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 parta summary of work in labor history by Professor John R. Commons andcollaborators at the University of Wisconsin from 1904 to 1918, and inpart an attempt by the author to carry the work further. Part I of thepresent book is based on the _History of Labour in the United States_ byCommons and Associates (Introduction: John R. Commons; Colonial andFederal 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 intwo volumes. 

Part II, "The Larger Career of Unionism, " brings the story from 1897down to date; and Part III, "Conclusions and Inferences, " is an attemptto bring together several of the general ideas suggested by the History. Chapter 12, entitled "An Economic Interpretation, " follows the line ofanalysis laid down by Professor Commons in his study of the Americanshoemakers, 1648-1895. [1]

The author wishes to express his strong gratitude to Professors RichardT. Ely and John R. Commons for their kind aid at every stage of thiswork. 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 Edwin E. Witte, Director of the Wisconsin State Legislative Reference Library, upon whose extensive and still unpublished researches he based hissummary of the history of the injunction; and to Professor Frederick L. Paxson, who subjected the manuscript to criticism from the point of viewof 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 in1741. In that year the New York bakers went out on strike. A closeranalysis discloses, however, that this outbreak was a protest of masterbakers against a municipal regulation of the price of bread, not a wageearners' strike against employers. The earliest genuine labor strike inAmerica occurred, as far as known, in 1786, when the Philadelphiaprinters "turned out" for a minimum wage of six dollars a week. Thesecond strike on record was in 1791 by Philadelphia house carpenters forthe ten-hour day. The Baltimore sailors were successful in advancingtheir wages through strikes in the years 1795, 1805, and 1807, but theirendeavors were recurrent, not permanent. Even more ephemeral wereseveral riotous sailors' strikes as well as a ship builders' strike in1817 at Medford, Massachusetts. Doubtless many other such outbreaksoccurred during the period to 1820, but left no record of theirexistence. 

A strike undoubtedly is a symptom of discontent. However, one canhardly speak of a beginning of trade unionism until such discontent hasbecome expressed in an organization that keeps alive after a strike, orbetween strikes. Such permanent organizations existed prior to thetwenties only in two trades, namely, shoemaking and printing. 

The first continuous organization of wage earners was that of thePhiladelphia shoemakers, organized in 1792. This society, however, existed for less than a year and did not even leave us its name. Theshoemakers of Philadelphia again organized in 1794 under the name of theFederal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers and maintained their existenceas such at least until 1806. In 1799 the society conducted the firstorganized strike, which lasted nine or ten weeks. Prior to 1799, theonly recorded strikes of any workmen were "unorganized" and, indeed, such were the majority of the strikes that occurred prior to the decadeof the thirties in the nineteenth century. 

The printers organized their first society in 1794 in New York under thename of The Typographical Society and it continued in existence for tenyears and six months. The printers of Philadelphia, who had struck in1786, neglected to keep up an organization after winning their demands. Between the years 1800 and 1805, the shoemakers and the printers hadcontinuous organizations in Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. In1809 the shoemakers of Pittsburgh and the Boston printers were added tothe list, and somewhat later the Albany and Washington printers. In 1810the printers organized in New Orleans. 

The separation of the journeymen from the masters, first shown in theformation of these organizations, was emphasized in the attitude towardemployer members. The question arose over the continuation in membershipof those who became employers. The shoemakers excluded such members fromthe organization. The printers, on the other hand, were more liberal. But in 1817 the New York society put them out on the ground that "theinterests 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 acommittee was chosen by the society to present a price list or scale ofwages to the masters individually. The first complete wage scalepresented in this country was drawn up by the organized printers of NewYork in 1800. The strikes were mainly over wages and were generallyconducted in an orderly and comparatively peaceful manner. In only oneinstance, that of the Philadelphia shoemakers of 1806, is there evidenceof violence and intimidation. In that case "scabs" were beaten andemployers intimidated by demonstrations in front of the shop or bybreaking shop windows. During a strike the duties of "picketing" weredischarged by tramping committees. The Philadelphia shoemakers, however, as early as 1799, employed for this purpose a paid officer. This strikewas for higher wages for workers on boots. Although those who worked onshoes made no demands of their own, they were obliged to strike, muchagainst their will. We thus meet with the first sympathetic strike onrecord. In 1809 the New York shoemakers, starting with a strike againstone firm, ordered a general strike when they discovered that that firmwas getting its work done in other shops. The payment of strike benefitsdates from the first authenticated strike, namely in 1786. The method ofpayment varied from society to society, but the constitution of the NewYork shoemakers, as early as 1805, provided for a permanent strike fund. 

The aggressive trade unionism of these early trade societies forced themasters to combine against them. Associations of masters in theircapacity 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' associationsproceeded to take on the function of dealing with labor--mostly aimingto break up the trade societies. Generally they sought to create anavailable force of non-union labor by means of advertising, but oftenthey turned to the courts and brought action against the journeymen'ssocieties on the ground of conspiracy. 

The bitterness of the masters' associations against the the journeymen'ssocieties perhaps was caused not so much by their resistance toreductions in wages as by their imposition of working rules, such as thelimitation of the number of apprentices, the minimum wage, and what wewould now call the "closed shop. " The conspiracy trials largely turnedupon the "closed shop" and in these the shoemakers figuredexclusively. [2]

Altogether six criminal conspiracy cases are recorded against theshoemakers from 1806 to 1815. One occurred in Philadelphia in 1806; onein 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 ajury which was judge both of law and fact. Four of the cases weredecided against the journeymen. In one of the Baltimore cases judgmentwas rendered in favor of the journeymen. The Pittsburgh case of 1815 wascompromised, the shoemakers paying the costs and returning to work atthe old wages. The outcome in the other cases is not definitely known. It was brought out in the testimony that the masters financed, in partat least, the New York and Pittsburgh prosecutions. 

Effective as the convictions in court for conspiracy may have been inchecking the early trade societies, of much greater consequence was theindustrial depression which set in after the conclusion of theNapoleonic Wars. The lifting of the Embargo enabled the foreign tradersand manufacturers to dump their products upon the American market. Theincipient American industries were in no position to withstand thisdestructive competition. Conditions were made worse by past overinvestment and by the collapse of currency inflation. 

Trade unionism for the time being had to come to an end. The effect onthe journeymen's societies was paralyzing. Only those survived whichturned to mutual insurance. Several of the printers' societies hadalready instituted benefit features, and these now helped themconsiderably to maintain their organization. The shoe-makers' societieson the other hand had remained to the end purely trade-regulatingorganizations and went to the wall. 

Depression reached its ebb in 1820. Thereafter conditions improved, giving rise to aggressive organizations of wage earners in severalindustries. We find strikes and permanent organizations among hatters, tailors, weavers, nailers, and cabinet makers. And for the first time wemeet with organizations of factory workers--female workers. 

Beginning with 1824 and running through 1825, the year which saw theculmination of a period of high prices, a number of strikes occurred inthe important industrial centers. The majority were called to enforcehigher wages. In Philadelphia, 2900 weavers out of about 4500 in thecity were on strike. But the strike that attracted the most publicattention was that of the Boston house carpenters for the ten-hour dayin 1825. 

The Boston journeymen carpenters chose the most strategic time for theirstrike. They called it in the spring of the year when there was a greatdemand for carpenters owing to a recent fire. Close to six hundredjourneymen were involved in this struggle. The journeymen's demand forthe ten-hour day drew a characteristic reply from the "gentlemen engagedin building, " the customers of the master builders. They condemned thejourneymen on the moral ground that an agitation for a shorter day wouldopen "a wide door for idleness and vice"; hinted broadly at the foreignorigin of the agitation; declared that all combinations intending toregulate the value of labor by abridging the working day were in a highdegree unjust and injurious to the other classes in the community;announced their resolution to support the masters at the sacrifice ofsuspending building altogether; and bound themselves not to employ anyjourneyman or master who might enforce the ten-hour day. The strikefailed. 

The renewed trade-union activities brought forth a fresh crop of trialsfor conspiracy. [3] One case involved Philadelphia master shoemakers whocombined to reduce wages, two were against journeymen tailors inPhiladelphia and Buffalo and the fourth was a hatters' case in NewYork. The masters were acquitted and the hatters were found guilty ofcombining to deprive a non-union man of his livelihood. In thePhiladelphia tailors' case, the journeymen were convicted on the chargeof intimidation. Of the Buffalo tailors' case it is only known that itended 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 labormovement. A labor movement presupposes a feeling of solidarity whichgoes beyond the boundaries of a single trade and extends to other wageearners. The American labor movement began in 1827, when the severaltrades in Philadelphia organized the Mechanics' Union of TradeAssociations, which was, so far as now known, the first city centralorganization of trades in the world. This Union, originally intended asan economic organization, changed to a political one the following yearand initiated what was probably the most interesting and most typicallyAmerican labor movement--a struggle for "equality of citizenship. " Itwas brought to a head by the severe industrial depression of the time. But the decisive impulse came from the nation-wide democratic upheavalled by Andrew Jackson, for which the poorer classes in the citiesdisplayed no less enthusiasm than the agricultural West. To the wageearner this outburst of democratic fervor offered an opportunity to tryout his recently acquired franchise. Of the then industrial States, Massachusetts granted suffrage to the workingmen in 1820 and New York in1822. In Pennsylvania the constitution of 1790 had extended the right ofsuffrage to those who paid any kind of a state or county tax, howeversmall. 

The wage earners' Jacksonianism struck a note all its own. If thefarmer and country merchant, who had passed through the abstract stageof political aspiration with the Jeffersonian democratic movement, werenow, with Jackson, reaching out for the material advantages whichpolitical power might yield, the wage earners, being as yet novices inpolitics, naturally were more strongly impressed with that aspect of thedemocratic upheaval which emphasized the rights of man in general andsocial equality in particular. If the middle class Jacksonian wasprobably thinking first of reducing the debt on his farm or perchance ofgetting a political office, and only as an after-thought proceeding tolook for a justification in the Declaration of Independence, as yet thewage earner was starting with the abstract notion of equal citizenshipas contained in the Declaration, and only then proceeding to search forthe remedies which would square reality with the idea. Hence it was thatthe aspiration toward equal citizenship became the keynote of labor'searliest political movement. The issue was drawn primarily between therich and the poor, not between the functional classes, employers andemployes. 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, masterworkmen 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 themovement as a rebellion by the class of newly enfranchised wage earnersagainst conditions which made them feel degraded in their own eyes asfull fledged citizens of the commonwealth. 

The complaints were of different sorts but revolved around the chargeof the usurpation of government by an "aristocracy. " Incontrovertibleproof of this charge was found in special legislation chartering banksand other corporations. The banks were indicted upon two counts. First, the unstable bank paper money defrauded the wage earner of aconsiderable portion of the purchasing power of his wages. Second, banksrestricted competition and shut off avenues for the "man on the make. "The latter accusation may be understood only if we keep in mind thatthis was a period when bank credits began to play an essential part inthe conduct of industry; that with the extension of the market into theStates and territories South and West, with the resulting delay incollections, business could be carried on only by those who enjoyedcredit facilities at the banks. Now, as credit generally follows accessto the market, it was inevitable that the beneficiary of the bankingsystem should not be the master or journeyman but the merchant for whomboth worked. [4] To the uninitiated, however, this arrangement could onlyappear in the light of a huge conspiracy entered into by the charteredmonopolies, the banks, and the unchartered monopolist, the merchant, toshut out the possible competition by the master and journeyman. Thegrievance appeared all the more serious since all banks were charteredby special enactments of the legislature, which thus appeared as anaccomplice 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 pointedto the practice of imprisonment for debt. The Boston Prison DisciplineSociety, a philanthropic organization, estimated in 1829 that about75, 000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United States. Many of these were imprisoned for very small debts. In one Massachusettsprison, for example, out of 37 cases, 20 were for less than $20. ThePhiladelphia printer and philanthropist, Mathew Carey, father of theeconomist Henry C. Carey, cited a contemporary Boston case of a blindman 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 attemptingto save the property of the man who later caused her imprisonment for adebt of 68 cents. The physical conditions in debtors' jails wereappalling, according to unimpeachable contemporary reports. Little didsuch treatment of the poor accord with their newly acquired dignity ascitizens. 

Another grievance, particularly exasperating because the government wasresponsible, grew in Pennsylvania out of the administration of thecompulsory militia system. Service was obligatory upon all male citizensand non-attendance was punished by fine or imprisonment. The richdelinquent did not mind, but the poor delinquent when unable to pay wasgiven a jail sentence. 

Other complaints by workingmen went back to the failure of government toprotect the poorer citizen's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness. " The lack of a mechanic's lien law, which would protect hiswages in the case of his employer's bankruptcy, was keenly felt by theworkingmen. A labor paper estimated in 1829 that, owing to the lack of alien law on buildings, not less than three or four hundred thousanddollars 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 demandedequality with the wealthy Eastern merchant and banker, and found inAndrew Jackson an ideal spokesman. For a brief moment it seemed that byequality the workingmen meant an equal division of all property. Thatwas the program which received temporary endorsement at the firstworkingmen's meeting in New York in April 1829. "Equal division" wasadvocated by a self-taught mechanic by the name of Thomas Skidmore, whoelaborated his ideas in a book bearing the self-revealing title of "_TheRights of Man to Property: being a Proposition to make it Equal amongthe Adults of the Present Generation: and to Provide for its EqualTransmission to Every Individual of Each Succeeding Generation, onArriving at the Age of Maturity_, " published in 1829. This Skidmorianprogram was better known as "agrarianism, " probably from the title of abook by Thomas Paine, _Agrarian Justice, as Opposed to Agrarian Law andto Agrarian Monopoly_, published in 1797 in London, which advocatedequal division by means of an inheritance tax. Its adoption by the NewYork workingmen was little more than a stratagem, for their intentionwas to forestall any attempts by employers to lengthen the working dayto eleven hours by raising the question of "the nature of the tenure bywhich all men hold title to their property. " Apparently the stratagemworked, 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 ofthe beast in the eyes of their opponents and the general public. 

Except during the brief but damaging "agrarian" episode, the demand forfree public education or "Republican" education occupied the foreground. We, who live in an age when free education at the expense of thecommunity is considered practically an inalienable right of every child, find it extremely difficult to understand the vehemence of theopposition which the demand aroused on the part of the press and the"conservative" classes, when first brought up by the workingmen. Theexplanation lies partly in the political situation, partly in the moralcharacter of the "intellectual" spokesmen for the workingmen, and partlyin the inborn conservatism of the tax-paying classes upon whom thefinancial burden would fall. That the educational situation wasdeplorable much proof is unnecessary. Pennsylvania had some publicschools, but parents had to declare themselves too poor to send theirchildren to a private school before they were allowed the privilege ofsending them there. In fact so much odium attached to these schools thatthey were practically useless and the State became distinguished for thenumber of children not attending school. As late as 1837 a labor paperestimated that 250, 000 out of 400, 000 children in Pennsylvania of schoolage were not in any school. The Public School Society of New Yorkestimated in a report for 1829 that in New York City alone there were24, 200 children between the ages of five and fifteen years not attendingany school whatever. 

To meet these conditions the workingmen outlined a comprehensiveeducational program. It was not merely a literary education that theworkingmen desired. The idea of industrial education, or training for avocation, which is even now young in this country, was undoubtedly firstintroduced by the leaders of this early labor movement. They demanded asystem of public education which would "combine a knowledge of thepractical arts with that of the useful sciences. " The idea of industrialeducation appears to have originated in a group of which two"intellectuals, " Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright, were the leadingspirits. 

Robert Dale Owen was the eldest son of Robert Owen, the famous Englishmanufacturer-philanthropist, who originated the system of socialismknown as "Owenism. " Born in Scotland, he was educated at Hofwyl, Switzerland, in a school conducted by Emmanuel von Fellenberg, theassociate of the famous Pestalozzi, as a self-governing children'srepublic on the manner of the present "Julior Republics. " Owen himselfsaid that he owed his abiding faith in human virtue and social progressto his years at Hofwyl. In 1825 Robert Dale left England to join hisfather in a communistic experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, and togetherthey lived through the vicissitudes which attended that experiment. There he met Frances Wright, America's first suffragist, with whom heformed an intimate friendship lasting through many years. The failure atNew Harmony convinced him that his father had overlooked the importanceof the anti-social habits which the members had formed before theyjoined; and he concluded that those could be prevented only by applyinga rational system of education to the young. These conclusions, togetherwith the recollections of his experience at Hofwyl, led him to advocatea new system of education, which came to be called "state guardianship. "

State guardianship was a demand for the establishment by the state ofboarding schools where children should receive, not only equalinstruction, general as well as industrial, but equal food and equalclothing at the public expense. Under this system, it was asserted, public schools would become "not schools of charity, but schools of thenation, to the support of which all would contribute; and instead ofbeing almost a disgrace, it would become an honor to have been educatedthere. " It was urged as an especial advantage that, as children would beclothed and cared for at all times, the fact that poor parents could notafford to dress their children "as decently as their neighbors" wouldnot prevent their attendance. 

State guardianship became the battle cry of an important faction in theWorkingmen's party in New York. Elsewhere a less radical program wasadvocated. In Philadelphia the workingmen demanded only that highschools be on the Hofwyl model, whereas in the smaller cities and townsin both Pennsylvania and New York the demand was for "literary" dayschools. Yet the underlying principle was the same everywhere. A laborcandidate for Congress in the First Congressional District ofPhiladelphia in 1830 expressed it succinctly during his campaign. Hemade his plea on the ground that "he is the friend and indefatigabledefender of a system of general education, which will place the citizensof this extensive Republic on an equality; a system that will fit thechildren of the poor, as well as the rich, to become our futurelegislators; a system that will bring the children of the poor and therich to mix together as a band of Republican brethren. "

In New England the workingmen's movement for equal citizenship wassimultaneously a reaction against the factory system. To the cry for aRepublican system of education was added an anti-child labor crusade. One who did more than any other to call attention to the evils of thefactory 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 Menof New England on the State of Education, and on the Condition of theProducing Classes in Europe and America, with Particular Reference tothe Effect of Manufacturing (as now conducted) on the Health andHappiness of the Poor, and on the Safety of our Republic_" was deliveredwidely and undoubtedly had considerable influence over the labormovement of the period. The average working day in the best factories atthat time was nearly thirteen hours. For the children who were sent intothe factories at an early age these hours precluded, of course, anypossibility 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 cityworkingmen. In many parts of the State of New York the workingmen'sparties included the three classes--"farmers, mechanics, and workingmen, "--but New England added a fourth class, the factory operatives. Itwas early found, however, that the movement could expect little or nohelp from the factory operatives, who were for the most part women andchildren. 

The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor movementsand labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first workingmen's party, then came New York and Boston, and finally state-wide movements andpolitical organizations in each of the three States. In New York theworkingmen scored their most striking single success, when in 1829 theycast 6000 votes out of a total of 21, 000. In Philadelphia the laborticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance ofpower in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupledwith machinations on the part of "designing men" of both older partiessoon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany madethe demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that itbecame enacted into law. In New York, also, the situation becamecomplicated by factional strife between the Skidmorian "agrarians, " theOwenite state guardianship faction, and a third faction which eschewedeither "panacea. " Then, too, the opposition parties and press seizedupon agrarianism and Owen's alleged atheism to brand the whole labormovement. The labor party was decidedly unfortunate in its choice ofintellectuals and "ideologists. "

It would be, however, a mistake to conclude that the Philadelphia, NewYork, or New England political movements were totally without results. Though unsuccessful in electing their candidates to office, they didsucceed in placing their demands to advantage before the public. Humanitarians, like Horace Mann, took up independently the fight forfree public education and carried it to success. In Pennsylvania, publicschools, free from the taint of charity, date since 1836. In New YorkCity the public school system was established in 1832. The same is trueof the demand for a mechanics' lien law, of the abolition ofimprisonment 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 acquiredsense of solidarity was temporarily lost, leaving only the restrictedsolidarity of the isolated trade society. Within that limit, however, important progress began to be made. In 1833, there were in New Yorktwenty-nine organized trades; in Philadelphia, twenty-one; and inBaltimore, seventeen. Among those organized in Philadelphia werehand-loom weavers, plasterers, bricklayers, black and white smiths, cigar makers, plumbers, and women workers including tailoresses, seamstresses, binders, folders, milliners, corset makers, and mantuaworkers. Several trades, such as the printers and tailors in New Yorkand the Philadelphia carpenters, which formerly were organized upon thebenevolent basis, were now reorganized as trade societies. Thebenevolent New York Typographical Society was reduced to secondaryimportance by the appearance in 1831 of the New York TypographicalAssociation. 

But the factor that compelled labor to organize on a much larger scalewas the remarkable rise in prices from 1835 to 1837. This rise in priceswas coincident with the "wild-cat" prosperity, which followed a rapidmultiplication of state banks with the right of issue of papercurrency--largely irredeemable "wild-cat" currency. Cost of livinghaving doubled, the subject of wages became a burning issue. At the sametime the general business prosperity rendered demands for higher wageseasily 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; inCincinnati, fourteen; and in Louisville, seven. In Buffalo thejourneymen builders' association included all the building trades. Thetailors of Louisville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis made a concentratedeffort against their employers in these three cities. 

The wave of organization reached at last the women workers. In 1830 thewell-known Philadelphia philanthropist, Mathew Carey, asserted thatthere were in the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, andBaltimore about 20, 000 women who could not by constant employment forsixteen hours out of twenty-four earn more than $1. 25 a week. These weremostly seamstresses and tailoresses, umbrella makers, shoe binders, cigar makers, and book binders. In New York there was in 1835 a FemaleUnion Association, in Baltimore a United Seamstresses' Society, and inPhiladelphia probably the first federation of women workers in thiscountry. In Lynn, Massachusetts, a "Female Society of Lynn and Vicinityfor the Protection and Promotion of Female Industry" operated during1833 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 discovera common direction and a common purpose. This was expressed in city"trades' unions, " or federations of all organized trades in a city, andin 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 inMarch 1834. New York after 1820 was the metropolis of the country andalso the largest industrial and commercial center. There the housecarpenters had struck for higher wages in the latter part of May 1833, and fifteen other trades met and pledged their support. Out of this grewthe New York Trades' Union. It had an official organ in a weekly, the_National Trades' Union_, published from 1834 to 1836, and a daily, _TheUnion_, issued in 1836. Ely Moore, a printer, was made president. Moorewas elected a few months later as the first representative of labor inCongress. 

In addition, trades' unions were organized in Washington; in NewBrunswick and Newark, New Jersey; in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, NewYork; and in the "Far West"--Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. 

Except in Boston, the trades' unions felt anxious to draw the linebetween themselves and the political labor organizations of thepreceding years. In Philadelphia, where as we have seen, the formationof an analogous organization, the Mechanics' Union of Trade Associationsof 1828, had served as a preliminary for a political movement, theGeneral Trades' Union took especial precaution and provided in theconstitution that "no party, political or religious questions shall atany time be agitated in or acted upon in the Union. " Its official organ, the _National Laborer_, declared that "_the Trades' Union never will bepolitical_ because its members have learned from experience that theintroduction of politics into their societies has thwarted every effortto ameliorate their conditions. "

The repudiation of active politics did not carry with it a condemnationof legislative action or "lobbying. " On the contrary, these yearswitnessed the first sustained legislative campaign that was everconducted by a labor organization, namely the campaign by the New YorkTrades' Union for the suppression of the competition from prison-madegoods. Under the pressure of the New York Union the State Legislaturecreated in 1834 a special commission on prison labor with its president, Ely Moore, as one of the three commissioners. On this question ofprison labor the trade unionists clashed with the humanitarian prisonreformers, who regarded productive labor by prisoners as a necessarymeans of their reform to an honest mode of living; and the humanitarianwon. After several months' work the commission submitted what was to theUnion an entirely unsatisfactory report. It approved the prison-laborsystem as a whole and recommended only minor changes. Ely Moore signedthe report, but a public meeting of workingmen condemned it. 

The rediscovered solidarity between the several trades now embodied inthe city trades' unions found its first expression on a large scale in aten-hour movement. 

The first concerted demand for the ten-hour day was made by theworkingmen of Baltimore in August 1833, and extended over seventeentrades. But the mechanics' aspiration for a ten-hour day--perhaps thestrongest spiritual inheritance from the preceding movement for equalcitizenship, [5] had to await a change in the general condition ofindustry to render trade union effort effective before it could turninto a well sustained movement. That change finally came with theprosperous year of 1835. 

The movement was precipitated in Boston. There, as we saw, thecarpenters had been defeated in an effort to establish a ten-hour day in1825, [6] but made another attempt in the spring of 1835. This time, however, they did not stand alone but were joined by the masons andstone-cutters. As before, the principal attack was directed against the"capitalists, " that is, the owners of the buildings and the real estatespeculators. The employer or small contractor was viewedsympathetically. "We would not be too severe on our employers, " said thestrikers' circular, which was sent out broadcast over the country, "theyare slaves to the capitalists, as we are to them. "

The strike was protracted. The details of it are not known, but we knowthat it won sympathy throughout the country. A committee visited in Julythe different cities on the Atlantic coast to solicit aid for thestrikers. In Philadelphia, when the committee arrived in company withdelegates from New York, Newark, and Paterson, the Trades' Union held aspecial meeting and resolved to stand by the "Boston House Wrights" who, "in imitation of the noble and decided stand taken by theirRevolutionary Fathers, have determined to throw off the shackles of moremercenary tyrants than theirs. " Many societies voted varying sums ofmoney in aid of the strikers. 

The Boston strike was lost, but the sympathy which it evoked amongmechanics in various cities was quickly turned to account. Wherever theBoston circular reached, it acted like a spark upon powder. InPhiladelphia the ten-hour movement took on the aspect of a crusade. Notonly the building trades, as in Boston, but most of the mechanicalbranches were involved. Street parades and mass meetings were held. Thepublic press, both friendly and hostile, discussed it at length. Workwas suspended and after but a brief "standout" the whole ended in acomplete victory for the workingmen. Unskilled laborers, too, struck forthe ten-hour day and, in the attempt to prevent others from taking theirjobs, riotous scenes occurred which attracted considerable attention. The movement proved so irresistible that the Common Council announced aten-hour day for public servants. Lawyers, physicians, merchants, andpoliticians took up the cause of the workingmen. On June 8 the mastercarpenters granted the ten-hour day and by June 22 the victory wascomplete. 

The victory in Philadelphia was so overwhelming and was given so muchpublicity that its influence extended to many smaller towns. In fact, the ten-hour system, which remained in vogue in this country in theskilled trades until the nineties, dates largely from this movement inthe middle of the thirties. 

The great advance in the cost of living during 1835 and 1836 compelledan extensive movement for higher wages. Prices had in some instancesmore than doubled. Most of these strikes were hastily undertaken. Prices, of course, were rising rapidly but the societies were new andlacked balance. A strike in one trade was an example to others tostrike. In a few instances, however, there was considerable planning andreserve. 

The strike epidemic affected even the girls who worked in the textilefactories. The first strike of factory girls on record had occurred inDover, New Hampshire, in 1828. A factory strike in Paterson, New Jersey, which occurred in the same year, occasioned the first recorded callingout of militia to quell labor disturbances. There the strikers were, however, for the most part men. But the factory strike which attractedthe greatest public attention was the Lowell strike in February, 1834, against a 15 percent reduction in wages. The strike was short andunsuccessful, notwithstanding that 800 striking girls at first exhibiteda determination to carry their struggle to the end. It appears thatpublic opinion in New England was disagreeably impressed by this earlymanifestation of feminism. Another notable factory strike was one inPaterson in July 1835. Unlike similar strikes, it had been preceded byan organization. The chief demand was the eleven-hour day. The strikeinvolved twenty mills and 2000 persons. Two weeks later the employersreduced hours from thirteen and a half to twelve hours for five days andto nine hours on Saturday. This broke the strike. The character of theagitation among the factory workers stamps it as ephemeral. Even moreephemeral was the agitation among immigrant laborers, mostly Irish, oncanals and roads, which usually took the form of riots. 

As in the preceding period, the aggressiveness of the trade societieseventually gave rise to combative masters' associations. These, goadedby restrictive union practices, notably the closed shop, appealed to thecourts for relief. By 1836 employers' associations appeared in nearlyevery trade in which labor was aggressive; in New York there were atleast eight and in Philadelphia seven. In Philadelphia, at theinitiative of the master carpenters and cordwainers, there came to existan informal federation of the masters' associations in the severaltrades. 

From 1829 to 1842 there were eight recorded prosecutions of labororganizations for conspiracy. The workingmen were convicted in twocases; in two other cases the courts sustained demurrers to theindictments; in three cases the defendants were acquitted after jurytrials; and the outcome of one case is unknown. Finally, in 1842, longafter the offending societies had gone out of existence under the stressof unemployment and depressions, the Supreme Judicial Court ofMassachusetts handed down a decision, which for forty years laid torest 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 aNational Trades' Union. It came together in August 1834, in New YorkCity upon the invitation of the General Trades' Union of New York. Thedelegates were from the trades' unions of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Newark. Ely Moore, then laborcandidate for Congress, was elected president. An attempt by the only"intellectual" present, a Doctor Charles Douglass, representing theBoston Trades' Union, to strike a political note was immediatelysquelched. A second convention was held in 1835 and a third one in 1837. 

