much
+as it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasions
+by John Mitchell, the national President of the Union. The first test
+came in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the joint
+conference had adjourned. Although they might have won higher wages had
+they struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe test
+came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.<a name="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57">[57]</a> A special union
+convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners
+should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners
+in the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the convention
+voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the
+operators. The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when,
+in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, it
+accepted <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172" />without a strike a reduction in wages in the central
+competitive field. However, as against the miners' conduct in these
+situations must be reckoned the many local strikes or &quot;stoppages&quot; in
+violation of agreements. The difficulty was that the machinery for the
+adjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome.</p>
+
+<p>In 1906 the trade agreement system encountered a new difficulty in the
+friction which developed between the operators of the several
+competitive districts. On the surface, the source of the friction was
+the attempt made by the Ohio and Illinois operators to organize a
+national coal operators' association to take the place of the several
+autonomous district organizations. The Pittsburgh operators, however,
+objected. They preferred the existing system of agreements under which
+each district organization possessed a veto power, since then they could
+keep the advantage over their competitors in Ohio and Indiana with which
+they had started under the original agreement of 1898. The miners in
+this emergency threw their power against the national operators'
+association. A suspension throughout most districts of the central
+competitive field followed. In the end, the miners won an increase in
+wages, but the Interstate agreement system was suspended, giving place
+to separate agreements for each district.</p>
+
+<p>In 1908 the situation of 1906 was repeated. This time the Illinois
+operators refused to attend the Interstate conference on the ground that
+the Interstate agreement severely handicapped Illinois. As said before,
+ever since 1897 payment in Illinois has been upon the run-of-mine basis;
+whereas in all other States of the central competitive field the miners
+were paid for screened coal only. With the operators of each State
+having one vote in the <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173" />joint conference, it can be understood why the
+handicap against Illinois continued. Theoretically, of course, the
+Illinois operators might have voted against the acceptance of any
+agreement which gave an advantage to other States; however, against this
+weighed the fact that the union was strongest in Illinois. The Illinois
+operators, hence, preferred to deal separately with the United Mine
+Workers. Accordingly, an Interstate agreement was drawn up, applying
+only to Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p>In 1910, the Illinois operators again refused to enter the Interstate
+conference, but this time the United Mine Workers insisted upon a return
+to the Interstate agreement system of 1898. On April 1, 1910, operations
+were suspended throughout the central competitive field. By July
+agreements had been secured in every State save Illinois, the latter
+State holding out until September. This long struggle in Illinois was
+the first real test of strength between the operators and the miners
+since 1897. The miners' victory made it inevitable that the Illinois
+operators should eventually reenter the Interstate conference.</p>
+
+<p>In 1912, after repeated conferences, the net result was the restoration
+of the Interstate agreement as it existed before 1906. The special
+burden of which the Illinois operators had been complaining was not
+removed; yet they were compelled by the union to remain a party to the
+Interstate agreement. The union justified its special treatment of the
+operators in Illinois on the ground that the run-of-mine rates were 40
+percent below the screened coal rates, thus compensating them amply for
+the &quot;slack&quot; for which they had to pay under this system. The Federal
+report on &quot;Restriction of Output&quot; of 1904 substan<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174" />tiated the union's
+contention. Ultimately, the United Mine Workers unquestionably hoped to
+establish the run-of-mine system throughout the central competitive
+field.</p>
+
+<p>The union, incidentally to its policy of protecting the miners, has
+considerably affected the market or business structure of the industry.
+An outstanding policy of the union has been to equalize competitive
+costs over the entire area of a market by means of a system of grading
+tonnage rates paid to the miner, whereby competitive advantages of
+location, thickness of vein, and the like were absorbed in higher labor
+costs. This doubtless tended to eliminate cut-throat competition and
+thus stabilize the industry. On the other hand, it may have hindered the
+process of elimination of unprofitable mines, and therefore may be in
+some measure responsible for the present-day overdevelopment in the
+bituminous mining industry, which results in periodic unemployment and
+in idle mines.</p>
+
+<p>In the anthracite coal field in Eastern Pennsylvania the difficulties
+met by the United Mine Workers were at first far greater than in the
+bituminous branch of the industry. First, the working population was
+nearly all foreign-speaking, and the union thus lacked the fulcrum which
+it found in Illinois with its large proportion of English-speaking
+miners accustomed to organization and to carrying on a common purpose.
+Secondly, the employers, instead of being numerous and united only for
+joint dealing with labor, as in bituminous mining, were few in number
+besides being cemented together by a common selling policy on top of a
+common labor policy. In consequence, the union encountered a stone wall
+of opposition, which its loose ranks found for many years well-nigh
+impossible to overcome.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175" />During the general strike of 1897 the United Mine Workers made a
+beginning in organizing the anthracite miners. In September 1900, they
+called a general strike. Although at that time the union had only 8000
+members in this region, the strike order was obeyed by over 100,000
+miners; and within a few weeks the strike became truly general. Probably
+the union could not have won if it had to rely solely on economic
+strength. However, the impending Presidential election led to an
+interference by Senator Mark Hanna, President McKinley's campaign
+manager. Through him President John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers
+was informed that the operators would abolish the objectionable sliding
+scale system of wage payments, increase rates 10 percent and agree to
+meet committees of their employes for the adjustment of grievances.
+This, however, did not carry a formal recognition of the union; it was
+not a trade agreement but merely an unwritten understanding. A part of
+the same understanding was that the terms which had been agreed upon
+should remain in force until April, 1901. At its expiration the
+identical terms were renewed for another year, while the negotiations
+bore the same informal character.</p>
+
+<p>During 1902 the essential instability of the arrangement led to sharp
+friction. The miners claimed that many operators violated the unwritten
+agreement. The operators, on their part, charged that the union was
+using every means for practically enforcing the closed shop, which was
+not granted in the understanding. In the early months of 1902 the miners
+presented demands for a reduction of the hours of labor from 10 to 9,
+for a twenty percent increase in wages, for payment according to the
+weight of coal mined, and for the recognition of <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176" />the union. The
+operators refused to negotiate, and on May 9 the famous anthracite
+strike of 1902 began.</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to detail the events of the anthracite strike. No
+other strike is better known and remembered. More than 150,000 miners
+stood out for approximately five months. The strike was financed by a
+levy of one dollar per week upon all employed miners in the country,
+which yielded over $2,000,000. In addition several hundred thousand
+dollars came in from other trade unions and from the public generally.
+In October, when the country was facing a most serious coal famine,
+President Roosevelt took a hand. He called in the presidents of the
+anthracite railroads and the leading union officials for a conference in
+the White House and urged arbitration. At first he met with rebuff from
+the operators, but shortly afterward, with the aid of friendly pressure
+from New York financiers, the operators consented to accept the award of
+a commission to be appointed by himself. This was the well-known
+Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. Its appointment terminated the
+strike. Not until more than a half year later, however, was the award of
+the Commission made. It conceded the miners a 10 percent increase in
+wages, the eight and nine-hour day, and the privilege of having a union
+check-weighman at the scale where the coal sent up in cars by the miners
+is weighed. Recognition was not accorded the union, except that it was
+required to bear one-half of the expense connected with the maintenance
+of a joint arbitration board created by the Commission. When this award
+was announced there was much dissatisfaction with it among the miners.
+President Mitchell, however, put forth every effort to have the union
+accept the award. Upon a referendum vote the miners accepted his view.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177" />The anthracite coal strike of 1902 was doubtless the most important
+single event in the history of American trade unionism until that time
+and has since scarcely been surpassed. To be sure, events like the great
+railway strike of 1877 and the Chicago Anarchist bomb and trial in
+1886-1887 had equally forced the labor question into public attention.
+What distinguished the anthracite coal strike, however, was that for the
+first time a labor organization tied up for months a strategic industry
+and caused wide suffering and discomfort to the public without being
+condemned as a revolutionary menace to the existing social order calling
+for suppression by the government; it was, on the contrary, adjudged a
+force within the preserves of orderly society and entitled to public
+sympathy. The public identified the anthracite employers with the trust
+movement, which was then new and seemingly bent upon uprooting the
+traditional free American social order; by contrast, the striking miners
+appeared almost as champions of Old America. A strong contributory
+factor was the clumsy tactics of the employers who played into the hands
+of the leaders of the miners. The latter, especially John Mitchell,
+conducted their case with great skill.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the award of the Commission fell considerably short of what the
+union and its sympathizers outside the ranks of labor hoped for. For by
+refusing to grant formal recognition, the Commission failed to
+constitute unionism into a publicly recognized agency in the management
+of industry and declared by implication that the role of unionism ended
+with a presentation of grievances and complaints.</p>
+
+<p>For ten years after the strike of 1902 the union failed to develop the
+strength in the anthracite field which many <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178" />believed would follow.
+Certain proof of the weakness of the union is furnished by the fact that
+the wage-scale in that field remained stationary until 1912 despite a
+rising cost of living. The wages of the anthracite miners in 1912 were
+slightly higher than in 1902, because coal prices had increased and the
+Anthracite Coal Strike Commission had reestablished a sliding scale
+system of tonnage rates.</p>
+
+<p>A great weakness, while the union still struggled for existence, was the
+lack of the &quot;check-off.&quot; Membership would swell immediately before the
+expiration of the agreement but diminish with restoration of quiet. With
+no immediate outlook for a strike the Slav and Italian miners refused to
+pay union dues. The original award was to be in force until April 1,
+1906. In June, 1905, the union membership was less than 39,000. But by
+April 1, 1906, one-half of the miners were in the union. A month's
+suspension of operations followed. Early in May the union and the
+operators reached an agreement to leave the award of the Anthracite Coal
+Strike Commission in force for another three years.</p>
+
+<p>The following three years brought a duplication of the developments of
+1903-1906. Again membership fell off only to return in the spring of
+1909. Again the union demanded formal recognition, and again it was
+refused. Again the original award was extended for three more years.</p>
+
+<p>In the winter of 1912, when the time for renewing the agreement again
+drew near, the entire membership in the three anthracite districts was
+slightly above 29,000. Nevertheless, the union demanded a twenty percent
+raise, a complete recognition of the union, the check-off, and yearly
+agreements, in addition to a more expeditious <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179" />system of settling local
+grievances to replace the slow and cumbersome joint arbitration boards
+provided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180,000 anthracite
+miners followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made no
+attempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basis
+of the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately
+10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in local
+disputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of recognition,
+but by no means a complete recognition. Nor was the check-off system
+granted. Strangest of all, the agreement called for a four-year
+contract, as against a one-year contract originally demanded by the
+union. In spite of the opposition of local leaders, the miners accepted
+the agreement. President White's chief plea for acceptance was the need
+to rebuild the union before anything ambitious could be attempted.</p>
+
+<p>After 1912 the union entered upon the work of organization in earnest.
+In the following two years the membership was more than quadrupled. With
+the stopping of immigration due to the European War, the power of the
+union was greatly increased. Consequently, in 1916, when the agreement
+was renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wage
+increase and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The United
+Mine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share of
+industrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of the
+country; while demonstrating beyond doubt that, with intelligent
+preparation and with sympathetic treatment, the polyglot immigrant
+masses from Southern and Eastern Europe, long thought to be impervious
+to the idea of labor organization, can be changed into reliable material
+for unionism.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180" />The growth of the union in general is shown by the following figures.
+In 1898 it was 33,000; in 1900, 116,000; in 1903, 247,000; in 1908,
+252,000; and in 1913, 378,000.<a name="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58">[58]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(2) <i>The Railway Men</i></p>
+
+<p>The railway men are divided into three groups. One group comprises the
+Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railroad Conductors,
+the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, and the Brotherhood of
+Railroad Trainmen. These are the oldest and strongest railway men's
+organizations and do not belong to the American Federation of Labor. A
+second group are the shopmen, comprising the International Association
+of Machinists; the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop
+Forgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; the
+Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhood
+of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America; the
+International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the International
+Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and more
+miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of
+Railway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, the
+International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad
+Shop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. The
+organizations comprised in the latter two groups <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181" />belong to the American
+Federation of Labor. For the period from 1898 to the outbreak of the
+War, the organizations, popularly known as the &quot;brotherhoods,&quot; namely,
+those of the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trainmen, are of
+outstanding importance.</p>
+
+<p>The brotherhoods were unique among American labor organizations in that
+for many years they practically reproduced in most of their features the
+sort of unionism typified by the great &quot;Amalgamated&quot; unions of the
+fifties and sixties in England.<a name="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59">[59]</a> Like these unions the brotherhoods
+stressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did not
+actually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that the
+emphasis on insurance was due not to &quot;philosophy,&quot; but to the practical
+consideration that, owing to the extra hazardous nature of their
+occupations, the men could get no insurance protection from ordinary
+commercial insurance companies.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of the eighties the brotherhoods began to press energetically
+for improvements in employment conditions and found the railways not
+disinclined to grant their demands in a measure. This was due in great
+measure to the strategic position of these trades, which have it in
+their power completely to tie up the industry when on strike, causing
+enormous losses to the carriers.<a name="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60">[60]</a> Accordingly, they were granted
+wages which fairly placed them among the lower professional groups in
+society as well as other privileges, notably &quot;seniority&quot; in promotion,
+that is promotion based on length of service and not on a free selection
+by the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the train
+personnel service is so <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182" />organized that each employe will pass several
+times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung
+on the industrial ladder.<a name="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61">[61]</a> For instance, a typical passenger train
+engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on
+a passenger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to
+engineer on a passenger train. A similar sequence is arranged in
+advancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority the
+brotherhoods received the right of appeal in cases of discharge, which
+has done much to eliminate discrimination. Since they were enjoying such
+exceptional advantages relative to income, to the security of the job,
+and to the stability of their organization, it is not surprising, in
+view of the limited class solidarity among American laboring men in
+general, that these groups of workers should have chosen to stand alone
+in their wage bargaining and that their refusal to enter &quot;entangling
+alliances&quot; with other less favored groups should have gone even to the
+length of staying out of the American Federation of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>This condition of relative harmony between employer and employe,
+notwithstanding the energetic bargaining, continued for about fifteen
+years until it was disturbed by factors beyond the control of either
+railway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of living
+forced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages.
+At the same time an ever tightening regulation of railway rates by the
+Federal government since 1906 practically prevented a shift of increased
+costs to the shipper. &quot;Class struggles&quot; on the railways began in
+earnest.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183" />The new situation was brought home to the brotherhoods in the course of
+several wage arbitration cases in which they figured.<a name="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62">[62]</a> The outcome
+taught them that the public will give them only limited support in their
+efforts to maintain their real income at the old high level compared
+with other classes of workers.</p>
+
+<p>A most important case arose from a &quot;concerted movement&quot; in 1912<a name="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63">[63]</a> of
+the engineers and firemen on the 52 Eastern roads for higher wages. Two
+separate arbitration boards were appointed. The engineers' board
+consisted of seven members, one each for the interests involved and five
+representing the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers,
+first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because it
+contained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all wages of
+all railway employes fixed by a government commission, which implied a
+restriction of the right to strike. The award in the firemen's case,
+which was decided practically simultaneously with the engineers', failed
+to satisfy either side.</p>
+
+<p>The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move &quot;in
+concert&quot; for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoods
+decided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strike
+occasioned the passage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to
+the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation and
+with more specified condi<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184" />tions relative to the work of the arbitration
+boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit
+to arbitration.</p>
+
+
+<p>The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than
+one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for
+uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded
+time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to
+their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.</p>
+
+<p>Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen
+on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against
+arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the
+board of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath of
+this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the &quot;neutrals&quot; on
+the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with
+several concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities.
+Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded the
+eight-hour day, they categorically refused to consider arbitration.<a name="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64">[64]</a>
+The evolution to a fighting unionism had become complete.</p>
+
+<p>While the brotherhoods of the train service personnel were thus shifting
+their tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by the
+other unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the good
+fortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and
+&quot;recognition.&quot; Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreements
+with the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole,
+however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of a
+precarious sort.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185" />To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they
+started about 1904 a movement for &quot;system federations,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65">[65]</a> that is,
+federations of all organized trades through the length of a given
+railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the
+Illinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federations
+sharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like the
+Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the
+separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In
+1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on
+the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system
+federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty
+systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentative
+Railway Employes' Department had been launched by the American
+Federation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rival
+organization and &quot;illegal&quot; or, at best, &quot;extra-legal&quot; from the
+standpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however,
+was too acute to permit the consideration of &quot;legality&quot; to enter. An
+adjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was
+&quot;legitimatized&quot; through fusion with the &quot;Department,&quot; to which it gave
+its constitution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it took
+only its name. This is the now well-known Railway Employes' Department
+of the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important national
+unions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), and
+which, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took over
+the <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186" />railways from their private owners eight months after America's
+entry into the World War.</p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(3) <i>The Machinery and Metal Trades</i></p>
+
+<p>Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in the
+machinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for
+&quot;recognition&quot; and trade agreements. The outstanding unions in the
+industry are the International Association of Machinists and the
+International Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small
+unions.<a name="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66">[66]</a> The molders' International united in the same union the
+stove molders, who as was seen had been &quot;recognized&quot; in 1891, and the
+molders of parts of machinery and other foundry products. The latter
+found the National Founders' Association as their antagonist or
+potential &quot;co-partner&quot; in the industry.</p>
+
+<p>The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth of
+trade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstate
+agreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmosphere
+favorable to trade agreements. For a time &quot;recognition&quot; and its
+implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the
+public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, in
+March 1899, the National Founders' Association (organized in the
+previous year and comprising foundrymen engaged principally in machinery
+manufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders' Union of North
+America met and drew <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187" />up the following tersely worded agreement which
+became known as the New York Agreement:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;That in event of a dispute arising between members of the
+     respective organizations, a reasonable effort shall be made by the
+     parties directly at interest to effect a satisfactory adjustment of
+     the difficulty; failing to do which, either party shall have the
+     right to ask its reference to a Committee of Arbitration which
+     shall consist of the President of the National Founders'
+     Association and the President of the Iron Molders' Union or their
+     representatives, and two other representatives from each
+     organization appointed by the respective Presidents.</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;The finding of this Committee of Arbitration by majority vote
+     shall be considered final in so far as the future action of the
+     respective organizations is concerned.</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;Pending settlement by the Committee, there shall be no cessation
+     of work at the instance of either party to the dispute. The
+     Committee of Arbitration shall meet within two weeks after
+     reference of dispute to them.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The agreement was a triumph for the principle of pure conciliation as
+distinct from arbitration by a third party. Both sides preferred to run
+the risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery to
+throwing decisions into the hands of an umpire, who would be an
+uncertain quantity both as regards special bias and understanding of the
+industry.</p>
+
+<p>The initial meeting of the arbitration committee was held in Cleveland,
+in May 1899, to consider the demand by the unions at Worcester,
+Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, for a minimum wage which
+the employers had refused. In each city one member of the National
+Founders' Association was involved and the men in these firms went to
+work pending the arbitration decision, while the others stayed out on
+strike.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188" />The meeting ended inauspiciously. The founders and molders seemed not
+to be able to settle their difficulties. Each side stood fast on its own
+principles and the arbitration committees regularly became deadlocked.
+The question of a minimum wage was the most important issue. From 1899
+to 1902 several joint conventions were held to discuss the wage
+question. In 1899 a settlement was made, which, however, proved of short
+duration. In November 1902, the two organizations met, differed, and
+arranged for a sub-committee to meet in March 1903. The sub-committee
+met but could reach no agreement.</p>
+
+<p>The two organizations clashed also on the question of apprentices. The
+founders contended that, because there were not enough molders to fill
+the present demand, the union restrictions as to the employment of
+apprentices should be removed. The union argued that a removal of the
+restriction would cause unlimited competition among molders and
+eventually the founders could employ them at their own price. They
+likewise failed to agree on the matter of classifying molders.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the stalling of the conciliation machinery many strikes
+occurred in violation at least of the spirit of the agreement. July 1,
+1901, the molders struck in Cleveland for an increase in wages;
+arbitration committees were appointed but failed to make a settlement.
+In Chicago and San Francisco strikes occurred for the same reason.</p>
+
+<p>It was at last becoming evident that the New York agreement was not
+working well. In the autumn of 1903 business prosperity reached its high
+watermark and then came a sharp depression which lessened the demand for
+molders. Early in 1904 the National Founders' Association took advantage
+of this situation to reduce wages and <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189" />finally practically abrogated the
+New York agreement. In April, 1904, the founders and molders tried to
+reach a decision as to how the agreement could be made effective, but
+gave it up after four days and nights of constant consideration. The
+founders claimed that the molders violated the agreement in 54 out of
+the 96 cases that came up during the five years of its life; and further
+justified their action on the ground that the union persistently refused
+to submit to arbitration by an impartial outsider the issues upon which
+the agreement was finally wrecked.</p>
+
+<p>An agreement similar to the New York one was concluded in 1900 between
+the National Metal Trades' Association and the International Association
+of Machinists. The National Metal Trades' Association had been organized
+in 1899 by members of the National Founders' Association, whose
+foundries formed only a part of their manufacturing plants. The spur to
+action was given by a strike called by the machinists in Chicago and
+other cities for the nine-hour day. After eight weeks of intense
+struggle the Association made a settlement granting a promise of the
+shorter day. Although hailed as one of the big agreements in labor
+history, it lasted only one year, and broke up on the issue of making
+the nine-hour day general in the Association shops. The machinists
+continued to make numerous agreements with individual firms, especially
+the smaller ones, but the general agreement was never renewed.
+Thereafter the National Metal Trades' Association became an
+uncompromising enemy of organized labor.</p>
+
+<p>In the following ten years both molders and machinists went on fighting
+for control and engaged in strikes with more or less success. But the
+industry as a whole never again came so near to embracing the idea of a
+joint co-<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190" />partnership between organized capital and labor as in 1900.</p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(4) <i>The Employers' Reaction</i></p>
+
+<p>With the disruption of the agreement systems in the machinery producing
+and foundry industries, the idea of collective bargaining and union
+recognition suffered a setback; and the employers' uneasiness, which had
+already steadily been feeding on the unions' mounting pressure for
+control, now increased materially. As long, however, as business
+remained prosperous and a rising demand for labor favored the unions,
+most of the agreements were permitted to continue. Therefore, it was not
+until the industrial depression of 1907-1908 had freed the employers'
+hands that agreements were disrupted wholesale. In 1905 the Structural
+Erectors' Association discontinued its agreements with the Structural
+Iron Workers' Union, causing a dispute which continued over many years.
+In the course of this dispute the union replied to the victorious
+assaults of the employers by tactics of violence and murder, which
+culminated in the fatal explosion in the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> Building in
+1911. In 1906 the employing lithographers discontinued their national
+agreement with the lithographers' union. In 1907 the United Typothet&aelig;
+broke with the pressmen, and the stove founders with the stove mounters
+and stove polishers. In 1908 the agreements between the Lake Carriers
+and Lumber Carriers (both operating on the Great Lakes) and the
+seafaring and water front unions were terminated.</p>
+
+<p>In the operation of these unsuccessful agreements the most serious
+stumbling blocks were the union &quot;working rules,&quot; that is to say, the
+restrictive rules which unions <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191" />strove to impose on employers in the
+exercise of their managerial powers in the shop, and for which the
+latter adopted the sinister collective designation of &quot;restriction of
+output.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Successful trade unionism has always pressed &quot;working rules&quot; on the
+employer. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, the
+trade societies then existing tried to impose on the masters the closed
+shop and restrictions on apprenticeship along with higher wages and
+shorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral association to a
+stable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages to
+working rules. Unionists have discovered that on the whole wages are the
+unstable factor, going up or down, depending on fluctuating business
+conditions and cost of living; but that once they have established their
+power by making the employer accept their working rules, high wages will
+ultimately follow.</p>
+
+<p>These working rules are seldom improvisations of the moment, but, crude
+and one-sided as they often are, they are the product of a long labor
+experience and have taken many years to be shaped and hammered out.
+Since their purpose is protective, they can best be classified with
+reference to the particular thing in the workingman's life which they
+are designed to protect: the standard of living of the trade group,
+health, the security of the worker's job, equal treatment in the shop
+and an equal chance with other workmen in promotion, the bargaining
+power of the trade group, as a whole, and the safety of the union from
+the employer's attempts to undermine it. We shall mention only a few of
+these rules by way of illustration. Thus all rules relating to methods
+of wage payment, like the prohibition of piece work and of bonus
+<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192" />systems (including those associated with scientific management
+systems), are primarily devices to protect the wage earner's rate of pay
+against being &quot;nibbled away&quot; by the employer; and in part also to
+protect his health against undue exertion. Other rules like the normal
+(usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the rule
+demanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or a
+guarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quantity of work
+available in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slack
+times among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary,
+the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuous
+employment based on &quot;seniority&quot; in the shop;&mdash;all these have for their
+common aim chiefly the protection of the job. Another sort of rules,
+like the obstruction to the splitting up of trades and the restrictions
+on apprenticeship, have in view the protection of the bargaining power
+of the craft group&mdash;through artificially maintaining an undiminished
+demand for skilled labor, as well as through a reduction of the number
+of competitors, present and future, for jobs. The protection of the
+union against the employer's designs, actual or potential, is sought by
+an insistence on the closed union shop, by the recognition of the right
+of appeal to grievance boards in cases of discharge to prevent
+anti-union discrimination, and through establishing a seniority right in
+promotion which binds the worker's allegiance to his union rather than
+to the employer.</p>
+
+<p>With these rigid rules, partly already enforced on the employer by
+strikes or threats to strike and partly as yet unrealized but
+energetically pushed, trade unionism enters the stage of the trade
+agreement. The problem of industrial government then becomes one of
+steady <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193" />adjustment of the conflicting claims of employer and union for
+the province of shop control staked out by these working rules. When the
+two sides are approximately equal in bargaining strength (and lasting
+agreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promising
+line of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extend
+to the unions and their members in some form that will least obstruct
+shop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive to
+obtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employer
+might induce a union to give up or agree to mitigate its working rules
+designed to protect the job by offering a <i>quid pro quo</i> in a guarantee
+of employment for a stated number of weeks during the year; and
+likewise, a union might hope to counteract the employer's natural
+hankering for being &quot;boss in his own business,&quot; free of any union
+working rules, only provided it guaranteed him a sufficient output per
+unit of labor time and wage investment.</p>
+
+<p>However, compromises of this sort are pure experiments even at
+present&mdash;fifteen to twenty years after the dissolution of those
+agreements; and they certainly require more faith in government by
+agreement and more patience than one could expect in the participants in
+these earlier agreements. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
+short period of agreements after 1898 should in many industries have
+formed but a prelude to an &quot;open-shop&quot; movement.<a name="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194" />After their breach with the union, the National Founders' Association
+and the National Metal Trades' Association have gone about the business
+of union wrecking in a systematic way. They have maintained a so-called
+&quot;labor bureau,&quot; furnishing men to their members whenever additional help
+was needed, and keeping a complete card system record of every man in
+the employ of members. By this system occasion was removed for employers
+communicating with the business agents of the various unions when new
+men were wanted. The associations have had in their regular pay a large
+number of non-union men, or &quot;strike-breakers,&quot; who were sent to the shop
+of any member whose employes were on strike.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to these and other national organizations, the trade unions
+were attacked by a large and important class of local employers'
+associations. The most influential association of this class was the
+Employers' Association of Dayton, Ohio. This association had a standing
+strike committee which, in trying to break a strike, was authorized to
+offer rewards to the men who continued at work, and even to compensate
+the employer for loss of production to the limit of one dollar per day
+for each man on strike. Also a system was adopted of issuing cards to
+all employes, which the latter, in case of changing employment, were
+obliged to present to the new employer and upon which the old employer
+inscribed his recommendation. The extreme anti-unionism of the Dayton
+Association is best attested by its policy of taking into membership
+employers who were threatened with strikes, notwithstanding the heavy
+financial obligations involved.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195" />Another class of local associations were the &quot;Citizens' Alliances,&quot;
+which did not restrict membership to employers but admitted all
+citizens, the only qualification being that the applicant be not a
+member of any labor organization. These organizations were frequently
+started by employers and secured cooperation of citizens generally. In
+some places there were two associations, an employers' and a Citizens'
+Alliance. A good example of this was the Citizens' Alliances of Denver,
+Colorado, organized in 1903. These &quot;Citizens' Alliances,&quot; being by
+virtue of mixed membership more than a mere employers' organization,
+claimed in time of strikes to voice the sentiment of the community in
+general.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the employers' counter attacks on trade unions on the
+strictly industrial front. But there were also a legal front and a
+political front. In 1902 was organized the American Anti-Boycott
+Association, a secret body composed mainly of manufacturers. The purpose
+of the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts of
+trade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott.
+The energies of the association have been devoted mainly to taking
+certain typical cases to the courts in order thereby to create legal
+precedents. The famous Danbury Hatters' Case, in which the Sherman
+Anti-Trust law was invoked against the hatters' union, was fought in the
+courts by this Association.</p>
+
+<p>The employers' fight on the political front was in charge of the
+National Association of Manufacturers. This association was originally
+organized in 1895 for the pursuit of purely trade interests, but about
+1903, under the influence of the Dayton, Ohio, group of employers,
+turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with <a name="Page_196" id="Page_196" />other
+employers' associations in the industrial and legal field, but its chief
+efforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it has
+succeeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in nullifying
+labor's political influence, especially in Congress. The National
+Association of Manufacturers saw to it that Congress and State
+Legislatures might not weaken the effect of court orders, injunctions
+and decisions on boycotts, closed shop, and related matters.</p>
+
+<p>The &quot;open-shop movement&quot; in its several aspects, industrial, legal, and
+political, continued strong from 1903 to 1909. Nevertheless, despite
+most persistent effort and despite the opportunity offered by the
+business depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, the
+results were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapid
+rate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogression
+from ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unions
+managed to prevent wage reductions in the organized trades
+notwithstanding the unemployment and distress of 1907-1908. On the whole
+trade unionism held its own against employers in strictly competitive
+industry. Different, however, was the outcome in industries in which the
+number of employers had been reduced by monopolistic or
+semi-monopolistic mergers.</p>
+
+<p>The steel industry is the outstanding instance.<a name="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68">[68]</a> The disastrous
+Homestead strike of 1892<a name="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69">[69]</a> had eliminated unionism from the steel
+plants of Pittsburgh. However, the Carnegie Steel Company was only a
+highly efficient and powerful corporation, not yet a &quot;trust.&quot; The panic
+<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197" />of 1893 dealt another blow to the Amalgamated Association of Iron &amp;
+Steel Workers. The steel mills of Alleghany County, outside Pittsburgh,
+were all put upon a non-union basis before 1900. In Pittsburgh, the iron
+mills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to
+the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel
+mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron
+hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a
+gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials
+were alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an old
+enemy of unionism, would easily be first and would, they feared, insist
+on driving the union out of every mill in the combination. Then it
+occurred to President Shaffer and his associates that it might be a
+propitious time to press for recognition while the new corporation was
+forming. Anxious for public confidence and to float their securities,
+the companies could not afford a labor controversy.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, when the new scales were to be signed in July 1901, the
+Amalgamated Association demanded of the American Tin Plate Company that
+it sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as union
+but for all of its mills. This was agreed, provided the American Sheet
+Steel Company would agree to the same. The latter company refused, and a
+strike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American
+Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferences
+held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin
+mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the
+preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for
+all the hoop mills that had been signed for in the <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198" />preceding year. This
+highly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representatives
+of the union; they demanded all the mills or none. The strike then went
+on in earnest. In August, President Shaffer called on all the men
+working in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out on
+strike.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of August it was evident that the Association had made a
+mistake. Instead of finding their task easier because the United States
+Steel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation
+ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the
+organization. President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter,
+but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike was
+declared at an end.</p>
+
+<p>The steel industry was apparently closed to unionism.<a name="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70">[70]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class='center'>(5) <i>Legislation, Courts, and Politics</i></p>
+
+<p>While trade unionism was thus on the whole holding its ground against
+the employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influence
+on National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect its
+growing economic strength. The scant success with legislation resulted,
+on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new
+fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a
+still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the
+Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt
+directed his spectacular campaign. A good illustration is <a name="Page_199" id="Page_199" />furnished by
+the attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work.</p>
+
+<p>In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance upon
+efforts to shorten the working day through legislation. The movement for
+shorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in the
+nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and
+social workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for
+women and children workers, but so far as adult male labor was
+concerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for the
+trade unions. The exception to the rule was the working day on public
+work.</p>
+
+<p>The Federal eight-hour day law began to receive attention from the
+Federation towards the end of the eighties. By that time the status of
+the law of 1868 which decreed the eight-hour day on Federal government
+work<a name="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71">[71]</a> had been greatly altered. In a decision rendered in 1887 the
+Supreme Court held that the eight-hour day law of 1868 was merely
+directory to the officials of the Federal government, but did not
+invalidate contracts made by them not containing an eight-hour clause.
+To counteract this decision a special law was passed in 1888, with the
+support of the Federation, establishing the eight-hour day in the United
+States Printing Office and for letter carriers. In 1892 a new general
+eight-hour law was passed, which provided that eight-hours should be the
+length of the working day on all public works of the United States,
+whether directed by the government or under contract or sub-contract.
+Within the next few years interpretations rendered by attorney generals
+of the United States practically rendered the law useless.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200" />In 1895 the Federation began to press in earnest for a satisfactory
+eight-hour law. In 1896 its eight-hour bill passed the House of
+Representatives unanimously. In the Senate it was introduced by Senator
+Kyle, the chairman of the committee on Education and Labor. After its
+introduction, however, hearings upon the bill were delayed so long that
+action was prevented during the long session. In the short session of
+1898-1899 the bill met the cruel fate of having its introducer, Senator
+Kyle, submit a minority report against it. Under the circumstances no
+vote upon the bill could be had in the Senate. In the next Congress,
+1899-1901, the eight-hour bill once more passed the House of
+Representatives only to be lost in the Senate by failure to come to a
+vote. In 1902, the bill again unanimously passed the House, but was not
+even reported upon by the Senate committee. In the hearings upon the
+eight-hour bill in that year the opposition of the National
+Manufacturers' Association was first manifested. In 1904 the House Labor
+Committee sidetracked a similar bill by recommending that the Department
+of Commerce and Labor should investigate its merits. Secretary Metcalf,
+however, declared that the questions submitted to his Department with
+reference to the eight-hour bill were &quot;well-nigh unintelligible.&quot; In
+1906 the House Labor Committee, at a very late stage in the session,
+reported &quot;favorably&quot; upon the eight-hour bill. At the same time it
+eliminated all chances of passage of the bill through the failure of a
+majority of the members of the committee to sign the &quot;favorable&quot; report
+made. This session of Congress, also, allowed a &quot;rider&quot; to be added to
+the Panama Canal bill, exempting the canal construction from the
+provisions of the eight-hour law. In the next two Congresses no report
+could be obtained from <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201" />the labor committees of either House upon the
+general eight-hour day bill, despite the fact that President Roosevelt
+and later President Taft recommended such legislation. In the sessions
+of the Congress of 1911-1913 the American Federation of Labor hit upon a
+new plan. This was the attachment of &quot;riders&quot; to departmental
+appropriation bills requiring that all work contracted for by these
+departments must be done under the eight-hour system. The most important
+&quot;rider&quot; of this character was that attached to the naval appropriation
+bill. Under its provisions the Attorney-General held that in all work
+done in shipyards upon vessels built for the Federal government the
+eight-hour rule must be applied. Finally, in June 1912, a Democratic
+House and a Republican Senate passed the eight-hour bill supported by
+the American Federation of Labor with some amendments, which the
+Federation did not find seriously objectionable; and President Taft
+signed it.</p>
+
+<p>Still better proof of the slight influence of the Federation upon
+government is furnished by the vicissitudes of its anti-injunction bills
+in Congress. The Federation had been awakened to the seriousness of the
+matter of the injunction by the Debs case. A bill of its sponsoring
+providing for jury trials in &quot;indirect&quot; contempt cases passed the Senate
+in 1896 only to be killed in the House. In 1900 only eight votes were
+recorded in the House against a bill exempting labor unions from the
+Sherman Anti-Trust Act; it failed, however, of passage in the Senate. In
+1902 an anti-injunction bill championed by the American Federation of
+Labor passed the House of Representatives. That was the last time,
+however, for many years to come when such a bill was even reported out
+of committee. Thereafter, for a decade, the controlling powers <a name="Page_202" id="Page_202" />in
+Congress had their faces set against removal by law of the judicial
+interference in labor's use of its economic strength against employers.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, however, new court decisions made the situation more
+and more critical. A climax was reached in 1908-1909. In February 1908,
+came the Supreme Court decision in the Danbury Hatters' case, which held
+that members of a labor union could be held financially responsible to
+the full amount of their individual property under the Sherman
+Anti-Trust Act for losses to business occasioned by an interstate
+boycott.<a name="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72">[72]</a> By way of contrast, the Supreme Court within the same week
+held unconstitutional the portion of the Erdman Act which prohibited
+discrimination by railways against workmen on account of their
+membership in a union.<a name="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73">[73]</a> One year later, in the Buck's Stove and Range
+Company boycott case, Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison, the three most
+prominent officials of the American Federation of Labor, were sentenced
+by a lower court in the District of Columbia to long terms in prison for
+violating an injunction which prohibited all mention of the fact that
+the plaintiff firm had ever been boycotted.<a name="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74">[74]</a> Even though neither
+these nor subsequent court decisions had the paralyzing effect upon
+American trade unionism which its enemies hoped for and its friends
+feared, the situation called for a change in tactics. It thus came about
+that the Federation, which, as was seen, by the very principles of its
+program wished to let government alone,&mdash;as it <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203" />indeed expected little
+good of government,&mdash;was obliged to enter into competition with the
+employers for controlling government; this was because one branch of the
+government, namely the judicial one, would not let it alone.</p>
+
+<p>A growing impatience with Congress was manifested in resolutions adopted
+by successive conventions. In 1902 the convention authorized the
+Executive Council to take &quot;such further steps as will secure the
+nomination&mdash;and the election&mdash;of only such men as are fully and
+satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills&quot; championed by the
+Federation. Accordingly, the Executive Council prepared a series of
+questions to be submitted to all candidates for Congress in 1904 by the
+local unions of each district.</p>
+
+<p>The Federation was more active in the Congressional election of 1906.
+Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use
+their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or
+conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's
+demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run
+independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands
+of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity
+and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the
+districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urge
+their defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefield
+of Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invaded
+his district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor.
+However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over the
+preceding election. The only positive success was the election of
+McDermott of <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204" />the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. President
+Gompers, however, insisted that the cutting down of the majorities of
+the conspicuous enemies of labor's demands gave &quot;more than a hint&quot; of
+what organized labor &quot;can and may do when thoroughly prepared to
+exercise its political strength.&quot; Nevertheless the next Congress was
+even more hostile than the preceding one. The convention of the
+Federation following the election approved the new tactics, but was
+careful at the same time to declare that the Federation was neither
+allied with any political party nor had any intention of forming an
+independent labor party.</p>
+
+<p>In the Presidential election of 1908, however, the Federation virtually
+entered into an alliance with the Democrats. At a &quot;Protest Conference&quot;
+in March, 1908, attended by the executive officers of most of the
+affiliated national unions as well as by the representatives of several
+farmers' organizations, the threat was uttered that organized labor
+would make a determined effort in the coming campaign to defeat its
+enemies, whether &quot;candidates for President, for Congress, or other
+offices.&quot; The next step was the presentation of the demands of the
+Federation to the platform committees of the conventions of both
+parties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests that
+it had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, since
+it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of malicious
+conspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protect
+business rights, which had regularly been asked by the American
+Federation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted an
+indefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labor
+disputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205" />and a
+declaration in favor of jury trial on the charge of contempt of court.</p>
+
+<p>The Republicans paid scant attention to the planks of the Federation.
+Their platform merely reiterated the recognized law upon the allowance
+of equity relief; and as if to leave no further doubt in the minds of
+the labor leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft,
+who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some of
+the most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A year
+earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as &quot;the injunction
+standard-bearer&quot; and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic
+platform, on the other hand, <i>verbatim</i> repeated the Federation plank on
+the injunction question and nominated Bryan.</p>
+
+<p>After the party conventions had adjourned the <i>American Federationist</i>
+entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate.
+President Gompers recognized that this was equivalent to an endorsement
+of Bryan, but pleaded that &quot;in performing a solemn duty at this time in
+support of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a
+political party, but partisan to a principle.&quot; Substantially, all
+prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead.
+That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is
+apparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it is
+true that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centers
+was not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant the
+conclusion that Gompers may have &quot;delivered to Bryan&quot; not a few labor
+votes which would otherwise have gone to Debs.</p>
+
+<p>In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policy
+of &quot;reward your friends, and punish your enemies.&quot; However, it avoided
+more successfully <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206" />the appearance of partisanship. Many progressive
+Republicans received as strong support as did Democratic candidates.
+Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that the
+Federation was at last &quot;on the inside&quot; of one branch of the government.
+In addition, fifteen men holding cards of membership in unions, were
+elected to Congress, which was the largest number on record. Furthermore
+William B. Wilson, Ex-Secretary of the United Mine Workers, was
+appointed chairman of the important House Committee on Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The Congress of 1911-1913 with its Democratic House of Representatives
+passed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had been
+urging for fifteen years. It passed an eight-hour law on government
+contract work, as already noted, and a seaman's bill, which went far to
+grant to the sailors the freedom of contract enjoyed by other wage
+earners. It created a Department of Labor with a seat in the Cabinet. It
+also attached a &quot;rider&quot; to the appropriation bill for the Department of
+Justice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes of
+prosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and
+other Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointed
+to the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic House
+of Representatives and let the workers draw their own conclusions. The
+corner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legal
+exemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislation
+and from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yet
+to be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democratic
+administration was the logical means to that end.</p>
+
+<p>At last, with the election of Woodrow Wilson as Presi<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207" />dent and of a
+Democratic Congress in 1912, the political friends of the Federation
+controlled all branches of government. William B. Wilson was given the
+place of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, the
+Federation was an &quot;insider&quot; in the national government. The road now
+seemed clear to the attainment by trade unions of freedom from court
+interference in struggles against employers&mdash;a judicial <i>laissez-faire</i>.
+The political program initiated in 1906 seemed to be bearing fruit.</p>
+
+<p>The drift into politics, since 1906, has differed essentially from that
+of earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from &quot;on top,&quot; not
+from the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats in
+strikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led by
+local unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically in
+all preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the American
+Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file
+seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who
+held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions
+than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of
+court. Probably for this reason the &quot;delivery&quot; of the labor vote by the
+Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation
+leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the
+political parties by holding out a <i>quid pro quo</i> of such an uncertain
+value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a mark
+of the instability of the general political alignment in the country.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44">[44]</a> The bricklayers became affiliated in 1917.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45">[45]</a> &quot;The Growth of Labor Organizations in the United States,
+1897-1914,&quot; in <i>Quarterly Journal of Economics</i>, Aug., 1916, p. 780.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46">[46]</a> &quot;The Extent of Trade Unionism,&quot; in <i>Annals of American Academy of
+Political Science</i>, Vol. 69, p. 118.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47">[47]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48">[48]</a> &quot;The Extent of Trade Unionism,&quot; in <i>Annals of American Academy of
+Political Science</i>, Vol. 69, p. 118.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49">[49]</a> The &quot;federal labor unions&quot; (mixed unions) and the directly
+affiliated local trade unions (in trades in which a national union does
+not yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designed
+for bringing in the more miscellaneous classes of labor. The membership
+in these has seldom reached over 100,000.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50">[50]</a> A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where the
+only anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51">[51]</a> At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operators
+from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organized
+miners and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevail
+throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30,
+1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish
+to give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohio
+operators. Ohio was favored in the scale established by this first
+Interstate conference probably because more than half of the operators
+present came from that State, and because the chief strength of the
+miners' union also lay in that State. To prevent friction over the
+interpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and
+conciliation was established. This board consisted of five miners and
+five operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more from
+each of the States of this field. Such a board of arbitration and
+conciliation was provided for in all of the Interstate agreements of the
+period of the eighties. This system of Interstate agreement, in spite of
+the cut-throat competition raging between operators, was maintained for
+Pennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lost
+in 1887, and Indiana in 1888. It formed the real predecessor of the
+system established in 1898 and in vogue thereafter.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52">[52]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_136">136.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53">[53]</a> The run-of-mine system means payment by weight of the coal as
+brought out of the mine including minute pieces and impurities.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54">[54]</a> The check-off system refers to collection of union dues. It means
+that the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner the
+amount of his union dues, thus constituting himself the union's
+financial agent.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55">[55]</a> In that district the check-off was granted in 1902.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56">[56]</a> Hitchman Coal and Coke Company <i>v.</i> Mitchell, 245 U.S. 232.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57">[57]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_175">175-177.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58">[58]</a> The actual membership of the union is considerably above these
+figures, since they are based upon the dues-paying membership, and
+miners out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues. The
+number of miners who always act with the union is much larger still.
+Even in non-union fields the United Mine Workers have always been
+successful in getting thousands of miners to obey their order to strike.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59">[59]</a> See Webb, <i>History of Trade Unionism</i>, p. 205 ff.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60">[60]</a> This was demonstrated in the bitterly fought strike on the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1888. (See above, <a href="#Page_130">130-131.</a>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61">[61]</a> Seniority also decides the assignment to &quot;runs,&quot; which differ
+greatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior employes in
+keeping the job when it is necessary to lay men off.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62">[62]</a> The first arbitration act was passed by Congress in 1888. In 1898
+it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, which prescribed rules
+for mediation and voluntary arbitration.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63">[63]</a> Concerted movements began in 1907 as joint demands upon all
+railways in a single section of the country, like the East or the West,
+by a single group of employes; after 1912 two or more brotherhoods
+initiated common concerted movements, first in one section only, and at
+last covering all the railways of the country.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64">[64]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_230">230-233.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65">[65]</a> Long before this, about the middle of the nineties, the first
+system federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confined
+to them only; they took up adjustment of grievances and related matters.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66">[66]</a> The International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Brotherhood of
+Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, the Pattern Makers' League, the
+International Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of Metal
+Polishers, Platers, Brass and Silver Workers, the International
+Federation of Draftsmen's Unions, and the International Brotherhood of
+Foundry Employes.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67">[67]</a> Professor Barnett attributes the failure of these agreements
+chiefly to faulty agreement machinery. The working rules, he points out,
+are rules made by the national union and therefore can be changed by the
+national union only. At the same time the agreements were national only
+in so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; the
+fixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the national
+employers' associations lacked the power to offer the unions an
+indispensable <i>quid pro quo</i> in higher wages for a compromise on working
+rules. (&quot;National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in the
+United States,&quot; in <i>Quarterly Journal of Economics</i>, May, 1912, pp. 425
+ff.)</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68">[68]</a> The following account is taken from Chapter X of the <i>Steel
+Workers</i> by John A. Fitch, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69">[69]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_133">133-135.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70">[70]</a> The opposition of the Steel Corporation to unionism was an
+important factor in the disruption of the agreement systems in the
+structural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industry
+on the Great Lakes in 1908; in each of these industries the Corporation
+holds a place of considerable control.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71">[71]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_47">47-49.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72">[72]</a> Loewe <i>v.</i> Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73">[73]</a> Adair <i>v.</i> U.S., 208 U.S. 161 (1908).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74">[74]</a> 36 Wash. Law Rep. 436 (1909). Gompers was finally sentenced to
+imprisonment for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined
+$500 each. These penalties were later lifted by the Supreme Court on a
+technicality, 233 U.S. 604 (1914).</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_9" id="CHAPTER_9" />CHAPTER 9</h2>
+
+<h2>RADICAL UNIONISM AND A &quot;COUNTER-REFORMATION&quot;</h2>
+
+
+<p>For ten years after 1904, when it reached its high point, the American
+Federation of Labor was obliged to stay on the defensive&mdash;on the
+defensive against the &quot;open-shop&quot; employers and against the courts. Even
+the periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves.
+This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the
+type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised
+the stock of the radical opposition.</p>
+
+<p>The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation. Inside it
+was the socialist &quot;industrialist&quot; who advocated a political labor party
+on a socialist platform, such as the Federation had rejected when it
+defeated the &quot;program&quot; of 1893,<a name="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75">[75]</a> together with a plan of organization
+by industry instead of by craft. Outside the Federation the opposition
+marched under the flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, which was
+launched by socialists but soon after birth fell into the hands of
+syndicalists.</p>
+
+<p>However, fully to understand the issue between conservatives and
+radicals in the Federation after 1905, one needs to go back much earlier
+for the &quot;background.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly assisted in the birth
+of the opportunistic trade unionism of <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209" />
+Strasser and Gompers,<a name="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76">[76]</a> did
+not disappear, but remained throughout the eighties a handful of
+&quot;intellectuals&quot; and &quot;intellectualized&quot; wage earners, mainly Germans.
+These never abandoned the hope of better things for socialism in the
+labor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an attitude of
+enthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation in
+their wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistent
+though friendly &quot;nudging&quot; in the direction of socialism. During the
+greater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the trade
+unionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion of
+foreign born, principally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigar
+making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many
+socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations
+of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and
+other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in
+1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations.
+When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the
+issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade
+unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife
+caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either
+faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization
+went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since
+1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10,000, and its activities were
+non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but
+entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly
+in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210" />continued until
+there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who,
+had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism
+than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's
+outstanding revolutionary leaders. This man was Daniel DeLeon.</p>
+
+<p>DeLeon was of South American ancestry, who early immigrated to New York.
+For a time he was teacher of languages at Columbia College; later he
+devoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established his
+first connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886
+and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeon
+was impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by the
+socialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taught
+him that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements,
+had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of a
+supreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knights
+and the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would be
+used.</p>
+
+<p>By 1895 he learned that he was beaten in both organizations; not,
+however, without temporarily upsetting the groups in control. For, the
+only time when Samuel Gompers was defeated for President of the
+Federation was in 1894, when the socialists, angered by his part in the
+rejection of the socialist program at the convention,<a name="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77">[77]</a> joined with
+his enemies and voted another man into office. Gompers was reelected the
+next year and the Federation seemed definitely shut to socialism. DeLeon
+was now ready to go to the limit with the Federation. If the established
+unions refused to assume the part of the grave<a name="Page_211" id="Page_211" />diggers of capitalism,
+designed for them, as he believed, by the very logic of history, so much
+the worse for the established trade unions.</p>
+
+<p>Out of this grew the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a life and
+death rival to the Federation. From the standpoint of socialism no more
+unfortunate step could have been taken. It immediately stamped the
+socialists as wilful destroyers of the unity of labor. To the trade
+unionists, yet fresh from the ordeal of the struggle against the Knights
+of Labor, the action of the socialists was an unforgivable crime. All
+the bitterness which has characterized the fight between socialist and
+anti-socialist in the Federation verily goes back to this gross
+miscalculation by DeLeon of the psychology of the trade union movement.
+DeLeon, on his part, attributed the action of the Federation to a
+hopelessly corrupt leadership and, since he failed to unseat it by
+working from within, he now felt justified in striking at the entire
+structure.</p>
+
+<p>The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was a failure from the outset.
+Only a small portion of even the socialist-minded trade unionists were
+willing to join in the venture. Many trade union leaders who had been
+allied with the socialists now openly sided with Gompers. In brief, the
+socialist &quot;revolution&quot; in the American labor world suffered the fate of
+all unsuccessful revolutions: it alienated the moderate sympathizers and
+forced the victorious majority into taking up a more uncompromising
+position than heretofore.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the hopelessness of DeLeon's tactics became obvious. One
+faction in the Socialist Labor party, which had been in opposition ever
+since he assumed command, came out in revolt in 1898. A fusion took
+place between <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212" />it and another socialist group, the so-called Debs-Berger
+Social Democracy,<a name="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78">[78]</a> which took the name of the Social Democratic
+Party. Later, at a &quot;Unity Congress&quot; in 1901, it became the Socialist
+Party of America. What distinguished this party from the Socialist Labor
+party (which, although it had lost its primacy in the socialist
+movement, has continued side by side with the Socialist party of
+America), was well expressed in a resolution adopted at the same &quot;Unity&quot;
+convention: &quot;We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessity
+organized on neutral grounds as far as political affiliation is
+concerned.&quot; With this program, the socialists have been fairly
+successful in extending their influence in the American Federation of
+Labor so that at times they have controlled about one-third of the votes
+in the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiven
+the socialists their &quot;original sin.&quot; In the country at large socialism
+made steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were cast
+for Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularly
+since 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and the
+difficulties created by the War and retrogressed.</p>
+
+<p>For a number of years DeLeon's failure kept possible imitators in check.
+However, in 1905, came another attempt in the shape of the Industrial
+Workers of the World. As with its predecessor, impatient socialists
+<a name="Page_213" id="Page_213" />helped to set it afoot, but unlike the Alliance, it was at the same
+time an outgrowth of a particular situation in the actual labor
+movement, namely, of the bitter fight which was being waged by the
+Western Federation of Miners since the middle nineties.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning with a violent clash between miners and mine owners in the
+silver region of Coeur d'Al&egrave;ne, Idaho, in the early nineties, the mining
+States of the West became the scene of many labor struggles which were
+more like civil wars than like ordinary labor strikes.</p>
+
+<p>A most important contributing cause was a struggle, bolder than has been
+encountered elsewhere in the United States, for control of government in
+the interest of economic class. This was partly due to the absence of a
+neutral middle class, farmers or others, who might have been able to
+keep matters within bounds.</p>
+
+<p>The Western Federation of Miners was an organization of workers in and
+around the metaliferous mines. It also included workers in smelters. It
+held its first convention in 1893 in Butte, Montana. In 1894 the men
+employed in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold fields demanded a minimum
+wage of three dollars for an eight-hour day. After four months the
+strike resulted in a victory for the union. Other strikes occurred in
+1896 and 1897 at Leadville, in 1899 in the Coeur d'Al&egrave;ne mining
+district, and in 1901 at Rossland and Fernie, British Columbia, and also
+in the San Juan district in California.</p>
+
+<p>The most important strike of the Western Federation of Miners, however,
+began in 1903 at Colorado City, where the mill and smeltermen's union
+quit work in order to compel better working conditions. As the
+sympathetic strike was a recognized part of the policy of the Western
+Federation of Miners, all the miners in the Cripple Creek <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214" />region were
+called out. The eight-hour day in the smelters was the chief issue. In
+1899 the Colorado legislature had passed an eight-hour law which was
+declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State. To overcome
+this difficulty, an amendment to the State constitution was passed in
+1902 by a large majority, but the legislature, after having thus
+received a direct command to establish the eight-hour law, adjourned
+without taking action. Much of the subsequent disorder and bloodshed in
+the Cripple Creek region during 1903-1904 is traceable to this failure
+on the part of the legislature to enact the eight-hour law. The struggle
+in Colorado helped to convince the Western miners that agreements with
+their employers were futile, that constitutional amendments and politics
+were futile, and from this they drew the conclusion that the
+revolutionary way was the only way. William D. Haywood, who became the
+central figure in the revolutionary movement of the Industrial Workers
+of the World since its launching in 1905, was a former national officer
+of the Western Federation of Miners and a graduate of the Colorado
+school of industrial experience.<a name="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>Even before 1905 the Western Federation of Miners, which was out of
+touch with the American Federation of Labor for reasons of geography and
+of difference in policy and program, attempted to set up a national
+labor federation which would reflect its spirit. An American Labor Union
+was created in 1902, which by 1905 had a membership of about 16,000
+besides the 27,000 of the <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215" />miners' federation. It was thus the precursor
+of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. In the latter the
+revolutionary miners from the West joined hands with radical socialists
+from the East and Middle West of both socialist parties, the Socialist
+party of America and DeLeon's Socialist Labor party.</p>
+
+<p>We shall forbear tracing here the complicated internal history of the
+I.W.W., that is the friction which immediately arose between the
+DeLeonites and the other socialists and later on the struggle between
+the socialists and the syndicalist-minded labor rebels from the West.
+Suffice it to say that the Western Federation of Miners, which was its
+very heart and body, convinced of the futility of it all, seceded in
+1907. In 1911 it joined the American Federation of Labor and after
+several hard-fought strikes, notably in Michigan in 1913, it practically
+became assimilated to the other unions in the American Federation of
+Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The remnant of the I.W.W. split in 1908 into two rival Industrial
+Workers of the World, with headquarters in Detroit and Chicago,
+respectively, on the issue of revolutionary political versus
+non-political or &quot;direct&quot; action. As a rival to the Federation of Labor
+the I.W.W. never materialized, but on the one hand, as an instrument of
+resistance by the migratory laborers of the West and, on the other hand,
+as a prod to the Federation to do its duty to the unorganized and
+unskilled foreign-speaking workers of the East, the I.W.W. will for long
+have a part to play.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, about 1912, it seemed as though the I.W.W. were about to repeat
+the performance of the Knights of Labor in the Great Upheaval of
+1885-1887. Its clamorous appearance in the industrial East, showing <a name="Page_216" id="Page_216" />in
+the strikes by the non-English-speaking workers in the textile mills of
+Lawrence, Massachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and Little Falls, New
+York, on the one hand, and on the other, the less tangible but no less
+desperate strikes of casual laborers which occurred from time to time in
+the West, bore for the observer a marked resemblance to the Great
+Upheaval. Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federation
+espied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which would
+best be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation the
+very same elements to which the I.W.W. especially addressed itself.
+Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problem
+of organizing the unskilled occupied a place near the head of the list.
+But after the unsuccessful Paterson textile strikes in 1912 and 1913,
+the star of the Industrial Workers of the World set as rapidly as it had
+risen and the organization rapidly retrogressed. At no time did it roll
+up a membership of more than 60,000 as compared with the maximum
+membership of 750,000 of the Knights of Labor.</p>
+
+<p>The charge made by the I.W.W. against the Federation of Labor (and it is
+in relation to the latter that the I.W.W. has any importance at all) is
+mainly two-fold: on aim and on method. &quot;Instead of the conservative
+motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,'&quot; reads the Preamble,
+&quot;We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition
+of the wage system.' It is the historic mission of the working class to
+do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not
+only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but to carry on
+production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.&quot; Then on method:
+&quot;We find that the centering of management in industries into <a name="Page_217" id="Page_217" />fewer and
+fewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever-growing
+power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs
+which allows one set of the workers to be pitted against another set of
+workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in
+wage wars.... These conditions must be changed and the interest of the
+working class upheld only by an organization founded in such a way that
+all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary,
+cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is in any department thereof,
+thus making an injury to one an injury to all.&quot; Lastly, &quot;By organizing
+industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the
+shell of the old.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This meant &quot;industrialism&quot; versus the craft autonomy of the Federation.
+&quot;Industrialism&quot; was a product of the intense labor struggles of the
+nineties, of the Pullman railway strike in 1894, of the general strike
+of the bituminous miners of 1898, and of a decade long struggle and
+boycott in the beer-brewing industry. Industrialism meant a united front
+against the employers in an industry regardless of craft; it meant doing
+away with the paralyzing disputes over jurisdiction amongst the several
+craft unions; it meant also stretching out the hand of fellowship to the
+unskilled worker who knowing no craft fitted into no craft union. But
+over and above these changes in structure there hovered a new spirit, a
+spirit of class struggle and of revolutionary solidarity in contrast
+with the spirit of &quot;business unionism&quot; of the typical craft union.
+Industrialism signified a challenge to the old leadership, to the
+leadership of Gompers and his associates, by a younger generation of
+leaders who were more in tune with the social ideas of the radical
+intellectuals and <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218" />the labor movements of Europe than with the
+traditional policies of the Federation.</p>
+
+<p>But there is industrialism and industrialism, each answering the demands
+of a <i>particular stratum</i> of the wage-earning class. The class lowest in
+the scale, the unskilled and &quot;floaters,&quot; for which the I.W.W. speaks,
+conceives industrialism as &quot;one big union,&quot; where not only trade but
+even industrial distinctions are virtually ignored with reference to
+action against employers, if not also with reference to the principle of
+organization. The native floater in the West and the unskilled foreigner
+in the East are equally responsive to the appeal to storm capitalism in
+a successive series of revolts under the banner of the &quot;one big union.&quot;
+Uniting in its ranks the workers with the least experience in
+organization and with none in political action, the &quot;one big union&quot; pins
+its faith upon assault rather than &quot;armed peace,&quot; upon the strike
+without the trade agreement, and has no faith whatsoever in political or
+legislative action.</p>
+
+<p>Another form of industrialism is that of the middle stratum of the
+wage-earning group, embracing trades which are moderately skilled and
+have had considerable experience in organization, such as brewing,
+clothing, and mining. They realize that, in order to attain an equal
+footing with the employers, they must present a front coextensive with
+the employers' association, which means that all trades in an industry
+must act under one direction. Hence they strive to assimilate the
+engineers and machinists, whose labor is essential to the continuance of
+the operation of the plant. They thus reproduce on a minor scale the
+attempt of the Knights of Labor during the eighties to engulf the more
+skilled trade unions.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time the relatively unprivileged position of <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219" />these trades
+makes them keenly alive to the danger from below, from the unskilled
+whom the employer may break into their jobs in case of strikes. They
+therefore favor taking the unskilled into the organization. Their
+industrialism is consequently caused perhaps more by their own trade
+consideration than by an altruistic desire to uplift the unskilled,
+although they realize that the organization of the unskilled is required
+by the broader interests of the wage-earning class. However, their long
+experience in matters of organization teaches them that the &quot;one big
+union&quot; would be a poor medium. Their accumulated experience likewise has
+a moderating influence on their economic activity, and they are
+consequently among the strongest supporters inside the American
+Federation of Labor of the trade agreement. Nevertheless, opportunistic
+though they are in the industrial field, their position is not
+sufficiently raised above the unskilled to make them satisfied with the
+wage system. Hence, they are mostly controlled by socialists and are
+strongly in favor of political action through the Socialist party. This
+form of industrialism may consequently be called &quot;socialist
+industrialism.&quot; In the annual conventions of the Federation,
+industrialists are practically synonymous with socialists.</p>
+
+<p>The best examples of the &quot;middle stratum&quot; industrialism are the unions
+in the garment industries. Enthusiastic admirers have proclaimed them
+the harbingers of a &quot;new unionism&quot; in America. One would indeed be
+narrow to withhold praise from organizations and leaders who in spite of
+a most chaotic situation in their industry have succeeded so brilliantly
+where many looked only for failure. Looking at the matter, however, from
+the wider standpoint of labor history, the contribution of this
+so-<a name="Page_220" id="Page_220" />called &quot;new unionism&quot; resides chiefly, first, in that it has
+rationalized and developed industrial government by collective
+bargaining and trade agreements as no other unionism, and second, in
+that it has applied a spirit of broadminded all-inclusiveness to all
+workers in the industry. To put it in another way, its merit is in that
+it has made supreme use of the highest practical acquisition of the
+American Federation of Labor&mdash;namely, the trade agreement&mdash;while
+reinterpreting and applying the latter in a spirit of a broader labor
+solidarity than the &quot;old unionism&quot; of the Federation. As such the
+clothing workers point the way to the rest of the labor movement.</p>
+
+<p>The first successful application of the &quot;new unionism&quot; in the clothing
+trades was in 1910 by the workers on cloaks and suits in the
+International Ladies' Garment Workers Union of America, a constituent
+union of the American Federation of Labor. They established machinery of
+conciliation from the shop to the industry, which in spite of many
+tempests and serious crises, will probably live on indefinitely. Perhaps
+the greatest achievement to their credit is that they have jointly with
+the employers, through a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, wrought a
+revolution in the hygienic conditions in the shops.</p>
+
+<p>The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America have won great power in the
+men's clothing industry, through aggressive but constructive leadership.
+The nucleus of the union seceded from the United Garment Workers, an
+A.F. of L. organization, in 1914. The socialistic element within the
+organization was and still is numerically dominating. But in the
+practical process of collective bargaining, this union's revolutionary
+principles have served more as a bond to hold the membership together
+<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221" />than as a severe guide in its relations with the employers.<a name="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80">[80]</a> As a
+result, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers attained trade agreements in
+all the large men's clothing centers. The American Federation of Labor,
+however, in spite of this union's success, has persistently refused to
+admit it to affiliation, on account of its original secessionist origin
+from a chartered international union.</p>
+
+<p>The unions of the clothing workers have demonstrated how immigrants (the
+majority in the industry are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians) may
+be successfully organized on the basis of a broad minded industrialism.
+On the issue of industrialism in the American Federation of Labor the
+last word has not yet been said. It appears, though, that the matter is
+being solved slowly but surely by a silent &quot;counter-reformation&quot; by the
+old leaders. For industrialism, or the adjustment of union structure to
+meet the employer with ranks closed on the front of an entire industry,
+is not altogether new even in the most conservative portion of the
+Federation, although it has never been called by that name.</p>
+
+<p>Long before industrialism entered the national arena as the economic
+creed of socialists, the unions of the skilled had begun to evolve an
+industrialism of their own. This species may properly be termed craft
+industrialism, as it sought merely to unite on an efficient basis the
+fighting strength of the unions of the skilled trades by devising a
+method for speedy solution of jurisdictional disputes between
+overlapping unions and by reducing the sympathetic strike to a science.
+The movement first manifested itself in the early eighties in the form
+of local building trades' councils, which especially devoted them<a name="Page_222" id="Page_222" />selves
+to sympathetic strikes. This local industrialism grew, after a fashion,
+to national dimensions in the form of the International Building Trades'
+Council organized in St. Louis in 1897. The latter proved, however,
+ineffective, since, having for its basic unit the local building trades'
+council, it inevitably came into conflict with the national unions in
+the building trades. For the same reason it was barred from recognition
+of the American Federation of Labor. The date of the real birth of craft
+industrialism on a national scale, was therefore deferred to 1903, when
+a Structural Building Trades' Alliance was founded. The formation of the
+Alliance marks an event of supreme importance, not only because it
+united for the first time for common action all the important national
+unions in the building industry, but especially because it promulgated a
+new principle which, if generally adopted, was apparently destined to
+revolutionize the structure of American labor organizations. The
+Alliance purported to be a federation of the &quot;basic&quot; trades in the
+industry, and in reality it did represent an <i>entente</i> of the big and
+aggressive unions. The latter were moved to federate not only for the
+purpose of forcing the struggle against the employers, but also of
+expanding at the expense of the &quot;non-basic&quot; or weak unions, besides
+seeking to annihilate the last vestiges of the International Building
+Trades' Council. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, probably the
+most aggressive union in the American Federation of Labor, was the
+leader in this movement. From the standpoint of the Federation, the
+Structural Alliance was at best an extra-legal organization, as it did
+not receive the latter's formal sanction, but the Federation could
+scarcely afford to ignore it as it had ignored the International
+Building Trades' Council. Thus in 1908 <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223" />the Alliance was &quot;legitimatized&quot;
+and made a &quot;Department&quot; of the American Federation of Labor, under the
+name of the Building Trades' Department, with the settlement of
+jurisdictional disputes as its main function. It was accompanied by
+departments of metal trades, of railway employes, of miners, and by a
+&quot;label&quot; department.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, however, open to much doubt that the Department was not a
+very successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle.
+Jurisdictional disputes are caused either by technical changes, which
+play havoc with official &quot;jurisdiction,&quot; or else by a plain desire on
+the part of the stronger union to encroach upon the province of the
+weaker one. When the former was the case and the struggle happened to be
+between unions of equal strength and influence, it generally terminated
+in a compromise. When, however, the combatants were two unions of
+unequal strength, the doctrine of the supremacy of the &quot;basic&quot; unions
+was generally made to prevail in the end. Such was the outcome of the
+struggle between the carpenters and joiners on the one side and the wood
+workers on the other and also between the plumbers and steam fitters. In
+each case it ended in the forced amalgamation of the weaker union with
+the stronger one, upon the principle that there must be only one union
+in each &quot;basic&quot; trade. In the case of the steam fitters, which was
+settled at the convention at Rochester in 1912, the Federation gave what
+might be interpreted as an official sanction of the new doctrine of one
+union in a &quot;basic&quot; trade.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding these official lapses from the principle of craft
+autonomy, the socialist industrialists<a name="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81">[81]</a> are still compelled to abide
+by the letter and the spirit of craft autonomy. The effect of such a
+policy on the coming <a name="Page_224" id="Page_224" />American industrialism may be as follows: The
+future development of the &quot;department&quot; may enable the strong &quot;basic&quot;
+unions to undertake concerted action against employers, while each
+retains its own autonomy. Such indeed is the notable &quot;concerted
+movement&quot; of the railway brotherhoods, which since 1907 has begun to set
+a type for craft industrialism. It is also probable that the majority of
+the craft unions will sufficiently depart from a rigid craft standard
+for membership to include helpers and unskilled workers working
+alongside the craftsmen.</p>
+
+<p>The clearest outcome of this silent &quot;counter-reformation&quot; in reply to
+the socialist industrialists is the Railway Employes' Department as it
+developed during and after the war-time period.<a name="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82">[82]</a> It is composed of
+all the railway men's organizations except the brotherhoods of
+engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen, telegraphers, and several
+minor organizations, which on the whole cooperate with the Department.
+It also has a place for the unskilled laborers organized in the United
+Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers.
+The Railway Employes' Department therefore demonstrates that under craft
+unionism the unskilled need not be left out in the cold. It also meets
+the charge that craft unionism renders it easy for the employers to
+defeat the unions one by one, since this Department has consolidated the
+constituent crafts into one bargaining and striking union<a name="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83">[83]</a>
+practically as well as could be done by an industrial union. Finally,
+the Railway Employes' Department has an advantage over an industrial
+union in that many of its constituent unions, like the machinists',
+<a name="Page_225" id="Page_225" />blacksmiths', boiler-makers', sheet metal workers', and electrical
+workers', have large memberships outside the railway industry, which
+might by their dues and assessments come to the aid of the railway
+workers on strike. To be sure, the solidarity of the unions in the
+Department might be weakened through jurisdictional disputes, which is
+something to be considered. However, when unions have gone so far as to
+confederate for joint collective bargaining, that danger will probably
+never be allowed to become too serious.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75">[75]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_139">139-141.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76">[76]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_76">76-79.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77">[77]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_139">139-141.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78">[78]</a> Eugene V. Debs, after serving his sentence in prison for disobeying
+a court injunction during the Pullman strike of 1894, became a convert
+to socialism. It is said that his conversion was due to Victor Berger of
+Milwaukee. Berger had succeeded in building up a strong socialist party
+in that city and in the State of Wisconsin upon the basis of a thorough
+understanding with the trade unions and was materially helped by the
+predominance of the German-speaking element in the population. In 1910
+the Milwaukee socialists elected a municipal ticket, the first large
+city to vote the socialists into office.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79">[79]</a> In 1907 Haywood was tried and acquitted with two other officers of
+the Western Federation of Miners at Bois&eacute;, Idaho, on a murder charge
+which grew out of the same labor struggle. This was one of the several
+sensational trials in American labor history, on a par with the Molly
+Maguires' case in the seventies, the Chicago Anarchists' in 1887, and
+the McNamaras' case in 1912.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80">[80]</a> The same applies to the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
+Union.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81">[81]</a> Except the miners, brewers, and garment workers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82">[82]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_185">185-186.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83">[83]</a> This refers particularly to the six shopmen's unions.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_10" id="CHAPTER_10" />CHAPTER 10</h2>
+
+<h2>THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET</h2>
+
+
+<p>The outbreak of the War in Europe in August 1914 found American labor
+passing through a period of depression. The preceding winter had seen
+much unemployment and considerable distress and in the summer industrial
+conditions became scarcely improved. In the large cities demonstrations
+by the unemployed were daily occurrences. A long and bloody labor
+struggle in the coal fields of Colorado, which was slowly drawing to an
+unsuccessful end in spite of sacrifices of the heaviest kind, seemed
+only to set into bold relief the generally inauspicious outlook. Yet the
+labor movement could doubtless find solace in the political situation.
+Owing to the support it had given the Democratic party in the
+Presidential campaign of 1912, the Federation could claim return favors.
