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diff --git a/old/14458-8.txt b/old/14458-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..536322d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14458-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9117 @@ +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 + + + + + + +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM *** + +***** This file should be named 14458-8.txt or 14458-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/5/14458/ + +Produced by William Boerst, Martin Pettit and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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, "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.<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> THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_1">CHAPTER 1</a> LABOR MOVEMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR + <ul> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_3">(1).</a> Early Beginnings, to 1827 + </li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_9">(2).</a> Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832 + </li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_18">(3).</a> The Period of the "Wild-Cat" Prosperity, 1833-1837 + </li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_29">(4).</a> The Long Depression, 1837-1862 + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_2">CHAPTER 2</a> THE "GREENBACK" PERIOD, 1862-1879 + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_3">CHAPTER 3</a> THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_4">CHAPTER 4</a> REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887 + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_5">CHAPTER 5</a> THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL FAILURE OF PRODUCERS' COOPERATION + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_6">CHAPTER 6</a> STABILIZATION, 1888-1897 + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_7">CHAPTER 7</a> TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS + </li> + <li><br /><a href="#PART_II">PART II</a> THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_8">CHAPTER 8</a> PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES, 1898-1914 + <ul> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_167">(1).</a> The Miners + </li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_180">(2).</a> The Railway Men + </li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_186">(3).</a> The Machinery and Metal Trades + </li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_190">(4).</a> The Employers' Reaction + </li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#Page_198">(5).</a> Legislation, Courts, and Politics + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_9">CHAPTER 9</a> RADICAL UNIONISM AND A "COUNTER-REFORMATION" + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_10">CHAPTER 10</a> THE WAR-TIME BALANCE SHEET + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_11">CHAPTER 11</a> RECENT DEVELOPMENTS + </li> + <li><br /><a href="#PART_III">PART III</a> CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_12">CHAPTER 12</a> AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_13">CHAPTER 13</a> THE IDEALISTIC FACTOR + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_14">CHAPTER 14</a> WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY + </li> + <li><a href="#CHAPTER_15">CHAPTER 15</a> 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 "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.</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 "unorganized" 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 "the +interests of the journeymen are <i>separate</i> and in some respects +<i>opposite</i> to those of the employers."</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 "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 <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 +"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.</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 "closed shop." The conspiracy trials largely turned +upon the "closed shop" 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—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 "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.</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—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.</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 +"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."</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 "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.<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 "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.</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. "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 "<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>," published in 1829. This Skidmorian +program was better known as "agrarianism," 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 "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.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14" />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.</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 "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.</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 "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."</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 "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.</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 "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."</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 "for years lived among cotton mills, +worked in them, travelled among them." His "<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>" 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—"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.</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 "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."</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 "Wild-cat" 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 "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.</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 "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.</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 +"trades' unions," 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 "Far West"—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 "no party, political or religious questions shall at +any time be agitated in or acted upon in the Union." Its official organ, +the <i>National Laborer</i>, declared that "<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."</p> + +<p>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, +<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—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 +"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."</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 "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.</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 "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 <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 +"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.</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 +"that the persons employed should redress their own grievances." 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 +"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.</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 "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 <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 "intellectuals," 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 "Associationists" 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 "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."</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 "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.</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 "The Journeymen Molders' Union +<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32" />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.</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 "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.</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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. <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36" />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.</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 "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.</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 "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 <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 "panaceas," 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—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 "GREENBACK" 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 "greenbacks" 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 "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.</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—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, <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—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: "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 <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—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—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 "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 +<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50" />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."</p> + +<p>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.</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 "greenbackism."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <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 "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.</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 "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.</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—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 "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 +<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 "the fewer the +stockholders in the company the greater its success."</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. "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.</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 "cut loose" 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 "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.</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—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 & 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.</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 +& 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 & 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 +"monopolistic" 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—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 <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 "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.<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 "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:</p> + +<p>"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."</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 "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.</p> + +<p>Much enthusiasm accompanied the progress of the movement. The hall in +"Sovereign Block" 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 "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 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 "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 <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67" />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.</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>"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."—<i>New +Statesman</i>, May 30, 1916. "Special Supplement on the Cooperative +Movement."</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 "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor" and the other a small +trade union movement grouped around the International Cigar Makers' +Union.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69" />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."</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 "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,<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 "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."<a name="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14">[14]</a></p> + +<p><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71" />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.</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 +"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, <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—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<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 +"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 <i>Internationale</i>," 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 +"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 <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 "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.</p> + +<p>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.</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 "new" 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 "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.</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 "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.</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>"<i>Q.</i> You are seeking to improve home matters first?</p> + +<p> "<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> "<i>Chairman</i>: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.</p> + +<p> "<i>Witness</i>: 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.</p> + +<p> "By Mr. Call: <i>Q.</i> You want something better to eat and to wear, + and better houses to live in?</p> + +<p> "<i>A.</i> Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and become + better citizens generally.</p> + +<p> "<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> "<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."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another offshoot of the same Marxian <i>Internationale</i> were the "Chicago +Anarchists."<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 "business" +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 "Black" +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 "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 <i>direct</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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".</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 "trades' assemblies" 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 "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 <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—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—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 & 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 "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.</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 "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.</p> + +<p>"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>"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>"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."</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—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 "an<a name="Page_92" id= +"Page_92" />archists,"<a name="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19">[19]</a> 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.</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>"Revenge"</i> 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.</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—in a few +months—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 & 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 <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 +"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.</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 & 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 +<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98" />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.</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 & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of +Labor, struck against a reduction of 2½ 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 <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 "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.</p> + +<p>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 <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,—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 "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.</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 "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"; 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.</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 "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 <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 "ism." 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 +"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.</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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 +<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 "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,"<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 "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 6¼ 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.</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 "one general +strike."</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 "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.</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "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 +"jurisdic<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112" />tional" 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 "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 <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 "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.<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 +"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.</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 "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.</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 "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 <i>modus +vivendi</i> on a basis of an interchange of "working cards" 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: "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."</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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.</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 "regularity" 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 "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 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 "craft autonomy" 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 "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.</p> + +<p>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 +<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 +"district assemblies" and to create within the framework of the Order +"national trade as<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124" />semblies."<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 "one big union" was decisive and +complete.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125" />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.</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 "unsuitable +members." In 1885 Powderly complained that "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."