The National Trades' Union played a conspicuous part in securing theten-hour day for government employes. The victory of the ten-hourprinciple in private employment in 1835 generally led to its adoption bystates and municipalities. However, the Federal government was slow tofollow the example, since Federal officials were immune from the directpolitical pressure which the workingmen were able to use with advantageupon locally elected office holders. 

In October 1835, the mechanics employed in the New York and BrooklynNavy Yards petitioned the Secretary of the Navy for a reduction of thehours of labor to ten. The latter referred the petition to the Board ofNavy Commissioners, who returned the petition with the opinion that itwould be detrimental to the government to accede to their request. Thisforced the matter into the attention of the National Trades' Union. Atits second convention in 1835 it decided to petition Congress for aten-hour day for employes on government works. The petition wasintroduced by the labor Congressman from New York, Ely Moore. Congresscurtly replied, however, that it was not a matter for legislation but"that the persons employed should redress their own grievances. " WithCongress in such a mood, the hopes of the workingmen turned to thePresident. 

A first step was made in the summer of 1836, when the workers in theNavy Yard at Philadelphia struck for a ten-hour day and appealed toPresident Jackson for relief. They would have nothing further to do withCongress. They had supported President Jackson in his fight against theUnited States Bank and now sought a return favor. At a town meeting of"citizens, mechanics, and working men, " a committee was appointed to laythe issue before him. He proved indeed more responsive than Congress andordered 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 Yorkthe mechanics secured the ten-hour day in Baltimore and Annapolis, butin the District of Columbia and elsewhere they were still working twelveor fourteen hours. In other words, the ten-hour day was secured onlywhere 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, althoughsomewhat belatedly, President Van Buren issued on March 31, 1840, thefamous executive order establishing the ten-hour day on government workwithout a reduction in wages. 

The victory came after the National Trades' Union had gone out ofexistence and should be, more correctly, correlated with a laborpolitical movement. Early in 1837 came a financial panic. The industrialdepression wiped out in a short time every form of labor organizationfrom the trade societies to the National Trades' Union. Labor stooddefenseless against the economic storm. In this emergency it turned topolitics as a measure of despair. 

The political dissatisfaction assumed the form of hostility towardsbanks and corporations in general. The workingmen held the banksresponsible for the existing anarchy in currency, from which theysuffered both as consumers and producers. Moreover, they felt that therewas something uncanny and threatening about corporations with theircontinuous existence and limited liability. Even while their attentionhad been engrossed by trade unionism, the workingmen were awake to theissue of monopoly. Together with their employers they had thereforesupported Jackson in his assault upon the largest "monster" of themall--the Bank of the United States. The local organizations of theDemocratic party, however, did not always remain true to faith. In suchcircumstances the workingmen, again acting in conjunction with theirmasters, frequently extended their support to the "insurgent"anti-monopoly candidates in the Democratic party conventions. Such arevolt took place in Philadelphia in 1835; and in New York, althoughTammany had elected Ely Moore, the President of the General Trades'Union of New York, to Congress in 1834, a similar revolt occurred. Theupshot was a triumphant return of the rebels into the fold of Tammany in1837. During the next twenty years, Tammany came nearer to being aworkingmen'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 ofbusiness depression and industrial disorganization only brieflyinterrupted during 1850-1853 by the gold discoveries in California. Theaggressive unions of the thirties practically disappeared. With industrydisorganized, trade unionism, or the effort to protect the standard ofliving by means of strikes, was out of question. As the prospect forimmediate amelioration became dimmed by circumstances, an opportunityarrived for theories and philosophies of radical social reform. Once thesun with its life-giving heat has set, one begins to see the cold anddistant stars. 

The uniqueness of the period of the forties in the labor movementproceeds not only from the large volume of star-gazing, but also fromthe accompanying fact that, for the first and only time in Americanhistory, the labor movement was dominated by men and women from theeducated class, the "intellectuals, " who thus served in the capacity ofexpert astrologers. 

And there was no lack of stars in the heaven of social reform to occupyboth intellectual and wage earner. First, there was the efficiencyscheme of the followers of Charles Fourier, the French socialist, or, asthey preferred to call themselves, the Associationists. Theirs was aproposal aiming directly to meet the issue of the prevailing industrialdisorganization and wasteful competition. Albert Brisbane, HoraceGreeley, and the Brook Farm enthusiasts and "Associationists" of theforties, made famous by their intimate association with Ralph WaldoEmerson, had much in common with the present-day efficiency engineers. This "old" efficiency of theirs, like the new one, was chiefly concernedwith increasing the production of wealth through the application of the"natural" laws of human nature. With the enormous increase in productionto be brought about by "Fourierism" and "Association, " the question ofjustice in distribution was relegated to a secondary place. Where theydiffered from the new efficiency was in method, for they believedefficiency would be attained if only the human instincts or "passions"were given free play, while the efficiency engineers of today trust lessto unguided instinct and more to "scientific management" of human"passions. "

Midway between trade unionism and the simon-pure, idealistic reformphilosophies stood producers' and consumers' cooperation. It had themerit of being a practical program most suitable to a time ofdepression, while on its spiritual side it did not fail to satisfy theloftiest intellectual. It was the resultant of the two most potentforces which acted upon the movement of the forties, the pressure of aninadequate income of the wage earner and the influence of theintellectuals. During no other period has there been, relativelyspeaking, so much effort along that line. 

Although, as we shall see, the eighties were properly the era ofproducers' cooperation on a large scale, the self-governing workshop hadalways been familiar to the American labor movement. The earliestattempt, as far as we have knowledge, occurred in Philadelphia in 1791, when the house carpenters out on strike offered by way of retaliationagainst their employers to undertake contracts at 25 percent less thanthe price charged by the masters. Fourteen years later, in 1806, thejourneymen cordwainers of the same city, following their conviction incourt on the charge of conspiracy brought in by their masters, opened upa cooperative shoe warehouse and store. As a rule the workingmen took upproductive cooperation when they had failed in strikes. 

In 1836 many of the trade societies began to lose their strikes andturned to cooperation. The cordwainers working on ladies' shoes enteredupon a strike for higher wages in March 1836, and opened three monthslater a "manufactory" or a warehouse of their own. The handloom weaversin two of the suburbs of Philadelphia started cooperative associationsat the same time. At the end of 1836 the hand-loom weavers ofPhiladelphia proper had two cooperative shops and were planning to opena third. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the journeymen cordwainers openeda shop after an unsuccessful strike early in 1836; likewise the tailorsof Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville. In New York the carpenters haddone so already in 1833, and the painters of New York and Brooklynopened their shops in 1837. 

Before long the spirit became so contagious that the Trades' Union ofPhiladelphia, the city federation of trade societies, was obliged totake notice. Early in 1837 a conference of about 200 delegates requestedeach trade society to submit estimates for a shop to employ ten members. However, further steps were prevented by the financial panic andbusiness depression. 

The forties witnessed several similar attempts. When the iron molders ofCincinnati failed to win a strike in the autumn of 1847, a few of theirnumber collected what funds they could and organized a sort ofjoint-stock company which they called "The Journeymen Molders' UnionFoundry. " Two local philanthropists erected their buildings. InPittsburgh a group of puddlers tried to raise money by selling stock toanyone who wished to take an interest in their cooperative venture. 

The cooperative ventures multiplied in 1850 and 1851, following awidespread failure of strikes and were entered upon with particularreadiness by the German immigrants. Among the Germans was an attitudetowards producers' cooperation, based more nearly on general principlesthan the practical exigencies of a strike. Fresh from the scenes ofrevolutions in Europe, they were more given to dreams aboutreconstructing society and more trustful in the honesty and integrity oftheir leaders. The cooperative movement among the Germans was identifiedwith the name of Wilhelm Weitling, the well-known German communist, whosettled in America about 1850. This movement centered in and around NewYork. The cooperative principle met with success among theEnglish-speaking people only outside the larger cities. In Buffalo, after an unsuccessful strike, the tailors formed an association with amembership of 108 and in October 1850, were able to give employment to80 of that number. 

Again, following an unsuccessful Pittsburgh strike of iron founders in1849, about a dozen of the strikers went to Wheeling, Virginia, eachinvesting $3000, and opened a cooperative foundry shop. Two otherfoundries were opened on a similar basis in Stetsonville, Ohio, andSharon, Pennsylvania. These associations of iron founders, however, might better be called association of small capitalists ormaster-workmen. 

During the forties, consumers' or distributive cooperation was alsogiven a trial. The early history of consumers' cooperation is butfragmentary and, so far as we know, the first cooperative attempt whichhad for its exclusive aim "competence to purchaser" was made inPhiladelphia early in 1829. A store was established on North FifthStreet, which sold goods at wholesale prices to members, who paid twentycents a month for its privileges. 

In 1831 distributive cooperation was much discussed in Boston by a "NewEngland Association of Farmers, Mechanics, and Other Working Men. " Ahalf dozen cooperative attempts are mentioned in the Cooperator, published in Utica in 1832, but only in the case of the journeymencordwainers of Lynn do we discover an undertaking which can withcertainty be considered as an effort to achieve distributivecooperation. Several germs of cooperative effort are found between 1833and 1845, but all that is known about them is that their promoterssought to effect a saving by the purchase of goods in large quantitieswhich were then broken up and distributed at a slight advance aboveoriginal cost in order to meet expenses. The managers were unpaid, themembers' interest in the business was not maintained, and the storessoon failed, or passed into the possession of private owners. 

It was the depression of 1846-1849 which supplied the movement fordistributive cooperation with the needed stimulus, especially in NewEngland. Although the matter was discussed in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even as far west as Ohio and Illinois, yetin none of the industrial centers of these States, except perhaps in NewYork, was it put into successful operation. 

In New England, however, the conditions were exceptionally favorable. Astrike movement for higher wages during a partial industrial revival of1843-1844 had failed completely. This failure, added to the fact thatwomen and girls were employed under very unsatisfactory conditions, strengthened the interest of humanitarians in the laboring people andespecially in cooperation as a possible means of alleviating theirdistress. 

Under the stimulus of these agitations, the New England Protective Unionwas formed in 1845. Until 1849, however, it bore the name of the WorkingMen's Protective Union. As often happens, prosperity brought disunionand, in 1853, a schism occurred in the organization due to personaldifferences. The seceders formed a separate organization known as theAmerican Protective Union. 

The Working Men's Protective Union embodied a larger conception of thecooperative idea than had been expressed before. The important thoughtwas that an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase ofcommodities was a poor way out of labor difficulties, but was valuableonly as a preparation for something better. 

Though the resources of these laborers were small, they began the workwith great hopes. This business, starting so unpretentiously, assumedlarger and increasing proportions until in October, 1852, the Unionembraced 403 divisions of which 167 reported a capital of $241, 712 and165 of these announced annual sales amounting to $1, 696, 825. Though theschism of 1853, mentioned above, weakened the body, the agent of theAmerican Protective Union claimed for the divisions comprising it salesaggregating in value over nine and one-fourth millions dollars in theseven years ending in 1859. 

It is not possible to tell what might have been the outcome of thiscooperative movement had the peaceful development of the countryremained uninterrupted. As it happened, the disturbed era of the CivilWar witnessed the near annihilation of all workingmen's cooperation. 

It is not difficult to see the causes which led to the destruction ofthe still tender plant. Men left their homes for the battle field, foreigners poured into New England towns and replaced the Americans inthe shops, while share-holders frequently became frightened at the stateof trade and gladly saw the entire cooperative enterprise pass into thehands of the storekeeper. 

This first American cooperative movement on a large scale resembled theBritish movement in many respects, namely open membership, equal votingby members irrespective of number of shares, cash sales and federationof societies for wholesale purchases, but differed in that goods weresold 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 Associationof New Bedford, Massachusetts, founded in 1848, and the AcushnetCooperative Association, also of New Bedford, which began business in1849. 

But the most characteristic labor movement of the forties was aresurgence of the old Agrarianism of the twenties. 

Skidmore's "equal division" of all property appealed to the workingmenof New York because it seemed to be based on equality of opportunity. One of Skidmore's temporary associates, a Welshman by the name of GeorgeHenry Evans, drew from him an inspiration for a new kind of agrarianismto which few could object. This new doctrine was a true Agrarianism, since it followed in the steps of the original "Agrarians, " the brothersGracchi in ancient Rome. Like the Gracchi, Evans centered his planaround the "ager publicum"--the vast American public domain. Evans beganhis agitation about 1844. 

Man's right to life, according to Evans, logically implied his right touse the materials of nature necessary for being. For practical reasonshe would not interfere with natural resources which have already passedunder private ownership. Evans proposed instead that Congress give eachwould-be settler land for a homestead free of charge. 

As late as 1852 debaters in Congress pointed out that in the precedingsixty years only 100, 000, 000 acres of the public lands had been sold andthat 1, 400, 000, 000 acres still remained at the disposal of thegovernment. Estimates of the required time to dispose of this residuumat the same rate of sale varied from 400 or 500 to 900 years. With theexaggerated views prevalent, it is no wonder that Evans believed thatthe right of the individual to as much land as his right to live callsfor would remain a living right for as long a period in the future as apractical statesman may be required to take into account. 

The consequences of free homesteads were not hard to picture. Thelandless wage earners could be furnished transportation and an outfit, for the money spent for poor relief would be more profitably expended insending the poor to the land. Private societies and trade unions, whenlaborers were too numerous, could aid in transporting the surplus to thewaiting homesteads and towns that would grow up. With the immobility oflabor thus offering no serious obstacle to the execution of the plan, the wage earners of the East would have the option of continuing to workfor 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 wagesand shorter hours. Those unable to meet the expenses of moving wouldprofit by higher wages at home. An equal opportunity to go on land wouldbenefit both pioneer and stay-at-home. 

But Evans would go still further in assuring equality of opportunity. Hewould make the individual's right to the resources of nature safeagainst the creditors through a law exempting homesteads from attachmentfor debts and even against himself by making the homestead inalienable. Moreover to assure that right to the American people _in perpetuo_ hewould prohibit future disposal of the public land in large blocks tomoneyed purchasers as practiced by the government heretofore. Thus theprogram of the new agrarianism: free homesteads, homestead exemption, and land limitation. 

Evans had a plan of political action, which was as unique as hiseconomic program. His previous political experiences with the New YorkWorkingmen's party had taught him that a minority party could not hopeto win by its own votes and that the politicians cared more for officesthan for measures. They would endorse any measure which was supported byvoters who held the balance of power. His plan of action was, therefore, to ask all candidates to pledge their support to his measures. Inexchange for such a pledge, the candidates would receive the votes ofthe workingmen. In case neither candidate would sign the pledge, itmight be necessary to nominate an independent as a warning to futurecandidates; but not as an indication of a new party organization. 

Evans' ideas quickly won the adherence of the few labor papers thenexisting. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune endorsed the homesteadmovement as early as 1845. The next five years witnessed a remarkablespread of the ideas of the free homestead movement in the press of thecountry. It was estimated in 1845 that 2000 papers were published in theUnited States and that in 1850, 600 of these supported land reform. 

Petitions and memorials having proved of little avail, the landreformers tried Evans' pet plan of bargaining votes for the support oftheir 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 landand other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidentialcontest of 1852. " A platform was adopted which proclaimed man's right tothe soil and urged that freedom of the public lands be endorsed by theDemocratic party. Senator Isaac A. Walker of Wisconsin was nominated asthe candidate of the party for President. 

For a while the professional politician triumphed over the too trustingworkingman reformer. But the cause found strong allies in the otherclasses of the American community. From the poor whites of the uplandregion of the South came a similar demand formulated by the Tennesseetailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, whointroduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneersand settlers came the demand for increased population and development ofresources, leading both to homesteads for settlers and land grants forrailways. The opposition came from manufacturers and landowners of theEast and from the Southern slave owners. The West and East finallycombined and the policy of the West prevailed, but not before the Southhad seceded from the Union. 

Not the entire reform was accepted. The Western spirit dominated. Thehomestead law, as finally adopted in 1862, granted one hundred and sixtyacres as a free gift to every settler. But the same Congress launchedupon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homesteadlegislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those whichsprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did notcarry out the broad principles of inalienability and land limitation ofthe original Agrarians. 

Their principle of homestead exemption, however, is now almostuniversally adopted. Thus the homestead agitation begun by Evans and agroup of wage earners and farmers in 1844 was carried to victory, thoughto an incomplete victory. It contained a fruitful lesson to labor inpolitics. The vested interests in the East were seen ultimately tocapitulate before a popular movement which at no time aspired towardpolitical power and office, but, concentrating on one issue, endeavoredinstead to permeate with its ideas the public opinion of the country atlarge. 

Of all the "isms" so prevalent during the forties, "Agrarianism" alonecame close to modern socialism, as it alone advocated class struggle andcarried it into the political field, although, owing to the peculiarityof the American party structure, it urged a policy of "reward yourfriends, and punish your enemies" rather than an out and out laborparty. It is noteworthy that of all social reform movements of theforties Agrarianism alone was not initiated by the intellectuals. Onthe other hand, another movement for legislative reform, namely theshorter-hour movement for women and children working in the mills andfactories, was entirely managed by humanitarians. Its philosophy was thefurthest removed from the class struggle idea. 

For only a short year or two did prosperity show itself from behind theclouds to cause a mushroom growth of trade unions, once in 1850-1851 andagain in 1853-1854, following the gold discoveries in California. Duringthese few years unionism disentangled itself from humanitarianism andcooperationism and came out in its wholly modern form of restrictivecraft unionism, only to be again suppressed by the business depressionsthat preceded and followed the panic of 1857. Considered as a whole, however, the period of the forties and fifties was the zenith inAmerican history of theories of social reform, of "panaceas, " ofhumanitarianism. 

The trade union wave of the fifties was so short lived and the tradeunionists were so preoccupied with the pressing need of advancing theirwages to keep pace with the soaring prices caused by the influx ofCalifornia gold, that we miss the tendency which was so strong in thethirties to reach out for a wider basis of labor organization in citytrades' unions, and ultimately in a National Trades' Union. On the otherhand, the fifties foreshadowed a new form of expansion of labororganization--the joining together in a nation-wide organization of alllocal unions of one trade. The printers[9] organized nationally in1850, the locomotive engineers and the hat-finishers in 1854; and theiron molders, and the machinists and blacksmiths in 1859; in additionthere were at least a half dozen less successful attempts in othertrades. 

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 toexercise 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 thecordwainers or shoemakers. But we must keep in mind that whatconstituted national organization in the thirties would pass only forregional 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 thefifties did not constitute by themselves a labor movement. It needed theindustrial prosperity caused by the price inflation of the Civil Wartime to bring forth again a mass movement of labor. 

We shall say little of labor's attitude towards the question of war andpeace before the War had started. Like many other citizens of the Northand the Border States the handful of organized workers favored acompromise. They held a labor convention in Philadelphia, in which agreat labor leader of the sixties, William H. Sylvis, President of theInternational Molders' Union, took a prominent part and pronounced infavor of the compromise solution advanced by Congressman Crittenden ofKentucky. But no sooner had Fort Sumter been fired upon by thesecessionists than labor rallied to the support of the Federal Union. Entire local unions enlisted at the call of President Lincoln, andSylvis himself assisted in recruiting a company composed of molders. 

The first effect of the War was a paralysis of business and an increaseof unemployment. The existing labor organizations nearly all went to thewall. The period of industrial stagnation, however, lasted only untilthe middle of 1862. 

The legal tender acts of 1862 and 1863 authorized the issue of papercurrency of "greenbacks" to the amount of $1, 050, 000, 000, andimmediately prices began to soar. For the next sixteen years, namelyuntil 1879, when the government resumed the redemption of greenbacks ingold, prices of commodities and labor expressed in terms of paper moneyshowed varying degrees of inflation; hence the term "greenback" period. During the War the advance in prices was due in part to theextraordinary 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 andwages only 12 percent above; in July 1864, retail prices rose to 70percent and wages to 30 percent above 1860; and in July 1865, pricesrose 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 alongtrade-union lines. 

The order observed in the thirties was again followed out. First came aflock of local trade unions; these soon combined in city centrals--or asthey came to be called, trades' assemblies--paralleling the trades'union of the thirties; and lastly, came an attempt to federate theseveral trades' assemblies into an International Industrial Assembly ofNorth America. Local trade unions were organized literally in everytrade beginning in the second half of 1862. The first trades' assemblywas formed in Rochester, New York, in March 1863; and before long therewas one in every town of importance. The International IndustrialAssembly was attempted in 1864, but failed to live up to theexpectations: The time had passed for a national federation of citycentrals. As in the thirties the spread of unionism over the breadth ofthe land called out as a counterpart a widespread movement of employers'associations. The latter differed, however, from their predecessors inthe thirties in that they made little use of the courts in their fightagainst the unions. 

The growth of the national trade unions was a true index of thecondition of business. Four were organized in 1864 as compared to twoorganized in 1863, none in 1862, and one in 1861. During 1865, whichmarked the height of the intense business activity, six more nationalunions were organized. In 1866 industry entered upon a period ofdepression, which reached its lowest depth in 1867 and continued until1869. Accordingly, not a single national union was organized in 1866 andonly 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 fourdepressed years, compared with ten in the preceding two prosperousyears. In the summer of 1870 business became good and remained good forapproximately three years. Nine new national unions appeared in thesethree years. These same years are marked also by a growth of the unionspreviously organized. For instance, the machinists and blacksmiths, withonly 1500 members in 1870, had 18, 000 in 1873. Other unions showedsimilar gains. 

An estimate of the total trade union membership at any one time (in viewof 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 as600, 000. Probably 300, 000 would be a conservative estimate for the timeimmediately preceding the panic of 1873. 

Although the strength of labor was really the strength of the nationaltrade unions, especially during the depression of the later sixties, fargreater attention was attracted outside as well as inside the labormovement by the National Labor Union, a loosely built federation ofnational trade unions, city trades' assemblies, local trade unions, andreform organizations of various descriptions, from philosophicalanarchists to socialists and woman suffragists. The National Labor Uniondid not excel in practical activity, but it formed an accurate mirror ofthe aspirations and ideals of the American mechanics of the time of theCivil War and after. During its six years' existence it ran the gamut ofall 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 returnof the demobilized soldiers and the shutting down of war industries. Theconvention centered on the demand to reduce the working day to eighthours. But eight hours had by that time come to signify more than ameans to increase employment. The eight-hour movement drew itsinspiration from an economic theory advanced by a self-taught Bostonmachinist, Ira Steward. And so naturally did this theory flow from theusual premises in the thinking of the American workman that onceformulated by Steward it may be said to have become an official theoryof the labor movement. 

Steward's doctrine is well expressed by a couplet which was very popularwith the eight-hour speakers of that period: "Whether you work by thepiece or work by the day, decreasing the hours increases the pay. "Steward believed that the amount of wages is determined by no otherfactor than the worker's standard of living. He held that wages cannotfall below the standard of living not because, as the classicaleconomists said, it would cause late marriages and a reduction in thesupply of labor, but solely because the wage earner will refuse to workfor less than enough to maintain his standard of living. Stewardpossessed such abundant faith in this purely psychological check on theemployer that he made it the cornerstone of his theory of socialprogress. Raise the worker's standard of living, he said, and theemployer will be immediately forced to raise wages; no more can wagesfall below the level of the worker's standard of living than New Englandcan be ruled against her will. The lever for raising the standard ofliving was the eight-hour day. Increase the worker's leisure and youwill increase his wants; increase his wants and you will immediatelyraise his wages. Although he occasionally tried to soften his doctrineby the argument that a shorter work-day not only does not decrease butmay actually increase output, his was a distinctly revolutionarydoctrine; he aimed at the total abolition of profits through theirabsorption into wages. But the instrument was nothing more radical thana progressive universal shortening the hours. 

So much for the general policy. To bring it to pass two alternativeswere possible: trade unionism or legislation. Steward chose the latteras the more hopeful and speedy one. Steward knew that appeals to thehumanity of the employers had largely failed; efforts to secure thereform by cooperation had failed; the early trade unions had failed; andthere seemed to be no recourse left now but to accomplish the reductionof hours by legislative enactment. 

In 1866 Steward organized the Grand Eight-Hour League of Massachusettsas a special propagandist organization of the eight-hour philosophy. TheLeague was a secret organization with pass words and obligations, intended as the central organization of a chain of subordinate leaguesin the State, afterwards to be created. Of a total of about eighty localleagues in existence from 1865 to 1877, about twenty were inMassachusetts, eight elsewhere in New England, at least twenty-five inMichigan, four or five in Pennsylvania, about seven in Illinois, as manyin Wisconsin, and smaller numbers in Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, andCalifornia. Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Pennsylvania had each a GrandEight-Hour League. Practically all of these organizations disappearedsoon after the panic of 1873. 

The National Labor Union centered on the passage of an eight-hour lawfor employes of the Federal government. It was believed, perhaps notwithout some justice, that the effect of such law would eventually leadto the introduction of the same standard in private employment--notindeed through the operation of the law of supply and demand, for it wasrealized that this would be practically negligible, but rather throughits contagious effect on the minds of employes and even employers. Itwill be recalled that, at the time of the ten-hour agitation of thethirties, the Federal government had lagged about five years behindprivate employers in granting the demanded concession. That in thesixties the workingmen chose government employment as the entering wedgeshows a measure of political self-confidence which the precedinggeneration of workingmen lacked. 

The first bill in Congress was introduced by Senator Gratz Brown ofMissouri in March 1866. In the summer a delegation from the NationalLabor Union was received by President Andrew Johnson. The Presidentpointed to his past record favorable to the workingmen but refrainedfrom any definite promises. Finally, an eight-hour bill for governmentemployes was passed by the House in March 1867, and by the Senate inJune 1868. On June 29, 1868, President Johnson signed it and it wentinto effect immediately. 

The result of the eight-hour law was not all that the friends of thebill hoped. The various officials in charge of government work put theirown interpretations upon it and there resulted much diversity in itsobservance, and consequently great dissatisfaction. There seemed to beno clear understanding as to the intent of Congress in enacting the law. Some held that the reduction in working hours must of necessity bringwith it a corresponding reduction in wages. The officials' view of thesituation was given by Secretary Gideon Wells. He pointed out thatCongress, by reducing the hours of labor in government work, had forcedupon the department of the Navy the employment of a larger number of menin order to accomplish the necessary work; and that at the same timeCongress had reduced the appropriation for that department. This hadrendered unavoidable a twenty percent reduction in wages paid employesin the Navy Yard. Such a state of uncertainty continued four yearslonger. At last on May 13, 1872, President Grant prohibited byproclamation 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 theway for the eight-hour system in private employment failed tomaterialize. The depression during the seventies took up all the impetusin that direction which the law may have generated. Even as far asgovernment work is concerned forty years had to elapse before itsapplication could be rounded out by extending it to contract work donefor the government by private employers. 

We have dealt at length with this subject because it marked an importantlandmark. It demonstrated to the wage earners that, provided theyconcentrated on a modest object and kept up a steady pressure, theirprospects for success were not entirely hopeless, hard as the road mayseem to travel. The other and far more ambitious object of theworkingman of the sixties, that of enacting general eight-hour laws inthe several States, at first appeared to be within easy reach--soyielding political parties and State legislatures seemed to be to thedemands of the organized workmen. Yet before long these successes provedto be entirely illusory. 

The year 1867 was the banner year for such State legislation. Eight-hourlaws were passed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Missouri, and NewYork. California passed such a law in 1868. In Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, and Minnesota bills were introduced but were defeated. Twocommon features characterized these laws, whether enacted or merelyproposed to the legislatures. There were none which did not permit oflonger hours than those named in the law, provided they were sospecified in the contract. A contract requiring ten or more hours a daywas perfectly legal. The eight-hour day was the legal day only "when thecontract was silent on the subject or where there is no express contractto the contrary, " as stated in the Wisconsin law. But the greatestweakness was a lack of a provision for enforcement. New York'sexperience is typical and characteristic. When the workingmen appealedto Governor Fenton to enforce the law, he replied that the act hadreceived his official signature and he felt that it "would be anunwarrantable assumption" on his part to take any step requiring itsenforcement. "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 andprotracted labor in obtaining an enforceable ten-hour law for women--thefirst effective law of its kind passed in any American State. This law, which was passed in 1874, provides that "no minor under the age ofeighteen years, and no woman over that age" shall be employed more thanten hours in one day or sixty hours in any one week in any manufacturingestablishment in the State. The penalty for each violation was fixed atfifty dollars. 

The repeated disappointments with politics and legislation led in theearly seventies to a revival of faith in trade unionism. Even in theearly sixties we find not a few unions, national and local, limitingtheir hours by agreement with employers. The national unions, however, for the most part left the matter to the local unions for settlement astheir strength or local conditions might dictate. In some cases thelocal unions were advised to accept a reduction of wages in order tosecure the system, showing faith in Steward's theory that such reductioncould not be permanent. 

The movement to establish the eight-hour day through trade unionismreached its climax in the summer of 1872, when business prosperity wasat its height. This year witnessed in New York City a general eight-hourstrike. However, it succeeded in only a few trades, and even there thegain was only temporary, since it was lost during the years ofdepression which followed the financial panic of 1873. 