+The demand which it was now urging upon its friends in office was the
+long standing one for the exemption of labor unions from the operation
+of the anti-trust legislation and for the reduction to a minimum of
+interference by Federal Courts in labor disputes through injunction
+proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>During 1914 the anti-trust bill introduced in the House by Clayton of
+Alabama was going through the regular stages preliminary to enactment
+and, although it finally failed to embody all the sweeping changes
+demanded by the Federation's lobbyists, it was pronounced at the time
+satisfactory to labor. The Clayton Act starts with the <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227" />declaration that
+&quot;The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce&quot;
+and specifies that labor organizations shall not be construed as illegal
+combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under Federal
+anti-trust laws. It further proceeds to prescribe the procedure in
+connection with the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes as, for
+instance, limiting the time of effectiveness of temporary injunctions,
+making notice obligatory to persons about to be permanently enjoined,
+and somewhat limiting the power of the courts in contempt proceedings.
+The most vital section of the Act relating to labor disputes is Section
+20, which says &quot;that no such restraining order or injunction shall
+prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from
+terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any
+work or labor or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by
+peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such
+person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully
+persuading any person to work or to abstain from working, or from
+recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful
+means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any
+person employed in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys or
+things of value; or from peacefully assembling in a lawful manner, or
+for lawful purposes, or from doing any act or things which might
+lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto;
+nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or
+held to be violations of any law of the United States.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The government was also rendering aid to organized labor in another,
+though probably little intended, form, namely through the public
+hearings conducted by the <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228" />United States Commission on Industrial
+Relations. This Commission had been authorized by Congress in 1912 to
+investigate labor unrest after a bomb explosion in the <i>Los Angeles
+Times</i> Building, which was set off at the order of some of the national
+officers of the structural iron workers' union, incidental to a strike.
+The hearings which were conducted by the able and versatile chairman,
+Frank P. Walsh, with a particular eye for publicity, centering as they
+did around the Colorado outrages, served to popularize the trade union
+cause from one end of the country to the other. The report of the
+Commission or rather the minority report, which was signed by the
+chairman and the three labor members, and was known as the &quot;staff&quot;
+report, named <i>trade unionism</i> as the paramount remedy&mdash;not compulsory
+arbitration which was advocated by the employer members, nor labor
+legislation and a permanent governmental industrial commission proposed
+by the economist on the commission. The immediate practical effects of
+the commission were <i>nil</i>, but its agitational value proved of great
+importance to labor. For the first time in the history of the United
+States the employing class seemed to be arrayed as a defendant before
+the bar of public opinion. Also, it was for the first time that a
+commission representing the government not only unhesitatingly
+pronounced the trade union movement harmless to the country's best
+interests but went to the length of raising it to the dignity of a
+fundamental and indispensable institution.</p>
+
+<p>The Commission on Industrial Relations on the whole reflected the
+favorable attitude of the Administration which came to power in 1912.
+The American Federation of Labor was given full sway over the Department
+of Labor and a decisive influence in all other government <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229" />departments
+on matters relating to labor. Without a political party of its own, by
+virtue only of its &quot;bargaining power&quot; over the old parties, the American
+Federation of Labor seemed to have attained a position not far behind
+that of British labor after more than a decade of independent political
+action. Furthermore, fortunately for itself, labor in America had come
+into a political patrimony at a time when the country was standing on
+the threshold of a new era, during which government was destined to
+become the arbiter of industry.</p>
+
+<p>The War in Europe did not immediately improve industrial conditions in
+America. The first to feel its effects were the industries directly
+engaged in the making of munitions. The International Association of
+Machinists, the organization of the now all-important munition workers,
+actually had its membership somewhat decreased during 1915, but in the
+following year made a 50 percent increase. The greater part of the new
+membership came from the &quot;munitions towns,&quot; such as Bridgeport,
+Connecticut, where, in response to the insatiable demand from the Allied
+nations, new enormous plants were erected during 1915 and shipment of
+munitions in mass began early the next year. Bridgeport and surrounding
+towns became a center of a successful eight-hour movement, in which the
+women workers newly brought into the industry took the initiative. The
+Federation as a whole lost three percent of its membership in 1915 and
+gained seven percent during 1916.</p>
+
+<p>On its War policy the Federation took its cue completely from the
+national government. During the greater part of the period of American
+neutrality its attitude was that of a shocked lover of peace who is
+desirous to maintain the strictest neutrality if the belligerents will
+persist <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230" />in refusing to lend an ear to reason. To prevent a repetition
+of a similar catastrophe, the Federation did the obvious thing,
+pronouncing for open and democratized diplomacy; and proposed to the
+several national trade union federations that an international labor
+congress meet at the close of the war to determine the conditions of
+peace. However, both the British and Germans declined. The convention in
+1915 condemned the German-inspired propaganda for an embargo on
+shipments to all belligerents and the fomenting of strikes in
+munitions-making plants by German agents. The Federation refused to
+interpret neutrality to mean that the American wage earner was to be
+thrown back into the dumps of depression and unemployment, from which he
+was just delivered by the extensive war orders from the Allied
+governments.</p>
+
+<p>By the second half of 1916 the war prosperity was in full swing. Cost of
+living was rising rapidly and movements for higher wages became general.
+The practical stoppage of immigration enabled common labor to get a
+larger share than usual of the prosperity. Many employers granted
+increases voluntarily. Simultaneously, a movement for the eight-hour day
+was spreading from strictly munitions-making trades into others and was
+meeting with remarkable success. But 1916 witnessed what was doubtless
+the most spectacular move for the eight-hour day in American
+history&mdash;the joint eight-hour demand by the four railway brotherhoods,
+the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. The effectiveness
+acquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkable
+success with which these four organizations, with the full support of
+the whole labor movement at their back and aided by a not unfriendly
+attitude on the part <a name="Page_231" id="Page_231" />of the national Administration, brought to bay the
+greatest single industry of the country and overcame the opposition of
+the entire business class.</p>
+
+<p>The four brotherhoods made a joint demand for an eight-hour day early in
+1916.<a name="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84">[84]</a> The railway officials claimed that the demand for the
+reduction of the work-day from ten to eight hours with ten hours' pay
+and a time and a half rate for overtime was not made in good faith.
+Since, they said, the employes ought to have known that the railways
+could not be run on an eight-hour day, the demand was but a covert
+attempt to gain a substantial increase in their wages, which were
+already in advance of any of the other skilled workers. On the other
+hand, the brotherhoods stoutly maintained during their direct
+negotiations with the railway companies and in the public press that
+their demand was a <i>bona fide</i> demand and that they believed that the
+railway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on an
+eight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitration
+the demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. The
+brotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind past
+disappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up the
+whole transportation system of the country by a strike on Labor Day.</p>
+
+<p>When the efforts at mediation by the United States Board of Mediation
+and Conciliation came to naught, President Wilson invited to Washington
+the executives of the several railway systems and a convention of the
+several hundred division chairmen of the brotherhoods and attempted
+personal mediation. He urged the railway executives to accept the
+eight-hour day and pro<a name="Page_232" id="Page_232" />posed that a commission appointed by himself
+should investigate the demand for time and a half overtime. This the
+employes accepted, but the executives objected to giving the eight-hour
+day before an investigation was made. Meantime the brotherhoods had
+issued their strike order effective on Labor Day and the crisis became
+imminent. To obviate the calamity of a general strike, at a time when
+the country was threatened with troubles on the Mexican frontier and
+with the unsettled submarine controversy with Germany ready to flare up
+any moment, the President went before Congress and asked for a speedy
+enactment of an eight-hour law for train operatives without a reduction
+in wages but with no punitive overtime. He coupled it with a request for
+an authorisation of a special commission to report on the operation of
+such a law for a period of six months, after which the subject might be
+reopened. Lastly, he urged an amendment to the Newlands Act making it
+illegal to call a strike or a lockout pending an investigation of a
+controversy by a government commission. Spurred on by the danger of the
+impending strike, Congress quickly acceded to the first two requests by
+the President and passed the so-called Adamson law.<a name="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85">[85]</a> The strike was
+averted, but in the immediately following Presidential campaign labor's
+&quot;hold-up&quot; of the national government became one of the trump issues of
+the Republican candidate.</p>
+
+<p>This episode of the summer of 1916 had two sequels, one in the courts
+and the other one in a negotiated agreement between the railways and the
+brotherhoods. The former brought many suits in courts against the
+govern<a name="Page_233" id="Page_233" />ment and obtained from a lower court a decision that the Adamson
+law was unconstitutional. The case was then taken to the United States
+Supreme Court, but the decision was not ready until the spring of 1917.
+Meantime the danger of a strike had been renewed. However, on the same
+day when the Supreme Court gave out its decision, the railways and
+brotherhoods had signed, at the urging of the National Council of
+Defense, an agreement accepting the conditions of the Adamson law
+regardless of the outcome in court. When the decision became known it
+was found to be in favor of the Adamson law. The declaration of war
+against Germany came a few days later and opened a new era in the
+American labor situation.</p>
+
+<p>Previous to that, on March 12, 1917, when war seemed inevitable, the
+national officers of all important unions in the Federation met in
+Washington and issued a statement on &quot;American Labor's Position in Peace
+or in War.&quot; They pledged the labor movement and the influence of the
+labor organizations unreservedly in support of the government in case of
+war. Whereas, they said, in all previous wars &quot;under the guise of
+national necessity, labor was stripped of its means of defense against
+enemies at home and was robbed of the advantages, the protections, and
+guarantees of justice that had been achieved after ages of struggle&quot;;
+and &quot;labor had no representatives in the councils authorized to deal
+with the conduct of the war&quot;; and therefore &quot;the rights, interests and
+welfare of workers were autocratically sacrificed for the slogan of
+national safety&quot;; in this war &quot;the government must recognize the
+organized labor movement as the agency through which it must cooperate
+with wage earners.&quot; Such recognition will imply first &quot;representation on
+all agencies de<a name="Page_234" id="Page_234" />termining and administering policies of national
+defense&quot; and &quot;on all boards authorized to control publicity during war
+time.&quot; Second, that &quot;service in government factories and private
+establishments, in transportation agencies, all should conform to trade
+union standards&quot;; and that &quot;whatever changes in the organization of
+industry are necessary upon a war basis, they should be made in accord
+with plans agreed upon by representatives of the government and those
+engaged and employed in the industry.&quot; Third, that the government's
+demand of sacrifice of their &quot;labor power, their bodies or their lives&quot;
+be accompanied by &quot;increased guarantees and safe-guards,&quot; the imposing
+of a similar burden on property and the limitation of profits. Fourth,
+that &quot;organization for industrial and commercial service&quot; be &quot;upon a
+different basis from military service&quot; and &quot;that military service should
+be carefully distinguished from service in industrial disputes,&quot; since
+&quot;the same voluntary institutions that organized industrial, commercial
+and transportation workers in times of peace will best take care of the
+same problems in time of war.&quot; For, &quot;wrapped up with the safety of this
+Republic are ideals of democracy, a heritage which the masses of the
+people received from our forefathers, who fought that liberty might live
+in this country&mdash;a heritage that is to be maintained and handed down to
+each generation with undiminished power and usefulness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We quote at such length because this document gives the quintessence of
+the wise labor statesmanship which this crisis brought so clearly to
+light. Turning away from the pacifism of the Socialist party, Samuel
+Gompers and his associates believed that victory over world militarism
+as well as over the forces of reaction at home depended on labor's
+unequivocal support of the government. And <a name="Page_235" id="Page_235" />in reality, by placing the
+labor movement in the service of the war-making power of the nation they
+assured for it, for the time being at least, a degree of national
+prestige and a freedom to expand which could not have been conquered by
+many years of the most persistent agitation and strikes.</p>
+
+<p>The War, thus, far from being a trial for organized labor, proved
+instead a great opportunity. For the War released organized labor from a
+blind alley, as it were. The American Federation of Labor, as we saw,
+had made but slow progress in organization after 1905. At that time it
+had succeeded in organizing the skilled and some of the semi-skilled
+workers. Further progress was impeded by the anti-union employers
+especially in industries commonly understood to be dominated by
+&quot;trusts.&quot; In none of the &quot;trustified&quot; industries, save anthracite coal,
+was labor organization able to make any headway. And yet the American
+Federation of Labor, situated as it is, is obliged to stake everything
+upon the power to organize.<a name="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86">[86]</a> The war gave it that all-important
+power. Soon after the Federal government became the arbiter of
+industry&mdash;by virtue of being the greatest consumer, and by virtue of a
+public opinion clearly outspoken on the subject&mdash;we see the Taft-Walsh
+War Labor Board<a name="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87">[87]</a> embody &quot;the right to organize&quot; into a code of rules
+for the guidance of the relations of labor and capital during War-time,
+along with the basic eight-hour day and the right to a living wage. In
+return for these gifts American labor gave up nothing so vital as
+British labor had done in the identical situation. The right to strike
+was left unmolested and remained a permanent threat hanging <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236" />over slow
+moving officialdom and recalcitrant employers. And the only restraint
+accepted by labor was a promise of self-restraint. The Federation was
+not to strike until all other means for settlement had been tried, nor
+was it to press for the closed shop where such had not existed prior to
+the War declaration. But at the same time no employer was to interpose a
+check to its expansion into industries and districts heretofore
+unorganized. Nor could an employer discipline an employe for joining a
+union or inducing others to join.</p>
+
+<p>In 1916, when the President established the National Council of Defense,
+he appointed Samuel Gompers one of the seven members composing the
+Advisory Commission in charge of all policies dealing with labor and
+chairman of a committee on labor of his own appointment. Among the first
+acts of the Council of Defense was an emphatic declaration for the
+preservation of the standards of legal protection of labor against the
+ill-advised efforts for their suspension during War-time. The Federation
+was given representation on the Emergency Construction Board, the Fuel
+Administration Board, on the Woman's Board, on the Food Administration
+Board, and finally on the War Industries Board. The last named board was
+during the war the recognized arbiter of the country's industries, all
+labor matters being handled by its labor representative. The Department
+of Labor, which in the War emergency could rightly be considered the
+Federation's arm in the Administration, was placed in supreme charge of
+general labor administration. Also, in connection with the
+administration of the military conscription law, organized labor was
+given representation on each District Exemption Board. But perhaps the
+strongest expression of the official recognition of the labor move<a name="Page_237" id="Page_237" />ment
+was offered by President Wilson when he took time from the pressing
+business in Washington to journey to Buffalo in November 1917, to
+deliver an address before the convention of the American Federation of
+Labor.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to representation on boards and commissions dealing with
+general policies, the government entered with the Federation into a
+number of agreements relative to the conditions of direct and indirect
+employment by the government. In each agreement the prevalent trade
+union standards were fully accepted and provision was made for a
+three-cornered board of adjustment to consist of a representative of the
+particular government department, the public and labor. Such agreements
+were concluded by the War and Navy departments and by the United States
+Emergency Fleet Corporation. The Shipping Board sponsored a similar
+agreement between the shipping companies and the seafaring unions; and
+the War Department between the leather goods manufacturers and leather
+workers' union. When the government took over the railways on January 1,
+1918, it created three boards of adjustment on the identical principle
+of a full recognition of labor organizations. The spirit with which the
+government faced the labor problem was shown also in connection with the
+enforcement of the eight-hour law. The law of 1912 provided for an
+eight-hour day on contract government work but allowed exceptions in
+emergencies. In 1917 Congress gave the President the right to waive the
+application of the law, but provided that in such event compensation be
+computed on a &quot;basic&quot; eight-hour day. The War and Navy departments
+enforced these provisions not only to the letter but generally gave to
+them a most liberal interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>The taking over of the railways by the government <a name="Page_238" id="Page_238" />revolutionized the
+railway labor situation. Under private management, as was seen, the four
+brotherhoods alone, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen
+enjoyed universal recognition, the basic eight-hour day (since 1916),
+and high wages. The other organizations of the railway workers, the
+shopmen, the yardmen, the maintenance of way men, the clerks, and the
+telegraphers were, at best, tolerated rather than recognized. Under the
+government administration the eight-hour day was extended to all grades
+of workers, and wages were brought up to a minimum of 68 cents per hour,
+with a considerable though not corresponding increase in the wages of
+the higher grades of labor. All discrimination against union men was
+done away with, so that within a year labor organization on the railways
+was nearing the hundred percent mark.</p>
+
+<p>The policies of the national railway administration of the open door to
+trade unionism and of recognition of union standards were successfully
+pressed upon other employments by the National War Labor Board. On March
+29, 1918, a National War Labor Conference Board, composed of five
+representatives of the Federation of Labor, five representatives of
+employers' associations and two joint chairmen, William H. Taft for the
+employers and Frank P. Walsh for the employes, reported to the Secretary
+of Labor on &quot;Principles and Policies to govern Relations between Workers
+and Employers in War Industries for the Duration of the War.&quot; These
+&quot;principles and policies,&quot; which were to be enforced by a permanent War
+Labor Board organized upon the identical principle as the reporting
+board, included a voluntary relinquishment of the right to strike and
+lockout by employes and employers, respectively, upon the following
+conditions: First, there was a recognition of the equal <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239" />right of
+employes and employers to organize into associations and trade unions
+and to bargain collectively. This carried an undertaking by the
+employers not to discharge workers for membership in trade unions or for
+legitimate trade union activities, and was balanced by an undertaking of
+the workers, &quot;in the exercise of their right to organize,&quot; not to &quot;use
+coercive measures of any kind to induce persons to join their
+organizations, nor to induce employers to bargain or deal therewith.&quot;
+Second, both sides agreed upon the observance of the <i>status quo ante
+bellum</i> as to union or open shop in a given establishment and as to
+union standards of wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.
+This carried the express stipulation that the right to organize was not
+to be curtailed under any condition and that the War Labor Board could
+grant improvement in labor conditions as the situation warranted. Third,
+the understanding was that if women should be brought into industry,
+they must be allowed equal pay for equal work. Fourth, it was agreed
+that &quot;the basic eight-hour day was to be recognized as applying in all
+cases in which the existing law required it, while in all other cases
+the question of hours of labor was to be settled with due regard to
+government necessities and the welfare, health, and proper comfort of
+the workers.&quot; Fifth, restriction of output by trade unions was to be
+done away with. Sixth, in fixing wages and other conditions regard was
+to be shown to trade union standards. And lastly came the recognition of
+&quot;the right of all workers, including common laborers, to a living wage&quot;
+and the stipulation that in fixing wages, there will be established
+&quot;minimum rates of pay which will insure the subsistence of the worker
+and his family in health and reasonable comfort.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240" />The establishment of the War Labor Board did not mean that the country
+had gone over to the principle of compulsory arbitration, for the Board
+could not force any party to a dispute to submit to its arbitration or
+by an umpire of its appointment. However, so outspoken was public
+opinion on the necessity of avoiding interruptions in the War industries
+and so far-reaching were the powers of the government over the employer
+as the administrator of material and labor priorities and over the
+employes as the administrator of the conscription law that the indirect
+powers of the Board sufficed to make its decision prevail in nearly
+every instance.</p>
+
+<p>The packing industry was a conspicuous case of the &quot;new course&quot; in
+industrial relations. This industry had successfully kept unionism out
+since an ill-considered strike in 1904, which ended disastrously for the
+strikers. Late in 1917, 60,000 employes in the packing houses went on
+strike for union recognition, the basic eight-hour day, and other
+demands. Intervention by the government led to a settlement, which,
+although denying the union formal recognition, granted the basic
+eight-hour day, a living wage, and the right to organize, together with
+all that it implied, and the appointment of a permanent arbitrator to
+adjudicate disputes. Thus an industry which had prohibited labor
+organization for fourteen years was made to open its door to trade
+unionism.<a name="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88">[88]</a> Another telling gain for the basic eight-hour day was made
+by the timber workers in the Northwest, again at the insistence of the
+government.</p>
+
+<p>What the aid of the government in securing the right to organize meant
+to the strength of trade unionism may <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241" />be derived from the following
+figures. In the two years from 1917 to 1919 the organization of the meat
+cutters and butcher workmen increased its membership from less than
+10,000 to over 66,000; the boilermakers and iron shipbuilders from
+31,000 to 85,000; the blacksmiths from 12,000 to 28,000; the railway
+clerks from less than 7000 to over 71,000; the machinists from 112,000
+to 255,000; the maintenance of way employes from less than 10,000 to
+54,000; the railway carmen from 39,000 to 100,000; the railway
+telegraphers from 27,000 to 45,000; and the electrical workers from
+42,000 to 131,000. The trades here enumerated&mdash;mostly related to
+shipbuilding and railways&mdash;accounted for the greater part of the total
+gain in the membership of the Federation from two and a half million
+members in 1917 to over three and a third in 1919.</p>
+
+<p>An important aspect of the cooperation of the government with the
+Federation was the latter's eager self-identification with the
+government's foreign policy, which went to the length of choosing to
+play a lone hand in the Allied labor world. Labor in America had an
+implicit faith in the national government, which was shared by neither
+English nor French labor. Whereas the workers in the other Allied
+Nations believed that their governments needed to be prodded or forced
+into accepting the right road to a democratic peace by an international
+labor congress, which would take the entire matter of war and peace out
+of the diplomatic chancellories into an open conference of the
+representatives of the workers, the American workers were only too eager
+to follow the leadership of the head of the American nation. To this
+doubtless was added the usual fervor of a new convert to any cause (in
+this instance the cause of the War <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242" />against Germany) and a strong
+distrust of German socialism, which American labor leaders have
+developed during their drawn-out struggle against the German-trained
+socialists inside the Federation who have persistently tried to
+&quot;capture&quot; the organization.</p>
+
+<p>When on January 8, 1918, President Wilson enunciated his famous Fourteen
+Points, the Federation of course gave them an enthusiastic endorsement.
+In the autumn of 1918 Gompers went to Europe and participated in an
+Inter-Allied labor conference. He refused, however, to participate in
+the first International Labor and Socialist Congress called since the
+War, which met at Berne, Switzerland, in March 1919, since he would not
+sit with the Germans while their country was not formally at peace with
+the United States. The convention of the Federation in June 1919 gave
+complete endorsement to the League of Nations Pact worked out at
+Versailles,&mdash;on general grounds and on the ground of its specific
+provisions for an international regulation of labor conditions designed
+to equalize labor standards and costs. Contrasting with this was the
+position of British labor, which regarded the Pact with a critical eye,
+frankly confessing disillusionment, but was willing to accept it for the
+sake of its future possibilities, when the Pact might be remodelled by
+more liberal and more democratic hands.</p>
+
+<p>The contrast in outlook between the mild evolutionism of the American
+Federation of Labor and the social radicalism of British labor stood out
+nowhere so strongly as in their respective programs for Reconstruction
+after the War. The chief claim of the British Labor party for
+recognition at the hands of the voter at the General Election in
+December 1918, was its well-thought-out reconstruction program put forth
+under the telling title <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243" />of &quot;Labour and the New Social Order.&quot; This
+program was above all a legislative program. It called for a
+thoroughgoing governmental control of industry by means of a control of
+private finance, natural resources, transportation, and international
+trade. To the workingmen such control would mean the right to steady
+employment, the right to a living wage, and the appropriation of
+economic surpluses by the state for the common good&mdash;be they in the form
+of rent, excessive profits, or overlarge personal incomes. Beyond this
+minimum program loomed the cooperative commonwealth with the private
+capitalist totally eliminated.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the program of British labor. What of the Reconstruction
+program of American labor? First of all, American labor thought of
+Reconstruction as a program to be carried out by the trade union, not by
+the government. Moreover, it did not see in Reconstruction the great
+break with the past which that meant to British labor. The American
+Federation of Labor applied to Reconstruction the same philosophy which
+lies at the basis of its ordinary, everyday activity. It concerned
+itself not with any far-reaching plan for social reorganization, but
+with a rising standard of living and an enlarged freedom for the union.
+The American equivalent of a government-guaranteed right to employment
+and a living wage was the &quot;right to organize.&quot; Assure to labor that
+right, free the trade unions of court interference in strikes and
+boycotts, prevent excessive meddling by the government in industrial
+relations&mdash;and the stimulated activities of the &quot;legitimate&quot;
+organizations of labor, which will result therefrom, will achieve a far
+better Reconstruction than a thousand paper programs however beautiful.
+So reasoned the leaders of the American Federation of Labor. <a name="Page_244" id="Page_244" />During the
+period of War, they of course gladly accepted directly from the
+government the basic eight-hour day and the high wages, which under
+other circumstances they could have got only by prolonged and bitter
+striking. But even more acceptable than these directly bestowed boons
+was the indirect one of the right to organize free from anti-union
+discriminations by employers. Having been arrested in its expansion, as
+we saw, by anti-union employers and especially &quot;trusts,&quot; the American
+Federation of Labor took advantage of the War situation to overflow new
+territory. Once entrenched and the organization well in hand, it thought
+it could look to the future with confidence.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84">[84]</a> For the developments which led up to this joint move see above,
+<a href="#Page_182">182-184.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85">[85]</a> Congress ignored the last-named recommendation which would have
+introduced in the United States the Canadian system of &quot;Compulsory
+Investigation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86">[86]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_283">283-287.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87">[87]</a>] See below, <a href="#Page_238">238-240.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88">[88]</a> The unions again lost their hold upon the packing industry in the
+autumn of 1921.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_11" id="CHAPTER_11" />CHAPTER 11</h2>
+
+<h2>RECENT DEVELOPMENTS</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Armistice with Germany came suddenly and unexpectedly. To the
+organized workers the news was as welcome as to other citizens. But, had
+they looked at the matter from a special trade union standpoint, they
+would probably have found a longer duration of the War not entirely
+amiss. For coal had been unionized already before the War, the railways
+first during the War, but the third basic industry, steel, was not
+touched either before or during the War. However, it was precisely in
+the steel industry that opposition to unionism has found its chief seat,
+not only to unionism in that industry alone but to unionism in related
+or subsidiary industries as well.</p>
+
+<p>The first three months after the Armistice the general expectation was
+for a set-back in business conditions due to the withdrawal of the
+enormous government War-time demand. Employers and trade unions stood
+equally undecided. When, however, instead of the expected slump, there
+came a prosperity unknown even during the War, the trade unions resumed
+their offensive, now unrestrained by any other but the strictly economic
+consideration. As a matter of fact, the trade unions were not at all
+free agents, since their demands, frequent and considerable though they
+were, barely sufficed to keep wages abreast of the soaring cost of
+living. Through 1919 and the <a name="Page_246" id="Page_246" />first half of 1920 profits and wages were
+going up by leaps and bounds; and the forty-four hour week,&mdash;no longer
+the mere eight-hour day,&mdash;became a general slogan and a partial reality.
+Success was especially notable in clothing, building, printing, and the
+metal trades. One cannot say the same, however, of the three basic
+industries, steel, coal, and railways. In steel the twelve-hour day and
+the seven-day week continued as before for approximately one-half of the
+workers and the unions were preparing for a battle with the &quot;Steel
+Trust.&quot; While on the railways and in coal mining the unions now began to
+encounter opposition from an unexpected quarter, namely, the government.</p>
+
+<p>When in the summer of 1919 the railway shopmen demanded an increase in
+their wages, which had not been raised since the summer of 1918,
+President Wilson practically refused the demand, urging the need of a
+general deflation but binding himself to use all the powers of the
+government immediately to reduce the cost of living. A significant
+incident in this situation was a spontaneous strike of shopmen on many
+roads unauthorized by international union officials, which disarranged
+the movement of trains for a short time but ended with the men returning
+to work under the combined pressure of their leaders' threats and the
+President's plea.</p>
+
+<p>In September 1919, the United States Railroad Administration and the
+shopmen's unions entered into national agreements, which embodied the
+practices under the Administration as well as those in vogue on the more
+liberal roads before 1918, including recognition and a large number of
+&quot;working rules.&quot; These &quot;national agreements&quot; became an important issue
+one year later, when their abolition began to be pressed by the railway
+<a name="Page_247" id="Page_247" />executives before the Railroad Labor Board, which was established under
+the Transportation Act of 1920.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1919 employers in certain industries, like clothing,
+grew aware of a need of a more &quot;psychological&quot; handling of their labor
+force than heretofore in order to reduce a costly high labor turnover
+and no less costly stoppages of work. This created a veritable Eldorado
+for &quot;employment managers&quot; and &quot;labor managers,&quot; real and spurious.
+Universities and colleges, heretofore wholly uninterested in the problem
+of labor or viewing training in that problem as but a part of a general
+cultural education, now vied with one another in establishing &quot;labor
+management&quot; and &quot;labor personnel&quot; courses. One phase of the &quot;labor
+personnel&quot; work was a rather wide experimentation with &quot;industrial
+democracy&quot; plans. These plans varied in form and content, from simple
+provision for shop committees for collective dealing, many of which had
+already been installed during the War under the orders of the War Labor
+Board, to most elaborate schemes, some modelled upon the Constitution of
+the United States. The feature which they all had in common was that
+they attempted to achieve some sort of collective bargaining outside the
+channels of the established trade unions. The trade unionists termed the
+new fashioned expressions of industrial democracy &quot;company unions.&quot; This
+term one may accept as technically correct without necessarily accepting
+the sinister connotation imputed to it by labor.</p>
+
+<p>The trade unions, too, were benefiting as organizations. The Amalgamated
+Clothing Workers' Union firmly established itself by formal agreement on
+the men's clothing &quot;markets&quot; of Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore, and New
+<a name="Page_248" id="Page_248" />York. The membership of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union rose to
+175,000. Employers in general were complaining of increased labor
+unrest, a falling off of efficiency in the shop, and looked askance at
+the rapid march of unionization. The trade unions, on their part, were
+aware of their opportunity and eager for a final recognition as an
+institution in industry. As yet uncertainty prevailed as to whether
+enough had survived of the War-time spirit of give and take to make a
+struggle avoidable, or whether the issue must be solved by a bitter
+conflict of classes.</p>
+
+<p>A partial showdown came in the autumn of 1919. Three great events, which
+came closely together, helped to clear the situation: The steel strike,
+the President's Industrial Conference, and the strike of the soft coal
+miners. The great steel strike, prepared and directed by a Committee
+representing twenty-four national and international unions with William
+Z. Foster as Secretary and moving spirit, tried in September 1919 to
+wrest from the owners of the steel mills what the railway shopmen had
+achieved in 1918 by invitation of the government, namely, &quot;recognition&quot;
+and the eight-hour day. Three hundred thousand men went out on strike at
+the call of the committee. The industry came to a practical standstill.
+But in this case the twenty-four allied unions were not dealing with a
+government amenable to political pressure, nor with a loosely joined
+association of employers competing among themselves. Furthermore, the
+time had passed when the government had either the will or the power to
+interfere and order both sides to arbitrate their dispute. On the
+contrary, the unions were now dealing unaided with the strongest
+capitalist aggregation in the world.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249" />At the request of President Wilson, Gompers had urged the strike
+committee to postpone the strike until after the meeting of the national
+industrial conference called by the President in October, but the
+committee claimed that it could not have kept the men back after a
+summer of agitation and feverish organization had they even tried. The
+President's conference, modelled upon a similar conference which met
+earlier in Great Britain, was composed of three groups of
+representatives equal in number, one for capital, one for labor, and one
+for the general public. Decisions, to be held effective, had to be
+adopted by a majority in each group. The labor representation, dominated
+of course by Gompers, was eager to make the discussion turn on the steel
+strike. It proposed a resolution to this effect which had the support of
+the public group, but fearing a certain rejection by the employer group
+the matter was postponed. The issue upon which the alignment was
+effected was industrial control and collective bargaining. All three
+groups, the employer and public groups and of course the labor group,
+advocated collective bargaining,&mdash;but with a difference. The labor group
+insisted that collective bargaining is doomed to be a farce unless the
+employes are allowed to choose as their spokesmen representatives of the
+national trade union. In the absence of a powerful protector in the
+national union, they argued, the workers in a shop can never feel
+themselves on a bargaining equality with their employer, nor can they be
+represented by a spokesman of the necessary ability if their choice be
+restricted to those working in the same plant. The employers, now no
+longer dominated by the War-time spirit which caused them in 1917 to
+tolerate an expansion of unionism, insisted that no employer must be
+obliged to meet for the purpose of collec<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250" />tive bargaining with other
+than his own employes.<a name="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89">[89]</a> After two weeks of uncertainty, when it had
+become clear that a resolution supported by both labor and public
+groups, which restated the labor position in a milder form, would be
+certain to be voted down by the employer group, the labor group withdrew
+from the conference, and the conference broke up. The period of the
+cooperation of classes had definitely closed.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the steel strike continued. Federal troops patrolled the steel
+districts and there was no violence. Nevertheless, a large part of the
+country's press pictured the strike by the steel workers for union
+recognition and a normal workday as an American counterpart of the
+Bolshevist revolution in Russia. Public opinion, unbalanced and excited
+as it was over the whirlpool of world events, was in no position to
+resist. The strike failed.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing made so clear to the trade unionists the changed situation since
+the War ended as the strike of the bituminous coal miners which began
+November 1. The miners had entered, in October 1917, into a wage
+agreement with the operators for the duration of the War. The purchasing
+power of their wages having become greatly reduced by the ever rising
+cost of living, discontent was general in the union. A further
+complication arose from the uncertain position of the United States with
+reference to War and Peace, which had a bearing on the situation. The
+miners claimed that the Armistice had ended the War. The War having
+ended, the disad<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251" />vantageous agreement expired with it. So argued the
+miners and demanded a sixty percent increase in tonnage rates, a
+corresponding one for yardmen and others paid by the day or hour, and a
+thirty-hour week to spread employment through the year. The operators
+maintained that the agreement was still in force, but intimated a
+readiness to make concessions if they were permitted to shift the cost
+to the consumer. At this point, the Fuel Administration, a War-time
+government body, already partly in the process of dissolution,
+intervened and attempted to dictate a settlement at a fourteen percent
+increase, which was entirely unacceptable to the union. The strike
+continued and the prospect of a dire coal famine grew nearer. To break
+the deadlock, on motion of Attorney-General Palmer, Judge Anderson of
+Indianapolis, under the War-time Lever Act, issued an injunction
+forbidding the union officials to continue conducting the strike. The
+strike continued, the strikers refusing to return to work, and a
+Bituminous Coal Commission appointed by the President finally settled it
+by an award of an increase of twenty-seven percent. But that the same
+Administration which had given the unions so many advantages during the
+War should now have invoked against them a War-time law, which had
+already been considered practically abrogated, was a clear indication of
+the change in the times. In a strike by anthracite coal miners in the
+following year an award was made by a Presidential board of three,
+representing the employers, the union, and the public. The strikers,
+however, refused to abide by it and inaugurated a &quot;vacation-strike,&quot; the
+individual strikers staying away on a so-called vacation, nominally
+against the will of the union officers. They finally returned to work.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252" />Both the steel and coal strikes furnished occasions for considerable
+anti-union propaganda in the press. Public sentiment long favorable to
+labor became definitely hostile.<a name="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90">[90]</a> In Kansas the legislature passed a
+compulsory arbitration law and created an Industrial Relations Court to
+adjudicate trade disputes. Simultaneously an &quot;anti-Red&quot; campaign
+inaugurated by Attorney-General Palmer contributed its share to the
+public excitement and helped to prejudice the cause of labor more by
+implication than by making direct charges. It was in an atmosphere thus
+surcharged with suspicion and fear that a group of employers, led by the
+National Association of Manufacturers and several local employers'
+organizations, launched an open-shop movement with the slogan of an
+&quot;American plan&quot; for shops and industries. Many employers, normally
+opposed to unionism, who in War-time had permitted unionism to acquire
+scope, were now trying to reconquer their lost positions. The example of
+the steel industry and the fiasco of the President's Industrial
+Conference crystallized this reviving anti-union sentiment into action.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the railway labor situation remained unsettled and fraught
+with danger. The problem was bound up with the general problem as to
+what to do with the railways. Many plans were presented to Congress,
+from an immediate return to private owners to permanent government
+ownership and management. The railway labor organizations, that is, the
+four brotherhoods of the train service personnel and the twelve unions
+united in <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253" />the Railway Employes' Department of the American Federation
+of Labor, came before Congress with the so-called Plumb Plan, worked out
+by Glenn E. Plumb, the legal representative of the brotherhoods. This
+plan proposed that the government take over the railways for good,
+paying a compensation to the owners, and then entrust their operation to
+a board composed of government officials, union representatives, and
+representatives of the technical staffs.<a name="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91">[91]</a> So much for ultimate plans.
+On the more immediate wage problem proper, the government had clearly
+fallen down on its promise made to the shopmen in August 1919, when
+their demands for higher wages were refused and a promise was made that
+the cost of living would be reduced. Early in 1920 President Wilson
+notified Congress that he would return the roads to the owners on March
+1, 1920. A few days before that date the Esch-Cummins bill was passed
+under the name of the Transportation Act of 1920. Strong efforts were
+made to incorporate in the bill a prohibition against strikes and
+lockouts. In that form it had indeed passed the Senate. In the House
+bill, however, the compulsory arbitration feature was absent and the
+final law contained a provision for a Railroad Labor Board, of railway,
+union, and public representatives, to be appointed by the President,
+with the power of conducting investigations and issuing awards, but with
+the right to strike or lockout unimpaired either before, during, or
+after the investigation. It was the first appointed board of this
+description which was to pass on the clamorous demands by the railway
+employes for higher wages.<a name="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92">[92]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254" />No sooner had the roads been returned under the new law, and before the
+board was even appointed, than a strike broke out among the switchmen
+and yardmen, whose patience had apparently been exhausted. The strike
+was an &quot;outlaw&quot; strike, undertaken against the wishes of national
+leaders and organized and led by &quot;rebel&quot; leaders risen up for the
+occasion. For a time it threatened not only to paralyze the country's
+railway system but to wreck the railway men's organizations as well. It
+was finally brought to an end through the efforts of the national
+leaders, and a telling effect on the situation was produced by an
+announcement by the newly constituted Railroad Labor Board that no
+&quot;outlaw&quot; organization would have standing before it. The Board issued an
+award on July 20, retroactive to May 1, increasing the total annual wage
+bill of the railways by $600,000,000. The award failed to satisfy the
+union, but they acquiesced.</p>
+
+<p>When the increase in wages was granted to the railway employes, industry
+in general and the railways in particular were already entering a period
+of slump. With the depression the open-shop movement took on a greater
+vigor. With unemployment rapidly increasing employers saw their chance
+to regain freedom from union control. A few months later the tide also
+turned in the movement of wages. Inside of a year the steel industry
+reduced wages thirty percent, in three like installments; and the
+twelve-hour day and the seven-day week, which had figured among the
+chief causes of the strike of 1919 and for which the United States Steel
+Corporation was severely condemned by a report of a Committee of the
+Interchurch World Movement,<a name="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93">[93]</a> has largely continued as <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255" />before. In the
+New York &quot;market&quot; of the men's clothing industry, where the union faces
+the most complex and least stable condition mainly owing to the
+heterogeneous character of the employing group, the latter grasped the
+opportunity to break with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union. By
+the end of the spring of 1921 the clothing workers won their struggle,
+showing that a union built along new lines was at least as efficient a
+fighting machine as any of the older unions. It was this union also and
+several local branches of the related union in the ladies' garment
+industry, which realized the need of assuring to the employer at least a
+minimum of labor efficiency if the newly established level of wages was
+not to be materially lowered. Hence the acceptance of the principle of
+&quot;standards of production&quot; fixed with the aid of scientific managers
+employed jointly by the employers and the union.</p>
+
+<p>The spring and summer of 1921 were a time of widespread &quot;readjustment&quot;
+strikes, or strikes against cuts in wages, especially in the building
+trades. The building industry went through in 1921 and 1922 one of its
+periodic upheavals against the tyranny of the &quot;walking delegates&quot; and
+against the state of moral corruption for which some of the latter
+shared responsibility together with an unscrupulous element among the
+employers. In San Francisco, where the grip of the unions upon the
+industry was strongest, the employers turned on them and installed the
+&quot;open-shop&quot; after the building trades' council had refused to accept an
+award by an arbitration committee set up by mutual agreement. The union
+claimed, however, in self-justification that the Committee, by awarding
+a <i>reduction</i> in the wages of fifteen crafts while the issue as
+originally submitted turned on a demand <a name="Page_256" id="Page_256" />by these crafts for a <i>raise</i>
+in wages, had gone outside its legitimate scope. In New York City an
+investigation by a special legislative committee uncovered a state of
+reeking corruption among the leadership in the building trades' council
+and among an element in the employing group in connection with a
+successful attempt to establish a virtual local monopoly in building.
+Some of the leading corruptionists on both sides were given court
+sentences and the building trades' council accepted modifications in the
+&quot;working rules&quot; formulated by the counsel for the investigating
+committee. In Chicago a situation developed in many respects similar to
+the one in San Francisco. In a wage dispute, which was submitted by both
+sides to Federal Judge K.M. Landis for arbitration, the award authorized
+not only a wage reduction but a revision of the &quot;working rules&quot; as well.
+Most of the unionists refused to abide by the award and the situation
+developed into literal warfare. In Chicago the employers' side was
+aggressively upheld by a &quot;citizens' committee&quot; formed to enforce the
+Landis award. The committee claimed to have imported over 10,000
+out-of-town building mechanics to take the places of the strikers.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1921 the employers in the packing industry discontinued
+the arrangement whereby industrial relations were administered by an
+&quot;administrator,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94">[94]</a> Judge Alschuler of Chicago, whose rulings had
+materially restricted the employers' control in the shop. Some of the
+employers put into effect company union plans. This led to a strike, but
+in the end the unions lost their foothold in the industry, which the War
+had enabled them to acquire. By that time, however, the <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257" />open-shop
+movement seemed already passing its peak, without having caused an
+irreparable breach in the position of organized labor. Evidently, the
+long years of preparation before the War and the great opportunity
+during the War itself, if they have failed to give trade unionism the
+position of a recognized national institution, have at least made it
+immune from destruction by employers, however general or skillfully
+managed the attack. In 1920 the total organized union membership,
+including the 871,000 in unions unaffiliated with the American
+Federation of Labor, was slightly short of 5,000,000, or over four
+million in the Federation itself. In 1921 the membership of the
+Federation declined slightly to 3,906,000, and the total organized
+membership probably in proportion. In 1922 the membership of the
+Federation declined to about 3,200,000, showing a loss of about 850,000
+since the high mark of 1920.</p>
+
+<p>The legal position of trade unions has continued as uncertain and
+unsatisfactory to the unions, as if no Clayton Act had been passed. The
+closed shop has been condemned as coercion of non-unionists. Yet in the
+Coppage case<a name="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95">[95]</a> the United States Supreme Court found that it is not
+coercion when an employer threatens discharge unless union membership is
+renounced. Similarly, it is unlawful for union agents to attempt
+organization, even by peaceful persuasion, when employes have signed
+contracts not to join the union as a condition of employment.<a name="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96">[96]</a> A
+decision which arouses strong doubt whether the Clayton Act made any
+change in the status of trade unions was given by the Supreme Court in
+the recent <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258" />Duplex Printing case.<a name="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97">[97]</a> In this decision the union rested
+its defense squarely on the immunities granted by the Clayton Act.
+Despite this, the injunction was confirmed and the boycott again
+declared illegal, the court holding that the words &quot;employer and
+employes&quot; in the Act restrict its benefits only to &quot;parties standing in
+proximate relation to a controversy,&quot; that is to the employes who are
+immediately involved in the dispute and not to the national union which
+undertakes to bring their employer to terms by causing their other
+members to boycott his goods.</p>
+
+<p>The prevailing judicial interpretation of unlawful union methods is
+briefly as follows: Strikes are illegal when they involve defamation,
+fraud, actual physical violence, threats of physical violence, or
+inducement of breach of contract. Boycotts are illegal when they bring
+third parties into the dispute by threats of strikes, or loss of
+business, publication of &quot;unfair lists,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98">[98]</a> or by interference with
+Interstate commerce. Picketing is illegal when accompanied by violence,
+threats, intimidation, and coercion. In December 1921 the Supreme Court
+declared mere numbers in groups constituted intimidation and, while
+admitting that circumstances may alter cases, limited peaceful picketing
+to one picket at each point of ingress or egress of the plant.<a name="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99">[99]</a> In
+another case the Court held unconstitutional an Arizona statute, which
+reproduced <i>verbatim</i> the labor clauses of the Clayton Act;<a name="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100">[100]</a> this on
+the ground that concerted action by the union would be illegal if the
+means used were illegal and <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259" />therefore the law which operated to make
+them legal deprived the plaintiff of his property without due process of
+law. In June 1922, in the Coronado case, the Court held that unions,
+although unincorporated, are in every respect like corporations and are
+liable for damages in their corporate capacity, including triple damages
+under the Sherman Anti-Trust law, and which may be collected from their
+funds.</p>
+
+<p>We have already pointed out that since the War ended the American labor
+movement has in the popular mind become linked with radicalism. The
+steel strike and the coal miners' strike in 1919, the revolt against the
+national leaders and &quot;outlaw&quot; strikes in the printing industry and on
+the railways in 1920, the advocacy by the organizations of the railway
+men of the Plumb Plan for nationalization of railways and its repeated
+endorsement by the conventions of the American Federation of Labor, the
+resolutions in favor of the nationalization of coal mines passed at the
+conventions of the United Mine Workers, the &quot;vacation&quot; strike by the
+anthracite coal miners in defiance of a government wage award, the
+sympathy expressed for Soviet Russia in a number of unions, notably of
+the clothing industry, have led many to see, despite the assertions of
+the leaders of the American Federation of Labor to the contrary, an
+apparent drift in the labor movement towards radicalism, or even the
+probability of a radical majority in the Federation in the not distant
+future.</p>
+
+<p>The most startling shift has been, of course, in the railway men's
+organizations, which have changed from a pronounced conservatism to an
+advocacy of a socialistic plan of railway nationalization under the
+Plumb Plan. The Plumb Plan raises the issue of socialism in its
+Amer<a name="Page_260" id="Page_260" />ican form. In bare outline the Plan proposes government acquisition
+of the railroads at a value which excludes rights and privileges not
+specifically granted to the roads in their charters from the States. The
+government would then lease the roads to a private operating corporation
+governed by a tri-partite board of directors equally representing the
+consuming public, the managerial employes, and the classified employes.
+An automatic economy-sharing scheme was designed to assure efficient
+service at low rates calculated to yield a fixed return on a value shorn
+of capitalized privileges.</p>
+
+<p>The purpose of the Plumb Plan is to equalize the opportunities of labor
+and capital in using economic power to obtain just rewards for services
+rendered to the public. In this respect it resembles many of the land
+reform and other &quot;panaceas&quot; which are scattered through labor history.
+Wherein it differs is in making the trade unions the vital and organized
+representatives of producers' interests entitled to participate in the
+direct management of industry. An ideal of copartnership and
+self-employment was thus set up, going beyond the boundaries of
+self-help to which organized labor had limited itself in the eighties.</p>
+
+<p>But it is easy to overestimate the drift in the direction of radicalism.
+The Plumb Plan has not yet been made the <i>sine qua non</i> of the American
+labor program. Although the American Federation of Labor endorsed the
+principle of government ownership of the railways at its conventions of
+1920 and 1921, President Gompers, who spoke against the Plan, was
+reelected and again reelected. And in obeying instructions to cooperate
+with brotherhood leaders, he found that they also thought it inopportune
+to press Plumb Plan legislation actively. So far <a name="Page_261" id="Page_261" />as the railway men
+themselves are concerned, after the Railroad Labor Board set up under
+the Esch-Cummins act had begun to pass decisions actually affecting
+wages and working rules, the pressure for the Plumb Plan subsided.
+Instead, the activities of the organizations, though scarcely lessened
+in intensity, have become centered upon the issues of conditions of
+employment.</p>
+
+<p>The drift towards independent labor politics, which many anticipate,
+also remains quite inconclusive. A Farmer-Labor party, launched in 1920
+by influential labor leaders of Chicago (to be sure, against the wishes
+of the national leaders), polled not more than 350,000 votes. And in the
+same election, despite a wide dissatisfaction in labor circles with the
+change in the government's attitude after the passage of the War
+emergency and with a most sweeping use of the injunction in the coal
+strike, the vote for the socialist candidate for President fell below a
+million, that is behind the vote of 1912, notwithstanding a doubling of
+the electorate with women's suffrage. Finally, the same convention of
+the American Federation of Labor, which showed so much sympathy for the
+ideas of the Plumb Plan League, approved a rupture with the
+International Trade Union Federation, with headquarters in Amsterdam,
+Holland, mainly on account of the revolutionary character of the
+addresses issued by the latter.<a name="Page_262" id="Page_262" /><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263" /></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89">[89]</a> The most plausible argument in favor of the position taken by the
+employing group is that no employer should be forced to decide matters
+as intimately connected with the welfare of his business as the ones
+relating to his labor costs and shop discipline with national union
+leaders, since the latter, at best, are interested in the welfare of the
+trade as a whole but rarely in the particular success of <i>his own</i>
+particular establishment.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90">[90]</a> The turn in public sentiment really dated from the threat of a
+strike for the eight-hour day by the four railway brotherhoods in 1916,
+which forced the passage of the Adamson law by Congress. The law was a
+victory for the brotherhoods, but also extremely useful to the enemies
+of organized labor in arousing public hostility to unionism.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91">[91]</a> See below, <a href="#Page_259">259-261</a>, for a more detailed description of the Plan.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92">[92]</a> The Transportation Act included a provision that prior to September
+1, 1920, the railways could not reduce wages.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93">[93]</a> A Protestant interdenominational organization of influence, which
+investigated the strike and issued a report.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94">[94]</a> The union had not been formally &quot;recognized&quot; at any time.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95">[95]</a> Coppage <i>v.</i> Kansas, 236 U.S. (1915).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96">[96]</a> Hitchman Coal and Coke Co. <i>v.</i> Mitchell et al, 245 U.S. 229
+(1917).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97">[97]</a> Duplex Printing Press Co. <i>v.</i> Deering, 41 Sup. Ct. 172 (1921).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98">[98]</a> Montana allows the &quot;unfair list&quot; and California allows all
+boycotts.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99">[99]</a> American Steel Foundries of Granite City, Illinois, <i>v.</i> Tri-City
+Central Trades' Council, 42 Sup. Ct. 72 (1921).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100">[100]</a> Truax et al. <i>v.</i> Corrigan, 42 Sup. Ct. 124 (1921).</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III" />PART III</h2>
+
+<h2>CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES<a name="Page_264" id="Page_264" /><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265" /></h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_12" id="CHAPTER_12" />CHAPTER 12</h2>
+
+<h2>AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION</h2>
+
+
+<p>To interpret the labor movement means to offer a theory of the struggle
+between labor and capital in our present society. According to Karl
+Marx, the founder of modern socialism, the efficient cause in all the
+class struggles of history has been technical progress. Progress in the
+mode of making a living or the growth of &quot;productive forces,&quot; says Marx,
+causes the coming up of new classes and stimulates in each and all
+classes a desire to use their power for a maximum class advantage.
+Referring to the struggle between the class of wage earners and the
+class of employers, Marx brings out that modern machine technique has
+concentrated the social means of production under the ownership of the
+capitalist, who thus became absolute master. The laborer indeed remains
+a free man to dispose of his labor as he wishes, but, having lost
+possession of the means of production, which he had as a master-workman
+during the preceding handicraft stage of industry, his freedom is only
+an illusion and his bargaining power is no greater than if he were a
+slave.</p>
+
+<p>But capitalism, Marx goes on to say, while it debases the worker, at the
+same time produces the conditions of his ultimate elevation. Capitalism
+with its starvation wages and misery makes the workers conscious of
+their common interests as an exploited class, concentrates them in a
+limited number of industrial districts, and forces <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266" />them to organize for
+a struggle against the exploiters. The struggle is for the complete
+displacement of the capitalists both in government and industry by the
+revolutionary labor class. Moreover, capitalism itself renders effective
+although unintended aid to its enemies by developing the following three
+tendencies: First, we have the tendency towards the concentration of
+capital and wealth in the hands of a few of the largest capitalists,
+which reduces the number of the natural supporters of capitalism.
+Second, we observe a tendency towards a steady depression of wages and a
+growing misery of the wage-earning class, which keeps revolutionary
+ardor alive. And lastly, the inevitable and frequent economic crises
+under capitalism disorganize it and hasten it on towards destruction.
+The last and gravest capitalistic industrial crisis will coincide with
+the social revolution which will bring capitalism to an end. The
+wage-earning class must under no condition permit itself to be diverted
+from its revolutionary program into futile attempts to &quot;patch-up&quot;
+capitalism. The labor struggle must be for the abolition of capitalism.</p>
+
+<p>American wage earners have steadily disappointed several generations of
+Marxians by their refusal to accept the Marxian theory of social
+development and the Marxian revolutionary goal. In fact, in their
+thinking, most American wage earners do not start with any general
+theory of industrial society, but approach the subject as bargainers,
+desiring to strike the best wage bargain possible. They also have a
+conception of what the bargain ought to yield them by way of real
+income, measured in terms of their customary standard of living, in
+terms of security for the future, and in terms of freedom in the shop or
+&quot;self-determination.&quot; What impresses them is <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267" />not so much the fact that
+the employer owns the employment opportunities but that he possesses a
+high degree of bargaining advantage over them. Viewing the situation as
+bargainers, they are forced to give their best attention to the menaces
+they encounter as bargainers, namely, to the competitive menaces; for on
+these the employer's own advantage as a bargainer rests. Their impulse
+is therefore not to suppress the employer, but to suppress those
+competitive menaces, be they convict labor, foreign labor, &quot;green&quot; or
+untrained workers working on machines, and so forth. To do so they feel
+they must organize into a union and engage in a &quot;class struggle&quot; against
+the employer.</p>
+
+<p>It is the employer's purpose to bring in ever lower and lower levels in
+competition among laborers and depress wages; it is the purpose of the
+union to eliminate those lower levels and to make them stay eliminated.
+That brings the union men face to face with the whole matter of
+industrial control. They have no assurance that the employer will not
+get the best of them in bargaining unless they themselves possess enough
+control over the shop and the trade to check him. Hence they will strive
+for the &quot;recognition&quot; of the union by the employer or the associated
+employers as an acknowledged part of the government of the shop and the
+trade. It is essential to note that in struggling for recognition, labor
+is struggling not for something absolute, as would be a struggle for a
+complete dispossession of the employer, but for the sort of an end that
+admits of relative differences and gradations. Industrial control may be
+divided in varying proportions,<a name="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101">[101]</a> reflecting at any one time the
+relative <a name="Page_268" id="Page_268" />ratio of bargaining power of the contesting sides. It is
+labor's aim to continue increasing its bargaining power and with it its
+share of industrial control, just as it is the employer's aim to
+maintain a <i>status quo</i> or better. Although this presupposes a
+continuous struggle, it is not a revolutionary but an &quot;opportunist&quot;
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Once we accept the view that a broadly conceived aim to control
+competitive menaces is the key to the conduct of organized labor in
+America, light is thrown on the causes of the American industrial class
+struggles. In place of looking for these causes, with the Marxians, in
+the domain of technique and production, we shall look for them on the
+market, where all developments which affect labor as a bargainer and
+competitor, of which technical change is one, are sooner or later bound
+to register themselves. It will then become possible to account for the
+long stretch of industrial class struggle in America prior to the
+factory system, while industry continued on the basis of the handicraft
+method of production. Also we shall be able to render to ourselves a
+clearer account of the changes, with time, in the intensity of the
+struggle, which, were we to follow the Marxian theory, would appear
+hopelessly irregular.</p>
+
+<p>We shall take for an illustration the shoe industry.<a name="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102">[102]</a> The ease with
+which shoes can be transported long distances, due to the relatively
+high money value contained in small bulk, rendered the shoe industry
+more sensitive to changes in marketing than other industries. Indeed <a name="Page_269" id="Page_269" />we
+may say that the shoe industry epitomized the general economic evolution
+of the country.<a name="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103">[103]</a></p>
+
+<p>We observe no industrial class struggle during Colonial times when the
+market remained purely local and the work was custom-order work. The
+journeyman found his standard of life protected along with the master's
+own through the latter's ability to strike a favorable bargain with the
+consumer. This was done by laying stress upon the quality of the work.
+It was mainly for this reason that during the custom-order stage of
+industry the journeymen seldom if ever raised a protest because the
+regulation of the craft, be it through a guild or through an informal
+organization, lay wholly in the hands of the masters. Moreover, the
+typical journeyman expected in a few years to set up with an apprentice
+or two in business for himself&mdash;so there was a reasonable harmony of
+interests.</p>
+
+<p>A change came when improvements in transportation, the highway and later
+the canal, had widened the area of competition among masters. As a first
+step, the master began to produce commodities in advance of the demand,
+laying up a stock of goods for the retail trade. The result was that his
+bargaining capacity over the consumer was lessened and so prices
+eventually had to be reduced, and with them also wages. The next step
+was even more serious. Having succeeded in his retail business, the
+master began to covet a still larger market,&mdash;the wholesale market.
+However, the competition in this wider market was much keener than it
+had been in the custom-order or even in the retail market. It was
+inevitable that both prices and wages should suffer in the proc<a name="Page_270" id="Page_270" />ess. The
+master, of course, could recoup himself by lowering the quality of the
+product, but when he did that he lost a telling argument in bargaining
+with the consumer or the retail merchant. Another result of this new way
+of conducting the business was that an increased amount of capital was
+now required for continuous operation, both in raw material and in
+credits extended to distant buyers.</p>
+
+<p>The next phase in the evolution of the market rendered the separation of
+the journeymen into a class by themselves even sharper as well as more
+permanent. The market had grown to such dimensions that only a
+specialist in marketing and credit could succeed in business, namely,
+the &quot;merchant-capitalist.&quot; The latter now interposed himself permanently
+between &quot;producer&quot; and consumer and by his control of the market assumed
+a commanding position. The merchant-capitalist ran his business upon the
+principle of a large turn-over and a small profit per unit of product,
+which, of course, made his income highly speculative. He was accordingly
+interested primarily in low production and labor costs. To depress the
+wage levels he tapped new and cheaper sources of labor supply, in prison
+labor, low wage country-town labor, woman and child labor; and set them
+up as competitive menaces to the workers in the trade. The
+merchant-capitalist system forced still another disadvantage upon the
+wage earner by splitting up crafts into separate operations and tapping
+lower levels of skill. In the merchant-capitalist period we find the
+&quot;team work&quot; and &quot;task&quot; system. The &quot;team&quot; was composed of several
+workers: a highly skilled journeyman was in charge, but the other
+members possessed varying degrees of skill down to the practically
+unskilled &quot;finisher.&quot; The team was generally <a name="Page_271" id="Page_271" />paid a lump wage, which
+was divided by an understanding among the members. With all that the
+merchant-capitalist took no appreciable part in the productive process.
+His equipment consisted of a warehouse where the raw material was cut up
+and given out to be worked up by small contractors, to be worked up in
+small shops with a few journeymen and apprentices, or else by the
+journeyman at his home,&mdash;all being paid by the piece. This was the
+notorious &quot;sweatshop system.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The contractor or sweatshop boss was a mere labor broker deriving his
+income from the margin between the piece rate he received from the
+merchant-capitalist and the rate he paid in wages. As any workman could
+easily become a contractor with the aid of small savings out of wages,
+or with the aid of money advanced by the merchant-capitalist, the
+competition between contractors was of necessity of the cut-throat kind.
+The industrial class struggle was now a three-cornered one, the
+contractor aligning himself here with the journeymen, whom he was forced
+to exploit, there with the merchant-capitalist, but more often with the
+latter. Also, owing to the precariousness of the position of both
+contractor and journeyman, the class struggle now reached a new pitch of
+intensity hitherto unheard of. It is important to note, however, that as
+yet the tools of production had not undergone any appreciable change,
+remaining hand tools as before, and also that the journeyman still owned
+them. So that the beginning of class struggles had nothing to do with
+machine technique and a capitalist ownership of the tools of production.
+The capitalist, however, had placed himself across the outlets to the
+market and dominated by using all the available competitive menaces to
+<a name="Page_272" id="Page_272" />both contractor and wage earner. Hence the bitter class struggle.</p>
+
+<p>The thirties witnessed the beginning of the merchant-capitalist system
+in the cities of the East. But the situation grew most serious during
+the forties and fifties. That was a period of the greatest
+disorganization of industry. The big underlying cause was the rapid
+extension of markets outrunning the technical development of industry.
+The large market, opened first by canals and then by railroads,
+stimulated the keenest sort of competition among the
+merchant-capitalists. But the industrial equipment at their disposal had
+made no considerable progress. Except in the textile industry, machinery
+had not yet been invented or sufficiently perfected to make its
+application profitable. Consequently industrial society was in the
+position of an antiquated public utility in a community which
+persistently forces ever lower and lower rates. It could continue to
+render service only by cutting down the returns to the factors of
+production,&mdash;by lowering profits, and especially by pressing down wages.</p>
+
+<p>In the sixties the market became a national one as the effect of the
+consolidation into trunk lines of the numerous and disconnected railway
+lines built during the forties and fifties. Coincident with the
+nationalized market for goods, production began to change from a
+handicraft to a machine basis. The former sweatshop boss having
+accumulated some capital, or with the aid of credit, now became a small
+&quot;manufacturer,&quot; owning a small plant and employing from ten to fifty
+workmen. Machinery increased the productivity of labor and gave a
+considerable margin of profits, which enabled him to begin laying a
+foundation for his future independence of the <a name="Page_273" id="Page_273" />middleman. As yet he was,
+however, far from independent.</p>
+
+<p>The wider areas over which manufactured products were now to be
+distributed, called more than ever before for the services of the
+specialist in marketing, namely, the wholesale-jobber. As the market
+extended, he sent out his traveling men, established business
+connections, and advertised the articles which bore his trade mark. His
+control of the market opened up credit with the banks, while the
+manufacturer, who with the exception of his patents possessed only
+physical capital and no market opportunities, found it difficult to
+obtain credit. Moreover, the rapid introduction of machinery tied up all
+of the manufacturers' available capital and forced him to turn his
+products into money as rapidly as possible, with the inevitable result
+that the merchant was given an enormous bargaining advantage over him.
+Had the extension of the market and the introduction of machinery
+proceeded at a less rapid pace, the manufacturer probably would have
+been able to obtain greater control over the market opportunities, and
+the larger credit which this would have given him, combined with the
+accumulation of his own capital, might have been sufficient to meet his
+needs. However, as the situation really developed, the merchant obtained
+a superior bargaining power and, by playing off the competing
+manufacturers one against another, produced a cut-throat competition,
+low prices, low profits, and consequently a steady and insistent
+pressure upon wages. This represents the situation in the seventies and
+eighties.</p>
+
+<p>For labor the combination of cut-throat competition among employers with
+the new machine technique brought serious consequences. In this era of
+machinery the forces <a name="Page_274" id="Page_274" />of technical evolution decisively joined hands
+with the older forces of marketing evolution to depress the conditions
+of the wage bargain. It is needless to dilate upon the effects of
+machine technique on labor conditions&mdash;they have become a commonplace of
+political economy. The shoemakers were first among the organized trades
+to feel the effects. In the later sixties they organized what was then
+the largest trade union in the world, the Order of the Knights of St.
+Crispin,<a name="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104">[104]</a> to ward off the menace of &quot;green hands&quot; set to work on
+machines. With the machinists and the metal trades in general, the
+invasion of unskilled and little skilled competitors began a decade
+later. But the main and general invasion came in the eighties, the
+proper era from which to date machine production in America. It was
+during the eighties that we witness an attempted fusion into one
+organization, the Order of the Knights of Labor, of the machine-menaced
+mechanics and the hordes of the unskilled.<a name="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105">[105]</a></p>
+
+<p>With the nineties a change comes at last. The manufacturer finally wins
+his independence. Either he reaches out directly to the ultimate
+consumer by means of chains of stores or other devices, or else, he
+makes use of his control over patents and trade marks and thus succeeds
+in reducing the wholesale-jobber to a position which more nearly
+resembles that of an agent working on a commission basis than that of
+the <i>quondam</i> industrial ruler. The immediate outcome is, of course, a
+considerable increase in the manufacturer's margin of profit. The
+industrial class struggle begins to abate in intensity. The employer,
+now comparatively free of anxiety that he may be forced to operate at a
+loss, is able to diminish pres<a name="Page_275" id="Page_275" />sure on wages. But more than this: the
+greater certainty about the future, now that he is a free agent, enables
+him to enter into time agreements with a trade union. At first he is
+generally disinclined to forego any share of his newly acquired freedom
+by tying himself up with a union. But if the union is strong and can
+offer battle, then he accepts the situation and &quot;recognizes&quot; it. Thus
+the class struggle instead of becoming sharper and sharper with the
+advance of capitalism and leading, as Marx predicted, to a social
+revolution, in reality, grows less and less revolutionary and leads to a
+compromise or succession of compromises,&mdash;namely, collective trade
+agreements.</p>
+
+<p>But the manufacturer's emancipation from the middleman need not always
+lead to trade agreements. In the shoe industry this process did not do
+away with competition. In other industries such an emancipation was
+identical with the coming in of the &quot;trust,&quot; or a combination of
+competing manufacturers into a monopoly. As soon as the &quot;trust&quot; becomes
+practically the sole employer of labor in an industry, the relations
+between labor and capital are thrown almost invariably back into the
+state of affairs which characterized the merchant-capitalist system at
+its worst, but with one important difference. Whereas under the
+merchant-capitalist system the employer was <i>obliged</i> to press down on
+wages and fight unionism to death owing to cut-throat competition, the
+&quot;trust,&quot; its strength supreme in both commodity and labor market, can do
+so and usually does so <i>of free choice</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The character of the labor struggle has been influenced by cyclical
+changes in industry as much as by the permanent changes in the
+organization of industry and market. <a name="Page_276" id="Page_276" />In fact, whereas reaction to the
+latter has generally been slow and noticeable only over long periods of
+time, with a turn in the business cycle, the labor movement reacted
+surely and instantaneously.</p>
+
+<p>We observed over the greater part of the history of American labor an
+alternation of two planes of thought and action, an upper and a lower.
+On the upper plane, labor thought was concerned with ultimate goals,
+self-employment or cooperation, and problems arising therefrom, while
+action took the form of politics. On the lower plane, labor abandoned
+the ultimate for the proximate, centering on betterments within the
+limits of the wage system and on trade-union activity. Labor history in
+the past century was largely a story of labor's shifting from one plane
+to another, and then again to the first. It was also seen that what
+determined the plane of thought and action at any one time was the state
+of business measured by movements of wholesale and retail prices and
+employment and unemployment. When prices rose and margins of employers'
+profits were on the increase, the demand for labor increased and
+accordingly also labor's strength as a bargainer; at the same time,
+labor was compelled to organize to meet a rising cost of living. At such
+times trade unionism monopolized the arena, won strikes, increased
+membership, and forced &quot;cure-alls&quot; and politics into the background.
+When, however, prices fell and margins of profit contracted, labor's
+bargaining strength waned, strikes were lost, trade unions faced the
+danger of extinction, and &quot;cure-alls&quot; and politics received their day in
+court. Labor would turn to government and politics only as a last
+resort, when it had lost confidence in its ability to hold its own in
+industry. This phenomenon, noticeable also in <a name="Page_277" id="Page_277" />other countries, came out
+with particular clearness in America.</p>
+
+<p>For, as a rule, down to the World War, prices both wholesale and retail,
+fluctuated in America more violently than in England or the Continent.
+And twice, once in the thirties and again in the sixties, an
+irredeemable paper currency moved up the water mark of prices to
+tremendous heights followed by reactions of corresponding depth. From
+the war of 1812, the actual beginning of an industrial America, to the
+end of the century, the country went through several such complete
+industrial and business cycles. We therefore conveniently divide labor
+and trade union history into periods on the basis of the industrial
+cycle. It was only in the nineties, as we saw, that the response of the
+labor movement to price fluctuations ceased to mean a complete or nearly
+complete abandonment of trade unionism during depressions. A continuous
+and stable trade union movement consequently dates only from the
+nineties.</p>
+
+<p>The cooperative movement which was, as we saw, far less continuous than
+trade unionism, has also shown the effects of the business cycle. The
+career of distributive cooperation in America has always been intimately
+related to the movements of retail prices and wages. If, in the advance
+of wages and prices during the ascending portion of the industrial
+cycle, the cost of living happened to outdistance wages by a wide
+margin, the wage earners sought a remedy in distributive cooperation.
+They acted likewise during the descending portion of the industrial
+cycle, when retail prices happened to fall much less slowly than wages.</p>
+
+<p>Producers' cooperation in the United States has generally been a &quot;hard
+times&quot; remedy. When industrial <a name="Page_278" id="Page_278" />prosperity has passed its high crest and
+strikes have begun to fail, producers' cooperation has often been used
+as a retaliatory measure to bring the employer to terms by menacing to
+underbid him in the market. Also, when in the further downward course of
+industry the point has been reached where cuts in wages and unemployment
+have become quite common, producers' cooperation has sometimes come in
+as an attempt to enable the wage earner to obtain both employment and
+high earnings bolstered through cooperative profits.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101">[101]</a> The struggle for control, as carried on by trade unions, centers
+on such matters as methods of wage determination, the employer's right
+of discharge, hiring and lay-off, division of work, methods of enforcing
+shop discipline, introduction of machinery and division of labor,
+transfers of employes, promotions, the union or non-union shop, and
+similar subjects.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102">[102]</a> The first trade societies were organized by shoemakers. (See
+above, <a href="#Page_4">4-7.</a>)</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103">[103]</a> See Chapter on &quot;American Shoemakers,&quot; in <i>Labor and
+Administration</i>, by John R. Commons (Macmillan, 1913).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104">[104]</a> See Don D. Lescohier, <i>The Order of the Knights of St. Crispin</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105">[105]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_114">114-116.</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_13" id="CHAPTER_13" /><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279" />CHAPTER 13</h2>
+
+<h2>THE IDEALISTIC FACTOR</h2>
+
+
+<p>The puzzling fact about the American labor movement is, after all, its
+limited objective. As we saw before, the social order which the typical
+American trade unionist considers ideal is one in which organized labor
+and organized capital possess equal bargaining power. The American trade
+unionist wants, first, an equal voice with the employer in fixing wages
+and, second, a big enough control over the productive processes to
+protect job, health, and organization. Yet he does not appear to wish to
+saddle himself and fellow wage earners with the trouble of running
+industry without the employer.</p>
+
+<p>But materialistic though this philosophy appears, it is nevertheless the
+product of a long development to which the spiritual contributed no less
+than the material. In fact the American labor movement arrived at an
+opportunist trade unionism only after an endeavor spread over more than
+seventy years to realize a more idealistic program.</p>
+
+<p>American labor started with the &quot;ideology&quot; of the Declaration of
+Independence in 1776. Intended as a justification of a political
+revolution, the Declaration was worded by the authors as an expression
+of faith in a social revolution. To controvert the claims of George III,
+Thomas Jefferson quoted Rousseau. To him Rousseau was in all probability
+little more than an abstract &quot;beau id&eacute;al,&quot; but Rousseau's abstractions
+were no mere <a name="Page_280" id="Page_280" />abstractions to the pioneer American farmer. To the latter
+the doctrine that all men are born free and equal seemed to have grown
+directly out of experience. So it appeared, two or three generations
+later, to the young workmen when they for the first time achieved
+political consciousness. And, if reality ceased to square with the
+principles of the Declaration, it became, they felt, the bounden duty of
+every true American to amend reality.</p>
+
+<p>Out of a combination of the principles of individual rights, individual
+self-determination, equality of opportunity, and political equality
+enumerated and suggested in the Declaration, arose the first and most
+persistent American labor philosophy. This philosophy differed in no
+wise from the philosophy of the old American democracy except in
+emphasis and particular application, yet these differences are highly
+significant. Labor read into the Declaration of Independence a
+condemnation of the wage system as a permanent economic r&eacute;gime; sooner
+or later in place of the wage system had to come <i>self-employment</i>.
+Americanism to them was a social and economic as well as a political
+creed. Economic self-determination was as essential to the individual as
+political equality. Just as no true American will take orders from a
+king, so he will not consent forever to remain under the orders of a
+&quot;boss.&quot; It was the <i>uplifting</i> force of this social ideal as much as the
+propelling force of the changing economic environment that molded the
+American labor program.</p>
+
+<p>We find it at work at first in the decade of the thirties at the very
+beginning of the labor movement. It then took the form of a demand for a
+free public school system. These workingmen in Philadelphia and New York
+discovered that in the place of the social democracy of the
+<a name="Page_281" id="Page_281" />Declaration, America had developed into an &quot;aristocracy.&quot; They thought
+that the root of it all lay in &quot;inequitable&quot; legislation which fostered
+&quot;monopoly,&quot; hence the remedy lay in democratic legislation. But they
+further realized that a political and social democracy must be based on
+an educated and intelligent working class. No measure, therefore, could
+be more than a palliative until they got a &quot;Republican&quot; system of
+education. The workingmen's parties of 1828-1831 failed as parties, but
+humanitarians like Horace Mann took up the struggle for free public
+education and carried it to success.</p>
+
+<p>If in the thirties the labor program was to restore a social and
+political democracy by means of the public school, in the forties the
+program centered on economic democracy, on equality of economic
+opportunity. This took the form of a demand of a grant of public land
+free of charge to everyone willing to brave the rigors of pioneer life.