</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 +"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.</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,—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 "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."</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: "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."</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 "local assemblies" generally followed in practice trade lines, +but the district assemblies were "mixed."</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 & 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, <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: "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," 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, <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>." +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 "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," 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 "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; <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; "the collective ownership +by the people of all means of production and distribution"; 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 "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.</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 +"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.</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 "panaceas" 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 "to a standstill," 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 "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.</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 +"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.</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 "voluntary" or so-called "compulsory."</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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "coercive and +arbitrary" 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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "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, <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150" />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.</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 "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 <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 "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 +exer<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153" />cise 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.</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 "legalized +arbitration."</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 "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.<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, & 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 "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 <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'Alène, 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 +"blanket injunction."</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'Alène 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 +"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.<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 +"floaters" 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 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.</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 "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<a name="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50">[50]</a> 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.</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 "stoppages" 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 "slack" for which they had to pay under this system. The Federal +report on "Restriction of Output" 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 "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.</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 "brotherhoods," 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 "Amalgamated" 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 "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.</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 "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 <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 "entangling +alliances" 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. "Class struggles" 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 "concerted movement" 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 "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 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 "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.<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 +"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.</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 "system federations,"<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 "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 <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 +"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.<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 "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.</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 "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 <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187" />up the following tersely worded agreement which +became known as the New York Agreement:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"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> "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> "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."</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 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.</p> + +<p>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 <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 "restriction of +output."</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</p> + +<p>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.<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 +"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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "trust." The panic +<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197" />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.</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 "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 <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 "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.</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 "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 <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,—as it <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203" />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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</p> + +<p>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 <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 "the injunction +standard-bearer" 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 "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.</p> + +<p>In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policy +of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies." 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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "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 <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 "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 <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> "The Growth of Labor Organizations in the United States, +1897-1914," in <i>Quarterly Journal of Economics</i>, Aug., 1916, p. 780.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46">[46]</a> "The Extent of Trade Unionism," 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> "The Extent of Trade Unionism," 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 "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.</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 "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.</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. ("National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in the +United States," 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 "COUNTER-REFORMATION"</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—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.</p> + +<p>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,<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 "background."</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 +"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 <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 "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.</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 "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.</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'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.</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'Alène 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 "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.</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. "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 <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." Lastly, "By organizing +industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the +shell of the old."</p> + +<p>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 <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 "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.</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 "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.</p> + +<p>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-<a name="Page_220" id="Page_220" />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.</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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.</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 "basic" 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 "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 <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223" />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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</p> + +<p>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.<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 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.</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 +"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."</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 "staff" +report, named <i>trade unionism</i> 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 <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 "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.</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 "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.</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—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 +"hold-up" 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 "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 de<a name="Page_234" id="Page_234" />termining 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."</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 +"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.<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—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<a name="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87">[87]</a> 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 <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 "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.</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 "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 <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, "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 <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 "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."</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 "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.<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—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.</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 +"capture" 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,—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 "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.</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 "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. <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 "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.</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 "Compulsory +Investigation."</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,—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.</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 +"working rules." These "national agreements" 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 "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.</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 "markets" 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, "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.</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,—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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "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.</p> + +<p>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 <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 +"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.</p> + +<p>In the autumn of 1921 the employers in the packing industry discontinued +the arrangement whereby industrial relations were administered by an +"administrator,"<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 "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.</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 "unfair lists,"<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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "recognized" 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 "unfair list" 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 "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.</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 "patch-up" +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 +"self-determination." 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, "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.</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 "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,<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 "opportunist" +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—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,—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 "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 <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,—all being paid by the piece. This was the +notorious "sweatshop system."</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,—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 +"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 <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—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 "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.<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 "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.</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 "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 <i>obliged</i> 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 <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 "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 <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 "hard +times" 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 "American Shoemakers," 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 "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 <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 régime; 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 +"boss." 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 "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.</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—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 "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."</p> + +<p>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.</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 "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.</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 "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 <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 "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.</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 "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 <i>negative</i> gain—a judicial <i>laissez-faire</i>. 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 <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 +"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 <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 "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.</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 "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.</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 "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 <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 "mob psychology," 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—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'état</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 "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.</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 "trust" 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 "proletariat" 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 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."</p> + +<p>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 <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—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 +"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 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 "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 <i>coup d'état</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 "boss," 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 "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 <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—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 +"progressives" or socialists, seems in a fair way to continue its +conservative function—<a name="Page_306" id="Page_306" />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.</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—a +majority which remains wedded to the régime 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—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.—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—A Study in Organized Labor</i>, +Columbia University, 1914.</p> + +<p>SCHLÜTER, 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> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Trade Unionism in the +United States, by Selig Perlman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM *** + +***** This file should be named 14458-h.htm or 14458-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/5/14458/ + +Produced by William Boerst, Martin Pettit and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM *** + +***** This file should be named 14458.txt or 14458.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/4/5/14458/ + +Produced by William Boerst, Martin Pettit and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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