To come back to the National Labor Union. At the second convention in1867 the enthusiasm was transferred from eight-hour laws to the bizarresocial reform philosophy known as "greenbackism. "

"Greenbackism" was, in substance, a plan to give the man without capitalan equal opportunity in business with his rich competitor. It meanttaking away from bankers and middlemen their control over credit andthereby furnishing credit and capital through the aid of the governmentto the producers of physical products. On its face greenbackism was aprogram of currency reform and derived its name from the so-called"greenback, " the paper money issued during the Civil War. But it wasmore than currency reform--it was industrial democracy. 

"Greenbackism" was the American counterpart of the contemporaryradicalism of Europe. Its program had much in common with that ofLassalle in Germany who would have the state lend its credit tocooperative associations of workingmen in the confident expectation thatwith such backing they would drive private capitalism out of existenceby the competitive route. But greenbackism differed from the scheme ofLassalle in that it would utilize the government's enormous Civil Wardebt, instead of its taxing power, as a means of furnishing capital tolabor. This was to be done by reducing the rate of interest on thegovernment bonds to three percent and by making them convertible intolegal tender currency and convertible back into bonds, at the will ofthe holder of either. In other words, the greenback currency, instead ofbeing, as it was at the time, an irredeemable promise to pay in specie, would be redeemable in government bonds. On the other hand, if agovernment bondholder could secure slightly more than three percent bylending to a private borrower, he would return his bonds to thegovernment, take out the corresponding amount in greenbacks and lend itto the producer on his private note or mortgage. This would involve, ofcourse, the possible inflation of legal tender currency to the amount ofoutstanding bonds. But inflation was immaterial, since all prices wouldbe affected alike and meanwhile the farmers, the workingmen, and theircooperative establishments would be able to secure capital at slightlymore than three percent instead of the nine or twelve percent which theywere compelled to pay at the bank. Thereby they would be placed on acompetitive level with the middleman, and the wage earner would beassisted to escape the wage system into self-employment. 

Such was the curious doctrine which captured the leaders of theorganized wage earners in 1867. The way had indeed been prepared for itin 1866, when the wage earners espoused producers' cooperation as theonly solution. But, in the following year, 1867, they concluded that nosystem of combination or cooperation could secure to labor its naturalrights as long as the credit system enabled non-producers to accumulatewealth faster than labor was able to add to the national wealth. Cooperation would follow "as a natural consequence, " if producers couldsecure through legislation credit at a low rate of interest. Thegovernment was to extend to the producer "free capital" in addition tofree land which he received with the Homestead Act. 

The producers' cooperation, which offered the occasion for the espousalof greenbackism, was itself preceded by a movement for consumers'cooperation. Following the upward sweep of prices, workmen had beguntoward the end of 1862 to make definite preparations for distributivecooperation. They endeavored to cut off the profits of the middleman byestablishing cooperative grocery stores, meat markets, and coal yards. The first substantial effort of this kind to attract wide attention wasthe formation in December 1862, of the Union Cooperative Association ofPhiladelphia, which opened a store. The prime mover and the financialsecretary of this organization was Thomas Phillips, a shoemaker who camefrom England in 1852, fired with the principles of the Rochdalepioneers, that is, cash sales, dividends on purchases rather than onstock, and "one man, one vote. " By 1866 the movement had extended untilpractically every important industrial town between Boston and SanFrancisco had some form of distributive cooperation. This was the hightide of the movement. Unfortunately, the condition of the country wasunfavorable to these enterprises and they were destined to earlycollapse. The year 1865 witnessed disastrous business failures. Thecountry was in an uncertain condition and at the end of the sixties theentire movement had died out. 

From 1866 to 1869 experiments in productive cooperation were made bypractically 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 outof unsuccessful strikes. The most important undertakings were among theworkers in iron, undoubtedly due in large measure to the indefatigableefforts of William H. Sylvis, the founder of the Iron Molders'International Union. 

At the close of 1869 members of the Iron Molders' International Unionowned and operated many cooperative foundries chiefly in New York andPennsylvania. The first of the foundries established at Troy in theearly summer of 1866 was followed quickly by one in Albany and thenduring the next eighteen months by ten more--one each in Rochester, Chicago, Quincy, Louisville, Somerset, Pittsburgh, and two each in Troyand Cleveland. The original foundry at Troy was an immediate financialsuccess and was hailed with joy by those who believed that under thename of cooperationists the baffled trade unionists might yet conquer. The New York _Sun_ congratulated the iron molders of Troy and declaredthat Sylvis had checkmated the association of stove manufacturers and, by the establishment of this cooperative foundry, had made the greatestcontribution of the year to the labor cause. 

But the results of the Troy experiment, typical of the others, show howfar from a successful solution of the labor problem is productivecooperation. Although this "Troy Cooperative Iron Founders' Association"was planned with great deliberation and launched at a time when theregular stove manufacturers were embarrassed by strikes, and although itwas regularly incorporated with a provision that each member wasentitled to but one vote whether he held one share at $100, or themaximum privilege of fifty in the total of two thousand shares, itfailed as did the others in furnishing permanent relief to the workersas a class. At the end of the third year of this enterprise, the_American Workman_ published a sympathetic account of its progressunconsciously disclosing its fatal weakness, namely, the inevitabletendency of cooperators to adopt the capitalistic view. The writer ofthis account quotes from these cooperators to show that "the fewer thestockholders in the company the greater its success. "

A similar instance is furnished by the Cooperative Foundry Company ofRochester. This venture has also been a financial success, though apartial failure as a cooperative enterprise. When it was established in1867 all employes were stockholders and profits were divided as follows:Twelve percent on capital and the balance in proportion to the earningsof the men. But the capitalist was stronger than the cooperativebrother. Dividends on capital were advanced in a few years to seventeenand one-half percent, then to twenty-five, and finally the distributionof any part of the profits in proportion to wages was discontinued. Money was made every year and dividends paid, which in 1884 amounted toforty percent on the capital. At that time about one-fifth of theemployes were stockholders. Also in this case cooperation did notprevent the usual conflict between employer and employe, as is shown ina strike of three and a half months' duration. It is interesting tonotice that one of the strikers, a member of the Molders' Union, ownedstock to the amount of $7000. 

The machinists, too, throughout this period took an active interest incooperation. Their convention which met in October, 1865, appointed acommittee to report on a plan of action to establish a cooperative shopunder the auspices of the International Union. The plan failed ofadoption, but of machinists' shops on the joint-stock plan there were agood many. Two other trades noted for their enthusiasm for cooperationat this time were the shoemakers and the coopers. The former, organizedin the Order of St. Crispin, then the largest trade union in thecountry, advocated cooperation even when their success in strikes was atits height. "The present demand of the Crispin is steady employment andfair wages, but his future is self-employment" was one of their mottoes. During the seventies they repeatedly attempted to carry this motto intoeffect. The seventies also saw the beginning of the most successfulsingle venture in productive cooperation ever undertaken in thiscountry, namely, the eight cooperative cooperage shops in Minneapolis, which were established at varying intervals from 1874 to 1886. Thecoopers took care to enforce true cooperation by providing for equalholding of stock and for a division of ordinary profits and losses inproportion to wages. The cooper shops prospered, but already ten yearslater four out of the eight existing in 1886 had passed into privatehands. 

In 1866 when the eight-hour demand was as yet uppermost, the NationalLabor Union resolved for an independent labor party. The espousal ofgreenbackism in 1867 only reenforced that resolution. The leadersrealized only too well that neither the Republican nor Democratic partywould voluntarily make an issue of a scheme purporting to assist thewage earner to become an independent producer. Accordingly, the historyof the National Labor Union became largely the history of labor's firstattempt to play a lone political hand on a national scale. 

Each annual session of the National Labor Union faithfully reaffirmedthe decision to "cut loose" from the old parties. But such a vastundertaking demanded time. It was not until 1872 that the National LaborUnion met as a political convention to nominate a national ticket. Fromthe first the stars were inauspicious. Charges were made that politicalaspirants sought to control the convention in order to influencenominations by the Republican and Democratic parties. A "greenback"platform was adopted as a matter of course and the new party waschristened the National Labor and Reform Party. On the first formalballot for nomination for President, Judge David Davis of Illinois, apersonal friend of Abraham Lincoln, received 88 votes, Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist, 52, and the remainder scattered. On the third ballotDavis was nominated. Governor J. Parker of New Jersey was nominated forVice-President. At first Judge Davis accepted the nomination, butresigned after the Democrats had nominated Horace Greeley. The loss ofthe candidate spelled the death of the party. The National Labor Unionitself had been only an empty shell since 1870, when the national tradeunions, disaffected with the turn towards politics, withdrew. Now, itspet project a failure, it, too, broke up. 

In 1873, on the eve of the financial panic, the national trade unionsattempted to reconstruct a national labor federation on a purelytrade-union basis in the form of a National Industrial Congress. But theeconomic disaster of the panic nipped it in the bud just as it cut offthe life of the overwhelming majority of the existing labororganizations. Another attempt to get together on a national basis wasmade in the National Labor Congress at Pittsburgh in 1876. But those whoresponded were not interested in trade unionism and, mirroring theprevailing labor sentiment during the long years of depressions, hadonly politics on their mind, greenback or socialist. As neithergreenbacker nor socialist would meet the other half-way, the attemptnaturally came to naught. 

Greenbackism was popular with the working people during the depressedseventies because it now meant to them primarily currency inflation anda rise of prices and, consequently, industrial prosperity--not thephantastic scheme of the National Labor Union. Yet in the Presidentialelection of 1876 the Greenback party candidate, Peter Cooper, the wellknown manufacturer and philanthropist, drew only a poor 100, 000, whichcame practically from the rural districts only. It was not until thegreat strikes of 1877 had brought in their train a political laborupheaval that the greenback movement assumed a formidable form. 

The strikes of 1877, which on account of the wide area affected, thedegree 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 thethree trunk lines running West, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the New York Central, in June and July 1877. This reduction came ontop of an earlier ten percent reduction after the panic. The railway menwere practically unorganized so that the steadying influence of previousorganization was totally lacking in the critical situation of unrestwhich the newly announced wage reduction created. One must take alsointo account that in the four terrible years which elapsed since thepanic, America had developed a new type of a man--the tramp--whonaturally 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. Thestrike spread like wildfire over the adjacent sections of the Baltimore& Ohio road, the strikers assuming absolute control at many points. Themilitia was either unwilling or powerless to cope with the violence. InBaltimore, where in the interest of public safety all the freight trainshad stopped running, two companies of militia were beleaguered by a mobto prevent their being dispatched to Cumberland, where the strikers werein control. Order was restored only when Federal troops arrived. 

But these occurrences fade into insignificance when compared with thedestructive effects of the strike on the Pennsylvania in and aroundPittsburgh. The situation there was aggravated by a hatred of thePennsylvania railway corporation shared by nearly all residents on theground of an alleged rate discrimination against the city. ThePittsburgh militia fraternized with the strikers, and when 600 troopswhich arrived from Philadelphia attempted to restore order and killedabout twenty rioters, they were besieged in a roundhouse by a furiousmob. In the battle the railway yards were set on fire. Damages amountingto about $5, 000, 000 were caused. The besieged militia men finally gainedegress and retreated fighting rear-guard actions. At last order wasrestored by patrols of citizens. The strike spread also to the Erierailway and caused disturbances in several places, but not nearly of thesame serious nature as on the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania. Theother 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 Parisof 1871 and feared for the foundations of the established order. Thewage earners, on the other hand, felt that the strikers had not beenfairly dealt with. It was on this intense labor discontent that thegreenback agitation fed and grew. 

Whereas in 1876 the greenback labor vote was negligible, notwithstandingthe exhortations by many of the former trade union leaders who turnedgreenback agitators, now, following the great strikes, greenbackismbecame primarily a labor movement. Local Greenback-Labor parties werebeing organized everywhere and a national Greenback-Labor party was notfar behind in forming. The continued industrial depression was adecisive factor, the winter of 1877-1878 marking perhaps the point ofits greatest intensity. Naturally the greenback movement was growingapace. One of the notable successes in the spring of 1878 was theelection of Terence V. Powderly, later Grand Master Workman of theKnights of Labor, as mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania. 

The Congressional election in the autumn of 1878 marked the zenith ofthe movement. The aggregate greenback vote cast in the election exceededa million, and fourteen Representatives were sent to Congress. In NewEngland the movement was strong enough to poll almost a third of thetotal vote in Maine, over 8 percent of the total vote in bothConnecticut and New Hampshire, and from 4 to 6 percent, in the otherStates. In Maine the greenbackers elected 32 members of the upper houseand 151 members of the lower house and one Congressman, Thompson Murchof 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 gettingthe Democratic nomination for governor and was endorsed by the Greenbackconvention. He received a large vote but was defeated for office. 

But just as the Greenback-Labor movement was assuming promisingproportions a change for the better in the industrial situation cutunder the very roots of its existence. In addition, one month after theelection of 1878, its principal issue disappeared. January 1, 1879, wasthe date fixed by the act for resumption of redemption of greenbacks ingold and on December 17, 1878, the premium on gold disappeared. Fromthat day on, the greenback became a dead issue. 

Another factor of great importance was the large increase in the volumeof the currency. In 1881 the currency, which had averaged about$725, 000, 000 for the years 1876-1878, reached over $1, 111, 000, 000. Underthese conditions, all that remained available to the platform-makers andpropagandists of the party was their opposition to the so-called"monopolistic" national banks with their control over currency and tothe refunding of the bonded debt of the government. 

The disappearance of the financial issue snapped the threads which hadheld together the farmer and the wage-worker. So long as depressioncontinued, the issue was financial and the two had, as they thought, acommon enemy--the banker. The financial issue once settled, or at leastsuspended, the object of the attack by labor became the employer, andthat of the attack by the farmer--the railway corporation and thewarehouse man. Prosperity had mitigated the grievances of both classes, but while the farmer still had a great deal to expect from politics inthe 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 strikesof 1877 precipitated a political movement. California had retained goldas currency throughout the entire period of paper money, and the labormovement at no time had accepted the greenback platform. The politicalissue after 1877 was racial, not financial, and the weapon was notmerely the ballot, but also "direct action"--violence. The anti-Chineseagitation in California, culminating as it did in the Exclusion Lawpassed by Congress in 1882, was doubtless the most important singlefactor in the history of American labor, for without it the entirecountry might have been overrun by Mongolian labor and the labormovement might have become a conflict of races instead of one ofclasses. [10]

The seventies witnessed another of those recurring attempts ofconsumers' cooperation already noticed in the forties and sixties. Thistime the movement was organized by the "Sovereigns of Industry, " asecret order, founded at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1874 by oneWilliam H. Earle. The spirit of the Order was entirely peaceful andunobtrusive as expressed in the first paragraph of the Declaration ofPurposes which reads as follows:

"The Order of the Sovereigns of Industry is an association of theindustrial or laboring classes, without regard to race, sex, color, nationality, or occupation; not founded for the purpose of waging anywar of aggression upon any other class, or for fostering any antagonismof labor against capital, or of arraying the poor against the rich; butfor mutual assistance in self-improvement and self-protection. "

The scheme of organization called for a local council including membersfrom the town or district, a state council, comprising representativesfrom the local councils and a National Council in which the States wererepresented. The president of the National Council was the founder ofthe Order, William H. Earle. 

Success accompanied the efforts of the promoters of the Sovereigns ofIndustry 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 percentin Massachusetts. Though the Order extended into other States and evenreached the territories, its chief strength always remained in NewEngland and the Middle States. During the last period of its existence anational organ was published at Washington, but the Order does notappear to have gained a foothold in any of the more Southern sections ofthe country. 

In 1875, 101 local councils reported as having some method of supplyingmembers with goods, 46 of whom operated stores. The largest storebelonged to the council at Springfield, Massachusetts, which in 1875built the "Sovereign Block" at a cost of $35, 500. In his address at thefourth annual session in Washington, President Earle stated that thestore in Springfield led all the others with sales amounting to $119, 000for the preceding year. About one-half of the councils failed to report, but at the Congress of 1876 President Earle estimated the annual tradeat $3, 000, 000. 

Much enthusiasm accompanied the progress of the movement. The hall in"Sovereign Block" at Springfield was dedicated amid such jubilation asmarks an event thought to be the forerunner of a new era. There isindeed a certain pathos in the high hopes expressed in the Address ofDedication by President Earle, for, though the Order continued to thriveuntil 1878, shortly after a decline began, and dissolution was its fatein 1880. 

The failure of the Sovereigns marked the latest attempt on a largescale[11] to inoculate the American workingmen with the sort ofcooperative spirit which proved so successful in England. [12]

This failure of distributive cooperation to gain the strong and lastingfoothold in this country that it has abroad has been accounted for invarious ways by different writers. Great emphasis has been laid upon thelack of capital, the lack of suitable legislation on the subject ofcooperation, the mutual isolation of the educated and wage-earningclasses, the lack of business ability among wage earners, and thealtogether too frequent venality and corruption among cooperators. 

Probably the lack of adequate leadership has played as important a partas any. It is peculiar to America that the wage earner of exceptionalability can easily find a way for escaping into the class of independentproducers or even employers of labor. The American trade union movementhas suffered much less from this difficulty. The trade unions arefighting organizations; they demand the sort of leader who is of acombative spirit, who possesses the organizing ability and the "personalmagnetism" to keep his men in line; and for this kind of ability thebusiness world offers no particular demand. On the other hand, thequalifications which go to make a successful manager of a cooperativestore, namely, steadiness, conservatism of judgment, attention to detailand business punctuality always will be in great demand in the businessworld. Hence, when no barrier is interposed in the form of preemptedopportunities or class bias, the exceptional workingman who possessesthese qualifications will likely desert his class and set up in businessfor himself. In England, fortunately for the cooperative movement, suchan escape is very difficult. 

The failure of consumers' cooperation in America was helped also by twoother peculiarly American conditions. European economists, when speakingof the working class, assume generally that it is fixed in residence andcontrast it with capital, which they say is fluid as between city andcity 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 wageearners in the place where their fathers and forefathers had livedbefore them are generally absent in this country, except perhaps inparts of New England and the South. It is therefore natural that thecooperative spirit, which after all is but an enlarged and moregeneralized 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 isthe racial heterogeneity of the American wage-earning class, whichseparates it into mutually isolated groups even as the social classes ofEngland and Scotland are separated by class spirit. As a result, we finda want of mutual trust which depends so much on "consciousness of kind. "This is further aggravated by competition and a continuous displacementin industry of nationalities of a high standard of living by those of alower one. This conflict of nationalities, which lies also at the rootof the closed shop policy of many of the American trade unions, isprobably the most effective carrier that there is to a widespread growthof the cooperative spirit among American wage earners. This is furtherhindered by other national characteristics which more or less pervadeall classes of society, namely, the traditional individualism--theheritage of puritanism and the pioneer days, and the emphasis uponearning capacity with a corresponding aversion to thrift. 

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The National Labor Union came out against Chinese immigration in1869, when the issue was brought home to the Eastern wage earnersfollowing 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 concertedeffort to duplicate the venture of the Sovereigns was attempted as lateas 1919 under the pressure of the soaring cost of living. 

[12] Where Consumers' Cooperation has worked under most favorableconditions as in England, its achievements have been all that its mostardent champions could have desired. Such is the picture presented byMr. And Mrs. Sidney Webb in the following glowing terms:

"The organization of industry by Associations of Consumers offers, asfar as it goes, a genuine alternative to capitalist ownership, becauseit supersedes the capitalist power, whether individual or joint-stock, alike in the control of the instruments of production by which thecommunity lives, and in the absorption of the profits, which otherwisesupport a capitalist class. The ownership and control are vested in, andthe profits are distributed among, the whole community of consumers, irrespective of their industrial wealth. Through the device of dividendon purchases the Cooperative Movement maintains an open democracy, through the control of this democracy of consumers it has directly orindirectly kept down prices, and protected the wage-earning class fromexploitation by the Credit System and from the extortions of monopolisttraders and speculators. By this same device on purchases, and theautomatic accumulation of part of the profit in the capital of eachsociety and in that of the Wholesales, it has demonstratedly added tothe personal wealth of the manual working class, and has, alike in GreatBritain, and in other countries, afforded both a valuable financialreserve to the wage earners against all emergencies and an instrumentfor their elevation from the penury to which competition is alwaysdepressing them. By making possible the upgrowth of great businessenterprises in working class hands, the Cooperative Movement has, without divorcing them from their fellows, given to thousands of themanual workers both administrative experience and a well-groundedconfidence; and has thus enabled them to take a fuller part in politicaland social life than would otherwise have been probable. "--_NewStatesman_, May 30, 1916. "Special Supplement on the CooperativeMovement. "

Indeed the success of the consumer's cooperative movement in Europeancountries has been marvellous, even measured by bare figures. In allEurope in 1914, there were about 9, 000, 000 cooperators of whom one-thirdlived in Great Britain and not less than two and a half millions inGermany. In England and Scotland alone, the 1400 stores and twoWholesale Cooperative Societies controlled in 1914 about 420 milliondollars of retail distributive trade and employed nearly 50, 000operatives in processes of production in their own workshops andfactories. 

CHAPTER 3

THE BEGINNING OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR AND OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OFLABOR

With the practical disintegration of the organized labor movement in theseventies, two nuclei held together and showed promise of future growth. One was the "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor" and the other a smalltrade union movement grouped around the International Cigar Makers'Union. 

The "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, " while it first becameimportant in the labor movement after 1873, was founded in 1869 by UriahSmith Stephens, a tailor who had been educated for the ministry, as asecret organization. Secrecy was adopted as a protection againstpersecutions by employers. 

The principles of the Order were set forth by Stephens in the secretritual. "Open and public association having failed after a struggle ofcenturies to protect or advance the interest of labor, we have lawfullyconstituted this Assembly, " and "in using this power of organized effortand cooperation, we but imitate the example of capital heretofore set innumberless instances;" for, "in all the multifarious branches of trade, capital has its combinations, and, whether intended or not, it crushesthe manly hopes of labor and tramples poor humanity into the dust. "However, "we mean no conflict with legitimate enterprise, no antagonismto necessary capital. " The remedy consists first in work of education:"We mean to create a healthy public opinion on the subject of labor (theonly creator of values or capital) and the justice of its receiving afull, just share of the values or capital it has created. " The nextremedy was legislation: "We shall, with all our strength, support lawsmade to harmonize the interests of labor and capital, for labor alonegives life and value to capital, and also those laws which tend tolighten the exhaustiveness of toil. " Next in order were mutual benefits. "We shall use every lawful and honorable means to procure and retainemploy for one another, coupled with a just and fair remuneration, and, should accident or misfortune befall one of our number, render such aidas lies within our power to give, without inquiring his country or hiscreed. "

For nine years the Order remained a secret organization and showed but aslow growth. In 1878 it was forced to abolish secrecy. The public mindwas rendered uneasy by the revolutionary uprising of workingmen of Pariswho set up the famous "Commune of Paris" of 1871, by the destructivegreat railway strikes in this country in 1877 and, lastly, by a wave ofcriminal disorders in the anthracite coal mining region in EasternPennsylvania, [13] and became only too prone to attribute revolutionaryand criminal intents to any labor organization that cloaked itself insecrecy. Simultaneously with coming out into the open, the Knightsadopted a new program, called the Preamble of the Knights of Labor, inplace of the vague Secret Ritual which hitherto served as theauthoritative expression of aims. 

This Preamble recites how "wealth, " with its development, has become soaggressive that "unless checked" it "will inevitably lead to thepauperisation and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses. " Hence, ifthe toilers are "to enjoy the blessings of life, " they must organize"every department of productive industry" in order to "check" the powerof wealth and to put a stop to "unjust accumulation. " The battle cry inthis fight must be "moral worth not wealth, the true standard ofindividual and national greatness. " As the "action" of the toilers oughtto be guided by "knowledge, " it is necessary to know "the true conditionof the producing masses"; therefore, the Order demands "from the variousgovernments the establishment of bureaus of labor statistics. " Next inorder comes the "establishment of cooperative institutions productiveand distributive. " Union of all trades, "education, " and producers'cooperation remained forever after the cardinal points in the Knights ofLabor philosophy and were steadily referred to as "First Principles, "namely principles bequeathed to the Order by Uriah Stephens and theother "Founders. "[14]

These idealistic "First Principles" found an ardent champion in TerenceV. Powderly, a machinist by trade and twice mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on a labor ticket, who succeeded Stephens in 1878 to theheadship of the Order. Powderly bore unmistakably the stamp of this sortof idealism throughout all the time when he was the foremost laborleader in the country. Unlike Samuel Gompers, who came to supplant himabout 1890, he was foreign to that spirit of combative unionism whichaccepts the wage system but concentrates on a struggle to wrestconcessions from the employers. Even when circumstances which werelargely beyond his control made Powderly a strike leader on a hugescale, his heart lay elsewhere--in circumventing the wage system byopening to the worker an escape into self-employment throughcooperation. 

Producers' cooperation, then, was the ambitious program by which theOrder of the Knights of Labor expected to lead the American wage-earningclass out of the bondage of the wage system into the Canaan ofself-employment. Thus the Order was the true successor of thecooperative movement in the forties and sixties. Its motto was"Cooperation of the Order, by the Order, and for the Order. " Notscattered local initiative, but the Order as a whole was to carry on thework. The plan resembled the Rochdale system of England in that itproposed to start with an organization of consumers--the large andever-growing membership of the Order. But it departed radically from theEnglish prototype in that instead of setting out to save money for theconsumer, it primarily aimed to create a market for the productiveestablishments which were to follow. Consumers' cooperation was to bebut a stepping stone to producers' self-employment. Eventually when theOrder had grown to include nearly all useful members of society--so theplan contemplated--it would control practically the whole market andcooperative production would become the rule rather than the exception. So far, therefore, as "First Principles" went, the Order was not aninstrument of the "class struggle, " but an association of idealisticcooperators. It was this pure idealism which drew to the Order of theKnights of Labor the sympathetic interest of writers on social subjectsand 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 thesixties, which has already been mentioned, namely the trade unionmovement grouped around the Cigar Makers' Union, was neither so purelyAmerican in its origin as the Knights of Labor nor so persistentlyidealistic. On the contrary, its first membership was foreign and itsprogram, as we shall see, became before long primarily opportunist and"pragmatic. " The training school for this opportunistic trade unionismwas the socialist movement during the sixties and seventies, particularly the American branch of the International Workingmen'sAssociation, the "First _Internationale_, " which was founded by KarlMarx in London in 1864. The conception of _economic_ labor organizationwhich was advanced by the _Internationale_ in a socialistic formulationunderwent in the course of years a process of change: On the one hand, through constant conflict with the rival conception of _political_ labororganization urged by American followers of the German socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, and on the other hand, through contact with Americanreality. Out of that double contact emerged the trade unionism of theAmerican Federation of Labor. 

The _Internationale_ is generally reputed to have been organized by KarlMarx for the propaganda of international socialism. As a matter of fact, its starting point was the practical effort of British trade unionleaders to organize the workingmen of the Continent and to prevent theimportation of Continental strike-breakers. That Karl Marx wrote its_Inaugural Address_ was merely incidental. It chanced that what he wrotewas acceptable to the British unionists rather than the draft of anaddress representing the views of Giuseppe Mazzini, the leader of the"New Italy" and the "New Europe, " which was submitted to them at thesame time and advocated elaborate plans of cooperation. Marx emphasizedthe class solidarity of labor against Mazzini's harmony of capital andlabor. He did this by reciting what British labor had done through theRochdale system of cooperation without the help of capitalists and whatthe British Parliament had done in enacting the ten-hour law of 1847against the protest of capitalists. Now that British trade unionists in1864 were demanding the right of suffrage and laws to protect theirunions, it followed that Marx merely stated their demands when heaffirmed the independent economic and political organization of labor inall lands. His _Inaugural Address_ was a trade union document, not a_Communist Manifesto_. Indeed not until Bakunin and his following ofanarchists had nearly captured the organization in the years 1869 to1872 did the program of socialism become the leading issue. 

The philosophy of the _Internationale_ at the period of its ascendencywas based on the economic organization of the working class in tradeunions. These must precede the political seizure of the government bylabor. Then, when the workingmen's party should achieve control, itwould be able to build up successively the socialist state on thefoundation 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 aworkingmen's committee in Leipzig. It sprang from his antagonism toSchultze-Delizsch's[16] system of voluntary cooperation. In Lassalle'seagerness to condemn the idea of the harmony of capital and labor, whichlay at the basis of Schultze's scheme for cooperation, he struck at thesame time a blow against all forms of non-political organization of wageearners. Perhaps the fact that he was ignorant of the British tradeunions accounts for his insufficient appreciation of trade unionism. Butno matter what the cause may have been, to Lassalle there was but onemeans of solving the labor problem-political action. When politicalcontrol was finally achieved, the labor party, with the aid of statecredit, would build up a network of cooperative societies into whicheventually all industry would pass. 

In short, the distinction between the ideas of the _Internationale_ andof Lassalle consisted in the fact that the former advocated tradeunionism prior to and underlying political organization, while thelatter considered a political victory as the basis of socialism. Theseantagonistic starting points are apparent at the very beginning ofAmerican socialism as well as in the trade unionism and socialism ofsucceeding 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 until1870, the _Internationale_ had no important organization of its own onAmerican soil, but tried to establish itself through affiliation withthe National Labor Union. The inducement held out to the latter was of apractical nature, the international regulation of immigration. Duringthe second phase the _Internationale_ had its "sections" in nearly everylarge city of the country, centering in New York and Chicago, and thepractical trade union part of its work receded before its activity onbehalf of the propaganda of socialism. 