+The government should thus open an escape to the worker from the wage
+system into self-employment by way of free land. After years of
+agitation, the same cry was taken up by the Western States eager for
+more settlers to build up their communities and this combined agitation
+proved irresistible and culminated in the Homestead law of 1862.</p>
+
+<p>The Homestead law opened up the road to self-employment by way of free
+land and agriculture. But in the sixties the United States was already
+becoming an industrial country. In abandoning the city for the farm, the
+wage earner would lose the value of his greatest possession&mdash;his skill.
+Moreover, as a homesteader, his problem was far from solved by mere
+access to free land. Whether he went on the land or stayed in industry,
+he needed access to reasonably free credit. The device in<a name="Page_282" id="Page_282" />vented by
+workingmen to this end was the bizarre &quot;greenback&quot; idea which held their
+minds as if in a vise for nearly twenty years. &quot;Greenbackism&quot; left no
+such permanent trace on American social and economic structure as
+&quot;Republican education&quot; or &quot;free land.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lure of &quot;greenbackism&quot; was that it offered an opportunity for
+self-employment. But already in the sixties, it became clear that the
+workingman could not expect to attain self-employment as an individual,
+but if at all, it had to be sought on the basis of producers'
+cooperation. In the eighties, it became doubly clear that industry had
+gone beyond the one-man-shop stage; self-employment had to stand or fall
+with the cooperative or self-governing workshop. The protagonist of this
+most interesting and most idealistic striving of American labor was the
+&quot;Noble Order of the Knights of Labor,&quot; which reached its height in the
+middle of the eighties.</p>
+
+<p>The period of the greatest enthusiasm for cooperation was between 1884
+and 1887; and by 1888 the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle
+of life and succumbed. The failure of cooperation proved a turning point
+in the evolution of the American labor program. Whatever the special
+causes of failure, the idealistic unionism, for which the ideas of the
+Declaration of Independence served as a fountain head, suffered in the
+eyes of labor, a degree of discredit so overwhelming that to regain its
+old position was no longer possible. The times were ripe for the
+opportunistic unionism of Gompers and the trade unionists.</p>
+
+<p>These latter, having started in the seventies as Marxian socialists, had
+been made over into opportunistic unionists by their practical contact
+with American conditions. Their philosophy was narrower than that of the
+Knights <a name="Page_283" id="Page_283" />and their concept of labor solidarity narrower still. However,
+these trade unionists demonstrated that they could win strikes. It was
+to this practical trade unionism, then, that the American labor movement
+turned, about 1890, when the idealism of the Knights of Labor had
+failed. From groping for a cooperative economic order or
+self-employment, labor turned with the American Federation of Labor to
+developing bargaining power for use against employers. This trade
+unionism stood for a strengthened group consciousness. While it
+continued to avow sympathy with the &quot;anti-monopoly&quot; aspirations of the
+&quot;producers,&quot; who fought for the opportunity of self-employment, it also
+declared that the interests of democracy will be best served if the wage
+earners organized by themselves.</p>
+
+<p>This opportunist unionism, now at last triumphant over the idealistic
+unionism induced by America's spiritual tradition, soon was obliged to
+fight against a revolutionary unionism which, like itself, was an
+offshoot of the socialism of the seventies. At first, the American
+Federation of Labor was far from hostile to socialism as a philosophy.
+Its attitude was rather one of mild contempt for what it considered to
+be wholly impracticable under American conditions, however necessary or
+efficacious under other conditions. When, about 1890, the socialists
+declared their policy of &quot;boring from within,&quot; that is, of capturing the
+Federation for socialism by means of propaganda in Federation ranks,
+this attitude remained practically unchanged. Only when, dissatisfied
+with the results of boring from within, the socialists, now led by a
+more determined leadership, attempted in 1895 to set up a rival to the
+Federation in the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, was there a sharp
+line drawn <a name="Page_284" id="Page_284" />between socialist and anti-socialist in the Federation. The
+issue once having become a fighting issue, the leaders of the Federation
+experienced the need of a positive and well rounded-out social
+philosophy capable of meeting socialism all along the front instead of
+the former self-imposed super-pragmatism.</p>
+
+<p>By this time, the Federation had become sufficiently removed in point of
+time from its foreign origin to turn to the social ideal derived from
+pioneer America as the philosophy which it hoped would successfully
+combat an aggressive and arrogant socialism. Thus it came about that the
+front against socialism was built out from the immediate and practical
+into the ultimate and spiritual; and that inferences drawn from a
+reading of Jefferson's Declaration, with its emphasis on individual
+liberty, were pressed into service against the seductive collectivist
+forecasts of Marx.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_14" id="CHAPTER_14" /><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285" />CHAPTER 14</h2>
+
+<h2>WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY</h2>
+
+
+<p>The question of a political labor party hinges, in the last analysis, on
+the benefits which labor expects from government. If, under the
+constitution, government possesses considerable power to regulate
+industrial relations and improve labor conditions, political power is
+worth striving for. If, on the contrary, the power of the government is
+restricted by a rigid organic law, the matter is reversed. The latter is
+the situation in the United States. The American constitutions, both
+Federal and State, contain bills of rights which embody in fullness the
+eighteenth-century philosophy of economic individualism and governmental
+<i>laissez-faire</i>. The courts, Federal and State, are given the right to
+override any law enacted by Congress or the State legislatures which may
+be shown to conflict with constitutional rights.</p>
+
+<p>In the exercise of this right, American judges have always inclined to
+be very conservative in allowing the legislature to invade the province
+of economic freedom. At present after many years of agitation by
+humanitarians and trade unionists, the cause of legislative protection
+of child and woman laborers seems to be won in principle. But this
+progress has been made because it has been shown conclusively that the
+protection of these most helpless groups of the wage-earning class
+clearly falls within the scope of public purpose and is therefore <a name="Page_286" id="Page_286" />a
+lawful exercise of the state's police power within the meaning of the
+constitution. However, adult male labor offers a far different case.
+Moreover, should the unexpected happen and the courts become converted
+to a broader view, the legislative standards would be small compared
+with the standards already enforced by most of the trade unions.
+Consequently, so far as adult male workers are concerned (and they are
+of course the great bulk of organized labor), labor in America would
+scarcely be justified in diverting even a part of its energy from trade
+unionism to a relatively unprofitable seeking of redress through
+legislatures and courts.<a name="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106">[106]</a></p>
+
+<p>But this is no more than half the story. Granting even that political
+power may be worth having, its attainment is beset with difficulties and
+dangers more than sufficient to make responsible leaders pause. The
+causes reside once more in the form of government, also in the general
+nature of American politics, and in political history and tradition. To
+begin with, labor would have to fight not on one front, but on
+forty-nine different fronts.<a name="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107">[107]</a></p>
+
+<p>Congress and the States have power to legislate on labor matters; also,
+in each, power is divided between an executive and the two houses of the
+legislature. Decidedly, government in America was built not for strength
+<a name="Page_287" id="Page_287" />but for weakness. The splitting up of sovereignty does not especially
+interfere with the purposes of a conservative party, but to a party of
+social and industrial reform it offers a disheartening obstacle. A labor
+party, to be effective, would be obliged to capture all the diffused
+bits of sovereignty at the same time. A partial gain is of little avail,
+since it is likely to be lost at the next election even simultaneously
+with a new gain. But we have assumed here that the labor party had
+reached the point where its trials are the trials of a party in power or
+nearing power. In reality, American labor parties are spared this sort
+of trouble by trials of an anterior order residing in the nature of
+American politics.</p>
+
+<p>The American political party system antedates the formation of modern
+economic classes, especially the class alignment of labor and capital.
+Each of the old parties represents, at least in theory, the entire
+American community regardless of class. Party differences are considered
+differences of opinion or of judgment on matters of public policy, not
+differences of class interest. The wage earner in America, who never had
+to fight for his suffrage but received it as a free gift from the
+Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democratic movements and who did not
+therefore develop the political class consciousness which was stamped
+into the workers in Europe by the feeling of revolt against an upper
+ruling class, is prone to adopt the same view of politics. Class parties
+in America have always been effectively countered by the old established
+parties with the charge that they tend to incite class against class.</p>
+
+<p>But the old parties had on numerous occasions, as we saw, an even more
+effective weapon. No sooner did a labor party gain a foothold, than the
+old party politician, <a name="Page_288" id="Page_288" />the &quot;friend of labor,&quot; did appear and start a
+rival attraction by a more or less verbal adherence to one or more
+planks of the rising party. Had he been, as in Europe, a branded
+spokesman of a particular economic class or interest, it would not have
+been difficult to ward him off. But here in America, he said that he too
+was a workingman and was heart and soul for the workingman. Moreover,
+the workingman was just as much attached to an old party label as any
+average American. In a way he considered it an assertion of his social
+equality with any other group of Americans that he could afford to take
+the same &quot;disinterested&quot; and tradition-bound view of political struggles
+as the rest. This is why labor parties generally encountered such
+disheartening receptions at the hands of workingmen; also why it was
+difficult to &quot;deliver the labor vote&quot; to any party. This, on the whole,
+describes the condition of affairs today as it does the situations in
+the past.</p>
+
+<p>In the end, should the workingman be pried loose from his traditional
+party affiliation by a labor event of transcendent importance for the
+time being, should he be stirred to political revolt by an oppressive
+court decision, or the use of troops to break a strike; then, at the
+next election, when the excitement has had time to subside, he will
+usually return to his political normality. Moreover, should labor
+discontent attain depth, it may be safely assumed that either one or the
+other of the old parties or a faction therein will seek to divert its
+driving force into its own particular party channel. Should the labor
+party still persist, the old party politicians, whose bailiwick it will
+have particularly invaded, will take care to encourage, by means not
+always ethical but nearly always effective, strife in its ranks. Should
+that fail, <a name="Page_289" id="Page_289" />the old parties will in the end &quot;fuse&quot; against the upstart
+rival. If they are able to stay &quot;fused&quot; during enough elections and also
+win them, the fidelity of the adherent of the third party is certain to
+be put to a hard and unsuccessful test. To the outsider these
+conclusions may appear novel, but labor in America learned these lessons
+through a long experience, which began when the first workingmen's
+parties were attempted in 1828-1832. The limited potentialities of labor
+legislation together with the apparent hopelessness of labor party
+politics compelled the American labor movement to develop a sort of
+non-partisan political action with limited objectives thoroughly
+characteristic of American conditions. Labor needs protection from
+interference by the courts in the exercise of its economic weapons, the
+strike and the boycott, upon which it is obviously obliged to place
+especial reliance. In other words, though labor may refuse to be drawn
+into the vortex of politics for the sake of positive attainments, or,
+that is to say, labor legislation, it is compelled to do so for the sake
+of a <i>negative</i> gain&mdash;a judicial <i>laissez-faire</i>. That labor does by
+pursuing a policy of &quot;reward your friends&quot; and &quot;punish your enemies&quot; in
+the sphere of politics. The method itself is an old one in the labor
+movement; we saw it practiced by George Henry Evans and the land
+reformers of the forties as well as by Steward and the advocates of the
+eight-hour day by law in the sixties. The American Federation of Labor
+merely puts it to use in connection with a new objective, namely,
+freedom from court interference. Although the labor vote is largely
+&quot;undeliverable,&quot; still where the parties are more or less evenly matched
+in strength, that portion of the labor vote which is politically
+conscious of its economic interests may swing the <a name="Page_290" id="Page_290" />election to whichever
+side it turns. Under certain conditions<a name="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108">[108]</a> labor has been known even
+to attain through such indirection in excess of what it might have won
+had it come to share in power as a labor party.</p>
+
+<p>The controversy around labor in politics brings up in the last analysis
+the whole problem of leadership in labor organizations, or to be
+specific, the role of the intellectual in the movement. In America his
+role has been remarkably restricted. For a half century or more the
+educated classes had no connection with the labor movement, for in the
+forties and fifties, when the Brook Farm enthusiasts and their
+associates took up with fervor the social question, they were really
+alone in the field, since the protracted trade depression had laid all
+labor organization low. It was in the eighties, with the turmoil of the
+Knights of Labor and the Anarchist bomb in Chicago, that the
+&quot;intellectuals&quot; first awakened to the existence of a labor problem. To
+this awakening no single person contributed more than the economist
+Professor Richard T. Ely, then of Johns Hopkins University. His pioneer
+work on the <i>Labor Movement in America</i> published in 1886, and the works
+of his many capable students gave the labor movement a permanent place
+in the public mind, besides presenting the cause of labor with
+scientific precision and with a judicious balance. Among the other
+pioneers were preachers like Washington Gladden and Lyman Abbott, who
+conceived their duty as that of mediators between the business class and
+the wage earning class, exhorting the former to deal with their employes
+according to the Golden Rule and the latter to moderation in their
+demands. Together with the economists they helped to break down the
+prejudice <a name="Page_291" id="Page_291" />against labor unionism in so far as the latter was
+non-revolutionary. And though their influence was large, they understood
+that their maximum usefulness would be realized by remaining sympathetic
+outsiders and not by seeking to control the course of the labor
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>In recent years a new type of intellectual has come to the front. A
+product of a more generalized mental environment than his predecessor,
+he is more daring in his retrospects and his prospects. He is just as
+ready to advance an &quot;economic interpretation of the constitution&quot; as to
+advocate a collectivistic panacea for the existing industrial and social
+ills. Nor did this new intellectual come at an inopportune time for
+getting a hearing. Confidence in social conservatism has been undermined
+by an exposure in the press and through legislative investigations of
+the disreputable doings of some of the staunchest conservatives. At such
+a juncture &quot;progressivism&quot; and a &quot;new liberalism&quot; were bound to come
+into their own in the general opinion of the country.</p>
+
+<p>But the labor movement resisted. American labor, both during the periods
+of neglect and of moderate championing by the older generation of
+intellectuals, has developed a leadership wholly its own. This
+leadership, of which Samuel Gompers is the most notable example, has
+given years and years to building up a united fighting <i>morale</i> in the
+army of labor. And because the <i>morale</i> of an army, as these leaders
+thought, is strong only when it is united upon one common attainable
+purpose, the intellectual with his new and unfamiliar issues has been
+given the cold shoulder by precisely the trade unionists in whom he had
+anticipated to find most eager disciples. The intellectual might go from
+success to success in con<a name="Page_292" id="Page_292" />quering the minds of the middle classes; the
+labor movement largely remains closed to him.</p>
+
+<p>To make matters worse the intellectual has brought with him a psychology
+which is particularly out of fit with the American labor situation. We
+noted that the American labor movement became shunted from the political
+arena into the economic one by virtue of fundamental conditions of
+American political institutions and political life. However, it is
+precisely in political activity where the intellectual is most at home.
+The clear-cut logic and symmetry of political platforms based on general
+theories, the broad vistas which it may be made to encompass, and lastly
+the opportunity for eloquent self-expression offered by parliamentary
+debates, all taken together exert a powerful attraction for the
+intellectualized mind. Contrast with this the prosaic humdrum work of a
+trade union leader, the incessant wrangling over &quot;small&quot; details and
+&quot;petty&quot; grievances, and the case becomes exceedingly clear. The mind of
+the typical intellectual is too generalized to be lured by any such
+alternative. He is out of patience with mere amelioration, even though
+it may mean much in terms of human happiness to the worker and his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>When in 1906, in consequence of the heaping up of legal disabilities
+upon the trade unions, American labor leaders turned to politics to seek
+a restraining hand upon the courts,<a name="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109">[109]</a> the intellectuals foresaw a
+political labor party in the not distant future. They predicted that one
+step would inevitably lead to another, that from a policy of bartering
+with the old parties for anti-injunction planks in their platforms,
+labor would turn to a political party of its own. The intellectual
+critic continues to <a name="Page_293" id="Page_293" />view the political action of the American
+Federation of Labor as the first steps of an invalid learning to walk;
+and hopes that before long he will learn to walk with a firmer step,
+without feeling tempted to lean upon the only too willing shoulders of
+old-party politicians. On the contrary, the Federation leaders, as we
+know, regard their political work as a necessary evil, due to an
+unfortunate turn of affairs, which forces them from time to time to step
+out of their own trade union province in order that their natural enemy,
+the employing class, might get no aid and comfort from an outside ally.</p>
+
+<p>Of late a <i>rapprochement</i> between the intellectual and trade unionist
+has begun to take place. However, it is not founded on the relationship
+of leader and led, but only on a business relationship, or that of giver
+and receiver of paid technical advice. The role of the trained economist
+in handling statistics and preparing &quot;cases&quot; for trade unionists before
+boards of arbitration is coming to be more and more appreciated. The
+railway men's organizations were first to put the intellectual to this
+use, the miners and others followed. From this it is still a far cry to
+the role of such intellectuals as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, G.D.H. Cole
+and the Fabian Research group in England, who have really permeated the
+British labor movement with their views on labor policy. However, there
+is also a place for the American intellectual as an ally of trade
+unionism, not only as its paid servant. The American labor movement has
+committed a grave and costly error because it has not made use of the
+services of writers, journalists, lecturers, and speakers to popularize
+its cause with the general public. Some of its recent defeats, notably
+the <a name="Page_294" id="Page_294" />steel strike of 1919, were partly due to the neglect to provide a
+sufficient organization of labor publicity to counteract the anti-union
+publicity by the employers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106">[106]</a> This assumes that the legislative program of labor would deal
+primarily with the regulation of labor conditions in private employment
+analogous to the legislative program of the British trade unions until
+recent years. Should labor in America follow the newer program of labor
+in Britain and demand the taking over of industries by government with
+compensation, it is not certain that the courts would prove as serious a
+barrier as in the other case. However, the situation would remain
+unchanged so far as the difficulties discussed in the remainder of this
+chapter are concerned.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107">[107]</a> For the control of the national government and of the forty-eight
+State governments.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108">[108]</a> Such as a state of war; see above, <a href="#Page_235">235-236.</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109">[109]</a> See above, <a href="#Page_203">203-204.</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_15" id="CHAPTER_15" />CHAPTER 15</h2>
+
+<h2>THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND TRADE UNIONISM</h2>
+
+
+<p>The rise of a political and economic dictatorship by the wage-earning
+class in revolutionary Russia in 1917 has focussed public opinion on the
+labor question as no other event ever did. But one will scarcely say
+that it has tended to clarity of thought. On the one hand, the
+conservative feels confirmed in his old suspicions that there is
+something inherently revolutionary in any labor movement. The extreme
+radical, on the other hand, is as uncritically hopeful for a Bolshevist
+upheaval in America as the conservative or reactionary is uncritically
+fearful. Both forget that an effective social revolution is not the
+product of mere chance and &quot;mob psychology,&quot; nor even of propaganda
+however assiduous, but always of a new preponderance of power as between
+contending economic classes.</p>
+
+<p>To students of the social sciences, it is self-evident that the
+prolonged rule of the proletariat in Russia in defiance of nearly the
+whole world must be regarded as a product of Russian life, past and
+present. In fact, the continued Bolshevist rule seems to be an index of
+the relative fighting strength of the several classes in Russian
+society&mdash;the industrial proletariat, the landed and industrial
+propertied class, and the peasantry.</p>
+
+<p>It is an irony of fate that the same revolution which purports to enact
+into life the Marxian social program <a name="Page_296" id="Page_296" />should belie the truth of Marx's
+materialistic interpretation of history and demonstrate that history is
+shaped by both economic and non-economic forces. Marx, as is well known,
+taught that history is a struggle between classes, in which the landed
+aristocracy, the capitalist class, and the wage earning class are raised
+successively to rulership as, with the progress of society's technical
+equipment, first one and then another class can operate it with the
+maximum efficiency. Marx assumed that when the time has arrived for a
+given economic class to take the helm, that class will be found in full
+possession of all the psychological attributes of a ruling class,
+namely, an indomitable will to power, no less than the more vulgar
+desire for the emoluments that come with power. Apparently, Marx took
+for granted that economic evolution is inevitably accompanied by a
+corresponding development of an effective will to power in the class
+destined to rule. Yet, whatever may be the case in the countries of the
+West, in Russia the ruling classes, the gentry and the capitalists,
+clearly failed in the psychological test at the critical time. This
+failure is amply attested by the manner in which they submitted
+practically without a fight after the Bolshevist coup <i>d'&eacute;tat</i>.</p>
+
+<p>To get at the secret of this apparent feebleness and want of spunk in
+Russia's ruling class one must study a peculiarity of her history,
+namely, the complete dominance of Russia's development by organized
+government. Where the historian of the Western countries must take
+account of several independent forces, each standing for a social class,
+the Russian historian may well afford to station himself on the high
+peak of government and, from this point of vantage, survey the hills and
+vales of the society which it so thoroughly dominated.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297" />Apolitism runs like a red thread through the pages of Russian history.
+Even the upper layer of the old noble class, the &quot;Boyars,&quot; were but a
+shadow of the Western contemporary medieval landed aristocracy. When the
+several principalities became united with the Czardom of Muscovy many
+centuries ago, the Boyar was in fact no more than a steward of the
+Czar's estate and a leader of a posse defending his property; the most
+he dared to do was surreptitiously to obstruct the carrying out of the
+Czar's intentions; he dared not try to impose the will of his class upon
+the crown. The other classes were even more apolitical. So little did
+the several classes aspire to domination that they missed many golden
+opportunities to seize and hold a share of the political power. In the
+seventeenth century, when the government was exceptionally weak after
+what is known as the &quot;period of troubles,&quot; it convoked periodical
+&quot;assemblies of the land&quot; to help administer the country. But, as a
+matter of fact, these assemblies considered themselves ill used because
+they were asked to take part in government and not once did they aspire
+to an independent position in the Russian body politic. Another and
+perhaps even more striking instance we find a century and a half later.
+Catherine the Great voluntarily turned over the local administration to
+the nobles and to that end decreed that the nobility organize themselves
+into provincial associations. But so little did the nobility care for
+political power and active class prerogative that, in spite of the
+broadest possible charters, the associations of nobles were never more
+than social organizations in the conventional sense of the word.</p>
+
+<p>Even less did the commercial class aspire to independence. In the West
+of Europe mercantilism answered in <a name="Page_298" id="Page_298" />an equal measure the needs of an
+expanding state and of a vigorous middle class, the latter being no less
+ardent in the pursuit of gain than the former in the pursuit of
+conquest. In Russia, on the other hand, when Peter the Great wanted
+manufacturing, he had to introduce it by government action. Hence,
+Russian mercantilism was predominantly a state mercantilism. Even where
+Peter succeeded in enlisting private initiative by subsidies, instead of
+building up a class of independent manufacturers, he merely created
+industrial parasites and bureaucrats without initiative of their own,
+who forever kept looking to the government.</p>
+
+<p>Coming to more recent times, we find that the modern Russian factory
+system likewise owes its origin to governmental initiative, namely, to
+the government's railway-building policy. The government built the
+railways for strategic and fiscal reasons but incidentally created a
+unified internal market which made mass-production of articles of common
+consumption profitable for the first time. But, even after Russian
+capitalism was thus enabled to stand on its own feet, it did not unlearn
+the habit of leaning on the government for advancement rather than
+relying on its own efforts. On its part the autocratic government was
+loath to let industry alone. The government generously dispensed to the
+capitalists tariff protection and bounties in the form of profitable
+orders, but insisted on keeping industry under its thumb. And though
+they might chafe, still the capitalists never neglected to make the best
+of the situation. For instance, when the sugar producers found
+themselves running into a hole from cut-throat competition, they
+appealed to the Minister of Finances, who immediately created a
+government-enforced &quot;trust&quot; and assured them huge dividends. <a name="Page_299" id="Page_299" />Since
+business success was assured by keeping on the proper footing with a
+generous government rather than by relying on one's own vigor, it stands
+to reason that, generally speaking, the capitalists and especially the
+larger capitalists, could develop only into a class of industrial
+courtiers. And when at last the autocracy fell, the courtiers were not
+to be turned overnight into stubborn champions of the rights of their
+class amid the turmoil of a revolution. To be sure, Russia had entered
+the capitalistic stage as her Marxians had predicted, but nevertheless
+her capitalists were found to be lacking the indomitable will to power
+which makes a ruling class.</p>
+
+<p>The weakness of the capitalists in the fight on behalf of private
+property may be explained in part by their want of allies in the other
+classes in the community. The Russian peasant, reared in the atmosphere
+of communal land ownership, was far from being a fanatical defender of
+private property. No Thiers could have rallied a Russian peasant army
+for the suppression of a communistic industrial wage-earning class by an
+appeal to their property instinct. To make matters worse for the
+capitalists, the peasant's strongest craving was for more land, all the
+land, without compensation! This the capitalists, being capitalists,
+were unable to grant. Yet it was the only sort of currency which the
+peasant would accept in payment for his political support. In November,
+1917, when the Bolsheviki seized the government, one of their first acts
+was to satisfy the peasant's land hunger by turning over to his use all
+the land. The &quot;proletariat&quot; had then a free hand so far as the most
+numerous class in Russia was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the capitalist class reached the threshold of the revolution
+psychologically below par, so the wage-<a name="Page_300" id="Page_300" />earning class in developing the
+will to rule outran all expectations and beat the Marxian time-schedule.
+Among the important contributing factors was the unity of the industrial
+laboring class, a unity broken by no rifts between highly paid skilled
+groups and an inferior unskilled class, or between a well-organized
+labor aristocracy and an unorganized helot class. The economic and
+social oppression under the old r&eacute;gime had seen to it that no group of
+laborers should possess a stake in the existing order or desire to
+separate from the rest. Moreover, for several decades, and especially
+since the memorable days of the revolution of 1905, the laboring class
+has been filled by socialistic agitators and propagandists with ideas of
+the great historical role of the proletariat. The writer remembers how
+in 1905 even newspapers of the moderately liberal stamp used to speak of
+the &quot;heroic proletariat marching in the van of Russia's progress.&quot; No
+wonder then that, when the revolution came, the industrial wage earners
+had developed such self-confidence as a class that they were tempted to
+disregard the dictum of their intellectual mentors that this was merely
+to be a bourgeois revolution&mdash;with the social revolution still remote.
+Instead they listened to the slogan &quot;All power to the Soviets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The idea of the &quot;dictatorship of the proletariat&quot; reached maturity in
+the course of the abortive revolution of 1905-1906. After a victory for
+the people in October, 1905, the bourgeoisie grew frightened over the
+aggressiveness of the wage-earning class and sought safety in an
+understanding with the autocracy. An order by the Soviet of Petrograd
+workmen in November, 1905, decreeing the eight-hour day in all factories
+sufficed to make the capitalists forego their historical role of
+champions <a name="Page_301" id="Page_301" />of popular liberty against autocracy. If the bourgeoisie
+itself will not fight for a democracy, reasoned the revolutionary
+socialists, why have such a democracy at all? Have we not seen the
+democratic form of government lend itself to ill-concealed plutocracy in
+Europe and America? Why run at all the risk of corruption of the
+post-revolutionary government at the hands of the capitalists? Why first
+admit the capitalists into the inner circle and then spend time and
+effort in preventing them from coming to the top? Therefore, they
+declined parliamentarism with thanks and would accept nothing less than
+a government by the representative organ of the workers&mdash;the Soviets.</p>
+
+<p>If we are right in laying the emphasis on the relative fighting will and
+fighting strength of the classes struggling for power rather than on the
+doctrines which they preach and the methods, fair or foul, which they
+practice, then the American end of the problem, too, appears in a new
+light. No longer is it in the main a matter of taking sides for or
+against the desirability of a Bolshevist rule or a dictatorship by the
+proletariat, but a matter of ascertaining the relative strength and
+probable behavior of the classes in a given society. It is as futile to
+&quot;see red&quot; in America because of Bolshevism in Russia as to yearn for
+Bolshevism's advent in the United States. Either view misses the
+all-important point that so far as social structure is concerned America
+is the antipodes of Russia, where the capitalists have shown little
+fighting spirit, where the tillers of the soil are only first awakening
+to a conscious desire for private property and are willing to forego
+their natural share in government for a gift of land, and where the
+industrial proletariat is the only class ready and unafraid to fight.
+Bolshevism is unthink<a name="Page_302" id="Page_302" />able in America, because, even if by some
+imaginable accident the government were overthrown and a labor
+dictatorship declared, it could never &quot;stay put.&quot; No one who knows the
+American business class will even dream that it would under any
+circumstances surrender to a revolution perpetrated by a minority, or
+that it would wait for foreign intervention before starting hostilities.
+A Bolshevist <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> in America would mean a civil war to the
+bitter end, and a war in which the numerous class of farmers would join
+the capitalists in the defense of the institution of private
+property.<a name="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110">[110]</a></p>
+
+<p>But it is not only because the preponderance of social power in the
+United States is so decisively with private property that America is
+proof against a social upheaval like the Russian one. Another and
+perhaps as important a guarantee of her social stability is found in her
+four million organized trade unionists. For, however unjustly they may
+feel to have been treated by the employers or the government; however
+slow they may find the realization of their ideals of collective
+bargaining in industry; their stakes in the existing order, both
+spiritual and material, are too big to reconcile them to revolution. The
+<a name="Page_303" id="Page_303" />truth is that the revolutionary labor movement in America looms up much
+bigger than it actually is. Though in many strikes since the famous
+textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1911, the leadership was
+revolutionary, it does not follow that the rank and file was animated by
+the same purpose. Given an inarticulate mass of grievously exploited
+workers speaking many foreign tongues and despised alike by the
+politician, the policeman, and the native American labor organizer;
+given a group of energetic revolutionary agitators who make the cause of
+these workers their own and become their spokesmen and leaders; and a
+situation will clearly arise where thousands of workmen will be
+apparently marshalled under the flag of revolution while in reality it
+is the desire for a higher wage and not for a realization of the
+syndicalist program that reconciles them to starving their wives and
+children and to shedding their blood on picket duty. If they follow a
+Haywood or an Ettor, it is precisely because they have been ignored by a
+Golden or a Gompers.</p>
+
+<p>Withal, then, trade unionism, despite an occasional revolutionary facet
+and despite a revolutionary clamor especially on its fringes, is a
+conservative social force. Trade unionism seems to have the same
+moderating effect upon society as a wide diffusion of private property.
+In fact the gains of trade unionism are to the worker on a par with
+private property to its owner. The owner regards his property as a
+protective dyke between himself and a ruthless biological struggle for
+existence; his property means liberty and opportunity to escape
+dictation by another man, an employer or &quot;boss,&quot; or at least a chance to
+bide his time until a satisfactory alternative has presented itself for
+his choice. The French peasants <a name="Page_304" id="Page_304" />in 1871 who flocked to the army of the
+government of Versailles to suppress the Commune of Paris (the first
+attempt in history of a proletarian dictatorship), did so because they
+felt that were the workingmen to triumph and abolish private property,
+they, the peasants, would lose a support in their daily struggle for
+life for the preservation of which it was worth endangering life itself.
+And having acquired relative protection in their private property, small
+though it might be, they were unwilling to permit something which were
+it to succeed would lose them their all.</p>
+
+<p>Now with some exceptions every human being is a &quot;protectionist,&quot;
+provided he does possess anything at all which protects him and which is
+therefore worth being protected by him in turn. The trade unionist, too,
+is just such a protectionist. When his trade union has had the time and
+opportunity to win for him decent wages and living conditions, a
+reasonable security of the job, and at least a partial voice in shop
+management, he will, on the relatively high and progressive level of
+material welfare which capitalism has called into being, be chary to
+raze the existing economic system to the ground on the chance of
+building up a better one in its place. A reshuffling of the cards, which
+a revolution means, might conceivably yield him a better card, but then
+again it might make the entire stack worthless by destroying the stakes
+for which the game is played. But the revolution might not even succeed
+in the first round; then the ensuing reaction would probably destroy the
+trade union and with it would go the chance of a recovery of the
+original ground, modest though that may have been. In practice,
+therefore, the trade union movements in nearly <a name="Page_305" id="Page_305" />all nations<a name="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111">[111]</a> have
+served as brakes upon the respective national socialist movements; and,
+from the standpoint of society interested in its own preservation
+against catastrophic change, have played and are playing a role of
+society's policemen and watch-dogs over the more revolutionary groups in
+the wage-earning class. These are largely the unorganized and
+ill-favored groups rendered reckless because, having little to lose from
+a revolution, whatever the outcome might be, they fear none.</p>
+
+<p>In America, too, there is a revolutionary class which, unlike the
+striking textile workers in 1911-1913, owes its origin neither to chance
+nor to neglect by trade union leaders. This is the movement of native
+American or Americanized workers in the outlying districts of the West
+or South&mdash;the typical I.W.W., the migratory workers, the industrial
+rebels, and the actors in many labor riots and lumber-field strikes.
+This type of worker has truly broken with America's spiritual past. He
+has become a revolutionist either because his personal character and
+habits unfit him for success under the exacting capitalistic system; or
+because, starting out with the ambitions and rosy expectations of the
+early pioneer, he found his hopes thwarted by a capitalistic preemptor
+of the bounty of nature, who dooms to a wage-earner's position all who
+came too late. In either case he is animated by a genuine passion for
+revolution, a passion which admits no compromise. Yet his numbers are
+too few to threaten the existing order.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, American trade unionism, no matter whether the American
+Federation of Labor keeps its old leaders or replaces them by
+&quot;progressives&quot; or socialists, seems in a fair way to continue its
+conservative function&mdash;<a name="Page_306" id="Page_306" />so long as no overpowering open-shop movement or
+&quot;trustification&quot; will break up the trade unions or render them sterile.
+The hope of American Bolshevism will, therefore, continue to rest with
+the will of employers to rule as autocrats.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307" />FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110">[110]</a> Though writers and public speakers of either extreme have often
+overlooked the fundamental consideration of where the preponderance of
+social power lies in their prognostications of revolutions, this has not
+escaped the leaders of the American labor movement. The vehemence with
+which the leaders of the American Federation of Labor have denounced
+Sovietism and Bolshevism, and which has of late been brought to a high
+pitch by a fear lest a shift to radicalism should break up the
+organization, is doubtless sincere. But one cannot help feeling that in
+part at least it aimed to reassure the great American middle class on
+the score of labor's intentions. The great majority of organized labor
+realize that, though at times they may risk engaging in unpopular
+strikes, it will never do to permit their enemies to tar them with the
+pitch of subversionism in the eyes of the great American majority&mdash;a
+majority which remains wedded to the r&eacute;gime of private property and
+individual enterprise despite the many recognized shortcomings of the
+institution.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111">[111]</a> Notably in Germany since the end of the World War.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY" />BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2>
+
+
+<p>The first seven chapters of the present work are based on the <i>History
+of Labour in the United States</i> by John R. Commons and Associates,<a name="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112">[112]</a>
+published in 1918 in two volumes by the Macmillan Company, New York. The
+major portion of the latter was in turn based on <i>A Documentary History
+of the American Industrial Society</i>, edited by Professor Commons and
+published in 1910 in ten volumes by Clark and Company, Cleveland. In
+preparing chapters 8 to 11, dealing with the period since 1897, which is
+not covered in the <i>History of Labour</i>, the author used largely the same
+sort of material as that in the preparation of the above named works;
+namely, original sources such as proceedings of trade union conventions,
+labor and employer papers, government reports, etc. There are, however,
+many excellent special histories relating to the recent period in the
+labor movement, especially histories of unionism in individual trades or
+industries, to which the author wishes to refer the reader for more
+ample accounts of the several phases of the subject, which he himself
+was of necessity obliged to treat but briefly. The following is a
+selected list of such works together with some others relating to
+earlier periods:</p>
+
+
+<p><br />BARNETT, GEORGE E., <i>The Printers&mdash;A Study in American Trade Unionism</i>,
+American Economic Association, 1909.</p>
+
+<p>BING, ALEXANDER M., <i>War-Time Strikes and their Adjustment</i>, Dutton and
+Co., 1921.</p>
+
+<p>BONNETT, CLARENCE E., <i>Employers' Associations in the United States</i>,
+Macmillan, 1922.</p>
+
+<p>BRISSENDEN, PAUL F., <i>The I.W.W.&mdash;A Study in American Syndicalism</i>,
+Columbia University, 1920.</p>
+
+<p>BROOKS, JOHN G., <i>American Syndicalism: The I.W.W.</i>, Macmillan, 1913.</p>
+
+<p>BUDISH AND SOULE, <i>The New Unionism in the Clothing Industry</i>, Harcourt,
+1920.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308" />CARLTON, FRANK T., <i>Economic Influences upon Educational Progress in
+the United States, 1820-1850</i>, University of Wisconsin, 1908.</p>
+
+<p>DEIBLER, FREDERICK S., <i>The Amalgamated Wood Workers' International
+Union of America</i>, University of Wisconsin, 1912.</p>
+
+<p>FITCH, JOHN L., <i>The Steel Workers</i>, Russell Sage Foundation, 1911.</p>
+
+<p>HOAGLAND, HENRY E., <i>Wage Bargaining on the Vessels of the Great Lakes</i>,
+University of Illinois, 1915.</p>
+
+<p>------, <i>Collective Bargaining in the Lithographic Industry</i>, Columbia
+University, 1917.</p>
+
+<p>INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT, Commission of Inquiry, Report on the Steel
+Strike of 1919, Harcourt, 1920.</p>
+
+<p>LAIDLER, HARRY, <i>Socialism in Thought and Action</i>, Macmillan, 1920.</p>
+
+<p>ROBBINS, EDWIN C., <i>Railway Conductors&mdash;A Study in Organized Labor</i>,
+Columbia University, 1914.</p>
+
+<p>SCHL&Uuml;TER, HERMAN, <i>The Brewing Industry and the Brewery Workmen's
+Movement in America</i>, International Union of Brewery Workmen, 1910.</p>
+
+<p>SUFFERN, ARTHUR E., <i>Conciliation and Arbitration in the Coal Mining
+Industry in America</i>, Mifflin, 1915.</p>
+
+<p>SYDENSTRICKER, EDGAR, <i>Collective Bargaining in the Anthracite Coal
+Industry</i>, Bulletin No. 191 of the United States Bureau of Labor
+Statistics, 1916.</p>
+
+<p>WOLMAN, LEO, <i>The Boycott in American Trade Unions</i>, Johns Hopkins
+University, 1916.</p>
+
+
+<p><br /><i>Labor Encyclopedias</i>:</p>
+
+<p>AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, <i>History, Encyclopedia, Reference Book</i>,
+American Federation of Labor, 1919.</p>
+
+<p>BROWNE, WALDO R., <i>What's What in the Labor Movement</i>, Huebsch, 1921.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTE:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112">[112]</a> See <a href="#AUTHORS_PREFACE">Author's Preface.</a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Trade Unionism in the United
+States, by Selig Perlman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A History of Trade Unionism in the United States
+
+Author: Selig Perlman
+
+Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14458]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by William Boerst, Martin Pettit and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Social Science Text-Books
+
+EDITED BY RICHARD T. ELY
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM IN THE UNITED STATES
+
+BY
+
+SELIG PERLMAN, PH.D.
+
+Assistant Professor of Economics in the University of Wisconsin;
+Co-author of the History of Labour in the United States
+
+New York
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+1922
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+Set up and electrotyped. October, 1922.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+
+The present _History of Trade Unionism in the United States_ is in part
+a summary of work in labor history by Professor John R. Commons and
+collaborators at the University of Wisconsin from 1904 to 1918, and in
+part an attempt by the author to carry the work further. Part I of the
+present book is based on the _History of Labour in the United States_ by
+Commons and Associates (Introduction: John R. Commons; Colonial and
+Federal Beginnings, to 1827: David J. Saposs; Citizenship, 1827-1833:
+Helen L. Summer; Trade Unionism, 1833-1839: Edward B. Mittelman;
+Humanitarianism, 1840-1860: Henry E. Hoagland; Nationalization,
+1860-1877: John B. Andrews; and Upheaval and Reorganization, 1876-1896:
+by the present author), published by the Macmillan Company in 1918 in
+two volumes.
+
+Part II, "The Larger Career of Unionism," brings the story from 1897
+down to date; and Part III, "Conclusions and Inferences," is an attempt
+to bring together several of the general ideas suggested by the History.
+Chapter 12, entitled "An Economic Interpretation," follows the line of
+analysis laid down by Professor Commons in his study of the American
+shoemakers, 1648-1895.[1]
+
+The author wishes to express his strong gratitude to Professors Richard
+T. Ely and John R. Commons for their kind aid at every stage of this
+work. He also wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. Edwin E.
+Witte, Director of the Wisconsin State Legislative Reference Library,
+upon whose extensive and still unpublished researches he based his
+summary of the history of the injunction; and to Professor Frederick L.
+Paxson, who subjected the manuscript to criticism from the point of view
+of General American History.
+
+S.P.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] See his _Labor and Administration_, Chapter XIV (Macmillan, 1913).
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                  PAGE
+
+PREFACE                                            v
+
+
+PART I. THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
+
+CHAPTER
+
+1 LABOR MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+  (1) Early Beginnings, to 1827                    8
+  (2) Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832                 9
+  (3) The Period of the "Wild-Cat" Prosperity,
+      1833-1837                                   18
+  (4) The Long Depression, 1837-1862              29
+
+2 THE "GREENBACK" PERIOD, 1862-1879               42
+
+3 THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF
+  THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR                68
+
+4 REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887                 81
+
+5 THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL
+  FAILURE OF PRODUCERS' COOPERATION              106
+
+6 STABILIZATION, 1888-1897                       130
+
+7 TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS                  146
+
+
+PART II. THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM
+
+8 PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES,
+  1898-1914                                      163
+
+  (1) The Miners                                 167
+  (2) The Railway Men                            180
+  (3) The Machinery and Metal Trades             186
+  (4) The Employers' Reaction                    190
+  (5) Legislation, Courts, and Politics          198
+
+9 RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION"   208
+
+10 THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET                    226
+
+11 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS                           245
+
+
+PART III. CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES
+
+12 AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION                    265
+
+13 THE IDEALISTIC FACTOR                         279
+
+14 WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY      285
+
+15 THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND
+  TRADE UNIONISM                                 295
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY                                     307
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
+
+HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM IN THE U.S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+LABOR MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+(1) _Early Beginnings, to 1827_
+
+The customary chronology records the first American labor strike in
+1741. In that year the New York bakers went out on strike. A closer
+analysis discloses, however, that this outbreak was a protest of master
+bakers against a municipal regulation of the price of bread, not a wage
+earners' strike against employers. The earliest genuine labor strike in
+America occurred, as far as known, in 1786, when the Philadelphia
+printers "turned out" for a minimum wage of six dollars a week. The
+second strike on record was in 1791 by Philadelphia house carpenters for
+the ten-hour day. The Baltimore sailors were successful in advancing
+their wages through strikes in the years 1795, 1805, and 1807, but their
+endeavors were recurrent, not permanent. Even more ephemeral were
+several riotous sailors' strikes as well as a ship builders' strike in
+1817 at Medford, Massachusetts. Doubtless many other such outbreaks
+occurred during the period to 1820, but left no record of their
+existence.
+
+A strike undoubtedly is a symptom of discontent. However, one can
+hardly speak of a beginning of trade unionism until such discontent has
+become expressed in an organization that keeps alive after a strike, or
+between strikes. Such permanent organizations existed prior to the
+twenties only in two trades, namely, shoemaking and printing.
+
+The first continuous organization of wage earners was that of the
+Philadelphia shoemakers, organized in 1792. This society, however,
+existed for less than a year and did not even leave us its name. The
+shoemakers of Philadelphia again organized in 1794 under the name of the
+Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers and maintained their existence
+as such at least until 1806. In 1799 the society conducted the first
+organized strike, which lasted nine or ten weeks. Prior to 1799, the
+only recorded strikes of any workmen were "unorganized" and, indeed,
+such were the majority of the strikes that occurred prior to the decade
+of the thirties in the nineteenth century.
+
+The printers organized their first society in 1794 in New York under the
+name of The Typographical Society and it continued in existence for ten
+years and six months. The printers of Philadelphia, who had struck in
+1786, neglected to keep up an organization after winning their demands.
+Between the years 1800 and 1805, the shoemakers and the printers had
+continuous organizations in Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. In
+1809 the shoemakers of Pittsburgh and the Boston printers were added to
+the list, and somewhat later the Albany and Washington printers. In 1810
+the printers organized in New Orleans.
+
+The separation of the journeymen from the masters, first shown in the
+formation of these organizations, was emphasized in the attitude toward
+employer members. The question arose over the continuation in membership
+of those who became employers. The shoemakers excluded such members from
+the organization. The printers, on the other hand, were more liberal.
+But in 1817 the New York society put them out on the ground that "the
+interests of the journeymen are _separate_ and in some respects
+_opposite_ to those of the employers."
+
+The strike was the chief weapon of these early societies. Generally a
+committee was chosen by the society to present a price list or scale of
+wages to the masters individually. The first complete wage scale
+presented in this country was drawn up by the organized printers of New
+York in 1800. The strikes were mainly over wages and were generally
+conducted in an orderly and comparatively peaceful manner. In only one
+instance, that of the Philadelphia shoemakers of 1806, is there evidence
+of violence and intimidation. In that case "scabs" were beaten and
+employers intimidated by demonstrations in front of the shop or by
+breaking shop windows. During a strike the duties of "picketing" were
+discharged by tramping committees. The Philadelphia shoemakers, however,
+as early as 1799, employed for this purpose a paid officer. This strike
+was for higher wages for workers on boots. Although those who worked on
+shoes made no demands of their own, they were obliged to strike, much
+against their will. We thus meet with the first sympathetic strike on
+record. In 1809 the New York shoemakers, starting with a strike against
+one firm, ordered a general strike when they discovered that that firm
+was getting its work done in other shops. The payment of strike benefits
+dates from the first authenticated strike, namely in 1786. The method of
+payment varied from society to society, but the constitution of the New
+York shoemakers, as early as 1805, provided for a permanent strike fund.
+
+The aggressive trade unionism of these early trade societies forced the
+masters to combine against them. Associations of masters in their
+capacity as merchants had usually preceded the journeymen's societies.
+Their function was to counteract destructive competition from
+"advertisers" and sellers in the "public market" at low prices. As soon,
+however, as the wage question became serious, the masters' associations
+proceeded to take on the function of dealing with labor--mostly aiming
+to break up the trade societies. Generally they sought to create an
+available force of non-union labor by means of advertising, but often
+they turned to the courts and brought action against the journeymen's
+societies on the ground of conspiracy.
+
+The bitterness of the masters' associations against the the journeymen's
+societies perhaps was caused not so much by their resistance to
+reductions in wages as by their imposition of working rules, such as the
+limitation of the number of apprentices, the minimum wage, and what we
+would now call the "closed shop." The conspiracy trials largely turned
+upon the "closed shop" and in these the shoemakers figured
+exclusively.[2]
+
+Altogether six criminal conspiracy cases are recorded against the
+shoemakers from 1806 to 1815. One occurred in Philadelphia in 1806; one
+in New York in 1809; two in Baltimore in 1809; and two in Pittsburgh,
+the first in 1814 and the other in 1815. Each case was tried before a
+jury which was judge both of law and fact. Four of the cases were
+decided against the journeymen. In one of the Baltimore cases judgment
+was rendered in favor of the journeymen. The Pittsburgh case of 1815 was
+compromised, the shoemakers paying the costs and returning to work at
+the old wages. The outcome in the other cases is not definitely known.
+It was brought out in the testimony that the masters financed, in part
+at least, the New York and Pittsburgh prosecutions.
+
+Effective as the convictions in court for conspiracy may have been in
+checking the early trade societies, of much greater consequence was the
+industrial depression which set in after the conclusion of the
+Napoleonic Wars. The lifting of the Embargo enabled the foreign traders
+and manufacturers to dump their products upon the American market. The
+incipient American industries were in no position to withstand this
+destructive competition. Conditions were made worse by past over
+investment and by the collapse of currency inflation.
+
+Trade unionism for the time being had to come to an end. The effect on
+the journeymen's societies was paralyzing. Only those survived which
+turned to mutual insurance. Several of the printers' societies had
+already instituted benefit features, and these now helped them
+considerably to maintain their organization. The shoe-makers' societies
+on the other hand had remained to the end purely trade-regulating
+organizations and went to the wall.
+
+Depression reached its ebb in 1820. Thereafter conditions improved,
+giving rise to aggressive organizations of wage earners in several
+industries. We find strikes and permanent organizations among hatters,
+tailors, weavers, nailers, and cabinet makers. And for the first time we
+meet with organizations of factory workers--female workers.
+
+Beginning with 1824 and running through 1825, the year which saw the
+culmination of a period of high prices, a number of strikes occurred in
+the important industrial centers. The majority were called to enforce
+higher wages. In Philadelphia, 2900 weavers out of about 4500 in the
+city were on strike. But the strike that attracted the most public
+attention was that of the Boston house carpenters for the ten-hour day
+in 1825.
+
+The Boston journeymen carpenters chose the most strategic time for their
+strike. They called it in the spring of the year when there was a great
+demand for carpenters owing to a recent fire. Close to six hundred
+journeymen were involved in this struggle. The journeymen's demand for
+the ten-hour day drew a characteristic reply from the "gentlemen engaged
+in building," the customers of the master builders. They condemned the
+journeymen on the moral ground that an agitation for a shorter day would
+open "a wide door for idleness and vice"; hinted broadly at the foreign
+origin of the agitation; declared that all combinations intending to
+regulate the value of labor by abridging the working day were in a high
+degree unjust and injurious to the other classes in the community;
+announced their resolution to support the masters at the sacrifice of
+suspending building altogether; and bound themselves not to employ any
+journeyman or master who might enforce the ten-hour day. The strike
+failed.
+
+The renewed trade-union activities brought forth a fresh crop of trials
+for conspiracy.[3] One case involved Philadelphia master shoemakers who
+combined to reduce wages, two were against journeymen tailors in
+Philadelphia and Buffalo and the fourth was a hatters' case in New
+York. The masters were acquitted and the hatters were found guilty of
+combining to deprive a non-union man of his livelihood. In the
+Philadelphia tailors' case, the journeymen were convicted on the charge
+of intimidation. Of the Buffalo tailors' case it is only known that it
+ended in the conviction of the journeymen.
+
+
+(2) _Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832_
+
+So far we have dealt only with trade societies but not yet with a labor
+movement. A labor movement presupposes a feeling of solidarity which
+goes beyond the boundaries of a single trade and extends to other wage
+earners. The American labor movement began in 1827, when the several
+trades in Philadelphia organized the Mechanics' Union of Trade
+Associations, which was, so far as now known, the first city central
+organization of trades in the world. This Union, originally intended as
+an economic organization, changed to a political one the following year
+and initiated what was probably the most interesting and most typically
+American labor movement--a struggle for "equality of citizenship." It
+was brought to a head by the severe industrial depression of the time.
+But the decisive impulse came from the nation-wide democratic upheaval
+led by Andrew Jackson, for which the poorer classes in the cities
+displayed no less enthusiasm than the agricultural West. To the wage
+earner this outburst of democratic fervor offered an opportunity to try
+out his recently acquired franchise. Of the then industrial States,
+Massachusetts granted suffrage to the workingmen in 1820 and New York in
+1822. In Pennsylvania the constitution of 1790 had extended the right of
+suffrage to those who paid any kind of a state or county tax, however
+small.
+
+The wage earners' Jacksonianism struck a note all its own. If the
+farmer and country merchant, who had passed through the abstract stage
+of political aspiration with the Jeffersonian democratic movement, were
+now, with Jackson, reaching out for the material advantages which
+political power might yield, the wage earners, being as yet novices in
+politics, naturally were more strongly impressed with that aspect of the
+democratic upheaval which emphasized the rights of man in general and
+social equality in particular. If the middle class Jacksonian was
+probably thinking first of reducing the debt on his farm or perchance of
+getting a political office, and only as an after-thought proceeding to
+look for a justification in the Declaration of Independence, as yet the
+wage earner was starting with the abstract notion of equal citizenship
+as contained in the Declaration, and only then proceeding to search for
+the remedies which would square reality with the idea. Hence it was that
+the aspiration toward equal citizenship became the keynote of labor's
+earliest political movement. The issue was drawn primarily between the
+rich and the poor, not between the functional classes, employers and
+employes. While the workmen took good care to exclude from their ranks
+"persons not living by some useful occupation, such as bankers, brokers,
+rich men, etc.," they did not draw the line on employers as such, master
+workmen and independent "producers."
+
+The workingmen's bill of complaints, as set forth in the Philadelphia
+_Mechanic's Free Press_ and other labor papers, clearly marks off the
+movement as a rebellion by the class of newly enfranchised wage earners
+against conditions which made them feel degraded in their own eyes as
+full fledged citizens of the commonwealth.
+
+The complaints were of different sorts but revolved around the charge
+of the usurpation of government by an "aristocracy." Incontrovertible
+proof of this charge was found in special legislation chartering banks
+and other corporations. The banks were indicted upon two counts. First,
+the unstable bank paper money defrauded the wage earner of a
+considerable portion of the purchasing power of his wages. Second, banks
+restricted competition and shut off avenues for the "man on the make."
+The latter accusation may be understood only if we keep in mind that
+this was a period when bank credits began to play an essential part in
+the conduct of industry; that with the extension of the market into the
+States and territories South and West, with the resulting delay in
+collections, business could be carried on only by those who enjoyed
+credit facilities at the banks. Now, as credit generally follows access
+to the market, it was inevitable that the beneficiary of the banking
+system should not be the master or journeyman but the merchant for whom
+both worked.[4] To the uninitiated, however, this arrangement could only
+appear in the light of a huge conspiracy entered into by the chartered
+monopolies, the banks, and the unchartered monopolist, the merchant, to
+shut out the possible competition by the master and journeyman. The
+grievance appeared all the more serious since all banks were chartered
+by special enactments of the legislature, which thus appeared as an
+accomplice in the conspiracy.
+
+In addition to giving active help to the rich, the workingmen argued,
+the government was too callous to the suffering of the poor and pointed
+to the practice of imprisonment for debt. The Boston Prison Discipline
+Society, a philanthropic organization, estimated in 1829 that about
+75,000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United States.
+Many of these were imprisoned for very small debts. In one Massachusetts
+prison, for example, out of 37 cases, 20 were for less than $20. The
+Philadelphia printer and philanthropist, Mathew Carey, father of the
+economist Henry C. Carey, cited a contemporary Boston case of a blind
+man with a family dependent on him imprisoned for a debt of six dollars.
+A labor paper reported an astounding case of a widow in Providence,
+Rhode Island, whose husband had lost his life in a fire while attempting
+to save the property of the man who later caused her imprisonment for a
+debt of 68 cents. The physical conditions in debtors' jails were
+appalling, according to unimpeachable contemporary reports. Little did
+such treatment of the poor accord with their newly acquired dignity as
+citizens.
+
+Another grievance, particularly exasperating because the government was
+responsible, grew in Pennsylvania out of the administration of the
+compulsory militia system. Service was obligatory upon all male citizens
+and non-attendance was punished by fine or imprisonment. The rich
+delinquent did not mind, but the poor delinquent when unable to pay was
+given a jail sentence.
+
+Other complaints by workingmen went back to the failure of government to
+protect the poorer citizen's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness." The lack of a mechanic's lien law, which would protect his
+wages in the case of his employer's bankruptcy, was keenly felt by the
+workingmen. A labor paper estimated in 1829 that, owing to the lack of a
+lien law on buildings, not less than three or four hundred thousand
+dollars in wages were annually lost.
+
+But the most distinctive demands of the workingmen went much further.
+This was an age of egalitarianism. The Western frontiersmen demanded
+equality with the wealthy Eastern merchant and banker, and found in
+Andrew Jackson an ideal spokesman. For a brief moment it seemed that by
+equality the workingmen meant an equal division of all property. That
+was the program which received temporary endorsement at the first
+workingmen's meeting in New York in April 1829. "Equal division" was
+advocated by a self-taught mechanic by the name of Thomas Skidmore, who
+elaborated his ideas in a book bearing the self-revealing title of "_The
+Rights of Man to Property: being a Proposition to make it Equal among
+the Adults of the Present Generation: and to Provide for its Equal
+Transmission to Every Individual of Each Succeeding Generation, on
+Arriving at the Age of Maturity_," published in 1829. This Skidmorian
+program was better known as "agrarianism," probably from the title of a
+book by Thomas Paine, _Agrarian Justice, as Opposed to Agrarian Law and
+to Agrarian Monopoly_, published in 1797 in London, which advocated
+equal division by means of an inheritance tax. Its adoption by the New
+York workingmen was little more than a stratagem, for their intention
+was to forestall any attempts by employers to lengthen the working day
+to eleven hours by raising the question of "the nature of the tenure by
+which all men hold title to their property." Apparently the stratagem
+worked, for the employers immediately dropped the eleven-hour issue.
+But, although the workingmen quickly thereafter repudiated agrarianism,
+they succeeded only too well in affixing to their movement the mark of
+the beast in the eyes of their opponents and the general public.
+
+Except during the brief but damaging "agrarian" episode, the demand for
+free public education or "Republican" education occupied the foreground.
+We, who live in an age when free education at the expense of the
+community is considered practically an inalienable right of every child,
+find it extremely difficult to understand the vehemence of the
+opposition which the demand aroused on the part of the press and the
+"conservative" classes, when first brought up by the workingmen. The
+explanation lies partly in the political situation, partly in the moral
+character of the "intellectual" spokesmen for the workingmen, and partly
+in the inborn conservatism of the tax-paying classes upon whom the
+financial burden would fall. That the educational situation was
+deplorable much proof is unnecessary. Pennsylvania had some public
+schools, but parents had to declare themselves too poor to send their
+children to a private school before they were allowed the privilege of
+sending them there. In fact so much odium attached to these schools that
+they were practically useless and the State became distinguished for the
+number of children not attending school. As late as 1837 a labor paper
+estimated that 250,000 out of 400,000 children in Pennsylvania of school
+age were not in any school. The Public School Society of New York
+estimated in a report for 1829 that in New York City alone there were
+24,200 children between the ages of five and fifteen years not attending
+any school whatever.
+
+To meet these conditions the workingmen outlined a comprehensive
+educational program. It was not merely a literary education that the
+workingmen desired. The idea of industrial education, or training for a
+vocation, which is even now young in this country, was undoubtedly first
+introduced by the leaders of this early labor movement. They demanded a
+system of public education which would "combine a knowledge of the
+practical arts with that of the useful sciences." The idea of industrial
+education appears to have originated in a group of which two
+"intellectuals," Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright, were the leading
+spirits.
+
+Robert Dale Owen was the eldest son of Robert Owen, the famous English
+manufacturer-philanthropist, who originated the system of socialism
+known as "Owenism." Born in Scotland, he was educated at Hofwyl,
+Switzerland, in a school conducted by Emmanuel von Fellenberg, the
+associate of the famous Pestalozzi, as a self-governing children's
+republic on the manner of the present "Julior Republics." Owen himself
+said that he owed his abiding faith in human virtue and social progress
+to his years at Hofwyl. In 1825 Robert Dale left England to join his
+father in a communistic experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, and together
+they lived through the vicissitudes which attended that experiment.
+There he met Frances Wright, America's first suffragist, with whom he
+formed an intimate friendship lasting through many years. The failure at
+New Harmony convinced him that his father had overlooked the importance
+of the anti-social habits which the members had formed before they
+joined; and he concluded that those could be prevented only by applying
+a rational system of education to the young. These conclusions, together
+with the recollections of his experience at Hofwyl, led him to advocate
+a new system of education, which came to be called "state guardianship."
+
+State guardianship was a demand for the establishment by the state of
+boarding schools where children should receive, not only equal
+instruction, general as well as industrial, but equal food and equal
+clothing at the public expense. Under this system, it was asserted,
+public schools would become "not schools of charity, but schools of the
+nation, to the support of which all would contribute; and instead of
+being almost a disgrace, it would become an honor to have been educated
+there." It was urged as an especial advantage that, as children would be
+clothed and cared for at all times, the fact that poor parents could not
+afford to dress their children "as decently as their neighbors" would
+not prevent their attendance.
+
+State guardianship became the battle cry of an important faction in the
+Workingmen's party in New York. Elsewhere a less radical program was
+advocated. In Philadelphia the workingmen demanded only that high
+schools be on the Hofwyl model, whereas in the smaller cities and towns
+in both Pennsylvania and New York the demand was for "literary" day
+schools. Yet the underlying principle was the same everywhere. A labor
+candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District of
+Philadelphia in 1830 expressed it succinctly during his campaign. He
+made his plea on the ground that "he is the friend and indefatigable
+defender of a system of general education, which will place the citizens
+of this extensive Republic on an equality; a system that will fit the
+children of the poor, as well as the rich, to become our future
+legislators; a system that will bring the children of the poor and the
+rich to mix together as a band of Republican brethren."
+
+In New England the workingmen's movement for equal citizenship was
+simultaneously a reaction against the factory system. To the cry for a
+Republican system of education was added an anti-child labor crusade.
+One who did more than any other to call attention to the evils of the
+factory system of that day was a lawyer by the name of Seth Luther, who,
+according to his own account, had "for years lived among cotton mills,
+worked in them, travelled among them." His "_Address to the Working Men
+of New England on the State of Education, and on the Condition of the
+Producing Classes in Europe and America, with Particular Reference to
+the Effect of Manufacturing (as now conducted) on the Health and
+Happiness of the Poor, and on the Safety of our Republic_" was delivered
+widely and undoubtedly had considerable influence over the labor
+movement of the period. The average working day in the best factories at
+that time was nearly thirteen hours. For the children who were sent into
+the factories at an early age these hours precluded, of course, any
+possibility of obtaining even the most rudimentary education.
+
+The New England movement was an effort to unite producers of all kinds,
+including not only farmers but factory workers with mechanics and city
+workingmen. In many parts of the State of New York the workingmen's
+parties included the three classes--"farmers, mechanics, and working
+men,"--but New England added a fourth class, the factory operatives. It
+was early found, however, that the movement could expect little or no
+help from the factory operatives, who were for the most part women and
+children.
+
+The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor movements
+and labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first workingmen's party,
+then came New York and Boston, and finally state-wide movements and
+political organizations in each of the three States. In New York the
+workingmen scored their most striking single success, when in 1829 they
+cast 6000 votes out of a total of 21,000. In Philadelphia the labor
+ticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance of
+power in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupled
+with machinations on the part of "designing men" of both older parties
+soon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany made
+the demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that it
+became enacted into law. In New York, also, the situation became
+complicated by factional strife between the Skidmorian "agrarians," the
+Owenite state guardianship faction, and a third faction which eschewed
+either "panacea." Then, too, the opposition parties and press seized
+upon agrarianism and Owen's alleged atheism to brand the whole labor
+movement. The labor party was decidedly unfortunate in its choice of
+intellectuals and "ideologists."
+
+It would be, however, a mistake to conclude that the Philadelphia, New
+York, or New England political movements were totally without results.
+Though unsuccessful in electing their candidates to office, they did
+succeed in placing their demands to advantage before the public.
+Humanitarians, like Horace Mann, took up independently the fight for
+free public education and carried it to success. In Pennsylvania, public
+schools, free from the taint of charity, date since 1836. In New York
+City the public school system was established in 1832. The same is true
+of the demand for a mechanics' lien law, of the abolition of
+imprisonment for debt, and of others.
+
+
+(3) _The Period of the "Wild-cat" Prosperity, 1833-1837_
+
+With the break-up of the workingmen's parties, labor's newly acquired
+sense of solidarity was temporarily lost, leaving only the restricted
+solidarity of the isolated trade society. Within that limit, however,
+important progress began to be made. In 1833, there were in New York
+twenty-nine organized trades; in Philadelphia, twenty-one; and in
+Baltimore, seventeen. Among those organized in Philadelphia were
+hand-loom weavers, plasterers, bricklayers, black and white smiths,
+cigar makers, plumbers, and women workers including tailoresses,
+seamstresses, binders, folders, milliners, corset makers, and mantua
+workers. Several trades, such as the printers and tailors in New York
+and the Philadelphia carpenters, which formerly were organized upon the
+benevolent basis, were now reorganized as trade societies. The
+benevolent New York Typographical Society was reduced to secondary
+importance by the appearance in 1831 of the New York Typographical
+Association.
+
+But the factor that compelled labor to organize on a much larger scale
+was the remarkable rise in prices from 1835 to 1837. This rise in prices
+was coincident with the "wild-cat" prosperity, which followed a rapid
+multiplication of state banks with the right of issue of paper
+currency--largely irredeemable "wild-cat" currency. Cost of living
+having doubled, the subject of wages became a burning issue. At the same
+time the general business prosperity rendered demands for higher wages
+easily attainable. The outcome was a luxuriant growth of trade unionism.
+
+In 1836 there were in Philadelphia fifty-eight trade unions; in Newark,
+New Jersey, sixteen; in New York, fifty-two; in Pittsburgh, thirteen; in
+Cincinnati, fourteen; and in Louisville, seven. In Buffalo the
+journeymen builders' association included all the building trades. The
+tailors of Louisville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis made a concentrated
+effort against their employers in these three cities.
+
+The wave of organization reached at last the women workers. In 1830 the
+well-known Philadelphia philanthropist, Mathew Carey, asserted that
+there were in the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and
+Baltimore about 20,000 women who could not by constant employment for
+sixteen hours out of twenty-four earn more than $1.25 a week. These were
+mostly seamstresses and tailoresses, umbrella makers, shoe binders,
+cigar makers, and book binders. In New York there was in 1835 a Female
+Union Association, in Baltimore a United Seamstresses' Society, and in
+Philadelphia probably the first federation of women workers in this
+country. In Lynn, Massachusetts, a "Female Society of Lynn and Vicinity
+for the Protection and Promotion of Female Industry" operated during
+1833 and 1834 among the shoe binders and had at one time 1000 members,
+who, like the seamstresses, were home workers and earned scanty wages.
+
+Where nearly every trade was in motion, it did not take long to discover
+a common direction and a common purpose. This was expressed in city
+"trades' unions," or federations of all organized trades in a city, and
+in its ascendency over the individual trade societies.
+
+The first trades' union was organized August 14, 1833, in New York.
+Baltimore followed in September, Philadelphia in November, and Boston in
+March 1834. New York after 1820 was the metropolis of the country and
+also the largest industrial and commercial center. There the house
+carpenters had struck for higher wages in the latter part of May 1833,
+and fifteen other trades met and pledged their support. Out of this grew
+the New York Trades' Union. It had an official organ in a weekly, the
+_National Trades' Union_, published from 1834 to 1836, and a daily, _The
+Union_, issued in 1836. Ely Moore, a printer, was made president. Moore
+was elected a few months later as the first representative of labor in
+Congress.
+
+In addition, trades' unions were organized in Washington; in New
+Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey; in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, New
+York; and in the "Far West"--Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville.
+
+Except in Boston, the trades' unions felt anxious to draw the line
+between themselves and the political labor organizations of the
+preceding years. In Philadelphia, where as we have seen, the formation
+of an analogous organization, the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associations
+of 1828, had served as a preliminary for a political movement, the
+General Trades' Union took especial precaution and provided in the
+constitution that "no party, political or religious questions shall at
+any time be agitated in or acted upon in the Union." Its official organ,
+the _National Laborer_, declared that "_the Trades' Union never will be
+political_ because its members have learned from experience that the
+introduction of politics into their societies has thwarted every effort
+to ameliorate their conditions."
+
+The repudiation of active politics did not carry with it a condemnation
+of legislative action or "lobbying." On the contrary, these years
+witnessed the first sustained legislative campaign that was ever
+conducted by a labor organization, namely the campaign by the New York
+Trades' Union for the suppression of the competition from prison-made
+goods. Under the pressure of the New York Union the State Legislature
+created in 1834 a special commission on prison labor with its president,
+Ely Moore, as one of the three commissioners. On this question of
+prison labor the trade unionists clashed with the humanitarian prison
+reformers, who regarded productive labor by prisoners as a necessary
+means of their reform to an honest mode of living; and the humanitarian
+won. After several months' work the commission submitted what was to the
+Union an entirely unsatisfactory report. It approved the prison-labor
+system as a whole and recommended only minor changes. Ely Moore signed
+the report, but a public meeting of workingmen condemned it.
+
+The rediscovered solidarity between the several trades now embodied in
+the city trades' unions found its first expression on a large scale in a
+ten-hour movement.
+
+The first concerted demand for the ten-hour day was made by the
+workingmen of Baltimore in August 1833, and extended over seventeen
+trades. But the mechanics' aspiration for a ten-hour day--perhaps the
+strongest spiritual inheritance from the preceding movement for equal
+citizenship,[5] had to await a change in the general condition of
+industry to render trade union effort effective before it could turn
+into a well sustained movement. That change finally came with the
+prosperous year of 1835.
+
+The movement was precipitated in Boston. There, as we saw, the
+carpenters had been defeated in an effort to establish a ten-hour day in
+1825,[6] but made another attempt in the spring of 1835. This time,
+however, they did not stand alone but were joined by the masons and
+stone-cutters. As before, the principal attack was directed against the
+"capitalists," that is, the owners of the buildings and the real estate
+speculators. The employer or small contractor was viewed
+sympathetically. "We would not be too severe on our employers," said the
+strikers' circular, which was sent out broadcast over the country, "they
+are slaves to the capitalists, as we are to them."
+
+The strike was protracted. The details of it are not known, but we know
+that it won sympathy throughout the country. A committee visited in July
+the different cities on the Atlantic coast to solicit aid for the
+strikers. In Philadelphia, when the committee arrived in company with
+delegates from New York, Newark, and Paterson, the Trades' Union held a
+special meeting and resolved to stand by the "Boston House Wrights" who,
+"in imitation of the noble and decided stand taken by their
+Revolutionary Fathers, have determined to throw off the shackles of more
+mercenary tyrants than theirs." Many societies voted varying sums of
+money in aid of the strikers.
+
+The Boston strike was lost, but the sympathy which it evoked among
+mechanics in various cities was quickly turned to account. Wherever the
+Boston circular reached, it acted like a spark upon powder. In
+Philadelphia the ten-hour movement took on the aspect of a crusade. Not
+only the building trades, as in Boston, but most of the mechanical
+branches were involved. Street parades and mass meetings were held. The
+public press, both friendly and hostile, discussed it at length. Work
+was suspended and after but a brief "standout" the whole ended in a
+complete victory for the workingmen. Unskilled laborers, too, struck for
+the ten-hour day and, in the attempt to prevent others from taking their
+jobs, riotous scenes occurred which attracted considerable attention.
+The movement proved so irresistible that the Common Council announced a
+ten-hour day for public servants. Lawyers, physicians, merchants, and
+politicians took up the cause of the workingmen. On June 8 the master
+carpenters granted the ten-hour day and by June 22 the victory was
+complete.
+
+The victory in Philadelphia was so overwhelming and was given so much
+publicity that its influence extended to many smaller towns. In fact,
+the ten-hour system, which remained in vogue in this country in the
+skilled trades until the nineties, dates largely from this movement in
+the middle of the thirties.
+
+The great advance in the cost of living during 1835 and 1836 compelled
+an extensive movement for higher wages. Prices had in some instances
+more than doubled. Most of these strikes were hastily undertaken.
+Prices, of course, were rising rapidly but the societies were new and
+lacked balance. A strike in one trade was an example to others to
+strike. In a few instances, however, there was considerable planning and
+reserve.
+
+The strike epidemic affected even the girls who worked in the textile
+factories. The first strike of factory girls on record had occurred in
+Dover, New Hampshire, in 1828. A factory strike in Paterson, New Jersey,
+which occurred in the same year, occasioned the first recorded calling
+out of militia to quell labor disturbances. There the strikers were,
+however, for the most part men. But the factory strike which attracted
+the greatest public attention was the Lowell strike in February, 1834,
+against a 15 percent reduction in wages. The strike was short and
+unsuccessful, notwithstanding that 800 striking girls at first exhibited
+a determination to carry their struggle to the end. It appears that
+public opinion in New England was disagreeably impressed by this early
+manifestation of feminism. Another notable factory strike was one in
+Paterson in July 1835. Unlike similar strikes, it had been preceded by
+an organization. The chief demand was the eleven-hour day. The strike
+involved twenty mills and 2000 persons. Two weeks later the employers
+reduced hours from thirteen and a half to twelve hours for five days and
+to nine hours on Saturday. This broke the strike. The character of the
+agitation among the factory workers stamps it as ephemeral. Even more
+ephemeral was the agitation among immigrant laborers, mostly Irish, on
+canals and roads, which usually took the form of riots.
+
+As in the preceding period, the aggressiveness of the trade societies
+eventually gave rise to combative masters' associations. These, goaded
+by restrictive union practices, notably the closed shop, appealed to the
+courts for relief. By 1836 employers' associations appeared in nearly
+every trade in which labor was aggressive; in New York there were at
+least eight and in Philadelphia seven. In Philadelphia, at the
+initiative of the master carpenters and cordwainers, there came to exist
+an informal federation of the masters' associations in the several
+trades.
+
+From 1829 to 1842 there were eight recorded prosecutions of labor
+organizations for conspiracy. The workingmen were convicted in two
+cases; in two other cases the courts sustained demurrers to the
+indictments; in three cases the defendants were acquitted after jury
+trials; and the outcome of one case is unknown. Finally, in 1842, long
+after the offending societies had gone out of existence under the stress
+of unemployment and depressions, the Supreme Judicial Court of
+Massachusetts handed down a decision, which for forty years laid to
+rest the doctrine of conspiracy as applied to labor unions.[7]
+
+The unity of action of the several trades displayed in the city trades'
+unions engendered before long a still wider solidarity in the form of a
+National Trades' Union. It came together in August 1834, in New York
+City upon the invitation of the General Trades' Union of New York. The
+delegates were from the trades' unions of New York, Philadelphia,
+Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Newark. Ely Moore, then labor
+candidate for Congress, was elected president. An attempt by the only
+"intellectual" present, a Doctor Charles Douglass, representing the
+Boston Trades' Union, to strike a political note was immediately
+squelched. A second convention was held in 1835 and a third one in 1837.
+
+The National Trades' Union played a conspicuous part in securing the
+ten-hour day for government employes. The victory of the ten-hour
+principle in private employment in 1835 generally led to its adoption by
+states and municipalities. However, the Federal government was slow to
+follow the example, since Federal officials were immune from the direct
+political pressure which the workingmen were able to use with advantage
+upon locally elected office holders.
+
+In October 1835, the mechanics employed in the New York and Brooklyn
+Navy Yards petitioned the Secretary of the Navy for a reduction of the
+hours of labor to ten. The latter referred the petition to the Board of
+Navy Commissioners, who returned the petition with the opinion that it
+would be detrimental to the government to accede to their request. This
+forced the matter into the attention of the National Trades' Union. At
+its second convention in 1835 it decided to petition Congress for a
+ten-hour day for employes on government works. The petition was
+introduced by the labor Congressman from New York, Ely Moore. Congress
+curtly replied, however, that it was not a matter for legislation but
+"that the persons employed should redress their own grievances." With
+Congress in such a mood, the hopes of the workingmen turned to the
+President.
+
+A first step was made in the summer of 1836, when the workers in the
+Navy Yard at Philadelphia struck for a ten-hour day and appealed to
+President Jackson for relief. They would have nothing further to do with
+Congress. They had supported President Jackson in his fight against the
+United States Bank and now sought a return favor. At a town meeting of
+"citizens, mechanics, and working men," a committee was appointed to lay
+the issue before him. He proved indeed more responsive than Congress and
+ordered the ten-hour system established.
+
+But the order applied only to the localities where the strike occurred.
+The agitation had been chiefly local. Besides Philadelphia and New York
+the mechanics secured the ten-hour day in Baltimore and Annapolis, but
+in the District of Columbia and elsewhere they were still working twelve
+or fourteen hours. In other words, the ten-hour day was secured only
+where trade societies existed.
+
+But the organized labor movement did not rest with a partial success.
+The campaign of pressure on the President went on. Finally, although
+somewhat belatedly, President Van Buren issued on March 31, 1840, the
+famous executive order establishing the ten-hour day on government work
+without a reduction in wages.
+
+The victory came after the National Trades' Union had gone out of
+existence and should be, more correctly, correlated with a labor
+political movement. Early in 1837 came a financial panic. The industrial
+depression wiped out in a short time every form of labor organization
+from the trade societies to the National Trades' Union. Labor stood
+defenseless against the economic storm. In this emergency it turned to
+politics as a measure of despair.
+
+The political dissatisfaction assumed the form of hostility towards
+banks and corporations in general. The workingmen held the banks
+responsible for the existing anarchy in currency, from which they
+suffered both as consumers and producers. Moreover, they felt that there
+was something uncanny and threatening about corporations with their
+continuous existence and limited liability. Even while their attention
+had been engrossed by trade unionism, the workingmen were awake to the
+issue of monopoly. Together with their employers they had therefore
+supported Jackson in his assault upon the largest "monster" of them
+all--the Bank of the United States. The local organizations of the
+Democratic party, however, did not always remain true to faith. In such
+circumstances the workingmen, again acting in conjunction with their
+masters, frequently extended their support to the "insurgent"
+anti-monopoly candidates in the Democratic party conventions. Such a
+revolt took place in Philadelphia in 1835; and in New York, although
+Tammany had elected Ely Moore, the President of the General Trades'
+Union of New York, to Congress in 1834, a similar revolt occurred. The
+upshot was a triumphant return of the rebels into the fold of Tammany in
+1837. During the next twenty years, Tammany came nearer to being a
+workingmen's organization than at any other time in its career.
+
+
+(4) _The Long Depression, 1837-1862_
+
+The twenty-five years which elapsed from 1837 to 1862 form a period of
+business depression and industrial disorganization only briefly
+interrupted during 1850-1853 by the gold discoveries in California. The
+aggressive unions of the thirties practically disappeared. With industry
+disorganized, trade unionism, or the effort to protect the standard of
+living by means of strikes, was out of question. As the prospect for
+immediate amelioration became dimmed by circumstances, an opportunity
+arrived for theories and philosophies of radical social reform. Once the
+sun with its life-giving heat has set, one begins to see the cold and
+distant stars.
+
+The uniqueness of the period of the forties in the labor movement
+proceeds not only from the large volume of star-gazing, but also from
+the accompanying fact that, for the first and only time in American
+history, the labor movement was dominated by men and women from the
+educated class, the "intellectuals," who thus served in the capacity of
+expert astrologers.
+
+And there was no lack of stars in the heaven of social reform to occupy
+both intellectual and wage earner. First, there was the efficiency
+scheme of the followers of Charles Fourier, the French socialist, or, as
+they preferred to call themselves, the Associationists. Theirs was a
+proposal aiming directly to meet the issue of the prevailing industrial
+disorganization and wasteful competition. Albert Brisbane, Horace
+Greeley, and the Brook Farm enthusiasts and "Associationists" of the
+forties, made famous by their intimate association with Ralph Waldo
+Emerson, had much in common with the present-day efficiency engineers.
+This "old" efficiency of theirs, like the new one, was chiefly concerned
+with increasing the production of wealth through the application of the
+"natural" laws of human nature. With the enormous increase in production
+to be brought about by "Fourierism" and "Association," the question of
+justice in distribution was relegated to a secondary place. Where they
+differed from the new efficiency was in method, for they believed
+efficiency would be attained if only the human instincts or "passions"
+were given free play, while the efficiency engineers of today trust less
+to unguided instinct and more to "scientific management" of human
+"passions."
+
+Midway between trade unionism and the simon-pure, idealistic reform
+philosophies stood producers' and consumers' cooperation. It had the
+merit of being a practical program most suitable to a time of
+depression, while on its spiritual side it did not fail to satisfy the
+loftiest intellectual. It was the resultant of the two most potent
+forces which acted upon the movement of the forties, the pressure of an
+inadequate income of the wage earner and the influence of the
+intellectuals. During no other period has there been, relatively
+speaking, so much effort along that line.
+
+Although, as we shall see, the eighties were properly the era of
+producers' cooperation on a large scale, the self-governing workshop had
+always been familiar to the American labor movement. The earliest
+attempt, as far as we have knowledge, occurred in Philadelphia in 1791,
+when the house carpenters out on strike offered by way of retaliation
+against their employers to undertake contracts at 25 percent less than
+the price charged by the masters. Fourteen years later, in 1806, the
+journeymen cordwainers of the same city, following their conviction in
+court on the charge of conspiracy brought in by their masters, opened up
+a cooperative shoe warehouse and store. As a rule the workingmen took up
+productive cooperation when they had failed in strikes.
+
+In 1836 many of the trade societies began to lose their strikes and
+turned to cooperation. The cordwainers working on ladies' shoes entered
+upon a strike for higher wages in March 1836, and opened three months
+later a "manufactory" or a warehouse of their own. The handloom weavers
+in two of the suburbs of Philadelphia started cooperative associations
+at the same time. At the end of 1836 the hand-loom weavers of
+Philadelphia proper had two cooperative shops and were planning to open
+a third. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the journeymen cordwainers opened
+a shop after an unsuccessful strike early in 1836; likewise the tailors
+of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville. In New York the carpenters had
+done so already in 1833, and the painters of New York and Brooklyn
+opened their shops in 1837.
+
+Before long the spirit became so contagious that the Trades' Union of
+Philadelphia, the city federation of trade societies, was obliged to
+take notice. Early in 1837 a conference of about 200 delegates requested
+each trade society to submit estimates for a shop to employ ten members.
+However, further steps were prevented by the financial panic and
+business depression.
+
+The forties witnessed several similar attempts. When the iron molders of
+Cincinnati failed to win a strike in the autumn of 1847, a few of their
+number collected what funds they could and organized a sort of
+joint-stock company which they called "The Journeymen Molders' Union
+Foundry." Two local philanthropists erected their buildings. In
+Pittsburgh a group of puddlers tried to raise money by selling stock to
+anyone who wished to take an interest in their cooperative venture.
+
+The cooperative ventures multiplied in 1850 and 1851, following a
+widespread failure of strikes and were entered upon with particular
+readiness by the German immigrants. Among the Germans was an attitude
+towards producers' cooperation, based more nearly on general principles
+than the practical exigencies of a strike. Fresh from the scenes of
+revolutions in Europe, they were more given to dreams about
+reconstructing society and more trustful in the honesty and integrity of
+their leaders. The cooperative movement among the Germans was identified
+with the name of Wilhelm Weitling, the well-known German communist, who
+settled in America about 1850. This movement centered in and around New
+York. The cooperative principle met with success among the
+English-speaking people only outside the larger cities. In Buffalo,
+after an unsuccessful strike, the tailors formed an association with a
+membership of 108 and in October 1850, were able to give employment to
+80 of that number.
+
+Again, following an unsuccessful Pittsburgh strike of iron founders in
+1849, about a dozen of the strikers went to Wheeling, Virginia, each
+investing $3000, and opened a cooperative foundry shop. Two other
+foundries were opened on a similar basis in Stetsonville, Ohio, and
+Sharon, Pennsylvania. These associations of iron founders, however,
+might better be called association of small capitalists or
+master-workmen.
+
+During the forties, consumers' or distributive cooperation was also
+given a trial. The early history of consumers' cooperation is but
+fragmentary and, so far as we know, the first cooperative attempt which
+had for its exclusive aim "competence to purchaser" was made in
+Philadelphia early in 1829. A store was established on North Fifth
+Street, which sold goods at wholesale prices to members, who paid twenty
+cents a month for its privileges.
+
+In 1831 distributive cooperation was much discussed in Boston by a "New
+England Association of Farmers, Mechanics, and Other Working Men." A
+half dozen cooperative attempts are mentioned in the Cooperator,
+published in Utica in 1832, but only in the case of the journeymen
+cordwainers of Lynn do we discover an undertaking which can with
+certainty be considered as an effort to achieve distributive
+cooperation. Several germs of cooperative effort are found between 1833
+and 1845, but all that is known about them is that their promoters
+sought to effect a saving by the purchase of goods in large quantities
+which were then broken up and distributed at a slight advance above
+original cost in order to meet expenses. The managers were unpaid, the
+members' interest in the business was not maintained, and the stores
+soon failed, or passed into the possession of private owners.
+
+It was the depression of 1846-1849 which supplied the movement for
+distributive cooperation with the needed stimulus, especially in New
+England. Although the matter was discussed in New York, New Jersey,
+Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even as far west as Ohio and Illinois, yet
+in none of the industrial centers of these States, except perhaps in New
+York, was it put into successful operation.
+
+In New England, however, the conditions were exceptionally favorable. A
+strike movement for higher wages during a partial industrial revival of
+1843-1844 had failed completely. This failure, added to the fact that
+women and girls were employed under very unsatisfactory conditions,
+strengthened the interest of humanitarians in the laboring people and
+especially in cooperation as a possible means of alleviating their
+distress.
+
+Under the stimulus of these agitations, the New England Protective Union
+was formed in 1845. Until 1849, however, it bore the name of the Working
+Men's Protective Union. As often happens, prosperity brought disunion
+and, in 1853, a schism occurred in the organization due to personal
+differences. The seceders formed a separate organization known as the
+American Protective Union.
+
+The Working Men's Protective Union embodied a larger conception of the
+cooperative idea than had been expressed before. The important thought
+was that an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase of
+commodities was a poor way out of labor difficulties, but was valuable
+only as a preparation for something better.
+
+Though the resources of these laborers were small, they began the work
+with great hopes. This business, starting so unpretentiously, assumed
+larger and increasing proportions until in October, 1852, the Union
+embraced 403 divisions of which 167 reported a capital of $241,712 and
+165 of these announced annual sales amounting to $1,696,825. Though the
+schism of 1853, mentioned above, weakened the body, the agent of the
+American Protective Union claimed for the divisions comprising it sales
+aggregating in value over nine and one-fourth millions dollars in the
+seven years ending in 1859.
+
+It is not possible to tell what might have been the outcome of this
+cooperative movement had the peaceful development of the country
+remained uninterrupted. As it happened, the disturbed era of the Civil
+War witnessed the near annihilation of all workingmen's cooperation.
+
+It is not difficult to see the causes which led to the destruction of
+the still tender plant. Men left their homes for the battle field,
+foreigners poured into New England towns and replaced the Americans in
+the shops, while share-holders frequently became frightened at the state
+of trade and gladly saw the entire cooperative enterprise pass into the
+hands of the storekeeper.
+
+This first American cooperative movement on a large scale resembled the
+British movement in many respects, namely open membership, equal voting
+by members irrespective of number of shares, cash sales and federation
+of societies for wholesale purchases, but differed in that goods were
+sold to members nearly at cost rather than at the market price. Dr.
+James Ford in his _Cooperation in New England, Urban and Rural_,[8]
+describes two survivals from this period, the Central Union Association
+of New Bedford, Massachusetts, founded in 1848, and the Acushnet
+Cooperative Association, also of New Bedford, which began business in
+1849.
+
+But the most characteristic labor movement of the forties was a
+resurgence of the old Agrarianism of the twenties.
+
+Skidmore's "equal division" of all property appealed to the workingmen
+of New York because it seemed to be based on equality of opportunity.
+One of Skidmore's temporary associates, a Welshman by the name of George
+Henry Evans, drew from him an inspiration for a new kind of agrarianism
+to which few could object. This new doctrine was a true Agrarianism,
+since it followed in the steps of the original "Agrarians," the brothers
+Gracchi in ancient Rome. Like the Gracchi, Evans centered his plan
+around the "ager publicum"--the vast American public domain. Evans began
+his agitation about 1844.
+
+Man's right to life, according to Evans, logically implied his right to
+use the materials of nature necessary for being. For practical reasons
+he would not interfere with natural resources which have already passed
+under private ownership. Evans proposed instead that Congress give each
+would-be settler land for a homestead free of charge.
+
+As late as 1852 debaters in Congress pointed out that in the preceding
+sixty years only 100,000,000 acres of the public lands had been sold and
+that 1,400,000,000 acres still remained at the disposal of the
+government. Estimates of the required time to dispose of this residuum
+at the same rate of sale varied from 400 or 500 to 900 years. With the
+exaggerated views prevalent, it is no wonder that Evans believed that
+the right of the individual to as much land as his right to live calls
+for would remain a living right for as long a period in the future as a
+practical statesman may be required to take into account.
+
+The consequences of free homesteads were not hard to picture. The
+landless wage earners could be furnished transportation and an outfit,
+for the money spent for poor relief would be more profitably expended in
+sending the poor to the land. Private societies and trade unions, when
+laborers were too numerous, could aid in transporting the surplus to the
+waiting homesteads and towns that would grow up. With the immobility of
+labor thus offering no serious obstacle to the execution of the plan,
+the wage earners of the East would have the option of continuing to work
+for wages or of taking up their share of the vacant lands. Moreover,
+mechanics could set up as independent producers in the new settlements.
+Enough at least would go West to force employers to offer better wages
+and shorter hours. Those unable to meet the expenses of moving would
+profit by higher wages at home. An equal opportunity to go on land would
+benefit both pioneer and stay-at-home.
+
+But Evans would go still further in assuring equality of opportunity. He
+would make the individual's right to the resources of nature safe
+against the creditors through a law exempting homesteads from attachment
+for debts and even against himself by making the homestead inalienable.
+Moreover to assure that right to the American people _in perpetuo_ he
+would prohibit future disposal of the public land in large blocks to
+moneyed purchasers as practiced by the government heretofore. Thus the
+program of the new agrarianism: free homesteads, homestead exemption,
+and land limitation.
+
+Evans had a plan of political action, which was as unique as his
+economic program. His previous political experiences with the New York
+Workingmen's party had taught him that a minority party could not hope
+to win by its own votes and that the politicians cared more for offices
+than for measures. They would endorse any measure which was supported by
+voters who held the balance of power. His plan of action was, therefore,
+to ask all candidates to pledge their support to his measures. In
+exchange for such a pledge, the candidates would receive the votes of
+the workingmen. In case neither candidate would sign the pledge, it
+might be necessary to nominate an independent as a warning to future
+candidates; but not as an indication of a new party organization.
+
+Evans' ideas quickly won the adherence of the few labor papers then
+existing. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune endorsed the homestead
+movement as early as 1845. The next five years witnessed a remarkable
+spread of the ideas of the free homestead movement in the press of the
+country. It was estimated in 1845 that 2000 papers were published in the
+United States and that in 1850, 600 of these supported land reform.
+
+Petitions and memorials having proved of little avail, the land
+reformers tried Evans' pet plan of bargaining votes for the support of
+their principles. Tammany was quick to start the bidding. In May, 1851,
+a mass-meeting was held at Tammany Hall "of all those in favor of land
+and other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidential
+contest of 1852." A platform was adopted which proclaimed man's right to
+the soil and urged that freedom of the public lands be endorsed by the
+Democratic party. Senator Isaac A. Walker of Wisconsin was nominated as
+the candidate of the party for President.
+
+For a while the professional politician triumphed over the too trusting
+workingman reformer. But the cause found strong allies in the other
+classes of the American community. From the poor whites of the upland
+region of the South came a similar demand formulated by the Tennessee
+tailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, who
+introduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneers
+and settlers came the demand for increased population and development of
+resources, leading both to homesteads for settlers and land grants for
+railways. The opposition came from manufacturers and landowners of the
+East and from the Southern slave owners. The West and East finally
+combined and the policy of the West prevailed, but not before the South
+had seceded from the Union.
+
+Not the entire reform was accepted. The Western spirit dominated. The
+homestead law, as finally adopted in 1862, granted one hundred and sixty
+acres as a free gift to every settler. But the same Congress launched
+upon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homestead
+legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those which
+sprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did not
+carry out the broad principles of inalienability and land limitation of
+the original Agrarians.
+
+Their principle of homestead exemption, however, is now almost
+universally adopted. Thus the homestead agitation begun by Evans and a
+group of wage earners and farmers in 1844 was carried to victory, though
+to an incomplete victory. It contained a fruitful lesson to labor in
+politics. The vested interests in the East were seen ultimately to
+capitulate before a popular movement which at no time aspired toward
+political power and office, but, concentrating on one issue, endeavored
+instead to permeate with its ideas the public opinion of the country at
+large.
+
+Of all the "isms" so prevalent during the forties, "Agrarianism" alone
+came close to modern socialism, as it alone advocated class struggle and
+carried it into the political field, although, owing to the peculiarity
+of the American party structure, it urged a policy of "reward your
+friends, and punish your enemies" rather than an out and out labor
+party. It is noteworthy that of all social reform movements of the
+forties Agrarianism alone was not initiated by the intellectuals. On
+the other hand, another movement for legislative reform, namely the
+shorter-hour movement for women and children working in the mills and
+factories, was entirely managed by humanitarians. Its philosophy was the
+furthest removed from the class struggle idea.
+
+For only a short year or two did prosperity show itself from behind the
+clouds to cause a mushroom growth of trade unions, once in 1850-1851 and
+again in 1853-1854, following the gold discoveries in California. During
+these few years unionism disentangled itself from humanitarianism and
+cooperationism and came out in its wholly modern form of restrictive
+craft unionism, only to be again suppressed by the business depressions
+that preceded and followed the panic of 1857. Considered as a whole,
+however, the period of the forties and fifties was the zenith in
+American history of theories of social reform, of "panaceas," of
+humanitarianism.
+
+The trade union wave of the fifties was so short lived and the trade
+unionists were so preoccupied with the pressing need of advancing their
+wages to keep pace with the soaring prices caused by the influx of
+California gold, that we miss the tendency which was so strong in the
+thirties to reach out for a wider basis of labor organization in city
+trades' unions, and ultimately in a National Trades' Union. On the other
+hand, the fifties foreshadowed a new form of expansion of labor
+organization--the joining together in a nation-wide organization of all
+local unions of one trade. The printers[9] organized nationally in
+1850, the locomotive engineers and the hat-finishers in 1854; and the
+iron molders, and the machinists and blacksmiths in 1859; in addition
+there were at least a half dozen less successful attempts in other
+trades.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] See below, 147-148.
+
+[3] See below, 148-149.
+
+[4] See below, 270-272.
+
+[5] The workingmen felt that they required leisure to be able to
+exercise their rights of citizens.
+
+[6] The ship carpenters had been similarly defeated in 1832.
+
+[7] For a detailed discussion of these trials see below, 149-152.
+
+[8] Published in 1916 by the Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 16-18.
+
+[9] The printers had organized nationally for the first time in 1836,
+but the organization lasted less than two years; likewise the
+cordwainers or shoemakers. But we must keep in mind that what
+constituted national organization in the thirties would pass only for
+regional or sectional organization in later years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+THE "GREENBACK" PERIOD, 1862-1879
+
+
+The few national trade unions which were formed at the close of the
+fifties did not constitute by themselves a labor movement. It needed the
+industrial prosperity caused by the price inflation of the Civil War
+time to bring forth again a mass movement of labor.
+
+We shall say little of labor's attitude towards the question of war and
+peace before the War had started. Like many other citizens of the North
+and the Border States the handful of organized workers favored a
+compromise. They held a labor convention in Philadelphia, in which a
+great labor leader of the sixties, William H. Sylvis, President of the
+International Molders' Union, took a prominent part and pronounced in
+favor of the compromise solution advanced by Congressman Crittenden of
+Kentucky. But no sooner had Fort Sumter been fired upon by the
+secessionists than labor rallied to the support of the Federal Union.
+Entire local unions enlisted at the call of President Lincoln, and
+Sylvis himself assisted in recruiting a company composed of molders.
+
+The first effect of the War was a paralysis of business and an increase
+of unemployment. The existing labor organizations nearly all went to the
+wall. The period of industrial stagnation, however, lasted only until
+the middle of 1862.
+
+The legal tender acts of 1862 and 1863 authorized the issue of paper
+currency of "greenbacks" to the amount of $1,050,000,000, and
+immediately prices began to soar. For the next sixteen years, namely
+until 1879, when the government resumed the redemption of greenbacks in
+gold, prices of commodities and labor expressed in terms of paper money
+showed varying degrees of inflation; hence the term "greenback" period.
+During the War the advance in prices was due in part to the
+extraordinary demand by the government for the supply of the army and,
+of course, to speculation.
+
+In July 1863, retail prices were 43 percent above those of 1860 and
+wages only 12 percent above; in July 1864, retail prices rose to 70
+percent and wages to 30 percent above 1860; and in July 1865, prices
+rose to 76 percent and wages only to 50 percent above the level of 1860.
+The unequal pace of the price movement drove labor to organize along
+trade-union lines.
+
+The order observed in the thirties was again followed out. First came a
+flock of local trade unions; these soon combined in city centrals--or as
+they came to be called, trades' assemblies--paralleling the trades'
+union of the thirties; and lastly, came an attempt to federate the
+several trades' assemblies into an International Industrial Assembly of
+North America. Local trade unions were organized literally in every
+trade beginning in the second half of 1862. The first trades' assembly
+was formed in Rochester, New York, in March 1863; and before long there
+was one in every town of importance. The International Industrial
+Assembly was attempted in 1864, but failed to live up to the
+expectations: The time had passed for a national federation of city
+centrals. As in the thirties the spread of unionism over the breadth of
+the land called out as a counterpart a widespread movement of employers'
+associations. The latter differed, however, from their predecessors in
+the thirties in that they made little use of the courts in their fight
+against the unions.
+
+The growth of the national trade unions was a true index of the
+condition of business. Four were organized in 1864 as compared to two
+organized in 1863, none in 1862, and one in 1861. During 1865, which
+marked the height of the intense business activity, six more national
+unions were organized. In 1866 industry entered upon a period of
+depression, which reached its lowest depth in 1867 and continued until
+1869. Accordingly, not a single national union was organized in 1866 and
+only one in 1867. In 1868 two new national labor unions were organized.
+In 1869 two more unions were formed--a total of seven for the four
+depressed years, compared with ten in the preceding two prosperous
+years. In the summer of 1870 business became good and remained good for
+approximately three years. Nine new national unions appeared in these
+three years. These same years are marked also by a growth of the unions
+previously organized. For instance, the machinists and blacksmiths, with
+only 1500 members in 1870, had 18,000 in 1873. Other unions showed
+similar gains.
+
+An estimate of the total trade union membership at any one time (in view
+of the total lack of reliable statistics) would be extremely hazardous.
+The New York _Herald_ estimated it in August 1869, to be about 170,000.
+A labor leader claimed at the same time that the total was as high as
+600,000. Probably 300,000 would be a conservative estimate for the time
+immediately preceding the panic of 1873.
+
+Although the strength of labor was really the strength of the national
+trade unions, especially during the depression of the later sixties, far
+greater attention was attracted outside as well as inside the labor
+movement by the National Labor Union, a loosely built federation of
+national trade unions, city trades' assemblies, local trade unions, and
+reform organizations of various descriptions, from philosophical
+anarchists to socialists and woman suffragists. The National Labor Union
+did not excel in practical activity, but it formed an accurate mirror of
+the aspirations and ideals of the American mechanics of the time of the
+Civil War and after. During its six years' existence it ran the gamut of
+all important issues which agitated the labor movement of the time.
+
+The National Labor Union came together in its first convention in 1866.
+The most pressing problem of the day was unemployment due to the return
+of the demobilized soldiers and the shutting down of war industries. The
+convention centered on the demand to reduce the working day to eight
+hours. But eight hours had by that time come to signify more than a
+means to increase employment. The eight-hour movement drew its
+inspiration from an economic theory advanced by a self-taught Boston
+machinist, Ira Steward. And so naturally did this theory flow from the
+usual premises in the thinking of the American workman that once
+formulated by Steward it may be said to have become an official theory
+of the labor movement.
+
+Steward's doctrine is well expressed by a couplet which was very popular
+with the eight-hour speakers of that period: "Whether you work by the
+piece or work by the day, decreasing the hours increases the pay."
+Steward believed that the amount of wages is determined by no other
+factor than the worker's standard of living. He held that wages cannot
+fall below the standard of living not because, as the classical
+economists said, it would cause late marriages and a reduction in the
+supply of labor, but solely because the wage earner will refuse to work
+for less than enough to maintain his standard of living. Steward
+possessed such abundant faith in this purely psychological check on the
+employer that he made it the cornerstone of his theory of social
+progress. Raise the worker's standard of living, he said, and the
+employer will be immediately forced to raise wages; no more can wages
+fall below the level of the worker's standard of living than New England
+can be ruled against her will. The lever for raising the standard of
+living was the eight-hour day. Increase the worker's leisure and you
+will increase his wants; increase his wants and you will immediately
+raise his wages. Although he occasionally tried to soften his doctrine
+by the argument that a shorter work-day not only does not decrease but
+may actually increase output, his was a distinctly revolutionary
+doctrine; he aimed at the total abolition of profits through their
+absorption into wages. But the instrument was nothing more radical than
+a progressive universal shortening the hours.
+
+So much for the general policy. To bring it to pass two alternatives
+were possible: trade unionism or legislation. Steward chose the latter
+as the more hopeful and speedy one. Steward knew that appeals to the
+humanity of the employers had largely failed; efforts to secure the
+reform by cooperation had failed; the early trade unions had failed; and
+there seemed to be no recourse left now but to accomplish the reduction
+of hours by legislative enactment.
+
+In 1866 Steward organized the Grand Eight-Hour League of Massachusetts
+as a special propagandist organization of the eight-hour philosophy. The
+League was a secret organization with pass words and obligations,
+intended as the central organization of a chain of subordinate leagues
+in the State, afterwards to be created. Of a total of about eighty local
+leagues in existence from 1865 to 1877, about twenty were in
+Massachusetts, eight elsewhere in New England, at least twenty-five in
+Michigan, four or five in Pennsylvania, about seven in Illinois, as many
+in Wisconsin, and smaller numbers in Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, and
+California. Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Pennsylvania had each a Grand
+Eight-Hour League. Practically all of these organizations disappeared
+soon after the panic of 1873.
+
+The National Labor Union centered on the passage of an eight-hour law
+for employes of the Federal government. It was believed, perhaps not
+without some justice, that the effect of such law would eventually lead
+to the introduction of the same standard in private employment--not
+indeed through the operation of the law of supply and demand, for it was
+realized that this would be practically negligible, but rather through
+its contagious effect on the minds of employes and even employers. It
+will be recalled that, at the time of the ten-hour agitation of the
+thirties, the Federal government had lagged about five years behind
+private employers in granting the demanded concession. That in the
+sixties the workingmen chose government employment as the entering wedge
+shows a measure of political self-confidence which the preceding
+generation of workingmen lacked.
+
+The first bill in Congress was introduced by Senator Gratz Brown of
+Missouri in March 1866. In the summer a delegation from the National
+Labor Union was received by President Andrew Johnson. The President
+pointed to his past record favorable to the workingmen but refrained
+from any definite promises. Finally, an eight-hour bill for government
+employes was passed by the House in March 1867, and by the Senate in
+June 1868. On June 29, 1868, President Johnson signed it and it went
+into effect immediately.
+
+The result of the eight-hour law was not all that the friends of the
+bill hoped. The various officials in charge of government work put their
+own interpretations upon it and there resulted much diversity in its
+observance, and consequently great dissatisfaction. There seemed to be
+no clear understanding as to the intent of Congress in enacting the law.
+Some held that the reduction in working hours must of necessity bring
+with it a corresponding reduction in wages. The officials' view of the
+situation was given by Secretary Gideon Wells. He pointed out that
+Congress, by reducing the hours of labor in government work, had forced
+upon the department of the Navy the employment of a larger number of men
+in order to accomplish the necessary work; and that at the same time
+Congress had reduced the appropriation for that department. This had
+rendered unavoidable a twenty percent reduction in wages paid employes
+in the Navy Yard. Such a state of uncertainty continued four years
+longer. At last on May 13, 1872, President Grant prohibited by
+proclamation any wage reductions in the execution of the law. On May 18,
+1872, Congress passed a law for the restitution of back pay.
+
+The expectations of the workingmen that the Federal law would blaze the
+way for the eight-hour system in private employment failed to
+materialize. The depression during the seventies took up all the impetus
+in that direction which the law may have generated. Even as far as
+government work is concerned forty years had to elapse before its
+application could be rounded out by extending it to contract work done
+for the government by private employers.
+
+We have dealt at length with this subject because it marked an important
+landmark. It demonstrated to the wage earners that, provided they
+concentrated on a modest object and kept up a steady pressure, their
+prospects for success were not entirely hopeless, hard as the road may
+seem to travel. The other and far more ambitious object of the
+workingman of the sixties, that of enacting general eight-hour laws in
+the several States, at first appeared to be within easy reach--so
+yielding political parties and State legislatures seemed to be to the
+demands of the organized workmen. Yet before long these successes proved
+to be entirely illusory.
+
+The year 1867 was the banner year for such State legislation. Eight-hour
+laws were passed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Missouri, and New
+York. California passed such a law in 1868. In Pennsylvania, Michigan,
+Maryland, and Minnesota bills were introduced but were defeated. Two
+common features characterized these laws, whether enacted or merely
+proposed to the legislatures. There were none which did not permit of
+longer hours than those named in the law, provided they were so
+specified in the contract. A contract requiring ten or more hours a day
+was perfectly legal. The eight-hour day was the legal day only "when the
+contract was silent on the subject or where there is no express contract
+to the contrary," as stated in the Wisconsin law. But the greatest
+weakness was a lack of a provision for enforcement. New York's
+experience is typical and characteristic. When the workingmen appealed
+to Governor Fenton to enforce the law, he replied that the act had
+received his official signature and he felt that it "would be an
+unwarrantable assumption" on his part to take any step requiring its
+enforcement. "Every law," he said, "was obligatory by its own nature,
+and could derive no additional force from any further act of his."
+
+In Massachusetts, however, the workingmen succeeded after hard and
+protracted labor in obtaining an enforceable ten-hour law for women--the
+first effective law of its kind passed in any American State. This law,
+which was passed in 1874, provides that "no minor under the age of
+eighteen years, and no woman over that age" shall be employed more than
+ten hours in one day or sixty hours in any one week in any manufacturing
+establishment in the State. The penalty for each violation was fixed at
+fifty dollars.
+
+The repeated disappointments with politics and legislation led in the
+early seventies to a revival of faith in trade unionism. Even in the
+early sixties we find not a few unions, national and local, limiting
+their hours by agreement with employers. The national unions, however,
+for the most part left the matter to the local unions for settlement as
+their strength or local conditions might dictate. In some cases the
+local unions were advised to accept a reduction of wages in order to
+secure the system, showing faith in Steward's theory that such reduction
+could not be permanent.
+
+The movement to establish the eight-hour day through trade unionism
+reached its climax in the summer of 1872, when business prosperity was
+at its height. This year witnessed in New York City a general eight-hour
+strike. However, it succeeded in only a few trades, and even there the
+gain was only temporary, since it was lost during the years of
+depression which followed the financial panic of 1873.
+
+To come back to the National Labor Union. At the second convention in
+1867 the enthusiasm was transferred from eight-hour laws to the bizarre
+social reform philosophy known as "greenbackism."
+
+"Greenbackism" was, in substance, a plan to give the man without capital
+an equal opportunity in business with his rich competitor. It meant
+taking away from bankers and middlemen their control over credit and
+thereby furnishing credit and capital through the aid of the government
+to the producers of physical products. On its face greenbackism was a
+program of currency reform and derived its name from the so-called
+"greenback," the paper money issued during the Civil War. But it was
+more than currency reform--it was industrial democracy.
+
+"Greenbackism" was the American counterpart of the contemporary
+radicalism of Europe. Its program had much in common with that of
+Lassalle in Germany who would have the state lend its credit to
+cooperative associations of workingmen in the confident expectation that
+with such backing they would drive private capitalism out of existence
+by the competitive route. But greenbackism differed from the scheme of
+Lassalle in that it would utilize the government's enormous Civil War
+debt, instead of its taxing power, as a means of furnishing capital to
+labor. This was to be done by reducing the rate of interest on the
+government bonds to three percent and by making them convertible into
+legal tender currency and convertible back into bonds, at the will of
+the holder of either. In other words, the greenback currency, instead of
+being, as it was at the time, an irredeemable promise to pay in specie,
+would be redeemable in government bonds. On the other hand, if a
+government bondholder could secure slightly more than three percent by
+lending to a private borrower, he would return his bonds to the
+government, take out the corresponding amount in greenbacks and lend it
+to the producer on his private note or mortgage. This would involve, of
+course, the possible inflation of legal tender currency to the amount of
+outstanding bonds. But inflation was immaterial, since all prices would
+be affected alike and meanwhile the farmers, the workingmen, and their
+cooperative establishments would be able to secure capital at slightly
+more than three percent instead of the nine or twelve percent which they
+were compelled to pay at the bank. Thereby they would be placed on a
+competitive level with the middleman, and the wage earner would be
+assisted to escape the wage system into self-employment.
+
+Such was the curious doctrine which captured the leaders of the
+organized wage earners in 1867. The way had indeed been prepared for it
+in 1866, when the wage earners espoused producers' cooperation as the
+only solution. But, in the following year, 1867, they concluded that no
+system of combination or cooperation could secure to labor its natural
+rights as long as the credit system enabled non-producers to accumulate
+wealth faster than labor was able to add to the national wealth.
+Cooperation would follow "as a natural consequence," if producers could
+secure through legislation credit at a low rate of interest. The
+government was to extend to the producer "free capital" in addition to
+free land which he received with the Homestead Act.
+
+The producers' cooperation, which offered the occasion for the espousal
+of greenbackism, was itself preceded by a movement for consumers'
+cooperation. Following the upward sweep of prices, workmen had begun
+toward the end of 1862 to make definite preparations for distributive
+cooperation. They endeavored to cut off the profits of the middleman by
+establishing cooperative grocery stores, meat markets, and coal yards.
+The first substantial effort of this kind to attract wide attention was
+the formation in December 1862, of the Union Cooperative Association of
+Philadelphia, which opened a store. The prime mover and the financial
+secretary of this organization was Thomas Phillips, a shoemaker who came
+from England in 1852, fired with the principles of the Rochdale
+pioneers, that is, cash sales, dividends on purchases rather than on
+stock, and "one man, one vote." By 1866 the movement had extended until
+practically every important industrial town between Boston and San
+Francisco had some form of distributive cooperation. This was the high
+tide of the movement. Unfortunately, the condition of the country was
+unfavorable to these enterprises and they were destined to early
+collapse. The year 1865 witnessed disastrous business failures. The
+country was in an uncertain condition and at the end of the sixties the
+entire movement had died out.
+
+From 1866 to 1869 experiments in productive cooperation were made by
+practically all leading trades including the bakers, coach makers,
+collar makers, coal miners, shipwrights, machinists and blacksmiths,
+foundry workers, nailers, ship carpenters, and calkers, glass blowers,
+hatters, boiler makers, plumbers, iron rollers, tailors, printers,
+needle women, and molders. A large proportion of these attempts grew out
+of unsuccessful strikes. The most important undertakings were among the
+workers in iron, undoubtedly due in large measure to the indefatigable
+efforts of William H. Sylvis, the founder of the Iron Molders'
+International Union.
+
+At the close of 1869 members of the Iron Molders' International Union
+owned and operated many cooperative foundries chiefly in New York and
+Pennsylvania. The first of the foundries established at Troy in the
+early summer of 1866 was followed quickly by one in Albany and then
+during the next eighteen months by ten more--one each in Rochester,
+Chicago, Quincy, Louisville, Somerset, Pittsburgh, and two each in Troy
+and Cleveland. The original foundry at Troy was an immediate financial
+success and was hailed with joy by those who believed that under the
+name of cooperationists the baffled trade unionists might yet conquer.
+The New York _Sun_ congratulated the iron molders of Troy and declared
+that Sylvis had checkmated the association of stove manufacturers and,
+by the establishment of this cooperative foundry, had made the greatest
+contribution of the year to the labor cause.
+
+But the results of the Troy experiment, typical of the others, show how
+far from a successful solution of the labor problem is productive
+cooperation. Although this "Troy Cooperative Iron Founders' Association"
+was planned with great deliberation and launched at a time when the
+regular stove manufacturers were embarrassed by strikes, and although it
+was regularly incorporated with a provision that each member was
+entitled to but one vote whether he held one share at $100, or the
+maximum privilege of fifty in the total of two thousand shares, it
+failed as did the others in furnishing permanent relief to the workers
+as a class. At the end of the third year of this enterprise, the
+_American Workman_ published a sympathetic account of its progress
+unconsciously disclosing its fatal weakness, namely, the inevitable
+tendency of cooperators to adopt the capitalistic view. The writer of
+this account quotes from these cooperators to show that "the fewer the
+stockholders in the company the greater its success."
+
+A similar instance is furnished by the Cooperative Foundry Company of
+Rochester. This venture has also been a financial success, though a
+partial failure as a cooperative enterprise. When it was established in
+1867 all employes were stockholders and profits were divided as follows:
+Twelve percent on capital and the balance in proportion to the earnings
+of the men. But the capitalist was stronger than the cooperative
+brother. Dividends on capital were advanced in a few years to seventeen
+and one-half percent, then to twenty-five, and finally the distribution
+of any part of the profits in proportion to wages was discontinued.
+Money was made every year and dividends paid, which in 1884 amounted to
+forty percent on the capital. At that time about one-fifth of the
+employes were stockholders. Also in this case cooperation did not
+prevent the usual conflict between employer and employe, as is shown in
+a strike of three and a half months' duration. It is interesting to
+notice that one of the strikers, a member of the Molders' Union, owned
+stock to the amount of $7000.
+
+The machinists, too, throughout this period took an active interest in
+cooperation. Their convention which met in October, 1865, appointed a
+committee to report on a plan of action to establish a cooperative shop
+under the auspices of the International Union. The plan failed of
+adoption, but of machinists' shops on the joint-stock plan there were a
+good many. Two other trades noted for their enthusiasm for cooperation
+at this time were the shoemakers and the coopers. The former, organized
+in the Order of St. Crispin, then the largest trade union in the
+country, advocated cooperation even when their success in strikes was at
+its height. "The present demand of the Crispin is steady employment and
+fair wages, but his future is self-employment" was one of their mottoes.
+During the seventies they repeatedly attempted to carry this motto into
+effect. The seventies also saw the beginning of the most successful
+single venture in productive cooperation ever undertaken in this
+country, namely, the eight cooperative cooperage shops in Minneapolis,
+which were established at varying intervals from 1874 to 1886. The
+coopers took care to enforce true cooperation by providing for equal
+holding of stock and for a division of ordinary profits and losses in
+proportion to wages. The cooper shops prospered, but already ten years
+later four out of the eight existing in 1886 had passed into private
+hands.
+
+In 1866 when the eight-hour demand was as yet uppermost, the National
+Labor Union resolved for an independent labor party. The espousal of
+greenbackism in 1867 only reenforced that resolution. The leaders
+realized only too well that neither the Republican nor Democratic party
+would voluntarily make an issue of a scheme purporting to assist the
+wage earner to become an independent producer. Accordingly, the history
+of the National Labor Union became largely the history of labor's first
+attempt to play a lone political hand on a national scale.
+
+Each annual session of the National Labor Union faithfully reaffirmed
+the decision to "cut loose" from the old parties. But such a vast
+undertaking demanded time. It was not until 1872 that the National Labor
+Union met as a political convention to nominate a national ticket. From
+the first the stars were inauspicious. Charges were made that political
+aspirants sought to control the convention in order to influence
+nominations by the Republican and Democratic parties. A "greenback"
+platform was adopted as a matter of course and the new party was
+christened the National Labor and Reform Party. On the first formal
+ballot for nomination for President, Judge David Davis of Illinois, a
+personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, received 88 votes, Wendell Phillips,
+the abolitionist, 52, and the remainder scattered. On the third ballot
+Davis was nominated. Governor J. Parker of New Jersey was nominated for
+Vice-President. At first Judge Davis accepted the nomination, but
+resigned after the Democrats had nominated Horace Greeley. The loss of
+the candidate spelled the death of the party. The National Labor Union
+itself had been only an empty shell since 1870, when the national trade
+unions, disaffected with the turn towards politics, withdrew. Now, its
+pet project a failure, it, too, broke up.
+
+In 1873, on the eve of the financial panic, the national trade unions
+attempted to reconstruct a national labor federation on a purely
+trade-union basis in the form of a National Industrial Congress. But the
+economic disaster of the panic nipped it in the bud just as it cut off
+the life of the overwhelming majority of the existing labor
+organizations. Another attempt to get together on a national basis was
+made in the National Labor Congress at Pittsburgh in 1876. But those who
+responded were not interested in trade unionism and, mirroring the
+prevailing labor sentiment during the long years of depressions, had
+only politics on their mind, greenback or socialist. As neither
+greenbacker nor socialist would meet the other half-way, the attempt
+naturally came to naught.
+
+Greenbackism was popular with the working people during the depressed
+seventies because it now meant to them primarily currency inflation and
+a rise of prices and, consequently, industrial prosperity--not the
+phantastic scheme of the National Labor Union. Yet in the Presidential
+election of 1876 the Greenback party candidate, Peter Cooper, the well
+known manufacturer and philanthropist, drew only a poor 100,000, which
+came practically from the rural districts only. It was not until the
+great strikes of 1877 had brought in their train a political labor
+upheaval that the greenback movement assumed a formidable form.
+
+The strikes of 1877, which on account of the wide area affected, the
+degree of violence displayed, and the amount of life and property lost,
+impressed contemporaries as being nothing short of social revolution,
+were precipitated by a general ten percent reduction in wages on the
+three trunk lines running West, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio,
+and the New York Central, in June and July 1877. This reduction came on
+top of an earlier ten percent reduction after the panic. The railway men
+were practically unorganized so that the steadying influence of previous
+organization was totally lacking in the critical situation of unrest
+which the newly announced wage reduction created. One must take also
+into account that in the four terrible years which elapsed since the
+panic, America had developed a new type of a man--the tramp--who
+naturally gravitated towards places where trouble was expected.
+
+The first outbreak occurred at Martinsburg, West Virginia, on July 17,
+the day after the ten percent reduction had gone into effect. The
+strike spread like wildfire over the adjacent sections of the Baltimore
+& Ohio road, the strikers assuming absolute control at many points. The
+militia was either unwilling or powerless to cope with the violence. In
+Baltimore, where in the interest of public safety all the freight trains
+had stopped running, two companies of militia were beleaguered by a mob
+to prevent their being dispatched to Cumberland, where the strikers were
+in control. Order was restored only when Federal troops arrived.
+
+But these occurrences fade into insignificance when compared with the
+destructive effects of the strike on the Pennsylvania in and around
+Pittsburgh. The situation there was aggravated by a hatred of the
+Pennsylvania railway corporation shared by nearly all residents on the
+ground of an alleged rate discrimination against the city. The
+Pittsburgh militia fraternized with the strikers, and when 600 troops
+which arrived from Philadelphia attempted to restore order and killed
+about twenty rioters, they were besieged in a roundhouse by a furious
+mob. In the battle the railway yards were set on fire. Damages amounting
+to about $5,000,000 were caused. The besieged militia men finally gained
+egress and retreated fighting rear-guard actions. At last order was
+restored by patrols of citizens. The strike spread also to the Erie
+railway and caused disturbances in several places, but not nearly of the
+same serious nature as on the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania. The
+other places to which the strike spread were Toledo, Louisville,
+Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco.
+
+The strikes failed in every case but their moral effect was enormous.
+The general public still retained a fresh memory of the Commune of Paris
+of 1871 and feared for the foundations of the established order. The
+wage earners, on the other hand, felt that the strikers had not been
+fairly dealt with. It was on this intense labor discontent that the
+greenback agitation fed and grew.
+
+Whereas in 1876 the greenback labor vote was negligible, notwithstanding
+the exhortations by many of the former trade union leaders who turned
+greenback agitators, now, following the great strikes, greenbackism
+became primarily a labor movement. Local Greenback-Labor parties were
+being organized everywhere and a national Greenback-Labor party was not
+far behind in forming. The continued industrial depression was a
+decisive factor, the winter of 1877-1878 marking perhaps the point of
+its greatest intensity. Naturally the greenback movement was growing
+apace. One of the notable successes in the spring of 1878 was the
+election of Terence V. Powderly, later Grand Master Workman of the
+Knights of Labor, as mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
+
+The Congressional election in the autumn of 1878 marked the zenith of
+the movement. The aggregate greenback vote cast in the election exceeded
+a million, and fourteen Representatives were sent to Congress. In New
+England the movement was strong enough to poll almost a third of the
+total vote in Maine, over 8 percent of the total vote in both
+Connecticut and New Hampshire, and from 4 to 6 percent, in the other
+States. In Maine the greenbackers elected 32 members of the upper house
+and 151 members of the lower house and one Congressman, Thompson Murch
+of Rochland, who was secretary of the National Granite Cutters' Union.
+However, the bulk of the vote in that State was obviously agricultural.
+In Massachusetts, the situation was dominated by General Benjamin F.
+Butler, lifelong Republican politician, who had succeeded in getting
+the Democratic nomination for governor and was endorsed by the Greenback
+convention. He received a large vote but was defeated for office.
+
+But just as the Greenback-Labor movement was assuming promising
+proportions a change for the better in the industrial situation cut
+under the very roots of its existence. In addition, one month after the
+election of 1878, its principal issue disappeared. January 1, 1879, was
+the date fixed by the act for resumption of redemption of greenbacks in
+gold and on December 17, 1878, the premium on gold disappeared. From
+that day on, the greenback became a dead issue.
+
+Another factor of great importance was the large increase in the volume
+of the currency. In 1881 the currency, which had averaged about
+$725,000,000 for the years 1876-1878, reached over $1,111,000,000. Under
+these conditions, all that remained available to the platform-makers and
+propagandists of the party was their opposition to the so-called
+"monopolistic" national banks with their control over currency and to
+the refunding of the bonded debt of the government.
+
+The disappearance of the financial issue snapped the threads which had
+held together the farmer and the wage-worker. So long as depression
+continued, the issue was financial and the two had, as they thought, a
+common enemy--the banker. The financial issue once settled, or at least
+suspended, the object of the attack by labor became the employer, and
+that of the attack by the farmer--the railway corporation and the
+warehouse man. Prosperity had mitigated the grievances of both classes,
+but while the farmer still had a great deal to expect from politics in
+the form of state regulation of railway rates, the wage earners'
+struggle now turned entirely economic and not political.
+
+In California, as in the Eastern industrial States, the railway strikes
+of 1877 precipitated a political movement. California had retained gold
+as currency throughout the entire period of paper money, and the labor
+movement at no time had accepted the greenback platform. The political
+issue after 1877 was racial, not financial, and the weapon was not
+merely the ballot, but also "direct action"--violence. The anti-Chinese
+agitation in California, culminating as it did in the Exclusion Law
+passed by Congress in 1882, was doubtless the most important single
+factor in the history of American labor, for without it the entire
+country might have been overrun by Mongolian labor and the labor
+movement might have become a conflict of races instead of one of
+classes.[10]
+
+The seventies witnessed another of those recurring attempts of
+consumers' cooperation already noticed in the forties and sixties. This
+time the movement was organized by the "Sovereigns of Industry," a
+secret order, founded at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1874 by one
+William H. Earle. The spirit of the Order was entirely peaceful and
+unobtrusive as expressed in the first paragraph of the Declaration of
+Purposes which reads as follows:
+
+"The Order of the Sovereigns of Industry is an association of the
+industrial or laboring classes, without regard to race, sex, color,
+nationality, or occupation; not founded for the purpose of waging any
+war of aggression upon any other class, or for fostering any antagonism
+of labor against capital, or of arraying the poor against the rich; but
+for mutual assistance in self-improvement and self-protection."
+
+The scheme of organization called for a local council including members
+from the town or district, a state council, comprising representatives
+from the local councils and a National Council in which the States were
+represented. The president of the National Council was the founder of
+the Order, William H. Earle.
+
+Success accompanied the efforts of the promoters of the Sovereigns of
+Industry for a few years. The total membership in 1875-1876 was 40,000,
+of whom seventy-five percent were in New England and forty-three percent
+in Massachusetts. Though the Order extended into other States and even
+reached the territories, its chief strength always remained in New
+England and the Middle States. During the last period of its existence a
+national organ was published at Washington, but the Order does not
+appear to have gained a foothold in any of the more Southern sections of
+the country.
+
+In 1875, 101 local councils reported as having some method of supplying
+members with goods, 46 of whom operated stores. The largest store
+belonged to the council at Springfield, Massachusetts, which in 1875
+built the "Sovereign Block" at a cost of $35,500. In his address at the
+fourth annual session in Washington, President Earle stated that the
+store in Springfield led all the others with sales amounting to $119,000
+for the preceding year. About one-half of the councils failed to report,
+but at the Congress of 1876 President Earle estimated the annual trade
+at $3,000,000.
+
+Much enthusiasm accompanied the progress of the movement. The hall in
+"Sovereign Block" at Springfield was dedicated amid such jubilation as
+marks an event thought to be the forerunner of a new era. There is
+indeed a certain pathos in the high hopes expressed in the Address of
+Dedication by President Earle, for, though the Order continued to thrive
+until 1878, shortly after a decline began, and dissolution was its fate
+in 1880.
+
+The failure of the Sovereigns marked the latest attempt on a large
+scale[11] to inoculate the American workingmen with the sort of
+cooperative spirit which proved so successful in England.[12]
+
+This failure of distributive cooperation to gain the strong and lasting
+foothold in this country that it has abroad has been accounted for in
+various ways by different writers. Great emphasis has been laid upon the
+lack of capital, the lack of suitable legislation on the subject of
+cooperation, the mutual isolation of the educated and wage-earning
+classes, the lack of business ability among wage earners, and the
+altogether too frequent venality and corruption among cooperators.
+
+Probably the lack of adequate leadership has played as important a part
+as any. It is peculiar to America that the wage earner of exceptional
+ability can easily find a way for escaping into the class of independent
+producers or even employers of labor. The American trade union movement
+has suffered much less from this difficulty. The trade unions are
+fighting organizations; they demand the sort of leader who is of a
+combative spirit, who possesses the organizing ability and the "personal
+magnetism" to keep his men in line; and for this kind of ability the
+business world offers no particular demand. On the other hand, the
+qualifications which go to make a successful manager of a cooperative
+store, namely, steadiness, conservatism of judgment, attention to detail
+and business punctuality always will be in great demand in the business
+world. Hence, when no barrier is interposed in the form of preempted
+opportunities or class bias, the exceptional workingman who possesses
+these qualifications will likely desert his class and set up in business
+for himself. In England, fortunately for the cooperative movement, such
+an escape is very difficult.
+
+The failure of consumers' cooperation in America was helped also by two
+other peculiarly American conditions. European economists, when speaking
+of the working class, assume generally that it is fixed in residence and
+contrast it with capital, which they say is fluid as between city and
+city and even between country and country. American labor, however,
+native as well as immigrant, is probably more mobile than capital; for,
+tradition and habit which keep the great majority of European wage
+earners in the place where their fathers and forefathers had lived
+before them are generally absent in this country, except perhaps in
+parts of New England and the South. It is therefore natural that the
+cooperative spirit, which after all is but an enlarged and more
+generalized form of the old spirit of neighborliness and mutual trust,
+should have failed to develop to its full strength in America.
+
+Another condition fatal to the development of the cooperative spirit is
+the racial heterogeneity of the American wage-earning class, which
+separates it into mutually isolated groups even as the social classes of
+England and Scotland are separated by class spirit. As a result, we find
+a want of mutual trust which depends so much on "consciousness of kind."
+This is further aggravated by competition and a continuous displacement
+in industry of nationalities of a high standard of living by those of a
+lower one. This conflict of nationalities, which lies also at the root
+of the closed shop policy of many of the American trade unions, is
+probably the most effective carrier that there is to a widespread growth
+of the cooperative spirit among American wage earners. This is further
+hindered by other national characteristics which more or less pervade
+all classes of society, namely, the traditional individualism--the
+heritage of puritanism and the pioneer days, and the emphasis upon
+earning capacity with a corresponding aversion to thrift.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] The National Labor Union came out against Chinese immigration in
+1869, when the issue was brought home to the Eastern wage earners
+following the importation by a shoe manufacturer in North Adams,
+Massachusetts, of Chinese strike breakers.
+
+[11] There were many cooperative stores in the eighties and a concerted
+effort to duplicate the venture of the Sovereigns was attempted as late
+as 1919 under the pressure of the soaring cost of living.
+
+[12] Where Consumers' Cooperation has worked under most favorable
+conditions as in England, its achievements have been all that its most
+ardent champions could have desired. Such is the picture presented by
+Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb in the following glowing terms:
+
+"The organization of industry by Associations of Consumers offers, as
+far as it goes, a genuine alternative to capitalist ownership, because
+it supersedes the capitalist power, whether individual or joint-stock,
+alike in the control of the instruments of production by which the
+community lives, and in the absorption of the profits, which otherwise
+support a capitalist class. The ownership and control are vested in, and
+the profits are distributed among, the whole community of consumers,
+irrespective of their industrial wealth. Through the device of dividend
+on purchases the Cooperative Movement maintains an open democracy,
+through the control of this democracy of consumers it has directly or
+indirectly kept down prices, and protected the wage-earning class from
+exploitation by the Credit System and from the extortions of monopolist
+traders and speculators. By this same device on purchases, and the
+automatic accumulation of part of the profit in the capital of each
+society and in that of the Wholesales, it has demonstratedly added to
+the personal wealth of the manual working class, and has, alike in Great
+Britain, and in other countries, afforded both a valuable financial
+reserve to the wage earners against all emergencies and an instrument
+for their elevation from the penury to which competition is always
+depressing them. By making possible the upgrowth of great business
+enterprises in working class hands, the Cooperative Movement has,
+without divorcing them from their fellows, given to thousands of the
+manual workers both administrative experience and a well-grounded
+confidence; and has thus enabled them to take a fuller part in political
+and social life than would otherwise have been probable."--_New
+Statesman_, May 30, 1916. "Special Supplement on the Cooperative
+Movement."
+
+Indeed the success of the consumer's cooperative movement in European
+countries has been marvellous, even measured by bare figures. In all
+Europe in 1914, there were about 9,000,000 cooperators of whom one-third
+lived in Great Britain and not less than two and a half millions in
+Germany. In England and Scotland alone, the 1400 stores and two
+Wholesale Cooperative Societies controlled in 1914 about 420 million
+dollars of retail distributive trade and employed nearly 50,000
+operatives in processes of production in their own workshops and
+factories.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF
+LABOR
+
+
+With the practical disintegration of the organized labor movement in the
+seventies, two nuclei held together and showed promise of future growth.
+One was the "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor" and the other a small
+trade union movement grouped around the International Cigar Makers'
+Union.
+
+The "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor," while it first became
+important in the labor movement after 1873, was founded in 1869 by Uriah
+Smith Stephens, a tailor who had been educated for the ministry, as a
+secret organization. Secrecy was adopted as a protection against
+persecutions by employers.
+
+The principles of the Order were set forth by Stephens in the secret
+ritual. "Open and public association having failed after a struggle of
+centuries to protect or advance the interest of labor, we have lawfully
+constituted this Assembly," and "in using this power of organized effort
+and cooperation, we but imitate the example of capital heretofore set in
+numberless instances;" for, "in all the multifarious branches of trade,
+capital has its combinations, and, whether intended or not, it crushes
+the manly hopes of labor and tramples poor humanity into the dust."
+However, "we mean no conflict with legitimate enterprise, no antagonism
+to necessary capital." The remedy consists first in work of education:
+"We mean to create a healthy public opinion on the subject of labor (the
+only creator of values or capital) and the justice of its receiving a
+full, just share of the values or capital it has created." The next
+remedy was legislation: "We shall, with all our strength, support laws
+made to harmonize the interests of labor and capital, for labor alone
+gives life and value to capital, and also those laws which tend to
+lighten the exhaustiveness of toil." Next in order were mutual benefits.
+"We shall use every lawful and honorable means to procure and retain
+employ for one another, coupled with a just and fair remuneration, and,
+should accident or misfortune befall one of our number, render such aid
+as lies within our power to give, without inquiring his country or his
+creed."
+
+For nine years the Order remained a secret organization and showed but a
+slow growth. In 1878 it was forced to abolish secrecy. The public mind
+was rendered uneasy by the revolutionary uprising of workingmen of Paris
+who set up the famous "Commune of Paris" of 1871, by the destructive
+great railway strikes in this country in 1877 and, lastly, by a wave of
+criminal disorders in the anthracite coal mining region in Eastern
+Pennsylvania,[13] and became only too prone to attribute revolutionary
+and criminal intents to any labor organization that cloaked itself in
+secrecy. Simultaneously with coming out into the open, the Knights
+adopted a new program, called the Preamble of the Knights of Labor, in
+place of the vague Secret Ritual which hitherto served as the
+authoritative expression of aims.
+
+This Preamble recites how "wealth," with its development, has become so
+aggressive that "unless checked" it "will inevitably lead to the
+pauperisation and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses." Hence, if
+the toilers are "to enjoy the blessings of life," they must organize
+"every department of productive industry" in order to "check" the power
+of wealth and to put a stop to "unjust accumulation." The battle cry in
+this fight must be "moral worth not wealth, the true standard of
+individual and national greatness." As the "action" of the toilers ought
+to be guided by "knowledge," it is necessary to know "the true condition
+of the producing masses"; therefore, the Order demands "from the various
+governments the establishment of bureaus of labor statistics." Next in
+order comes the "establishment of cooperative institutions productive
+and distributive." Union of all trades, "education," and producers'
+cooperation remained forever after the cardinal points in the Knights of
+Labor philosophy and were steadily referred to as "First Principles,"
+namely principles bequeathed to the Order by Uriah Stephens and the
+other "Founders."[14]
+
+These idealistic "First Principles" found an ardent champion in Terence
+V. Powderly, a machinist by trade and twice mayor of Scranton,
+Pennsylvania, on a labor ticket, who succeeded Stephens in 1878 to the
+headship of the Order. Powderly bore unmistakably the stamp of this sort
+of idealism throughout all the time when he was the foremost labor
+leader in the country. Unlike Samuel Gompers, who came to supplant him
+about 1890, he was foreign to that spirit of combative unionism which
+accepts the wage system but concentrates on a struggle to wrest
+concessions from the employers. Even when circumstances which were
+largely beyond his control made Powderly a strike leader on a huge
+scale, his heart lay elsewhere--in circumventing the wage system by
+opening to the worker an escape into self-employment through
+cooperation.
+
+Producers' cooperation, then, was the ambitious program by which the
+Order of the Knights of Labor expected to lead the American wage-earning
+class out of the bondage of the wage system into the Canaan of
+self-employment. Thus the Order was the true successor of the
+cooperative movement in the forties and sixties. Its motto was
+"Cooperation of the Order, by the Order, and for the Order." Not
+scattered local initiative, but the Order as a whole was to carry on the
+work. The plan resembled the Rochdale system of England in that it
+proposed to start with an organization of consumers--the large and
+ever-growing membership of the Order. But it departed radically from the
+English prototype in that instead of setting out to save money for the
+consumer, it primarily aimed to create a market for the productive
+establishments which were to follow. Consumers' cooperation was to be
+but a stepping stone to producers' self-employment. Eventually when the
+Order had grown to include nearly all useful members of society--so the
+plan contemplated--it would control practically the whole market and
+cooperative production would become the rule rather than the exception.
+So far, therefore, as "First Principles" went, the Order was not an
+instrument of the "class struggle," but an association of idealistic
+cooperators. It was this pure idealism which drew to the Order of the
+Knights of Labor the sympathetic interest of writers on social subjects
+and university teachers, then unfortunately too few in number, like Dr.
+Richard T. Ely[15] and President John Bascom of Wisconsin.
+
+The other survival in the seventies of the labor movement of the
+sixties, which has already been mentioned, namely the trade union
+movement grouped around the Cigar Makers' Union, was neither so purely
+American in its origin as the Knights of Labor nor so persistently
+idealistic. On the contrary, its first membership was foreign and its
+program, as we shall see, became before long primarily opportunist and
+"pragmatic." The training school for this opportunistic trade unionism
+was the socialist movement during the sixties and seventies,
+particularly the American branch of the International Workingmen's
+Association, the "First _Internationale_," which was founded by Karl
+Marx in London in 1864. The conception of _economic_ labor organization
+which was advanced by the _Internationale_ in a socialistic formulation
+underwent in the course of years a process of change: On the one hand,
+through constant conflict with the rival conception of _political_ labor
+organization urged by American followers of the German socialist,
+Ferdinand Lassalle, and on the other hand, through contact with American
+reality. Out of that double contact emerged the trade unionism of the
+American Federation of Labor.
+
+The _Internationale_ is generally reputed to have been organized by Karl
+Marx for the propaganda of international socialism. As a matter of fact,
+its starting point was the practical effort of British trade union
+leaders to organize the workingmen of the Continent and to prevent the
+importation of Continental strike-breakers. That Karl Marx wrote its
+_Inaugural Address_ was merely incidental. It chanced that what he wrote
+was acceptable to the British unionists rather than the draft of an
+address representing the views of Giuseppe Mazzini, the leader of the
+"New Italy" and the "New Europe," which was submitted to them at the
+same time and advocated elaborate plans of cooperation. Marx emphasized
+the class solidarity of labor against Mazzini's harmony of capital and
+labor. He did this by reciting what British labor had done through the
+Rochdale system of cooperation without the help of capitalists and what
+the British Parliament had done in enacting the ten-hour law of 1847
+against the protest of capitalists. Now that British trade unionists in
+1864 were demanding the right of suffrage and laws to protect their
+unions, it followed that Marx merely stated their demands when he
+affirmed the independent economic and political organization of labor in
+all lands. His _Inaugural Address_ was a trade union document, not a
+_Communist Manifesto_. Indeed not until Bakunin and his following of
+anarchists had nearly captured the organization in the years 1869 to
+1872 did the program of socialism become the leading issue.
+
+The philosophy of the _Internationale_ at the period of its ascendency
+was based on the economic organization of the working class in trade
+unions. These must precede the political seizure of the government by
+labor. Then, when the workingmen's party should achieve control, it
+would be able to build up successively the socialist state on the
+foundation of a sufficient number of existing trade unions.
+
+This conception differed widely from the teaching of Ferdinand Lassalle.
+Lassallean socialism was born in 1863 with Lassalle's _Open Letter_ to a
+workingmen's committee in Leipzig. It sprang from his antagonism to
+Schultze-Delizsch's[16] system of voluntary cooperation. In Lassalle's
+eagerness to condemn the idea of the harmony of capital and labor, which
+lay at the basis of Schultze's scheme for cooperation, he struck at the
+same time a blow against all forms of non-political organization of wage
+earners. Perhaps the fact that he was ignorant of the British trade
+unions accounts for his insufficient appreciation of trade unionism. But
+no matter what the cause may have been, to Lassalle there was but one
+means of solving the labor problem-political action. When political
+control was finally achieved, the labor party, with the aid of state
+credit, would build up a network of cooperative societies into which
+eventually all industry would pass.
+
+In short, the distinction between the ideas of the _Internationale_ and
+of Lassalle consisted in the fact that the former advocated trade
+unionism prior to and underlying political organization, while the
+latter considered a political victory as the basis of socialism. These
+antagonistic starting points are apparent at the very beginning of
+American socialism as well as in the trade unionism and socialism of
+succeeding years.
+
+Two distinct phases can be seen in the history of the _Internationale_
+in America. During the first phase, which began in 1866 and lasted until
+1870, the _Internationale_ had no important organization of its own on
+American soil, but tried to establish itself through affiliation with
+the National Labor Union. The inducement held out to the latter was of a
+practical nature, the international regulation of immigration. During
+the second phase the _Internationale_ had its "sections" in nearly every
+large city of the country, centering in New York and Chicago, and the
+practical trade union part of its work receded before its activity on
+behalf of the propaganda of socialism.
+
+These "sections," with a maximum membership which probably never
+exceeded a thousand, nearly all foreigners, became a preparatory school
+in trade union leadership for many of the later organizers and leaders
+of the American Federation of Labor: for example, Adolph Strasser, the
+German cigar maker, whose organization became the new model in trade
+unionism, and P.J. McGuire, the American-born carpenter, who founded the
+Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and who was for many years the
+secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor.
+
+Fate had decreed that these sections of a handful of immigrants should
+play for a time high-sounding parts in the world labor movement. When,
+at the World Congress of the International Workingmen's Association at
+the Hague in 1872, the anarchist faction led by Bakunin had shown such
+strength that Marx and his socialist faction deemed it wise to move the
+General Council out of mischief's way, they removed it to New York and
+entrusted its powers into the hands of the faithful German Marxians on
+this side of the Atlantic. This spelled the end of the _Internationale_
+as a world organization, but enormously increased the stakes of the
+factional fights within the handful of American Internationalists. The
+organization of the workers into trade unions, the _Internationale's_
+first principle, was forgotten in the heat of intemperate struggles for
+empty honors and powerless offices. On top of that, with the panic of
+1873 and the ensuing prolonged depression, the political drift asserted
+itself in socialism as it had in the labor movement in general and the
+movement, erstwhile devoted primarily to organization of trade unions,
+entered, urged on by the Lassalleans, into a series of political
+campaigns somewhat successful at first but soon succumbing to the
+inevitable fate of all amateurish attempts. Upon men of Strasser's
+practical mental grasp these petty tempests in the melting pot could
+only produce an impression of sheer futility, and he turned to trade
+unionism as the only activity worth his while. Strasser had been elected
+president of the Cigar Makers' International Union in 1877, in the midst
+of a great strike in New York against the tenement-house system.
+
+The president of the local New York union of cigar makers was at the
+time Samuel Gompers, a young man of twenty-seven, who was born in
+England and came to America in 1862. In his endeavor to build up a model
+for the "new" unionism and in his almost uninterrupted headship of that
+movement for forty years is indicated Gompers' truly representative
+character. Born of Dutch-Jewish parents in England in 1850, he typifies
+the cosmopolitan origins of American unionism. His early contact in the
+union of his trade with men like Strasser, upon whom the ideas of Marx
+and the International Workingmen's Association had left an indelible
+stamp, and his thorough study of Marx gave him that grounding both in
+idealism and class consciousness which has produced many strong leaders
+of American unions and saved them from defection to other interests.
+Aggressive and uncompromising in a perpetual fight for the strongest
+possible position and power of trade unions, but always strong for
+collective agreements with the opposing employers, he displays the
+business tactics of organized labor. At the head of an organization
+which denies itself power over its constituent unions, he has brought
+and held together the most widely divergent and often antagonistic
+unions, while permitting each to develop and even to change its
+character to fit the changing industrial conditions.
+
+The dismal failure of the strike against the tenement house system in
+cigar making brought home to both Strasser and Gompers the weakness of
+the plan of organization of their union as well as that of American
+trade unions in general. They consequently resolved to rebuild their
+union upon the pattern of the British unions, although they firmly
+intended that it should remain a militant organization. The change
+involved, first, complete authority over the local unions in the hands
+of the international officers; second, an increase in the membership
+dues for the purpose of building up a large fund; and, third, the
+adoption of a far-reaching benefit system in order to assure stability
+to the organization. This was accomplished at the convention held in
+August, 1879. This convention simultaneously adopted the British idea of
+the "equalization of funds," which gave the international officers the
+power to order a well-to-do local union to transfer a portion of its
+funds to another local union in financial straits. With the various
+modifications of the feature of "equalization of funds," the system of
+government in the Cigar Makers' International Union was later used as a
+model by the other national and international trade unions.
+
+As Strasser and men of his ilk grew more and more absorbed in the
+practical problems of the everyday struggle of the wage-earners for
+better conditions of employment, the socialistic portion of their
+original philosophy kept receding further and further into the
+background until they arrived at pure trade unionism. But their trade
+unionism differed vastly from the "native" American trade unionism of
+their time, which still hankered for the haven of producers'
+cooperation. The philosophy which these new leaders developed might be
+termed a philosophy of pure wage-consciousness. It signified a labor
+movement reduced to an opportunistic basis, accepting the existence of
+capitalism and having for its object the enlarging of the bargaining
+power of the wage earner in the sale of his labor. Its opportunism was
+instrumental--its idealism was home and family and individual
+betterment. It also implied an attitude of aloofness from all those
+movements which aspire to replace the wage system by cooperation,
+whether voluntary or subsidized by government, whether greenbackism,
+socialism, or anarchism.