These "sections, " with a maximum membership which probably neverexceeded a thousand, nearly all foreigners, became a preparatory schoolin trade union leadership for many of the later organizers and leadersof the American Federation of Labor: for example, Adolph Strasser, theGerman cigar maker, whose organization became the new model in tradeunionism, and P. J. McGuire, the American-born carpenter, who founded theBrotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and who was for many years thesecretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor. 

Fate had decreed that these sections of a handful of immigrants shouldplay for a time high-sounding parts in the world labor movement. When, at the World Congress of the International Workingmen's Association atthe Hague in 1872, the anarchist faction led by Bakunin had shown suchstrength that Marx and his socialist faction deemed it wise to move theGeneral Council out of mischief's way, they removed it to New York andentrusted its powers into the hands of the faithful German Marxians onthis side of the Atlantic. This spelled the end of the _Internationale_as a world organization, but enormously increased the stakes of thefactional fights within the handful of American Internationalists. Theorganization of the workers into trade unions, the _Internationale's_first principle, was forgotten in the heat of intemperate struggles forempty honors and powerless offices. On top of that, with the panic of1873 and the ensuing prolonged depression, the political drift asserteditself in socialism as it had in the labor movement in general and themovement, erstwhile devoted primarily to organization of trade unions, entered, urged on by the Lassalleans, into a series of politicalcampaigns somewhat successful at first but soon succumbing to theinevitable fate of all amateurish attempts. Upon men of Strasser'spractical mental grasp these petty tempests in the melting pot couldonly produce an impression of sheer futility, and he turned to tradeunionism as the only activity worth his while. Strasser had been electedpresident of the Cigar Makers' International Union in 1877, in the midstof a great strike in New York against the tenement-house system. 

The president of the local New York union of cigar makers was at thetime Samuel Gompers, a young man of twenty-seven, who was born inEngland and came to America in 1862. In his endeavor to build up a modelfor the "new" unionism and in his almost uninterrupted headship of thatmovement for forty years is indicated Gompers' truly representativecharacter. Born of Dutch-Jewish parents in England in 1850, he typifiesthe cosmopolitan origins of American unionism. His early contact in theunion of his trade with men like Strasser, upon whom the ideas of Marxand the International Workingmen's Association had left an indeliblestamp, and his thorough study of Marx gave him that grounding both inidealism and class consciousness which has produced many strong leadersof American unions and saved them from defection to other interests. Aggressive and uncompromising in a perpetual fight for the strongestpossible position and power of trade unions, but always strong forcollective agreements with the opposing employers, he displays thebusiness tactics of organized labor. At the head of an organizationwhich denies itself power over its constituent unions, he has broughtand held together the most widely divergent and often antagonisticunions, while permitting each to develop and even to change itscharacter to fit the changing industrial conditions. 

The dismal failure of the strike against the tenement house system incigar making brought home to both Strasser and Gompers the weakness ofthe plan of organization of their union as well as that of Americantrade unions in general. They consequently resolved to rebuild theirunion upon the pattern of the British unions, although they firmlyintended that it should remain a militant organization. The changeinvolved, first, complete authority over the local unions in the handsof the international officers; second, an increase in the membershipdues for the purpose of building up a large fund; and, third, theadoption of a far-reaching benefit system in order to assure stabilityto the organization. This was accomplished at the convention held inAugust, 1879. This convention simultaneously adopted the British idea ofthe "equalization of funds, " which gave the international officers thepower to order a well-to-do local union to transfer a portion of itsfunds to another local union in financial straits. With the variousmodifications of the feature of "equalization of funds, " the system ofgovernment in the Cigar Makers' International Union was later used as amodel by the other national and international trade unions. 

As Strasser and men of his ilk grew more and more absorbed in thepractical problems of the everyday struggle of the wage-earners forbetter conditions of employment, the socialistic portion of theiroriginal philosophy kept receding further and further into thebackground until they arrived at pure trade unionism. But their tradeunionism differed vastly from the "native" American trade unionism oftheir time, which still hankered for the haven of producers'cooperation. The philosophy which these new leaders developed might betermed a philosophy of pure wage-consciousness. It signified a labormovement reduced to an opportunistic basis, accepting the existence ofcapitalism and having for its object the enlarging of the bargainingpower of the wage earner in the sale of his labor. Its opportunism wasinstrumental--its idealism was home and family and individualbetterment. It also implied an attitude of aloofness from all thosemovements 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 foundin Strasser's testimony before the Senate Committee on Education andLabor 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 "ChicagoAnarchists. "[17] The _Internationale_, as we saw, emphasized tradeunionism as the first step in the direction of socialism, in oppositionto the political socialism of Lassalle, which ignored the trade unionand would start with a political party outright. Shorn of itssocialistic futurity this philosophy became non-political "business"unionism; but, when combined with a strong revolutionary spirit, itbecame a non-political revolutionary unionism, or syndicalism. 

The organization of those industrial revolutionaries was called theInternational Working People's Association, also known as the "Black"or anarchist International, which was formed at Pittsburgh in 1883. Likethe old _Internationale_ it busied itself with forming trade unions, butinsisted that they conform to a revolutionary model. Such a "model"trade union was the Federation of Metal Workers of America, which wasorganized in 1885. It said in its Declaration of Principles that theentire abolition of the present system of society can alone emancipatethe workers, but under no consideration should they resort to politics;"our organization should be a school to educate its members for the newcondition of society, when the workers will regulate their own affairswithout any interference by the few. Since the emancipation of theproductive classes must come by their own efforts, it is unwise tomeddle in present politics. .. . All _direct_ struggles of the laboringmasses have our fullest sympathy. " Alongside the revolutionary tradeunions were workers' armed organizations ready to usher in the new orderby force. "By force, " recited the Pittsburgh Manifesto of the BlackInternational, "our ancestors liberated themselves from politicaloppression, by force their children will have to liberate themselvesfrom 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 theAmerican labor movement was to be with the "practical men of the tradeunions" 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 wascarried on by a secret organization known as the Molly Maguires, whichused the method of terrorism and assassination. It was later exposed andmany were sentenced and executed. 

[14] The Preamble further provides that the Order will stand for thereservation of all lands for actual settlers; the "abrogation of alllaws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, the removal ofunjust technicalities, delays, and discriminations in the administrationof justice, and the adopting of measures providing for the health andsafety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, or building pursuits";the enactment of a weekly pay law, a mechanics' lien law, and a lawprohibiting child labor under fourteen years of age; the abolition ofthe contract system on national, state, and municipal work, and of thesystem of leasing out convicts; equal pay for equal work for both sexes;reduction of hours of labor to eight per day; "the substitution ofarbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employeesare willing to meet on equitable grounds"; the establishment of "apurely national circulating medium based upon the faith and resources ofthe nation, issued directly to the people, without the intervention ofany system of banking corporations, which money shall be a legal tenderin 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 idealisticstrivings and gropings of labor for a better social order. He evenadvised some of his pupils at the Johns Hopkins University to join theKnights of Labor in order to gain a better understanding of the labormovement. 

[16] Schultze-Delizsch was a German thinker and practical reformer ofthe liberal school. 

[17] The Anarchists who were tried and executed after the HaymarketSquare 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 movementrevived. The first symptom of the upward trend was a rapidmultiplication of city federations of organized trades, variously knownas trade councils, amalgamated trade and labor unions, tradesassemblies, and the like. Practically all of these came into existenceafter 1879, since hardly any of the "trades' assemblies" of the sixtieshad survived the depression. 

As was said above, the national trade unions existed during the sixtiesand seventies in only about thirty trades. Eighteen of these had eitherretained a nucleus during the seventies or were first formed during thatdecade. The following is a list of the national unions in existence in1880 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-AmericanTypographia (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 EnglandBoot 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, woodcarvers, railroad brakemen, and silk workers. 

An illustration of the rapid growth in trade union membership duringthis period is given in the following figures: the bricklayers' unionhad 303 in 1880; 1558 in 1881; 6848 in 1882; 9193 in 1883. Thetypographical union had 5968 members in 1879; 6520 in 1880; 7931 in1881; 10, 439 in 1882; 12, 273 in 1883. The total trade union membershipin the country, counting the three railway organizations and thoseorganized only locally, amounted to between 200, 000 and 225, 000 in 1883and probably was not below 300, 000 in the beginning of 1885. 

A distinguishing characteristic of the trade unions of this time was thepredominance in them of the foreign element. The Illinois Bureau ofLabor describes the ethnical composition of the trade unions of thatState during 1886, and states that 21 percent were American, 33 percentGerman, 19 percent Irish, 10 percent British other than Irish, 12percent Scandinavian, and the Poles, Bohemians, and Italians formedabout 5 percent. The strong predominance of the foreign element inAmerican trade unions should not appear unusual, since, owing to thebreakdown of the apprenticeship system, the United States had beendrawing its supply of skilled labor from abroad. 

The Order of the Knights of Labor, despite its "First Principles" basedon the cooperative ideal, was soon forced to make concessions to a largeelement of its membership which was pressing for strikes. With theadvent of prosperity, the Order expanded, although the Knights of Laborplayed but a subordinate part in the labor movement of the earlyeighties. The membership was 20, 151 in 1879; 28, 136 in 1880; 19, 422 in1881; 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 decidedlydeceptive as a means of measuring the strength of the Order, for themembership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached50, 000 no less than one-half of this number passed in and out of theorganization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducingthe economic strength of the Order, brought large masses of people underits influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle ofthe eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention of the publicpress. The labor press gave the Order great publicity, but the Knightsdid not rely on gratuitous newspaper publicity. They set to work a hostof lecturers, who held public meetings throughout the country addingrecruits and advertising the Order. 

The most important Knights of Labor strike of this period was thetelegraphers' strike in 1883. The telegraphers had a nationalorganization in 1870, which soon collapsed. In 1882 they again organizedon a national basis and affiliated with the Order as District Assembly45. [18] The strike was declared on June 19, 1883, against all commercialtelegraph companies in the country, among which the Western Union, withabout 4000 operators, was by far the largest. The demands were one day'srest in seven, an eight-hour day shift and a seven-hour night shift, anda general increase of 15 percent in wages. The public and a largeportion of the press gave their sympathy to the strikers, not so much onaccount of the oppressed condition of the telegraphers as of the generalhatred that prevailed against Jay Gould, who then controlled theWestern Union Company. This strike was the first in the eighties to callthe attention of the general American public to the existence of a laborquestion, and received considerable attention at the hands of the SenateCommittee on Education and Labor. By the end of July, over a month afterthe beginning of the strike, the men who escaped the blacklist went backto work on the old terms. 

From 1879 till 1882 the labor movement was typical of a period of risingprices. It was practically restricted to skilled workmen, who organizedto wrest from employers still better conditions than those whichprosperity would have given under individual bargaining. The movementwas essentially opportunistic and displayed no particular class feelingand no revolutionary tendencies. The solidarity of labor was not deniedby the trade unions, but they did not try to reduce the idea topractice: each trade coped more or less successfully with its ownemployers. Even the Knights of Labor, the organization _par excellence_of the solidarity of labor, was at this time, in so far as practicalefforts 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 wagereductions and unemployment even in a larger measure than the skilled, were drawn into the movement. Labor organizations assumed the nature ofa real class movement. The idea of the solidarity of labor ceased to bemerely verbal and took on life! General strikes, sympathetic strikes, nationwide boycotts and nation-wide political movements became the orderof the day. The effects of an unusually large immigration joined handswith the depression. The eighties were the banner decade of the entirecentury for immigration. The aggregate number of immigrants arriving was5, 246, 613--two and a half millions larger than during the seventies andone million and a half larger than during the nineties. The eightieswitnessed the highest tide of immigration from Great Britain and theNorth of Europe and the beginning of the tide of South and East Europeanimmigration. 

However, the depression of 1883-1885 had one redeeming feature by whichit was distinguished from other depressions. With falling prices, diminishing margins of profit, and decreasing wages, the amount ofemployment was not materially diminished. Times continued hard during1885, a slight improvement showing itself only during the last months ofthe year. The years 1886 and 1887 were a period of gradual recovery, andnormal conditions may be said to have returned about the middle of 1887. Except in New England, the old wages, which had been reduced during thebad years, were won again by the spring of 1887. 

The year 1884 was one of decisive failure in strikes. They werepractically all directed against reductions in wages and for the rightof organization. The most conspicuous strikes were those of the FallRiver spinners, the Troy stove mounters, the Cincinnati cigar makers andthe Hocking Valley coal miners. 

The failure of strikes brought into use the other weapon of labor--theboycott. But not until the latter part of 1884, when the failure of thestrike as a weapon became apparent, did the boycott assume the nature ofan epidemic. The boycott movement was a truly national one, affectingthe South and the Far West as well as the East and Middle West. Thenumber of boycotts during 1885 was nearly seven times as large as during1884. Nearly all of the boycotts either originated with, or were takenup by, the Knights of Labor. 

The strike again came into prominence in the latter half of 1885. Thiscoincided with the beginning of an upward trend in general businessconditions. The strikes of 1885, even more than those of the precedingyear, were spontaneous outbreaks of unorganized masses. 

The frequent railway strikes were a characteristic feature of the labormovement 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 ofthe shopmen of the Wabash road. A similar reduction had been made inOctober, 1884, on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. Strikes occurred on thetwo roads, one on February 27 and the other March 9, and the strikerswere joined by the men on the third Gould road, the Missouri Pacific, atall points where the two lines touched, making altogether over 4500 menon strike. The train service personnel, that is, the locomotiveengineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors, supported the strikers andto this fact more than to any other was due their speedy victory. Thewages were restored and the strikers reemployed. But six months laterthis was followed by a second strike. The road, now in the hands of areceiver, reduced the force of shopmen at Moberly, Missouri, to thelowest possible limit, which virtually meant a lockout of the members ofthe Knights of Labor in direct violation of the conditions of settlementof the preceding strike. The General Executive Board of the Knights, after a futile attempt to have a conference with the receiver, declareda boycott on Wabash rolling stock. This order, had it been carried out, would have affected over 20, 000 miles of railway and would have equalledthe dimensions of the great railway strike of 1877. But Jay Gould wouldnot risk a general strike on his lines at this time. According to anappointment made between him and the executive board of the Knights ofLabor, a conference was held between that board and the managers of theMissouri Pacific and the Wabash railroads, at which he threw hisinfluence in favor of making concessions to the men. He assured theKnights that in all troubles he wanted the men to come directly to him, that he believed in labor organizations and in the arbitration of alldifficulties and that he "would always endeavor to do what was right. "The Knights demanded the discharge of all new men hired in the Wabashshops since the beginning of the lockout, the reinstatement of alldischarged men, the leaders being given priority, and an assurance thatno discrimination against the members of the Order would be made in thefuture. A settlement was finally made at another conference, and thereceiver of the Wabash road agreed, under pressure by Jay Gould, toissue an order conceding the demands of the Knights of Labor. 

The significance of the second Wabash strike in the history of railwaystrikes was that the railway brotherhoods (engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors), in contrast with their conduct during the first Wabashstrike, now refused to lend any aid to the striking shopmen, althoughmany of the members were also Knights of Labor. 

But far more important was the effect of the strike upon the generallabor movement. Here a labor organization for the first time dealt on anequal footing with probably the most powerful capitalist in the country. It forced Jay Gould to recognize it as a power equal to himself, a factwhich he conceded when he declared his readiness to arbitrate all labordifficulties that might arise. The oppressed laboring masses finallydiscovered a powerful champion. All the pent-up feeling of bitternessand resentment which had accumulated during the two years of depression, in consequence of the repeated cuts in wages and the intensifieddomination by employers, now found vent in a rush to organize under thebanner of the powerful Knights of Labor. To the natural tendency on thepart of the oppressed to exaggerate the power of a mysteriousemancipator whom they suddenly found coming to their aid, there wasadded the influence of sensational reports in the public press. Thenewspapers especially took delight in exaggerating the powers andstrength of the Order. 

In 1885 the New York _Sun_ detailed one of its reporters to "get up astory of the strength and purposes of the Knights of Labor. " This storywas copied by newspapers and magazines throughout the country and aidedconsiderably in bringing the Knights of Labor into prominence. Thefollowing extract illustrates the exaggerated notion of the power of theKnights of Labor. 

"Five men in this country control the chief interests of five hundredthousand workingmen, and can at any moment take the means of livelihoodfrom two and a half millions of souls. These men compose the executiveboard of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor of America. The abilityof the president and cabinet to turn out all the men in the civilservice, and to shift from one post to another the duties of the men inthe army and navy, is a petty authority compared with that of these fiveKnights. The authority of the late Cardinal was, and that of thebishops of the Methodist Church is, narrow and prescribed, so far asmaterial affairs are concerned, in comparison with that of these fiverulers. 

"They can stay the nimble touch of almost every telegraph operator; canshut up most of the mills and factories, and can disable the railroads. They can issue an edict against any manufactured goods so as to maketheir subjects cease buying them, and the tradesmen stop selling them. 

"They can array labor against capital, putting labor on the offensive orthe 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 quarterswhere the tale of its great power could only attract unqualifiedattention, namely, in Congress. The Knights of Labor led in theagitation for prohibiting the immigration of alien contract laborers. The problem of contract immigrant labor rapidly came to the front in1884, when such labor began frequently to be used to defeat strikes. 

Twenty persons appeared to testify before the committee in favor of thebill, of whom all but two or three belonged to the Knights of Labor. Theanti-contract labor law which was passed by Congress on February 2, 1885, therefore, was due almost entirely to the efforts of the Knightsof Labor. The trade unions gave little active support, for to theskilled workingmen the importation of contract Italian and Hungarianlaborers was a matter of small importance. On the other hand, to theKnights of Labor with their vast contingent of unskilled it was a strongmenace. Although the law could not be enforced and had to be amended in1887 in order to render it effective, its passage nevertheless atteststhe political influence already exercised by the Order in 1885. 

The outcome of the Gould strike of 1885 and the dramatic exaggeration ofthe prowess of the Order by press and even by pulpit were largelyresponsible for the psychological setting that called forth andsurrounded the great upheaval of 1886. This upheaval meant more than themere quickening of the pace of the movement begun in preceding years anddecades. It signalled the appearance on the scene of a new class whichhad not hitherto found a place in the labor movement, namely theunskilled. All the peculiar characteristics of the dramatic events in1886 and 1887, the highly feverish pace at which organizations grew, thenation-wide wave of strikes, particularly sympathetic strikes, the wideuse of the boycott, the obliteration, apparently complete, of all linesthat divided the laboring class, whether geographic or trade, theviolence and turbulence which accompanied the movement--all of thesewere the signs of a great movement by the class of the unskilled, whichhad finally risen in rebellion. This movement, rising as an elementalprotest against oppression and degradation, could be but feeblyrestrained by any considerations of expediency and prudence; nor, ofcourse, could it be restrained by any lessons from experience. But, ifthe origin and powerful sweep of this movement were largely spontaneousand elemental, the issues which it took up were supplied by the existingorganizations, namely the trade unions and the Knights of Labor. Theseserved also as the dykes between which the rapid streams were gatheredand, if at times it seemed that they must burst under the pressure, still they gave form and direction to the movement and partly succeededin introducing order where chaos had reigned. The issue which firstbrought unity in this great mass movement was a nation-wide strike forthe eight-hour day declared for May 1, 1886. 

The initiative in this strike was taken not by the Order but by thetrade unionists and on the eve of the strike the general officers of theKnights adopted an attitude of hostility. But if the slogan failed toarouse the enthusiasm of the national leaders of the Knights, itnevertheless found ready response in the ranks of labor. The great classof the unskilled and unorganized, which had come to look upon theKnights of Labor as the all-powerful liberator of the laboring massesfrom oppression, now eagerly seized upon this demand as the issue uponwhich the first battle with capital should be fought. 

The agitation assumed large proportions in March. The main argument forthe shorter day was work for the unemployed. With the exception of thecigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organizations. The Knights of Labor as an organization figured far less prominentlythan the trade unions, and among the latter the building trades and theGerman-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front ofthe movement. Early in the strike the workingmen's cause was gravelyinjured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributedto anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen. 

The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which hadheretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity. Forwhat many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval ina less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoreticaljustification, the contemporary Chicago "anarchists, "[19] the largestbranch of the "Black International, " had elevated into a wellrounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Laborupheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of theeighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalismwas characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with whichminor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades andlarge territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, toenter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by aready resort to violence. In 1886 the membership of the BlackInternational probably was about 5000 or 6000 and of this number about1000 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 thethird of May. About this time strike-breakers employed in these worksbegan to leave for home and were attacked by strikers. The policearrived in large numbers and upon being received with stones, fired andkilled four and wounded many. The same evening the International issueda call in which appeared the word _"Revenge"_ with the appeal:"Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force. " A protest massmeeting met the next day on Haymarket Square and was addressed byInternationalists. The police were present in numbers and, as theyformed in line and advanced on the crowd, some unknown hand hurled abomb into their midst killing and wounding many. 

It is unnecessary to describe here the period of police terror inChicago, the hysterical attitude of the press, or the state of panicthat came over the inhabitants of the city. Nor is it necessary to dealin detail with the trial and sentence of the accused. Suffice it to saythat the Haymarket bomb showed to the labor movement what it mightexpect from the public and the government if it combined violence with arevolutionary purpose. 

Although the bomb outrage was attributed to the anarchists and notgenerally to the strikers for the eight-hour day, it did materiallyreduce the sympathy of the public as well as intimidate many strikers. Nevertheless, _Bradstreet's_ estimated that no fewer than 340, 000 mentook part in the movement; 190, 000 actually struck, only 42, 000 of thisnumber with success, and 150, 000 secured shorter hours without a strike. Thus the total number of those who secured with or without strikes theeight-hour day was something less than 200, 000. But even those who forthe present succeeded, whether with or without striking, soon lost theconcession, and _Bradstreet's_ estimated in January, 1887, that, so faras 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 itequalled, 15, 000. 

American labor movements have never experienced such a rush to organizeas the one in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. During 1886 thecombined membership of labor organizations was exceptionally large andfor the first time came near the million mark. The Knights of Labor hada membership of 700, 000 and the trade unions at least 250, 000, theformer composed largely of unskilled and the latter of skilled. TheKnights of Labor gained in a remarkably short time--in a fewmonths--over 600, 000 new members and grew from 1610 local assemblieswith 104, 066 members in good standing in July 1885, to 5892 assemblieswith 702, 924 members in July 1886. The greatest portion of this growthoccurred after January 1, 1886. In the state of New York there were inJuly 1886, about 110, 000 members (60, 809 in District Assembly 49 of NewYork City alone); in Pennsylvania, 95, 000 (51, 557 in District Assembly1, Philadelphia, alone); in Massachusetts, 90, 000 (81, 191 in DistrictAssembly 30 of Boston); and in Illinois, 32, 000. 

In the state of Illinois, for which detailed information for that yearis available, there were 204 local assemblies with 34, 974 members, ofwhich 65 percent were found in Cook County (Chicago) alone. One hundredand forty-nine assemblies were mixed, that is comprised members ofdifferent trades including unskilled and only 55 were trade assemblies. Reckoned according to country of birth the membership was 45 percentAmerican, 16 percent German, 13 percent Irish, 10 percent British, 5percent Scandinavian, and the remaining 2 percent scattered. The tradeunions also gained many members but in a considerably lesser proportion. 

The high water mark was reached in the autumn of 1886. But in the earlymonths of 1887 a reaction became visible. By July 1, the membership ofthe Order had diminished to 510, 351. While a share of this retrogressionmay have been due to the natural reaction of large masses of people whohad been suddenly set in motion without experience, a more immediatecause came from the employers. Profiting by past lessons, they organizedstrong associations. The main object of these employers' associationswas the defeat of the Knights. They were organized sectionally andnationally. In small localities, where the power of the Knights wasespecially great, all employers regardless of industry joined in asingle association. But in large manufacturing centers, where the richcorporation 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 treatedagreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress. The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearlyforeshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gouldrailways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886. 

As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gouldsystem in March 1885, the employes were assured that the road wouldinstitute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, itis apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in byminor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminatedin the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the carshop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortlybefore passed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over theentire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that theKnights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two monthsbefore the strike. District Assembly 101, the organization embracing theemployes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, andauthorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might findopportune to enforce the two following demands: first, the formal"recognition" of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1. 50 for theunskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knightsof Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in themovement. But evidently the organization preferred to make the issueturn on discrimination against members. Another peculiarity which markedoff this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility withwhich it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and allleased and operated lines. This strike broke out simultaneously over theentire system on March 6. It affected more than 5000 miles of railwaysituated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska. The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, butactually 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 activelyon strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all ofthe shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced toleave their posts under threats from the strikers. 

The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of thestrikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his attitude wasoverbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, astrike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better laborcontract, but necessarily assumed the aspect of a crusade againstcapital. Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take wereexcluded. 

Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit thedispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months ofsporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left, however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to theimpression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and aCongressional 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, wasestimated 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. Themost important lockouts were against 15, 000 laundry workers at Troy, NewYork, in June; against 20, 000 Chicago packing house workers; and against20, 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. Ashort time thereafter, upon the initiative of Armour & Company, theemployers formed a packers' association and, in the beginning ofOctober, 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 competewith Cincinnati and Kansas City, which operated on the ten-hour system. On October 8, the men, who were organized in District Assemblies 27 and54, suspended work, and the memorable lockout began. The packers'association rejected all offers of compromise and on October 18 the menwere 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 themen and was one of the most peaceable labor disputes of the year, was inreality a mere prelude to a second disturbance which broke out in theplant of Swift & Company on November 2 and became general throughout thestockyards on November 6. The men demanded a return to the eight-hourday, but the packers' association, which was now joined by Swift &Company, who formerly had kept aloof, not only refused to give up theten-hour day, but declared that they would employ no Knights of Labor inthe future. The Knights retaliated by declaring a boycott on the meat ofArmour & Company. The behavior of the men was now no longer peaceable asbefore, and the employers took extra precautions by prevailing upon thegovernor to send two regiments of militia in addition to the severalhundred Pinkerton detectives employed by the association. To allappearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for onNovember 10 the packers' association rescinded its decision not toemploy Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out ofa clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderlyordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider thereports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on theground, but, as was charged by them, was guided instead by the advice ofa priest who had appealed to him to call off the strike and thus put anend to the suffering of the men and their families. 

New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strikeand on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separatestrikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New Yorkwith coal and the other by longshoremen on the New York water front;both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed bythe Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights ofLabor, struck against a reduction of 2-1/2 cents an hour in the wages ofthe "top-men" and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances oftheir own. Soon the strike spread to the other roads and the number ofstriking coal-handlers reached 3000. The longshoremen's strike was begunby 200 men, employed by the Old Dominion Steamship Company, against areduction in wages and the hiring of cheap men by the week. The strikerswere not organized, but the Ocean Association, a part of the Knights ofLabor, took up their cause and was assisted by the longshoremen's union. Both strikes soon widened out through a series of sympathetic strikes ofrelated trades and finally became united into one. The Ocean Associationdeclared a boycott on the freight of the Old Dominion Company and thiswas strictly obeyed by all of the longshoremen's unions. TheInternational Boatmen's Union refused to allow their boats to be usedfor "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 andstationary elevators refused to load ships with grain on which there wasscab coal, and the bag-sewers stood with them. The longshoremen nowresolved to go out and refused to work on ships which received scabcoal, and finally they decided to stop work altogether on all kinds ofcraft in the harbor until the trouble should be settled. The strikespirit spread to a large number of freight handlers working forrailroads along the river front, so that in the last week of January thenumber of strikers in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, reachedapproximately 28, 000; 13, 000 longshoremen, 1000 boatmen, 6000 grainhandlers, 7500 coal-handlers, and 400 bag-sewers. 

On February 11, August Corbin, president and receiver of thePhiladelphia & Reading Railroad Company, fearing a strike by the minersworking in the coal mines operated by that road, settled the strike byrestoring to the eighty-five coal-handlers, the original strikers, theirformer rate of wages. The Knights of Labor felt impelled to accept sucha trivial settlement for two reasons. The coal-handlers' strike, whichdrove up the price of coal to the consumer, was very unpopular, and thestrike itself had begun to weaken when the brewers and stationaryengineers, who for some obscure reason had been ordered to strike insympathy, refused to come out. The situation was left unchanged, as faras the coal-handlers employed by the other companies, the longshoremen, and the many thousands of men who went out on sympathetic strike wereconcerned. The men began to return to work by the thousands and theentire strike collapsed. 

The determined attack and stubborn resistance of the employers'associations after the strikes of May 1886, coupled with the obviousincompetence displayed by the leaders, caused the turn of the tide inthe labor movement in the first half of 1887. This, however, manifesteditself during 1887 exclusively in the large cities, where the movementhad borne in the purest form the character of an uprising by the classof the unskilled and where the hardest battles were fought with theemployers. District Assembly 49, New York, fell from its membership of60, 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, andDistrict Assembly 30, Boston, from 81, 197 to 31, 644. In Chicago therewere about 40, 000 Knights immediately before the packers' strike inOctober 1886, and only about 17, 000 on July 1, 1887. The falling off ofthe largest district assemblies in 10 large cities practically equalledthe total loss of the Order, which amounted approximately to 191, 000. Atthe same time the membership of the smallest district assemblies, whichwere for the most part located in small cities, remained stationary and, outside of the national and district trade assemblies which were formedby separation from mixed district assemblies, thirty-seven new districtassemblies 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, andWisconsin, with an average membership of about 2000 each. 