+
+Perhaps the most concise definition of this philosophy is to be found
+in Strasser's testimony before the Senate Committee on Education and
+Labor in 1883:
+
+     "_Q._ You are seeking to improve home matters first?
+
+     "_A._ Yes, sir, I look first to the trade I represent; I look first
+     to cigars, to the interests of men who employ me to represent their
+     interest.
+
+     "_Chairman_: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.
+
+     "_Witness_: We have no ultimate ends. We are going on from day to
+     day. We are fighting only for immediate objects--objects that can
+     be realized in a few years.
+
+     "By Mr. Call: _Q._ You want something better to eat and to wear,
+     and better houses to live in?
+
+     "_A._ Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and become
+     better citizens generally.
+
+     "_The Chairman_: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it
+     should be thought that you are a mere theoriser, I do not look upon
+     you in that light at all.
+
+     "_The Witness_: Well, we say in our constitution that we are
+     opposed to theorists, and I have to represent the organization
+     here. We are all practical men."
+
+Another offshoot of the same Marxian _Internationale_ were the "Chicago
+Anarchists."[17] The _Internationale_, as we saw, emphasized trade
+unionism as the first step in the direction of socialism, in opposition
+to the political socialism of Lassalle, which ignored the trade union
+and would start with a political party outright. Shorn of its
+socialistic futurity this philosophy became non-political "business"
+unionism; but, when combined with a strong revolutionary spirit, it
+became a non-political revolutionary unionism, or syndicalism.
+
+The organization of those industrial revolutionaries was called the
+International Working People's Association, also known as the "Black"
+or anarchist International, which was formed at Pittsburgh in 1883. Like
+the old _Internationale_ it busied itself with forming trade unions, but
+insisted that they conform to a revolutionary model. Such a "model"
+trade union was the Federation of Metal Workers of America, which was
+organized in 1885. It said in its Declaration of Principles that the
+entire abolition of the present system of society can alone emancipate
+the workers, but under no consideration should they resort to politics;
+"our organization should be a school to educate its members for the new
+condition of society, when the workers will regulate their own affairs
+without any interference by the few. Since the emancipation of the
+productive classes must come by their own efforts, it is unwise to
+meddle in present politics.... All _direct_ struggles of the laboring
+masses have our fullest sympathy." Alongside the revolutionary trade
+unions were workers' armed organizations ready to usher in the new order
+by force. "By force," recited the Pittsburgh Manifesto of the Black
+International, "our ancestors liberated themselves from political
+oppression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves
+from economic bondage. It is, therefore, your right, it is your duty,
+says Jefferson,--to arms!"
+
+The following ten years were to decide whether the leadership of the
+American labor movement was to be with the "practical men of the trade
+unions" or with the cooperative idealists of the Knights of Labor.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] After the defeat of a strong anthracite miners' union in 1869,
+which was an open organization, the fight against the employers was
+carried on by a secret organization known as the Molly Maguires, which
+used the method of terrorism and assassination. It was later exposed and
+many were sentenced and executed.
+
+[14] The Preamble further provides that the Order will stand for the
+reservation of all lands for actual settlers; the "abrogation of all
+laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, the removal of
+unjust technicalities, delays, and discriminations in the administration
+of justice, and the adopting of measures providing for the health and
+safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, or building pursuits";
+the enactment of a weekly pay law, a mechanics' lien law, and a law
+prohibiting child labor under fourteen years of age; the abolition of
+the contract system on national, state, and municipal work, and of the
+system of leasing out convicts; equal pay for equal work for both sexes;
+reduction of hours of labor to eight per day; "the substitution of
+arbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employees
+are willing to meet on equitable grounds"; the establishment of "a
+purely national circulating medium based upon the faith and resources of
+the nation, issued directly to the people, without the intervention of
+any system of banking corporations, which money shall be a legal tender
+in payment of all debts, public or private".
+
+[15] Dr. Ely in his pioneer work, _The Labor Movement in America_,
+published in 1886, showed a most genuine sympathy for the idealistic
+strivings and gropings of labor for a better social order. He even
+advised some of his pupils at the Johns Hopkins University to join the
+Knights of Labor in order to gain a better understanding of the labor
+movement.
+
+[16] Schultze-Delizsch was a German thinker and practical reformer of
+the liberal school.
+
+[17] The Anarchists who were tried and executed after the Haymarket
+Square bomb in Chicago in May, 1886. See below, 91-93.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887
+
+
+With the return of business prosperity in 1879, the labor movement
+revived. The first symptom of the upward trend was a rapid
+multiplication of city federations of organized trades, variously known
+as trade councils, amalgamated trade and labor unions, trades
+assemblies, and the like. Practically all of these came into existence
+after 1879, since hardly any of the "trades' assemblies" of the sixties
+had survived the depression.
+
+As was said above, the national trade unions existed during the sixties
+and seventies in only about thirty trades. Eighteen of these had either
+retained a nucleus during the seventies or were first formed during that
+decade. The following is a list of the national unions in existence in
+1880 with the year of formation: Typographical (1850), Hat Finishers
+(1854), Iron Molders (1859), Locomotive Engineers (1863), Cigar Makers
+(1864), Bricklayers and Masons (1865), Silk and Fur Hat Finishers
+(1866), Railway Conductors (1868), Coopers (1870), German-American
+Typographia (1873), Locomotive Firemen (1873), Horseshoers (1874),
+Furniture Workers (1873), Iron and Steel Workers (1876), Granite Cutters
+(1877), Lake Seamen (1878), Cotton Mill Spinners (1878), New England
+Boot and Shoe Lasters (1879).
+
+In 1880 the Western greenbottle blowers' national union was established;
+in 1881 the national unions of boiler makers and carpenters; in 1882,
+plasterers and metal workers; in 1883, tailors, lithographers, wood
+carvers, railroad brakemen, and silk workers.
+
+An illustration of the rapid growth in trade union membership during
+this period is given in the following figures: the bricklayers' union
+had 303 in 1880; 1558 in 1881; 6848 in 1882; 9193 in 1883. The
+typographical union had 5968 members in 1879; 6520 in 1880; 7931 in
+1881; 10,439 in 1882; 12,273 in 1883. The total trade union membership
+in the country, counting the three railway organizations and those
+organized only locally, amounted to between 200,000 and 225,000 in 1883
+and probably was not below 300,000 in the beginning of 1885.
+
+A distinguishing characteristic of the trade unions of this time was the
+predominance in them of the foreign element. The Illinois Bureau of
+Labor describes the ethnical composition of the trade unions of that
+State during 1886, and states that 21 percent were American, 33 percent
+German, 19 percent Irish, 10 percent British other than Irish, 12
+percent Scandinavian, and the Poles, Bohemians, and Italians formed
+about 5 percent. The strong predominance of the foreign element in
+American trade unions should not appear unusual, since, owing to the
+breakdown of the apprenticeship system, the United States had been
+drawing its supply of skilled labor from abroad.
+
+The Order of the Knights of Labor, despite its "First Principles" based
+on the cooperative ideal, was soon forced to make concessions to a large
+element of its membership which was pressing for strikes. With the
+advent of prosperity, the Order expanded, although the Knights of Labor
+played but a subordinate part in the labor movement of the early
+eighties. The membership was 20,151 in 1879; 28,136 in 1880; 19,422 in
+1881; 42,517 in 1882; 51,914 in 1883; showing a steady and rapid growth,
+with the exception of the year 1881. But these figures are decidedly
+deceptive as a means of measuring the strength of the Order, for the
+membership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached
+50,000 no less than one-half of this number passed in and out of the
+organization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducing
+the economic strength of the Order, brought large masses of people under
+its influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle of
+the eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention of the public
+press. The labor press gave the Order great publicity, but the Knights
+did not rely on gratuitous newspaper publicity. They set to work a host
+of lecturers, who held public meetings throughout the country adding
+recruits and advertising the Order.
+
+The most important Knights of Labor strike of this period was the
+telegraphers' strike in 1883. The telegraphers had a national
+organization in 1870, which soon collapsed. In 1882 they again organized
+on a national basis and affiliated with the Order as District Assembly
+45.[18] The strike was declared on June 19, 1883, against all commercial
+telegraph companies in the country, among which the Western Union, with
+about 4000 operators, was by far the largest. The demands were one day's
+rest in seven, an eight-hour day shift and a seven-hour night shift, and
+a general increase of 15 percent in wages. The public and a large
+portion of the press gave their sympathy to the strikers, not so much on
+account of the oppressed condition of the telegraphers as of the general
+hatred that prevailed against Jay Gould, who then controlled the
+Western Union Company. This strike was the first in the eighties to call
+the attention of the general American public to the existence of a labor
+question, and received considerable attention at the hands of the Senate
+Committee on Education and Labor. By the end of July, over a month after
+the beginning of the strike, the men who escaped the blacklist went back
+to work on the old terms.
+
+From 1879 till 1882 the labor movement was typical of a period of rising
+prices. It was practically restricted to skilled workmen, who organized
+to wrest from employers still better conditions than those which
+prosperity would have given under individual bargaining. The movement
+was essentially opportunistic and displayed no particular class feeling
+and no revolutionary tendencies. The solidarity of labor was not denied
+by the trade unions, but they did not try to reduce the idea to
+practice: each trade coped more or less successfully with its own
+employers. Even the Knights of Labor, the organization _par excellence_
+of the solidarity of labor, was at this time, in so far as practical
+efforts went, merely a faint echo of the trade unions.
+
+But the situation radically changed during the depression of 1884-1885.
+The unskilled and the semi-skilled, affected as they were by wage
+reductions and unemployment even in a larger measure than the skilled,
+were drawn into the movement. Labor organizations assumed the nature of
+a real class movement. The idea of the solidarity of labor ceased to be
+merely verbal and took on life! General strikes, sympathetic strikes,
+nationwide boycotts and nation-wide political movements became the order
+of the day. The effects of an unusually large immigration joined hands
+with the depression. The eighties were the banner decade of the entire
+century for immigration. The aggregate number of immigrants arriving was
+5,246,613--two and a half millions larger than during the seventies and
+one million and a half larger than during the nineties. The eighties
+witnessed the highest tide of immigration from Great Britain and the
+North of Europe and the beginning of the tide of South and East European
+immigration.
+
+However, the depression of 1883-1885 had one redeeming feature by which
+it was distinguished from other depressions. With falling prices,
+diminishing margins of profit, and decreasing wages, the amount of
+employment was not materially diminished. Times continued hard during
+1885, a slight improvement showing itself only during the last months of
+the year. The years 1886 and 1887 were a period of gradual recovery, and
+normal conditions may be said to have returned about the middle of 1887.
+Except in New England, the old wages, which had been reduced during the
+bad years, were won again by the spring of 1887.
+
+The year 1884 was one of decisive failure in strikes. They were
+practically all directed against reductions in wages and for the right
+of organization. The most conspicuous strikes were those of the Fall
+River spinners, the Troy stove mounters, the Cincinnati cigar makers and
+the Hocking Valley coal miners.
+
+The failure of strikes brought into use the other weapon of labor--the
+boycott. But not until the latter part of 1884, when the failure of the
+strike as a weapon became apparent, did the boycott assume the nature of
+an epidemic. The boycott movement was a truly national one, affecting
+the South and the Far West as well as the East and Middle West. The
+number of boycotts during 1885 was nearly seven times as large as during
+1884. Nearly all of the boycotts either originated with, or were taken
+up by, the Knights of Labor.
+
+The strike again came into prominence in the latter half of 1885. This
+coincided with the beginning of an upward trend in general business
+conditions. The strikes of 1885, even more than those of the preceding
+year, were spontaneous outbreaks of unorganized masses.
+
+The frequent railway strikes were a characteristic feature of the labor
+movement in 1885. Most notable was the Gould railway strike in March,
+1885. On February 26, a cut of 10 percent was ordered in the wages of
+the shopmen of the Wabash road. A similar reduction had been made in
+October, 1884, on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. Strikes occurred on the
+two roads, one on February 27 and the other March 9, and the strikers
+were joined by the men on the third Gould road, the Missouri Pacific, at
+all points where the two lines touched, making altogether over 4500 men
+on strike. The train service personnel, that is, the locomotive
+engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors, supported the strikers and
+to this fact more than to any other was due their speedy victory. The
+wages were restored and the strikers reemployed. But six months later
+this was followed by a second strike. The road, now in the hands of a
+receiver, reduced the force of shopmen at Moberly, Missouri, to the
+lowest possible limit, which virtually meant a lockout of the members of
+the Knights of Labor in direct violation of the conditions of settlement
+of the preceding strike. The General Executive Board of the Knights,
+after a futile attempt to have a conference with the receiver, declared
+a boycott on Wabash rolling stock. This order, had it been carried out,
+would have affected over 20,000 miles of railway and would have equalled
+the dimensions of the great railway strike of 1877. But Jay Gould would
+not risk a general strike on his lines at this time. According to an
+appointment made between him and the executive board of the Knights of
+Labor, a conference was held between that board and the managers of the
+Missouri Pacific and the Wabash railroads, at which he threw his
+influence in favor of making concessions to the men. He assured the
+Knights that in all troubles he wanted the men to come directly to him,
+that he believed in labor organizations and in the arbitration of all
+difficulties and that he "would always endeavor to do what was right."
+The Knights demanded the discharge of all new men hired in the Wabash
+shops since the beginning of the lockout, the reinstatement of all
+discharged men, the leaders being given priority, and an assurance that
+no discrimination against the members of the Order would be made in the
+future. A settlement was finally made at another conference, and the
+receiver of the Wabash road agreed, under pressure by Jay Gould, to
+issue an order conceding the demands of the Knights of Labor.
+
+The significance of the second Wabash strike in the history of railway
+strikes was that the railway brotherhoods (engineers, firemen, brakemen,
+and conductors), in contrast with their conduct during the first Wabash
+strike, now refused to lend any aid to the striking shopmen, although
+many of the members were also Knights of Labor.
+
+But far more important was the effect of the strike upon the general
+labor movement. Here a labor organization for the first time dealt on an
+equal footing with probably the most powerful capitalist in the country.
+It forced Jay Gould to recognize it as a power equal to himself, a fact
+which he conceded when he declared his readiness to arbitrate all labor
+difficulties that might arise. The oppressed laboring masses finally
+discovered a powerful champion. All the pent-up feeling of bitterness
+and resentment which had accumulated during the two years of depression,
+in consequence of the repeated cuts in wages and the intensified
+domination by employers, now found vent in a rush to organize under the
+banner of the powerful Knights of Labor. To the natural tendency on the
+part of the oppressed to exaggerate the power of a mysterious
+emancipator whom they suddenly found coming to their aid, there was
+added the influence of sensational reports in the public press. The
+newspapers especially took delight in exaggerating the powers and
+strength of the Order.
+
+In 1885 the New York _Sun_ detailed one of its reporters to "get up a
+story of the strength and purposes of the Knights of Labor." This story
+was copied by newspapers and magazines throughout the country and aided
+considerably in bringing the Knights of Labor into prominence. The
+following extract illustrates the exaggerated notion of the power of the
+Knights of Labor.
+
+"Five men in this country control the chief interests of five hundred
+thousand workingmen, and can at any moment take the means of livelihood
+from two and a half millions of souls. These men compose the executive
+board of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor of America. The ability
+of the president and cabinet to turn out all the men in the civil
+service, and to shift from one post to another the duties of the men in
+the army and navy, is a petty authority compared with that of these five
+Knights. The authority of the late Cardinal was, and that of the
+bishops of the Methodist Church is, narrow and prescribed, so far as
+material affairs are concerned, in comparison with that of these five
+rulers.
+
+"They can stay the nimble touch of almost every telegraph operator; can
+shut up most of the mills and factories, and can disable the railroads.
+They can issue an edict against any manufactured goods so as to make
+their subjects cease buying them, and the tradesmen stop selling them.
+
+"They can array labor against capital, putting labor on the offensive or
+the defensive, for quiet and stubborn self-protection, or for angry,
+organized assault, as they will."
+
+Before long the Order was able to benefit by this publicity in quarters
+where the tale of its great power could only attract unqualified
+attention, namely, in Congress. The Knights of Labor led in the
+agitation for prohibiting the immigration of alien contract laborers.
+The problem of contract immigrant labor rapidly came to the front in
+1884, when such labor began frequently to be used to defeat strikes.
+
+Twenty persons appeared to testify before the committee in favor of the
+bill, of whom all but two or three belonged to the Knights of Labor. The
+anti-contract labor law which was passed by Congress on February 2,
+1885, therefore, was due almost entirely to the efforts of the Knights
+of Labor. The trade unions gave little active support, for to the
+skilled workingmen the importation of contract Italian and Hungarian
+laborers was a matter of small importance. On the other hand, to the
+Knights of Labor with their vast contingent of unskilled it was a strong
+menace. Although the law could not be enforced and had to be amended in
+1887 in order to render it effective, its passage nevertheless attests
+the political influence already exercised by the Order in 1885.
+
+The outcome of the Gould strike of 1885 and the dramatic exaggeration of
+the prowess of the Order by press and even by pulpit were largely
+responsible for the psychological setting that called forth and
+surrounded the great upheaval of 1886. This upheaval meant more than the
+mere quickening of the pace of the movement begun in preceding years and
+decades. It signalled the appearance on the scene of a new class which
+had not hitherto found a place in the labor movement, namely the
+unskilled. All the peculiar characteristics of the dramatic events in
+1886 and 1887, the highly feverish pace at which organizations grew, the
+nation-wide wave of strikes, particularly sympathetic strikes, the wide
+use of the boycott, the obliteration, apparently complete, of all lines
+that divided the laboring class, whether geographic or trade, the
+violence and turbulence which accompanied the movement--all of these
+were the signs of a great movement by the class of the unskilled, which
+had finally risen in rebellion. This movement, rising as an elemental
+protest against oppression and degradation, could be but feebly
+restrained by any considerations of expediency and prudence; nor, of
+course, could it be restrained by any lessons from experience. But, if
+the origin and powerful sweep of this movement were largely spontaneous
+and elemental, the issues which it took up were supplied by the existing
+organizations, namely the trade unions and the Knights of Labor. These
+served also as the dykes between which the rapid streams were gathered
+and, if at times it seemed that they must burst under the pressure,
+still they gave form and direction to the movement and partly succeeded
+in introducing order where chaos had reigned. The issue which first
+brought unity in this great mass movement was a nation-wide strike for
+the eight-hour day declared for May 1, 1886.
+
+The initiative in this strike was taken not by the Order but by the
+trade unionists and on the eve of the strike the general officers of the
+Knights adopted an attitude of hostility. But if the slogan failed to
+arouse the enthusiasm of the national leaders of the Knights, it
+nevertheless found ready response in the ranks of labor. The great class
+of the unskilled and unorganized, which had come to look upon the
+Knights of Labor as the all-powerful liberator of the laboring masses
+from oppression, now eagerly seized upon this demand as the issue upon
+which the first battle with capital should be fought.
+
+The agitation assumed large proportions in March. The main argument for
+the shorter day was work for the unemployed. With the exception of the
+cigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organizations.
+The Knights of Labor as an organization figured far less prominently
+than the trade unions, and among the latter the building trades and the
+German-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front of
+the movement. Early in the strike the workingmen's cause was gravely
+injured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributed
+to anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen.
+
+The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which had
+heretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity. For
+what many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval in
+a less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoretical
+justification, the contemporary Chicago "anarchists,"[19] the largest
+branch of the "Black International," had elevated into a well
+rounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Labor
+upheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of the
+eighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalism
+was characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with which
+minor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades and
+large territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, to
+enter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by a
+ready resort to violence. In 1886 the membership of the Black
+International probably was about 5000 or 6000 and of this number about
+1000 were English speaking.
+
+The circumstances of the bomb explosion were the following. A strikers'
+meeting was held near the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago, late on the
+third of May. About this time strike-breakers employed in these works
+began to leave for home and were attacked by strikers. The police
+arrived in large numbers and upon being received with stones, fired and
+killed four and wounded many. The same evening the International issued
+a call in which appeared the word _"Revenge"_ with the appeal:
+"Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force." A protest mass
+meeting met the next day on Haymarket Square and was addressed by
+Internationalists. The police were present in numbers and, as they
+formed in line and advanced on the crowd, some unknown hand hurled a
+bomb into their midst killing and wounding many.
+
+It is unnecessary to describe here the period of police terror in
+Chicago, the hysterical attitude of the press, or the state of panic
+that came over the inhabitants of the city. Nor is it necessary to deal
+in detail with the trial and sentence of the accused. Suffice it to say
+that the Haymarket bomb showed to the labor movement what it might
+expect from the public and the government if it combined violence with a
+revolutionary purpose.
+
+Although the bomb outrage was attributed to the anarchists and not
+generally to the strikers for the eight-hour day, it did materially
+reduce the sympathy of the public as well as intimidate many strikers.
+Nevertheless, _Bradstreet's_ estimated that no fewer than 340,000 men
+took part in the movement; 190,000 actually struck, only 42,000 of this
+number with success, and 150,000 secured shorter hours without a strike.
+Thus the total number of those who secured with or without strikes the
+eight-hour day was something less than 200,000. But even those who for
+the present succeeded, whether with or without striking, soon lost the
+concession, and _Bradstreet's_ estimated in January, 1887, that, so far
+as the payment of former wages for a shorter day's work is concerned,
+the grand total of those retaining the concession did not exceed, if it
+equalled, 15,000.
+
+American labor movements have never experienced such a rush to organize
+as the one in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. During 1886 the
+combined membership of labor organizations was exceptionally large and
+for the first time came near the million mark. The Knights of Labor had
+a membership of 700,000 and the trade unions at least 250,000, the
+former composed largely of unskilled and the latter of skilled. The
+Knights of Labor gained in a remarkably short time--in a few
+months--over 600,000 new members and grew from 1610 local assemblies
+with 104,066 members in good standing in July 1885, to 5892 assemblies
+with 702,924 members in July 1886. The greatest portion of this growth
+occurred after January 1, 1886. In the state of New York there were in
+July 1886, about 110,000 members (60,809 in District Assembly 49 of New
+York City alone); in Pennsylvania, 95,000 (51,557 in District Assembly
+1, Philadelphia, alone); in Massachusetts, 90,000 (81,191 in District
+Assembly 30 of Boston); and in Illinois, 32,000.
+
+In the state of Illinois, for which detailed information for that year
+is available, there were 204 local assemblies with 34,974 members, of
+which 65 percent were found in Cook County (Chicago) alone. One hundred
+and forty-nine assemblies were mixed, that is comprised members of
+different trades including unskilled and only 55 were trade assemblies.
+Reckoned according to country of birth the membership was 45 percent
+American, 16 percent German, 13 percent Irish, 10 percent British, 5
+percent Scandinavian, and the remaining 2 percent scattered. The trade
+unions also gained many members but in a considerably lesser proportion.
+
+The high water mark was reached in the autumn of 1886. But in the early
+months of 1887 a reaction became visible. By July 1, the membership of
+the Order had diminished to 510,351. While a share of this retrogression
+may have been due to the natural reaction of large masses of people who
+had been suddenly set in motion without experience, a more immediate
+cause came from the employers. Profiting by past lessons, they organized
+strong associations. The main object of these employers' associations
+was the defeat of the Knights. They were organized sectionally and
+nationally. In small localities, where the power of the Knights was
+especially great, all employers regardless of industry joined in a
+single association. But in large manufacturing centers, where the rich
+corporation prevailed, they included the employers of only one industry.
+To attain their end these associations made liberal use of the lockout,
+the blacklist, and armed guards and detectives. Often they treated
+agreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress.
+The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearly
+foreshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gould
+railways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886.
+
+As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould
+system in March 1885, the employes were assured that the road would
+institute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it
+is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by
+minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated
+in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car
+shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortly
+before passed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over the
+entire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that the
+Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two months
+before the strike. District Assembly 101, the organization embracing the
+employes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and
+authorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might find
+opportune to enforce the two following demands: first, the formal
+"recognition" of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the
+unskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights
+of Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in the
+movement. But evidently the organization preferred to make the issue
+turn on discrimination against members. Another peculiarity which marked
+off this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility with
+which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and all
+leased and operated lines. This strike broke out simultaneously over the
+entire system on March 6. It affected more than 5000 miles of railway
+situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska.
+The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but
+actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic
+"killing" of engines, that is removing some indispensable part,
+effectively stopped all the freight traffic. The number of men actively
+on strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all of
+the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen,
+brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to
+leave their posts under threats from the strikers.
+
+The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the
+strikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his attitude was
+overbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, a
+strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labor
+contract, but necessarily assumed the aspect of a crusade against
+capital. Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take were
+excluded.
+
+Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the
+dispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months of
+sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left,
+however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the
+impression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and a
+Congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.
+
+The disputes during the second half of 1886 ended, for the most part,
+disastrously to labor. The number of men involved in six months, was
+estimated at 97,300. Of these, about 75,300 were in nine great lockouts,
+of whom 54,000 suffered defeat at the hands of associated employers. The
+most important lockouts were against 15,000 laundry workers at Troy, New
+York, in June; against 20,000 Chicago packing house workers; and against
+20,000 knitters at Cohoes, New York, both in October.
+
+The lockout of the Chicago butcher workmen attracted the most attention.
+These men had obtained the eight-hour day without a strike during May. A
+short time thereafter, upon the initiative of Armour & Company, the
+employers formed a packers' association and, in the beginning of
+October, notified the men of a return to the ten-hour day on October 11.
+They justified this action on the ground that they could not compete
+with Cincinnati and Kansas City, which operated on the ten-hour system.
+On October 8, the men, who were organized in District Assemblies 27 and
+54, suspended work, and the memorable lockout began. The packers'
+association rejected all offers of compromise and on October 18 the men
+were ordered to work on the ten-hour basis. But the dispute in October,
+which was marked by a complete lack of ill-feeling on the part of the
+men and was one of the most peaceable labor disputes of the year, was in
+reality a mere prelude to a second disturbance which broke out in the
+plant of Swift & Company on November 2 and became general throughout the
+stockyards on November 6. The men demanded a return to the eight-hour
+day, but the packers' association, which was now joined by Swift &
+Company, who formerly had kept aloof, not only refused to give up the
+ten-hour day, but declared that they would employ no Knights of Labor in
+the future. The Knights retaliated by declaring a boycott on the meat of
+Armour & Company. The behavior of the men was now no longer peaceable as
+before, and the employers took extra precautions by prevailing upon the
+governor to send two regiments of militia in addition to the several
+hundred Pinkerton detectives employed by the association. To all
+appearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for on
+November 10 the packers' association rescinded its decision not to
+employ Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out of
+a clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderly
+ordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider the
+reports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on the
+ground, but, as was charged by them, was guided instead by the advice of
+a priest who had appealed to him to call off the strike and thus put an
+end to the suffering of the men and their families.
+
+New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strike
+and on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separate
+strikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New York
+with coal and the other by longshoremen on the New York water front;
+both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed by
+the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of
+Labor, struck against a reduction of 2-1/2 cents an hour in the wages of
+the "top-men" and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances of
+their own. Soon the strike spread to the other roads and the number of
+striking coal-handlers reached 3000. The longshoremen's strike was begun
+by 200 men, employed by the Old Dominion Steamship Company, against a
+reduction in wages and the hiring of cheap men by the week. The strikers
+were not organized, but the Ocean Association, a part of the Knights of
+Labor, took up their cause and was assisted by the longshoremen's union.
+Both strikes soon widened out through a series of sympathetic strikes of
+related trades and finally became united into one. The Ocean Association
+declared a boycott on the freight of the Old Dominion Company and this
+was strictly obeyed by all of the longshoremen's unions. The
+International Boatmen's Union refused to allow their boats to be used
+for "scab coal" or to permit their members to steer the companies'
+boats. The longshoremen joined the boatmen in refusing to handle coal,
+and the shovelers followed. Then the grain handlers on both floating and
+stationary elevators refused to load ships with grain on which there was
+scab coal, and the bag-sewers stood with them. The longshoremen now
+resolved to go out and refused to work on ships which received scab
+coal, and finally they decided to stop work altogether on all kinds of
+craft in the harbor until the trouble should be settled. The strike
+spirit spread to a large number of freight handlers working for
+railroads along the river front, so that in the last week of January the
+number of strikers in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, reached
+approximately 28,000; 13,000 longshoremen, 1000 boatmen, 6000 grain
+handlers, 7500 coal-handlers, and 400 bag-sewers.
+
+On February 11, August Corbin, president and receiver of the
+Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, fearing a strike by the miners
+working in the coal mines operated by that road, settled the strike by
+restoring to the eighty-five coal-handlers, the original strikers, their
+former rate of wages. The Knights of Labor felt impelled to accept such
+a trivial settlement for two reasons. The coal-handlers' strike, which
+drove up the price of coal to the consumer, was very unpopular, and the
+strike itself had begun to weaken when the brewers and stationary
+engineers, who for some obscure reason had been ordered to strike in
+sympathy, refused to come out. The situation was left unchanged, as far
+as the coal-handlers employed by the other companies, the longshoremen,
+and the many thousands of men who went out on sympathetic strike were
+concerned. The men began to return to work by the thousands and the
+entire strike collapsed.
+
+The determined attack and stubborn resistance of the employers'
+associations after the strikes of May 1886, coupled with the obvious
+incompetence displayed by the leaders, caused the turn of the tide in
+the labor movement in the first half of 1887. This, however, manifested
+itself during 1887 exclusively in the large cities, where the movement
+had borne in the purest form the character of an uprising by the class
+of the unskilled and where the hardest battles were fought with the
+employers. District Assembly 49, New York, fell from its membership of
+60,809 in June 1886, to 32,826 in July 1887. During the same interval,
+District Assembly 1, Philadelphia, decreased from 51,557 to 11,294, and
+District Assembly 30, Boston, from 81,197 to 31,644. In Chicago there
+were about 40,000 Knights immediately before the packers' strike in
+October 1886, and only about 17,000 on July 1, 1887. The falling off of
+the largest district assemblies in 10 large cities practically equalled
+the total loss of the Order, which amounted approximately to 191,000. At
+the same time the membership of the smallest district assemblies, which
+were for the most part located in small cities, remained stationary and,
+outside of the national and district trade assemblies which were formed
+by separation from mixed district assemblies, thirty-seven new district
+assemblies were formed, also mostly in rural localities. In addition,
+state assemblies were added in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana,
+Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, and
+Wisconsin, with an average membership of about 2000 each.
+
+It thus becomes clear that by the middle of 1887, the Great Upheaval of
+the unskilled and semi-skilled portions of the working class had already
+subsided beneath the strength of the combined employers and the
+unwieldiness of their own organization. After 1887 the Knights of Labor
+lost its hold upon the large cities with their wage-conscious and
+largely foreign population, and became an organization predominantly of
+country people, of mechanics, small merchants, and farmers,--a class of
+people which was more or less purely American and decidedly middle class
+in its philosophy.
+
+The industrial upheaval in the middle of the eighties had, like the
+great strike of 1877, a political reverberation. Although the latter was
+heard throughout the entire country, it centered in the city of New
+York, where the situation was complicated by court interference in the
+labor struggle.
+
+A local assembly of the Knights of Labor had declared a boycott against
+one George Theiss, a proprietor of a music and beer garden. The latter
+at first submitted and paid a fine of $1000 to the labor organization,
+but later brought action in court against the officers charging them
+with intimidation and extortion.
+
+The judge, George C. Barrett, in his charge to the jury, conceded that
+striking, picketing, and boycotting as such were not prohibited by law,
+if not accompanied by force, threats, or intimidation. But in the case
+under consideration the action of the pickets in advising passers-by not
+to patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circulars
+constituted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained by
+fear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theiss
+inflicted by the "boycott," the case was one of extortion covered by the
+penal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated by
+the defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to their
+organization. The jury, which reflected the current public opinion
+against boycotts, found all of the five defendants guilty of extortion,
+and Judge Barrett sentenced them to prison for terms ranging from one
+year and six months to three years and eight months.
+
+The Theiss case, coming as it did at a time of general restlessness of
+labor and closely after the defeat of the eight-hour movement, greatly
+hastened the growth of the sentiment for an independent labor party. The
+New York Central Labor Union, the most famous and most influential
+organization of its kind in the country at the time, with a membership
+estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000, placed itself at the head of the
+movement in which both socialists and non-socialists joined. Henry
+George, the originator of the single tax movement, was nominated by the
+labor party for Mayor of New York and was allowed to draw up his own
+platform, which he made of course a simon-pure single tax platform. The
+labor demands were compressed into one plank. They were as follows: The
+reform of court procedure so that "the practice of drawing grand jurors
+from one class should cease, and the requirements of a property
+qualification for trial jurors should be abolished"; the stopping of the
+"officious intermeddling of the police with peaceful assemblages"; the
+enforcement of the laws for safety and the sanitary inspection of
+buildings; the abolition of contract labor on public work; and equal pay
+for equal work without distinction of sex on such work.
+
+The George campaign was more in the nature of a religious revival than
+of a political election campaign. It was also a culminating point in the
+great labor upheaval. The enthusiasm of the laboring people reached its
+highest pitch. They felt that, baffled and defeated as they were in
+their economic struggle, they were now nearing victory in the struggle
+for the control of government. Mass meetings were numerous and large.
+Most of them were held in the open air, usually on the street corners.
+From the system by which one speaker followed another, speaking at
+several meeting places in a night, the labor campaign got its nickname
+of the "tailboard campaign." The common people, women and men, gathered
+in hundreds and often thousands around trucks from which the shifting
+speakers addressed the crowd. The speakers were volunteers, including
+representatives of the liberal professions, lawyers, physicians,
+teachers, ministers, and labor leaders. At such mass meetings George did
+most of his campaigning, making several speeches a night, once as many
+as eleven. The single tax and the prevailing political corruption were
+favorite topics. Against George and his adherents were pitted the
+powerful press of the city of New York, all the political power of the
+old parties, and all the influence of the business class. George's
+opponents were Abram S. Hewitt, an anti-Tammany Democrat whom Tammany
+had picked for its candidate in this emergency, and Theodore Roosevelt,
+then as yet known only as a courageous young politician.
+
+The vote cast was 90,000 for Hewitt, 68,000 for George, and 60,000 for
+Roosevelt. There is possible ground for the belief that George was
+counted out of thousands of votes. The nature of the George vote can be
+sufficiently gathered from an analysis of the pledges to vote for him.
+An apparently trustworthy investigation was made by a representative of
+the New York Sun. He drew the conclusion that the vast majority were not
+simply wage earners, but also naturalized immigrants, mainly Irish,
+Germans, and Bohemians, the native element being in the minority. While
+the Irish were divided between George and Hewitt, the majority of the
+German element had gone over to Henry George. The outcome was hailed as
+a victory by George and his supporters and this view was also taken by
+the general press.
+
+In spite of this propitious beginning the political labor movement soon
+suffered the fate of all reform political movements. The strength of the
+new party was frittered away in doctrinaire factional strife between the
+single taxers and the socialists. The trade union element became
+discouraged and lost interest. So that at the next State election, in
+which George ran for Secretary of State, presumably because that office
+came nearest to meeting the requirement for a single taxer seeking a
+practical scope of action, the vote in the city fell to 37,000 and in
+the whole State amounted only to 72,000. This ended the political labor
+movement in New York.
+
+Outside of New York the political labor movement was not associated
+either with the single tax or any other "ism." As in New York it was a
+spontaneous expression of dissatisfaction brought on by failure in
+strikes. The movement scored a victory in Milwaukee, where it elected a
+mayor, and in Chicago where it polled 25,000 out of a total of 92,000.
+But, as in New York, it fell to pieces without leaving a permanent
+trace.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] See the next chapter for the scheme of organization followed by the
+Order.
+
+[19] See above, 79-80.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL FAILURE OF PRODUCERS'
+COOPERATION
+
+
+We now come to the most significant aspect of the Great Upheaval: the
+life and death struggle between two opposed principles of labor
+organization and between two opposed labor programs. The Upheaval
+offered the practical test which the labor movement required for an
+intelligent decision between the rival claims of Knights and trade
+unionists. The test as well as the conflict turned principally on
+"structure," that is on the difference between "craft autonomists" and
+those who would have labor organized "under one head," or what we would
+now call the "one big union" advocates.
+
+As the issue of "structure" proved in the crucial eighties, and has
+remained ever since, the outstanding factional issue in the labor
+movement, it might be well at this point to pass in brief review the
+structural developments in labor organization from the beginning and try
+to correlate them with other important developments.
+
+The early[20] societies of shoemakers and printers were purely local in
+scope and the relations between "locals" extended only to feeble
+attempts to deal with the competition of traveling journeymen.
+Occasionally, they corresponded on trade matters, notifying each other
+of their purposes and the nature of their demands, or expressing
+fraternal greetings; chiefly for the purpose of counteracting
+advertisements by employers for journeymen or keeping out dishonest
+members and so-called "scabs." This mostly relates to printers. The
+shoemakers, despite their bitter contests with their employers, did even
+less. The Philadelphia Mechanics' Trades Association in 1827, which we
+noted as the first attempted federation of trades in the United States
+if not in the world, was organized as a move of sympathy for the
+carpenters striking for the ten-hour day. During the period of the
+"wild-cat" prosperity the local federation of trades, under the name of
+"Trades' Union,"[21] comes to occupy the center of the stage in New
+York, Philadelphia, Boston, and appeared even as far "West" as
+Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The constitution of the New York
+"Trades' Union" provided, among other things, that each society should
+pay a monthly per capita tax of 6-1/4 cents to be used as a strike fund.
+Later, when strikes multiplied, the Union limited the right to claim
+strike aid and appointed a standing committee on mediation. In 1835 it
+discussed a plan for an employment exchange or a "call room." The
+constitution of the Philadelphia Union required that a strike be
+endorsed by a two-thirds majority before granting aid.
+
+The National Trades' Union, the federation of city trades' unions,
+1834-1836, was a further development of the same idea. Its first and
+second conventions went little beyond the theoretical. The latter,
+however, passed a significant resolution urging the trade societies to
+observe a uniform wage policy throughout the country and, should the
+employers combine to resist it, the unions should make "one general
+strike."
+
+The last convention in 1836 went far beyond preceding conventions in its
+plans for solidifying the workingmen of the country. First and foremost,
+a "national fund" was provided for, to be made up of a levy of two cents
+per month on each of the members of the trades' unions and local
+societies represented. The policies of the National Trades' Union
+instead of merely advisory were henceforth to be binding. But before the
+new policies could be tried, as we know, the entire trade union movement
+was wiped out by the panic.
+
+The city "trades' union" of the thirties accorded with a situation where
+the effects of the extension of the market were noticeable in the labor
+market, and little as yet in the commodity market; when the competitive
+menace to labor was the low paid out-of-town mechanic coming to the
+city, not the out-of-town product made under lower labor costs selling
+in the same market as the products of unionized labor. Under these
+conditions the local trade society, reenforced by the city federation of
+trades, sufficed. The "trades' union," moreover, served also as a source
+of reserve strength.
+
+Twenty years later the whole situation was changed. The fifties were a
+decade of extensive construction of railways. Before 1850 there was more
+traffic by water than by rail. After 1860 the relative importance of
+land and water transportation was reversed. Furthermore, the most
+important railway building during the ten years preceding 1860 was the
+construction of East and West trunk lines; and the sixties were marked
+by the establishment of through lines for freight and the consolidation
+of connecting lines. The through freight lines greatly hastened freight
+traffic and by the consolidations through transportation became doubly
+efficient.
+
+Arteries of traffic had thus extended from the Eastern coast to the
+Mississippi Valley. Local markets had widened to embrace half a
+continent. Competitive menaces had become more serious and threatened
+from a distance. Local unionism no longer sufficed. Consequently, as we
+saw, in the labor movement of the sixties the national trade union was
+supreme.
+
+There were four distinct sets of causes which operated during the
+sixties to bring about nationalization; two grew out of the changes in
+transportation, already alluded to, and two were largely independent of
+such changes.
+
+The first and most far-reaching cause, as illustrated by the stove
+molders, was the competition of the products of different localities
+side by side in the same market. Stoves manufactured in Albany, New
+York, were now displayed in St. Louis by the side of stoves made in
+Detroit. No longer could the molder in Albany be indifferent to the fate
+of his fellow craftsman in Louisville. With the molders the
+nationalization of the organization was destined to proceed to its
+utmost length. In order that union conditions should be maintained even
+in the best organized centers, it became necessary to equalize
+competitive conditions in the various localities. That led to a
+well-knit national organization to control working conditions, trade
+rules, and strikes. In other trades, where the competitive area of the
+product was still restricted to the locality, the paramount
+nationalizing influence was a more intensive competition for employment
+between migratory out-of-town journeymen and the locally organized
+mechanics. This describes the situation in the printing trade, where the
+bulk of work was newspaper and not book and job printing. Accordingly,
+the printers did not need to entrust their national officers with
+anything more than the control of the traveling journeymen and the
+result was that the local unions remained practically independent.
+
+The third cause of concerted national action in a trade union was the
+organization of employers. Where the power of a local union began to be
+threatened by an employers' association, the next logical step was to
+combine in a national union.
+
+The fourth cause was the application of machinery and the introduction
+of division of labor, which split up the established trades and laid
+industry open to invasion by "green hands." The shoemaking industry,
+which during the sixties had reached the factory stage, illustrates this
+in a most striking manner. Few other industries experienced anything
+like a similar change during this period.
+
+Of course, none of the causes of nationalization here enumerated
+operated in entire isolation. In some trades one cause, in other trades
+other causes, had the predominating influence. Consequently, in some
+trades the national union resembled an agglomeration of loosely allied
+states, each one reserving the right to engage in independent action and
+expecting from its allies no more than a benevolent neutrality. In other
+trades, on the contrary, the national union was supreme in declaring
+industrial war and in making peace, and even claimed absolute right to
+formulate the civil laws of the trade for times of industrial peace.
+
+The national trade union was, therefore, a response to obvious and
+pressing necessity. However slow or imperfect may have been the
+adjustment of internal organizations to the conditions of the trade,
+still the groove was defined and consequently the amount of possible
+floundering largely limited. Not so with the next step, namely the
+national federation of trades. In the sixties we saw the national trade
+unions join with other local and miscellaneous labor organizations in
+the National Labor Union upon a political platform of eight-hours and
+greenbackism. In 1873 the same national unions asserted their rejection
+of "panaceas" and politics by attempting to create in the National Labor
+Congress a federation of trades of a strictly economic character. The
+panic and depression nipped that in the bud. When trade unionism revived
+in 1879 the national trade unions returned to the idea of a national
+federation of labor, but this time they followed the model of the
+British Trades Union Congress, the organization which cares for the
+legislative interests of British labor. This was the "Federation of
+Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada,"
+which was set up in 1881.
+
+It is easy to understand why the unions of the early eighties did not
+feel the need of a federation on economic lines. The trade unions of
+today look to the American Federation of Labor for the discharge of
+important economic functions, therefore it is primarily an economic
+organization. These functions are the assistance of national trade
+unions in organizing their trades, the adjustment of disputes between
+unions claiming the same "jurisdiction," and concerted action in matters
+of especial importance such as shorter hours, the "open-shop," or
+boycotts. None of these functions would have been of material importance
+to the trade unions of the early eighties. Existing in well-defined
+trades, which were not affected by technical changes, they had no
+"jurisdictional" disputes; operating at a period of prosperity with
+full employment and rising wages, they did not realize a necessity for
+concerted action; the era of the boycotts had not yet begun. As for
+having a common agency to do the work of organizing, the trade unions of
+the early eighties had no keen desire to organize any but the skilled
+workmen; and, since the competition of workmen in small towns had not
+yet made itself felt, each national trade union strove to organize
+primarily the workmen of its trade in the larger cities, a function for
+which its own means were adequate.
+
+The new organization of 1881 was a loose federation of trade and labor
+unions with a legislative committee at the head, with Samuel Gompers of
+the cigar makers as a member. The platform was purely legislative and
+demanded legal incorporation for trade unions,[22] compulsory education
+for children, the prohibition of child labor under fourteen, uniform
+apprentice laws, the enforcement of the national eight-hour law, prison
+labor reform, abolition of the "truck" and "order" system, mechanics'
+lien, abolition of conspiracy laws as applied to labor organizations, a
+national bureau of labor statistics, a protective tariff for American
+labor, an anti-contract immigrant law, and recommended "all trade and
+labor organizations to secure proper representation in all law-making
+bodies by means of the ballot, and to use all honorable measures by
+which this result can be accomplished." Although closely related to the
+present American Federation of Labor in point of time and personnel of
+leadership, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the
+United States and Canada was in reality the precursor of the present
+state federations of labor, which as specialized parts of the national
+federation now look after labor legislation.
+
+Two or three years later it became evident that the Federation as a
+legislative organization proved a failure.[23] Manifestly the trade
+unions felt no great interest in national legislation. The indifference
+can be measured by the fact that the annual income of the Federation
+never exceeded $700 and that, excepting in 1881, none of its conventions
+represented more than one-fourth of the trade union membership of the
+country. Under such conditions the legislative influence of the
+Federation naturally was infinitesimal. The legislative committee
+carried out the instructions of the 1883 convention and communicated to
+the national committees of the Republican and Democratic parties the
+request that they should define their position upon the enforcement of
+the eight-hour law and other measures. The letters were not even
+answered. A subcommittee of the legislative committee appeared before
+the two political conventions, but received no greater attention.
+
+It was not until the majority of the national trade unions came under
+the menace of becoming forcibly absorbed by the Order of the Knights of
+Labor that a basis appeared for a vigorous federation.
+
+The Knights of Labor were built on an opposite principle from the
+national trade unions. Whereas the latter started with independent
+crafts and then with hesitating hands tried, as we saw, to erect some
+sort of a common superstructure that should express a higher solidarity
+of labor, the former was built from the beginning upon a denial of craft
+lines and upon an absolute unity of all classes of labor under one
+guiding head. The subdivision was territorial instead of occupational
+and the government centralized.
+
+The constitution of the Knights of Labor was drawn in 1878 when the
+Order laid aside the veil of secrecy to which it had clung since its
+foundation in 1869. The lowest unit of organization was the local
+assembly of ten or more, at least three-fourths of whom had to be wage
+earners at any trade. Above the local assembly was the "district
+assembly" and above it the "General Assembly." The district assembly had
+absolute power over its local assemblies and the General Assembly was
+given "full and final jurisdiction" as "the highest tribunal" of the
+Order.[24] Between sessions of the General Assembly the power was vested
+in a General Executive Board, presided over by a Grand Master Workman.
+
+The Order of the Knights of Labor in practice carried out the idea which
+is now advocated so fervently by revolutionary unionists, namely the
+"One Big Union," since it avowedly aimed to bring into one organization
+"all productive labor." This idea in organization was aided by the
+weakness of the trade unions during the long depression of the
+seventies, which led many to hope for better things from a general
+pooling of labor strength. But its main appeal rested on a view that
+machine technique tends to do away with all distinctions of trades by
+reducing all workers to the level of unskilled machine tenders. To its
+protagonists therefore the "one big union" stood for an adjustment to
+the new technique.
+
+First to face the problem of adjustment to the machine technique of the
+factory system were the shoemakers. They organized in 1867 the Order of
+the Knights of St. Crispin, mainly for the purpose of suppressing the
+competitive menace of "green hands," that is unskilled workers put to
+work on shoe machines. At its height in 1872, the Crispins numbered
+about 50,000, perhaps the largest union in the whole world at that time.
+The coopers began to be menaced by machinery about the middle of the
+sixties, and about the same time the machinists and blacksmiths, too,
+saw their trade broken up by the introduction of the principle of
+standardized parts and quantity production in the making of machinery.
+From these trades came the national leaders of the Knights of Labor and
+the strongest advocates of the new principle in labor organization and
+of the interests of the unskilled workers in general. The conflict
+between the trade unions and the Knights of Labor turned on the question
+of the unskilled workers.
+
+The conflict was held in abeyance during the early eighties. The trade
+unions were by far the strongest organizations in the field and scented
+no particular danger when here or there the Knights formed an assembly
+either contiguous to the sphere of a trade union or even at times
+encroaching upon it.
+
+With the Great Upheaval, which began in 1884, and the inrushing of
+hundreds of thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled workers into the
+Order, a new situation was created. The leaders of the Knights realized
+that mere numbers were not sufficient to defeat the employers and that
+control over the skilled, and consequently the more strategic
+occupations, was required before the unskilled and semi-skilled could
+expect to march to victory. Hence, parallel to the tremendous growth of
+the Knights in 1886, there was a constantly growing effort to absorb the
+existing trade unions for the purpose of making them subservient to the
+interests of the less skilled elements. It was mainly that which
+produced the bitter conflict between the Knights and the trade unions
+during 1886 and 1887. Neither the jealousy aroused by the success of the
+unions nor the opposite aims of labor solidarity and trade separatism
+gives an adequate explanation of this conflict. The one, of course,
+aggravated the situation by introducing a feeling of personal
+bitterness, and the other furnished an appealing argument to each side.
+But the struggle was one between groups within the working class, in
+which the small but more skilled group fought for independence of the
+larger but weaker group of the unskilled and semi-skilled. The skilled
+men stood for the right to use their advantage of skill and efficient
+organization in order to wrest the maximum amount of concessions for
+themselves. The Knights of Labor endeavored to annex the skilled men in
+order that the advantage from their exceptional fighting strength might
+lift up the unskilled and semi-skilled. From the point of view of a
+struggle between principles, this was indeed a clash between the
+principle of solidarity of labor and that of trade separatism, but, in
+reality, each of the principles reflected only the special interest of a
+certain portion of the working class. Just as the trade unions, when
+they fought for trade autonomy, really refused to consider the unskilled
+men, so the Knights of Labor overlooked the fact that their scheme would
+retard the progress of the skilled trades.
+
+The Knights were in nearly every case the aggressors, and it is
+significant that among the local organizations of the Knights inimical
+to trade unions, District Assembly 49, of New York, should prove the
+most relentless. It was this assembly which conducted the longshoremen's
+and coal miners' strike in New York in 1887 and which, as we saw,[25]
+did not hesitate to tie up the industries of the entire city for the
+sake of securing the demands of several hundred unskilled workingmen.
+Though District Assembly 49, New York, came into conflict with not a few
+of the trade unions in that city, its battle royal was fought with the
+cigar makers' unions. There were at the time two factions among the
+cigar makers, one upholding the International Cigar Makers' Union with
+Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers as leaders, the other calling itself
+the Progressive Union, which was more socialistic in nature and composed
+of more recent immigrants and less skilled workers. District Assembly 49
+of the Knights of Labor took a hand in the struggle to support the
+Progressive Union and by skillful management brought the situation to
+the point where the latter had to allow itself to be absorbed into the
+Knights of Labor.
+
+The events in the cigar making trade in New York brought to a climax the
+sporadic struggles that had been going on between the Order and the
+trade unions. The trade unions demanded that the Knights of Labor
+respect their "jurisdiction" and proposed a "treaty of peace" with such
+drastic terms that had they been accepted the trade unions would have
+been left in the sole possession of the field. The Order was at first
+more conciliatory. It would not of course cease to take part in
+industrial disputes and industrial matters, but it proposed a _modus
+vivendi_ on a basis of an interchange of "working cards" and common
+action against employers. At the same time it addressed separately to
+each national trade union a gentle admonition to think of the unskilled
+workers as well as of themselves. The address said: "In the use of the
+wonderful inventions, your organization plays a most important part.
+Naturally it embraces within its ranks a very large proportion of
+laborers of a high grade of skill and intelligence. With this skill of
+hand, guided by intelligent thought, comes the right to demand that
+excess of compensation paid to skilled above the unskilled labor. But
+the unskilled labor must receive attention, or in the hour of difficulty
+the employer will not hesitate to use it to depress the compensation you
+now receive. That skilled or unskilled labor may no longer be found
+unorganized, we ask of you to annex your grand and powerful corps to the
+main army that we may fight the battle under one flag."
+
+But the trade unions, who had formerly declared that their purpose was
+"to protect the skilled trades of America from being reduced to
+beggary," evinced no desire to be pressed into the service of lifting up
+the unskilled and voted down with practical unanimity the proposal.
+Thereupon the Order declared open war by commanding all its members who
+were also members of the cigar makers' union to withdraw from the latter
+on the penalty of expulsion.
+
+Later events proved that the assumption of the aggressive was the
+beginning of the undoing of the Order. It was, moreover, an event of
+first significance in the labor movement since it forced the trade
+unions to draw closer together and led to the founding in the same year,
+1886, of the American Federation of Labor.
+
+Another highly important effect of this conflict was the ascendency in
+the trade union movement of Samuel Gompers as the foremost leader.
+Gompers had first achieved prominence in 1881 at the time of the
+organization of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. But
+not until the situation created by the conflict with the Knights of
+Labor did he get his first real opportunity, both to demonstrate his
+inborn capacity for leadership and to train and develop that capacity by
+overcoming what was perhaps the most serious problem that ever
+confronted American organized labor.
+
+The new Federation avoided its predecessor's mistake of emphasizing
+labor legislation above all. Its prime purpose was economic. The
+legislative interests of labor were for the most part given into the
+care of subordinate state federations of labor. Consequently, the
+several state federations, not the American Federation of Labor,
+correspond in America to the British Trades Union Congress. But in the
+conventions of the American Federation of Labor the state federations
+are represented only nominally. The Federation is primarily a federation
+of national and international (including Canada and Mexico) trade
+unions.
+
+Each national and international union in the new Federation was
+acknowledged a sovereignty unto itself, with full powers of discipline
+over its members and with the power of free action toward the employers
+without any interference from the Federation; in other words, its full
+autonomy was confirmed. Like the British Empire, the Federation of Labor
+was cemented together by ties which were to a much greater extent
+spiritual than they were material. Nevertheless, the Federation's
+authority was far from being a shadowy one. If it could not order about
+the officers of the constituent unions, it could so mobilize the general
+labor sentiment in the country on behalf of any of its constituent
+bodies that its good will would be sought even by the most powerful
+ones. The Federation guaranteed to each union a certain jurisdiction,
+generally coextensive with a craft, and protected it against
+encroachments by adjoining unions and more especially by rival unions.
+The guarantee worked absolutely in the case of the latter, for the
+Federation knew no mercy when a rival union attempted to undermine the
+strength of an organized union of a craft. The trade unions have learned
+from experience with the Knights of Labor that their deadliest enemy
+was, after all, not the employers' association but the enemy from within
+who introduced confusion in the ranks. They have accordingly developed
+such a passion for "regularity," such an intense conviction that there
+must be but one union in a given trade that, on occasions, scheming
+labor officials have known how to checkmate a justifiable insurgent
+movement by a skillful play upon this curious hypertrophy of the feeling
+of solidarity. Not only will a rival union never be admitted into the
+Federation, but no subordinate body, state or city, may dare to extend
+any aid or comfort to a rival union.
+
+The Federation exacted but little from the national and international
+unions in exchange for the guarantee of their jurisdiction: A small
+annual per capita tax; a willing though a not obligatory support in the
+special legislative and industrial campaigns it may undertake; an
+adherence to its decisions on general labor policy; an undertaking to
+submit to its decision in the case of disputes with other unions, which
+however need not in every case be fulfilled; and lastly, an unqualified
+acceptance of the principle of "regularity" relative to labor
+organization. Obviously, judging from constitutional powers alone, the
+Federation was but a weak sort of a government. Yet the weakness was not
+the forced weakness of a government which was willing to start with
+limited powers hoping to increase its authority as it learned to stand
+more firmly on its own feet; it was a self-imposed weakness suggested by
+the lessons of labor history.
+
+By contrast the Order of the Knights of Labor, as seen already, was
+governed by an all-powerful General Assembly and General Executive
+Board. At a first glance a highly centralized form of government would
+appear a promise of assured strength and a guarantee of coherence
+amongst the several parts of the organization. Perhaps, if America's
+wage earners were cemented together by as strong a class consciousness
+as the laboring classes of Europe, such might have been the case.
+
+But America's labor movement lacked the unintended aid which the sister
+movements in Europe derived from a caste system of society and political
+oppression. Where the class lines were not tightly drawn, the
+centrifugal forces in the labor movement were bound to assert
+themselves. The leaders of the American Federation of Labor, in their
+struggle against the Knights of Labor, played precisely upon this
+centrifugal tendency and gained a victory by making an appeal to the
+natural desire for autonomy and self-determination of any distinctive
+group. But originally perhaps intended as a mere "strategic" move, this
+policy succeeded in creating a labor movement which was, on
+fundamentals, far more coherent than the Knights of Labor even in the
+heyday of their glory. The officers and leaders of the Federation,
+knowing that they could not command, set themselves to developing a
+unified labor will and purpose by means of moral suasion and propaganda.
+Where a bare order would breed resentment and backbiting, an appeal,
+which is reinforced by a carefully nurtured universal labor sentiment,
+will eventually bring about common consent and a willing acquiescence in
+the policy supported by the majority. So each craft was made a
+self-determining unit and "craft autonomy" became a sacred shibboleth in
+the labor movement without interfering with unity on essentials.
+
+The principle of craft autonomy triumphed chiefly because it recognized
+the existence of a considerable amount of group selfishness. The Knights
+of Labor held, as was seen, that the strategic or bargaining strength of
+the skilled craftsman should be used as a lever to raise the status of
+the semi-skilled and unskilled worker. It consequently grouped them
+promiscuously in "mixed assemblies" and opposed as long as it could the
+demand for "national trade assemblies." The craftsman, on the other
+hand, wished to use his superior bargaining strength for his own
+purposes and evinced little desire to dissipate it in the service of his
+humbler fellow worker. To give effect to that, he felt obliged to
+struggle against becoming entangled with undesirable allies in the
+semi-skilled and unskilled workers for whom the Order spoke. Needless to
+say, the individual self-interest of the craft leaders worked hand in
+hand with the self-interest of the craft as a whole, for had they been
+annexed by the Order they would have become subject to orders from the
+General Master Workman or the General Assembly of the Order.
+
+In addition to platonic stirrings for "self-determination" and to narrow
+group interest, there was a motive for craft autonomy which could pass
+muster both as strictly social and realistic. The fact was that the
+autonomous craft union could win strikes where the centralized
+promiscuous Order merely floundered and suffered defeat after defeat.
+The craft union had the advantage, on the one hand, of a leadership
+which was thoroughly familiar with the bit of ground upon which it
+operated, and, on the other hand, of handling a group of people of equal
+financial endurance and of identical interest. It has already been seen
+how dreadfully mismanaged were the great Knights of Labor strikes of
+1886 and 1887. The ease with which the leaders were able to call out
+trade after trade on a strike of sympathy proved more a liability than
+an asset. Often the choice of trades to strike bore no particular
+relation to their strategic value in the given situation; altogether one
+gathers the impression that these great strikes were conducted by
+blundering amateurs who possessed more authority than was good for them
+or for the cause. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the compact
+craft unions led by specialists scored successes where the heterogeneous
+mobs of the Knights of Labor had been doomed from the first. Clearly
+then the survival of the craft union was a survival of the fittest; and
+the Federation's attachment to the principle of craft autonomy was, to
+say the least, a product of an evolutionary past, whatever one may hold
+with reference to its fitness in our own time.
+
+Whatever reasons moved the trade unions of the skilled to battle with
+the Order for their separate and autonomous existence were bound sooner
+or later to induce those craftsmen who were in the Order to seek a
+similar autonomy. From the very beginning the more skilled and better
+organized trades in the Knights sought to separate from the mixed
+"district assemblies" and to create within the framework of the Order
+"national trade assemblies."[26] However, the national officers, who
+looked upon such a move as a betrayal of the great principle of the
+solidarity of all labor, were able to stem the tide excepting in the
+case of the window glass blowers, who were granted their autonomy in
+1880.
+
+The obvious superiority of the trade union form of organization over the
+mixed organization, as revealed by events in 1886 and 1887, strengthened
+the separatist tendency. Just as the struggle between the Knights of
+Labor and the trade unions on the outside had been fundamentally a
+struggle between the unskilled and the skilled portions of the
+wage-earning class, so the aspiration toward the national trade assembly
+within the Order represented the effort of the more or less skilled men
+for emancipation from the dominance of the unskilled. But the Order
+successfully fought off such attempts until after the defeat of the
+mixed district assemblies, or in other words of the unskilled class, in
+the struggle with the employers. With the withdrawal of a very large
+portion of this class, as shown in 1887,[27] the demand for the national
+trade assembly revived and there soon began a veritable rush to organize
+by trades. The stampede was strongest in the city of New York where the
+incompetence of the mixed District Assembly 49 had become patent. At the
+General Assembly in 1887 at Minneapolis all obstacles were removed from
+forming national trade assemblies, but this came too late to stem the
+exodus of the skilled element from the order into the American
+Federation of Labor.
+
+The victory of craft autonomy over the "one big union" was decisive and
+complete.
+
+The strike activities of the Knights were confessedly a deviation from
+"First Principles." Yet the First Principles with their emphasis on
+producers' cooperation were far from forgotten even when the enthusiasm
+for strikes was at its highest. Whatever the actual feelings of the
+membership as a whole, the leaders neglected no opportunity to promote
+cooperation. T.V. Powderly, the head of the Order since 1878, in his
+reports to the annual General Assembly or convention, consistently urged
+that practical steps be taken toward cooperation. In 1881, while the
+general opinion in the Order was still undecided, the leaders did not
+scruple to smuggle into the constitution a clause which made cooperation
+compulsory.
+
+Notwithstanding Powderly's exhortations, the Order was at first slow in
+taking it up. In 1882 a general cooperative board was elected to work
+out a plan of action, but it never reported, and a new board was chosen
+in its place at the Assembly of 1883. In that year, the first practical
+step was taken in the purchase by the Order of a coal mine at
+Cannelburg, Indiana, with the idea of selling the coal at reduced prices
+to the members. Soon thereafter a thorough change of sentiment with
+regard to the whole matter of cooperation took place, contemporaneously
+with the industrial depression and unsuccessful strikes. The rank and
+file, who had hitherto been indifferent, now seized upon the idea with
+avidity. The enthusiasm ran so high in Lynn, Massachusetts, that it was
+found necessary to raise the shares of the Knights of Labor Cooperative
+Shoe Company to $100 in order to prevent a large influx of "unsuitable
+members." In 1885 Powderly complained that "many of our members grow
+impatient and unreasonable because every avenue of the Order does not
+lead to cooperation."
+
+The impatience for immediate cooperation, which seized the rank and file
+in practically every section of the country, caused an important
+modification in the official doctrine of the Order. Originally it had
+contemplated centralized control under which it would have taken years
+before a considerable portion of the membership could realize any
+benefit. This was now dropped and a decentralized plan was adopted.
+Local organizations and, more frequently, groups of members with the
+financial aid of their local organizations now began to establish shops.
+Most of the enterprises were managed by the stockholders, although, in
+some cases, the local organization of the Knights of Labor managed the
+plant.
+
+Most of the cooperative enterprises were conducted on a small scale.
+Incomplete statistics warrant the conclusion that the average amount
+invested per establishment was about $10,000. From the data gathered it
+seems that cooperation reached its highest point in 1886, although it
+had not completely spent itself by the end of 1887. The total number of
+ventures probably reached two hundred. The largest numbers were in
+mining, cooperage, and shoes. These industries paid the poorest wages
+and treated their employes most harshly. A small amount of capital was
+required to organize such establishments.
+
+With the abandonment of centralized cooperation in 1884, the role of the
+central cooperative board changed correspondingly. The leading member of
+the board was now John Samuel, one of those to whom cooperation meant
+nothing short of a religion. The duty of the board was to educate the
+members of the Order in the principles of cooperation; to aid by
+information and otherwise prospective and actual cooperators; in brief,
+to coordinate the cooperative movement within the Order. It issued forms
+of a constitution and by-laws which, with a few modifications, could be
+adopted by any locality. It also published articles on the dangers and
+pitfalls in cooperative ventures, such as granting credit, poor
+management, etc., as well as numerous articles on specific kinds of
+cooperation. The Knights of Labor label was granted for the use of
+cooperative goods and a persistent agitation was steadily conducted to
+induce purchasers to give a preference to cooperative products.
+
+As a scheme of industrial regeneration, cooperation never materialized.
+The few successful shops sooner or later fell into the hands of an
+"inner group," who "froze out" the others and set up capitalistic
+partnerships. The great majority went on the rocks even before getting
+started. The causes of failure were many: Hasty action, inexperience,
+lax shop discipline, internal dissensions, high rates of interest upon
+the mortgage of the plant, and finally discriminations instigated by
+competitors. Railways were heavy offenders, by delaying side tracks and,
+on some pretext or other, refusing to furnish cars or refusing to haul
+them.
+
+The Union Mining Company of Cannelburg, Indiana, owned and operated by
+the Order as its sole experiment of the centralized kind of cooperation,
+met this fate. After expending $20,000 in equipping the mine, purchasing
+land, laying tracks, cutting and sawing timber on the land and mining
+$1000 worth of coal, they were compelled to lie idle for nine months
+before the railway company saw fit to connect their switch with the main
+track. When they were ready to ship their product, it was learned that
+their coal could be utilized for the manufacture of gas only, and that
+contracts for supply of such coal were let in July, that is nine months
+from the time of connecting the switch with the main track. In addition,
+the company was informed that it must supply itself with a switch engine
+to do the switching of the cars from its mine to the main track, at an
+additional cost of $4000. When this was accomplished they had to enter
+the market in competition with a bitter opponent who had been fighting
+them since the opening of the mine. Having exhausted their funds and not
+seeing their way clear to securing additional funds for the purchase of
+a locomotive and to tide over the nine months ere any contracts for coal
+could be entered into, they sold out to their competitor.
+
+But a cause more fundamental perhaps than all other causes of the
+failure of cooperation in the United States is to be found in the
+difficulties of successful entrepreneurship. In the labor movement in
+the United States there has been a failure, generally speaking, to
+appreciate the significance of management and the importance which must
+be imputed to it. Glib talk often commands an undeserved confidence and
+misleads the wage earner. Thus by 1888, three or four years after it had
+begun, the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle of life and
+succumbed. The failure, as said, was hastened by external causes and
+discrimination. But the experiments had been foredoomed anyway,--through
+the incompatibility of producers' cooperation with trade unionism. The
+cooperators, in their eagerness to get a market, frequently undersold
+the private employer expecting to recoup their present losses in future
+profits. In consequence, the privately employed wage earners had to bear
+reductions in their wages. A labor movement which endeavors to practice
+producers' cooperation and trade unionism at the same time is actually
+driving in opposite directions.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] See Chapter 1.
+
+[21] In the thirties the term "union" was reserved for the city
+federations of trades. What is now designated as a trade union was
+called trade society. In the sixties the "Union" became the "trades'
+assembly."
+
+[22] See below, 152-154.
+
+[23] See below, 285-290, for a discussion why American labor looks away
+from legislation.
+
+[24] The Constitution read as follows: "It alone possesses the power and
+authority to make, amend, or repeal the fundamental and general laws and
+regulations of the Order; to finally decide all controversies arising in
+the Order; to issue all charters.... It can also tax the members of the
+Order for its maintenance."
+
+[25] See above, 98-100.
+
+[26] The "local assemblies" generally followed in practice trade lines,
+but the district assemblies were "mixed."
+
+[27] See above, 100-101.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+STABILIZATION, 1888-1897
+
+
+The Great Upheaval of 1886 had, as we saw, suddenly swelled the
+membership of trade unions; consequently, during several years
+following, notwithstanding the prosperity in industry, further growth
+was bound to proceed at a slower rate.
+
+The statistics of strikes during the later eighties, like the figures of
+membership, show that after the strenuous years from 1885 to 1887 the
+labor movement had entered a more or less quiet stage. Most prominent
+among the strikes was the one of 60,000 iron and steel workers in
+Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the West, which was carried to a successful
+conclusion against a strong combination of employers. The Amalgamated
+Association of Iron and Steel Workers stood at the zenith of its power
+about this time and was able in 1889, by the mere threat of a strike, to
+dictate terms to the Carnegie Steel Company. The most noted and last
+great strike of a railway brotherhood was the one of the locomotive
+engineers on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. The
+strike was begun jointly on February 27, 1888, by the brotherhoods of
+locomotive engineers and locomotive firemen. The main demands were made
+by the engineers, who asked for the abandonment of the system of
+classification and for a new wage scale. Two months previously, the
+Knights of Labor had declared a miners' strike against the Philadelphia
+& Reading Railroad Company, employing 80,000 anthracite miners, and the
+strike had been accompanied by a sympathetic strike of engineers and
+firemen belonging to the Order. The members of the brotherhoods had
+filled their places and, in retaliation, the former Reading engineers
+and firemen now took the places of the Burlington strikers, so that on
+March 15 the company claimed to have a full contingent of employes. The
+brotherhoods ordered a boycott upon the Burlington cars, which was
+partly enforced, but they were finally compelled to submit. The strike
+was not officially called off until January 3, 1889. Notwithstanding the
+defeat of the strikers, the damage to the railway was enormous, and
+neither the railways of the country nor the brotherhoods since that date
+have permitted a serious strike of their members to occur.
+
+The lull in the trade union movement was broken by a new concerted
+eight-hour movement managed by the Federation, which culminated in 1890.
+
+Although on the whole the eight-hour movement in 1886 was a failure, it
+was by no means a disheartening failure. It was evident that the
+eight-hour day was a popular demand, and that an organization desirous
+of expansion might well hitch its wagon to this star. Accordingly, the
+convention of the American Federation of Labor in 1888 declared that a
+general demand should be made for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890. The
+chief advocates of the resolution were the delegates of the carpenters,
+who announced a readiness to lead the way for a general eight-hour day
+in 1890.
+
+The Federation at once inaugurated an aggressive campaign. For the first
+time in its history it employed special salaried organizers. Pamphlets
+were issued and widely distributed. On every important holiday mass
+meetings were held in the larger cities. On Labor Day 1889, no less
+than 420 such mass meetings were held throughout the country. Again the
+Knights of Labor came out against the plan.
+
+The next year the plan of campaign was modified. The idea of a general
+strike for the eight-hour day in May 1890, was abandoned in favor of a
+strike trade by trade. In March 1890, the carpenters were chosen to make
+the demand on May 1 of the same year, to be followed by the miners at a
+later date.
+
+The choice of the carpenters was indeed fortunate. Beginning with 1886,
+that union had a rapid growth and was now the largest union affiliated
+with the Federation. For several years it had been accumulating funds
+for the eight-hour day, and, when the movement was inaugurated in May
+1890, it achieved a large measure of success. The union officers claimed
+to have won the eight-hour day in 137 cities and a nine-hour day in most
+other places.
+
+However, the selection of the miners to follow on May 1, 1891, was a
+grave mistake. Less than one-tenth of the coal miners of the country
+were then organized. For years the miners' union had been losing ground,
+with the constant decline of coal prices. Some months before May 1,
+1891, the United Mine Workers had become involved in a disastrous strike
+in the Connelsville coke region, and the plan for an eight-hour strike
+was abandoned. In this manner the eight-hour movement inaugurated by the
+convention of the Federation in 1888 came to an end. Apart from the
+strike of the carpenters in 1890, it had not led to any general movement
+to gain the eight-hour work day. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of
+workingmen had won reduced hours of labor, especially in the building
+trades. By 1891 the eight-hour day had been secured for all building
+trades in Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Indianapolis, and San Francisco.
+In New York and Brooklyn the carpenters, stone-cutters, painters, and
+plasterers worked eight hours, while the bricklayers, masons, and
+plumbers worked nine. In St. Paul the bricklayers alone worked nine
+hours, the remaining trades eight.
+
+In 1892 the labor movement faced for the first time a really modern
+manufacturing corporation with its practically boundless resources of
+war, namely the Carnegie Steel Company, in the strike which has become
+famous under the name of the Homestead Strike. The Amalgamated
+Association of Iron and Steel Workers, with a membership of 24,068 in
+1891, was probably the strongest trade union in the entire history of
+the American labor movement. Prior to 1889 the relations between the
+union and the Carnegie firm had been invariably friendly. In January
+1889, H.C. Frick, who, as owner of the largest coke manufacturing plant,
+had acquired a reputation of a bitter opponent of organized labor,
+became chairman of Carnegie Brothers and Company. In the same year,
+owing to his assumption of management, as the union men believed, the
+first dispute occurred between them and the company. Although the
+agreement was finally renewed for three years on terms dictated by the
+Association, the controversy left a disturbing impression upon the minds
+of the men, since during the course of the negotiations Frick had
+demanded the dissolution of the union.
+
+Negotiations for the new scale presented to the company began in
+February 1892. A few weeks later the company presented a scale to the
+men providing for a reduction and besides demanded that the date of the
+termination of the scale be changed from July 1 to January 1. A number
+of conferences were held without result; and on May 30 the company
+submitted an ultimatum to the effect that, if the scale were not signed
+by June 29, they would treat with the men as individuals. At a final
+conference which was held on June 23, the company raised its offer from
+$22 per ton to $23 as the minimum base of the scale, and the union
+lowered its demand from $25, the rate formerly paid, to $24. But no
+agreement could be reached on this point nor on others and the strike
+began June 29 upon the definite issue of the preservation of the union.
+
+Even before the negotiations were broken up, Frick had arranged with the
+Pinkerton detective agency for 300 men to serve as guards. These men
+arrived at a station on the Ohio River below Pittsburgh near midnight of
+July 5. Here they embarked on barges and were towed up the river to
+Pittsburgh and taken up the Monangahela River to Homestead, which they
+approached about four o'clock on the morning of July 6. The workmen had
+been warned of their coming and, when the boat reached the landing back
+of the steel works, nearly the whole town was there to meet them and to
+prevent their landing. Passion ran high. The men armed themselves with
+guns and gave the Pinkertons a pitched battle. When the day was over, at
+least half a dozen men on both sides had been killed and a number were
+seriously wounded. The Pinkertons were defeated and driven away and,
+although there was no more disorder of any sort, the State militia
+appeared in Homestead on July 12 and remained for several months.
+
+The strike which began in Homestead soon spread to other mills. The
+Carnegie mills at 29th and 33d Streets, Pittsburgh, went on strike. The
+strike at Homestead was finally declared off on November 20, and most
+of the men went back to their old positions as non-union men. The
+treasury of the union was depleted, winter was coming, and it was
+finally decided to consider the battle lost.
+
+The defeat meant not only the loss by the union of the Homestead plant
+but the elimination of unionism in most of the mills in the Pittsburgh
+region. Where the great Carnegie Company led, the others had to follow.
+The power of the union was henceforth broken and the labor movement
+learned the lesson that even its strongest organization was unable to
+withstand an onslaught by the modern corporation. The Homestead strike
+stirred the labor movement as few other single events. It had its
+political reverberation, since it drove home to the workers that an
+industry protected by high tariff will not necessarily be a haven to
+organized labor, notwithstanding that the union had actively assisted
+the iron and steel manufacturers in securing the high protection granted
+by the McKinley tariff bill of 1890. Many of the votes which would
+otherwise have gone to the Republican candidate for President went in
+1892 to Grover Cleveland, who ran on an anti-protective tariff issue. It
+is not unlikely that the latter's victory was materially advanced by the
+disillusionment brought on by the Homestead defeat.
+
+In the summer of 1893 occurred the financial panic. The panic and the
+ensuing crisis furnished a conclusive test of the strength and stability
+of the American labor movement. Gompers in his presidential report at
+the convention of 1899, following the long depression, said: "It is
+noteworthy, that while in every previous industrial crisis the trade
+unions were literally mowed down and swept out of existence, the unions
+now in existence have manifested, not only the power of resistance, but
+of stability and permanency," and he assigned as the most prominent
+cause the system of high dues and benefits which had come into vogue in
+a large number of trade unions. He said: "Beyond doubt the superficial
+motive of continued membership in unions organized upon this basis was
+the monetary benefits the members were entitled to; but be that as it
+may, the results are the same, that is, _membership is maintained, the
+organization remains intact during dull periods of industry, and is
+prepared to take advantage of the first sign of an industrial revival_."
+Gompers may have overstated the power of resistance of the unions, but
+their holding power upon the membership cannot be disputed. The
+aggregate membership of all unions affiliated with the Federation
+remained near the mark of 275,000 throughout the period of depression
+from 1893 to 1897. At last the labor movement had become stabilized.
+
+The year 1894 was exceptional for labor disturbances. The number of
+employes involved reached nearly 750,000, surpassing even the mark set
+in 1886. However, in contradistinction to 1886, the movement was
+defensive. It also resulted in greater failure. The strike of the coal
+miners and the Pullman strike were the most important ones. The United
+Mine Workers began their strike in Ohio on April 21. The membership did
+not exceed 20,000, but about 125,000 struck. At first the demand was
+made that wages should be restored to the level at which they were in
+May 1893. But within a month the union in most regions was struggling to
+prevent a further reduction in wages. By the end of July the strike was
+lost.
+
+The Pullman strike marks an era in the American labor movement because
+it was the only attempt ever made in America of a revolutionary strike
+on the Continental European model. The strikers tried to throw against
+the associated railways and indeed against the entire existing social
+order the full force of a revolutionary labor solidarity embracing the
+entire American wage-earning class brought to the point of exasperation
+by unemployment, wage reductions, and misery. That in spite of the
+remarkable favorable conjuncture the dramatic appeal failed to shake the
+general labor movement out of its chosen groove is proof positive of the
+completion of the stabilization process which had been going on since
+the early eighties.
+
+The Pullman strike began May 11, 1894, and grew out of a demand of
+certain employes in the shops of the Pullman Palace Car Company,
+situated at Pullman, Illinois, for a restoration of the wages paid
+during the previous year. In March 1894, the Pullman employes had voted
+to join the American Railway Union. The American Railway Union was an
+organization based on industrial lines, organized in June 1893, by
+Eugene V. Debs. Debs, as secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of
+Locomotive Firemen, had watched the failure of many a strike by only one
+trade and resigned this office to organize all railway workers in one
+organization. The American Railway Union was the result. Between June 9
+and June 26 the latter held a convention in Chicago. The Pullman matter
+was publicly discussed before and after its committee reported their
+interviews with the Pullman Company. On June 21, the delegates under
+instructions from their local unions, feeling confident after a victory
+over the Great Northern in April, unanimously voted that the members
+should stop handling Pullman cars on June 26 unless the Pullman Company
+would consent to arbitration.
+
+On June 26 the railway strike began. It was a purely sympathetic strike
+as no demands were made. The union found itself pitted against the
+General Managers' Association, representing twenty-four roads centering
+or terminating in Chicago, which were bound by contracts with the
+Pullman Company. The association had been organized in 1886, its main
+business being to determine a common policy as to traffic and freight
+rates, but incidentally it dealt also with wages. The strike soon spread
+over an enormous territory. Many of the members of the brotherhoods
+joined in, although their organizations were opposed to the strike. The
+lawless element in Chicago took advantage of the opportunity to rob,
+burn, and plunder, so that the scenes of the great railway strike of
+1877 were now repeated. The damages in losses of property and business
+to the country have been estimated at $80,000,000. On July 7, E.V. Debs,
+president, and other principal officers of the American Railway Union
+were indicted, arrested, and held under $10,000 bail. On July 13 they
+were charged with contempt of the United States Court in disobeying an
+injunction which enjoined them, among other things, from compelling or
+inducing by threats railway employes to strike. The strike had already
+been weakening for some days. On July 12, at the request of the American
+Railway Union, about twenty-five of the executive officers of national
+and international labor unions affiliated with the American Federation
+of Labor met in conference in Chicago to discuss the situation. Debs
+appeared and urged a general strike by all labor organizations. But the
+conference decided that "it would be unwise and disastrous to the
+interests of labor to extend the strike any further than it had already
+gone," and advised the strikers to return to work. On July 13, the
+American Railway Union, through the Mayor of Chicago, offered the
+General Managers' Association to declare the strike off, provided the
+men should be restored to their former positions without prejudice,
+except in cases where they had been convicted of crime. But the
+Association refused to deal with the union. The strike was already
+virtually beaten by the combined moral effect of the indictment of the
+leaders and of the arrival in Chicago of United States troops, which
+President Cleveland sent in spite of the protest of Governor Altgeld of
+Illinois.
+
+The labor organizations were taught two important lessons. First, that
+nothing can be gained through revolutionary striking, for the government
+was sufficiently strong to cope with it; and second, that the employers
+had obtained a formidable ally in the courts.[28]
+
+Defeats in strikes, depression in trade, a rapidly falling labor market
+and court prosecutions were powerful allies of those socialistic and
+radical leaders inside the Federation who aspired to convert it from a
+mere economic organization into an economic-political one and make it
+embark upon the sea of independent politics.
+
+The convention of 1893 is memorable in that it submitted to the
+consideration of affiliated unions a "political programme." The preamble
+to the "programme" recited that the English trade unions had recently
+launched upon independent politics "as auxiliary to their economic
+action." The eleven planks of the program demanded: compulsory
+education; the right of popular initiative in legislation; a legal
+eight-hour work-day; governmental inspection of mines and workshops;
+abolition of the sweating system; employers' liability laws; abolition
+of the contract system upon public work; municipal ownership of electric
+light, gas, street railway, and water systems; the nationalization of
+telegraphs, telephones, railroads, and mines; "the collective ownership
+by the people of all means of production and distribution"; and the
+referendum upon all legislation.
+
+Immediately after the convention of 1893 affiliated unions began to give
+their endorsement to the political program. Not until comparatively late
+did any opposition make itself manifest. Then it took the form of a
+demand by such conservative leaders as Gompers, McGuire, and Strasser,
+that plank 10, with its pledge in favor of "the collective ownership by
+the people of all means of production and distribution," be stricken
+out. Notwithstanding this, the majority of national trade unions
+endorsed the program.
+
+During 1894 the trade unions were active participants in politics. In
+November, 1894, the _Federationist_ gave a list of more than 300 union
+members candidates for some elective office. Only a half dozen of these,
+however, were elected. It was mainly to these local failures that
+Gompers pointed in his presidential address at the convention of 1894 as
+an argument against the adoption of the political program by the
+Federation. His attitude clearly foreshadowed the destiny of the program
+at the convention. The first attack was made upon the preamble, on the
+ground that the statement therein that the English trade unions had
+declared for independent political action was false. By a vote of 1345
+to 861 the convention struck out the preamble. Upon motion of the
+typographical union, a substitute was adopted calling for the
+"abolition of the monopoly system of land holding and the substitution
+therefor of a title of occupancy and use only." Some of the delegates
+seem to have interpreted this substitute as a declaration for the single
+tax; but the majority of those who voted in its favor probably acted
+upon the principle "anything to beat socialism." Later the entire
+program was voted down. That sealed the fate of the move for an
+independent labor party.
+
+The American Federation of Labor was almost drawn into the whirlpool of
+partisan politics during the Presidential campaign of 1896. Three
+successive conventions had declared in favor of the free coinage of
+silver; and now the Democratic party had come out for free coinage. In
+this situation very many prominent trade union leaders declared publicly
+for Bryan. President Gompers, however, issued a warning to all
+affiliated unions to keep out of partisan politics. Notwithstanding this
+Secretary McGraith, at the next convention of the Federation, charged
+President Gompers with acting in collusion with the Democratic
+headquarters throughout the campaign in aid of Bryan's candidacy. After
+a lengthy secret session the convention approved the conduct of Gompers.
+Free silver continued to be endorsed annually down to the convention of
+1898, when the return of industrial prosperity and rising prices put an
+end to it as a demand advocated by labor.
+
+The depressed nineties demonstrated conclusively that a new era had
+arrived. No longer was the labor movement a mere plaything of the
+alternating waves of prosperity and depression. Formerly, as we saw, it
+had centered on economic or trade-union action during prosperity only to
+change abruptly to "panaceas" and politics with the descent of
+depression. Now the movement, notwithstanding possible changes in
+membership, and persistent political leanings in some portions of it, as
+a whole for the first time became stable in purpose and action. Trade
+unionism has won over politics.
+
+This victory was synchronous with the first successful working out of a
+national trade agreement and the institutionalization of trade unionism
+in a leading industry, namely stove molding. While one of the earliest
+stable trade agreements in a conspicuous trade covering a local field
+was a bricklayers' agreement in Chicago in 1887, the era of trade
+agreements really dates from the national system established in the
+stove foundry industry in 1891. It is true also that the iron and steel
+workers had worked under a national trade agreement since 1866. However,
+that trade was too exceptionally strong to be typical.
+
+The stove industry had early reached a high degree of development and
+organization. There had existed since 1872 the National Association of
+Stove Manufacturers, an organization dealing with prices and embracing
+in its membership the largest stove manufacturers of the country. The
+stove foundrymen, therefore, unlike the manufacturers in practically all
+other industries at that time, controlled in a large measure their own
+market. Furthermore, the product had been completely standardized and
+reduced to a piecework basis, and machinery had not taken the place of
+the molders' skill. It consequently was no mere accident that the stove
+industry was the first to develop a system of permanent industrial
+peace. But, on the other hand, this was not automatically established as
+soon as the favorable external conditions were provided. In reality,
+only after years of struggle, of strikes and lockouts, and after the
+two sides had fought each other "to a standstill," was the system
+finally installed.
+
+The eighties abounded in stove molders' strikes, and in 1886 the
+national union began to render effective aid. The Stove Founders'
+National Defense Association was formed in 1886 as an employers'
+association of stove manufacturers. The Defense Association aimed at a
+national labor policy; it was organized for "resistance against any
+unjust demands of their workmen, and such other purposes as may from
+time to time prove or appear to be necessary for the benefit of the
+members thereof as employers of labor." Thus, after 1886, the alignment
+was made national on both sides. The great battle was fought the next
+year.
+
+March 8, 1887, the employes of the Bridge and Beach Manufacturing
+Company in St. Louis struck for an advance in wages and the struggle at
+once became one between the International Union and the National Defense
+Association. The St. Louis company sent its patterns to foundries in
+other districts, but the union successfully prevented their use. This
+occasioned a series of strikes in the West and of lockouts in the East,
+affecting altogether about 5000 molders. It continued thus until June,
+when the St. Louis patterns were recalled, the Defense Association
+having provided the company with a sufficient number of strike-breakers.
+Each side was in a position to claim the victory for itself; so evenly
+matched were the opposing forces.
+
+During the next four years disputes in Association plants were rare. In
+August 1890, a strike took place in Pittsburgh and, for the first time
+in the history of the industry, it was settled by a written trade
+agreement with the local union. This supported the idea of a national
+trade agreement between the two organizations. Since the dispute of
+1887, negotiations with this object were from time to time conducted,
+the Defense Association invariably taking the initiative. Finally, the
+national convention of the union in 1890 appointed a committee to meet a
+like committee of the Defense Association. The conference took place
+March 25, 1891, and worked out a complete plan of organization for the
+stove molding industry. Every year two committees of three members each,
+chosen respectively by the union and the association, were to meet in
+conference and to draw up general laws for the year. In case of a
+dispute arising in a locality, if the parties immediately concerned were
+unable to arrive at common terms, the chief executives of both
+organizations, the president of the union and the president of the
+association, were to step in and try to effect an adjustment. If,
+however, they, too, failed, a conference committee composed of an equal
+number of members from each side was to be called in and its findings
+were to be final. Meanwhile the parties were enjoined from engaging in
+hostilities while the matter at dispute was being dealt with by the duly
+appointed authorities. Each organization obligated itself to exercise
+"police authority" over its constituents, enforcing obedience to the
+agreement. The endorsement of the plan by both organizations was
+practically unanimous, and has continued in operation without
+interruption for thirty years until the present day.
+
+Since the end of the nineties the trade agreement has become one of the
+most generally accepted principles and aspirations of the American labor
+movement. However, it is not to be understood that by accepting the
+principle of the trade agreement the labor movement has committed
+itself to unlimited arbitration of industrial disputes. The basic idea
+of the trade agreement is that of collective bargaining rather than
+arbitration. The two terms are not always distinguished, but the
+essential difference is that in the trade agreement proper no outside
+party intervenes to settle the dispute and make an award. The agreement
+is made by direct negotiation between the two organized groups and the
+sanction which each holds over the head of the other is the strike or
+lockout. If no agreement can be reached, the labor organization as well
+as the employers' association, insists on its right to refuse
+arbitration, whether it be "voluntary" or so-called "compulsory."
+
+The clarification of the conception of the trade agreement was perhaps
+the main achievement of the nineties. Without the trade agreement the
+labor movement could hardly come to eschew "panaceas" and to
+reconstitute itself upon the basis of opportunism. The coming in of the
+trade agreement, whether national, sectional, or local, was also the
+chief factor in stabilizing the movement against industrial depressions.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[28] See below, 159-160.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS
+
+
+While it was in the nineties that trade unionists first tasted the
+sweets of institutionalization in industry through "recognition" by
+employers, it was also during the later eighties and during the nineties
+that they experienced a revival of suspicion and hostility on the part
+of the courts and a renewal of legal restraints upon their activities,
+which were all the more discouraging since for a generation or more they
+had practically enjoyed non-interference from that quarter. It was at
+this period that the main legal weapons against trade unionism were
+forged and brought to a fine point in practical application. The history
+of the courts' attitude to trade unionism may therefore best be treated
+from the standpoint of the nineties.
+
+The subject of court interference was not altogether new in the
+eighties. We took occasion to point out the effect of court interference
+in labor disputes in the first and second decades of the nineteenth
+century and again in the thirties. Mention was made also of the court's
+decision in the Theiss boycott case in New York in 1886, which proved a
+prime moving factor in launching the famous Henry George campaign for
+Mayor. And we gave due note to the role of court injunctions in the Debs
+strike of 1894 and in other strikes. Our present interest is, however,
+more in the court doctrines than in their effects: more concerned with
+the development of the legal thought underlying the policies of the
+courts than with the reactions of the labor movement to the policies
+themselves.
+
+The earliest case on record, namely the Philadelphia shoemakers' strike
+case in 1806,[29] charged two offences; one was a combination to raise
+wages, the other a combination to injure others; both offences were
+declared by the judge to be forbidden by the common law. To the public
+at large the prosecution seemed to rest solely upon the charge that the
+journeymen combined to raise wages. The defense took advantage of this
+and tried to make use of it for its own purposes. The condemnation of
+the journeymen on this ground gave rise to a vehement protest on the
+part of the journeymen themselves and their friends. It was pointed out
+that the journeymen were convicted for acts which are considered lawful
+when done by masters or merchants. Therefore when the next conspiracy
+case in New York in 1809 was decided, the court's charge to the jury was
+very different. Nothing was said about the illegality of the
+combinations to raise wages; on the contrary, the jury was instructed
+that this was not the question at issue. The issue was stated to be
+whether the defendants had combined to secure an increase in their wages
+by unlawful means. To the question what means were unlawful, in this
+case the answer was given in general terms, namely that "coercive and
+arbitrary" means are unlawful. The fines imposed upon the defendants
+were only nominal.
+
+A third notable case of the group, namely the Pittsburgh case in 1815,
+grew out of a strike for higher wages, as did the preceding cases. The
+charges were the same as in those and the judge took the identical view
+that was taken by the court in the New York case. However, he explained
+more fully the meaning of "coercive and arbitrary" action. "Where
+diverse persons," he said, "confederate together by direct means to
+impoverish or prejudice a third person, or to do acts prejudicial to the
+community," they are engaged in an unlawful conspiracy. Concretely, it
+is unlawful to "conspire to compel an employer to hire a certain
+description of persons," or to "conspire to prevent a man from freely
+exercising his trade in a particular place," or to "conspire to compel
+men to become members of a particular society, or to contribute toward
+it," or when persons "conspire to compel men to work at certain prices."
+Thus it was the effort of the shoemakers' society to secure a closed
+shop which fell chiefly under the condemnation of the court.
+
+The counsel for the defense argued in this case that whatever is lawful
+for one individual is lawful also for a combination of individuals. The
+court, however, rejected the arguments on the ground that there was a
+basic difference between an individual doing a thing and a combination
+of individuals doing the same thing. The doctrine of conspiracy was thus
+given a clear and unequivocal definition.
+
+Another noteworthy feature of the Pittsburgh case was the emphasis given
+to the idea that the defendants' conduct was harmful to the public. The
+judge condemned the defendants because they tended "to create a monopoly
+or to restrain the entire freedom of the trade." What a municipality is
+not allowed to do, he argued, a private association of individuals must
+not be allowed to do.
+
+Of the group of cases which grew out of the revival of trade union
+activity in the twenties, the first, a case against Philadelphia master
+shoemakers, was decided in 1821, and the judge held that it was lawful
+for the masters, who had recently been forced by employes to a wage
+increase, to combine in order to restore wages to their "natural level."
+But he also held that had the employers combined to depress wages of
+journeymen below the level fixed by free competition, it would have been
+criminal.
+
+Another Pennsylvania case resulted from a strike by Philadelphia tailors
+in 1827 to secure the reinstatement of six discharged members. As in
+previous cases the court rejected the plea that a combination to raise
+wages was illegal, and directed the attention of the jury to the
+question of intimidation and coercion, especially as it affected third
+parties. The defendants were found guilty.
+
+In a third, a New York hatters' case of 1823, the charge of combining to
+raise wages was entirely absent from the indictment. The issue turned
+squarely on the question of conspiring to injure others by coercion and
+intimidation. The hatters were adjudged guilty of combining to deprive a
+non-union workman of his livelihood.
+
+The revival of trade unionism in the middle of the thirties brought in,
+as we saw, another crop of court cases.
+
+In 1829 New York State had made "conspiracy to commit any act injurious
+to public morals or to trade or commerce" a statutory offence, thus
+reenforcing the existing common law. In 1835 the shoemakers of Geneva
+struck to enforce the closed shop against a workman who persisted in
+working below the union rate. The indictment went no further than
+charging this offence. The journeymen were convicted in a lower court
+and appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. Chief Justice Savage, in
+his decision condemning the journeymen, broadened the charge to include
+a conspiracy to raise wages and condemned both as "injurious to trade or
+commerce" and thus expressly covered by statute.
+
+The far-reaching effects of this decision came clearly to light in a
+tailor's case the next year. The journeymen were charged with practising
+intimidation and violence, while picketing their employers' shops during
+a prolonged strike against a reduction in wages. Judge Edwards, the
+trial judge, in his charge to the jury, stigmatized the tailors' society
+as an illegal combination, largely basing himself upon Judge Savage's
+decision. The jury handed in a verdict of guilty, but recommended mercy.
+The judge fined the president of the society $150, one journeyman $100,
+and the others $50 each. The fines were immediately paid with the aid of
+a collection taken up in court.
+
+The decisions produced a violent reaction among the workingmen. They
+held a mass-meeting in City Hall Park, with an estimated attendance of
+27,000, burned Judge Savage and Judge Edwards in effigy, and resolved to
+call a state convention to form a workingmen's party.
+
+So loud, indeed, was the cry that justice had been thwarted that juries
+were doubtless influenced by it. Two cases came up soon after the
+tailors' case, the Hudson, New York, shoemakers' in June and the
+Philadelphia plasterers' in July 1836. In both the juries found a
+verdict of not guilty. Of all journeymen indicted during this period the
+Hudson shoemakers had been the most audacious ones in enforcing the
+closed shop. They not only refused to work for employers who hired
+non-society men, but fined them as well; yet they were acquitted.
+
+Finally six years later, in 1842, long after the offending trade
+societies had gone out of existence under the stress of unemployment
+and depression, came the famous decision in the Massachusetts case of
+Commonwealth _v._ Hunt.
+
+This was a shoemakers' case and arose out of a strike. The decision in
+the lower court was adverse to the defendants. However, it was reversed
+by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The decision, written by
+Chief Justice Shaw, is notable in that it holds trade unions to be legal
+organizations. In the earlier cases it was never in so many words held
+that trade unions were unlawful, but in all of them there were
+suggestions to this effect. Now it was recognized that trade unions are
+_per se_ lawful organizations and, though men may band themselves
+together to effect a criminal object under the disguise of a trade
+union, such a purpose is not to be assumed without positive evidence. On
+the contrary, the court said that "when an association is formed for
+purposes actually innocent, and afterwards its powers are abused by
+those who have the control and management of it to purposes of
+oppression and injustice, it will be criminal in those who misuse it, or
+give consent thereto, but not in other members of the association." This
+doctrine that workingmen may lawfully organize trade unions has since
+Commonwealth _v._ Hunt been adopted in nearly every case.
+
+The other doctrine which Justice Shaw advanced in this case has been
+less generally accepted. It was that the members of a union may procure
+the discharge of non-members through strikes for this purpose against
+their employers. This is the essence of the question of the closed shop;
+and Commonwealth _v._ Hunt goes the full length of regarding strikes for
+the closed shop as legal. Justice Shaw said that there is nothing
+unlawful about such strikes, if they are conducted in a peaceable
+manner. This was much in advance of the position which is taken by many
+courts upon this question even at the present day.
+
+After Commonwealth _v._ Hunt came a forty years' lull in the courts'
+application of the doctrine of conspiracy to trade unions. In fact so
+secure did trade unionists feel from court attacks that in the seventies
+and early eighties their leaders advocated the legal incorporation of
+trade unions. The desire expressed for incorporation is of extreme
+interest compared with the opposite attitude of the present day. The
+motive behind it then was more than the usual one of securing protection
+for trade union funds against embezzlement by officers. A full
+enumeration of other motives can be obtained from the testimony of the
+labor leaders before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in
+1883. McGuire, the national secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters
+and Joiners, argued before the committee for a national incorporation
+law mainly for the reason that such a law passed by Congress would
+remove trade unions from the operation of the conspiracy laws that still
+existed though in a dormant state on the statute books of a number of
+Slates, notably New York and Pennsylvania. He pleaded that "if it
+(Congress) had not the power, it shall assume the power; and, if
+necessary, amend the constitution to do it." Adolph Strasser of the
+cigar makers raised the point of protection for union funds and gave as
+a second reason that it "will give our organization more stability, and
+in that manner we shall be able to avoid strikes by perhaps settling
+with our employers, when otherwise we should be unable to do so, because
+when our employers know that we are to be legally recognized that will
+exercise such moral force upon them that they cannot avoid recognizing
+us themselves." W.H. Foster, the secretary of the Legislative Committee
+of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, stated that in
+Ohio the law provided for incorporation at a slight cost, but he wanted
+a national law to "legalize arbitration," by which he meant that "when a
+question of dispute arose between the employers and the employed,
+instead of having it as now, when the one often refuses to even
+acknowledge or discuss the question with the other, if they were
+required to submit the question to arbitration, or to meet on the same
+level before an impartial tribunal, there is no doubt but what the
+result would be more in our favor than it is now, when very often public
+opinion cannot hear our cause." He, however, did not desire to have
+compulsory arbitration, but merely compulsory dealing with the union, or
+compulsory investigation by an impartial body, both parties to remain
+free to accept the award, provided, however, "that once they do agree
+the agreement shall remain in force for a fixed period." Like Foster,
+John Jarrett, the President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and
+Steel Workers, argued for an incorporation law before the committee
+solely for its effect upon conciliation and arbitration. He, too, was
+opposed to compulsory arbitration, but he showed that he had thought out
+the point less clearly than Foster.
+
+The young and struggling trade unions of the early eighties saw only the
+good side of incorporation without its pitfalls; their subsequent
+experience with courts converted them from exponents into ardent
+opponents of incorporation and of what Foster termed "legalized
+arbitration."
+
+During the eighties there was much legislation applicable to labor
+disputes. The first laws against boycotting and blacklisting and the
+first laws which prohibited discrimination against members who belonged
+to a union were passed during this decade. At this time also were passed
+the first laws to promote voluntary arbitration and most of the laws
+which allowed unions to incorporate. Only in New York and Maryland were
+the conspiracy laws repealed. Four States enacted such laws and many
+States passed laws against intimidation. Statutes, however, played at
+that time, as they do now, but a secondary role. The only statute which
+proved of much importance was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. When Congress
+passed this act in 1890, few people thought it had application to labor
+unions. In 1893-1894, as we shall see, however, this act was
+successfully invoked in several labor controversies, notably in the Debs
+case.
+
+The bitterness of the industrial struggle during the eighties made it
+inevitable that the labor movement should acquire an extensive police
+and court record. It was during that decade that charges like "inciting
+to riot," "obstructing the streets," "intimidation," and "trespass" were
+first extensively used in connection with labor disputes. Convictions
+were frequent and penalties often severe. What attitude the courts at
+that time took toward labor violence was shown most strikingly, even if
+in too extreme a form to be entirely typical, in the case of the Chicago
+anarchists.[30]
+
+But the significance of the eighties in the development of relations of
+the courts to organized labor came not from these cases which were,
+after all, nothing but ordinary police cases magnified to an unusual
+degree by the intensity of the industrial struggle and by the excited
+state of public opinion, but in the new lease of life to the doctrine of
+conspiracy as affecting labor disputes. During the eighties and nineties
+there seemed to have been more conspiracy cases than during all the rest
+of the century. It was especially in 1886 and 1887 that organized labor
+found court interference a factor. At this time, as we saw, there was
+also passed voluminous state legislation strengthening the application
+of the common law doctrine of conspiracy to labor disputes. The
+conviction of the New York boycotters in 1886 and many similar
+convictions, though less widely known, of participants in strikes and
+boycotts were obtained upon this ground.
+
+Where the eighties witnessed a revolution was in a totally new use made
+of the doctrine of conspiracy by the courts when they began to issue
+injunctions in labor cases. Injunctions were an old remedy, but not
+until the eighties did they figure in the struggles between labor and
+capital. In England an injunction was issued in a labor dispute as early
+as 1868;[31] but this case was not noticed in the United States and had
+nothing whatever to do with the use of injunctions in this country. When
+and where the first labor injunction was issued in the United States is
+not known. An injunction was applied for in a New York case as early as
+1880 but was denied.[32] An injunction was granted in Iowa in 1884, but
+not until the Southwest railway strike in 1886 were injunctions used
+extensively. By 1890 the public had yet heard little of injunctions in
+connection with labor disputes, but such use was already fortified by
+numerous precedents.
+
+The first injunctions that attained wide publicity were those issued by
+Federal courts during the strike of engineers against the Chicago,
+Burlington, & Quincy Railroad[33] in 1888 and during the railway strikes
+of the early nineties. Justification for these injunctions was found in
+the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust
+Act. Often the State courts used these Federal cases as precedents, in
+disregard of the fact that there the issuance of injunctions was based
+upon special statutes. In other cases the more logical course was
+followed of justifying the issuance of injunctions upon grounds of
+equity. But most of the acts which the courts enjoined strikers from
+doing were already prohibited by the criminal laws. Hence organized
+labor objected that these injunctions violated the old principle that
+equity will not interfere to prevent crime. No such difficulties arose
+when the issuance of injunctions was justified as a measure for the
+protection of property. In the Debs case,[34] when the Supreme Court of
+the United States passed upon the issuance of injunctions in labor
+disputes, it had recourse to this theory.
+
+But the theory of protection to property also presented some
+difficulties. The problem was to establish the principle of irreparable
+injury to the complainant's property. This was a simple matter when the
+strikers were guilty of trespass, arson, or sabotage. Then they damaged
+the complainant's physical property and, since they were usually men
+against whom judgments are worthless, any injury they might do was
+irreparable. But these were exceptional cases. Usually injunctions were
+sought to prevent not violence, but strikes, picketing, or boycotting.
+What is threatened by strikes and picketing is not the employer's
+physical property, but the relations he has established as an employer
+of labor, summed up in his expectancy of retaining the services of old
+employes and of obtaining new ones. Boycotting, obviously, has no
+connection with acts of violence against physical property, but is
+designed merely to undermine the profitable relations which the employer
+had developed with his customers. These expectancies are advantages
+enjoyed by established businesses over new competitors and are usually
+transferable and have market value. For these reasons they are now
+recognized as property in the law of good-will and unfair competition
+for customers, having been first formulated about the middle of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+The first case which recognized these expectancies of a labor market was
+Walker _v._ Cronin,[35] decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
+Court in 1871. It held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover
+damages from the defendants, certain union officials, because they had
+induced his employes, who were free to quit at will, to leave his employ
+and had also been instrumental in preventing him from getting new
+employes. But as yet these expectancies were not considered property in
+the full sense of the word. A transitional case is that of Brace Bros.
+_v._ Evans in 1888.[36] In that case an injunction against a boycott was
+justified on the ground that the value of the complainant's physical
+property was being destroyed when the market was cut off. Here the
+expectancies based upon relations which customers and employes were
+thought of as giving value to the physical property, but they were not
+yet recognized as a distinct asset which in itself justifies the
+issuance of injunctions.
+
+This next step was taken in the Barr[37] case in New Jersey in 1893.
+Since then there have been frequent statements in labor injunction cases
+to the effect that both the expectancies based upon the
+merchant-function and the expectancies based upon the employer-function
+are property.
+
+But the recognition of "probable expectancies" as property was not in
+itself sufficient to complete the chain of reasoning that justifies
+injunctions in labor disputes. It is well established that no recovery
+can be had for losses due to the exercise by others of that which they
+have a lawful right to do. Hence the employers were obliged to charge
+that the strikes and boycotts were undertaken in pursuance of an
+unlawful conspiracy. Thus the old conspiracy doctrine was combined with
+the new theory, and "malicious" interference with "probable
+expectancies" was held unlawful. Earlier conspiracy had been thought of
+as a criminal offence, now it was primarily a civil wrong. The emphasis
+had been upon the danger to the public, now it was the destruction of
+the employer's business. Occasionally the court went so far as to say
+that all interference with the business of employers is unlawful. The
+better view developed was that interference is _prima facie_ unlawful
+but may be justified. But even this view placed the burden of proof upon
+the workingmen. It actually meant that the court opened for itself the
+way for holding the conduct of the workingmen to be lawful only when it
+sympathized with their demands.
+
+During the eighties, despite the far-reaching development of legal
+theories on labor disputes, the issuance of injunctions was merely
+sporadic, but a veritable crop came up during 1893-1894. Only the
+best-known injunctions can be here noted. The injunctions issued in the
+course of the Southwest railway strike in 1886 and the Burlington strike
+in 1888 have already received mention. An injunction was also issued by
+a Federal court during a miners' strike at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in
+1892.[38] A famous injunction was the one of Judges Taft and Rickes in
+1893, which directed the engineers, who were employed by connecting
+railways, to handle the cars of the Ann Arbor and Michigan railway,
+whose engineers were on strike.[39] This order elicited much criticism
+because it came close to requiring men to work against their will. This
+was followed by the injunction of Judge Jenkins in the Northern Pacific
+case, which directly prohibited the quitting of work.[40] From this
+injunction the defendants took an appeal, with the result that in Arthur
+_v._ Oakes[41] it was once for all established that the quitting of work
+may not be enjoined.
+
+During the Pullman strike numerous injunctions, most sweeping in
+character, were issued by the Federal courts upon the initiative of the
+Department of Justice. Under the injunction which was issued in Chicago
+arose the famous contempt case against Eugene V. Debs,[42] which was
+carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of the
+court in this case is notable, because it covered the main points of
+doubt above mentioned and placed the use of injunctions in labor
+disputes upon a firm legal basis.
+
+Another famous decision of the Supreme Court growing out of the railway
+strikes of the early nineties was in the Lennon case[43] in 1897.
+Therein the court held that all persons who have actual notice of the
+issuance of an injunction are bound to obey its terms, whether they were
+mentioned by name or not; in other words, the courts had evolved the
+"blanket injunction."
+
+At the end of the nineties, the labor movement, enriched on the one side
+by the lessons of the past and by the possession of a concrete goal in
+the trade agreement, but pressed on the other side by a new form of
+legal attack and by the growing consolidation of industry, started upon
+a career of new power but faced at the same time new difficulties.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] See above, 6.
+
+[30] See above, 91-93.
+
+[31] Springhead Spinning Co. _v._ Riley, L.R. 6 E. 551 (1868).
+
+[32] Johnson Harvester Co. _v._ Meinhardt, 60 How. Pr. 171.
+
+[33] Chicago, Burlington, etc., R.R. Co. _v._ Union Pacific R.R. Co.,
+U.S. Dist. Ct., D. Neb. (1888).
+
+[34] In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895).
+
+[35] 107 Mass. 555 (1871).
+
+[36] 5 Pa. Co. Ct. 163 (1888).
+
+[37] Barr _v._ Trades' Council, 53 N.J.E. 101 (1894).
+
+[38] Coeur d'Alene Mining Co. _v._ Miners' Union, 51 Fed. 260 (1892).
+
+[39] Toledo, etc. Co. _v._ Penn. Co., 54 Fed. 730 (1893).
+
+[40] Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. _v._ N.P.R. Co., 60 Fed. 803 (1895).
+
+[41] 64 Fed. 310 (1894).
+
+[42] In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1894).
+
+[43] In re Lennon, 166 U.S. 548 (1897).
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES, 1898-1914
+
+
+When, in 1898, industrial prosperity returned, there came with it a
+rapid expansion of labor organization. At no time in its history, prior
+to the World War, not excepting the Great Upheaval in the eighties, did
+labor organizations make such important gains as during the following
+five years. True, in none of these years did the labor movement add over
+half a million members as in the memorable year of 1886; nevertheless,
+from the standpoint of permanence, the upheaval during the eighties can
+scarcely be classed with the one which began in the late nineties.
+
+During 1898 the membership of the American Federation of Labor remained
+practically stationary, but during 1899 it increased by about 70,000 (to
+about 350,000); in 1900, it increased by 200,000; in 1901, by 240,000;
+in 1902, by 237,000; in 1903, by 441,000; in 1904, by 210,000, bringing
+the total to 1,676,000. In 1905 a backward tide set in; and the
+membership decreased by nearly 200,000 during that year. It remained
+practically stationary until 1910, when the upward movement was resumed,
+finally bringing the membership to near the two million mark, to
+1,996,000, in 1913. If we include organizations unaffiliated with the
+Federation, among them the bricklayers[44] and the four railway
+brotherhoods, with about 700,000 members, the union membership for 1913
+will be brought near a total of 2,700,000.
+
+A better index of progress is the proportion of organized workers to
+organizable workers. Two such estimates have been made. Professor George
+E. Barnett figures the organizable workers in 1900 at 21,837,000; in
+1910 at 30,267,000. On this basis wage earners were 3.5 percent
+organized in 1900 and 7 percent in 1910.[45] Leo Wolman submits more
+detailed figures for 1910. Excluding employers, the salaried group,
+agricultural and clerical workers, persons engaged in personal or
+domestic service, and those below twenty years of age (unorganizable
+workers), the organizable total was 11,490,944. With an estimated trade
+union strength of 2,116,317 for 1910 the percentage of the organized was
+18.4.[46] Excluding only employers and salaried persons, his percentage
+was 7.7, which compares closely with Professor Barnett's.
+
+Of greater significance are Wolman's figures for organization by
+industries. These computations show that in 1910 the breweries had 88.8
+percent, organized, printing and book binding 34.3 percent, mining 30.5
+percent, transportation 17.3 percent, clothing 16.9 percent, building
+trades 16.2 percent, iron and steel 9.9 percent, metal 4.7 percent, and
+textile 3.7 percent.[47] By separate occupations, railway conductors,
+brakemen, and locomotive engineers were from 50-100 percent organized;
+printers, locomotive firemen, molders and plasterers, from 30-50
+percent; bakers, carpenters, plumbers, from 15-30 percent organized.[48]
+
+Accompanying the numerical growth of labor organizations was an
+extension of organization into heretofore untouched trades as well as a
+branching out into new geographical regions, the South and the West. On
+the whole, however, though the Federation was not unmindful of the
+unskilled, still, during the fifteen years after 1898 it brought into
+its fold principally the upper strata of semi-skilled labor. Down to the
+"boom" period brought on by the World War, the Federation did not
+comprise to any great extent either the totally unskilled, or the
+partially skilled foreign-speaking workmen, with the exception of the
+miners and the clothing workers. In other words, those below the level
+of the skilled trades, which did gain admittance, were principally the
+same elements which had asserted their claim to organization during the
+stormy period of the Knights of Labor.[49] The new accretions to the
+American wage-earning class since the eighties, the East and South
+Europeans, on the one hand, and the ever-growing contingent of
+"floaters" of native and North and West European stock, on the other
+hand, were still largely outside the organization.
+
+The years of prosperity brought an intensified activity of the trade
+unions on a scale hitherto unknown. Wages were raised and hours reduced
+all along the line. The new strength of the trade unions received a
+brilliant test during the hard times following the financial panic of
+October 1907, when they successfully fought wage reductions. As good a
+test is found in the conquest of the shorter day. By 1900 the eight-hour
+day was the rule in the building trades, in granite cutting and in
+bituminous coal mining. The most spectacular and costly eight-hour fight
+was waged by the printers. In the later eighties and early nineties, the
+Typographical Union had endeavored to establish a nine-hour day in the
+printing offices. This was given a setback by the introduction of the
+linotype machine during the period of depression, 1893-1897. In spite of
+this obstacle, however, the Typographical Union held its ground.
+Adopting the policy that only journeymen printers must operate the
+linotype machines, the union was able to meet the situation. And,
+furthermore, in 1898, through agreement with the United Typothetae of
+America, the national association of employers in book and job printing,
+the union was able to gain the nine-hour day in substantially all book
+and job offices. In 1903 the union demanded the eight-hour day in all
+printing offices to become effective January 1, 1906. To gain an
+advantage over the union, the United Typothetae, late in the summer of
+1905, locked out all its union men. This at once precipitated a strike
+for the eight-hour day. The American Federation of Labor levied a
+special assessment on all its members in aid of the strikers. By 1907
+the Typographical Union won its demand all along the line, although at a
+tremendous cost of money running into several million dollars, and in
+1909 the United Typothetae formally conceded the eight-hour day.
+
+Another proof of trade union progress is found in the spread of trade
+agreements. The idea of a joint partnership of organized labor and
+organized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since the
+fifties, had been struggling for acceptance, finally showed definite
+signs of coming to be materialized.
+
+
+(1) _The Miners_
+
+In no other industry has a union's struggle for "recognition" offered a
+richer and more instructive picture of the birth of the new order with
+its difficulties as well as its promises than in coal mining. Faced in
+the anthracite field[50] by a small and well knitted group of employers,
+generally considered a "trust," and by a no less difficult situation in
+bituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mine
+operators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a space of fifteen
+years in unionizing the one as well as the other; while at the same time
+successfully and progressively solving the gigantic internal problem of
+welding a polyglot mass of workers into a well disciplined and obedient
+army.
+
+The miners' union attained its first successes in the so-called central
+bituminous competitive field, including Western Pennsylvania, West
+Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. In this field a
+beginning had been made in 1886 when the coal operators and the union
+entered into a collective agreement. However, its scope was practically
+confined to Ohio and even that limited agreement went under in 1890.[51]
+With the breakdown of this agreement, the membership dwindled so that
+by the time of a general strike in 1894, the total paid-up membership
+was barely 13,000. This strike was undertaken to restore the wage-scale
+of 1893, but during the ensuing years of depression wages were cut still
+further.[52]
+
+The turn came as suddenly as it was spectacular. In 1897, with a
+membership which had dropped to 10,000 and of which 7000 were in Ohio
+and with an empty treasury, the United Mine Workers called a general
+strike trusting to a rising market and to an awakened spirit of
+solidarity in the majority of the unorganized after four years of
+unemployment and distress. In fact the leaders had not miscalculated.
+One hundred thousand or more coal miners obeyed the order to go on a
+strike. In Illinois the union had but a handful of members when the
+strike started, but the miners struck to a man. The tie-up was
+practically complete except in West Virginia. That State had early
+become recognized as the weakest spot in the miners' union's armor.
+Notwithstanding the American Federation of Labor threw almost its entire
+force of organizers into that limited area, which was then only
+beginning to assume its present day importance in the coal mining
+industry, barely one-third of the miners were induced to strike. A
+contributing factor was a more energetic interference from the courts
+than in other States. All marching upon the highways and all assemblages
+of the strikers in large gatherings were forbidden by injunctions. On
+one occasion more than a score of men were sentenced to jail for
+contempt of court by Federal Judge Goff. The handicap in West Virginia
+was offset by sympathy and aid from other quarters. Many unions
+throughout the country and even the general public sent the striking
+miners financial aid. In Illinois Governor John R. Tanner refused the
+requests for militia made by several sheriffs.
+
+The general strike of 1897 ended in the central competitive field after
+a twelve-weeks' struggle. The settlement was an unqualified victory for
+the union. It conceded the miners a 20 percent increase in wages, the
+establishment of the eight-hour day, the abolition of company stores,
+semi-monthly payments, and a restoration of the system of fixing
+Interstate wage rates in annual joint conferences with the operators,
+which meant official recognition of the United Mine Workers. The
+operators in West Virginia, however, refused to come in.
+
+The first of these Interstate conferences was held in January, 1898, at
+which the miners were conceded a further increase in wages. In addition,
+the agreement, which was to run for two years, established for Illinois
+the run-of-mine[53] system of payment, while the size of the screens of
+other states was regulated; and it also conceded the miners the
+check-off system[54] in every district, save that of Western
+Pennsylvania.[55] Such a comprehensive victory would not have been
+possible had it not been for the upward trend which coal prices had
+taken.
+
+But great as was the union's newly discovered power, it was spread most
+unevenly over the central competitive field. Its firmest grip was in
+Illinois. The well-filled treasury of the Illinois district has many
+times been called upon for large contributions or loans, to enable the
+union to establish itself in some other field. The weakest hold of the
+United Mine Workers has been in West Virginia. At the end of the general
+strike of 1897, the West Virginia membership was only about 4000.
+Moreover, a further spread of the organization met with unusual
+obstacles. A large percentage of the miners of West Virginia are Negroes
+or white mountaineers. These have proven more difficult to organize than
+recent Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who formed the majority
+in the other districts. And yet West Virginia as a growing mining state
+soon assumed a high strategic importance. A lower wage scale, the better
+quality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have made
+West Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in the
+central competitive field. Consequently West Virginia operators have
+been able to operate their mines more days during the year than
+elsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners
+have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States.
+But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West
+Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and in
+campaigns of organization. In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted at
+the behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company, a West Virginia
+concern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organize
+employes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers while
+in the employ of the company. The injunction was made permanent in 1913.
+The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court of
+Appeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in
+March 1917.[56] Recently the United States Steel Corporation became a
+dominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lent
+additional strength to the already strong anti-union determination of
+the employers.
+
+Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strict
+adherence to agreements made. This faithfulness to a pledged word, which
+justified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as much
+as it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasions
+by John Mitchell, the national President of the Union. The first test
+came in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the joint
+conference had adjourned. Although they might have won higher wages had
+they struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe test
+came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.[57] A special union
+convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners
+should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners
+in the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the convention
+voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the
+operators. The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when,
+in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, it
+accepted without a strike a reduction in wages in the central
+competitive field. However, as against the miners' conduct in these
+situations must be reckoned the many local strikes or "stoppages" in
+violation of agreements. The difficulty was that the machinery for the
+adjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome.
+
+In 1906 the trade agreement system encountered a new difficulty in the
+friction which developed between the operators of the several
+competitive districts. On the surface, the source of the friction was
+the attempt made by the Ohio and Illinois operators to organize a
+national coal operators' association to take the place of the several
+autonomous district organizations. The Pittsburgh operators, however,
+objected. They preferred the existing system of agreements under which
+each district organization possessed a veto power, since then they could
+keep the advantage over their competitors in Ohio and Indiana with which
+they had started under the original agreement of 1898. The miners in
+this emergency threw their power against the national operators'
+association. A suspension throughout most districts of the central
+competitive field followed. In the end, the miners won an increase in
+wages, but the Interstate agreement system was suspended, giving place
+to separate agreements for each district.
+
+In 1908 the situation of 1906 was repeated. This time the Illinois
+operators refused to attend the Interstate conference on the ground that
+the Interstate agreement severely handicapped Illinois. As said before,
+ever since 1897 payment in Illinois has been upon the run-of-mine basis;
+whereas in all other States of the central competitive field the miners
+were paid for screened coal only. With the operators of each State
+having one vote in the joint conference, it can be understood why the
+handicap against Illinois continued. Theoretically, of course, the
+Illinois operators might have voted against the acceptance of any
+agreement which gave an advantage to other States; however, against this
+weighed the fact that the union was strongest in Illinois. The Illinois
+operators, hence, preferred to deal separately with the United Mine
+Workers. Accordingly, an Interstate agreement was drawn up, applying
+only to Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
+
+In 1910, the Illinois operators again refused to enter the Interstate
+conference, but this time the United Mine Workers insisted upon a return
+to the Interstate agreement system of 1898. On April 1, 1910, operations
+were suspended throughout the central competitive field. By July
+agreements had been secured in every State save Illinois, the latter
+State holding out until September. This long struggle in Illinois was
+the first real test of strength between the operators and the miners
+since 1897. The miners' victory made it inevitable that the Illinois
+operators should eventually reenter the Interstate conference.
+
+In 1912, after repeated conferences, the net result was the restoration
+of the Interstate agreement as it existed before 1906. The special
+burden of which the Illinois operators had been complaining was not
+removed; yet they were compelled by the union to remain a party to the
+Interstate agreement. The union justified its special treatment of the
+operators in Illinois on the ground that the run-of-mine rates were 40
+percent below the screened coal rates, thus compensating them amply for
+the "slack" for which they had to pay under this system. The Federal
+report on "Restriction of Output" of 1904 substantiated the union's
+contention. Ultimately, the United Mine Workers unquestionably hoped to
+establish the run-of-mine system throughout the central competitive
+field.
+
+The union, incidentally to its policy of protecting the miners, has
+considerably affected the market or business structure of the industry.
+An outstanding policy of the union has been to equalize competitive
+costs over the entire area of a market by means of a system of grading
+tonnage rates paid to the miner, whereby competitive advantages of
+location, thickness of vein, and the like were absorbed in higher labor
+costs. This doubtless tended to eliminate cut-throat competition and
+thus stabilize the industry. On the other hand, it may have hindered the
+process of elimination of unprofitable mines, and therefore may be in
+some measure responsible for the present-day overdevelopment in the
+bituminous mining industry, which results in periodic unemployment and
+in idle mines.
+
+In the anthracite coal field in Eastern Pennsylvania the difficulties
+met by the United Mine Workers were at first far greater than in the
+bituminous branch of the industry. First, the working population was
+nearly all foreign-speaking, and the union thus lacked the fulcrum which
+it found in Illinois with its large proportion of English-speaking
+miners accustomed to organization and to carrying on a common purpose.
+Secondly, the employers, instead of being numerous and united only for
+joint dealing with labor, as in bituminous mining, were few in number
+besides being cemented together by a common selling policy on top of a
+common labor policy. In consequence, the union encountered a stone wall
+of opposition, which its loose ranks found for many years well-nigh
+impossible to overcome.
+
+During the general strike of 1897 the United Mine Workers made a
+beginning in organizing the anthracite miners. In September 1900, they
+called a general strike. Although at that time the union had only 8000
+members in this region, the strike order was obeyed by over 100,000
+miners; and within a few weeks the strike became truly general. Probably
+the union could not have won if it had to rely solely on economic
+strength. However, the impending Presidential election led to an
+interference by Senator Mark Hanna, President McKinley's campaign
+manager. Through him President John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers
+was informed that the operators would abolish the objectionable sliding
+scale system of wage payments, increase rates 10 percent and agree to
+meet committees of their employes for the adjustment of grievances.
+This, however, did not carry a formal recognition of the union; it was
+not a trade agreement but merely an unwritten understanding. A part of
+the same understanding was that the terms which had been agreed upon
+should remain in force until April, 1901. At its expiration the
+identical terms were renewed for another year, while the negotiations
+bore the same informal character.
+
+During 1902 the essential instability of the arrangement led to sharp
+friction. The miners claimed that many operators violated the unwritten
+agreement. The operators, on their part, charged that the union was
+using every means for practically enforcing the closed shop, which was
+not granted in the understanding. In the early months of 1902 the miners
+presented demands for a reduction of the hours of labor from 10 to 9,
+for a twenty percent increase in wages, for payment according to the
+weight of coal mined, and for the recognition of the union. The
+operators refused to negotiate, and on May 9 the famous anthracite
+strike of 1902 began.
+
+It is unnecessary to detail the events of the anthracite strike. No
+other strike is better known and remembered. More than 150,000 miners
+stood out for approximately five months. The strike was financed by a
+levy of one dollar per week upon all employed miners in the country,
+which yielded over $2,000,000. In addition several hundred thousand
+dollars came in from other trade unions and from the public generally.
+In October, when the country was facing a most serious coal famine,
+President Roosevelt took a hand. He called in the presidents of the
+anthracite railroads and the leading union officials for a conference in
+the White House and urged arbitration. At first he met with rebuff from
+the operators, but shortly afterward, with the aid of friendly pressure
+from New York financiers, the operators consented to accept the award of
+a commission to be appointed by himself. This was the well-known
+Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. Its appointment terminated the
+strike. Not until more than a half year later, however, was the award of
+the Commission made. It conceded the miners a 10 percent increase in
+wages, the eight and nine-hour day, and the privilege of having a union
+check-weighman at the scale where the coal sent up in cars by the miners
+is weighed. Recognition was not accorded the union, except that it was
+required to bear one-half of the expense connected with the maintenance
+of a joint arbitration board created by the Commission. When this award
+was announced there was much dissatisfaction with it among the miners.
+President Mitchell, however, put forth every effort to have the union
+accept the award. Upon a referendum vote the miners accepted his view.
+
+The anthracite coal strike of 1902 was doubtless the most important
+single event in the history of American trade unionism until that time
+and has since scarcely been surpassed. To be sure, events like the great
+railway strike of 1877 and the Chicago Anarchist bomb and trial in
+1886-1887 had equally forced the labor question into public attention.
+What distinguished the anthracite coal strike, however, was that for the
+first time a labor organization tied up for months a strategic industry
+and caused wide suffering and discomfort to the public without being
+condemned as a revolutionary menace to the existing social order calling
+for suppression by the government; it was, on the contrary, adjudged a
+force within the preserves of orderly society and entitled to public
+sympathy. The public identified the anthracite employers with the trust
+movement, which was then new and seemingly bent upon uprooting the
+traditional free American social order; by contrast, the striking miners
+appeared almost as champions of Old America. A strong contributory
+factor was the clumsy tactics of the employers who played into the hands
+of the leaders of the miners. The latter, especially John Mitchell,
+conducted their case with great skill.
+
+Yet the award of the Commission fell considerably short of what the
+union and its sympathizers outside the ranks of labor hoped for. For by
+refusing to grant formal recognition, the Commission failed to
+constitute unionism into a publicly recognized agency in the management
+of industry and declared by implication that the role of unionism ended
+with a presentation of grievances and complaints.
+
+For ten years after the strike of 1902 the union failed to develop the
+strength in the anthracite field which many believed would follow.
+Certain proof of the weakness of the union is furnished by the fact that
+the wage-scale in that field remained stationary until 1912 despite a
+rising cost of living. The wages of the anthracite miners in 1912 were
+slightly higher than in 1902, because coal prices had increased and the
+Anthracite Coal Strike Commission had reestablished a sliding scale
+system of tonnage rates.
+
+A great weakness, while the union still struggled for existence, was the
+lack of the "check-off." Membership would swell immediately before the
+expiration of the agreement but diminish with restoration of quiet. With
+no immediate outlook for a strike the Slav and Italian miners refused to
+pay union dues. The original award was to be in force until April 1,
+1906. In June, 1905, the union membership was less than 39,000. But by
+April 1, 1906, one-half of the miners were in the union. A month's
+suspension of operations followed. Early in May the union and the
+operators reached an agreement to leave the award of the Anthracite Coal
+Strike Commission in force for another three years.
+
+The following three years brought a duplication of the developments of
+1903-1906. Again membership fell off only to return in the spring of
+1909. Again the union demanded formal recognition, and again it was
+refused. Again the original award was extended for three more years.
+
+In the winter of 1912, when the time for renewing the agreement again
+drew near, the entire membership in the three anthracite districts was
+slightly above 29,000. Nevertheless, the union demanded a twenty percent
+raise, a complete recognition of the union, the check-off, and yearly
+agreements, in addition to a more expeditious system of settling local
+grievances to replace the slow and cumbersome joint arbitration boards
+provided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180,000 anthracite
+miners followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made no
+attempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basis
+of the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately
+10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in local
+disputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of recognition,
+but by no means a complete recognition. Nor was the check-off system
+granted. Strangest of all, the agreement called for a four-year
+contract, as against a one-year contract originally demanded by the
+union. In spite of the opposition of local leaders, the miners accepted
+the agreement. President White's chief plea for acceptance was the need
+to rebuild the union before anything ambitious could be attempted.
+
+After 1912 the union entered upon the work of organization in earnest.
+In the following two years the membership was more than quadrupled. With
+the stopping of immigration due to the European War, the power of the
+union was greatly increased. Consequently, in 1916, when the agreement
+was renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wage
+increase and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The United
+Mine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share of
+industrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of the
+country; while demonstrating beyond doubt that, with intelligent
+preparation and with sympathetic treatment, the polyglot immigrant
+masses from Southern and Eastern Europe, long thought to be impervious
+to the idea of labor organization, can be changed into reliable material
+for unionism.
+
+The growth of the union in general is shown by the following figures.
+In 1898 it was 33,000; in 1900, 116,000; in 1903, 247,000; in 1908,
+252,000; and in 1913, 378,000.[58]
+
+
+(2) _The Railway Men_
+
+The railway men are divided into three groups. One group comprises the
+Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railroad Conductors,
+the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, and the Brotherhood of
+Railroad Trainmen. These are the oldest and strongest railway men's
+organizations and do not belong to the American Federation of Labor. A
+second group are the shopmen, comprising the International Association
+of Machinists; the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop
+Forgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; the
+Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhood
+of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America; the
+International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the International
+Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and more
+miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of
+Railway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, the
+International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad
+Shop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. The
+organizations comprised in the latter two groups belong to the American
+Federation of Labor. For the period from 1898 to the outbreak of the
+War, the organizations, popularly known as the "brotherhoods," namely,
+those of the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trainmen, are of
+outstanding importance.
+
+The brotherhoods were unique among American labor organizations in that
+for many years they practically reproduced in most of their features the
+sort of unionism typified by the great "Amalgamated" unions of the
+fifties and sixties in England.[59] Like these unions the brotherhoods
+stressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did not
+actually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that the
+emphasis on insurance was due not to "philosophy," but to the practical
+consideration that, owing to the extra hazardous nature of their
+occupations, the men could get no insurance protection from ordinary
+commercial insurance companies.
+
+By the end of the eighties the brotherhoods began to press energetically
+for improvements in employment conditions and found the railways not
+disinclined to grant their demands in a measure. This was due in great
+measure to the strategic position of these trades, which have it in
+their power completely to tie up the industry when on strike, causing
+enormous losses to the carriers.[60] Accordingly, they were granted
+wages which fairly placed them among the lower professional groups in
+society as well as other privileges, notably "seniority" in promotion,
+that is promotion based on length of service and not on a free selection
+by the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the train
+personnel service is so organized that each employe will pass several
+times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung
+on the industrial ladder.[61] For instance, a typical passenger train
+engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on
+a passenger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to
+engineer on a passenger train. A similar sequence is arranged in
+advancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority the
+brotherhoods received the right of appeal in cases of discharge, which
+has done much to eliminate discrimination. Since they were enjoying such
+exceptional advantages relative to income, to the security of the job,
+and to the stability of their organization, it is not surprising, in
+view of the limited class solidarity among American laboring men in
+general, that these groups of workers should have chosen to stand alone
+in their wage bargaining and that their refusal to enter "entangling
+alliances" with other less favored groups should have gone even to the
+length of staying out of the American Federation of Labor.
+
+This condition of relative harmony between employer and employe,
+notwithstanding the energetic bargaining, continued for about fifteen
+years until it was disturbed by factors beyond the control of either
+railway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of living
+forced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages.
+At the same time an ever tightening regulation of railway rates by the
+Federal government since 1906 practically prevented a shift of increased
+costs to the shipper. "Class struggles" on the railways began in
+earnest.
+
+The new situation was brought home to the brotherhoods in the course of
+several wage arbitration cases in which they figured.[62] The outcome
+taught them that the public will give them only limited support in their
+efforts to maintain their real income at the old high level compared
+with other classes of workers.
+
+A most important case arose from a "concerted movement" in 1912[63] of
+the engineers and firemen on the 52 Eastern roads for higher wages. Two
+separate arbitration boards were appointed. The engineers' board
+consisted of seven members, one each for the interests involved and five
+representing the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers,
+first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because it
+contained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all wages of
+all railway employes fixed by a government commission, which implied a
+restriction of the right to strike. The award in the firemen's case,
+which was decided practically simultaneously with the engineers', failed
+to satisfy either side.
+
+The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move "in
+concert" for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoods
+decided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strike
+occasioned the passage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to
+the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation and
+with more specified conditions relative to the work of the arbitration
+boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit
+to arbitration.
+
+
+The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than
+one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for
+uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded
+time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to
+their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.
+
+Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen
+on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against
+arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the
+board of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath of
+this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the "neutrals" on
+the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with
+several concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities.
+Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded the
+eight-hour day, they categorically refused to consider arbitration.[64]
+The evolution to a fighting unionism had become complete.
+
+While the brotherhoods of the train service personnel were thus shifting
+their tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by the
+other unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the good
+fortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and
+"recognition." Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreements
+with the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole,
+however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of a
+precarious sort.
+
+To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they
+started about 1904 a movement for "system federations,"[65] that is,
+federations of all organized trades through the length of a given
+railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the
+Illinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federations
+sharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like the
+Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the
+separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In
+1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on
+the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system
+federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty
+systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentative
+Railway Employes' Department had been launched by the American
+Federation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rival
+organization and "illegal" or, at best, "extra-legal" from the
+standpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however,
+was too acute to permit the consideration of "legality" to enter. An
+adjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was
+"legitimatized" through fusion with the "Department," to which it gave
+its constitution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it took
+only its name. This is the now well-known Railway Employes' Department
+of the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important national
+unions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), and
+which, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took over
+the railways from their private owners eight months after America's
+entry into the World War.
+
+
+(3) _The Machinery and Metal Trades_
+
+Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in the
+machinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for
+"recognition" and trade agreements. The outstanding unions in the
+industry are the International Association of Machinists and the
+International Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small
+unions.[66] The molders' International united in the same union the
+stove molders, who as was seen had been "recognized" in 1891, and the
+molders of parts of machinery and other foundry products. The latter
+found the National Founders' Association as their antagonist or
+potential "co-partner" in the industry.
+
+The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth of
+trade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstate
+agreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmosphere
+favorable to trade agreements. For a time "recognition" and its
+implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the
+public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, in
+March 1899, the National Founders' Association (organized in the
+previous year and comprising foundrymen engaged principally in machinery
+manufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders' Union of North
+America met and drew up the following tersely worded agreement which
+became known as the New York Agreement:
+
+     "That in event of a dispute arising between members of the
+     respective organizations, a reasonable effort shall be made by the
+     parties directly at interest to effect a satisfactory adjustment of
+     the difficulty; failing to do which, either party shall have the
+     right to ask its reference to a Committee of Arbitration which
+     shall consist of the President of the National Founders'
+     Association and the President of the Iron Molders' Union or their
+     representatives, and two other representatives from each
+     organization appointed by the respective Presidents.
+
+     "The finding of this Committee of Arbitration by majority vote
+     shall be considered final in so far as the future action of the
+     respective organizations is concerned.
+
+     "Pending settlement by the Committee, there shall be no cessation
+     of work at the instance of either party to the dispute. The
+     Committee of Arbitration shall meet within two weeks after
+     reference of dispute to them."
+
+The agreement was a triumph for the principle of pure conciliation as
+distinct from arbitration by a third party. Both sides preferred to run
+the risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery to
+throwing decisions into the hands of an umpire, who would be an
+uncertain quantity both as regards special bias and understanding of the
+industry.
+
+The initial meeting of the arbitration committee was held in Cleveland,
+in May 1899, to consider the demand by the unions at Worcester,
+Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, for a minimum wage which
+the employers had refused. In each city one member of the National
+Founders' Association was involved and the men in these firms went to
+work pending the arbitration decision, while the others stayed out on
+strike.
+
+The meeting ended inauspiciously. The founders and molders seemed not
+to be able to settle their difficulties. Each side stood fast on its own
+principles and the arbitration committees regularly became deadlocked.
+The question of a minimum wage was the most important issue. From 1899
+to 1902 several joint conventions were held to discuss the wage
+question. In 1899 a settlement was made, which, however, proved of short
+duration. In November 1902, the two organizations met, differed, and
+arranged for a sub-committee to meet in March 1903. The sub-committee
+met but could reach no agreement.
+
+The two organizations clashed also on the question of apprentices. The
+founders contended that, because there were not enough molders to fill
+the present demand, the union restrictions as to the employment of
+apprentices should be removed. The union argued that a removal of the
+restriction would cause unlimited competition among molders and
+eventually the founders could employ them at their own price. They
+likewise failed to agree on the matter of classifying molders.
+
+Owing to the stalling of the conciliation machinery many strikes
+occurred in violation at least of the spirit of the agreement. July 1,
+1901, the molders struck in Cleveland for an increase in wages;
+arbitration committees were appointed but failed to make a settlement.
+In Chicago and San Francisco strikes occurred for the same reason.
+
+It was at last becoming evident that the New York agreement was not
+working well. In the autumn of 1903 business prosperity reached its high
+watermark and then came a sharp depression which lessened the demand for
+molders. Early in 1904 the National Founders' Association took advantage
+of this situation to reduce wages and finally practically abrogated the
+New York agreement. In April, 1904, the founders and molders tried to
+reach a decision as to how the agreement could be made effective, but
+gave it up after four days and nights of constant consideration. The
+founders claimed that the molders violated the agreement in 54 out of
+the 96 cases that came up during the five years of its life; and further
+justified their action on the ground that the union persistently refused
+to submit to arbitration by an impartial outsider the issues upon which
+the agreement was finally wrecked.
+
+An agreement similar to the New York one was concluded in 1900 between
+the National Metal Trades' Association and the International Association
+of Machinists. The National Metal Trades' Association had been organized
+in 1899 by members of the National Founders' Association, whose
+foundries formed only a part of their manufacturing plants. The spur to
+action was given by a strike called by the machinists in Chicago and
+other cities for the nine-hour day. After eight weeks of intense
+struggle the Association made a settlement granting a promise of the
+shorter day. Although hailed as one of the big agreements in labor
+history, it lasted only one year, and broke up on the issue of making
+the nine-hour day general in the Association shops. The machinists
+continued to make numerous agreements with individual firms, especially
+the smaller ones, but the general agreement was never renewed.
+Thereafter the National Metal Trades' Association became an
+uncompromising enemy of organized labor.
+
+In the following ten years both molders and machinists went on fighting
+for control and engaged in strikes with more or less success. But the
+industry as a whole never again came so near to embracing the idea of a
+joint co-partnership between organized capital and labor as in 1900.
+
+
+(4) _The Employers' Reaction_
+
+With the disruption of the agreement systems in the machinery producing
+and foundry industries, the idea of collective bargaining and union
+recognition suffered a setback; and the employers' uneasiness, which had
+already steadily been feeding on the unions' mounting pressure for
+control, now increased materially. As long, however, as business
+remained prosperous and a rising demand for labor favored the unions,
+most of the agreements were permitted to continue. Therefore, it was not
+until the industrial depression of 1907-1908 had freed the employers'
+hands that agreements were disrupted wholesale. In 1905 the Structural
+Erectors' Association discontinued its agreements with the Structural
+Iron Workers' Union, causing a dispute which continued over many years.
+In the course of this dispute the union replied to the victorious
+assaults of the employers by tactics of violence and murder, which
+culminated in the fatal explosion in the _Los Angeles Times_ Building in
+1911. In 1906 the employing lithographers discontinued their national
+agreement with the lithographers' union. In 1907 the United Typothetae
+broke with the pressmen, and the stove founders with the stove mounters
+and stove polishers. In 1908 the agreements between the Lake Carriers
+and Lumber Carriers (both operating on the Great Lakes) and the
+seafaring and water front unions were terminated.
+
+In the operation of these unsuccessful agreements the most serious
+stumbling blocks were the union "working rules," that is to say, the
+restrictive rules which unions strove to impose on employers in the
+exercise of their managerial powers in the shop, and for which the
+latter adopted the sinister collective designation of "restriction of
+output."
+
+Successful trade unionism has always pressed "working rules" on the
+employer. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, the
+trade societies then existing tried to impose on the masters the closed
+shop and restrictions on apprenticeship along with higher wages and
+shorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral association to a
+stable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages to
+working rules. Unionists have discovered that on the whole wages are the
+unstable factor, going up or down, depending on fluctuating business
+conditions and cost of living; but that once they have established their
+power by making the employer accept their working rules, high wages will
+ultimately follow.
+
+These working rules are seldom improvisations of the moment, but, crude
+and one-sided as they often are, they are the product of a long labor
+experience and have taken many years to be shaped and hammered out.
+Since their purpose is protective, they can best be classified with
+reference to the particular thing in the workingman's life which they
+are designed to protect: the standard of living of the trade group,
+health, the security of the worker's job, equal treatment in the shop
+and an equal chance with other workmen in promotion, the bargaining
+power of the trade group, as a whole, and the safety of the union from
+the employer's attempts to undermine it. We shall mention only a few of
+these rules by way of illustration. Thus all rules relating to methods
+of wage payment, like the prohibition of piece work and of bonus
+systems (including those associated with scientific management
+systems), are primarily devices to protect the wage earner's rate of pay
+against being "nibbled away" by the employer; and in part also to
+protect his health against undue exertion. Other rules like the normal
+(usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the rule
+demanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or a
+guarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quantity of work
+available in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slack
+times among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary,
+the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuous
+employment based on "seniority" in the shop;--all these have for their
+common aim chiefly the protection of the job. Another sort of rules,
+like the obstruction to the splitting up of trades and the restrictions
+on apprenticeship, have in view the protection of the bargaining power
+of the craft group--through artificially maintaining an undiminished
+demand for skilled labor, as well as through a reduction of the number
+of competitors, present and future, for jobs. The protection of the
+union against the employer's designs, actual or potential, is sought by
+an insistence on the closed union shop, by the recognition of the right
+of appeal to grievance boards in cases of discharge to prevent
+anti-union discrimination, and through establishing a seniority right in
+promotion which binds the worker's allegiance to his union rather than
+to the employer.
+
+With these rigid rules, partly already enforced on the employer by
+strikes or threats to strike and partly as yet unrealized but
+energetically pushed, trade unionism enters the stage of the trade
+agreement. The problem of industrial government then becomes one of
+steady adjustment of the conflicting claims of employer and union for
+the province of shop control staked out by these working rules. When the
+two sides are approximately equal in bargaining strength (and lasting
+agreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promising
+line of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extend
+to the unions and their members in some form that will least obstruct
+shop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive to
+obtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employer
+might induce a union to give up or agree to mitigate its working rules
+designed to protect the job by offering a _quid pro quo_ in a guarantee
+of employment for a stated number of weeks during the year; and
+likewise, a union might hope to counteract the employer's natural
+hankering for being "boss in his own business," free of any union
+working rules, only provided it guaranteed him a sufficient output per
+unit of labor time and wage investment.
+
+However, compromises of this sort are pure experiments even at
+present--fifteen to twenty years after the dissolution of those
+agreements; and they certainly require more faith in government by
+agreement and more patience than one could expect in the participants in
+these earlier agreements. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
+short period of agreements after 1898 should in many industries have
+formed but a prelude to an "open-shop" movement.[67]
+
+After their breach with the union, the National Founders' Association
+and the National Metal Trades' Association have gone about the business
+of union wrecking in a systematic way. They have maintained a so-called
+"labor bureau," furnishing men to their members whenever additional help
+was needed, and keeping a complete card system record of every man in
+the employ of members. By this system occasion was removed for employers
+communicating with the business agents of the various unions when new
+men were wanted. The associations have had in their regular pay a large
+number of non-union men, or "strike-breakers," who were sent to the shop
+of any member whose employes were on strike.
+
+In addition to these and other national organizations, the trade unions
+were attacked by a large and important class of local employers'
+associations. The most influential association of this class was the
+Employers' Association of Dayton, Ohio. This association had a standing
+strike committee which, in trying to break a strike, was authorized to
+offer rewards to the men who continued at work, and even to compensate
+the employer for loss of production to the limit of one dollar per day
+for each man on strike. Also a system was adopted of issuing cards to
+all employes, which the latter, in case of changing employment, were
+obliged to present to the new employer and upon which the old employer
+inscribed his recommendation. The extreme anti-unionism of the Dayton
+Association is best attested by its policy of taking into membership
+employers who were threatened with strikes, notwithstanding the heavy
+financial obligations involved.