It thus becomes clear that by the middle of 1887, the Great Upheaval ofthe unskilled and semi-skilled portions of the working class had alreadysubsided beneath the strength of the combined employers and theunwieldiness of their own organization. After 1887 the Knights of Laborlost its hold upon the large cities with their wage-conscious andlargely foreign population, and became an organization predominantly ofcountry people, of mechanics, small merchants, and farmers, --a class ofpeople which was more or less purely American and decidedly middle classin its philosophy. 

The industrial upheaval in the middle of the eighties had, like thegreat strike of 1877, a political reverberation. Although the latter washeard throughout the entire country, it centered in the city of NewYork, where the situation was complicated by court interference in thelabor struggle. 

A local assembly of the Knights of Labor had declared a boycott againstone George Theiss, a proprietor of a music and beer garden. The latterat first submitted and paid a fine of $1000 to the labor organization, but later brought action in court against the officers charging themwith intimidation and extortion. 

The judge, George C. Barrett, in his charge to the jury, conceded thatstriking, picketing, and boycotting as such were not prohibited by law, if not accompanied by force, threats, or intimidation. But in the caseunder consideration the action of the pickets in advising passers-by notto patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circularsconstituted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained byfear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theissinflicted by the "boycott, " the case was one of extortion covered by thepenal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated bythe defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to theirorganization. The jury, which reflected the current public opinionagainst boycotts, found all of the five defendants guilty of extortion, and Judge Barrett sentenced them to prison for terms ranging from oneyear and six months to three years and eight months. 

The Theiss case, coming as it did at a time of general restlessness oflabor and closely after the defeat of the eight-hour movement, greatlyhastened the growth of the sentiment for an independent labor party. TheNew York Central Labor Union, the most famous and most influentialorganization of its kind in the country at the time, with a membershipestimated at between 40, 000 and 50, 000, placed itself at the head of themovement in which both socialists and non-socialists joined. HenryGeorge, the originator of the single tax movement, was nominated by thelabor party for Mayor of New York and was allowed to draw up his ownplatform, which he made of course a simon-pure single tax platform. Thelabor demands were compressed into one plank. They were as follows: Thereform of court procedure so that "the practice of drawing grand jurorsfrom one class should cease, and the requirements of a propertyqualification for trial jurors should be abolished"; the stopping of the"officious intermeddling of the police with peaceful assemblages"; theenforcement of the laws for safety and the sanitary inspection ofbuildings; the abolition of contract labor on public work; and equal payfor equal work without distinction of sex on such work. 

The George campaign was more in the nature of a religious revival thanof a political election campaign. It was also a culminating point in thegreat labor upheaval. The enthusiasm of the laboring people reached itshighest pitch. They felt that, baffled and defeated as they were intheir economic struggle, they were now nearing victory in the strugglefor 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 atseveral meeting places in a night, the labor campaign got its nicknameof the "tailboard campaign. " The common people, women and men, gatheredin hundreds and often thousands around trucks from which the shiftingspeakers addressed the crowd. The speakers were volunteers, includingrepresentatives of the liberal professions, lawyers, physicians, teachers, ministers, and labor leaders. At such mass meetings George didmost of his campaigning, making several speeches a night, once as manyas eleven. The single tax and the prevailing political corruption werefavorite topics. Against George and his adherents were pitted thepowerful press of the city of New York, all the political power of theold parties, and all the influence of the business class. George'sopponents were Abram S. Hewitt, an anti-Tammany Democrat whom Tammanyhad 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 forRoosevelt. There is possible ground for the belief that George wascounted out of thousands of votes. The nature of the George vote can besufficiently gathered from an analysis of the pledges to vote for him. An apparently trustworthy investigation was made by a representative ofthe New York Sun. He drew the conclusion that the vast majority were notsimply wage earners, but also naturalized immigrants, mainly Irish, Germans, and Bohemians, the native element being in the minority. Whilethe Irish were divided between George and Hewitt, the majority of theGerman element had gone over to Henry George. The outcome was hailed asa victory by George and his supporters and this view was also taken bythe general press. 

In spite of this propitious beginning the political labor movement soonsuffered the fate of all reform political movements. The strength of thenew party was frittered away in doctrinaire factional strife between thesingle taxers and the socialists. The trade union element becamediscouraged and lost interest. So that at the next State election, inwhich George ran for Secretary of State, presumably because that officecame nearest to meeting the requirement for a single taxer seeking apractical scope of action, the vote in the city fell to 37, 000 and inthe whole State amounted only to 72, 000. This ended the political labormovement in New York. 

Outside of New York the political labor movement was not associatedeither with the single tax or any other "ism. " As in New York it was aspontaneous expression of dissatisfaction brought on by failure instrikes. The movement scored a victory in Milwaukee, where it elected amayor, 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 permanenttrace. 

FOOTNOTES:

[18] See the next chapter for the scheme of organization followed by theOrder. 

[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: thelife and death struggle between two opposed principles of labororganization and between two opposed labor programs. The Upheavaloffered the practical test which the labor movement required for anintelligent decision between the rival claims of Knights and tradeunionists. The test as well as the conflict turned principally on"structure, " that is on the difference between "craft autonomists" andthose who would have labor organized "under one head, " or what we wouldnow call the "one big union" advocates. 

As the issue of "structure" proved in the crucial eighties, and hasremained ever since, the outstanding factional issue in the labormovement, it might be well at this point to pass in brief review thestructural developments in labor organization from the beginning and tryto correlate them with other important developments. 

The early[20] societies of shoemakers and printers were purely local inscope and the relations between "locals" extended only to feebleattempts to deal with the competition of traveling journeymen. Occasionally, they corresponded on trade matters, notifying each otherof their purposes and the nature of their demands, or expressingfraternal greetings; chiefly for the purpose of counteractingadvertisements by employers for journeymen or keeping out dishonestmembers and so-called "scabs. " This mostly relates to printers. Theshoemakers, despite their bitter contests with their employers, did evenless. The Philadelphia Mechanics' Trades Association in 1827, which wenoted as the first attempted federation of trades in the United Statesif not in the world, was organized as a move of sympathy for thecarpenters 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 NewYork, Philadelphia, Boston, and appeared even as far "West" asPittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The constitution of the New York"Trades' Union" provided, among other things, that each society shouldpay 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 claimstrike aid and appointed a standing committee on mediation. In 1835 itdiscussed a plan for an employment exchange or a "call room. " Theconstitution of the Philadelphia Union required that a strike beendorsed 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 andsecond conventions went little beyond the theoretical. The latter, however, passed a significant resolution urging the trade societies toobserve a uniform wage policy throughout the country and, should theemployers combine to resist it, the unions should make "one generalstrike. "

The last convention in 1836 went far beyond preceding conventions in itsplans 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 centsper month on each of the members of the trades' unions and localsocieties represented. The policies of the National Trades' Unioninstead of merely advisory were henceforth to be binding. But before thenew policies could be tried, as we know, the entire trade union movementwas wiped out by the panic. 

The city "trades' union" of the thirties accorded with a situation wherethe effects of the extension of the market were noticeable in the labormarket, and little as yet in the commodity market; when the competitivemenace to labor was the low paid out-of-town mechanic coming to thecity, not the out-of-town product made under lower labor costs sellingin the same market as the products of unionized labor. Under theseconditions the local trade society, reenforced by the city federation oftrades, sufficed. The "trades' union, " moreover, served also as a sourceof reserve strength. 

Twenty years later the whole situation was changed. The fifties were adecade of extensive construction of railways. Before 1850 there was moretraffic by water than by rail. After 1860 the relative importance ofland and water transportation was reversed. Furthermore, the mostimportant railway building during the ten years preceding 1860 was theconstruction of East and West trunk lines; and the sixties were markedby the establishment of through lines for freight and the consolidationof connecting lines. The through freight lines greatly hastened freighttraffic and by the consolidations through transportation became doublyefficient. 

Arteries of traffic had thus extended from the Eastern coast to theMississippi Valley. Local markets had widened to embrace half acontinent. Competitive menaces had become more serious and threatenedfrom a distance. Local unionism no longer sufficed. Consequently, as wesaw, in the labor movement of the sixties the national trade union wassupreme. 

There were four distinct sets of causes which operated during thesixties to bring about nationalization; two grew out of the changes intransportation, already alluded to, and two were largely independent ofsuch changes. 

The first and most far-reaching cause, as illustrated by the stovemolders, was the competition of the products of different localitiesside by side in the same market. Stoves manufactured in Albany, NewYork, were now displayed in St. Louis by the side of stoves made inDetroit. No longer could the molder in Albany be indifferent to the fateof his fellow craftsman in Louisville. With the molders thenationalization of the organization was destined to proceed to itsutmost length. In order that union conditions should be maintained evenin the best organized centers, it became necessary to equalizecompetitive conditions in the various localities. That led to awell-knit national organization to control working conditions, traderules, and strikes. In other trades, where the competitive area of theproduct was still restricted to the locality, the paramountnationalizing influence was a more intensive competition for employmentbetween migratory out-of-town journeymen and the locally organizedmechanics. This describes the situation in the printing trade, where thebulk of work was newspaper and not book and job printing. Accordingly, the printers did not need to entrust their national officers withanything more than the control of the traveling journeymen and theresult was that the local unions remained practically independent. 

The third cause of concerted national action in a trade union was theorganization of employers. Where the power of a local union began to bethreatened by an employers' association, the next logical step was tocombine in a national union. 

The fourth cause was the application of machinery and the introductionof division of labor, which split up the established trades and laidindustry open to invasion by "green hands. " The shoemaking industry, which during the sixties had reached the factory stage, illustrates thisin a most striking manner. Few other industries experienced anythinglike a similar change during this period. 

Of course, none of the causes of nationalization here enumeratedoperated in entire isolation. In some trades one cause, in other tradesother causes, had the predominating influence. Consequently, in sometrades the national union resembled an agglomeration of loosely alliedstates, each one reserving the right to engage in independent action andexpecting from its allies no more than a benevolent neutrality. In othertrades, on the contrary, the national union was supreme in declaringindustrial war and in making peace, and even claimed absolute right toformulate the civil laws of the trade for times of industrial peace. 

The national trade union was, therefore, a response to obvious andpressing necessity. However slow or imperfect may have been theadjustment of internal organizations to the conditions of the trade, still the groove was defined and consequently the amount of possiblefloundering largely limited. Not so with the next step, namely thenational federation of trades. In the sixties we saw the national tradeunions join with other local and miscellaneous labor organizations inthe National Labor Union upon a political platform of eight-hours andgreenbackism. In 1873 the same national unions asserted their rejectionof "panaceas" and politics by attempting to create in the National LaborCongress a federation of trades of a strictly economic character. Thepanic and depression nipped that in the bud. When trade unionism revivedin 1879 the national trade unions returned to the idea of a nationalfederation of labor, but this time they followed the model of theBritish Trades Union Congress, the organization which cares for thelegislative interests of British labor. This was the "Federation ofOrganized 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 notfeel the need of a federation on economic lines. The trade unions oftoday look to the American Federation of Labor for the discharge ofimportant economic functions, therefore it is primarily an economicorganization. These functions are the assistance of national tradeunions in organizing their trades, the adjustment of disputes betweenunions claiming the same "jurisdiction, " and concerted action in mattersof especial importance such as shorter hours, the "open-shop, " orboycotts. None of these functions would have been of material importanceto the trade unions of the early eighties. Existing in well-definedtrades, which were not affected by technical changes, they had no"jurisdictional" disputes; operating at a period of prosperity withfull employment and rising wages, they did not realize a necessity forconcerted action; the era of the boycotts had not yet begun. As forhaving a common agency to do the work of organizing, the trade unions ofthe early eighties had no keen desire to organize any but the skilledworkmen; and, since the competition of workmen in small towns had notyet made itself felt, each national trade union strove to organizeprimarily the workmen of its trade in the larger cities, a function forwhich its own means were adequate. 

The new organization of 1881 was a loose federation of trade and laborunions with a legislative committee at the head, with Samuel Gompers ofthe cigar makers as a member. The platform was purely legislative anddemanded legal incorporation for trade unions, [22] compulsory educationfor children, the prohibition of child labor under fourteen, uniformapprentice laws, the enforcement of the national eight-hour law, prisonlabor reform, abolition of the "truck" and "order" system, mechanics'lien, abolition of conspiracy laws as applied to labor organizations, anational bureau of labor statistics, a protective tariff for Americanlabor, an anti-contract immigrant law, and recommended "all trade andlabor organizations to secure proper representation in all law-makingbodies by means of the ballot, and to use all honorable measures bywhich this result can be accomplished. " Although closely related to thepresent American Federation of Labor in point of time and personnel ofleadership, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of theUnited States and Canada was in reality the precursor of the presentstate federations of labor, which as specialized parts of the nationalfederation now look after labor legislation. 

Two or three years later it became evident that the Federation as alegislative organization proved a failure. [23] Manifestly the tradeunions felt no great interest in national legislation. The indifferencecan be measured by the fact that the annual income of the Federationnever exceeded $700 and that, excepting in 1881, none of its conventionsrepresented more than one-fourth of the trade union membership of thecountry. Under such conditions the legislative influence of theFederation naturally was infinitesimal. The legislative committeecarried out the instructions of the 1883 convention and communicated tothe national committees of the Republican and Democratic parties therequest that they should define their position upon the enforcement ofthe eight-hour law and other measures. The letters were not evenanswered. A subcommittee of the legislative committee appeared beforethe two political conventions, but received no greater attention. 

It was not until the majority of the national trade unions came underthe menace of becoming forcibly absorbed by the Order of the Knights ofLabor that a basis appeared for a vigorous federation. 

The Knights of Labor were built on an opposite principle from thenational trade unions. Whereas the latter started with independentcrafts and then with hesitating hands tried, as we saw, to erect somesort of a common superstructure that should express a higher solidarityof labor, the former was built from the beginning upon a denial of craftlines and upon an absolute unity of all classes of labor under oneguiding head. The subdivision was territorial instead of occupationaland the government centralized. 

The constitution of the Knights of Labor was drawn in 1878 when theOrder laid aside the veil of secrecy to which it had clung since itsfoundation in 1869. The lowest unit of organization was the localassembly of ten or more, at least three-fourths of whom had to be wageearners at any trade. Above the local assembly was the "districtassembly" and above it the "General Assembly. " The district assembly hadabsolute power over its local assemblies and the General Assembly wasgiven "full and final jurisdiction" as "the highest tribunal" of theOrder. [24] Between sessions of the General Assembly the power was vestedin a General Executive Board, presided over by a Grand Master Workman. 

The Order of the Knights of Labor in practice carried out the idea whichis 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 theweakness of the trade unions during the long depression of theseventies, which led many to hope for better things from a generalpooling of labor strength. But its main appeal rested on a view thatmachine technique tends to do away with all distinctions of trades byreducing all workers to the level of unskilled machine tenders. To itsprotagonists therefore the "one big union" stood for an adjustment tothe new technique. 

First to face the problem of adjustment to the machine technique of thefactory system were the shoemakers. They organized in 1867 the Order ofthe Knights of St. Crispin, mainly for the purpose of suppressing thecompetitive menace of "green hands, " that is unskilled workers put towork on shoe machines. At its height in 1872, the Crispins numberedabout 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 thesixties, and about the same time the machinists and blacksmiths, too, saw their trade broken up by the introduction of the principle ofstandardized parts and quantity production in the making of machinery. From these trades came the national leaders of the Knights of Labor andthe strongest advocates of the new principle in labor organization andof the interests of the unskilled workers in general. The conflictbetween the trade unions and the Knights of Labor turned on the questionof the unskilled workers. 

The conflict was held in abeyance during the early eighties. The tradeunions were by far the strongest organizations in the field and scentedno particular danger when here or there the Knights formed an assemblyeither contiguous to the sphere of a trade union or even at timesencroaching upon it. 

With the Great Upheaval, which began in 1884, and the inrushing ofhundreds of thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled workers into theOrder, a new situation was created. The leaders of the Knights realizedthat mere numbers were not sufficient to defeat the employers and thatcontrol over the skilled, and consequently the more strategicoccupations, was required before the unskilled and semi-skilled couldexpect to march to victory. Hence, parallel to the tremendous growth ofthe Knights in 1886, there was a constantly growing effort to absorb theexisting trade unions for the purpose of making them subservient to theinterests of the less skilled elements. It was mainly that whichproduced the bitter conflict between the Knights and the trade unionsduring 1886 and 1887. Neither the jealousy aroused by the success of theunions nor the opposite aims of labor solidarity and trade separatismgives an adequate explanation of this conflict. The one, of course, aggravated the situation by introducing a feeling of personalbitterness, and the other furnished an appealing argument to each side. But the struggle was one between groups within the working class, inwhich the small but more skilled group fought for independence of thelarger but weaker group of the unskilled and semi-skilled. The skilledmen stood for the right to use their advantage of skill and efficientorganization in order to wrest the maximum amount of concessions forthemselves. The Knights of Labor endeavored to annex the skilled men inorder that the advantage from their exceptional fighting strength mightlift up the unskilled and semi-skilled. From the point of view of astruggle between principles, this was indeed a clash between theprinciple of solidarity of labor and that of trade separatism, but, inreality, each of the principles reflected only the special interest of acertain portion of the working class. Just as the trade unions, whenthey fought for trade autonomy, really refused to consider the unskilledmen, so the Knights of Labor overlooked the fact that their scheme wouldretard the progress of the skilled trades. 

The Knights were in nearly every case the aggressors, and it issignificant that among the local organizations of the Knights inimicalto trade unions, District Assembly 49, of New York, should prove themost relentless. It was this assembly which conducted the longshoremen'sand 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 thesake of securing the demands of several hundred unskilled workingmen. Though District Assembly 49, New York, came into conflict with not a fewof the trade unions in that city, its battle royal was fought with thecigar makers' unions. There were at the time two factions among thecigar makers, one upholding the International Cigar Makers' Union withAdolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers as leaders, the other calling itselfthe Progressive Union, which was more socialistic in nature and composedof more recent immigrants and less skilled workers. District Assembly 49of the Knights of Labor took a hand in the struggle to support theProgressive Union and by skillful management brought the situation tothe point where the latter had to allow itself to be absorbed into theKnights of Labor. 

The events in the cigar making trade in New York brought to a climax thesporadic struggles that had been going on between the Order and thetrade unions. The trade unions demanded that the Knights of Laborrespect their "jurisdiction" and proposed a "treaty of peace" with suchdrastic terms that had they been accepted the trade unions would havebeen left in the sole possession of the field. The Order was at firstmore conciliatory. It would not of course cease to take part inindustrial disputes and industrial matters, but it proposed a _modusvivendi_ on a basis of an interchange of "working cards" and commonaction against employers. At the same time it addressed separately toeach national trade union a gentle admonition to think of the unskilledworkers as well as of themselves. The address said: "In the use of thewonderful inventions, your organization plays a most important part. Naturally it embraces within its ranks a very large proportion oflaborers of a high grade of skill and intelligence. With this skill ofhand, guided by intelligent thought, comes the right to demand thatexcess of compensation paid to skilled above the unskilled labor. Butthe unskilled labor must receive attention, or in the hour of difficultythe employer will not hesitate to use it to depress the compensation younow receive. That skilled or unskilled labor may no longer be foundunorganized, we ask of you to annex your grand and powerful corps to themain 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 tobeggary, " evinced no desire to be pressed into the service of lifting upthe unskilled and voted down with practical unanimity the proposal. Thereupon the Order declared open war by commanding all its members whowere also members of the cigar makers' union to withdraw from the latteron the penalty of expulsion. 

Later events proved that the assumption of the aggressive was thebeginning of the undoing of the Order. It was, moreover, an event offirst significance in the labor movement since it forced the tradeunions 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 inthe trade union movement of Samuel Gompers as the foremost leader. Gompers had first achieved prominence in 1881 at the time of theorganization of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. Butnot until the situation created by the conflict with the Knights ofLabor did he get his first real opportunity, both to demonstrate hisinborn capacity for leadership and to train and develop that capacity byovercoming what was perhaps the most serious problem that everconfronted American organized labor. 

The new Federation avoided its predecessor's mistake of emphasizinglabor legislation above all. Its prime purpose was economic. Thelegislative interests of labor were for the most part given into thecare of subordinate state federations of labor. Consequently, theseveral state federations, not the American Federation of Labor, correspond in America to the British Trades Union Congress. But in theconventions of the American Federation of Labor the state federationsare represented only nominally. The Federation is primarily a federationof national and international (including Canada and Mexico) tradeunions. 

Each national and international union in the new Federation wasacknowledged a sovereignty unto itself, with full powers of disciplineover its members and with the power of free action toward the employerswithout any interference from the Federation; in other words, its fullautonomy was confirmed. Like the British Empire, the Federation of Laborwas cemented together by ties which were to a much greater extentspiritual than they were material. Nevertheless, the Federation'sauthority was far from being a shadowy one. If it could not order aboutthe officers of the constituent unions, it could so mobilize the generallabor sentiment in the country on behalf of any of its constituentbodies that its good will would be sought even by the most powerfulones. The Federation guaranteed to each union a certain jurisdiction, generally coextensive with a craft, and protected it againstencroachments by adjoining unions and more especially by rival unions. The guarantee worked absolutely in the case of the latter, for theFederation knew no mercy when a rival union attempted to undermine thestrength of an organized union of a craft. The trade unions have learnedfrom experience with the Knights of Labor that their deadliest enemywas, after all, not the employers' association but the enemy from withinwho introduced confusion in the ranks. They have accordingly developedsuch a passion for "regularity, " such an intense conviction that theremust be but one union in a given trade that, on occasions, scheminglabor officials have known how to checkmate a justifiable insurgentmovement by a skillful play upon this curious hypertrophy of the feelingof solidarity. Not only will a rival union never be admitted into theFederation, but no subordinate body, state or city, may dare to extendany aid or comfort to a rival union. 

The Federation exacted but little from the national and internationalunions in exchange for the guarantee of their jurisdiction: A smallannual per capita tax; a willing though a not obligatory support in thespecial legislative and industrial campaigns it may undertake; anadherence to its decisions on general labor policy; an undertaking tosubmit to its decision in the case of disputes with other unions, whichhowever need not in every case be fulfilled; and lastly, an unqualifiedacceptance of the principle of "regularity" relative to labororganization. Obviously, judging from constitutional powers alone, theFederation was but a weak sort of a government. Yet the weakness was notthe forced weakness of a government which was willing to start withlimited powers hoping to increase its authority as it learned to standmore firmly on its own feet; it was a self-imposed weakness suggested bythe lessons of labor history. 

By contrast the Order of the Knights of Labor, as seen already, wasgoverned by an all-powerful General Assembly and General ExecutiveBoard. At a first glance a highly centralized form of government wouldappear a promise of assured strength and a guarantee of coherenceamongst the several parts of the organization. Perhaps, if America'swage earners were cemented together by as strong a class consciousnessas the laboring classes of Europe, such might have been the case. 

But America's labor movement lacked the unintended aid which the sistermovements in Europe derived from a caste system of society and politicaloppression. Where the class lines were not tightly drawn, thecentrifugal forces in the labor movement were bound to assertthemselves. The leaders of the American Federation of Labor, in theirstruggle against the Knights of Labor, played precisely upon thiscentrifugal tendency and gained a victory by making an appeal to thenatural desire for autonomy and self-determination of any distinctivegroup. But originally perhaps intended as a mere "strategic" move, thispolicy succeeded in creating a labor movement which was, onfundamentals, far more coherent than the Knights of Labor even in theheyday of their glory. The officers and leaders of the Federation, knowing that they could not command, set themselves to developing aunified 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 inthe policy supported by the majority. So each craft was made aself-determining unit and "craft autonomy" became a sacred shibboleth inthe labor movement without interfering with unity on essentials. 

The principle of craft autonomy triumphed chiefly because it recognizedthe existence of a considerable amount of group selfishness. The Knightsof Labor held, as was seen, that the strategic or bargaining strength ofthe skilled craftsman should be used as a lever to raise the status ofthe semi-skilled and unskilled worker. It consequently grouped thempromiscuously in "mixed assemblies" and opposed as long as it could thedemand for "national trade assemblies. " The craftsman, on the otherhand, wished to use his superior bargaining strength for his ownpurposes and evinced little desire to dissipate it in the service of hishumbler fellow worker. To give effect to that, he felt obliged tostruggle against becoming entangled with undesirable allies in thesemi-skilled and unskilled workers for whom the Order spoke. Needless tosay, the individual self-interest of the craft leaders worked hand inhand with the self-interest of the craft as a whole, for had they beenannexed by the Order they would have become subject to orders from theGeneral Master Workman or the General Assembly of the Order. 

In addition to platonic stirrings for "self-determination" and to narrowgroup interest, there was a motive for craft autonomy which could passmuster both as strictly social and realistic. The fact was that theautonomous craft union could win strikes where the centralizedpromiscuous Order merely floundered and suffered defeat after defeat. The craft union had the advantage, on the one hand, of a leadershipwhich was thoroughly familiar with the bit of ground upon which itoperated, and, on the other hand, of handling a group of people of equalfinancial endurance and of identical interest. It has already been seenhow dreadfully mismanaged were the great Knights of Labor strikes of1886 and 1887. The ease with which the leaders were able to call outtrade after trade on a strike of sympathy proved more a liability thanan asset. Often the choice of trades to strike bore no particularrelation to their strategic value in the given situation; altogether onegathers the impression that these great strikes were conducted byblundering amateurs who possessed more authority than was good for themor for the cause. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the compactcraft unions led by specialists scored successes where the heterogeneousmobs of the Knights of Labor had been doomed from the first. Clearlythen the survival of the craft union was a survival of the fittest; andthe Federation's attachment to the principle of craft autonomy was, tosay the least, a product of an evolutionary past, whatever one may holdwith reference to its fitness in our own time. 

Whatever reasons moved the trade unions of the skilled to battle withthe Order for their separate and autonomous existence were bound sooneror later to induce those craftsmen who were in the Order to seek asimilar autonomy. From the very beginning the more skilled and betterorganized 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, wholooked upon such a move as a betrayal of the great principle of thesolidarity of all labor, were able to stem the tide excepting in thecase of the window glass blowers, who were granted their autonomy in1880. 

The obvious superiority of the trade union form of organization over themixed organization, as revealed by events in 1886 and 1887, strengthenedthe separatist tendency. Just as the struggle between the Knights ofLabor and the trade unions on the outside had been fundamentally astruggle between the unskilled and the skilled portions of thewage-earning class, so the aspiration toward the national trade assemblywithin the Order represented the effort of the more or less skilled menfor emancipation from the dominance of the unskilled. But the Ordersuccessfully fought off such attempts until after the defeat of themixed district assemblies, or in other words of the unskilled class, inthe struggle with the employers. With the withdrawal of a very largeportion of this class, as shown in 1887, [27] the demand for the nationaltrade assembly revived and there soon began a veritable rush to organizeby trades. The stampede was strongest in the city of New York where theincompetence of the mixed District Assembly 49 had become patent. At theGeneral Assembly in 1887 at Minneapolis all obstacles were removed fromforming national trade assemblies, but this came too late to stem theexodus of the skilled element from the order into the AmericanFederation of Labor. 

The victory of craft autonomy over the "one big union" was decisive andcomplete. 

The strike activities of the Knights were confessedly a deviation from"First Principles. " Yet the First Principles with their emphasis onproducers' cooperation were far from forgotten even when the enthusiasmfor strikes was at its highest. Whatever the actual feelings of themembership as a whole, the leaders neglected no opportunity to promotecooperation. T. V. Powderly, the head of the Order since 1878, in hisreports to the annual General Assembly or convention, consistently urgedthat practical steps be taken toward cooperation. In 1881, while thegeneral opinion in the Order was still undecided, the leaders did notscruple to smuggle into the constitution a clause which made cooperationcompulsory. 

Notwithstanding Powderly's exhortations, the Order was at first slow intaking it up. In 1882 a general cooperative board was elected to workout a plan of action, but it never reported, and a new board was chosenin its place at the Assembly of 1883. In that year, the first practicalstep was taken in the purchase by the Order of a coal mine atCannelburg, Indiana, with the idea of selling the coal at reduced pricesto the members. Soon thereafter a thorough change of sentiment withregard to the whole matter of cooperation took place, contemporaneouslywith the industrial depression and unsuccessful strikes. The rank andfile, who had hitherto been indifferent, now seized upon the idea withavidity. The enthusiasm ran so high in Lynn, Massachusetts, that it wasfound necessary to raise the shares of the Knights of Labor CooperativeShoe Company to $100 in order to prevent a large influx of "unsuitablemembers. " In 1885 Powderly complained that "many of our members growimpatient and unreasonable because every avenue of the Order does notlead to cooperation. "

The impatience for immediate cooperation, which seized the rank and filein practically every section of the country, caused an importantmodification in the official doctrine of the Order. Originally it hadcontemplated centralized control under which it would have taken yearsbefore a considerable portion of the membership could realize anybenefit. This was now dropped and a decentralized plan was adopted. Local organizations and, more frequently, groups of members with thefinancial aid of their local organizations now began to establish shops. Most of the enterprises were managed by the stockholders, although, insome cases, the local organization of the Knights of Labor managed theplant. 