+
+Another class of local associations were the "Citizens' Alliances,"
+which did not restrict membership to employers but admitted all
+citizens, the only qualification being that the applicant be not a
+member of any labor organization. These organizations were frequently
+started by employers and secured cooperation of citizens generally. In
+some places there were two associations, an employers' and a Citizens'
+Alliance. A good example of this was the Citizens' Alliances of Denver,
+Colorado, organized in 1903. These "Citizens' Alliances," being by
+virtue of mixed membership more than a mere employers' organization,
+claimed in time of strikes to voice the sentiment of the community in
+general.
+
+So much for the employers' counter attacks on trade unions on the
+strictly industrial front. But there were also a legal front and a
+political front. In 1902 was organized the American Anti-Boycott
+Association, a secret body composed mainly of manufacturers. The purpose
+of the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts of
+trade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott.
+The energies of the association have been devoted mainly to taking
+certain typical cases to the courts in order thereby to create legal
+precedents. The famous Danbury Hatters' Case, in which the Sherman
+Anti-Trust law was invoked against the hatters' union, was fought in the
+courts by this Association.
+
+The employers' fight on the political front was in charge of the
+National Association of Manufacturers. This association was originally
+organized in 1895 for the pursuit of purely trade interests, but about
+1903, under the influence of the Dayton, Ohio, group of employers,
+turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with other
+employers' associations in the industrial and legal field, but its chief
+efforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it has
+succeeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in nullifying
+labor's political influence, especially in Congress. The National
+Association of Manufacturers saw to it that Congress and State
+Legislatures might not weaken the effect of court orders, injunctions
+and decisions on boycotts, closed shop, and related matters.
+
+The "open-shop movement" in its several aspects, industrial, legal, and
+political, continued strong from 1903 to 1909. Nevertheless, despite
+most persistent effort and despite the opportunity offered by the
+business depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, the
+results were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapid
+rate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogression
+from ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unions
+managed to prevent wage reductions in the organized trades
+notwithstanding the unemployment and distress of 1907-1908. On the whole
+trade unionism held its own against employers in strictly competitive
+industry. Different, however, was the outcome in industries in which the
+number of employers had been reduced by monopolistic or
+semi-monopolistic mergers.
+
+The steel industry is the outstanding instance.[68] The disastrous
+Homestead strike of 1892[69] had eliminated unionism from the steel
+plants of Pittsburgh. However, the Carnegie Steel Company was only a
+highly efficient and powerful corporation, not yet a "trust." The panic
+of 1893 dealt another blow to the Amalgamated Association of Iron &
+Steel Workers. The steel mills of Alleghany County, outside Pittsburgh,
+were all put upon a non-union basis before 1900. In Pittsburgh, the iron
+mills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to
+the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel
+mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron
+hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a
+gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials
+were alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an old
+enemy of unionism, would easily be first and would, they feared, insist
+on driving the union out of every mill in the combination. Then it
+occurred to President Shaffer and his associates that it might be a
+propitious time to press for recognition while the new corporation was
+forming. Anxious for public confidence and to float their securities,
+the companies could not afford a labor controversy.
+
+Accordingly, when the new scales were to be signed in July 1901, the
+Amalgamated Association demanded of the American Tin Plate Company that
+it sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as union
+but for all of its mills. This was agreed, provided the American Sheet
+Steel Company would agree to the same. The latter company refused, and a
+strike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American
+Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferences
+held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin
+mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the
+preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for
+all the hoop mills that had been signed for in the preceding year. This
+highly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representatives
+of the union; they demanded all the mills or none. The strike then went
+on in earnest. In August, President Shaffer called on all the men
+working in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out on
+strike.
+
+By the middle of August it was evident that the Association had made a
+mistake. Instead of finding their task easier because the United States
+Steel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation
+ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the
+organization. President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter,
+but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike was
+declared at an end.
+
+The steel industry was apparently closed to unionism.[70]
+
+
+(5) _Legislation, Courts, and Politics_
+
+While trade unionism was thus on the whole holding its ground against
+the employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influence
+on National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect its
+growing economic strength. The scant success with legislation resulted,
+on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new
+fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a
+still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the
+Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt
+directed his spectacular campaign. A good illustration is furnished by
+the attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work.
+
+In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance upon
+efforts to shorten the working day through legislation. The movement for
+shorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in the
+nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and
+social workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for
+women and children workers, but so far as adult male labor was
+concerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for the
+trade unions. The exception to the rule was the working day on public
+work.
+
+The Federal eight-hour day law began to receive attention from the
+Federation towards the end of the eighties. By that time the status of
+the law of 1868 which decreed the eight-hour day on Federal government
+work[71] had been greatly altered. In a decision rendered in 1887 the
+Supreme Court held that the eight-hour day law of 1868 was merely
+directory to the officials of the Federal government, but did not
+invalidate contracts made by them not containing an eight-hour clause.
+To counteract this decision a special law was passed in 1888, with the
+support of the Federation, establishing the eight-hour day in the United
+States Printing Office and for letter carriers. In 1892 a new general
+eight-hour law was passed, which provided that eight-hours should be the
+length of the working day on all public works of the United States,
+whether directed by the government or under contract or sub-contract.
+Within the next few years interpretations rendered by attorney generals
+of the United States practically rendered the law useless.
+
+In 1895 the Federation began to press in earnest for a satisfactory
+eight-hour law. In 1896 its eight-hour bill passed the House of
+Representatives unanimously. In the Senate it was introduced by Senator
+Kyle, the chairman of the committee on Education and Labor. After its
+introduction, however, hearings upon the bill were delayed so long that
+action was prevented during the long session. In the short session of
+1898-1899 the bill met the cruel fate of having its introducer, Senator
+Kyle, submit a minority report against it. Under the circumstances no
+vote upon the bill could be had in the Senate. In the next Congress,
+1899-1901, the eight-hour bill once more passed the House of
+Representatives only to be lost in the Senate by failure to come to a
+vote. In 1902, the bill again unanimously passed the House, but was not
+even reported upon by the Senate committee. In the hearings upon the
+eight-hour bill in that year the opposition of the National
+Manufacturers' Association was first manifested. In 1904 the House Labor
+Committee sidetracked a similar bill by recommending that the Department
+of Commerce and Labor should investigate its merits. Secretary Metcalf,
+however, declared that the questions submitted to his Department with
+reference to the eight-hour bill were "well-nigh unintelligible." In
+1906 the House Labor Committee, at a very late stage in the session,
+reported "favorably" upon the eight-hour bill. At the same time it
+eliminated all chances of passage of the bill through the failure of a
+majority of the members of the committee to sign the "favorable" report
+made. This session of Congress, also, allowed a "rider" to be added to
+the Panama Canal bill, exempting the canal construction from the
+provisions of the eight-hour law. In the next two Congresses no report
+could be obtained from the labor committees of either House upon the
+general eight-hour day bill, despite the fact that President Roosevelt
+and later President Taft recommended such legislation. In the sessions
+of the Congress of 1911-1913 the American Federation of Labor hit upon a
+new plan. This was the attachment of "riders" to departmental
+appropriation bills requiring that all work contracted for by these
+departments must be done under the eight-hour system. The most important
+"rider" of this character was that attached to the naval appropriation
+bill. Under its provisions the Attorney-General held that in all work
+done in shipyards upon vessels built for the Federal government the
+eight-hour rule must be applied. Finally, in June 1912, a Democratic
+House and a Republican Senate passed the eight-hour bill supported by
+the American Federation of Labor with some amendments, which the
+Federation did not find seriously objectionable; and President Taft
+signed it.
+
+Still better proof of the slight influence of the Federation upon
+government is furnished by the vicissitudes of its anti-injunction bills
+in Congress. The Federation had been awakened to the seriousness of the
+matter of the injunction by the Debs case. A bill of its sponsoring
+providing for jury trials in "indirect" contempt cases passed the Senate
+in 1896 only to be killed in the House. In 1900 only eight votes were
+recorded in the House against a bill exempting labor unions from the
+Sherman Anti-Trust Act; it failed, however, of passage in the Senate. In
+1902 an anti-injunction bill championed by the American Federation of
+Labor passed the House of Representatives. That was the last time,
+however, for many years to come when such a bill was even reported out
+of committee. Thereafter, for a decade, the controlling powers in
+Congress had their faces set against removal by law of the judicial
+interference in labor's use of its economic strength against employers.
+
+In the meantime, however, new court decisions made the situation more
+and more critical. A climax was reached in 1908-1909. In February 1908,
+came the Supreme Court decision in the Danbury Hatters' case, which held
+that members of a labor union could be held financially responsible to
+the full amount of their individual property under the Sherman
+Anti-Trust Act for losses to business occasioned by an interstate
+boycott.[72] By way of contrast, the Supreme Court within the same week
+held unconstitutional the portion of the Erdman Act which prohibited
+discrimination by railways against workmen on account of their
+membership in a union.[73] One year later, in the Buck's Stove and Range
+Company boycott case, Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison, the three most
+prominent officials of the American Federation of Labor, were sentenced
+by a lower court in the District of Columbia to long terms in prison for
+violating an injunction which prohibited all mention of the fact that
+the plaintiff firm had ever been boycotted.[74] Even though neither
+these nor subsequent court decisions had the paralyzing effect upon
+American trade unionism which its enemies hoped for and its friends
+feared, the situation called for a change in tactics. It thus came about
+that the Federation, which, as was seen, by the very principles of its
+program wished to let government alone,--as it indeed expected little
+good of government,--was obliged to enter into competition with the
+employers for controlling government; this was because one branch of the
+government, namely the judicial one, would not let it alone.
+
+A growing impatience with Congress was manifested in resolutions adopted
+by successive conventions. In 1902 the convention authorized the
+Executive Council to take "such further steps as will secure the
+nomination--and the election--of only such men as are fully and
+satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills" championed by the
+Federation. Accordingly, the Executive Council prepared a series of
+questions to be submitted to all candidates for Congress in 1904 by the
+local unions of each district.
+
+The Federation was more active in the Congressional election of 1906.
+Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use
+their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or
+conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's
+demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run
+independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands
+of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity
+and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the
+districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urge
+their defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefield
+of Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invaded
+his district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor.
+However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over the
+preceding election. The only positive success was the election of
+McDermott of the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. President
+Gompers, however, insisted that the cutting down of the majorities of
+the conspicuous enemies of labor's demands gave "more than a hint" of
+what organized labor "can and may do when thoroughly prepared to
+exercise its political strength." Nevertheless the next Congress was
+even more hostile than the preceding one. The convention of the
+Federation following the election approved the new tactics, but was
+careful at the same time to declare that the Federation was neither
+allied with any political party nor had any intention of forming an
+independent labor party.
+
+In the Presidential election of 1908, however, the Federation virtually
+entered into an alliance with the Democrats. At a "Protest Conference"
+in March, 1908, attended by the executive officers of most of the
+affiliated national unions as well as by the representatives of several
+farmers' organizations, the threat was uttered that organized labor
+would make a determined effort in the coming campaign to defeat its
+enemies, whether "candidates for President, for Congress, or other
+offices." The next step was the presentation of the demands of the
+Federation to the platform committees of the conventions of both
+parties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests that
+it had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, since
+it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of malicious
+conspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protect
+business rights, which had regularly been asked by the American
+Federation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted an
+indefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labor
+disputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed and a
+declaration in favor of jury trial on the charge of contempt of court.
+
+The Republicans paid scant attention to the planks of the Federation.
+Their platform merely reiterated the recognized law upon the allowance
+of equity relief; and as if to leave no further doubt in the minds of
+the labor leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft,
+who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some of
+the most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A year
+earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunction
+standard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic
+platform, on the other hand, _verbatim_ repeated the Federation plank on
+the injunction question and nominated Bryan.
+
+After the party conventions had adjourned the _American Federationist_
+entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate.
+President Gompers recognized that this was equivalent to an endorsement
+of Bryan, but pleaded that "in performing a solemn duty at this time in
+support of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a
+political party, but partisan to a principle." Substantially, all
+prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead.
+That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is
+apparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it is
+true that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centers
+was not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant the
+conclusion that Gompers may have "delivered to Bryan" not a few labor
+votes which would otherwise have gone to Debs.
+
+In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policy
+of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies." However, it avoided
+more successfully the appearance of partisanship. Many progressive
+Republicans received as strong support as did Democratic candidates.
+Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that the
+Federation was at last "on the inside" of one branch of the government.
+In addition, fifteen men holding cards of membership in unions, were
+elected to Congress, which was the largest number on record. Furthermore
+William B. Wilson, Ex-Secretary of the United Mine Workers, was
+appointed chairman of the important House Committee on Labor.
+
+The Congress of 1911-1913 with its Democratic House of Representatives
+passed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had been
+urging for fifteen years. It passed an eight-hour law on government
+contract work, as already noted, and a seaman's bill, which went far to
+grant to the sailors the freedom of contract enjoyed by other wage
+earners. It created a Department of Labor with a seat in the Cabinet. It
+also attached a "rider" to the appropriation bill for the Department of
+Justice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes of
+prosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and
+other Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointed
+to the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic House
+of Representatives and let the workers draw their own conclusions. The
+corner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legal
+exemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislation
+and from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yet
+to be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democratic
+administration was the logical means to that end.
+
+At last, with the election of Woodrow Wilson as President and of a
+Democratic Congress in 1912, the political friends of the Federation
+controlled all branches of government. William B. Wilson was given the
+place of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, the
+Federation was an "insider" in the national government. The road now
+seemed clear to the attainment by trade unions of freedom from court
+interference in struggles against employers--a judicial _laissez-faire_.
+The political program initiated in 1906 seemed to be bearing fruit.
+
+The drift into politics, since 1906, has differed essentially from that
+of earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from "on top," not
+from the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats in
+strikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led by
+local unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically in
+all preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the American
+Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file
+seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who
+held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions
+than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of
+court. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by the
+Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation
+leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the
+political parties by holding out a _quid pro quo_ of such an uncertain
+value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a mark
+of the instability of the general political alignment in the country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[44] The bricklayers became affiliated in 1917.
+
+[45] "The Growth of Labor Organizations in the United States,
+1897-1914," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, Aug., 1916, p. 780.
+
+[46] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
+Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.
+
+[47] _Ibid._
+
+[48] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
+Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.
+
+[49] The "federal labor unions" (mixed unions) and the directly
+affiliated local trade unions (in trades in which a national union does
+not yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designed
+for bringing in the more miscellaneous classes of labor. The membership
+in these has seldom reached over 100,000.
+
+[50] A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where the
+only anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found.
+
+[51] At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operators
+from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organized
+miners and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevail
+throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30,
+1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish
+to give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohio
+operators. Ohio was favored in the scale established by this first
+Interstate conference probably because more than half of the operators
+present came from that State, and because the chief strength of the
+miners' union also lay in that State. To prevent friction over the
+interpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and
+conciliation was established. This board consisted of five miners and
+five operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more from
+each of the States of this field. Such a board of arbitration and
+conciliation was provided for in all of the Interstate agreements of the
+period of the eighties. This system of Interstate agreement, in spite of
+the cut-throat competition raging between operators, was maintained for
+Pennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lost
+in 1887, and Indiana in 1888. It formed the real predecessor of the
+system established in 1898 and in vogue thereafter.
+
+[52] See above, 136.
+
+[53] The run-of-mine system means payment by weight of the coal as
+brought out of the mine including minute pieces and impurities.
+
+[54] The check-off system refers to collection of union dues. It means
+that the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner the
+amount of his union dues, thus constituting himself the union's
+financial agent.
+
+[55] In that district the check-off was granted in 1902.
+
+[56] Hitchman Coal and Coke Company _v._ Mitchell, 245 U.S. 232.
+
+[57] See below, 175-177.
+
+[58] The actual membership of the union is considerably above these
+figures, since they are based upon the dues-paying membership, and
+miners out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues. The
+number of miners who always act with the union is much larger still.
+Even in non-union fields the United Mine Workers have always been
+successful in getting thousands of miners to obey their order to strike.
+
+[59] See Webb, _History of Trade Unionism_, p. 205 ff.
+
+[60] This was demonstrated in the bitterly fought strike on the Chicago,
+Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1888. (See above, 130-131.)
+
+[61] Seniority also decides the assignment to "runs," which differ
+greatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior employes in
+keeping the job when it is necessary to lay men off.
+
+[62] The first arbitration act was passed by Congress in 1888. In 1898
+it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, which prescribed rules
+for mediation and voluntary arbitration.
+
+[63] Concerted movements began in 1907 as joint demands upon all
+railways in a single section of the country, like the East or the West,
+by a single group of employes; after 1912 two or more brotherhoods
+initiated common concerted movements, first in one section only, and at
+last covering all the railways of the country.
+
+[64] See below, 230-233.
+
+[65] Long before this, about the middle of the nineties, the first
+system federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confined
+to them only; they took up adjustment of grievances and related matters.
+
+[66] The International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Brotherhood of
+Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, the Pattern Makers' League, the
+International Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of Metal
+Polishers, Platers, Brass and Silver Workers, the International
+Federation of Draftsmen's Unions, and the International Brotherhood of
+Foundry Employes.
+
+[67] Professor Barnett attributes the failure of these agreements
+chiefly to faulty agreement machinery. The working rules, he points out,
+are rules made by the national union and therefore can be changed by the
+national union only. At the same time the agreements were national only
+in so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; the
+fixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the national
+employers' associations lacked the power to offer the unions an
+indispensable _quid pro quo_ in higher wages for a compromise on working
+rules. ("National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in the
+United States," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, May, 1912, pp. 425
+ff.)
+
+[68] The following account is taken from Chapter X of the _Steel
+Workers_ by John A. Fitch, published by the Russell Sage Foundation.
+
+[69] See above, 133-135.
+
+[70] The opposition of the Steel Corporation to unionism was an
+important factor in the disruption of the agreement systems in the
+structural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industry
+on the Great Lakes in 1908; in each of these industries the Corporation
+holds a place of considerable control.
+
+[71] See above, 47-49.
+
+[72] Loewe _v._ Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908).
+
+[73] Adair _v._ U.S., 208 U.S. 161 (1908).
+
+[74] 36 Wash. Law Rep. 436 (1909). Gompers was finally sentenced to
+imprisonment for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined
+$500 each. These penalties were later lifted by the Supreme Court on a
+technicality, 233 U.S. 604 (1914).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION"
+
+
+For ten years after 1904, when it reached its high point, the American
+Federation of Labor was obliged to stay on the defensive--on the
+defensive against the "open-shop" employers and against the courts. Even
+the periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves.
+This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the
+type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised
+the stock of the radical opposition.
+
+The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation. Inside it
+was the socialist "industrialist" who advocated a political labor party
+on a socialist platform, such as the Federation had rejected when it
+defeated the "program" of 1893,[75] together with a plan of organization
+by industry instead of by craft. Outside the Federation the opposition
+marched under the flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, which was
+launched by socialists but soon after birth fell into the hands of
+syndicalists.
+
+However, fully to understand the issue between conservatives and
+radicals in the Federation after 1905, one needs to go back much earlier
+for the "background."
+
+The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly assisted in the birth
+of the opportunistic trade unionism of Strasser and Gompers,[76] did
+not disappear, but remained throughout the eighties a handful of
+"intellectuals" and "intellectualized" wage earners, mainly Germans.
+These never abandoned the hope of better things for socialism in the
+labor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an attitude of
+enthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation in
+their wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistent
+though friendly "nudging" in the direction of socialism. During the
+greater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the trade
+unionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion of
+foreign born, principally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigar
+making, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted many
+socialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federations
+of unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and
+other cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in
+1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations.
+When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on the
+issue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the trade
+unionists than George; though one should add that the internal strife
+caused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in either
+faction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organization
+went by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since
+1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10,000, and its activities were
+non-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) but
+entirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chiefly
+in German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued until
+there appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who,
+had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialism
+than the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world's
+outstanding revolutionary leaders. This man was Daniel DeLeon.
+
+DeLeon was of South American ancestry, who early immigrated to New York.
+For a time he was teacher of languages at Columbia College; later he
+devoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established his
+first connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886
+and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeon
+was impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by the
+socialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taught
+him that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements,
+had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of a
+supreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knights
+and the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would be
+used.
+
+By 1895 he learned that he was beaten in both organizations; not,
+however, without temporarily upsetting the groups in control. For, the
+only time when Samuel Gompers was defeated for President of the
+Federation was in 1894, when the socialists, angered by his part in the
+rejection of the socialist program at the convention,[77] joined with
+his enemies and voted another man into office. Gompers was reelected the
+next year and the Federation seemed definitely shut to socialism. DeLeon
+was now ready to go to the limit with the Federation. If the established
+unions refused to assume the part of the gravediggers of capitalism,
+designed for them, as he believed, by the very logic of history, so much
+the worse for the established trade unions.
+
+Out of this grew the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a life and
+death rival to the Federation. From the standpoint of socialism no more
+unfortunate step could have been taken. It immediately stamped the
+socialists as wilful destroyers of the unity of labor. To the trade
+unionists, yet fresh from the ordeal of the struggle against the Knights
+of Labor, the action of the socialists was an unforgivable crime. All
+the bitterness which has characterized the fight between socialist and
+anti-socialist in the Federation verily goes back to this gross
+miscalculation by DeLeon of the psychology of the trade union movement.
+DeLeon, on his part, attributed the action of the Federation to a
+hopelessly corrupt leadership and, since he failed to unseat it by
+working from within, he now felt justified in striking at the entire
+structure.
+
+The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was a failure from the outset.
+Only a small portion of even the socialist-minded trade unionists were
+willing to join in the venture. Many trade union leaders who had been
+allied with the socialists now openly sided with Gompers. In brief, the
+socialist "revolution" in the American labor world suffered the fate of
+all unsuccessful revolutions: it alienated the moderate sympathizers and
+forced the victorious majority into taking up a more uncompromising
+position than heretofore.
+
+Finally, the hopelessness of DeLeon's tactics became obvious. One
+faction in the Socialist Labor party, which had been in opposition ever
+since he assumed command, came out in revolt in 1898. A fusion took
+place between it and another socialist group, the so-called Debs-Berger
+Social Democracy,[78] which took the name of the Social Democratic
+Party. Later, at a "Unity Congress" in 1901, it became the Socialist
+Party of America. What distinguished this party from the Socialist Labor
+party (which, although it had lost its primacy in the socialist
+movement, has continued side by side with the Socialist party of
+America), was well expressed in a resolution adopted at the same "Unity"
+convention: "We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessity
+organized on neutral grounds as far as political affiliation is
+concerned." With this program, the socialists have been fairly
+successful in extending their influence in the American Federation of
+Labor so that at times they have controlled about one-third of the votes
+in the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiven
+the socialists their "original sin." In the country at large socialism
+made steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were cast
+for Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularly
+since 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and the
+difficulties created by the War and retrogressed.
+
+For a number of years DeLeon's failure kept possible imitators in check.
+However, in 1905, came another attempt in the shape of the Industrial
+Workers of the World. As with its predecessor, impatient socialists
+helped to set it afoot, but unlike the Alliance, it was at the same
+time an outgrowth of a particular situation in the actual labor
+movement, namely, of the bitter fight which was being waged by the
+Western Federation of Miners since the middle nineties.
+
+Beginning with a violent clash between miners and mine owners in the
+silver region of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in the early nineties, the mining
+States of the West became the scene of many labor struggles which were
+more like civil wars than like ordinary labor strikes.
+
+A most important contributing cause was a struggle, bolder than has been
+encountered elsewhere in the United States, for control of government in
+the interest of economic class. This was partly due to the absence of a
+neutral middle class, farmers or others, who might have been able to
+keep matters within bounds.
+
+The Western Federation of Miners was an organization of workers in and
+around the metaliferous mines. It also included workers in smelters. It
+held its first convention in 1893 in Butte, Montana. In 1894 the men
+employed in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold fields demanded a minimum
+wage of three dollars for an eight-hour day. After four months the
+strike resulted in a victory for the union. Other strikes occurred in
+1896 and 1897 at Leadville, in 1899 in the Coeur d'Alene mining
+district, and in 1901 at Rossland and Fernie, British Columbia, and also
+in the San Juan district in California.
+
+The most important strike of the Western Federation of Miners, however,
+began in 1903 at Colorado City, where the mill and smeltermen's union
+quit work in order to compel better working conditions. As the
+sympathetic strike was a recognized part of the policy of the Western
+Federation of Miners, all the miners in the Cripple Creek region were
+called out. The eight-hour day in the smelters was the chief issue. In
+1899 the Colorado legislature had passed an eight-hour law which was
+declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State. To overcome
+this difficulty, an amendment to the State constitution was passed in
+1902 by a large majority, but the legislature, after having thus
+received a direct command to establish the eight-hour law, adjourned
+without taking action. Much of the subsequent disorder and bloodshed in
+the Cripple Creek region during 1903-1904 is traceable to this failure
+on the part of the legislature to enact the eight-hour law. The struggle
+in Colorado helped to convince the Western miners that agreements with
+their employers were futile, that constitutional amendments and politics
+were futile, and from this they drew the conclusion that the
+revolutionary way was the only way. William D. Haywood, who became the
+central figure in the revolutionary movement of the Industrial Workers
+of the World since its launching in 1905, was a former national officer
+of the Western Federation of Miners and a graduate of the Colorado
+school of industrial experience.[79]
+
+Even before 1905 the Western Federation of Miners, which was out of
+touch with the American Federation of Labor for reasons of geography and
+of difference in policy and program, attempted to set up a national
+labor federation which would reflect its spirit. An American Labor Union
+was created in 1902, which by 1905 had a membership of about 16,000
+besides the 27,000 of the miners' federation. It was thus the precursor
+of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. In the latter the
+revolutionary miners from the West joined hands with radical socialists
+from the East and Middle West of both socialist parties, the Socialist
+party of America and DeLeon's Socialist Labor party.
+
+We shall forbear tracing here the complicated internal history of the
+I.W.W., that is the friction which immediately arose between the
+DeLeonites and the other socialists and later on the struggle between
+the socialists and the syndicalist-minded labor rebels from the West.
+Suffice it to say that the Western Federation of Miners, which was its
+very heart and body, convinced of the futility of it all, seceded in
+1907. In 1911 it joined the American Federation of Labor and after
+several hard-fought strikes, notably in Michigan in 1913, it practically
+became assimilated to the other unions in the American Federation of
+Labor.
+
+The remnant of the I.W.W. split in 1908 into two rival Industrial
+Workers of the World, with headquarters in Detroit and Chicago,
+respectively, on the issue of revolutionary political versus
+non-political or "direct" action. As a rival to the Federation of Labor
+the I.W.W. never materialized, but on the one hand, as an instrument of
+resistance by the migratory laborers of the West and, on the other hand,
+as a prod to the Federation to do its duty to the unorganized and
+unskilled foreign-speaking workers of the East, the I.W.W. will for long
+have a part to play.
+
+In fact, about 1912, it seemed as though the I.W.W. were about to repeat
+the performance of the Knights of Labor in the Great Upheaval of
+1885-1887. Its clamorous appearance in the industrial East, showing in
+the strikes by the non-English-speaking workers in the textile mills of
+Lawrence, Massachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and Little Falls, New
+York, on the one hand, and on the other, the less tangible but no less
+desperate strikes of casual laborers which occurred from time to time in
+the West, bore for the observer a marked resemblance to the Great
+Upheaval. Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federation
+espied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which would
+best be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation the
+very same elements to which the I.W.W. especially addressed itself.
+Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problem
+of organizing the unskilled occupied a place near the head of the list.
+But after the unsuccessful Paterson textile strikes in 1912 and 1913,
+the star of the Industrial Workers of the World set as rapidly as it had
+risen and the organization rapidly retrogressed. At no time did it roll
+up a membership of more than 60,000 as compared with the maximum
+membership of 750,000 of the Knights of Labor.
+
+The charge made by the I.W.W. against the Federation of Labor (and it is
+in relation to the latter that the I.W.W. has any importance at all) is
+mainly two-fold: on aim and on method. "Instead of the conservative
+motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,'" reads the Preamble,
+"We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition
+of the wage system.' It is the historic mission of the working class to
+do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not
+only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but to carry on
+production when capitalism shall have been overthrown." Then on method:
+"We find that the centering of management in industries into fewer and
+fewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever-growing
+power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs
+which allows one set of the workers to be pitted against another set of
+workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in
+wage wars.... These conditions must be changed and the interest of the
+working class upheld only by an organization founded in such a way that
+all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary,
+cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is in any department thereof,
+thus making an injury to one an injury to all." Lastly, "By organizing
+industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the
+shell of the old."
+
+This meant "industrialism" versus the craft autonomy of the Federation.
+"Industrialism" was a product of the intense labor struggles of the
+nineties, of the Pullman railway strike in 1894, of the general strike
+of the bituminous miners of 1898, and of a decade long struggle and
+boycott in the beer-brewing industry. Industrialism meant a united front
+against the employers in an industry regardless of craft; it meant doing
+away with the paralyzing disputes over jurisdiction amongst the several
+craft unions; it meant also stretching out the hand of fellowship to the
+unskilled worker who knowing no craft fitted into no craft union. But
+over and above these changes in structure there hovered a new spirit, a
+spirit of class struggle and of revolutionary solidarity in contrast
+with the spirit of "business unionism" of the typical craft union.
+Industrialism signified a challenge to the old leadership, to the
+leadership of Gompers and his associates, by a younger generation of
+leaders who were more in tune with the social ideas of the radical
+intellectuals and the labor movements of Europe than with the
+traditional policies of the Federation.
+
+But there is industrialism and industrialism, each answering the demands
+of a _particular stratum_ of the wage-earning class. The class lowest in
+the scale, the unskilled and "floaters," for which the I.W.W. speaks,
+conceives industrialism as "one big union," where not only trade but
+even industrial distinctions are virtually ignored with reference to
+action against employers, if not also with reference to the principle of
+organization. The native floater in the West and the unskilled foreigner
+in the East are equally responsive to the appeal to storm capitalism in
+a successive series of revolts under the banner of the "one big union."
+Uniting in its ranks the workers with the least experience in
+organization and with none in political action, the "one big union" pins
+its faith upon assault rather than "armed peace," upon the strike
+without the trade agreement, and has no faith whatsoever in political or
+legislative action.
+
+Another form of industrialism is that of the middle stratum of the
+wage-earning group, embracing trades which are moderately skilled and
+have had considerable experience in organization, such as brewing,
+clothing, and mining. They realize that, in order to attain an equal
+footing with the employers, they must present a front coextensive with
+the employers' association, which means that all trades in an industry
+must act under one direction. Hence they strive to assimilate the
+engineers and machinists, whose labor is essential to the continuance of
+the operation of the plant. They thus reproduce on a minor scale the
+attempt of the Knights of Labor during the eighties to engulf the more
+skilled trade unions.
+
+At the same time the relatively unprivileged position of these trades
+makes them keenly alive to the danger from below, from the unskilled
+whom the employer may break into their jobs in case of strikes. They
+therefore favor taking the unskilled into the organization. Their
+industrialism is consequently caused perhaps more by their own trade
+consideration than by an altruistic desire to uplift the unskilled,
+although they realize that the organization of the unskilled is required
+by the broader interests of the wage-earning class. However, their long
+experience in matters of organization teaches them that the "one big
+union" would be a poor medium. Their accumulated experience likewise has
+a moderating influence on their economic activity, and they are
+consequently among the strongest supporters inside the American
+Federation of Labor of the trade agreement. Nevertheless, opportunistic
+though they are in the industrial field, their position is not
+sufficiently raised above the unskilled to make them satisfied with the
+wage system. Hence, they are mostly controlled by socialists and are
+strongly in favor of political action through the Socialist party. This
+form of industrialism may consequently be called "socialist
+industrialism." In the annual conventions of the Federation,
+industrialists are practically synonymous with socialists.
+
+The best examples of the "middle stratum" industrialism are the unions
+in the garment industries. Enthusiastic admirers have proclaimed them
+the harbingers of a "new unionism" in America. One would indeed be
+narrow to withhold praise from organizations and leaders who in spite of
+a most chaotic situation in their industry have succeeded so brilliantly
+where many looked only for failure. Looking at the matter, however, from
+the wider standpoint of labor history, the contribution of this
+so-called "new unionism" resides chiefly, first, in that it has
+rationalized and developed industrial government by collective
+bargaining and trade agreements as no other unionism, and second, in
+that it has applied a spirit of broadminded all-inclusiveness to all
+workers in the industry. To put it in another way, its merit is in that
+it has made supreme use of the highest practical acquisition of the
+American Federation of Labor--namely, the trade agreement--while
+reinterpreting and applying the latter in a spirit of a broader labor
+solidarity than the "old unionism" of the Federation. As such the
+clothing workers point the way to the rest of the labor movement.
+
+The first successful application of the "new unionism" in the clothing
+trades was in 1910 by the workers on cloaks and suits in the
+International Ladies' Garment Workers Union of America, a constituent
+union of the American Federation of Labor. They established machinery of
+conciliation from the shop to the industry, which in spite of many
+tempests and serious crises, will probably live on indefinitely. Perhaps
+the greatest achievement to their credit is that they have jointly with
+the employers, through a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, wrought a
+revolution in the hygienic conditions in the shops.
+
+The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America have won great power in the
+men's clothing industry, through aggressive but constructive leadership.
+The nucleus of the union seceded from the United Garment Workers, an
+A.F. of L. organization, in 1914. The socialistic element within the
+organization was and still is numerically dominating. But in the
+practical process of collective bargaining, this union's revolutionary
+principles have served more as a bond to hold the membership together
+than as a severe guide in its relations with the employers.[80] As a
+result, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers attained trade agreements in
+all the large men's clothing centers. The American Federation of Labor,
+however, in spite of this union's success, has persistently refused to
+admit it to affiliation, on account of its original secessionist origin
+from a chartered international union.
+
+The unions of the clothing workers have demonstrated how immigrants (the
+majority in the industry are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians) may
+be successfully organized on the basis of a broad minded industrialism.
+On the issue of industrialism in the American Federation of Labor the
+last word has not yet been said. It appears, though, that the matter is
+being solved slowly but surely by a silent "counter-reformation" by the
+old leaders. For industrialism, or the adjustment of union structure to
+meet the employer with ranks closed on the front of an entire industry,
+is not altogether new even in the most conservative portion of the
+Federation, although it has never been called by that name.
+
+Long before industrialism entered the national arena as the economic
+creed of socialists, the unions of the skilled had begun to evolve an
+industrialism of their own. This species may properly be termed craft
+industrialism, as it sought merely to unite on an efficient basis the
+fighting strength of the unions of the skilled trades by devising a
+method for speedy solution of jurisdictional disputes between
+overlapping unions and by reducing the sympathetic strike to a science.
+The movement first manifested itself in the early eighties in the form
+of local building trades' councils, which especially devoted themselves
+to sympathetic strikes. This local industrialism grew, after a fashion,
+to national dimensions in the form of the International Building Trades'
+Council organized in St. Louis in 1897. The latter proved, however,
+ineffective, since, having for its basic unit the local building trades'
+council, it inevitably came into conflict with the national unions in
+the building trades. For the same reason it was barred from recognition
+of the American Federation of Labor. The date of the real birth of craft
+industrialism on a national scale, was therefore deferred to 1903, when
+a Structural Building Trades' Alliance was founded. The formation of the
+Alliance marks an event of supreme importance, not only because it
+united for the first time for common action all the important national
+unions in the building industry, but especially because it promulgated a
+new principle which, if generally adopted, was apparently destined to
+revolutionize the structure of American labor organizations. The
+Alliance purported to be a federation of the "basic" trades in the
+industry, and in reality it did represent an _entente_ of the big and
+aggressive unions. The latter were moved to federate not only for the
+purpose of forcing the struggle against the employers, but also of
+expanding at the expense of the "non-basic" or weak unions, besides
+seeking to annihilate the last vestiges of the International Building
+Trades' Council. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, probably the
+most aggressive union in the American Federation of Labor, was the
+leader in this movement. From the standpoint of the Federation, the
+Structural Alliance was at best an extra-legal organization, as it did
+not receive the latter's formal sanction, but the Federation could
+scarcely afford to ignore it as it had ignored the International
+Building Trades' Council. Thus in 1908 the Alliance was "legitimatized"
+and made a "Department" of the American Federation of Labor, under the
+name of the Building Trades' Department, with the settlement of
+jurisdictional disputes as its main function. It was accompanied by
+departments of metal trades, of railway employes, of miners, and by a
+"label" department.
+
+It is not, however, open to much doubt that the Department was not a
+very successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle.
+Jurisdictional disputes are caused either by technical changes, which
+play havoc with official "jurisdiction," or else by a plain desire on
+the part of the stronger union to encroach upon the province of the
+weaker one. When the former was the case and the struggle happened to be
+between unions of equal strength and influence, it generally terminated
+in a compromise. When, however, the combatants were two unions of
+unequal strength, the doctrine of the supremacy of the "basic" unions
+was generally made to prevail in the end. Such was the outcome of the
+struggle between the carpenters and joiners on the one side and the wood
+workers on the other and also between the plumbers and steam fitters. In
+each case it ended in the forced amalgamation of the weaker union with
+the stronger one, upon the principle that there must be only one union
+in each "basic" trade. In the case of the steam fitters, which was
+settled at the convention at Rochester in 1912, the Federation gave what
+might be interpreted as an official sanction of the new doctrine of one
+union in a "basic" trade.
+
+Notwithstanding these official lapses from the principle of craft
+autonomy, the socialist industrialists[81] are still compelled to abide
+by the letter and the spirit of craft autonomy. The effect of such a
+policy on the coming American industrialism may be as follows: The
+future development of the "department" may enable the strong "basic"
+unions to undertake concerted action against employers, while each
+retains its own autonomy. Such indeed is the notable "concerted
+movement" of the railway brotherhoods, which since 1907 has begun to set
+a type for craft industrialism. It is also probable that the majority of
+the craft unions will sufficiently depart from a rigid craft standard
+for membership to include helpers and unskilled workers working
+alongside the craftsmen.
+
+The clearest outcome of this silent "counter-reformation" in reply to
+the socialist industrialists is the Railway Employes' Department as it
+developed during and after the war-time period.[82] It is composed of
+all the railway men's organizations except the brotherhoods of
+engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen, telegraphers, and several
+minor organizations, which on the whole cooperate with the Department.
+It also has a place for the unskilled laborers organized in the United
+Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers.
+The Railway Employes' Department therefore demonstrates that under craft
+unionism the unskilled need not be left out in the cold. It also meets
+the charge that craft unionism renders it easy for the employers to
+defeat the unions one by one, since this Department has consolidated the
+constituent crafts into one bargaining and striking union[83]
+practically as well as could be done by an industrial union. Finally,
+the Railway Employes' Department has an advantage over an industrial
+union in that many of its constituent unions, like the machinists',
+blacksmiths', boiler-makers', sheet metal workers', and electrical
+workers', have large memberships outside the railway industry, which
+might by their dues and assessments come to the aid of the railway
+workers on strike. To be sure, the solidarity of the unions in the
+Department might be weakened through jurisdictional disputes, which is
+something to be considered. However, when unions have gone so far as to
+confederate for joint collective bargaining, that danger will probably
+never be allowed to become too serious.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] See above, 139-141.
+
+[76] See above, 76-79.
+
+[77] See above, 139-141.
+
+[78] Eugene V. Debs, after serving his sentence in prison for disobeying
+a court injunction during the Pullman strike of 1894, became a convert
+to socialism. It is said that his conversion was due to Victor Berger of
+Milwaukee. Berger had succeeded in building up a strong socialist party
+in that city and in the State of Wisconsin upon the basis of a thorough
+understanding with the trade unions and was materially helped by the
+predominance of the German-speaking element in the population. In 1910
+the Milwaukee socialists elected a municipal ticket, the first large
+city to vote the socialists into office.
+
+[79] In 1907 Haywood was tried and acquitted with two other officers of
+the Western Federation of Miners at Boise, Idaho, on a murder charge
+which grew out of the same labor struggle. This was one of the several
+sensational trials in American labor history, on a par with the Molly
+Maguires' case in the seventies, the Chicago Anarchists' in 1887, and
+the McNamaras' case in 1912.
+
+[80] The same applies to the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
+Union.
+
+[81] Except the miners, brewers, and garment workers.
+
+[82] See above, 185-186.
+
+[83] This refers particularly to the six shopmen's unions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET
+
+
+The outbreak of the War in Europe in August 1914 found American labor
+passing through a period of depression. The preceding winter had seen
+much unemployment and considerable distress and in the summer industrial
+conditions became scarcely improved. In the large cities demonstrations
+by the unemployed were daily occurrences. A long and bloody labor
+struggle in the coal fields of Colorado, which was slowly drawing to an
+unsuccessful end in spite of sacrifices of the heaviest kind, seemed
+only to set into bold relief the generally inauspicious outlook. Yet the
+labor movement could doubtless find solace in the political situation.
+Owing to the support it had given the Democratic party in the
+Presidential campaign of 1912, the Federation could claim return favors.
+The demand which it was now urging upon its friends in office was the
+long standing one for the exemption of labor unions from the operation
+of the anti-trust legislation and for the reduction to a minimum of
+interference by Federal Courts in labor disputes through injunction
+proceedings.
+
+During 1914 the anti-trust bill introduced in the House by Clayton of
+Alabama was going through the regular stages preliminary to enactment
+and, although it finally failed to embody all the sweeping changes
+demanded by the Federation's lobbyists, it was pronounced at the time
+satisfactory to labor. The Clayton Act starts with the declaration that
+"The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce"
+and specifies that labor organizations shall not be construed as illegal
+combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under Federal
+anti-trust laws. It further proceeds to prescribe the procedure in
+connection with the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes as, for
+instance, limiting the time of effectiveness of temporary injunctions,
+making notice obligatory to persons about to be permanently enjoined,
+and somewhat limiting the power of the courts in contempt proceedings.
+The most vital section of the Act relating to labor disputes is Section
+20, which says "that no such restraining order or injunction shall
+prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from
+terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any
+work or labor or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by
+peaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any such
+person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully
+persuading any person to work or to abstain from working, or from
+recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful
+means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any
+person employed in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys or
+things of value; or from peacefully assembling in a lawful manner, or
+for lawful purposes, or from doing any act or things which might
+lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto;
+nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or
+held to be violations of any law of the United States."
+
+The government was also rendering aid to organized labor in another,
+though probably little intended, form, namely through the public
+hearings conducted by the United States Commission on Industrial
+Relations. This Commission had been authorized by Congress in 1912 to
+investigate labor unrest after a bomb explosion in the _Los Angeles
+Times_ Building, which was set off at the order of some of the national
+officers of the structural iron workers' union, incidental to a strike.
+The hearings which were conducted by the able and versatile chairman,
+Frank P. Walsh, with a particular eye for publicity, centering as they
+did around the Colorado outrages, served to popularize the trade union
+cause from one end of the country to the other. The report of the
+Commission or rather the minority report, which was signed by the
+chairman and the three labor members, and was known as the "staff"
+report, named _trade unionism_ as the paramount remedy--not compulsory
+arbitration which was advocated by the employer members, nor labor
+legislation and a permanent governmental industrial commission proposed
+by the economist on the commission. The immediate practical effects of
+the commission were _nil_, but its agitational value proved of great
+importance to labor. For the first time in the history of the United
+States the employing class seemed to be arrayed as a defendant before
+the bar of public opinion. Also, it was for the first time that a
+commission representing the government not only unhesitatingly
+pronounced the trade union movement harmless to the country's best
+interests but went to the length of raising it to the dignity of a
+fundamental and indispensable institution.
+
+The Commission on Industrial Relations on the whole reflected the
+favorable attitude of the Administration which came to power in 1912.
+The American Federation of Labor was given full sway over the Department
+of Labor and a decisive influence in all other government departments
+on matters relating to labor. Without a political party of its own, by
+virtue only of its "bargaining power" over the old parties, the American
+Federation of Labor seemed to have attained a position not far behind
+that of British labor after more than a decade of independent political
+action. Furthermore, fortunately for itself, labor in America had come
+into a political patrimony at a time when the country was standing on
+the threshold of a new era, during which government was destined to
+become the arbiter of industry.
+
+The War in Europe did not immediately improve industrial conditions in
+America. The first to feel its effects were the industries directly
+engaged in the making of munitions. The International Association of
+Machinists, the organization of the now all-important munition workers,
+actually had its membership somewhat decreased during 1915, but in the
+following year made a 50 percent increase. The greater part of the new
+membership came from the "munitions towns," such as Bridgeport,
+Connecticut, where, in response to the insatiable demand from the Allied
+nations, new enormous plants were erected during 1915 and shipment of
+munitions in mass began early the next year. Bridgeport and surrounding
+towns became a center of a successful eight-hour movement, in which the
+women workers newly brought into the industry took the initiative. The
+Federation as a whole lost three percent of its membership in 1915 and
+gained seven percent during 1916.
+
+On its War policy the Federation took its cue completely from the
+national government. During the greater part of the period of American
+neutrality its attitude was that of a shocked lover of peace who is
+desirous to maintain the strictest neutrality if the belligerents will
+persist in refusing to lend an ear to reason. To prevent a repetition
+of a similar catastrophe, the Federation did the obvious thing,
+pronouncing for open and democratized diplomacy; and proposed to the
+several national trade union federations that an international labor
+congress meet at the close of the war to determine the conditions of
+peace. However, both the British and Germans declined. The convention in
+1915 condemned the German-inspired propaganda for an embargo on
+shipments to all belligerents and the fomenting of strikes in
+munitions-making plants by German agents. The Federation refused to
+interpret neutrality to mean that the American wage earner was to be
+thrown back into the dumps of depression and unemployment, from which he
+was just delivered by the extensive war orders from the Allied
+governments.
+
+By the second half of 1916 the war prosperity was in full swing. Cost of
+living was rising rapidly and movements for higher wages became general.
+The practical stoppage of immigration enabled common labor to get a
+larger share than usual of the prosperity. Many employers granted
+increases voluntarily. Simultaneously, a movement for the eight-hour day
+was spreading from strictly munitions-making trades into others and was
+meeting with remarkable success. But 1916 witnessed what was doubtless
+the most spectacular move for the eight-hour day in American
+history--the joint eight-hour demand by the four railway brotherhoods,
+the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. The effectiveness
+acquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkable
+success with which these four organizations, with the full support of
+the whole labor movement at their back and aided by a not unfriendly
+attitude on the part of the national Administration, brought to bay the
+greatest single industry of the country and overcame the opposition of
+the entire business class.
+
+The four brotherhoods made a joint demand for an eight-hour day early in
+1916.[84] The railway officials claimed that the demand for the
+reduction of the work-day from ten to eight hours with ten hours' pay
+and a time and a half rate for overtime was not made in good faith.
+Since, they said, the employes ought to have known that the railways
+could not be run on an eight-hour day, the demand was but a covert
+attempt to gain a substantial increase in their wages, which were
+already in advance of any of the other skilled workers. On the other
+hand, the brotherhoods stoutly maintained during their direct
+negotiations with the railway companies and in the public press that
+their demand was a _bona fide_ demand and that they believed that the
+railway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on an
+eight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitration
+the demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. The
+brotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind past
+disappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up the
+whole transportation system of the country by a strike on Labor Day.
+
+When the efforts at mediation by the United States Board of Mediation
+and Conciliation came to naught, President Wilson invited to Washington
+the executives of the several railway systems and a convention of the
+several hundred division chairmen of the brotherhoods and attempted
+personal mediation. He urged the railway executives to accept the
+eight-hour day and proposed that a commission appointed by himself
+should investigate the demand for time and a half overtime. This the
+employes accepted, but the executives objected to giving the eight-hour
+day before an investigation was made. Meantime the brotherhoods had
+issued their strike order effective on Labor Day and the crisis became
+imminent. To obviate the calamity of a general strike, at a time when
+the country was threatened with troubles on the Mexican frontier and
+with the unsettled submarine controversy with Germany ready to flare up
+any moment, the President went before Congress and asked for a speedy
+enactment of an eight-hour law for train operatives without a reduction
+in wages but with no punitive overtime. He coupled it with a request for
+an authorisation of a special commission to report on the operation of
+such a law for a period of six months, after which the subject might be
+reopened. Lastly, he urged an amendment to the Newlands Act making it
+illegal to call a strike or a lockout pending an investigation of a
+controversy by a government commission. Spurred on by the danger of the
+impending strike, Congress quickly acceded to the first two requests by
+the President and passed the so-called Adamson law.[85] The strike was
+averted, but in the immediately following Presidential campaign labor's
+"hold-up" of the national government became one of the trump issues of
+the Republican candidate.
+
+This episode of the summer of 1916 had two sequels, one in the courts
+and the other one in a negotiated agreement between the railways and the
+brotherhoods. The former brought many suits in courts against the
+government and obtained from a lower court a decision that the Adamson
+law was unconstitutional. The case was then taken to the United States
+Supreme Court, but the decision was not ready until the spring of 1917.
+Meantime the danger of a strike had been renewed. However, on the same
+day when the Supreme Court gave out its decision, the railways and
+brotherhoods had signed, at the urging of the National Council of
+Defense, an agreement accepting the conditions of the Adamson law
+regardless of the outcome in court. When the decision became known it
+was found to be in favor of the Adamson law. The declaration of war
+against Germany came a few days later and opened a new era in the
+American labor situation.
+
+Previous to that, on March 12, 1917, when war seemed inevitable, the
+national officers of all important unions in the Federation met in
+Washington and issued a statement on "American Labor's Position in Peace
+or in War." They pledged the labor movement and the influence of the
+labor organizations unreservedly in support of the government in case of
+war. Whereas, they said, in all previous wars "under the guise of
+national necessity, labor was stripped of its means of defense against
+enemies at home and was robbed of the advantages, the protections, and
+guarantees of justice that had been achieved after ages of struggle";
+and "labor had no representatives in the councils authorized to deal
+with the conduct of the war"; and therefore "the rights, interests and
+welfare of workers were autocratically sacrificed for the slogan of
+national safety"; in this war "the government must recognize the
+organized labor movement as the agency through which it must cooperate
+with wage earners." Such recognition will imply first "representation on
+all agencies determining and administering policies of national
+defense" and "on all boards authorized to control publicity during war
+time." Second, that "service in government factories and private
+establishments, in transportation agencies, all should conform to trade
+union standards"; and that "whatever changes in the organization of
+industry are necessary upon a war basis, they should be made in accord
+with plans agreed upon by representatives of the government and those
+engaged and employed in the industry." Third, that the government's
+demand of sacrifice of their "labor power, their bodies or their lives"
+be accompanied by "increased guarantees and safe-guards," the imposing
+of a similar burden on property and the limitation of profits. Fourth,
+that "organization for industrial and commercial service" be "upon a
+different basis from military service" and "that military service should
+be carefully distinguished from service in industrial disputes," since
+"the same voluntary institutions that organized industrial, commercial
+and transportation workers in times of peace will best take care of the
+same problems in time of war." For, "wrapped up with the safety of this
+Republic are ideals of democracy, a heritage which the masses of the
+people received from our forefathers, who fought that liberty might live
+in this country--a heritage that is to be maintained and handed down to
+each generation with undiminished power and usefulness."
+
+We quote at such length because this document gives the quintessence of
+the wise labor statesmanship which this crisis brought so clearly to
+light. Turning away from the pacifism of the Socialist party, Samuel
+Gompers and his associates believed that victory over world militarism
+as well as over the forces of reaction at home depended on labor's
+unequivocal support of the government. And in reality, by placing the
+labor movement in the service of the war-making power of the nation they
+assured for it, for the time being at least, a degree of national
+prestige and a freedom to expand which could not have been conquered by
+many years of the most persistent agitation and strikes.
+
+The War, thus, far from being a trial for organized labor, proved
+instead a great opportunity. For the War released organized labor from a
+blind alley, as it were. The American Federation of Labor, as we saw,
+had made but slow progress in organization after 1905. At that time it
+had succeeded in organizing the skilled and some of the semi-skilled
+workers. Further progress was impeded by the anti-union employers
+especially in industries commonly understood to be dominated by
+"trusts." In none of the "trustified" industries, save anthracite coal,
+was labor organization able to make any headway. And yet the American
+Federation of Labor, situated as it is, is obliged to stake everything
+upon the power to organize.[86] The war gave it that all-important
+power. Soon after the Federal government became the arbiter of
+industry--by virtue of being the greatest consumer, and by virtue of a
+public opinion clearly outspoken on the subject--we see the Taft-Walsh
+War Labor Board[87] embody "the right to organize" into a code of rules
+for the guidance of the relations of labor and capital during War-time,
+along with the basic eight-hour day and the right to a living wage. In
+return for these gifts American labor gave up nothing so vital as
+British labor had done in the identical situation. The right to strike
+was left unmolested and remained a permanent threat hanging over slow
+moving officialdom and recalcitrant employers. And the only restraint
+accepted by labor was a promise of self-restraint. The Federation was
+not to strike until all other means for settlement had been tried, nor
+was it to press for the closed shop where such had not existed prior to
+the War declaration. But at the same time no employer was to interpose a
+check to its expansion into industries and districts heretofore
+unorganized. Nor could an employer discipline an employe for joining a
+union or inducing others to join.
+
+In 1916, when the President established the National Council of Defense,
+he appointed Samuel Gompers one of the seven members composing the
+Advisory Commission in charge of all policies dealing with labor and
+chairman of a committee on labor of his own appointment. Among the first
+acts of the Council of Defense was an emphatic declaration for the
+preservation of the standards of legal protection of labor against the
+ill-advised efforts for their suspension during War-time. The Federation
+was given representation on the Emergency Construction Board, the Fuel
+Administration Board, on the Woman's Board, on the Food Administration
+Board, and finally on the War Industries Board. The last named board was
+during the war the recognized arbiter of the country's industries, all
+labor matters being handled by its labor representative. The Department
+of Labor, which in the War emergency could rightly be considered the
+Federation's arm in the Administration, was placed in supreme charge of
+general labor administration. Also, in connection with the
+administration of the military conscription law, organized labor was
+given representation on each District Exemption Board. But perhaps the
+strongest expression of the official recognition of the labor movement
+was offered by President Wilson when he took time from the pressing
+business in Washington to journey to Buffalo in November 1917, to
+deliver an address before the convention of the American Federation of
+Labor.
+
+In addition to representation on boards and commissions dealing with
+general policies, the government entered with the Federation into a
+number of agreements relative to the conditions of direct and indirect
+employment by the government. In each agreement the prevalent trade
+union standards were fully accepted and provision was made for a
+three-cornered board of adjustment to consist of a representative of the
+particular government department, the public and labor. Such agreements
+were concluded by the War and Navy departments and by the United States
+Emergency Fleet Corporation. The Shipping Board sponsored a similar
+agreement between the shipping companies and the seafaring unions; and
+the War Department between the leather goods manufacturers and leather
+workers' union. When the government took over the railways on January 1,
+1918, it created three boards of adjustment on the identical principle
+of a full recognition of labor organizations. The spirit with which the
+government faced the labor problem was shown also in connection with the
+enforcement of the eight-hour law. The law of 1912 provided for an
+eight-hour day on contract government work but allowed exceptions in
+emergencies. In 1917 Congress gave the President the right to waive the
+application of the law, but provided that in such event compensation be
+computed on a "basic" eight-hour day. The War and Navy departments
+enforced these provisions not only to the letter but generally gave to
+them a most liberal interpretation.
+
+The taking over of the railways by the government revolutionized the
+railway labor situation. Under private management, as was seen, the four
+brotherhoods alone, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen
+enjoyed universal recognition, the basic eight-hour day (since 1916),
+and high wages. The other organizations of the railway workers, the
+shopmen, the yardmen, the maintenance of way men, the clerks, and the
+telegraphers were, at best, tolerated rather than recognized. Under the
+government administration the eight-hour day was extended to all grades
+of workers, and wages were brought up to a minimum of 68 cents per hour,
+with a considerable though not corresponding increase in the wages of
+the higher grades of labor. All discrimination against union men was
+done away with, so that within a year labor organization on the railways
+was nearing the hundred percent mark.
+
+The policies of the national railway administration of the open door to
+trade unionism and of recognition of union standards were successfully
+pressed upon other employments by the National War Labor Board. On March
+29, 1918, a National War Labor Conference Board, composed of five
+representatives of the Federation of Labor, five representatives of
+employers' associations and two joint chairmen, William H. Taft for the
+employers and Frank P. Walsh for the employes, reported to the Secretary
+of Labor on "Principles and Policies to govern Relations between Workers
+and Employers in War Industries for the Duration of the War." These
+"principles and policies," which were to be enforced by a permanent War
+Labor Board organized upon the identical principle as the reporting
+board, included a voluntary relinquishment of the right to strike and
+lockout by employes and employers, respectively, upon the following
+conditions: First, there was a recognition of the equal right of
+employes and employers to organize into associations and trade unions
+and to bargain collectively. This carried an undertaking by the
+employers not to discharge workers for membership in trade unions or for
+legitimate trade union activities, and was balanced by an undertaking of
+the workers, "in the exercise of their right to organize," not to "use
+coercive measures of any kind to induce persons to join their
+organizations, nor to induce employers to bargain or deal therewith."
+Second, both sides agreed upon the observance of the _status quo ante
+bellum_ as to union or open shop in a given establishment and as to
+union standards of wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.
+This carried the express stipulation that the right to organize was not
+to be curtailed under any condition and that the War Labor Board could
+grant improvement in labor conditions as the situation warranted. Third,
+the understanding was that if women should be brought into industry,
+they must be allowed equal pay for equal work. Fourth, it was agreed
+that "the basic eight-hour day was to be recognized as applying in all
+cases in which the existing law required it, while in all other cases
+the question of hours of labor was to be settled with due regard to
+government necessities and the welfare, health, and proper comfort of
+the workers." Fifth, restriction of output by trade unions was to be
+done away with. Sixth, in fixing wages and other conditions regard was
+to be shown to trade union standards. And lastly came the recognition of
+"the right of all workers, including common laborers, to a living wage"
+and the stipulation that in fixing wages, there will be established
+"minimum rates of pay which will insure the subsistence of the worker
+and his family in health and reasonable comfort."
+
+The establishment of the War Labor Board did not mean that the country
+had gone over to the principle of compulsory arbitration, for the Board
+could not force any party to a dispute to submit to its arbitration or
+by an umpire of its appointment. However, so outspoken was public
+opinion on the necessity of avoiding interruptions in the War industries
+and so far-reaching were the powers of the government over the employer
+as the administrator of material and labor priorities and over the
+employes as the administrator of the conscription law that the indirect
+powers of the Board sufficed to make its decision prevail in nearly
+every instance.
+
+The packing industry was a conspicuous case of the "new course" in
+industrial relations. This industry had successfully kept unionism out
+since an ill-considered strike in 1904, which ended disastrously for the
+strikers. Late in 1917, 60,000 employes in the packing houses went on
+strike for union recognition, the basic eight-hour day, and other
+demands. Intervention by the government led to a settlement, which,
+although denying the union formal recognition, granted the basic
+eight-hour day, a living wage, and the right to organize, together with
+all that it implied, and the appointment of a permanent arbitrator to
+adjudicate disputes. Thus an industry which had prohibited labor
+organization for fourteen years was made to open its door to trade
+unionism.[88] Another telling gain for the basic eight-hour day was made
+by the timber workers in the Northwest, again at the insistence of the
+government.
+
+What the aid of the government in securing the right to organize meant
+to the strength of trade unionism may be derived from the following
+figures. In the two years from 1917 to 1919 the organization of the meat
+cutters and butcher workmen increased its membership from less than
+10,000 to over 66,000; the boilermakers and iron shipbuilders from
+31,000 to 85,000; the blacksmiths from 12,000 to 28,000; the railway
+clerks from less than 7000 to over 71,000; the machinists from 112,000
+to 255,000; the maintenance of way employes from less than 10,000 to
+54,000; the railway carmen from 39,000 to 100,000; the railway
+telegraphers from 27,000 to 45,000; and the electrical workers from
+42,000 to 131,000. The trades here enumerated--mostly related to
+shipbuilding and railways--accounted for the greater part of the total
+gain in the membership of the Federation from two and a half million
+members in 1917 to over three and a third in 1919.
+
+An important aspect of the cooperation of the government with the
+Federation was the latter's eager self-identification with the
+government's foreign policy, which went to the length of choosing to
+play a lone hand in the Allied labor world. Labor in America had an
+implicit faith in the national government, which was shared by neither
+English nor French labor. Whereas the workers in the other Allied
+Nations believed that their governments needed to be prodded or forced
+into accepting the right road to a democratic peace by an international
+labor congress, which would take the entire matter of war and peace out
+of the diplomatic chancellories into an open conference of the
+representatives of the workers, the American workers were only too eager
+to follow the leadership of the head of the American nation. To this
+doubtless was added the usual fervor of a new convert to any cause (in
+this instance the cause of the War against Germany) and a strong
+distrust of German socialism, which American labor leaders have
+developed during their drawn-out struggle against the German-trained
+socialists inside the Federation who have persistently tried to
+"capture" the organization.
+
+When on January 8, 1918, President Wilson enunciated his famous Fourteen
+Points, the Federation of course gave them an enthusiastic endorsement.
+In the autumn of 1918 Gompers went to Europe and participated in an
+Inter-Allied labor conference. He refused, however, to participate in
+the first International Labor and Socialist Congress called since the
+War, which met at Berne, Switzerland, in March 1919, since he would not
+sit with the Germans while their country was not formally at peace with
+the United States. The convention of the Federation in June 1919 gave
+complete endorsement to the League of Nations Pact worked out at
+Versailles,--on general grounds and on the ground of its specific
+provisions for an international regulation of labor conditions designed
+to equalize labor standards and costs. Contrasting with this was the
+position of British labor, which regarded the Pact with a critical eye,
+frankly confessing disillusionment, but was willing to accept it for the
+sake of its future possibilities, when the Pact might be remodelled by
+more liberal and more democratic hands.
+
+The contrast in outlook between the mild evolutionism of the American
+Federation of Labor and the social radicalism of British labor stood out
+nowhere so strongly as in their respective programs for Reconstruction
+after the War. The chief claim of the British Labor party for
+recognition at the hands of the voter at the General Election in
+December 1918, was its well-thought-out reconstruction program put forth
+under the telling title of "Labour and the New Social Order." This
+program was above all a legislative program. It called for a
+thoroughgoing governmental control of industry by means of a control of
+private finance, natural resources, transportation, and international
+trade. To the workingmen such control would mean the right to steady
+employment, the right to a living wage, and the appropriation of
+economic surpluses by the state for the common good--be they in the form
+of rent, excessive profits, or overlarge personal incomes. Beyond this
+minimum program loomed the cooperative commonwealth with the private
+capitalist totally eliminated.
+
+Such was the program of British labor. What of the Reconstruction
+program of American labor? First of all, American labor thought of
+Reconstruction as a program to be carried out by the trade union, not by
+the government. Moreover, it did not see in Reconstruction the great
+break with the past which that meant to British labor. The American
+Federation of Labor applied to Reconstruction the same philosophy which
+lies at the basis of its ordinary, everyday activity. It concerned
+itself not with any far-reaching plan for social reorganization, but
+with a rising standard of living and an enlarged freedom for the union.
+The American equivalent of a government-guaranteed right to employment
+and a living wage was the "right to organize." Assure to labor that
+right, free the trade unions of court interference in strikes and
+boycotts, prevent excessive meddling by the government in industrial
+relations--and the stimulated activities of the "legitimate"
+organizations of labor, which will result therefrom, will achieve a far
+better Reconstruction than a thousand paper programs however beautiful.
+So reasoned the leaders of the American Federation of Labor. During the
+period of War, they of course gladly accepted directly from the
+government the basic eight-hour day and the high wages, which under
+other circumstances they could have got only by prolonged and bitter
+striking. But even more acceptable than these directly bestowed boons
+was the indirect one of the right to organize free from anti-union
+discriminations by employers. Having been arrested in its expansion, as
+we saw, by anti-union employers and especially "trusts," the American
+Federation of Labor took advantage of the War situation to overflow new
+territory. Once entrenched and the organization well in hand, it thought
+it could look to the future with confidence.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[84] For the developments which led up to this joint move see above,
+182-184.
+
+[85] Congress ignored the last-named recommendation which would have
+introduced in the United States the Canadian system of "Compulsory
+Investigation."
+
+[86] See below, 283-287.
+
+[87] See below, 238-240.
+
+[88] The unions again lost their hold upon the packing industry in the
+autumn of 1921.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
+
+
+The Armistice with Germany came suddenly and unexpectedly. To the
+organized workers the news was as welcome as to other citizens. But, had
+they looked at the matter from a special trade union standpoint, they
+would probably have found a longer duration of the War not entirely
+amiss. For coal had been unionized already before the War, the railways
+first during the War, but the third basic industry, steel, was not
+touched either before or during the War. However, it was precisely in
+the steel industry that opposition to unionism has found its chief seat,
+not only to unionism in that industry alone but to unionism in related
+or subsidiary industries as well.
+
+The first three months after the Armistice the general expectation was
+for a set-back in business conditions due to the withdrawal of the
+enormous government War-time demand. Employers and trade unions stood
+equally undecided. When, however, instead of the expected slump, there
+came a prosperity unknown even during the War, the trade unions resumed
+their offensive, now unrestrained by any other but the strictly economic
+consideration. As a matter of fact, the trade unions were not at all
+free agents, since their demands, frequent and considerable though they
+were, barely sufficed to keep wages abreast of the soaring cost of
+living. Through 1919 and the first half of 1920 profits and wages were
+going up by leaps and bounds; and the forty-four hour week,--no longer
+the mere eight-hour day,--became a general slogan and a partial reality.
+Success was especially notable in clothing, building, printing, and the
+metal trades. One cannot say the same, however, of the three basic
+industries, steel, coal, and railways. In steel the twelve-hour day and
+the seven-day week continued as before for approximately one-half of the
+workers and the unions were preparing for a battle with the "Steel
+Trust." While on the railways and in coal mining the unions now began to
+encounter opposition from an unexpected quarter, namely, the government.
+
+When in the summer of 1919 the railway shopmen demanded an increase in
+their wages, which had not been raised since the summer of 1918,
+President Wilson practically refused the demand, urging the need of a
+general deflation but binding himself to use all the powers of the
+government immediately to reduce the cost of living. A significant
+incident in this situation was a spontaneous strike of shopmen on many
+roads unauthorized by international union officials, which disarranged
+the movement of trains for a short time but ended with the men returning
+to work under the combined pressure of their leaders' threats and the
+President's plea.
+
+In September 1919, the United States Railroad Administration and the
+shopmen's unions entered into national agreements, which embodied the
+practices under the Administration as well as those in vogue on the more
+liberal roads before 1918, including recognition and a large number of
+"working rules." These "national agreements" became an important issue
+one year later, when their abolition began to be pressed by the railway
+executives before the Railroad Labor Board, which was established under
+the Transportation Act of 1920.
+
+In the summer of 1919 employers in certain industries, like clothing,
+grew aware of a need of a more "psychological" handling of their labor
+force than heretofore in order to reduce a costly high labor turnover
+and no less costly stoppages of work. This created a veritable Eldorado
+for "employment managers" and "labor managers," real and spurious.
+Universities and colleges, heretofore wholly uninterested in the problem
+of labor or viewing training in that problem as but a part of a general
+cultural education, now vied with one another in establishing "labor
+management" and "labor personnel" courses. One phase of the "labor
+personnel" work was a rather wide experimentation with "industrial
+democracy" plans. These plans varied in form and content, from simple
+provision for shop committees for collective dealing, many of which had
+already been installed during the War under the orders of the War Labor
+Board, to most elaborate schemes, some modelled upon the Constitution of
+the United States. The feature which they all had in common was that
+they attempted to achieve some sort of collective bargaining outside the
+channels of the established trade unions. The trade unionists termed the
+new fashioned expressions of industrial democracy "company unions." This
+term one may accept as technically correct without necessarily accepting
+the sinister connotation imputed to it by labor.
+
+The trade unions, too, were benefiting as organizations. The Amalgamated
+Clothing Workers' Union firmly established itself by formal agreement on
+the men's clothing "markets" of Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore, and New
+York. The membership of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union rose to
+175,000. Employers in general were complaining of increased labor
+unrest, a falling off of efficiency in the shop, and looked askance at
+the rapid march of unionization. The trade unions, on their part, were
+aware of their opportunity and eager for a final recognition as an
+institution in industry. As yet uncertainty prevailed as to whether
+enough had survived of the War-time spirit of give and take to make a
+struggle avoidable, or whether the issue must be solved by a bitter
+conflict of classes.
+
+A partial showdown came in the autumn of 1919. Three great events, which
+came closely together, helped to clear the situation: The steel strike,
+the President's Industrial Conference, and the strike of the soft coal
+miners. The great steel strike, prepared and directed by a Committee
+representing twenty-four national and international unions with William
+Z. Foster as Secretary and moving spirit, tried in September 1919 to
+wrest from the owners of the steel mills what the railway shopmen had
+achieved in 1918 by invitation of the government, namely, "recognition"
+and the eight-hour day. Three hundred thousand men went out on strike at
+the call of the committee. The industry came to a practical standstill.
+But in this case the twenty-four allied unions were not dealing with a
+government amenable to political pressure, nor with a loosely joined
+association of employers competing among themselves. Furthermore, the
+time had passed when the government had either the will or the power to
+interfere and order both sides to arbitrate their dispute. On the
+contrary, the unions were now dealing unaided with the strongest
+capitalist aggregation in the world.
+
+At the request of President Wilson, Gompers had urged the strike
+committee to postpone the strike until after the meeting of the national
+industrial conference called by the President in October, but the
+committee claimed that it could not have kept the men back after a
+summer of agitation and feverish organization had they even tried. The
+President's conference, modelled upon a similar conference which met
+earlier in Great Britain, was composed of three groups of
+representatives equal in number, one for capital, one for labor, and one
+for the general public. Decisions, to be held effective, had to be
+adopted by a majority in each group. The labor representation, dominated
+of course by Gompers, was eager to make the discussion turn on the steel
+strike. It proposed a resolution to this effect which had the support of
+the public group, but fearing a certain rejection by the employer group
+the matter was postponed. The issue upon which the alignment was
+effected was industrial control and collective bargaining. All three
+groups, the employer and public groups and of course the labor group,
+advocated collective bargaining,--but with a difference. The labor group
+insisted that collective bargaining is doomed to be a farce unless the
+employes are allowed to choose as their spokesmen representatives of the
+national trade union. In the absence of a powerful protector in the
+national union, they argued, the workers in a shop can never feel
+themselves on a bargaining equality with their employer, nor can they be
+represented by a spokesman of the necessary ability if their choice be
+restricted to those working in the same plant. The employers, now no
+longer dominated by the War-time spirit which caused them in 1917 to
+tolerate an expansion of unionism, insisted that no employer must be
+obliged to meet for the purpose of collective bargaining with other
+than his own employes.[89] After two weeks of uncertainty, when it had
+become clear that a resolution supported by both labor and public
+groups, which restated the labor position in a milder form, would be
+certain to be voted down by the employer group, the labor group withdrew
+from the conference, and the conference broke up. The period of the
+cooperation of classes had definitely closed.
+
+Meantime the steel strike continued. Federal troops patrolled the steel
+districts and there was no violence. Nevertheless, a large part of the
+country's press pictured the strike by the steel workers for union
+recognition and a normal workday as an American counterpart of the
+Bolshevist revolution in Russia. Public opinion, unbalanced and excited
+as it was over the whirlpool of world events, was in no position to
+resist. The strike failed.