Most of the cooperative enterprises were conducted on a small scale. Incomplete statistics warrant the conclusion that the average amountinvested per establishment was about $10, 000. From the data gathered itseems that cooperation reached its highest point in 1886, although ithad not completely spent itself by the end of 1887. The total number ofventures probably reached two hundred. The largest numbers were inmining, cooperage, and shoes. These industries paid the poorest wagesand treated their employes most harshly. A small amount of capital wasrequired to organize such establishments. 

With the abandonment of centralized cooperation in 1884, the role of thecentral cooperative board changed correspondingly. The leading member ofthe board was now John Samuel, one of those to whom cooperation meantnothing short of a religion. The duty of the board was to educate themembers of the Order in the principles of cooperation; to aid byinformation and otherwise prospective and actual cooperators; in brief, to coordinate the cooperative movement within the Order. It issued formsof a constitution and by-laws which, with a few modifications, could beadopted by any locality. It also published articles on the dangers andpitfalls in cooperative ventures, such as granting credit, poormanagement, etc. , as well as numerous articles on specific kinds ofcooperation. The Knights of Labor label was granted for the use ofcooperative goods and a persistent agitation was steadily conducted toinduce 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 capitalisticpartnerships. The great majority went on the rocks even before gettingstarted. The causes of failure were many: Hasty action, inexperience, lax shop discipline, internal dissensions, high rates of interest uponthe mortgage of the plant, and finally discriminations instigated bycompetitors. Railways were heavy offenders, by delaying side tracks and, on some pretext or other, refusing to furnish cars or refusing to haulthem. 

The Union Mining Company of Cannelburg, Indiana, owned and operated bythe Order as its sole experiment of the centralized kind of cooperation, met this fate. After expending $20, 000 in equipping the mine, purchasingland, laying tracks, cutting and sawing timber on the land and mining$1000 worth of coal, they were compelled to lie idle for nine monthsbefore the railway company saw fit to connect their switch with the maintrack. When they were ready to ship their product, it was learned thattheir coal could be utilized for the manufacture of gas only, and thatcontracts for supply of such coal were let in July, that is nine monthsfrom the time of connecting the switch with the main track. In addition, the company was informed that it must supply itself with a switch engineto do the switching of the cars from its mine to the main track, at anadditional cost of $4000. When this was accomplished they had to enterthe market in competition with a bitter opponent who had been fightingthem since the opening of the mine. Having exhausted their funds and notseeing their way clear to securing additional funds for the purchase ofa locomotive and to tide over the nine months ere any contracts for coalcould be entered into, they sold out to their competitor. 

But a cause more fundamental perhaps than all other causes of thefailure of cooperation in the United States is to be found in thedifficulties of successful entrepreneurship. In the labor movement inthe United States there has been a failure, generally speaking, toappreciate the significance of management and the importance which mustbe imputed to it. Glib talk often commands an undeserved confidence andmisleads the wage earner. Thus by 1888, three or four years after it hadbegun, the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle of life andsuccumbed. The failure, as said, was hastened by external causes anddiscrimination. But the experiments had been foredoomed anyway, --throughthe incompatibility of producers' cooperation with trade unionism. Thecooperators, in their eagerness to get a market, frequently undersoldthe private employer expecting to recoup their present losses in futureprofits. In consequence, the privately employed wage earners had to bearreductions in their wages. A labor movement which endeavors to practiceproducers' cooperation and trade unionism at the same time is actuallydriving in opposite directions. 

FOOTNOTES:

[20] See Chapter 1. 

[21] In the thirties the term "union" was reserved for the cityfederations of trades. What is now designated as a trade union wascalled 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 awayfrom legislation. 

[24] The Constitution read as follows: "It alone possesses the power andauthority to make, amend, or repeal the fundamental and general laws andregulations of the Order; to finally decide all controversies arising inthe Order; to issue all charters. .. . It can also tax the members of theOrder 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 themembership of trade unions; consequently, during several yearsfollowing, notwithstanding the prosperity in industry, further growthwas bound to proceed at a slower rate. 

The statistics of strikes during the later eighties, like the figures ofmembership, show that after the strenuous years from 1885 to 1887 thelabor movement had entered a more or less quiet stage. Most prominentamong the strikes was the one of 60, 000 iron and steel workers inPennsylvania, Ohio, and the West, which was carried to a successfulconclusion against a strong combination of employers. The AmalgamatedAssociation of Iron and Steel Workers stood at the zenith of its powerabout this time and was able in 1889, by the mere threat of a strike, todictate terms to the Carnegie Steel Company. The most noted and lastgreat strike of a railway brotherhood was the one of the locomotiveengineers on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. Thestrike was begun jointly on February 27, 1888, by the brotherhoods oflocomotive engineers and locomotive firemen. The main demands were madeby the engineers, who asked for the abandonment of the system ofclassification and for a new wage scale. Two months previously, theKnights of Labor had declared a miners' strike against the Philadelphia& Reading Railroad Company, employing 80, 000 anthracite miners, and thestrike had been accompanied by a sympathetic strike of engineers andfiremen belonging to the Order. The members of the brotherhoods hadfilled their places and, in retaliation, the former Reading engineersand firemen now took the places of the Burlington strikers, so that onMarch 15 the company claimed to have a full contingent of employes. Thebrotherhoods ordered a boycott upon the Burlington cars, which waspartly enforced, but they were finally compelled to submit. The strikewas not officially called off until January 3, 1889. Notwithstanding thedefeat of the strikers, the damage to the railway was enormous, andneither the railways of the country nor the brotherhoods since that datehave permitted a serious strike of their members to occur. 

The lull in the trade union movement was broken by a new concertedeight-hour movement managed by the Federation, which culminated in 1890. 

Although on the whole the eight-hour movement in 1886 was a failure, itwas by no means a disheartening failure. It was evident that theeight-hour day was a popular demand, and that an organization desirousof expansion might well hitch its wagon to this star. Accordingly, theconvention of the American Federation of Labor in 1888 declared that ageneral demand should be made for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890. Thechief advocates of the resolution were the delegates of the carpenters, who announced a readiness to lead the way for a general eight-hour dayin 1890. 

The Federation at once inaugurated an aggressive campaign. For the firsttime in its history it employed special salaried organizers. Pamphletswere issued and widely distributed. On every important holiday massmeetings were held in the larger cities. On Labor Day 1889, no lessthan 420 such mass meetings were held throughout the country. Again theKnights of Labor came out against the plan. 

The next year the plan of campaign was modified. The idea of a generalstrike for the eight-hour day in May 1890, was abandoned in favor of astrike trade by trade. In March 1890, the carpenters were chosen to makethe demand on May 1 of the same year, to be followed by the miners at alater date. 

The choice of the carpenters was indeed fortunate. Beginning with 1886, that union had a rapid growth and was now the largest union affiliatedwith the Federation. For several years it had been accumulating fundsfor the eight-hour day, and, when the movement was inaugurated in May1890, it achieved a large measure of success. The union officers claimedto have won the eight-hour day in 137 cities and a nine-hour day in mostother places. 

However, the selection of the miners to follow on May 1, 1891, was agrave mistake. Less than one-tenth of the coal miners of the countrywere 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 strikein the Connelsville coke region, and the plan for an eight-hour strikewas abandoned. In this manner the eight-hour movement inaugurated by theconvention of the Federation in 1888 came to an end. Apart from thestrike of the carpenters in 1890, it had not led to any general movementto gain the eight-hour work day. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands ofworkingmen had won reduced hours of labor, especially in the buildingtrades. By 1891 the eight-hour day had been secured for all buildingtrades in Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Indianapolis, and San Francisco. In New York and Brooklyn the carpenters, stone-cutters, painters, andplasterers worked eight hours, while the bricklayers, masons, andplumbers worked nine. In St. Paul the bricklayers alone worked ninehours, the remaining trades eight. 

In 1892 the labor movement faced for the first time a really modernmanufacturing corporation with its practically boundless resources ofwar, namely the Carnegie Steel Company, in the strike which has becomefamous under the name of the Homestead Strike. The AmalgamatedAssociation of Iron and Steel Workers, with a membership of 24, 068 in1891, was probably the strongest trade union in the entire history ofthe American labor movement. Prior to 1889 the relations between theunion and the Carnegie firm had been invariably friendly. In January1889, 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, thefirst dispute occurred between them and the company. Although theagreement was finally renewed for three years on terms dictated by theAssociation, the controversy left a disturbing impression upon the mindsof the men, since during the course of the negotiations Frick haddemanded the dissolution of the union. 

Negotiations for the new scale presented to the company began inFebruary 1892. A few weeks later the company presented a scale to themen providing for a reduction and besides demanded that the date of thetermination of the scale be changed from July 1 to January 1. A numberof conferences were held without result; and on May 30 the companysubmitted an ultimatum to the effect that, if the scale were not signedby June 29, they would treat with the men as individuals. At a finalconference 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 unionlowered its demand from $25, the rate formerly paid, to $24. But noagreement could be reached on this point nor on others and the strikebegan June 29 upon the definite issue of the preservation of the union. 

Even before the negotiations were broken up, Frick had arranged with thePinkerton detective agency for 300 men to serve as guards. These menarrived at a station on the Ohio River below Pittsburgh near midnight ofJuly 5. Here they embarked on barges and were towed up the river toPittsburgh and taken up the Monangahela River to Homestead, which theyapproached about four o'clock on the morning of July 6. The workmen hadbeen warned of their coming and, when the boat reached the landing backof the steel works, nearly the whole town was there to meet them and toprevent their landing. Passion ran high. The men armed themselves withguns and gave the Pinkertons a pitched battle. When the day was over, atleast half a dozen men on both sides had been killed and a number wereseriously wounded. The Pinkertons were defeated and driven away and, although there was no more disorder of any sort, the State militiaappeared in Homestead on July 12 and remained for several months. 

The strike which began in Homestead soon spread to other mills. TheCarnegie mills at 29th and 33d Streets, Pittsburgh, went on strike. Thestrike at Homestead was finally declared off on November 20, and mostof the men went back to their old positions as non-union men. Thetreasury of the union was depleted, winter was coming, and it wasfinally decided to consider the battle lost. 

The defeat meant not only the loss by the union of the Homestead plantbut the elimination of unionism in most of the mills in the Pittsburghregion. Where the great Carnegie Company led, the others had to follow. The power of the union was henceforth broken and the labor movementlearned the lesson that even its strongest organization was unable towithstand an onslaught by the modern corporation. The Homestead strikestirred the labor movement as few other single events. It had itspolitical reverberation, since it drove home to the workers that anindustry protected by high tariff will not necessarily be a haven toorganized labor, notwithstanding that the union had actively assistedthe iron and steel manufacturers in securing the high protection grantedby the McKinley tariff bill of 1890. Many of the votes which wouldotherwise have gone to the Republican candidate for President went in1892 to Grover Cleveland, who ran on an anti-protective tariff issue. Itis not unlikely that the latter's victory was materially advanced by thedisillusionment brought on by the Homestead defeat. 

In the summer of 1893 occurred the financial panic. The panic and theensuing crisis furnished a conclusive test of the strength and stabilityof the American labor movement. Gompers in his presidential report atthe convention of 1899, following the long depression, said: "It isnoteworthy, that while in every previous industrial crisis the tradeunions were literally mowed down and swept out of existence, the unionsnow in existence have manifested, not only the power of resistance, butof stability and permanency, " and he assigned as the most prominentcause the system of high dues and benefits which had come into vogue ina large number of trade unions. He said: "Beyond doubt the superficialmotive of continued membership in unions organized upon this basis wasthe monetary benefits the members were entitled to; but be that as itmay, the results are the same, that is, _membership is maintained, theorganization remains intact during dull periods of industry, and isprepared to take advantage of the first sign of an industrial revival_. "Gompers may have overstated the power of resistance of the unions, buttheir holding power upon the membership cannot be disputed. Theaggregate membership of all unions affiliated with the Federationremained near the mark of 275, 000 throughout the period of depressionfrom 1893 to 1897. At last the labor movement had become stabilized. 

The year 1894 was exceptional for labor disturbances. The number ofemployes involved reached nearly 750, 000, surpassing even the mark setin 1886. However, in contradistinction to 1886, the movement wasdefensive. It also resulted in greater failure. The strike of the coalminers and the Pullman strike were the most important ones. The UnitedMine Workers began their strike in Ohio on April 21. The membership didnot exceed 20, 000, but about 125, 000 struck. At first the demand wasmade that wages should be restored to the level at which they were inMay 1893. But within a month the union in most regions was struggling toprevent a further reduction in wages. By the end of July the strike waslost. 

The Pullman strike marks an era in the American labor movement becauseit was the only attempt ever made in America of a revolutionary strikeon the Continental European model. The strikers tried to throw againstthe associated railways and indeed against the entire existing socialorder the full force of a revolutionary labor solidarity embracing theentire American wage-earning class brought to the point of exasperationby unemployment, wage reductions, and misery. That in spite of theremarkable favorable conjuncture the dramatic appeal failed to shake thegeneral labor movement out of its chosen groove is proof positive of thecompletion of the stabilization process which had been going on sincethe early eighties. 

The Pullman strike began May 11, 1894, and grew out of a demand ofcertain employes in the shops of the Pullman Palace Car Company, situated at Pullman, Illinois, for a restoration of the wages paidduring the previous year. In March 1894, the Pullman employes had votedto join the American Railway Union. The American Railway Union was anorganization based on industrial lines, organized in June 1893, byEugene V. Debs. Debs, as secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood ofLocomotive Firemen, had watched the failure of many a strike by only onetrade and resigned this office to organize all railway workers in oneorganization. The American Railway Union was the result. Between June 9and June 26 the latter held a convention in Chicago. The Pullman matterwas publicly discussed before and after its committee reported theirinterviews with the Pullman Company. On June 21, the delegates underinstructions from their local unions, feeling confident after a victoryover the Great Northern in April, unanimously voted that the membersshould stop handling Pullman cars on June 26 unless the Pullman Companywould consent to arbitration. 

On June 26 the railway strike began. It was a purely sympathetic strikeas no demands were made. The union found itself pitted against theGeneral Managers' Association, representing twenty-four roads centeringor terminating in Chicago, which were bound by contracts with thePullman Company. The association had been organized in 1886, its mainbusiness being to determine a common policy as to traffic and freightrates, but incidentally it dealt also with wages. The strike soon spreadover an enormous territory. Many of the members of the brotherhoodsjoined in, although their organizations were opposed to the strike. Thelawless element in Chicago took advantage of the opportunity to rob, burn, and plunder, so that the scenes of the great railway strike of1877 were now repeated. The damages in losses of property and businessto the country have been estimated at $80, 000, 000. On July 7, E. V. Debs, president, and other principal officers of the American Railway Unionwere indicted, arrested, and held under $10, 000 bail. On July 13 theywere charged with contempt of the United States Court in disobeying aninjunction which enjoined them, among other things, from compelling orinducing by threats railway employes to strike. The strike had alreadybeen weakening for some days. On July 12, at the request of the AmericanRailway Union, about twenty-five of the executive officers of nationaland international labor unions affiliated with the American Federationof Labor met in conference in Chicago to discuss the situation. Debsappeared and urged a general strike by all labor organizations. But theconference decided that "it would be unwise and disastrous to theinterests of labor to extend the strike any further than it had alreadygone, " and advised the strikers to return to work. On July 13, theAmerican Railway Union, through the Mayor of Chicago, offered theGeneral Managers' Association to declare the strike off, provided themen should be restored to their former positions without prejudice, except in cases where they had been convicted of crime. But theAssociation refused to deal with the union. The strike was alreadyvirtually beaten by the combined moral effect of the indictment of theleaders and of the arrival in Chicago of United States troops, whichPresident Cleveland sent in spite of the protest of Governor Altgeld ofIllinois. 

The labor organizations were taught two important lessons. First, thatnothing can be gained through revolutionary striking, for the governmentwas sufficiently strong to cope with it; and second, that the employershad obtained a formidable ally in the courts. [28]

Defeats in strikes, depression in trade, a rapidly falling labor marketand court prosecutions were powerful allies of those socialistic andradical leaders inside the Federation who aspired to convert it from amere economic organization into an economic-political one and make itembark upon the sea of independent politics. 

The convention of 1893 is memorable in that it submitted to theconsideration of affiliated unions a "political programme. " The preambleto the "programme" recited that the English trade unions had recentlylaunched upon independent politics "as auxiliary to their economicaction. " The eleven planks of the program demanded: compulsoryeducation; the right of popular initiative in legislation; a legaleight-hour work-day; governmental inspection of mines and workshops;abolition of the sweating system; employers' liability laws; abolitionof the contract system upon public work; municipal ownership of electriclight, gas, street railway, and water systems; the nationalization oftelegraphs, telephones, railroads, and mines; "the collective ownershipby the people of all means of production and distribution"; and thereferendum upon all legislation. 

Immediately after the convention of 1893 affiliated unions began to givetheir endorsement to the political program. Not until comparatively latedid any opposition make itself manifest. Then it took the form of ademand by such conservative leaders as Gompers, McGuire, and Strasser, that plank 10, with its pledge in favor of "the collective ownership bythe people of all means of production and distribution, " be strickenout. Notwithstanding this, the majority of national trade unionsendorsed the program. 

During 1894 the trade unions were active participants in politics. InNovember, 1894, the _Federationist_ gave a list of more than 300 unionmembers candidates for some elective office. Only a half dozen of these, however, were elected. It was mainly to these local failures thatGompers pointed in his presidential address at the convention of 1894 asan argument against the adoption of the political program by theFederation. His attitude clearly foreshadowed the destiny of the programat the convention. The first attack was made upon the preamble, on theground that the statement therein that the English trade unions haddeclared for independent political action was false. By a vote of 1345to 861 the convention struck out the preamble. Upon motion of thetypographical union, a substitute was adopted calling for the"abolition of the monopoly system of land holding and the substitutiontherefor of a title of occupancy and use only. " Some of the delegatesseem to have interpreted this substitute as a declaration for the singletax; but the majority of those who voted in its favor probably actedupon the principle "anything to beat socialism. " Later the entireprogram was voted down. That sealed the fate of the move for anindependent labor party. 

The American Federation of Labor was almost drawn into the whirlpool ofpartisan politics during the Presidential campaign of 1896. Threesuccessive conventions had declared in favor of the free coinage ofsilver; and now the Democratic party had come out for free coinage. Inthis situation very many prominent trade union leaders declared publiclyfor Bryan. President Gompers, however, issued a warning to allaffiliated unions to keep out of partisan politics. Notwithstanding thisSecretary McGraith, at the next convention of the Federation, chargedPresident Gompers with acting in collusion with the Democraticheadquarters throughout the campaign in aid of Bryan's candidacy. Aftera lengthy secret session the convention approved the conduct of Gompers. Free silver continued to be endorsed annually down to the convention of1898, when the return of industrial prosperity and rising prices put anend to it as a demand advocated by labor. 

The depressed nineties demonstrated conclusively that a new era hadarrived. No longer was the labor movement a mere plaything of thealternating waves of prosperity and depression. Formerly, as we saw, ithad centered on economic or trade-union action during prosperity only tochange abruptly to "panaceas" and politics with the descent ofdepression. Now the movement, notwithstanding possible changes inmembership, and persistent political leanings in some portions of it, asa whole for the first time became stable in purpose and action. Tradeunionism has won over politics. 

This victory was synchronous with the first successful working out of anational trade agreement and the institutionalization of trade unionismin a leading industry, namely stove molding. While one of the earlieststable trade agreements in a conspicuous trade covering a local fieldwas a bricklayers' agreement in Chicago in 1887, the era of tradeagreements really dates from the national system established in thestove foundry industry in 1891. It is true also that the iron and steelworkers 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 andorganization. There had existed since 1872 the National Association ofStove Manufacturers, an organization dealing with prices and embracingin its membership the largest stove manufacturers of the country. Thestove foundrymen, therefore, unlike the manufacturers in practically allother industries at that time, controlled in a large measure their ownmarket. Furthermore, the product had been completely standardized andreduced to a piecework basis, and machinery had not taken the place ofthe molders' skill. It consequently was no mere accident that the stoveindustry was the first to develop a system of permanent industrialpeace. But, on the other hand, this was not automatically established assoon as the favorable external conditions were provided. In reality, only after years of struggle, of strikes and lockouts, and after thetwo sides had fought each other "to a standstill, " was the systemfinally installed. 

The eighties abounded in stove molders' strikes, and in 1886 thenational 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 anational labor policy; it was organized for "resistance against anyunjust demands of their workmen, and such other purposes as may fromtime to time prove or appear to be necessary for the benefit of themembers thereof as employers of labor. " Thus, after 1886, the alignmentwas made national on both sides. The great battle was fought the nextyear. 

March 8, 1887, the employes of the Bridge and Beach ManufacturingCompany in St. Louis struck for an advance in wages and the struggle atonce became one between the International Union and the National DefenseAssociation. The St. Louis company sent its patterns to foundries inother districts, but the union successfully prevented their use. Thisoccasioned 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 Associationhaving provided the company with a sufficient number of strike-breakers. Each side was in a position to claim the victory for itself; so evenlymatched were the opposing forces. 

During the next four years disputes in Association plants were rare. InAugust 1890, a strike took place in Pittsburgh and, for the first timein the history of the industry, it was settled by a written tradeagreement with the local union. This supported the idea of a nationaltrade agreement between the two organizations. Since the dispute of1887, negotiations with this object were from time to time conducted, the Defense Association invariably taking the initiative. Finally, thenational convention of the union in 1890 appointed a committee to meet alike committee of the Defense Association. The conference took placeMarch 25, 1891, and worked out a complete plan of organization for thestove molding industry. Every year two committees of three members each, chosen respectively by the union and the association, were to meet inconference and to draw up general laws for the year. In case of adispute arising in a locality, if the parties immediately concerned wereunable to arrive at common terms, the chief executives of bothorganizations, the president of the union and the president of theassociation, were to step in and try to effect an adjustment. If, however, they, too, failed, a conference committee composed of an equalnumber of members from each side was to be called in and its findingswere to be final. Meanwhile the parties were enjoined from engaging inhostilities while the matter at dispute was being dealt with by the dulyappointed authorities. Each organization obligated itself to exercise"police authority" over its constituents, enforcing obedience to theagreement. The endorsement of the plan by both organizations waspractically unanimous, and has continued in operation withoutinterruption for thirty years until the present day. 

Since the end of the nineties the trade agreement has become one of themost generally accepted principles and aspirations of the American labormovement. However, it is not to be understood that by accepting theprinciple of the trade agreement the labor movement has committeditself to unlimited arbitration of industrial disputes. The basic ideaof the trade agreement is that of collective bargaining rather thanarbitration. The two terms are not always distinguished, but theessential difference is that in the trade agreement proper no outsideparty intervenes to settle the dispute and make an award. The agreementis made by direct negotiation between the two organized groups and thesanction which each holds over the head of the other is the strike orlockout. If no agreement can be reached, the labor organization as wellas the employers' association, insists on its right to refusearbitration, whether it be "voluntary" or so-called "compulsory. "

The clarification of the conception of the trade agreement was perhapsthe main achievement of the nineties. Without the trade agreement thelabor movement could hardly come to eschew "panaceas" and toreconstitute itself upon the basis of opportunism. The coming in of thetrade agreement, whether national, sectional, or local, was also thechief 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 thesweets of institutionalization in industry through "recognition" byemployers, it was also during the later eighties and during the ninetiesthat they experienced a revival of suspicion and hostility on the partof the courts and a renewal of legal restraints upon their activities, which were all the more discouraging since for a generation or more theyhad practically enjoyed non-interference from that quarter. It was atthis period that the main legal weapons against trade unionism wereforged and brought to a fine point in practical application. The historyof the courts' attitude to trade unionism may therefore best be treatedfrom the standpoint of the nineties. 

The subject of court interference was not altogether new in theeighties. We took occasion to point out the effect of court interferencein labor disputes in the first and second decades of the nineteenthcentury and again in the thirties. Mention was made also of the court'sdecision in the Theiss boycott case in New York in 1886, which proved aprime moving factor in launching the famous Henry George campaign forMayor. And we gave due note to the role of court injunctions in the Debsstrike of 1894 and in other strikes. Our present interest is, however, more in the court doctrines than in their effects: more concerned withthe development of the legal thought underlying the policies of thecourts than with the reactions of the labor movement to the policiesthemselves. 

The earliest case on record, namely the Philadelphia shoemakers' strikecase in 1806, [29] charged two offences; one was a combination to raisewages, the other a combination to injure others; both offences weredeclared by the judge to be forbidden by the common law. To the publicat large the prosecution seemed to rest solely upon the charge that thejourneymen combined to raise wages. The defense took advantage of thisand tried to make use of it for its own purposes. The condemnation ofthe journeymen on this ground gave rise to a vehement protest on thepart of the journeymen themselves and their friends. It was pointed outthat the journeymen were convicted for acts which are considered lawfulwhen done by masters or merchants. Therefore when the next conspiracycase in New York in 1809 was decided, the court's charge to the jury wasvery different. Nothing was said about the illegality of thecombinations to raise wages; on the contrary, the jury was instructedthat this was not the question at issue. The issue was stated to bewhether the defendants had combined to secure an increase in their wagesby unlawful means. To the question what means were unlawful, in thiscase the answer was given in general terms, namely that "coercive andarbitrary" means are unlawful. The fines imposed upon the defendantswere 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. Thecharges were the same as in those and the judge took the identical viewthat was taken by the court in the New York case. However, he explainedmore fully the meaning of "coercive and arbitrary" action. "Wherediverse persons, " he said, "confederate together by direct means toimpoverish or prejudice a third person, or to do acts prejudicial to thecommunity, " they are engaged in an unlawful conspiracy. Concretely, itis unlawful to "conspire to compel an employer to hire a certaindescription of persons, " or to "conspire to prevent a man from freelyexercising his trade in a particular place, " or to "conspire to compelmen to become members of a particular society, or to contribute towardit, " or when persons "conspire to compel men to work at certain prices. "Thus it was the effort of the shoemakers' society to secure a closedshop which fell chiefly under the condemnation of the court. 

The counsel for the defense argued in this case that whatever is lawfulfor one individual is lawful also for a combination of individuals. Thecourt, however, rejected the arguments on the ground that there was abasic difference between an individual doing a thing and a combinationof individuals doing the same thing. The doctrine of conspiracy was thusgiven a clear and unequivocal definition. 

Another noteworthy feature of the Pittsburgh case was the emphasis givento the idea that the defendants' conduct was harmful to the public. Thejudge condemned the defendants because they tended "to create a monopolyor to restrain the entire freedom of the trade. " What a municipality isnot allowed to do, he argued, a private association of individuals mustnot be allowed to do. 

Of the group of cases which grew out of the revival of trade unionactivity in the twenties, the first, a case against Philadelphia mastershoemakers, was decided in 1821, and the judge held that it was lawfulfor the masters, who had recently been forced by employes to a wageincrease, to combine in order to restore wages to their "natural level. "But he also held that had the employers combined to depress wages ofjourneymen below the level fixed by free competition, it would have beencriminal. 

Another Pennsylvania case resulted from a strike by Philadelphia tailorsin 1827 to secure the reinstatement of six discharged members. As inprevious cases the court rejected the plea that a combination to raisewages was illegal, and directed the attention of the jury to thequestion of intimidation and coercion, especially as it affected thirdparties. The defendants were found guilty. 

In a third, a New York hatters' case of 1823, the charge of combining toraise wages was entirely absent from the indictment. The issue turnedsquarely on the question of conspiring to injure others by coercion andintimidation. The hatters were adjudged guilty of combining to deprive anon-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 injuriousto public morals or to trade or commerce" a statutory offence, thusreenforcing the existing common law. In 1835 the shoemakers of Genevastruck to enforce the closed shop against a workman who persisted inworking below the union rate. The indictment went no further thancharging this offence. The journeymen were convicted in a lower courtand appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. Chief Justice Savage, inhis decision condemning the journeymen, broadened the charge to includea conspiracy to raise wages and condemned both as "injurious to trade orcommerce" and thus expressly covered by statute. 

The far-reaching effects of this decision came clearly to light in atailor's case the next year. The journeymen were charged with practisingintimidation and violence, while picketing their employers' shops duringa prolonged strike against a reduction in wages. Judge Edwards, thetrial judge, in his charge to the jury, stigmatized the tailors' societyas an illegal combination, largely basing himself upon Judge Savage'sdecision. 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 ofa collection taken up in court. 

The decisions produced a violent reaction among the workingmen. Theyheld a mass-meeting in City Hall Park, with an estimated attendance of27, 000, burned Judge Savage and Judge Edwards in effigy, and resolved tocall a state convention to form a workingmen's party. 

So loud, indeed, was the cry that justice had been thwarted that jurieswere doubtless influenced by it. Two cases came up soon after thetailors' case, the Hudson, New York, shoemakers' in June and thePhiladelphia plasterers' in July 1836. In both the juries found averdict of not guilty. Of all journeymen indicted during this period theHudson shoemakers had been the most audacious ones in enforcing theclosed shop. They not only refused to work for employers who hirednon-society men, but fined them as well; yet they were acquitted. 

Finally six years later, in 1842, long after the offending tradesocieties had gone out of existence under the stress of unemploymentand depression, came the famous decision in the Massachusetts case ofCommonwealth _v. _ Hunt. 

This was a shoemakers' case and arose out of a strike. The decision inthe lower court was adverse to the defendants. However, it was reversedby the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The decision, written byChief Justice Shaw, is notable in that it holds trade unions to be legalorganizations. In the earlier cases it was never in so many words heldthat trade unions were unlawful, but in all of them there weresuggestions to this effect. Now it was recognized that trade unions are_per se_ lawful organizations and, though men may band themselvestogether to effect a criminal object under the disguise of a tradeunion, such a purpose is not to be assumed without positive evidence. Onthe contrary, the court said that "when an association is formed forpurposes actually innocent, and afterwards its powers are abused bythose who have the control and management of it to purposes ofoppression and injustice, it will be criminal in those who misuse it, orgive consent thereto, but not in other members of the association. " Thisdoctrine that workingmen may lawfully organize trade unions has sinceCommonwealth _v. _ Hunt been adopted in nearly every case. 

The other doctrine which Justice Shaw advanced in this case has beenless generally accepted. It was that the members of a union may procurethe discharge of non-members through strikes for this purpose againsttheir employers. This is the essence of the question of the closed shop;and Commonwealth _v. _ Hunt goes the full length of regarding strikes forthe closed shop as legal. Justice Shaw said that there is nothingunlawful about such strikes, if they are conducted in a peaceablemanner. This was much in advance of the position which is taken by manycourts 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 sosecure did trade unionists feel from court attacks that in the seventiesand early eighties their leaders advocated the legal incorporation oftrade unions. The desire expressed for incorporation is of extremeinterest compared with the opposite attitude of the present day. Themotive behind it then was more than the usual one of securing protectionfor trade union funds against embezzlement by officers. A fullenumeration of other motives can be obtained from the testimony of thelabor leaders before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in1883. McGuire, the national secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpentersand Joiners, argued before the committee for a national incorporationlaw mainly for the reason that such a law passed by Congress wouldremove trade unions from the operation of the conspiracy laws that stillexisted though in a dormant state on the statute books of a number ofSlates, notably New York and Pennsylvania. He pleaded that "if it(Congress) had not the power, it shall assume the power; and, ifnecessary, amend the constitution to do it. " Adolph Strasser of thecigar makers raised the point of protection for union funds and gave asa second reason that it "will give our organization more stability, andin that manner we shall be able to avoid strikes by perhaps settlingwith our employers, when otherwise we should be unable to do so, becausewhen our employers know that we are to be legally recognized that willexercise such moral force upon them that they cannot avoid recognizingus themselves. " W. H. Foster, the secretary of the Legislative Committeeof the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, stated that inOhio the law provided for incorporation at a slight cost, but he wanteda national law to "legalize arbitration, " by which he meant that "when aquestion of dispute arose between the employers and the employed, instead of having it as now, when the one often refuses to evenacknowledge or discuss the question with the other, if they wererequired to submit the question to arbitration, or to meet on the samelevel before an impartial tribunal, there is no doubt but what theresult would be more in our favor than it is now, when very often publicopinion cannot hear our cause. " He, however, did not desire to havecompulsory arbitration, but merely compulsory dealing with the union, orcompulsory investigation by an impartial body, both parties to remainfree to accept the award, provided, however, "that once they do agreethe agreement shall remain in force for a fixed period. " Like Foster, John Jarrett, the President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron andSteel Workers, argued for an incorporation law before the committeesolely for its effect upon conciliation and arbitration. He, too, wasopposed to compulsory arbitration, but he showed that he had thought outthe point less clearly than Foster. 

The young and struggling trade unions of the early eighties saw only thegood side of incorporation without its pitfalls; their subsequentexperience with courts converted them from exponents into ardentopponents of incorporation and of what Foster termed "legalizedarbitration. "

During the eighties there was much legislation applicable to labordisputes. The first laws against boycotting and blacklisting and thefirst laws which prohibited discrimination against members who belongedto a union were passed during this decade. At this time also were passedthe first laws to promote voluntary arbitration and most of the lawswhich allowed unions to incorporate. Only in New York and Maryland werethe conspiracy laws repealed. Four States enacted such laws and manyStates passed laws against intimidation. Statutes, however, played atthat time, as they do now, but a secondary role. The only statute whichproved of much importance was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. When Congresspassed this act in 1890, few people thought it had application to laborunions. In 1893-1894, as we shall see, however, this act wassuccessfully invoked in several labor controversies, notably in the Debscase. 

The bitterness of the industrial struggle during the eighties made itinevitable that the labor movement should acquire an extensive policeand court record. It was during that decade that charges like "incitingto riot, " "obstructing the streets, " "intimidation, " and "trespass" werefirst extensively used in connection with labor disputes. Convictionswere frequent and penalties often severe. What attitude the courts atthat time took toward labor violence was shown most strikingly, even ifin too extreme a form to be entirely typical, in the case of the Chicagoanarchists. [30]

But the significance of the eighties in the development of relations ofthe courts to organized labor came not from these cases which were, after all, nothing but ordinary police cases magnified to an unusualdegree by the intensity of the industrial struggle and by the excitedstate of public opinion, but in the new lease of life to the doctrine ofconspiracy as affecting labor disputes. During the eighties and ninetiesthere seemed to have been more conspiracy cases than during all the restof the century. It was especially in 1886 and 1887 that organized laborfound court interference a factor. At this time, as we saw, there wasalso passed voluminous state legislation strengthening the applicationof the common law doctrine of conspiracy to labor disputes. Theconviction of the New York boycotters in 1886 and many similarconvictions, though less widely known, of participants in strikes andboycotts were obtained upon this ground. 

Where the eighties witnessed a revolution was in a totally new use madeof the doctrine of conspiracy by the courts when they began to issueinjunctions in labor cases. Injunctions were an old remedy, but notuntil the eighties did they figure in the struggles between labor andcapital. In England an injunction was issued in a labor dispute as earlyas 1868;[31] but this case was not noticed in the United States and hadnothing whatever to do with the use of injunctions in this country. Whenand where the first labor injunction was issued in the United States isnot known. An injunction was applied for in a New York case as early as1880 but was denied. [32] An injunction was granted in Iowa in 1884, butnot until the Southwest railway strike in 1886 were injunctions usedextensively. By 1890 the public had yet heard little of injunctions inconnection with labor disputes, but such use was already fortified bynumerous precedents. 

The first injunctions that attained wide publicity were those issued byFederal courts during the strike of engineers against the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad[33] in 1888 and during the railway strikesof the early nineties. Justification for these injunctions was found inthe provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-TrustAct. Often the State courts used these Federal cases as precedents, indisregard of the fact that there the issuance of injunctions was basedupon special statutes. In other cases the more logical course wasfollowed of justifying the issuance of injunctions upon grounds ofequity. But most of the acts which the courts enjoined strikers fromdoing were already prohibited by the criminal laws. Hence organizedlabor objected that these injunctions violated the old principle thatequity will not interfere to prevent crime. No such difficulties arosewhen the issuance of injunctions was justified as a measure for theprotection of property. In the Debs case, [34] when the Supreme Court ofthe United States passed upon the issuance of injunctions in labordisputes, it had recourse to this theory. 

But the theory of protection to property also presented somedifficulties. The problem was to establish the principle of irreparableinjury to the complainant's property. This was a simple matter when thestrikers were guilty of trespass, arson, or sabotage. Then they damagedthe complainant's physical property and, since they were usually menagainst whom judgments are worthless, any injury they might do wasirreparable. But these were exceptional cases. Usually injunctions weresought to prevent not violence, but strikes, picketing, or boycotting. What is threatened by strikes and picketing is not the employer'sphysical property, but the relations he has established as an employerof labor, summed up in his expectancy of retaining the services of oldemployes and of obtaining new ones. Boycotting, obviously, has noconnection with acts of violence against physical property, but isdesigned merely to undermine the profitable relations which the employerhad developed with his customers. These expectancies are advantagesenjoyed by established businesses over new competitors and are usuallytransferable and have market value. For these reasons they are nowrecognized as property in the law of good-will and unfair competitionfor customers, having been first formulated about the middle of thenineteenth century. 

The first case which recognized these expectancies of a labor market wasWalker _v. _ Cronin, [35] decided by the Massachusetts Supreme JudicialCourt in 1871. It held that the plaintiff was entitled to recoverdamages from the defendants, certain union officials, because they hadinduced his employes, who were free to quit at will, to leave his employand had also been instrumental in preventing him from getting newemployes. But as yet these expectancies were not considered property inthe 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 wasjustified on the ground that the value of the complainant's physicalproperty was being destroyed when the market was cut off. Here theexpectancies based upon relations which customers and employes werethought of as giving value to the physical property, but they were notyet recognized as a distinct asset which in itself justifies theissuance 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 casesto the effect that both the expectancies based upon themerchant-function and the expectancies based upon the employer-functionare property. 

But the recognition of "probable expectancies" as property was not initself sufficient to complete the chain of reasoning that justifiesinjunctions in labor disputes. It is well established that no recoverycan be had for losses due to the exercise by others of that which theyhave a lawful right to do. Hence the employers were obliged to chargethat the strikes and boycotts were undertaken in pursuance of anunlawful conspiracy. Thus the old conspiracy doctrine was combined withthe new theory, and "malicious" interference with "probableexpectancies" was held unlawful. Earlier conspiracy had been thought ofas a criminal offence, now it was primarily a civil wrong. The emphasishad been upon the danger to the public, now it was the destruction ofthe employer's business. Occasionally the court went so far as to saythat all interference with the business of employers is unlawful. Thebetter view developed was that interference is _prima facie_ unlawfulbut may be justified. But even this view placed the burden of proof uponthe workingmen. It actually meant that the court opened for itself theway for holding the conduct of the workingmen to be lawful only when itsympathized with their demands. 

During the eighties, despite the far-reaching development of legaltheories on labor disputes, the issuance of injunctions was merelysporadic, but a veritable crop came up during 1893-1894. Only thebest-known injunctions can be here noted. The injunctions issued in thecourse of the Southwest railway strike in 1886 and the Burlington strikein 1888 have already received mention. An injunction was also issued bya Federal court during a miners' strike at Coeur d'Alène, Idaho, in1892. [38] A famous injunction was the one of Judges Taft and Rickes in1893, which directed the engineers, who were employed by connectingrailways, to handle the cars of the Ann Arbor and Michigan railway, whose engineers were on strike. [39] This order elicited much criticismbecause it came close to requiring men to work against their will. Thiswas followed by the injunction of Judge Jenkins in the Northern Pacificcase, which directly prohibited the quitting of work. [40] From thisinjunction the defendants took an appeal, with the result that in Arthur_v. _ Oakes[41] it was once for all established that the quitting of workmay not be enjoined. 

During the Pullman strike numerous injunctions, most sweeping incharacter, were issued by the Federal courts upon the initiative of theDepartment of Justice. Under the injunction which was issued in Chicagoarose the famous contempt case against Eugene V. Debs, [42] which wascarried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of thecourt in this case is notable, because it covered the main points ofdoubt above mentioned and placed the use of injunctions in labordisputes upon a firm legal basis. 

Another famous decision of the Supreme Court growing out of the railwaystrikes of the early nineties was in the Lennon case[43] in 1897. Therein the court held that all persons who have actual notice of theissuance of an injunction are bound to obey its terms, whether they werementioned 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 sideby the lessons of the past and by the possession of a concrete goal inthe trade agreement, but pressed on the other side by a new form oflegal attack and by the growing consolidation of industry, started upona 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 arapid expansion of labor organization. At no time in its history, priorto the World War, not excepting the Great Upheaval in the eighties, didlabor organizations make such important gains as during the followingfive years. True, in none of these years did the labor movement add overhalf a million members as in the memorable year of 1886; nevertheless, from the standpoint of permanence, the upheaval during the eighties canscarcely be classed with the one which began in the late nineties. 

During 1898 the membership of the American Federation of Labor remainedpractically stationary, but during 1899 it increased by about 70, 000 (toabout 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, bringingthe total to 1, 676, 000. In 1905 a backward tide set in; and themembership decreased by nearly 200, 000 during that year. It remainedpractically stationary until 1910, when the upward movement was resumed, finally bringing the membership to near the two million mark, to1, 996, 000, in 1913. If we include organizations unaffiliated with theFederation, among them the bricklayers[44] and the four railwaybrotherhoods, with about 700, 000 members, the union membership for 1913will be brought near a total of 2, 700, 000. 

A better index of progress is the proportion of organized workers toorganizable workers. Two such estimates have been made. Professor GeorgeE. Barnett figures the organizable workers in 1900 at 21, 837, 000; in1910 at 30, 267, 000. On this basis wage earners were 3. 5 percentorganized in 1900 and 7 percent in 1910. [45] Leo Wolman submits moredetailed figures for 1910. Excluding employers, the salaried group, agricultural and clerical workers, persons engaged in personal ordomestic service, and those below twenty years of age (unorganizableworkers), the organizable total was 11, 490, 944. With an estimated tradeunion strength of 2, 116, 317 for 1910 the percentage of the organized was18. 4. [46] Excluding only employers and salaried persons, his percentagewas 7. 7, which compares closely with Professor Barnett's. 

Of greater significance are Wolman's figures for organization byindustries. These computations show that in 1910 the breweries had 88. 8percent, organized, printing and book binding 34. 3 percent, mining 30. 5percent, transportation 17. 3 percent, clothing 16. 9 percent, buildingtrades 16. 2 percent, iron and steel 9. 9 percent, metal 4. 7 percent, andtextile 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 30-50percent; bakers, carpenters, plumbers, from 15-30 percent organized. [48]

Accompanying the numerical growth of labor organizations was anextension of organization into heretofore untouched trades as well as abranching out into new geographical regions, the South and the West. Onthe whole, however, though the Federation was not unmindful of theunskilled, still, during the fifteen years after 1898 it brought intoits fold principally the upper strata of semi-skilled labor. Down to the"boom" period brought on by the World War, the Federation did notcomprise to any great extent either the totally unskilled, or thepartially skilled foreign-speaking workmen, with the exception of theminers and the clothing workers. In other words, those below the levelof the skilled trades, which did gain admittance, were principally thesame elements which had asserted their claim to organization during thestormy period of the Knights of Labor. [49] The new accretions to theAmerican wage-earning class since the eighties, the East and SouthEuropeans, on the one hand, and the ever-growing contingent of"floaters" of native and North and West European stock, on the otherhand, were still largely outside the organization. 

The years of prosperity brought an intensified activity of the tradeunions on a scale hitherto unknown. Wages were raised and hours reducedall along the line. The new strength of the trade unions received abrilliant test during the hard times following the financial panic ofOctober 1907, when they successfully fought wage reductions. As good atest is found in the conquest of the shorter day. By 1900 the eight-hourday was the rule in the building trades, in granite cutting and inbituminous coal mining. The most spectacular and costly eight-hour fightwas waged by the printers. In the later eighties and early nineties, theTypographical Union had endeavored to establish a nine-hour day in theprinting offices. This was given a setback by the introduction of thelinotype machine during the period of depression, 1893-1897. In spite ofthis obstacle, however, the Typographical Union held its ground. Adopting the policy that only journeymen printers must operate thelinotype machines, the union was able to meet the situation. And, furthermore, in 1898, through agreement with the United Typothetæ ofAmerica, the national association of employers in book and job printing, the union was able to gain the nine-hour day in substantially all bookand job offices. In 1903 the union demanded the eight-hour day in allprinting offices to become effective January 1, 1906. To gain anadvantage over the union, the United Typothetæ, late in the summer of1905, locked out all its union men. This at once precipitated a strikefor the eight-hour day. The American Federation of Labor levied aspecial assessment on all its members in aid of the strikers. By 1907the Typographical Union won its demand all along the line, although at atremendous cost of money running into several million dollars, and in1909 the United Typothetæ formally conceded the eight-hour day. 

Another proof of trade union progress is found in the spread of tradeagreements. The idea of a joint partnership of organized labor andorganized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since thefifties, had been struggling for acceptance, finally showed definitesigns of coming to be materialized. 

(1) _The Miners_

In no other industry has a union's struggle for "recognition" offered aricher and more instructive picture of the birth of the new order withits difficulties as well as its promises than in coal mining. Faced inthe anthracite field[50] by a small and well knitted group of employers, generally considered a "trust, " and by a no less difficult situation inbituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mineoperators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a space of fifteenyears in unionizing the one as well as the other; while at the same timesuccessfully and progressively solving the gigantic internal problem ofwelding a polyglot mass of workers into a well disciplined and obedientarmy. 

The miners' union attained its first successes in the so-called centralbituminous competitive field, including Western Pennsylvania, WestVirginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. In this field abeginning had been made in 1886 when the coal operators and the unionentered into a collective agreement. However, its scope was practicallyconfined to Ohio and even that limited agreement went under in 1890. [51]With the breakdown of this agreement, the membership dwindled so thatby the time of a general strike in 1894, the total paid-up membershipwas barely 13, 000. This strike was undertaken to restore the wage-scaleof 1893, but during the ensuing years of depression wages were cut stillfurther. [52]

The turn came as suddenly as it was spectacular. In 1897, with amembership which had dropped to 10, 000 and of which 7000 were in Ohioand with an empty treasury, the United Mine Workers called a generalstrike trusting to a rising market and to an awakened spirit ofsolidarity in the majority of the unorganized after four years ofunemployment and distress. In fact the leaders had not miscalculated. One hundred thousand or more coal miners obeyed the order to go on astrike. In Illinois the union had but a handful of members when thestrike started, but the miners struck to a man. The tie-up waspractically complete except in West Virginia. That State had earlybecome recognized as the weakest spot in the miners' union's armor. Notwithstanding the American Federation of Labor threw almost its entireforce of organizers into that limited area, which was then onlybeginning to assume its present day importance in the coal miningindustry, barely one-third of the miners were induced to strike. Acontributing factor was a more energetic interference from the courtsthan in other States. All marching upon the highways and all assemblagesof the strikers in large gatherings were forbidden by injunctions. Onone occasion more than a score of men were sentenced to jail forcontempt of court by Federal Judge Goff. The handicap in West Virginiawas offset by sympathy and aid from other quarters. Many unionsthroughout the country and even the general public sent the strikingminers financial aid. In Illinois Governor John R. Tanner refused therequests for militia made by several sheriffs. 

The general strike of 1897 ended in the central competitive field aftera twelve-weeks' struggle. The settlement was an unqualified victory forthe union. It conceded the miners a 20 percent increase in wages, theestablishment of the eight-hour day, the abolition of company stores, semi-monthly payments, and a restoration of the system of fixingInterstate wage rates in annual joint conferences with the operators, which meant official recognition of the United Mine Workers. Theoperators in West Virginia, however, refused to come in. 

The first of these Interstate conferences was held in January, 1898, atwhich the miners were conceded a further increase in wages. In addition, the agreement, which was to run for two years, established for Illinoisthe run-of-mine[53] system of payment, while the size of the screens ofother states was regulated; and it also conceded the miners thecheck-off system[54] in every district, save that of WesternPennsylvania. [55] Such a comprehensive victory would not have beenpossible had it not been for the upward trend which coal prices hadtaken. 

But great as was the union's newly discovered power, it was spread mostunevenly over the central competitive field. Its firmest grip was inIllinois. The well-filled treasury of the Illinois district has manytimes been called upon for large contributions or loans, to enable theunion to establish itself in some other field. The weakest hold of theUnited Mine Workers has been in West Virginia. At the end of the generalstrike of 1897, the West Virginia membership was only about 4000. Moreover, a further spread of the organization met with unusualobstacles. A large percentage of the miners of West Virginia are Negroesor white mountaineers. These have proven more difficult to organize thanrecent Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who formed the majorityin the other districts. And yet West Virginia as a growing mining statesoon assumed a high strategic importance. A lower wage scale, the betterquality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have madeWest Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in thecentral competitive field. Consequently West Virginia operators havebeen able to operate their mines more days during the year thanelsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia minershave earned but little less annually than union miners in other States. But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in WestVirginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and incampaigns of organization. In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted atthe behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company, a West Virginiaconcern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organizeemployes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers whilein the employ of the company. The injunction was made permanent in 1913. The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court ofAppeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court inMarch 1917. [56] Recently the United States Steel Corporation became adominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lentadditional strength to the already strong anti-union determination ofthe employers. 

Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strictadherence to agreements made. This faithfulness to a pledged word, whichjustified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as muchas it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasionsby John Mitchell, the national President of the Union. The first testcame in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the jointconference had adjourned. Although they might have won higher wages hadthey struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe testcame in 1902 during the great anthracite strike. [57] A special unionconvention was then held to consider whether the bituminous minersshould be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking minersin the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the conventionvoted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with theoperators. The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when, in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, itaccepted without a strike a reduction in wages in the centralcompetitive field. However, as against the miners' conduct in thesesituations must be reckoned the many local strikes or "stoppages" inviolation of agreements. The difficulty was that the machinery for theadjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome. 

In 1906 the trade agreement system encountered a new difficulty in thefriction which developed between the operators of the severalcompetitive districts. On the surface, the source of the friction wasthe attempt made by the Ohio and Illinois operators to organize anational coal operators' association to take the place of the severalautonomous district organizations. The Pittsburgh operators, however, objected. They preferred the existing system of agreements under whicheach district organization possessed a veto power, since then they couldkeep the advantage over their competitors in Ohio and Indiana with whichthey had started under the original agreement of 1898. The miners inthis emergency threw their power against the national operators'association. A suspension throughout most districts of the centralcompetitive field followed. In the end, the miners won an increase inwages, but the Interstate agreement system was suspended, giving placeto separate agreements for each district. 

In 1908 the situation of 1906 was repeated. This time the Illinoisoperators refused to attend the Interstate conference on the ground thatthe 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 minerswere paid for screened coal only. With the operators of each Statehaving one vote in the joint conference, it can be understood why thehandicap against Illinois continued. Theoretically, of course, theIllinois operators might have voted against the acceptance of anyagreement which gave an advantage to other States; however, against thisweighed the fact that the union was strongest in Illinois. The Illinoisoperators, hence, preferred to deal separately with the United MineWorkers. Accordingly, an Interstate agreement was drawn up, applyingonly to Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. 

In 1910, the Illinois operators again refused to enter the Interstateconference, but this time the United Mine Workers insisted upon a returnto the Interstate agreement system of 1898. On April 1, 1910, operationswere suspended throughout the central competitive field. By Julyagreements had been secured in every State save Illinois, the latterState holding out until September. This long struggle in Illinois wasthe first real test of strength between the operators and the minerssince 1897. The miners' victory made it inevitable that the Illinoisoperators should eventually reenter the Interstate conference. 

In 1912, after repeated conferences, the net result was the restorationof the Interstate agreement as it existed before 1906. The specialburden of which the Illinois operators had been complaining was notremoved; yet they were compelled by the union to remain a party to theInterstate agreement. The union justified its special treatment of theoperators in Illinois on the ground that the run-of-mine rates were 40percent below the screened coal rates, thus compensating them amply forthe "slack" for which they had to pay under this system. The Federalreport on "Restriction of Output" of 1904 substantiated the union'scontention. Ultimately, the United Mine Workers unquestionably hoped toestablish the run-of-mine system throughout the central competitivefield. 

The union, incidentally to its policy of protecting the miners, hasconsiderably affected the market or business structure of the industry. An outstanding policy of the union has been to equalize competitivecosts over the entire area of a market by means of a system of gradingtonnage rates paid to the miner, whereby competitive advantages oflocation, thickness of vein, and the like were absorbed in higher laborcosts. This doubtless tended to eliminate cut-throat competition andthus stabilize the industry. On the other hand, it may have hindered theprocess of elimination of unprofitable mines, and therefore may be insome measure responsible for the present-day overdevelopment in thebituminous mining industry, which results in periodic unemployment andin idle mines. 

In the anthracite coal field in Eastern Pennsylvania the difficultiesmet by the United Mine Workers were at first far greater than in thebituminous branch of the industry. First, the working population wasnearly all foreign-speaking, and the union thus lacked the fulcrum whichit found in Illinois with its large proportion of English-speakingminers accustomed to organization and to carrying on a common purpose. Secondly, the employers, instead of being numerous and united only forjoint dealing with labor, as in bituminous mining, were few in numberbesides being cemented together by a common selling policy on top of acommon labor policy. In consequence, the union encountered a stone wallof opposition, which its loose ranks found for many years well-nighimpossible to overcome. 

During the general strike of 1897 the United Mine Workers made abeginning in organizing the anthracite miners. In September 1900, theycalled a general strike. Although at that time the union had only 8000members in this region, the strike order was obeyed by over 100, 000miners; and within a few weeks the strike became truly general. Probablythe union could not have won if it had to rely solely on economicstrength. However, the impending Presidential election led to aninterference by Senator Mark Hanna, President McKinley's campaignmanager. Through him President John Mitchell of the United Mine Workerswas informed that the operators would abolish the objectionable slidingscale system of wage payments, increase rates 10 percent and agree tomeet committees of their employes for the adjustment of grievances. This, however, did not carry a formal recognition of the union; it wasnot a trade agreement but merely an unwritten understanding. A part ofthe same understanding was that the terms which had been agreed uponshould remain in force until April, 1901. At its expiration theidentical terms were renewed for another year, while the negotiationsbore the same informal character. 

During 1902 the essential instability of the arrangement led to sharpfriction. The miners claimed that many operators violated the unwrittenagreement. The operators, on their part, charged that the union wasusing every means for practically enforcing the closed shop, which wasnot granted in the understanding. In the early months of 1902 the minerspresented demands for a reduction of the hours of labor from 10 to 9, for a twenty percent increase in wages, for payment according to theweight of coal mined, and for the recognition of the union. Theoperators refused to negotiate, and on May 9 the famous anthracitestrike of 1902 began. 

It is unnecessary to detail the events of the anthracite strike. Noother strike is better known and remembered. More than 150, 000 minersstood out for approximately five months. The strike was financed by alevy of one dollar per week upon all employed miners in the country, which yielded over $2, 000, 000. In addition several hundred thousanddollars 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 theanthracite railroads and the leading union officials for a conference inthe White House and urged arbitration. At first he met with rebuff fromthe operators, but shortly afterward, with the aid of friendly pressurefrom New York financiers, the operators consented to accept the award ofa commission to be appointed by himself. This was the well-knownAnthracite Coal Strike Commission. Its appointment terminated thestrike. Not until more than a half year later, however, was the award ofthe Commission made. It conceded the miners a 10 percent increase inwages, the eight and nine-hour day, and the privilege of having a unioncheck-weighman at the scale where the coal sent up in cars by the minersis weighed. Recognition was not accorded the union, except that it wasrequired to bear one-half of the expense connected with the maintenanceof a joint arbitration board created by the Commission. When this awardwas announced there was much dissatisfaction with it among the miners. President Mitchell, however, put forth every effort to have the unionaccept the award. Upon a referendum vote the miners accepted his view. 

The anthracite coal strike of 1902 was doubtless the most importantsingle event in the history of American trade unionism until that timeand has since scarcely been surpassed. To be sure, events like the greatrailway strike of 1877 and the Chicago Anarchist bomb and trial in1886-1887 had equally forced the labor question into public attention. What distinguished the anthracite coal strike, however, was that for thefirst time a labor organization tied up for months a strategic industryand caused wide suffering and discomfort to the public without beingcondemned as a revolutionary menace to the existing social order callingfor suppression by the government; it was, on the contrary, adjudged aforce within the preserves of orderly society and entitled to publicsympathy. The public identified the anthracite employers with the trustmovement, which was then new and seemingly bent upon uprooting thetraditional free American social order; by contrast, the striking minersappeared almost as champions of Old America. A strong contributoryfactor was the clumsy tactics of the employers who played into the handsof 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 theunion and its sympathizers outside the ranks of labor hoped for. For byrefusing to grant formal recognition, the Commission failed toconstitute unionism into a publicly recognized agency in the managementof industry and declared by implication that the role of unionism endedwith a presentation of grievances and complaints. 

For ten years after the strike of 1902 the union failed to develop thestrength in the anthracite field which many believed would follow. Certain proof of the weakness of the union is furnished by the fact thatthe wage-scale in that field remained stationary until 1912 despite arising cost of living. The wages of the anthracite miners in 1912 wereslightly higher than in 1902, because coal prices had increased and theAnthracite Coal Strike Commission had reestablished a sliding scalesystem of tonnage rates. 

A great weakness, while the union still struggled for existence, was thelack of the "check-off. " Membership would swell immediately before theexpiration of the agreement but diminish with restoration of quiet. Withno immediate outlook for a strike the Slav and Italian miners refused topay 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 byApril 1, 1906, one-half of the miners were in the union. A month'ssuspension of operations followed. Early in May the union and theoperators reached an agreement to leave the award of the Anthracite CoalStrike Commission in force for another three years. 

The following three years brought a duplication of the developments of1903-1906. Again membership fell off only to return in the spring of1909. Again the union demanded formal recognition, and again it wasrefused. Again the original award was extended for three more years. 