+
+Nothing made so clear to the trade unionists the changed situation since
+the War ended as the strike of the bituminous coal miners which began
+November 1. The miners had entered, in October 1917, into a wage
+agreement with the operators for the duration of the War. The purchasing
+power of their wages having become greatly reduced by the ever rising
+cost of living, discontent was general in the union. A further
+complication arose from the uncertain position of the United States with
+reference to War and Peace, which had a bearing on the situation. The
+miners claimed that the Armistice had ended the War. The War having
+ended, the disadvantageous agreement expired with it. So argued the
+miners and demanded a sixty percent increase in tonnage rates, a
+corresponding one for yardmen and others paid by the day or hour, and a
+thirty-hour week to spread employment through the year. The operators
+maintained that the agreement was still in force, but intimated a
+readiness to make concessions if they were permitted to shift the cost
+to the consumer. At this point, the Fuel Administration, a War-time
+government body, already partly in the process of dissolution,
+intervened and attempted to dictate a settlement at a fourteen percent
+increase, which was entirely unacceptable to the union. The strike
+continued and the prospect of a dire coal famine grew nearer. To break
+the deadlock, on motion of Attorney-General Palmer, Judge Anderson of
+Indianapolis, under the War-time Lever Act, issued an injunction
+forbidding the union officials to continue conducting the strike. The
+strike continued, the strikers refusing to return to work, and a
+Bituminous Coal Commission appointed by the President finally settled it
+by an award of an increase of twenty-seven percent. But that the same
+Administration which had given the unions so many advantages during the
+War should now have invoked against them a War-time law, which had
+already been considered practically abrogated, was a clear indication of
+the change in the times. In a strike by anthracite coal miners in the
+following year an award was made by a Presidential board of three,
+representing the employers, the union, and the public. The strikers,
+however, refused to abide by it and inaugurated a "vacation-strike," the
+individual strikers staying away on a so-called vacation, nominally
+against the will of the union officers. They finally returned to work.
+
+Both the steel and coal strikes furnished occasions for considerable
+anti-union propaganda in the press. Public sentiment long favorable to
+labor became definitely hostile.[90] In Kansas the legislature passed a
+compulsory arbitration law and created an Industrial Relations Court to
+adjudicate trade disputes. Simultaneously an "anti-Red" campaign
+inaugurated by Attorney-General Palmer contributed its share to the
+public excitement and helped to prejudice the cause of labor more by
+implication than by making direct charges. It was in an atmosphere thus
+surcharged with suspicion and fear that a group of employers, led by the
+National Association of Manufacturers and several local employers'
+organizations, launched an open-shop movement with the slogan of an
+"American plan" for shops and industries. Many employers, normally
+opposed to unionism, who in War-time had permitted unionism to acquire
+scope, were now trying to reconquer their lost positions. The example of
+the steel industry and the fiasco of the President's Industrial
+Conference crystallized this reviving anti-union sentiment into action.
+
+Meanwhile the railway labor situation remained unsettled and fraught
+with danger. The problem was bound up with the general problem as to
+what to do with the railways. Many plans were presented to Congress,
+from an immediate return to private owners to permanent government
+ownership and management. The railway labor organizations, that is, the
+four brotherhoods of the train service personnel and the twelve unions
+united in the Railway Employes' Department of the American Federation
+of Labor, came before Congress with the so-called Plumb Plan, worked out
+by Glenn E. Plumb, the legal representative of the brotherhoods. This
+plan proposed that the government take over the railways for good,
+paying a compensation to the owners, and then entrust their operation to
+a board composed of government officials, union representatives, and
+representatives of the technical staffs.[91] So much for ultimate plans.
+On the more immediate wage problem proper, the government had clearly
+fallen down on its promise made to the shopmen in August 1919, when
+their demands for higher wages were refused and a promise was made that
+the cost of living would be reduced. Early in 1920 President Wilson
+notified Congress that he would return the roads to the owners on March
+1, 1920. A few days before that date the Esch-Cummins bill was passed
+under the name of the Transportation Act of 1920. Strong efforts were
+made to incorporate in the bill a prohibition against strikes and
+lockouts. In that form it had indeed passed the Senate. In the House
+bill, however, the compulsory arbitration feature was absent and the
+final law contained a provision for a Railroad Labor Board, of railway,
+union, and public representatives, to be appointed by the President,
+with the power of conducting investigations and issuing awards, but with
+the right to strike or lockout unimpaired either before, during, or
+after the investigation. It was the first appointed board of this
+description which was to pass on the clamorous demands by the railway
+employes for higher wages.[92]
+
+No sooner had the roads been returned under the new law, and before the
+board was even appointed, than a strike broke out among the switchmen
+and yardmen, whose patience had apparently been exhausted. The strike
+was an "outlaw" strike, undertaken against the wishes of national
+leaders and organized and led by "rebel" leaders risen up for the
+occasion. For a time it threatened not only to paralyze the country's
+railway system but to wreck the railway men's organizations as well. It
+was finally brought to an end through the efforts of the national
+leaders, and a telling effect on the situation was produced by an
+announcement by the newly constituted Railroad Labor Board that no
+"outlaw" organization would have standing before it. The Board issued an
+award on July 20, retroactive to May 1, increasing the total annual wage
+bill of the railways by $600,000,000. The award failed to satisfy the
+union, but they acquiesced.
+
+When the increase in wages was granted to the railway employes, industry
+in general and the railways in particular were already entering a period
+of slump. With the depression the open-shop movement took on a greater
+vigor. With unemployment rapidly increasing employers saw their chance
+to regain freedom from union control. A few months later the tide also
+turned in the movement of wages. Inside of a year the steel industry
+reduced wages thirty percent, in three like installments; and the
+twelve-hour day and the seven-day week, which had figured among the
+chief causes of the strike of 1919 and for which the United States Steel
+Corporation was severely condemned by a report of a Committee of the
+Interchurch World Movement,[93] has largely continued as before. In the
+New York "market" of the men's clothing industry, where the union faces
+the most complex and least stable condition mainly owing to the
+heterogeneous character of the employing group, the latter grasped the
+opportunity to break with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union. By
+the end of the spring of 1921 the clothing workers won their struggle,
+showing that a union built along new lines was at least as efficient a
+fighting machine as any of the older unions. It was this union also and
+several local branches of the related union in the ladies' garment
+industry, which realized the need of assuring to the employer at least a
+minimum of labor efficiency if the newly established level of wages was
+not to be materially lowered. Hence the acceptance of the principle of
+"standards of production" fixed with the aid of scientific managers
+employed jointly by the employers and the union.
+
+The spring and summer of 1921 were a time of widespread "readjustment"
+strikes, or strikes against cuts in wages, especially in the building
+trades. The building industry went through in 1921 and 1922 one of its
+periodic upheavals against the tyranny of the "walking delegates" and
+against the state of moral corruption for which some of the latter
+shared responsibility together with an unscrupulous element among the
+employers. In San Francisco, where the grip of the unions upon the
+industry was strongest, the employers turned on them and installed the
+"open-shop" after the building trades' council had refused to accept an
+award by an arbitration committee set up by mutual agreement. The union
+claimed, however, in self-justification that the Committee, by awarding
+a _reduction_ in the wages of fifteen crafts while the issue as
+originally submitted turned on a demand by these crafts for a _raise_
+in wages, had gone outside its legitimate scope. In New York City an
+investigation by a special legislative committee uncovered a state of
+reeking corruption among the leadership in the building trades' council
+and among an element in the employing group in connection with a
+successful attempt to establish a virtual local monopoly in building.
+Some of the leading corruptionists on both sides were given court
+sentences and the building trades' council accepted modifications in the
+"working rules" formulated by the counsel for the investigating
+committee. In Chicago a situation developed in many respects similar to
+the one in San Francisco. In a wage dispute, which was submitted by both
+sides to Federal Judge K.M. Landis for arbitration, the award authorized
+not only a wage reduction but a revision of the "working rules" as well.
+Most of the unionists refused to abide by the award and the situation
+developed into literal warfare. In Chicago the employers' side was
+aggressively upheld by a "citizens' committee" formed to enforce the
+Landis award. The committee claimed to have imported over 10,000
+out-of-town building mechanics to take the places of the strikers.
+
+In the autumn of 1921 the employers in the packing industry discontinued
+the arrangement whereby industrial relations were administered by an
+"administrator,"[94] Judge Alschuler of Chicago, whose rulings had
+materially restricted the employers' control in the shop. Some of the
+employers put into effect company union plans. This led to a strike, but
+in the end the unions lost their foothold in the industry, which the War
+had enabled them to acquire. By that time, however, the open-shop
+movement seemed already passing its peak, without having caused an
+irreparable breach in the position of organized labor. Evidently, the
+long years of preparation before the War and the great opportunity
+during the War itself, if they have failed to give trade unionism the
+position of a recognized national institution, have at least made it
+immune from destruction by employers, however general or skillfully
+managed the attack. In 1920 the total organized union membership,
+including the 871,000 in unions unaffiliated with the American
+Federation of Labor, was slightly short of 5,000,000, or over four
+million in the Federation itself. In 1921 the membership of the
+Federation declined slightly to 3,906,000, and the total organized
+membership probably in proportion. In 1922 the membership of the
+Federation declined to about 3,200,000, showing a loss of about 850,000
+since the high mark of 1920.
+
+The legal position of trade unions has continued as uncertain and
+unsatisfactory to the unions, as if no Clayton Act had been passed. The
+closed shop has been condemned as coercion of non-unionists. Yet in the
+Coppage case[95] the United States Supreme Court found that it is not
+coercion when an employer threatens discharge unless union membership is
+renounced. Similarly, it is unlawful for union agents to attempt
+organization, even by peaceful persuasion, when employes have signed
+contracts not to join the union as a condition of employment.[96] A
+decision which arouses strong doubt whether the Clayton Act made any
+change in the status of trade unions was given by the Supreme Court in
+the recent Duplex Printing case.[97] In this decision the union rested
+its defense squarely on the immunities granted by the Clayton Act.
+Despite this, the injunction was confirmed and the boycott again
+declared illegal, the court holding that the words "employer and
+employes" in the Act restrict its benefits only to "parties standing in
+proximate relation to a controversy," that is to the employes who are
+immediately involved in the dispute and not to the national union which
+undertakes to bring their employer to terms by causing their other
+members to boycott his goods.
+
+The prevailing judicial interpretation of unlawful union methods is
+briefly as follows: Strikes are illegal when they involve defamation,
+fraud, actual physical violence, threats of physical violence, or
+inducement of breach of contract. Boycotts are illegal when they bring
+third parties into the dispute by threats of strikes, or loss of
+business, publication of "unfair lists,"[98] or by interference with
+Interstate commerce. Picketing is illegal when accompanied by violence,
+threats, intimidation, and coercion. In December 1921 the Supreme Court
+declared mere numbers in groups constituted intimidation and, while
+admitting that circumstances may alter cases, limited peaceful picketing
+to one picket at each point of ingress or egress of the plant.[99] In
+another case the Court held unconstitutional an Arizona statute, which
+reproduced _verbatim_ the labor clauses of the Clayton Act;[100] this on
+the ground that concerted action by the union would be illegal if the
+means used were illegal and therefore the law which operated to make
+them legal deprived the plaintiff of his property without due process of
+law. In June 1922, in the Coronado case, the Court held that unions,
+although unincorporated, are in every respect like corporations and are
+liable for damages in their corporate capacity, including triple damages
+under the Sherman Anti-Trust law, and which may be collected from their
+funds.
+
+We have already pointed out that since the War ended the American labor
+movement has in the popular mind become linked with radicalism. The
+steel strike and the coal miners' strike in 1919, the revolt against the
+national leaders and "outlaw" strikes in the printing industry and on
+the railways in 1920, the advocacy by the organizations of the railway
+men of the Plumb Plan for nationalization of railways and its repeated
+endorsement by the conventions of the American Federation of Labor, the
+resolutions in favor of the nationalization of coal mines passed at the
+conventions of the United Mine Workers, the "vacation" strike by the
+anthracite coal miners in defiance of a government wage award, the
+sympathy expressed for Soviet Russia in a number of unions, notably of
+the clothing industry, have led many to see, despite the assertions of
+the leaders of the American Federation of Labor to the contrary, an
+apparent drift in the labor movement towards radicalism, or even the
+probability of a radical majority in the Federation in the not distant
+future.
+
+The most startling shift has been, of course, in the railway men's
+organizations, which have changed from a pronounced conservatism to an
+advocacy of a socialistic plan of railway nationalization under the
+Plumb Plan. The Plumb Plan raises the issue of socialism in its
+American form. In bare outline the Plan proposes government acquisition
+of the railroads at a value which excludes rights and privileges not
+specifically granted to the roads in their charters from the States. The
+government would then lease the roads to a private operating corporation
+governed by a tri-partite board of directors equally representing the
+consuming public, the managerial employes, and the classified employes.
+An automatic economy-sharing scheme was designed to assure efficient
+service at low rates calculated to yield a fixed return on a value shorn
+of capitalized privileges.
+
+The purpose of the Plumb Plan is to equalize the opportunities of labor
+and capital in using economic power to obtain just rewards for services
+rendered to the public. In this respect it resembles many of the land
+reform and other "panaceas" which are scattered through labor history.
+Wherein it differs is in making the trade unions the vital and organized
+representatives of producers' interests entitled to participate in the
+direct management of industry. An ideal of copartnership and
+self-employment was thus set up, going beyond the boundaries of
+self-help to which organized labor had limited itself in the eighties.
+
+But it is easy to overestimate the drift in the direction of radicalism.
+The Plumb Plan has not yet been made the _sine qua non_ of the American
+labor program. Although the American Federation of Labor endorsed the
+principle of government ownership of the railways at its conventions of
+1920 and 1921, President Gompers, who spoke against the Plan, was
+reelected and again reelected. And in obeying instructions to cooperate
+with brotherhood leaders, he found that they also thought it inopportune
+to press Plumb Plan legislation actively. So far as the railway men
+themselves are concerned, after the Railroad Labor Board set up under
+the Esch-Cummins act had begun to pass decisions actually affecting
+wages and working rules, the pressure for the Plumb Plan subsided.
+Instead, the activities of the organizations, though scarcely lessened
+in intensity, have become centered upon the issues of conditions of
+employment.
+
+The drift towards independent labor politics, which many anticipate,
+also remains quite inconclusive. A Farmer-Labor party, launched in 1920
+by influential labor leaders of Chicago (to be sure, against the wishes
+of the national leaders), polled not more than 350,000 votes. And in the
+same election, despite a wide dissatisfaction in labor circles with the
+change in the government's attitude after the passage of the War
+emergency and with a most sweeping use of the injunction in the coal
+strike, the vote for the socialist candidate for President fell below a
+million, that is behind the vote of 1912, notwithstanding a doubling of
+the electorate with women's suffrage. Finally, the same convention of
+the American Federation of Labor, which showed so much sympathy for the
+ideas of the Plumb Plan League, approved a rupture with the
+International Trade Union Federation, with headquarters in Amsterdam,
+Holland, mainly on account of the revolutionary character of the
+addresses issued by the latter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[89] The most plausible argument in favor of the position taken by the
+employing group is that no employer should be forced to decide matters
+as intimately connected with the welfare of his business as the ones
+relating to his labor costs and shop discipline with national union
+leaders, since the latter, at best, are interested in the welfare of the
+trade as a whole but rarely in the particular success of _his own_
+particular establishment.
+
+[90] The turn in public sentiment really dated from the threat of a
+strike for the eight-hour day by the four railway brotherhoods in 1916,
+which forced the passage of the Adamson law by Congress. The law was a
+victory for the brotherhoods, but also extremely useful to the enemies
+of organized labor in arousing public hostility to unionism.
+
+[91] See below, 259-261, for a more detailed description of the Plan.
+
+[92] The Transportation Act included a provision that prior to September
+1, 1920, the railways could not reduce wages.
+
+[93] A Protestant interdenominational organization of influence, which
+investigated the strike and issued a report.
+
+[94] The union had not been formally "recognized" at any time.
+
+[95] Coppage _v._ Kansas, 236 U.S. (1915).
+
+[96] Hitchman Coal and Coke Co. _v._ Mitchell et al, 245 U.S. 229
+(1917).
+
+[97] Duplex Printing Press Co. _v._ Deering, 41 Sup. Ct. 172 (1921).
+
+[98] Montana allows the "unfair list" and California allows all
+boycotts.
+
+[99] American Steel Foundries of Granite City, Illinois, _v._ Tri-City
+Central Trades' Council, 42 Sup. Ct. 72 (1921).
+
+[100] Truax et al. _v._ Corrigan, 42 Sup. Ct. 124 (1921).
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION
+
+
+To interpret the labor movement means to offer a theory of the struggle
+between labor and capital in our present society. According to Karl
+Marx, the founder of modern socialism, the efficient cause in all the
+class struggles of history has been technical progress. Progress in the
+mode of making a living or the growth of "productive forces," says Marx,
+causes the coming up of new classes and stimulates in each and all
+classes a desire to use their power for a maximum class advantage.
+Referring to the struggle between the class of wage earners and the
+class of employers, Marx brings out that modern machine technique has
+concentrated the social means of production under the ownership of the
+capitalist, who thus became absolute master. The laborer indeed remains
+a free man to dispose of his labor as he wishes, but, having lost
+possession of the means of production, which he had as a master-workman
+during the preceding handicraft stage of industry, his freedom is only
+an illusion and his bargaining power is no greater than if he were a
+slave.
+
+But capitalism, Marx goes on to say, while it debases the worker, at the
+same time produces the conditions of his ultimate elevation. Capitalism
+with its starvation wages and misery makes the workers conscious of
+their common interests as an exploited class, concentrates them in a
+limited number of industrial districts, and forces them to organize for
+a struggle against the exploiters. The struggle is for the complete
+displacement of the capitalists both in government and industry by the
+revolutionary labor class. Moreover, capitalism itself renders effective
+although unintended aid to its enemies by developing the following three
+tendencies: First, we have the tendency towards the concentration of
+capital and wealth in the hands of a few of the largest capitalists,
+which reduces the number of the natural supporters of capitalism.
+Second, we observe a tendency towards a steady depression of wages and a
+growing misery of the wage-earning class, which keeps revolutionary
+ardor alive. And lastly, the inevitable and frequent economic crises
+under capitalism disorganize it and hasten it on towards destruction.
+The last and gravest capitalistic industrial crisis will coincide with
+the social revolution which will bring capitalism to an end. The
+wage-earning class must under no condition permit itself to be diverted
+from its revolutionary program into futile attempts to "patch-up"
+capitalism. The labor struggle must be for the abolition of capitalism.
+
+American wage earners have steadily disappointed several generations of
+Marxians by their refusal to accept the Marxian theory of social
+development and the Marxian revolutionary goal. In fact, in their
+thinking, most American wage earners do not start with any general
+theory of industrial society, but approach the subject as bargainers,
+desiring to strike the best wage bargain possible. They also have a
+conception of what the bargain ought to yield them by way of real
+income, measured in terms of their customary standard of living, in
+terms of security for the future, and in terms of freedom in the shop or
+"self-determination." What impresses them is not so much the fact that
+the employer owns the employment opportunities but that he possesses a
+high degree of bargaining advantage over them. Viewing the situation as
+bargainers, they are forced to give their best attention to the menaces
+they encounter as bargainers, namely, to the competitive menaces; for on
+these the employer's own advantage as a bargainer rests. Their impulse
+is therefore not to suppress the employer, but to suppress those
+competitive menaces, be they convict labor, foreign labor, "green" or
+untrained workers working on machines, and so forth. To do so they feel
+they must organize into a union and engage in a "class struggle" against
+the employer.
+
+It is the employer's purpose to bring in ever lower and lower levels in
+competition among laborers and depress wages; it is the purpose of the
+union to eliminate those lower levels and to make them stay eliminated.
+That brings the union men face to face with the whole matter of
+industrial control. They have no assurance that the employer will not
+get the best of them in bargaining unless they themselves possess enough
+control over the shop and the trade to check him. Hence they will strive
+for the "recognition" of the union by the employer or the associated
+employers as an acknowledged part of the government of the shop and the
+trade. It is essential to note that in struggling for recognition, labor
+is struggling not for something absolute, as would be a struggle for a
+complete dispossession of the employer, but for the sort of an end that
+admits of relative differences and gradations. Industrial control may be
+divided in varying proportions,[101] reflecting at any one time the
+relative ratio of bargaining power of the contesting sides. It is
+labor's aim to continue increasing its bargaining power and with it its
+share of industrial control, just as it is the employer's aim to
+maintain a _status quo_ or better. Although this presupposes a
+continuous struggle, it is not a revolutionary but an "opportunist"
+struggle.
+
+Once we accept the view that a broadly conceived aim to control
+competitive menaces is the key to the conduct of organized labor in
+America, light is thrown on the causes of the American industrial class
+struggles. In place of looking for these causes, with the Marxians, in
+the domain of technique and production, we shall look for them on the
+market, where all developments which affect labor as a bargainer and
+competitor, of which technical change is one, are sooner or later bound
+to register themselves. It will then become possible to account for the
+long stretch of industrial class struggle in America prior to the
+factory system, while industry continued on the basis of the handicraft
+method of production. Also we shall be able to render to ourselves a
+clearer account of the changes, with time, in the intensity of the
+struggle, which, were we to follow the Marxian theory, would appear
+hopelessly irregular.
+
+We shall take for an illustration the shoe industry.[102] The ease with
+which shoes can be transported long distances, due to the relatively
+high money value contained in small bulk, rendered the shoe industry
+more sensitive to changes in marketing than other industries. Indeed we
+may say that the shoe industry epitomized the general economic evolution
+of the country.[103]
+
+We observe no industrial class struggle during Colonial times when the
+market remained purely local and the work was custom-order work. The
+journeyman found his standard of life protected along with the master's
+own through the latter's ability to strike a favorable bargain with the
+consumer. This was done by laying stress upon the quality of the work.
+It was mainly for this reason that during the custom-order stage of
+industry the journeymen seldom if ever raised a protest because the
+regulation of the craft, be it through a guild or through an informal
+organization, lay wholly in the hands of the masters. Moreover, the
+typical journeyman expected in a few years to set up with an apprentice
+or two in business for himself--so there was a reasonable harmony of
+interests.
+
+A change came when improvements in transportation, the highway and later
+the canal, had widened the area of competition among masters. As a first
+step, the master began to produce commodities in advance of the demand,
+laying up a stock of goods for the retail trade. The result was that his
+bargaining capacity over the consumer was lessened and so prices
+eventually had to be reduced, and with them also wages. The next step
+was even more serious. Having succeeded in his retail business, the
+master began to covet a still larger market,--the wholesale market.
+However, the competition in this wider market was much keener than it
+had been in the custom-order or even in the retail market. It was
+inevitable that both prices and wages should suffer in the process. The
+master, of course, could recoup himself by lowering the quality of the
+product, but when he did that he lost a telling argument in bargaining
+with the consumer or the retail merchant. Another result of this new way
+of conducting the business was that an increased amount of capital was
+now required for continuous operation, both in raw material and in
+credits extended to distant buyers.
+
+The next phase in the evolution of the market rendered the separation of
+the journeymen into a class by themselves even sharper as well as more
+permanent. The market had grown to such dimensions that only a
+specialist in marketing and credit could succeed in business, namely,
+the "merchant-capitalist." The latter now interposed himself permanently
+between "producer" and consumer and by his control of the market assumed
+a commanding position. The merchant-capitalist ran his business upon the
+principle of a large turn-over and a small profit per unit of product,
+which, of course, made his income highly speculative. He was accordingly
+interested primarily in low production and labor costs. To depress the
+wage levels he tapped new and cheaper sources of labor supply, in prison
+labor, low wage country-town labor, woman and child labor; and set them
+up as competitive menaces to the workers in the trade. The
+merchant-capitalist system forced still another disadvantage upon the
+wage earner by splitting up crafts into separate operations and tapping
+lower levels of skill. In the merchant-capitalist period we find the
+"team work" and "task" system. The "team" was composed of several
+workers: a highly skilled journeyman was in charge, but the other
+members possessed varying degrees of skill down to the practically
+unskilled "finisher." The team was generally paid a lump wage, which
+was divided by an understanding among the members. With all that the
+merchant-capitalist took no appreciable part in the productive process.
+His equipment consisted of a warehouse where the raw material was cut up
+and given out to be worked up by small contractors, to be worked up in
+small shops with a few journeymen and apprentices, or else by the
+journeyman at his home,--all being paid by the piece. This was the
+notorious "sweatshop system."
+
+The contractor or sweatshop boss was a mere labor broker deriving his
+income from the margin between the piece rate he received from the
+merchant-capitalist and the rate he paid in wages. As any workman could
+easily become a contractor with the aid of small savings out of wages,
+or with the aid of money advanced by the merchant-capitalist, the
+competition between contractors was of necessity of the cut-throat kind.
+The industrial class struggle was now a three-cornered one, the
+contractor aligning himself here with the journeymen, whom he was forced
+to exploit, there with the merchant-capitalist, but more often with the
+latter. Also, owing to the precariousness of the position of both
+contractor and journeyman, the class struggle now reached a new pitch of
+intensity hitherto unheard of. It is important to note, however, that as
+yet the tools of production had not undergone any appreciable change,
+remaining hand tools as before, and also that the journeyman still owned
+them. So that the beginning of class struggles had nothing to do with
+machine technique and a capitalist ownership of the tools of production.
+The capitalist, however, had placed himself across the outlets to the
+market and dominated by using all the available competitive menaces to
+both contractor and wage earner. Hence the bitter class struggle.
+
+The thirties witnessed the beginning of the merchant-capitalist system
+in the cities of the East. But the situation grew most serious during
+the forties and fifties. That was a period of the greatest
+disorganization of industry. The big underlying cause was the rapid
+extension of markets outrunning the technical development of industry.
+The large market, opened first by canals and then by railroads,
+stimulated the keenest sort of competition among the
+merchant-capitalists. But the industrial equipment at their disposal had
+made no considerable progress. Except in the textile industry, machinery
+had not yet been invented or sufficiently perfected to make its
+application profitable. Consequently industrial society was in the
+position of an antiquated public utility in a community which
+persistently forces ever lower and lower rates. It could continue to
+render service only by cutting down the returns to the factors of
+production,--by lowering profits, and especially by pressing down wages.
+
+In the sixties the market became a national one as the effect of the
+consolidation into trunk lines of the numerous and disconnected railway
+lines built during the forties and fifties. Coincident with the
+nationalized market for goods, production began to change from a
+handicraft to a machine basis. The former sweatshop boss having
+accumulated some capital, or with the aid of credit, now became a small
+"manufacturer," owning a small plant and employing from ten to fifty
+workmen. Machinery increased the productivity of labor and gave a
+considerable margin of profits, which enabled him to begin laying a
+foundation for his future independence of the middleman. As yet he was,
+however, far from independent.
+
+The wider areas over which manufactured products were now to be
+distributed, called more than ever before for the services of the
+specialist in marketing, namely, the wholesale-jobber. As the market
+extended, he sent out his traveling men, established business
+connections, and advertised the articles which bore his trade mark. His
+control of the market opened up credit with the banks, while the
+manufacturer, who with the exception of his patents possessed only
+physical capital and no market opportunities, found it difficult to
+obtain credit. Moreover, the rapid introduction of machinery tied up all
+of the manufacturers' available capital and forced him to turn his
+products into money as rapidly as possible, with the inevitable result
+that the merchant was given an enormous bargaining advantage over him.
+Had the extension of the market and the introduction of machinery
+proceeded at a less rapid pace, the manufacturer probably would have
+been able to obtain greater control over the market opportunities, and
+the larger credit which this would have given him, combined with the
+accumulation of his own capital, might have been sufficient to meet his
+needs. However, as the situation really developed, the merchant obtained
+a superior bargaining power and, by playing off the competing
+manufacturers one against another, produced a cut-throat competition,
+low prices, low profits, and consequently a steady and insistent
+pressure upon wages. This represents the situation in the seventies and
+eighties.
+
+For labor the combination of cut-throat competition among employers with
+the new machine technique brought serious consequences. In this era of
+machinery the forces of technical evolution decisively joined hands
+with the older forces of marketing evolution to depress the conditions
+of the wage bargain. It is needless to dilate upon the effects of
+machine technique on labor conditions--they have become a commonplace of
+political economy. The shoemakers were first among the organized trades
+to feel the effects. In the later sixties they organized what was then
+the largest trade union in the world, the Order of the Knights of St.
+Crispin,[104] to ward off the menace of "green hands" set to work on
+machines. With the machinists and the metal trades in general, the
+invasion of unskilled and little skilled competitors began a decade
+later. But the main and general invasion came in the eighties, the
+proper era from which to date machine production in America. It was
+during the eighties that we witness an attempted fusion into one
+organization, the Order of the Knights of Labor, of the machine-menaced
+mechanics and the hordes of the unskilled.[105]
+
+With the nineties a change comes at last. The manufacturer finally wins
+his independence. Either he reaches out directly to the ultimate
+consumer by means of chains of stores or other devices, or else, he
+makes use of his control over patents and trade marks and thus succeeds
+in reducing the wholesale-jobber to a position which more nearly
+resembles that of an agent working on a commission basis than that of
+the _quondam_ industrial ruler. The immediate outcome is, of course, a
+considerable increase in the manufacturer's margin of profit. The
+industrial class struggle begins to abate in intensity. The employer,
+now comparatively free of anxiety that he may be forced to operate at a
+loss, is able to diminish pressure on wages. But more than this: the
+greater certainty about the future, now that he is a free agent, enables
+him to enter into time agreements with a trade union. At first he is
+generally disinclined to forego any share of his newly acquired freedom
+by tying himself up with a union. But if the union is strong and can
+offer battle, then he accepts the situation and "recognizes" it. Thus
+the class struggle instead of becoming sharper and sharper with the
+advance of capitalism and leading, as Marx predicted, to a social
+revolution, in reality, grows less and less revolutionary and leads to a
+compromise or succession of compromises,--namely, collective trade
+agreements.
+
+But the manufacturer's emancipation from the middleman need not always
+lead to trade agreements. In the shoe industry this process did not do
+away with competition. In other industries such an emancipation was
+identical with the coming in of the "trust," or a combination of
+competing manufacturers into a monopoly. As soon as the "trust" becomes
+practically the sole employer of labor in an industry, the relations
+between labor and capital are thrown almost invariably back into the
+state of affairs which characterized the merchant-capitalist system at
+its worst, but with one important difference. Whereas under the
+merchant-capitalist system the employer was _obliged_ to press down on
+wages and fight unionism to death owing to cut-throat competition, the
+"trust," its strength supreme in both commodity and labor market, can do
+so and usually does so _of free choice_.
+
+The character of the labor struggle has been influenced by cyclical
+changes in industry as much as by the permanent changes in the
+organization of industry and market. In fact, whereas reaction to the
+latter has generally been slow and noticeable only over long periods of
+time, with a turn in the business cycle, the labor movement reacted
+surely and instantaneously.
+
+We observed over the greater part of the history of American labor an
+alternation of two planes of thought and action, an upper and a lower.
+On the upper plane, labor thought was concerned with ultimate goals,
+self-employment or cooperation, and problems arising therefrom, while
+action took the form of politics. On the lower plane, labor abandoned
+the ultimate for the proximate, centering on betterments within the
+limits of the wage system and on trade-union activity. Labor history in
+the past century was largely a story of labor's shifting from one plane
+to another, and then again to the first. It was also seen that what
+determined the plane of thought and action at any one time was the state
+of business measured by movements of wholesale and retail prices and
+employment and unemployment. When prices rose and margins of employers'
+profits were on the increase, the demand for labor increased and
+accordingly also labor's strength as a bargainer; at the same time,
+labor was compelled to organize to meet a rising cost of living. At such
+times trade unionism monopolized the arena, won strikes, increased
+membership, and forced "cure-alls" and politics into the background.
+When, however, prices fell and margins of profit contracted, labor's
+bargaining strength waned, strikes were lost, trade unions faced the
+danger of extinction, and "cure-alls" and politics received their day in
+court. Labor would turn to government and politics only as a last
+resort, when it had lost confidence in its ability to hold its own in
+industry. This phenomenon, noticeable also in other countries, came out
+with particular clearness in America.
+
+For, as a rule, down to the World War, prices both wholesale and retail,
+fluctuated in America more violently than in England or the Continent.
+And twice, once in the thirties and again in the sixties, an
+irredeemable paper currency moved up the water mark of prices to
+tremendous heights followed by reactions of corresponding depth. From
+the war of 1812, the actual beginning of an industrial America, to the
+end of the century, the country went through several such complete
+industrial and business cycles. We therefore conveniently divide labor
+and trade union history into periods on the basis of the industrial
+cycle. It was only in the nineties, as we saw, that the response of the
+labor movement to price fluctuations ceased to mean a complete or nearly
+complete abandonment of trade unionism during depressions. A continuous
+and stable trade union movement consequently dates only from the
+nineties.
+
+The cooperative movement which was, as we saw, far less continuous than
+trade unionism, has also shown the effects of the business cycle. The
+career of distributive cooperation in America has always been intimately
+related to the movements of retail prices and wages. If, in the advance
+of wages and prices during the ascending portion of the industrial
+cycle, the cost of living happened to outdistance wages by a wide
+margin, the wage earners sought a remedy in distributive cooperation.
+They acted likewise during the descending portion of the industrial
+cycle, when retail prices happened to fall much less slowly than wages.
+
+Producers' cooperation in the United States has generally been a "hard
+times" remedy. When industrial prosperity has passed its high crest and
+strikes have begun to fail, producers' cooperation has often been used
+as a retaliatory measure to bring the employer to terms by menacing to
+underbid him in the market. Also, when in the further downward course of
+industry the point has been reached where cuts in wages and unemployment
+have become quite common, producers' cooperation has sometimes come in
+as an attempt to enable the wage earner to obtain both employment and
+high earnings bolstered through cooperative profits.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[101] The struggle for control, as carried on by trade unions, centers
+on such matters as methods of wage determination, the employer's right
+of discharge, hiring and lay-off, division of work, methods of enforcing
+shop discipline, introduction of machinery and division of labor,
+transfers of employes, promotions, the union or non-union shop, and
+similar subjects.
+
+[102] The first trade societies were organized by shoemakers. (See
+above, 4-7.)
+
+[103] See Chapter on "American Shoemakers," in _Labor and
+Administration_, by John R. Commons (Macmillan, 1913).
+
+[104] See Don D. Lescohier, _The Order of the Knights of St. Crispin_.
+
+[105] See above, 114-116.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+THE IDEALISTIC FACTOR
+
+
+The puzzling fact about the American labor movement is, after all, its
+limited objective. As we saw before, the social order which the typical
+American trade unionist considers ideal is one in which organized labor
+and organized capital possess equal bargaining power. The American trade
+unionist wants, first, an equal voice with the employer in fixing wages
+and, second, a big enough control over the productive processes to
+protect job, health, and organization. Yet he does not appear to wish to
+saddle himself and fellow wage earners with the trouble of running
+industry without the employer.
+
+But materialistic though this philosophy appears, it is nevertheless the
+product of a long development to which the spiritual contributed no less
+than the material. In fact the American labor movement arrived at an
+opportunist trade unionism only after an endeavor spread over more than
+seventy years to realize a more idealistic program.
+
+American labor started with the "ideology" of the Declaration of
+Independence in 1776. Intended as a justification of a political
+revolution, the Declaration was worded by the authors as an expression
+of faith in a social revolution. To controvert the claims of George III,
+Thomas Jefferson quoted Rousseau. To him Rousseau was in all probability
+little more than an abstract "beau ideal," but Rousseau's abstractions
+were no mere abstractions to the pioneer American farmer. To the latter
+the doctrine that all men are born free and equal seemed to have grown
+directly out of experience. So it appeared, two or three generations
+later, to the young workmen when they for the first time achieved
+political consciousness. And, if reality ceased to square with the
+principles of the Declaration, it became, they felt, the bounden duty of
+every true American to amend reality.
+
+Out of a combination of the principles of individual rights, individual
+self-determination, equality of opportunity, and political equality
+enumerated and suggested in the Declaration, arose the first and most
+persistent American labor philosophy. This philosophy differed in no
+wise from the philosophy of the old American democracy except in
+emphasis and particular application, yet these differences are highly
+significant. Labor read into the Declaration of Independence a
+condemnation of the wage system as a permanent economic regime; sooner
+or later in place of the wage system had to come _self-employment_.
+Americanism to them was a social and economic as well as a political
+creed. Economic self-determination was as essential to the individual as
+political equality. Just as no true American will take orders from a
+king, so he will not consent forever to remain under the orders of a
+"boss." It was the _uplifting_ force of this social ideal as much as the
+propelling force of the changing economic environment that molded the
+American labor program.
+
+We find it at work at first in the decade of the thirties at the very
+beginning of the labor movement. It then took the form of a demand for a
+free public school system. These workingmen in Philadelphia and New York
+discovered that in the place of the social democracy of the
+Declaration, America had developed into an "aristocracy." They thought
+that the root of it all lay in "inequitable" legislation which fostered
+"monopoly," hence the remedy lay in democratic legislation. But they
+further realized that a political and social democracy must be based on
+an educated and intelligent working class. No measure, therefore, could
+be more than a palliative until they got a "Republican" system of
+education. The workingmen's parties of 1828-1831 failed as parties, but
+humanitarians like Horace Mann took up the struggle for free public
+education and carried it to success.
+
+If in the thirties the labor program was to restore a social and
+political democracy by means of the public school, in the forties the
+program centered on economic democracy, on equality of economic
+opportunity. This took the form of a demand of a grant of public land
+free of charge to everyone willing to brave the rigors of pioneer life.
+The government should thus open an escape to the worker from the wage
+system into self-employment by way of free land. After years of
+agitation, the same cry was taken up by the Western States eager for
+more settlers to build up their communities and this combined agitation
+proved irresistible and culminated in the Homestead law of 1862.
+
+The Homestead law opened up the road to self-employment by way of free
+land and agriculture. But in the sixties the United States was already
+becoming an industrial country. In abandoning the city for the farm, the
+wage earner would lose the value of his greatest possession--his skill.
+Moreover, as a homesteader, his problem was far from solved by mere
+access to free land. Whether he went on the land or stayed in industry,
+he needed access to reasonably free credit. The device invented by
+workingmen to this end was the bizarre "greenback" idea which held their
+minds as if in a vise for nearly twenty years. "Greenbackism" left no
+such permanent trace on American social and economic structure as
+"Republican education" or "free land."
+
+The lure of "greenbackism" was that it offered an opportunity for
+self-employment. But already in the sixties, it became clear that the
+workingman could not expect to attain self-employment as an individual,
+but if at all, it had to be sought on the basis of producers'
+cooperation. In the eighties, it became doubly clear that industry had
+gone beyond the one-man-shop stage; self-employment had to stand or fall
+with the cooperative or self-governing workshop. The protagonist of this
+most interesting and most idealistic striving of American labor was the
+"Noble Order of the Knights of Labor," which reached its height in the
+middle of the eighties.
+
+The period of the greatest enthusiasm for cooperation was between 1884
+and 1887; and by 1888 the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle
+of life and succumbed. The failure of cooperation proved a turning point
+in the evolution of the American labor program. Whatever the special
+causes of failure, the idealistic unionism, for which the ideas of the
+Declaration of Independence served as a fountain head, suffered in the
+eyes of labor, a degree of discredit so overwhelming that to regain its
+old position was no longer possible. The times were ripe for the
+opportunistic unionism of Gompers and the trade unionists.
+
+These latter, having started in the seventies as Marxian socialists, had
+been made over into opportunistic unionists by their practical contact
+with American conditions. Their philosophy was narrower than that of the
+Knights and their concept of labor solidarity narrower still. However,
+these trade unionists demonstrated that they could win strikes. It was
+to this practical trade unionism, then, that the American labor movement
+turned, about 1890, when the idealism of the Knights of Labor had
+failed. From groping for a cooperative economic order or
+self-employment, labor turned with the American Federation of Labor to
+developing bargaining power for use against employers. This trade
+unionism stood for a strengthened group consciousness. While it
+continued to avow sympathy with the "anti-monopoly" aspirations of the
+"producers," who fought for the opportunity of self-employment, it also
+declared that the interests of democracy will be best served if the wage
+earners organized by themselves.
+
+This opportunist unionism, now at last triumphant over the idealistic
+unionism induced by America's spiritual tradition, soon was obliged to
+fight against a revolutionary unionism which, like itself, was an
+offshoot of the socialism of the seventies. At first, the American
+Federation of Labor was far from hostile to socialism as a philosophy.
+Its attitude was rather one of mild contempt for what it considered to
+be wholly impracticable under American conditions, however necessary or
+efficacious under other conditions. When, about 1890, the socialists
+declared their policy of "boring from within," that is, of capturing the
+Federation for socialism by means of propaganda in Federation ranks,
+this attitude remained practically unchanged. Only when, dissatisfied
+with the results of boring from within, the socialists, now led by a
+more determined leadership, attempted in 1895 to set up a rival to the
+Federation in the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, was there a sharp
+line drawn between socialist and anti-socialist in the Federation. The
+issue once having become a fighting issue, the leaders of the Federation
+experienced the need of a positive and well rounded-out social
+philosophy capable of meeting socialism all along the front instead of
+the former self-imposed super-pragmatism.
+
+By this time, the Federation had become sufficiently removed in point of
+time from its foreign origin to turn to the social ideal derived from
+pioneer America as the philosophy which it hoped would successfully
+combat an aggressive and arrogant socialism. Thus it came about that the
+front against socialism was built out from the immediate and practical
+into the ultimate and spiritual; and that inferences drawn from a
+reading of Jefferson's Declaration, with its emphasis on individual
+liberty, were pressed into service against the seductive collectivist
+forecasts of Marx.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY
+
+
+The question of a political labor party hinges, in the last analysis, on
+the benefits which labor expects from government. If, under the
+constitution, government possesses considerable power to regulate
+industrial relations and improve labor conditions, political power is
+worth striving for. If, on the contrary, the power of the government is
+restricted by a rigid organic law, the matter is reversed. The latter is
+the situation in the United States. The American constitutions, both
+Federal and State, contain bills of rights which embody in fullness the
+eighteenth-century philosophy of economic individualism and governmental
+_laissez-faire_. The courts, Federal and State, are given the right to
+override any law enacted by Congress or the State legislatures which may
+be shown to conflict with constitutional rights.
+
+In the exercise of this right, American judges have always inclined to
+be very conservative in allowing the legislature to invade the province
+of economic freedom. At present after many years of agitation by
+humanitarians and trade unionists, the cause of legislative protection
+of child and woman laborers seems to be won in principle. But this
+progress has been made because it has been shown conclusively that the
+protection of these most helpless groups of the wage-earning class
+clearly falls within the scope of public purpose and is therefore a
+lawful exercise of the state's police power within the meaning of the
+constitution. However, adult male labor offers a far different case.
+Moreover, should the unexpected happen and the courts become converted
+to a broader view, the legislative standards would be small compared
+with the standards already enforced by most of the trade unions.
+Consequently, so far as adult male workers are concerned (and they are
+of course the great bulk of organized labor), labor in America would
+scarcely be justified in diverting even a part of its energy from trade
+unionism to a relatively unprofitable seeking of redress through
+legislatures and courts.[106]
+
+But this is no more than half the story. Granting even that political
+power may be worth having, its attainment is beset with difficulties and
+dangers more than sufficient to make responsible leaders pause. The
+causes reside once more in the form of government, also in the general
+nature of American politics, and in political history and tradition. To
+begin with, labor would have to fight not on one front, but on
+forty-nine different fronts.[107]
+
+Congress and the States have power to legislate on labor matters; also,
+in each, power is divided between an executive and the two houses of the
+legislature. Decidedly, government in America was built not for strength
+but for weakness. The splitting up of sovereignty does not especially
+interfere with the purposes of a conservative party, but to a party of
+social and industrial reform it offers a disheartening obstacle. A labor
+party, to be effective, would be obliged to capture all the diffused
+bits of sovereignty at the same time. A partial gain is of little avail,
+since it is likely to be lost at the next election even simultaneously
+with a new gain. But we have assumed here that the labor party had
+reached the point where its trials are the trials of a party in power or
+nearing power. In reality, American labor parties are spared this sort
+of trouble by trials of an anterior order residing in the nature of
+American politics.
+
+The American political party system antedates the formation of modern
+economic classes, especially the class alignment of labor and capital.
+Each of the old parties represents, at least in theory, the entire
+American community regardless of class. Party differences are considered
+differences of opinion or of judgment on matters of public policy, not
+differences of class interest. The wage earner in America, who never had
+to fight for his suffrage but received it as a free gift from the
+Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democratic movements and who did not
+therefore develop the political class consciousness which was stamped
+into the workers in Europe by the feeling of revolt against an upper
+ruling class, is prone to adopt the same view of politics. Class parties
+in America have always been effectively countered by the old established
+parties with the charge that they tend to incite class against class.
+
+But the old parties had on numerous occasions, as we saw, an even more
+effective weapon. No sooner did a labor party gain a foothold, than the
+old party politician, the "friend of labor," did appear and start a
+rival attraction by a more or less verbal adherence to one or more
+planks of the rising party. Had he been, as in Europe, a branded
+spokesman of a particular economic class or interest, it would not have
+been difficult to ward him off. But here in America, he said that he too
+was a workingman and was heart and soul for the workingman. Moreover,
+the workingman was just as much attached to an old party label as any
+average American. In a way he considered it an assertion of his social
+equality with any other group of Americans that he could afford to take
+the same "disinterested" and tradition-bound view of political struggles
+as the rest. This is why labor parties generally encountered such
+disheartening receptions at the hands of workingmen; also why it was
+difficult to "deliver the labor vote" to any party. This, on the whole,
+describes the condition of affairs today as it does the situations in
+the past.
+
+In the end, should the workingman be pried loose from his traditional
+party affiliation by a labor event of transcendent importance for the
+time being, should he be stirred to political revolt by an oppressive
+court decision, or the use of troops to break a strike; then, at the
+next election, when the excitement has had time to subside, he will
+usually return to his political normality. Moreover, should labor
+discontent attain depth, it may be safely assumed that either one or the
+other of the old parties or a faction therein will seek to divert its
+driving force into its own particular party channel. Should the labor
+party still persist, the old party politicians, whose bailiwick it will
+have particularly invaded, will take care to encourage, by means not
+always ethical but nearly always effective, strife in its ranks. Should
+that fail, the old parties will in the end "fuse" against the upstart
+rival. If they are able to stay "fused" during enough elections and also
+win them, the fidelity of the adherent of the third party is certain to
+be put to a hard and unsuccessful test. To the outsider these
+conclusions may appear novel, but labor in America learned these lessons
+through a long experience, which began when the first workingmen's
+parties were attempted in 1828-1832. The limited potentialities of labor
+legislation together with the apparent hopelessness of labor party
+politics compelled the American labor movement to develop a sort of
+non-partisan political action with limited objectives thoroughly
+characteristic of American conditions. Labor needs protection from
+interference by the courts in the exercise of its economic weapons, the
+strike and the boycott, upon which it is obviously obliged to place
+especial reliance. In other words, though labor may refuse to be drawn
+into the vortex of politics for the sake of positive attainments, or,
+that is to say, labor legislation, it is compelled to do so for the sake
+of a _negative_ gain--a judicial _laissez-faire_. That labor does by
+pursuing a policy of "reward your friends" and "punish your enemies" in
+the sphere of politics. The method itself is an old one in the labor
+movement; we saw it practiced by George Henry Evans and the land
+reformers of the forties as well as by Steward and the advocates of the
+eight-hour day by law in the sixties. The American Federation of Labor
+merely puts it to use in connection with a new objective, namely,
+freedom from court interference. Although the labor vote is largely
+"undeliverable," still where the parties are more or less evenly matched
+in strength, that portion of the labor vote which is politically
+conscious of its economic interests may swing the election to whichever
+side it turns. Under certain conditions[108] labor has been known even
+to attain through such indirection in excess of what it might have won
+had it come to share in power as a labor party.
+
+The controversy around labor in politics brings up in the last analysis
+the whole problem of leadership in labor organizations, or to be
+specific, the role of the intellectual in the movement. In America his
+role has been remarkably restricted. For a half century or more the
+educated classes had no connection with the labor movement, for in the
+forties and fifties, when the Brook Farm enthusiasts and their
+associates took up with fervor the social question, they were really
+alone in the field, since the protracted trade depression had laid all
+labor organization low. It was in the eighties, with the turmoil of the
+Knights of Labor and the Anarchist bomb in Chicago, that the
+"intellectuals" first awakened to the existence of a labor problem. To
+this awakening no single person contributed more than the economist
+Professor Richard T. Ely, then of Johns Hopkins University. His pioneer
+work on the _Labor Movement in America_ published in 1886, and the works
+of his many capable students gave the labor movement a permanent place
+in the public mind, besides presenting the cause of labor with
+scientific precision and with a judicious balance. Among the other
+pioneers were preachers like Washington Gladden and Lyman Abbott, who
+conceived their duty as that of mediators between the business class and
+the wage earning class, exhorting the former to deal with their employes
+according to the Golden Rule and the latter to moderation in their
+demands. Together with the economists they helped to break down the
+prejudice against labor unionism in so far as the latter was
+non-revolutionary. And though their influence was large, they understood
+that their maximum usefulness would be realized by remaining sympathetic
+outsiders and not by seeking to control the course of the labor
+movement.
+
+In recent years a new type of intellectual has come to the front. A
+product of a more generalized mental environment than his predecessor,
+he is more daring in his retrospects and his prospects. He is just as
+ready to advance an "economic interpretation of the constitution" as to
+advocate a collectivistic panacea for the existing industrial and social
+ills. Nor did this new intellectual come at an inopportune time for
+getting a hearing. Confidence in social conservatism has been undermined
+by an exposure in the press and through legislative investigations of
+the disreputable doings of some of the staunchest conservatives. At such
+a juncture "progressivism" and a "new liberalism" were bound to come
+into their own in the general opinion of the country.
+
+But the labor movement resisted. American labor, both during the periods
+of neglect and of moderate championing by the older generation of
+intellectuals, has developed a leadership wholly its own. This
+leadership, of which Samuel Gompers is the most notable example, has
+given years and years to building up a united fighting _morale_ in the
+army of labor. And because the _morale_ of an army, as these leaders
+thought, is strong only when it is united upon one common attainable
+purpose, the intellectual with his new and unfamiliar issues has been
+given the cold shoulder by precisely the trade unionists in whom he had
+anticipated to find most eager disciples. The intellectual might go from
+success to success in conquering the minds of the middle classes; the
+labor movement largely remains closed to him.
+
+To make matters worse the intellectual has brought with him a psychology
+which is particularly out of fit with the American labor situation. We
+noted that the American labor movement became shunted from the political
+arena into the economic one by virtue of fundamental conditions of
+American political institutions and political life. However, it is
+precisely in political activity where the intellectual is most at home.
+The clear-cut logic and symmetry of political platforms based on general
+theories, the broad vistas which it may be made to encompass, and lastly
+the opportunity for eloquent self-expression offered by parliamentary
+debates, all taken together exert a powerful attraction for the
+intellectualized mind. Contrast with this the prosaic humdrum work of a
+trade union leader, the incessant wrangling over "small" details and
+"petty" grievances, and the case becomes exceedingly clear. The mind of
+the typical intellectual is too generalized to be lured by any such
+alternative. He is out of patience with mere amelioration, even though
+it may mean much in terms of human happiness to the worker and his
+family.
+
+When in 1906, in consequence of the heaping up of legal disabilities
+upon the trade unions, American labor leaders turned to politics to seek
+a restraining hand upon the courts,[109] the intellectuals foresaw a
+political labor party in the not distant future. They predicted that one
+step would inevitably lead to another, that from a policy of bartering
+with the old parties for anti-injunction planks in their platforms,
+labor would turn to a political party of its own. The intellectual
+critic continues to view the political action of the American
+Federation of Labor as the first steps of an invalid learning to walk;
+and hopes that before long he will learn to walk with a firmer step,
+without feeling tempted to lean upon the only too willing shoulders of
+old-party politicians. On the contrary, the Federation leaders, as we
+know, regard their political work as a necessary evil, due to an
+unfortunate turn of affairs, which forces them from time to time to step
+out of their own trade union province in order that their natural enemy,
+the employing class, might get no aid and comfort from an outside ally.
+
+Of late a _rapprochement_ between the intellectual and trade unionist
+has begun to take place. However, it is not founded on the relationship
+of leader and led, but only on a business relationship, or that of giver
+and receiver of paid technical advice. The role of the trained economist
+in handling statistics and preparing "cases" for trade unionists before
+boards of arbitration is coming to be more and more appreciated. The
+railway men's organizations were first to put the intellectual to this
+use, the miners and others followed. From this it is still a far cry to
+the role of such intellectuals as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, G.D.H. Cole
+and the Fabian Research group in England, who have really permeated the
+British labor movement with their views on labor policy. However, there
+is also a place for the American intellectual as an ally of trade
+unionism, not only as its paid servant. The American labor movement has
+committed a grave and costly error because it has not made use of the
+services of writers, journalists, lecturers, and speakers to popularize
+its cause with the general public. Some of its recent defeats, notably
+the steel strike of 1919, were partly due to the neglect to provide a
+sufficient organization of labor publicity to counteract the anti-union
+publicity by the employers.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[106] This assumes that the legislative program of labor would deal
+primarily with the regulation of labor conditions in private employment
+analogous to the legislative program of the British trade unions until
+recent years. Should labor in America follow the newer program of labor
+in Britain and demand the taking over of industries by government with
+compensation, it is not certain that the courts would prove as serious a
+barrier as in the other case. However, the situation would remain
+unchanged so far as the difficulties discussed in the remainder of this
+chapter are concerned.
+
+[107] For the control of the national government and of the forty-eight
+State governments.
+
+[108] Such as a state of war; see above, 235-236.
+
+[109] See above, 203-204.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND TRADE UNIONISM
+
+
+The rise of a political and economic dictatorship by the wage-earning
+class in revolutionary Russia in 1917 has focussed public opinion on the
+labor question as no other event ever did. But one will scarcely say
+that it has tended to clarity of thought. On the one hand, the
+conservative feels confirmed in his old suspicions that there is
+something inherently revolutionary in any labor movement. The extreme
+radical, on the other hand, is as uncritically hopeful for a Bolshevist
+upheaval in America as the conservative or reactionary is uncritically
+fearful. Both forget that an effective social revolution is not the
+product of mere chance and "mob psychology," nor even of propaganda
+however assiduous, but always of a new preponderance of power as between
+contending economic classes.
+
+To students of the social sciences, it is self-evident that the
+prolonged rule of the proletariat in Russia in defiance of nearly the
+whole world must be regarded as a product of Russian life, past and
+present. In fact, the continued Bolshevist rule seems to be an index of
+the relative fighting strength of the several classes in Russian
+society--the industrial proletariat, the landed and industrial
+propertied class, and the peasantry.
+
+It is an irony of fate that the same revolution which purports to enact
+into life the Marxian social program should belie the truth of Marx's
+materialistic interpretation of history and demonstrate that history is
+shaped by both economic and non-economic forces. Marx, as is well known,
+taught that history is a struggle between classes, in which the landed
+aristocracy, the capitalist class, and the wage earning class are raised
+successively to rulership as, with the progress of society's technical
+equipment, first one and then another class can operate it with the
+maximum efficiency. Marx assumed that when the time has arrived for a
+given economic class to take the helm, that class will be found in full
+possession of all the psychological attributes of a ruling class,
+namely, an indomitable will to power, no less than the more vulgar
+desire for the emoluments that come with power. Apparently, Marx took
+for granted that economic evolution is inevitably accompanied by a
+corresponding development of an effective will to power in the class
+destined to rule. Yet, whatever may be the case in the countries of the
+West, in Russia the ruling classes, the gentry and the capitalists,
+clearly failed in the psychological test at the critical time. This
+failure is amply attested by the manner in which they submitted
+practically without a fight after the Bolshevist coup _d'etat_.
+
+To get at the secret of this apparent feebleness and want of spunk in
+Russia's ruling class one must study a peculiarity of her history,
+namely, the complete dominance of Russia's development by organized
+government. Where the historian of the Western countries must take
+account of several independent forces, each standing for a social class,
+the Russian historian may well afford to station himself on the high
+peak of government and, from this point of vantage, survey the hills and
+vales of the society which it so thoroughly dominated.
+
+Apolitism runs like a red thread through the pages of Russian history.
+Even the upper layer of the old noble class, the "Boyars," were but a
+shadow of the Western contemporary medieval landed aristocracy. When the
+several principalities became united with the Czardom of Muscovy many
+centuries ago, the Boyar was in fact no more than a steward of the
+Czar's estate and a leader of a posse defending his property; the most
+he dared to do was surreptitiously to obstruct the carrying out of the
+Czar's intentions; he dared not try to impose the will of his class upon
+the crown. The other classes were even more apolitical. So little did
+the several classes aspire to domination that they missed many golden
+opportunities to seize and hold a share of the political power. In the
+seventeenth century, when the government was exceptionally weak after
+what is known as the "period of troubles," it convoked periodical
+"assemblies of the land" to help administer the country. But, as a
+matter of fact, these assemblies considered themselves ill used because
+they were asked to take part in government and not once did they aspire
+to an independent position in the Russian body politic. Another and
+perhaps even more striking instance we find a century and a half later.
+Catherine the Great voluntarily turned over the local administration to
+the nobles and to that end decreed that the nobility organize themselves
+into provincial associations. But so little did the nobility care for
+political power and active class prerogative that, in spite of the
+broadest possible charters, the associations of nobles were never more
+than social organizations in the conventional sense of the word.
+
+Even less did the commercial class aspire to independence. In the West
+of Europe mercantilism answered in an equal measure the needs of an
+expanding state and of a vigorous middle class, the latter being no less
+ardent in the pursuit of gain than the former in the pursuit of
+conquest. In Russia, on the other hand, when Peter the Great wanted
+manufacturing, he had to introduce it by government action. Hence,
+Russian mercantilism was predominantly a state mercantilism. Even where
+Peter succeeded in enlisting private initiative by subsidies, instead of
+building up a class of independent manufacturers, he merely created
+industrial parasites and bureaucrats without initiative of their own,
+who forever kept looking to the government.
+
+Coming to more recent times, we find that the modern Russian factory
+system likewise owes its origin to governmental initiative, namely, to
+the government's railway-building policy. The government built the
+railways for strategic and fiscal reasons but incidentally created a
+unified internal market which made mass-production of articles of common
+consumption profitable for the first time. But, even after Russian
+capitalism was thus enabled to stand on its own feet, it did not unlearn
+the habit of leaning on the government for advancement rather than
+relying on its own efforts. On its part the autocratic government was
+loath to let industry alone. The government generously dispensed to the
+capitalists tariff protection and bounties in the form of profitable
+orders, but insisted on keeping industry under its thumb. And though
+they might chafe, still the capitalists never neglected to make the best
+of the situation. For instance, when the sugar producers found
+themselves running into a hole from cut-throat competition, they
+appealed to the Minister of Finances, who immediately created a
+government-enforced "trust" and assured them huge dividends. Since
+business success was assured by keeping on the proper footing with a
+generous government rather than by relying on one's own vigor, it stands
+to reason that, generally speaking, the capitalists and especially the
+larger capitalists, could develop only into a class of industrial
+courtiers. And when at last the autocracy fell, the courtiers were not
+to be turned overnight into stubborn champions of the rights of their
+class amid the turmoil of a revolution. To be sure, Russia had entered
+the capitalistic stage as her Marxians had predicted, but nevertheless
+her capitalists were found to be lacking the indomitable will to power
+which makes a ruling class.
+
+The weakness of the capitalists in the fight on behalf of private
+property may be explained in part by their want of allies in the other
+classes in the community. The Russian peasant, reared in the atmosphere
+of communal land ownership, was far from being a fanatical defender of
+private property. No Thiers could have rallied a Russian peasant army
+for the suppression of a communistic industrial wage-earning class by an
+appeal to their property instinct. To make matters worse for the
+capitalists, the peasant's strongest craving was for more land, all the
+land, without compensation! This the capitalists, being capitalists,
+were unable to grant. Yet it was the only sort of currency which the
+peasant would accept in payment for his political support. In November,
+1917, when the Bolsheviki seized the government, one of their first acts
+was to satisfy the peasant's land hunger by turning over to his use all
+the land. The "proletariat" had then a free hand so far as the most
+numerous class in Russia was concerned.
+
+Just as the capitalist class reached the threshold of the revolution
+psychologically below par, so the wage-earning class in developing the
+will to rule outran all expectations and beat the Marxian time-schedule.
+Among the important contributing factors was the unity of the industrial
+laboring class, a unity broken by no rifts between highly paid skilled
+groups and an inferior unskilled class, or between a well-organized
+labor aristocracy and an unorganized helot class. The economic and
+social oppression under the old regime had seen to it that no group of
+laborers should possess a stake in the existing order or desire to
+separate from the rest. Moreover, for several decades, and especially
+since the memorable days of the revolution of 1905, the laboring class
+has been filled by socialistic agitators and propagandists with ideas of
+the great historical role of the proletariat. The writer remembers how
+in 1905 even newspapers of the moderately liberal stamp used to speak of
+the "heroic proletariat marching in the van of Russia's progress." No
+wonder then that, when the revolution came, the industrial wage earners
+had developed such self-confidence as a class that they were tempted to
+disregard the dictum of their intellectual mentors that this was merely
+to be a bourgeois revolution--with the social revolution still remote.
+Instead they listened to the slogan "All power to the Soviets."
+
+The idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" reached maturity in
+the course of the abortive revolution of 1905-1906. After a victory for
+the people in October, 1905, the bourgeoisie grew frightened over the
+aggressiveness of the wage-earning class and sought safety in an
+understanding with the autocracy. An order by the Soviet of Petrograd
+workmen in November, 1905, decreeing the eight-hour day in all factories
+sufficed to make the capitalists forego their historical role of
+champions of popular liberty against autocracy. If the bourgeoisie
+itself will not fight for a democracy, reasoned the revolutionary
+socialists, why have such a democracy at all? Have we not seen the
+democratic form of government lend itself to ill-concealed plutocracy in
+Europe and America? Why run at all the risk of corruption of the
+post-revolutionary government at the hands of the capitalists? Why first
+admit the capitalists into the inner circle and then spend time and
+effort in preventing them from coming to the top? Therefore, they
+declined parliamentarism with thanks and would accept nothing less than
+a government by the representative organ of the workers--the Soviets.
+
+If we are right in laying the emphasis on the relative fighting will and
+fighting strength of the classes struggling for power rather than on the
+doctrines which they preach and the methods, fair or foul, which they
+practice, then the American end of the problem, too, appears in a new
+light. No longer is it in the main a matter of taking sides for or
+against the desirability of a Bolshevist rule or a dictatorship by the
+proletariat, but a matter of ascertaining the relative strength and
+probable behavior of the classes in a given society. It is as futile to
+"see red" in America because of Bolshevism in Russia as to yearn for
+Bolshevism's advent in the United States. Either view misses the
+all-important point that so far as social structure is concerned America
+is the antipodes of Russia, where the capitalists have shown little
+fighting spirit, where the tillers of the soil are only first awakening
+to a conscious desire for private property and are willing to forego
+their natural share in government for a gift of land, and where the
+industrial proletariat is the only class ready and unafraid to fight.
+Bolshevism is unthinkable in America, because, even if by some
+imaginable accident the government were overthrown and a labor
+dictatorship declared, it could never "stay put." No one who knows the
+American business class will even dream that it would under any
+circumstances surrender to a revolution perpetrated by a minority, or
+that it would wait for foreign intervention before starting hostilities.
+A Bolshevist _coup d'etat_ in America would mean a civil war to the
+bitter end, and a war in which the numerous class of farmers would join
+the capitalists in the defense of the institution of private
+property.[110]
+
+But it is not only because the preponderance of social power in the
+United States is so decisively with private property that America is
+proof against a social upheaval like the Russian one. Another and
+perhaps as important a guarantee of her social stability is found in her
+four million organized trade unionists. For, however unjustly they may
+feel to have been treated by the employers or the government; however
+slow they may find the realization of their ideals of collective
+bargaining in industry; their stakes in the existing order, both
+spiritual and material, are too big to reconcile them to revolution. The
+truth is that the revolutionary labor movement in America looms up much
+bigger than it actually is. Though in many strikes since the famous
+textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1911, the leadership was
+revolutionary, it does not follow that the rank and file was animated by
+the same purpose. Given an inarticulate mass of grievously exploited
+workers speaking many foreign tongues and despised alike by the
+politician, the policeman, and the native American labor organizer;
+given a group of energetic revolutionary agitators who make the cause of
+these workers their own and become their spokesmen and leaders; and a
+situation will clearly arise where thousands of workmen will be
+apparently marshalled under the flag of revolution while in reality it
+is the desire for a higher wage and not for a realization of the
+syndicalist program that reconciles them to starving their wives and
+children and to shedding their blood on picket duty. If they follow a
+Haywood or an Ettor, it is precisely because they have been ignored by a
+Golden or a Gompers.
+
+Withal, then, trade unionism, despite an occasional revolutionary facet
+and despite a revolutionary clamor especially on its fringes, is a
+conservative social force. Trade unionism seems to have the same
+moderating effect upon society as a wide diffusion of private property.
+In fact the gains of trade unionism are to the worker on a par with
+private property to its owner. The owner regards his property as a
+protective dyke between himself and a ruthless biological struggle for
+existence; his property means liberty and opportunity to escape
+dictation by another man, an employer or "boss," or at least a chance to
+bide his time until a satisfactory alternative has presented itself for
+his choice. The French peasants in 1871 who flocked to the army of the
+government of Versailles to suppress the Commune of Paris (the first
+attempt in history of a proletarian dictatorship), did so because they
+felt that were the workingmen to triumph and abolish private property,
+they, the peasants, would lose a support in their daily struggle for
+life for the preservation of which it was worth endangering life itself.
+And having acquired relative protection in their private property, small
+though it might be, they were unwilling to permit something which were
+it to succeed would lose them their all.
+
+Now with some exceptions every human being is a "protectionist,"
+provided he does possess anything at all which protects him and which is
+therefore worth being protected by him in turn. The trade unionist, too,
+is just such a protectionist. When his trade union has had the time and
+opportunity to win for him decent wages and living conditions, a
+reasonable security of the job, and at least a partial voice in shop
+management, he will, on the relatively high and progressive level of
+material welfare which capitalism has called into being, be chary to
+raze the existing economic system to the ground on the chance of
+building up a better one in its place. A reshuffling of the cards, which
+a revolution means, might conceivably yield him a better card, but then
+again it might make the entire stack worthless by destroying the stakes
+for which the game is played. But the revolution might not even succeed
+in the first round; then the ensuing reaction would probably destroy the
+trade union and with it would go the chance of a recovery of the
+original ground, modest though that may have been. In practice,
+therefore, the trade union movements in nearly all nations[111] have
+served as brakes upon the respective national socialist movements; and,
+from the standpoint of society interested in its own preservation
+against catastrophic change, have played and are playing a role of
+society's policemen and watch-dogs over the more revolutionary groups in
+the wage-earning class. These are largely the unorganized and
+ill-favored groups rendered reckless because, having little to lose from
+a revolution, whatever the outcome might be, they fear none.
+
+In America, too, there is a revolutionary class which, unlike the
+striking textile workers in 1911-1913, owes its origin neither to chance
+nor to neglect by trade union leaders. This is the movement of native
+American or Americanized workers in the outlying districts of the West
+or South--the typical I.W.W., the migratory workers, the industrial
+rebels, and the actors in many labor riots and lumber-field strikes.
+This type of worker has truly broken with America's spiritual past. He
+has become a revolutionist either because his personal character and
+habits unfit him for success under the exacting capitalistic system; or
+because, starting out with the ambitions and rosy expectations of the
+early pioneer, he found his hopes thwarted by a capitalistic preemptor
+of the bounty of nature, who dooms to a wage-earner's position all who
+came too late. In either case he is animated by a genuine passion for
+revolution, a passion which admits no compromise. Yet his numbers are
+too few to threaten the existing order.
+
+In conclusion, American trade unionism, no matter whether the American
+Federation of Labor keeps its old leaders or replaces them by
+"progressives" or socialists, seems in a fair way to continue its
+conservative function--so long as no overpowering open-shop movement or
+"trustification" will break up the trade unions or render them sterile.
+The hope of American Bolshevism will, therefore, continue to rest with
+the will of employers to rule as autocrats.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[110] Though writers and public speakers of either extreme have often
+overlooked the fundamental consideration of where the preponderance of
+social power lies in their prognostications of revolutions, this has not
+escaped the leaders of the American labor movement. The vehemence with
+which the leaders of the American Federation of Labor have denounced
+Sovietism and Bolshevism, and which has of late been brought to a high
+pitch by a fear lest a shift to radicalism should break up the
+organization, is doubtless sincere. But one cannot help feeling that in
+part at least it aimed to reassure the great American middle class on
+the score of labor's intentions. The great majority of organized labor
+realize that, though at times they may risk engaging in unpopular
+strikes, it will never do to permit their enemies to tar them with the
+pitch of subversionism in the eyes of the great American majority--a
+majority which remains wedded to the regime of private property and
+individual enterprise despite the many recognized shortcomings of the
+institution.
+
+[111] Notably in Germany since the end of the World War.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+The first seven chapters of the present work are based on the _History
+of Labour in the United States_ by John R. Commons and Associates,[112]
+published in 1918 in two volumes by the Macmillan Company, New York. The
+major portion of the latter was in turn based on _A Documentary History
+of the American Industrial Society_, edited by Professor Commons and
+published in 1910 in ten volumes by Clark and Company, Cleveland. In
+preparing chapters 8 to 11, dealing with the period since 1897, which is
+not covered in the _History of Labour_, the author used largely the same
+sort of material as that in the preparation of the above named works;
+namely, original sources such as proceedings of trade union conventions,
+labor and employer papers, government reports, etc. There are, however,
+many excellent special histories relating to the recent period in the
+labor movement, especially histories of unionism in individual trades or
+industries, to which the author wishes to refer the reader for more
+ample accounts of the several phases of the subject, which he himself
+was of necessity obliged to treat but briefly. The following is a
+selected list of such works together with some others relating to
+earlier periods:
+
+
+BARNETT, GEORGE E., _The Printers--A Study in American Trade Unionism_,
+American Economic Association, 1909.
+
+BING, ALEXANDER M., _War-Time Strikes and their Adjustment_, Dutton and
+Co., 1921.
+
+BONNETT, CLARENCE E., _Employers' Associations in the United States_,
+Macmillan, 1922.
+
+BRISSENDEN, PAUL F., _The I.W.W.--A Study in American Syndicalism_,
+Columbia University, 1920.
+
+BROOKS, JOHN G., _American Syndicalism: The I.W.W._, Macmillan, 1913.
+
+BUDISH AND SOULE, _The New Unionism in the Clothing Industry_, Harcourt,
+1920.
+
+CARLTON, FRANK T., _Economic Influences upon Educational Progress in
+the United States, 1820-1850_, University of Wisconsin, 1908.
+
+DEIBLER, FREDERICK S., _The Amalgamated Wood Workers' International
+Union of America_, University of Wisconsin, 1912.
+
+FITCH, JOHN L., _The Steel Workers_, Russell Sage Foundation, 1911.
+
+HOAGLAND, HENRY E., _Wage Bargaining on the Vessels of the Great Lakes_,
+University of Illinois, 1915.
+
+------, _Collective Bargaining in the Lithographic Industry_, Columbia
+University, 1917.
+
+INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT, Commission of Inquiry, Report on the Steel
+Strike of 1919, Harcourt, 1920.
+
+LAIDLER, HARRY, _Socialism in Thought and Action_, Macmillan, 1920.
+
+ROBBINS, EDWIN C., _Railway Conductors--A Study in Organized Labor_,
+Columbia University, 1914.
+
+SCHLUeTER, HERMAN, _The Brewing Industry and the Brewery Workmen's
+Movement in America_, International Union of Brewery Workmen, 1910.
+
+SUFFERN, ARTHUR E., _Conciliation and Arbitration in the Coal Mining
+Industry in America_, Mifflin, 1915.
+
+SYDENSTRICKER, EDGAR, _Collective Bargaining in the Anthracite Coal
+Industry_, Bulletin No. 191 of the United States Bureau of Labor
+Statistics, 1916.
+
+WOLMAN, LEO, _The Boycott in American Trade Unions_, Johns Hopkins
+University, 1916.
+
+
+_Labor Encyclopedias_:
+
+AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, _History, Encyclopedia, Reference Book_,
+American Federation of Labor, 1919.
+
+BROWNE, WALDO R., _What's What in the Labor Movement_, Huebsch, 1921.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[112] See Author's Preface.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Trade Unionism in the
+United States, by Selig Perlman
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