In the winter of 1912, when the time for renewing the agreement againdrew near, the entire membership in the three anthracite districts wasslightly above 29, 000. Nevertheless, the union demanded a twenty percentraise, a complete recognition of the union, the check-off, and yearlyagreements, in addition to a more expeditious system of settling localgrievances to replace the slow and cumbersome joint arbitration boardsprovided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180, 000 anthraciteminers followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made noattempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basisof the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in localdisputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of recognition, but by no means a complete recognition. Nor was the check-off systemgranted. Strangest of all, the agreement called for a four-yearcontract, as against a one-year contract originally demanded by theunion. In spite of the opposition of local leaders, the miners acceptedthe agreement. President White's chief plea for acceptance was the needto 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. Withthe stopping of immigration due to the European War, the power of theunion was greatly increased. Consequently, in 1916, when the agreementwas renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wageincrease and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The UnitedMine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share ofindustrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of thecountry; while demonstrating beyond doubt that, with intelligentpreparation and with sympathetic treatment, the polyglot immigrantmasses from Southern and Eastern Europe, long thought to be imperviousto the idea of labor organization, can be changed into reliable materialfor 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 theBrotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railroad Conductors, the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, and the Brotherhood ofRailroad Trainmen. These are the oldest and strongest railway men'sorganizations and do not belong to the American Federation of Labor. Asecond group are the shopmen, comprising the International Associationof Machinists; the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, DropForgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; theAmalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhoodof Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America; theInternational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the InternationalBrotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and moremiscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order ofRailway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, theInternational Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and RailroadShop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. Theorganizations comprised in the latter two groups belong to the AmericanFederation of Labor. For the period from 1898 to the outbreak of theWar, the organizations, popularly known as the "brotherhoods, " namely, those of the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trainmen, are ofoutstanding importance. 

The brotherhoods were unique among American labor organizations in thatfor many years they practically reproduced in most of their features thesort of unionism typified by the great "Amalgamated" unions of thefifties and sixties in England. [59] Like these unions the brotherhoodsstressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did notactually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that theemphasis on insurance was due not to "philosophy, " but to the practicalconsideration that, owing to the extra hazardous nature of theiroccupations, the men could get no insurance protection from ordinarycommercial insurance companies. 

By the end of the eighties the brotherhoods began to press energeticallyfor improvements in employment conditions and found the railways notdisinclined to grant their demands in a measure. This was due in greatmeasure to the strategic position of these trades, which have it intheir power completely to tie up the industry when on strike, causingenormous losses to the carriers. [60] Accordingly, they were grantedwages which fairly placed them among the lower professional groups insociety as well as other privileges, notably "seniority" in promotion, that is promotion based on length of service and not on a free selectionby the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the trainpersonnel service is so organized that each employe will pass severaltimes in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rungon the industrial ladder. [61] For instance, a typical passenger trainengineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman ona passenger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally toengineer on a passenger train. A similar sequence is arranged inadvancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority thebrotherhoods received the right of appeal in cases of discharge, whichhas done much to eliminate discrimination. Since they were enjoying suchexceptional advantages relative to income, to the security of the job, and to the stability of their organization, it is not surprising, inview of the limited class solidarity among American laboring men ingeneral, that these groups of workers should have chosen to stand alonein their wage bargaining and that their refusal to enter "entanglingalliances" with other less favored groups should have gone even to thelength 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 fifteenyears until it was disturbed by factors beyond the control of eitherrailway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of livingforced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages. At the same time an ever tightening regulation of railway rates by theFederal government since 1906 practically prevented a shift of increasedcosts to the shipper. "Class struggles" on the railways began inearnest. 

The new situation was brought home to the brotherhoods in the course ofseveral wage arbitration cases in which they figured. [62] The outcometaught them that the public will give them only limited support in theirefforts to maintain their real income at the old high level comparedwith other classes of workers. 

A most important case arose from a "concerted movement" in 1912[63] ofthe engineers and firemen on the 52 Eastern roads for higher wages. Twoseparate arbitration boards were appointed. The engineers' boardconsisted of seven members, one each for the interests involved and fiverepresenting the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers, first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because itcontained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all wages ofall railway employes fixed by a government commission, which implied arestriction of the right to strike. The award in the firemen's case, which was decided practically simultaneously with the engineers', failedto satisfy either side. 

The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move "inconcert" for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoodsdecided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strikeoccasioned the passage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment tothe Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation andwith more specified conditions relative to the work of the arbitrationboards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submitto arbitration. 

The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less thanone-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men foruniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demandedtime and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added totheir growing opposition to the principle of arbitration. 

Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemenon the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly againstarbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on theboard of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath ofthis case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the "neutrals" onthe board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations withseveral concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities. Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded theeight-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 shiftingtheir tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by theother unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the goodfortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and"recognition. " Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreementswith the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole, however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of aprecarious sort. 

To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, theystarted about 1904 a movement for "system federations, "[65] that is, federations of all organized trades through the length of a givenrailway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or theIllinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federationssharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like theIllinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with theseparate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and onthe Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of systemfederations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by fortysystems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentativeRailway Employes' Department had been launched by the AmericanFederation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rivalorganization and "illegal" or, at best, "extra-legal" from thestandpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however, was too acute to permit the consideration of "legality" to enter. Anadjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was"legitimatized" through fusion with the "Department, " to which it gaveits constitution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it tookonly its name. This is the now well-known Railway Employes' Departmentof the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important nationalunions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), andwhich, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took overthe railways from their private owners eight months after America'sentry into the World War. 

(3) _The Machinery and Metal Trades_

Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in themachinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for"recognition" and trade agreements. The outstanding unions in theindustry are the International Association of Machinists and theInternational Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very smallunions. [66] The molders' International united in the same union thestove molders, who as was seen had been "recognized" in 1891, and themolders of parts of machinery and other foundry products. The latterfound the National Founders' Association as their antagonist orpotential "co-partner" in the industry. 

The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth oftrade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstateagreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmospherefavorable to trade agreements. For a time "recognition" and itsimplications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and thepublic, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, inMarch 1899, the National Founders' Association (organized in theprevious year and comprising foundrymen engaged principally in machinerymanufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders' Union of NorthAmerica met and drew up the following tersely worded agreement whichbecame 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 asdistinct from arbitration by a third party. Both sides preferred to runthe risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery tothrowing decisions into the hands of an umpire, who would be anuncertain quantity both as regards special bias and understanding of theindustry. 

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 whichthe employers had refused. In each city one member of the NationalFounders' Association was involved and the men in these firms went towork pending the arbitration decision, while the others stayed out onstrike. 

The meeting ended inauspiciously. The founders and molders seemed notto be able to settle their difficulties. Each side stood fast on its ownprinciples and the arbitration committees regularly became deadlocked. The question of a minimum wage was the most important issue. From 1899to 1902 several joint conventions were held to discuss the wagequestion. In 1899 a settlement was made, which, however, proved of shortduration. In November 1902, the two organizations met, differed, andarranged for a sub-committee to meet in March 1903. The sub-committeemet but could reach no agreement. 

The two organizations clashed also on the question of apprentices. Thefounders contended that, because there were not enough molders to fillthe present demand, the union restrictions as to the employment ofapprentices should be removed. The union argued that a removal of therestriction would cause unlimited competition among molders andeventually the founders could employ them at their own price. Theylikewise failed to agree on the matter of classifying molders. 

Owing to the stalling of the conciliation machinery many strikesoccurred 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 notworking well. In the autumn of 1903 business prosperity reached its highwatermark and then came a sharp depression which lessened the demand formolders. Early in 1904 the National Founders' Association took advantageof this situation to reduce wages and finally practically abrogated theNew York agreement. In April, 1904, the founders and molders tried toreach a decision as to how the agreement could be made effective, butgave it up after four days and nights of constant consideration. Thefounders claimed that the molders violated the agreement in 54 out ofthe 96 cases that came up during the five years of its life; and furtherjustified their action on the ground that the union persistently refusedto submit to arbitration by an impartial outsider the issues upon whichthe agreement was finally wrecked. 

An agreement similar to the New York one was concluded in 1900 betweenthe National Metal Trades' Association and the International Associationof Machinists. The National Metal Trades' Association had been organizedin 1899 by members of the National Founders' Association, whosefoundries formed only a part of their manufacturing plants. The spur toaction was given by a strike called by the machinists in Chicago andother cities for the nine-hour day. After eight weeks of intensestruggle the Association made a settlement granting a promise of theshorter day. Although hailed as one of the big agreements in laborhistory, it lasted only one year, and broke up on the issue of makingthe nine-hour day general in the Association shops. The machinistscontinued to make numerous agreements with individual firms, especiallythe smaller ones, but the general agreement was never renewed. Thereafter the National Metal Trades' Association became anuncompromising enemy of organized labor. 

In the following ten years both molders and machinists went on fightingfor control and engaged in strikes with more or less success. But theindustry as a whole never again came so near to embracing the idea of ajoint co-partnership between organized capital and labor as in 1900. 

(4) _The Employers' Reaction_

With the disruption of the agreement systems in the machinery producingand foundry industries, the idea of collective bargaining and unionrecognition suffered a setback; and the employers' uneasiness, which hadalready steadily been feeding on the unions' mounting pressure forcontrol, now increased materially. As long, however, as businessremained prosperous and a rising demand for labor favored the unions, most of the agreements were permitted to continue. Therefore, it was notuntil the industrial depression of 1907-1908 had freed the employers'hands that agreements were disrupted wholesale. In 1905 the StructuralErectors' Association discontinued its agreements with the StructuralIron Workers' Union, causing a dispute which continued over many years. In the course of this dispute the union replied to the victoriousassaults of the employers by tactics of violence and murder, whichculminated in the fatal explosion in the _Los Angeles Times_ Building in1911. In 1906 the employing lithographers discontinued their nationalagreement with the lithographers' union. In 1907 the United Typothetæbroke with the pressmen, and the stove founders with the stove mountersand stove polishers. In 1908 the agreements between the Lake Carriersand Lumber Carriers (both operating on the Great Lakes) and theseafaring and water front unions were terminated. 

In the operation of these unsuccessful agreements the most seriousstumbling blocks were the union "working rules, " that is to say, therestrictive rules which unions strove to impose on employers in theexercise of their managerial powers in the shop, and for which thelatter adopted the sinister collective designation of "restriction ofoutput. "

Successful trade unionism has always pressed "working rules" on theemployer. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, thetrade societies then existing tried to impose on the masters the closedshop and restrictions on apprenticeship along with higher wages andshorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral association to astable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages toworking rules. Unionists have discovered that on the whole wages are theunstable factor, going up or down, depending on fluctuating businessconditions and cost of living; but that once they have established theirpower by making the employer accept their working rules, high wages willultimately follow. 

These working rules are seldom improvisations of the moment, but, crudeand one-sided as they often are, they are the product of a long laborexperience and have taken many years to be shaped and hammered out. Since their purpose is protective, they can best be classified withreference to the particular thing in the workingman's life which theyare designed to protect: the standard of living of the trade group, health, the security of the worker's job, equal treatment in the shopand an equal chance with other workmen in promotion, the bargainingpower of the trade group, as a whole, and the safety of the union fromthe employer's attempts to undermine it. We shall mention only a few ofthese rules by way of illustration. Thus all rules relating to methodsof wage payment, like the prohibition of piece work and of bonussystems (including those associated with scientific managementsystems), are primarily devices to protect the wage earner's rate of payagainst being "nibbled away" by the employer; and in part also toprotect his health against undue exertion. Other rules like the normal(usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the ruledemanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or aguarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quantity of workavailable in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slacktimes among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary, the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuousemployment based on "seniority" in the shop;--all these have for theircommon aim chiefly the protection of the job. Another sort of rules, like the obstruction to the splitting up of trades and the restrictionson apprenticeship, have in view the protection of the bargaining powerof the craft group--through artificially maintaining an undiminisheddemand for skilled labor, as well as through a reduction of the numberof competitors, present and future, for jobs. The protection of theunion against the employer's designs, actual or potential, is sought byan insistence on the closed union shop, by the recognition of the rightof appeal to grievance boards in cases of discharge to preventanti-union discrimination, and through establishing a seniority right inpromotion which binds the worker's allegiance to his union rather thanto the employer. 

With these rigid rules, partly already enforced on the employer bystrikes or threats to strike and partly as yet unrealized butenergetically pushed, trade unionism enters the stage of the tradeagreement. The problem of industrial government then becomes one ofsteady adjustment of the conflicting claims of employer and union forthe province of shop control staked out by these working rules. When thetwo sides are approximately equal in bargaining strength (and lastingagreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promisingline of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extendto the unions and their members in some form that will least obstructshop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive toobtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employermight induce a union to give up or agree to mitigate its working rulesdesigned to protect the job by offering a _quid pro quo_ in a guaranteeof employment for a stated number of weeks during the year; andlikewise, a union might hope to counteract the employer's naturalhankering for being "boss in his own business, " free of any unionworking rules, only provided it guaranteed him a sufficient output perunit of labor time and wage investment. 

However, compromises of this sort are pure experiments even atpresent--fifteen to twenty years after the dissolution of thoseagreements; and they certainly require more faith in government byagreement and more patience than one could expect in the participants inthese earlier agreements. It is not surprising, therefore, that theshort period of agreements after 1898 should in many industries haveformed but a prelude to an "open-shop" movement. [67]

After their breach with the union, the National Founders' Associationand the National Metal Trades' Association have gone about the businessof union wrecking in a systematic way. They have maintained a so-called"labor bureau, " furnishing men to their members whenever additional helpwas needed, and keeping a complete card system record of every man inthe employ of members. By this system occasion was removed for employerscommunicating with the business agents of the various unions when newmen were wanted. The associations have had in their regular pay a largenumber of non-union men, or "strike-breakers, " who were sent to the shopof any member whose employes were on strike. 

In addition to these and other national organizations, the trade unionswere attacked by a large and important class of local employers'associations. The most influential association of this class was theEmployers' Association of Dayton, Ohio. This association had a standingstrike committee which, in trying to break a strike, was authorized tooffer rewards to the men who continued at work, and even to compensatethe employer for loss of production to the limit of one dollar per dayfor each man on strike. Also a system was adopted of issuing cards toall employes, which the latter, in case of changing employment, wereobliged to present to the new employer and upon which the old employerinscribed his recommendation. The extreme anti-unionism of the DaytonAssociation is best attested by its policy of taking into membershipemployers who were threatened with strikes, notwithstanding the heavyfinancial obligations involved. 

Another class of local associations were the "Citizens' Alliances, "which did not restrict membership to employers but admitted allcitizens, the only qualification being that the applicant be not amember of any labor organization. These organizations were frequentlystarted by employers and secured cooperation of citizens generally. Insome 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 byvirtue of mixed membership more than a mere employers' organization, claimed in time of strikes to voice the sentiment of the community ingeneral. 

So much for the employers' counter attacks on trade unions on thestrictly industrial front. But there were also a legal front and apolitical front. In 1902 was organized the American Anti-BoycottAssociation, a secret body composed mainly of manufacturers. The purposeof the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts oftrade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott. The energies of the association have been devoted mainly to takingcertain typical cases to the courts in order thereby to create legalprecedents. The famous Danbury Hatters' Case, in which the ShermanAnti-Trust law was invoked against the hatters' union, was fought in thecourts by this Association. 

The employers' fight on the political front was in charge of theNational Association of Manufacturers. This association was originallyorganized in 1895 for the pursuit of purely trade interests, but about1903, under the influence of the Dayton, Ohio, group of employers, turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with otheremployers' associations in the industrial and legal field, but its chiefefforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it hassucceeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in nullifyinglabor's political influence, especially in Congress. The NationalAssociation of Manufacturers saw to it that Congress and StateLegislatures might not weaken the effect of court orders, injunctionsand decisions on boycotts, closed shop, and related matters. 

The "open-shop movement" in its several aspects, industrial, legal, andpolitical, continued strong from 1903 to 1909. Nevertheless, despitemost persistent effort and despite the opportunity offered by thebusiness depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, theresults were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapidrate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogressionfrom ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unionsmanaged to prevent wage reductions in the organized tradesnotwithstanding the unemployment and distress of 1907-1908. On the wholetrade unionism held its own against employers in strictly competitiveindustry. Different, however, was the outcome in industries in which thenumber of employers had been reduced by monopolistic orsemi-monopolistic mergers. 

The steel industry is the outstanding instance. [68] The disastrousHomestead strike of 1892[69] had eliminated unionism from the steelplants of Pittsburgh. However, the Carnegie Steel Company was only ahighly efficient and powerful corporation, not yet a "trust. " The panicof 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 ironmills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained tothe organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steelmills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and ironhoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of agigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officialswere alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an oldenemy of unionism, would easily be first and would, they feared, insiston driving the union out of every mill in the combination. Then itoccurred to President Shaffer and his associates that it might be apropitious time to press for recognition while the new corporation wasforming. 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, theAmalgamated Association demanded of the American Tin Plate Company thatit sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as unionbut for all of its mills. This was agreed, provided the American SheetSteel Company would agree to the same. The latter company refused, and astrike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the AmericanSheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferencesheld on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tinmills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in thepreceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and forall the hoop mills that had been signed for in the preceding year. Thishighly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representativesof the union; they demanded all the mills or none. The strike then wenton in earnest. In August, President Shaffer called on all the menworking in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out onstrike. 

By the middle of August it was evident that the Association had made amistake. Instead of finding their task easier because the United StatesSteel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporationready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against theorganization. President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter, but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike wasdeclared 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 againstthe employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influenceon National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect itsgrowing economic strength. The scant success with legislation resulted, on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into newfields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in astill greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in theRepublican party and in Congress, against which President Rooseveltdirected his spectacular campaign. A good illustration is furnished bythe attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work. 

In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance uponefforts to shorten the working day through legislation. The movement forshorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in thenineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians andsocial workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws forwomen and children workers, but so far as adult male labor wasconcerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for thetrade unions. The exception to the rule was the working day on publicwork. 

The Federal eight-hour day law began to receive attention from theFederation towards the end of the eighties. By that time the status ofthe law of 1868 which decreed the eight-hour day on Federal governmentwork[71] had been greatly altered. In a decision rendered in 1887 theSupreme Court held that the eight-hour day law of 1868 was merelydirectory to the officials of the Federal government, but did notinvalidate contracts made by them not containing an eight-hour clause. To counteract this decision a special law was passed in 1888, with thesupport of the Federation, establishing the eight-hour day in the UnitedStates Printing Office and for letter carriers. In 1892 a new generaleight-hour law was passed, which provided that eight-hours should be thelength 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 generalsof the United States practically rendered the law useless. 

In 1895 the Federation began to press in earnest for a satisfactoryeight-hour law. In 1896 its eight-hour bill passed the House ofRepresentatives unanimously. In the Senate it was introduced by SenatorKyle, the chairman of the committee on Education and Labor. After itsintroduction, however, hearings upon the bill were delayed so long thataction was prevented during the long session. In the short session of1898-1899 the bill met the cruel fate of having its introducer, SenatorKyle, submit a minority report against it. Under the circumstances novote upon the bill could be had in the Senate. In the next Congress, 1899-1901, the eight-hour bill once more passed the House ofRepresentatives only to be lost in the Senate by failure to come to avote. In 1902, the bill again unanimously passed the House, but was noteven reported upon by the Senate committee. In the hearings upon theeight-hour bill in that year the opposition of the NationalManufacturers' Association was first manifested. In 1904 the House LaborCommittee sidetracked a similar bill by recommending that the Departmentof Commerce and Labor should investigate its merits. Secretary Metcalf, however, declared that the questions submitted to his Department withreference to the eight-hour bill were "well-nigh unintelligible. " In1906 the House Labor Committee, at a very late stage in the session, reported "favorably" upon the eight-hour bill. At the same time iteliminated all chances of passage of the bill through the failure of amajority of the members of the committee to sign the "favorable" reportmade. This session of Congress, also, allowed a "rider" to be added tothe Panama Canal bill, exempting the canal construction from theprovisions of the eight-hour law. In the next two Congresses no reportcould be obtained from the labor committees of either House upon thegeneral eight-hour day bill, despite the fact that President Rooseveltand later President Taft recommended such legislation. In the sessionsof the Congress of 1911-1913 the American Federation of Labor hit upon anew plan. This was the attachment of "riders" to departmentalappropriation bills requiring that all work contracted for by thesedepartments must be done under the eight-hour system. The most important"rider" of this character was that attached to the naval appropriationbill. Under its provisions the Attorney-General held that in all workdone in shipyards upon vessels built for the Federal government theeight-hour rule must be applied. Finally, in June 1912, a DemocraticHouse and a Republican Senate passed the eight-hour bill supported bythe American Federation of Labor with some amendments, which theFederation did not find seriously objectionable; and President Taftsigned it. 

Still better proof of the slight influence of the Federation upongovernment is furnished by the vicissitudes of its anti-injunction billsin Congress. The Federation had been awakened to the seriousness of thematter of the injunction by the Debs case. A bill of its sponsoringproviding for jury trials in "indirect" contempt cases passed the Senatein 1896 only to be killed in the House. In 1900 only eight votes wererecorded in the House against a bill exempting labor unions from theSherman Anti-Trust Act; it failed, however, of passage in the Senate. In1902 an anti-injunction bill championed by the American Federation ofLabor passed the House of Representatives. That was the last time, however, for many years to come when such a bill was even reported outof committee. Thereafter, for a decade, the controlling powers inCongress had their faces set against removal by law of the judicialinterference in labor's use of its economic strength against employers. 

In the meantime, however, new court decisions made the situation moreand more critical. A climax was reached in 1908-1909. In February 1908, came the Supreme Court decision in the Danbury Hatters' case, which heldthat members of a labor union could be held financially responsible tothe full amount of their individual property under the ShermanAnti-Trust Act for losses to business occasioned by an interstateboycott. [72] By way of contrast, the Supreme Court within the same weekheld unconstitutional the portion of the Erdman Act which prohibiteddiscrimination by railways against workmen on account of theirmembership in a union. [73] One year later, in the Buck's Stove and RangeCompany boycott case, Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison, the three mostprominent officials of the American Federation of Labor, were sentencedby a lower court in the District of Columbia to long terms in prison forviolating an injunction which prohibited all mention of the fact thatthe plaintiff firm had ever been boycotted. [74] Even though neitherthese nor subsequent court decisions had the paralyzing effect uponAmerican trade unionism which its enemies hoped for and its friendsfeared, the situation called for a change in tactics. It thus came aboutthat the Federation, which, as was seen, by the very principles of itsprogram wished to let government alone, --as it indeed expected littlegood of government, --was obliged to enter into competition with theemployers for controlling government; this was because one branch of thegovernment, namely the judicial one, would not let it alone. 

A growing impatience with Congress was manifested in resolutions adoptedby successive conventions. In 1902 the convention authorized theExecutive Council to take "such further steps as will secure thenomination--and the election--of only such men as are fully andsatisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills" championed by theFederation. Accordingly, the Executive Council prepared a series ofquestions to be submitted to all candidates for Congress in 1904 by thelocal 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 usetheir influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries orconventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor'sdemands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to runindependent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the handsof a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicityand other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into thedistricts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urgetheir defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefieldof Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invadedhis district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor. However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over thepreceding election. The only positive success was the election ofMcDermott of the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. PresidentGompers, however, insisted that the cutting down of the majorities ofthe conspicuous enemies of labor's demands gave "more than a hint" ofwhat organized labor "can and may do when thoroughly prepared toexercise its political strength. " Nevertheless the next Congress waseven more hostile than the preceding one. The convention of theFederation following the election approved the new tactics, but wascareful at the same time to declare that the Federation was neitherallied with any political party nor had any intention of forming anindependent labor party. 

In the Presidential election of 1908, however, the Federation virtuallyentered into an alliance with the Democrats. At a "Protest Conference"in March, 1908, attended by the executive officers of most of theaffiliated national unions as well as by the representatives of severalfarmers' organizations, the threat was uttered that organized laborwould make a determined effort in the coming campaign to defeat itsenemies, whether "candidates for President, for Congress, or otheroffices. " The next step was the presentation of the demands of theFederation to the platform committees of the conventions of bothparties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests thatit had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, sinceit omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of maliciousconspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protectbusiness rights, which had regularly been asked by the AmericanFederation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted anindefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labordisputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed and adeclaration 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 allowanceof equity relief; and as if to leave no further doubt in the minds ofthe labor leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft, who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some ofthe most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A yearearlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunctionstandard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democraticplatform, on the other hand, _verbatim_ repeated the Federation plank onthe 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 endorsementof Bryan, but pleaded that "in performing a solemn duty at this time insupport of a political party, labor does not become partisan to apolitical party, but partisan to a principle. " Substantially, allprominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead. That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, isapparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it istrue that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centerswas not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant theconclusion that Gompers may have "delivered to Bryan" not a few laborvotes which would otherwise have gone to Debs. 

In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policyof "reward your friends, and punish your enemies. " However, it avoidedmore successfully the appearance of partisanship. Many progressiveRepublicans received as strong support as did Democratic candidates. Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that theFederation was at last "on the inside" of one branch of the government. In addition, fifteen men holding cards of membership in unions, wereelected to Congress, which was the largest number on record. FurthermoreWilliam B. Wilson, Ex-Secretary of the United Mine Workers, wasappointed chairman of the important House Committee on Labor. 

The Congress of 1911-1913 with its Democratic House of Representativespassed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had beenurging for fifteen years. It passed an eight-hour law on governmentcontract work, as already noted, and a seaman's bill, which went far togrant to the sailors the freedom of contract enjoyed by other wageearners. It created a Department of Labor with a seat in the Cabinet. Italso attached a "rider" to the appropriation bill for the Department ofJustice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes ofprosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law andother Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointedto the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic Houseof Representatives and let the workers draw their own conclusions. Thecorner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legalexemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislationand from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yetto be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democraticadministration was the logical means to that end. 

At last, with the election of Woodrow Wilson as President and of aDemocratic Congress in 1912, the political friends of the Federationcontrolled all branches of government. William B. Wilson was given theplace of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, theFederation was an "insider" in the national government. The road nowseemed clear to the attainment by trade unions of freedom from courtinterference 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 thatof earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from "on top, " notfrom the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats instrikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led bylocal unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically inall preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the AmericanFederation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and fileseem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member whoheld no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctionsthan the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt ofcourt. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by theFederation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federationleaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of thepolitical parties by holding out a _quid pro quo_ of such an uncertainvalue is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a markof 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 ofPolitical Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118. 

[47] _Ibid. _

[48] "The Extent of Trade Unionism, " in _Annals of American Academy ofPolitical Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118. 

[49] The "federal labor unions" (mixed unions) and the directlyaffiliated local trade unions (in trades in which a national union doesnot yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designedfor bringing in the more miscellaneous classes of labor. The membershipin these has seldom reached over 100, 000. 

[50] A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where theonly anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found. 

[51] At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operatorsfrom Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organizedminers and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevailthroughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30, 1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wishto give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohiooperators. Ohio was favored in the scale established by this firstInterstate conference probably because more than half of the operatorspresent came from that State, and because the chief strength of theminers' union also lay in that State. To prevent friction over theinterpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration andconciliation was established. This board consisted of five miners andfive operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more fromeach of the States of this field. Such a board of arbitration andconciliation was provided for in all of the Interstate agreements of theperiod of the eighties. This system of Interstate agreement, in spite ofthe cut-throat competition raging between operators, was maintained forPennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lostin 1887, and Indiana in 1888. It formed the real predecessor of thesystem established in 1898 and in vogue thereafter. 

[52] See above, 136. 

[53] The run-of-mine system means payment by weight of the coal asbrought out of the mine including minute pieces and impurities. 

[54] The check-off system refers to collection of union dues. It meansthat the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner theamount of his union dues, thus constituting himself the union'sfinancial 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 thesefigures, since they are based upon the dues-paying membership, andminers out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues. Thenumber of miners who always act with the union is much larger still. Even in non-union fields the United Mine Workers have always beensuccessful 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 differgreatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior employes inkeeping the job when it is necessary to lay men off. 

[62] The first arbitration act was passed by Congress in 1888. In 1898it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, which prescribed rulesfor mediation and voluntary arbitration. 

[63] Concerted movements began in 1907 as joint demands upon allrailways in a single section of the country, like the East or the West, by a single group of employes; after 1912 two or more brotherhoodsinitiated common concerted movements, first in one section only, and atlast covering all the railways of the country. 

[64] See below, 230-233. 

[65] Long before this, about the middle of the nineties, the firstsystem federations were initiated by the brotherhoods and were confinedto them only; they took up adjustment of grievances and related matters. 

[66] The International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Brotherhood ofBoilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, the Pattern Makers' League, theInternational Union of Stove Mounters, the International Union of MetalPolishers, Platers, Brass and Silver Workers, the InternationalFederation of Draftsmen's Unions, and the International Brotherhood ofFoundry Employes. 

[67] Professor Barnett attributes the failure of these agreementschiefly to faulty agreement machinery. The working rules, he points out, are rules made by the national union and therefore can be changed by thenational union only. At the same time the agreements were national onlyin so far as they provided for national conciliation machinery; thefixing of wages was left to local bodies. Consequently, the nationalemployers' associations lacked the power to offer the unions anindispensable _quid pro quo_ in higher wages for a compromise on workingrules. ("National and District Systems of Collective Bargaining in theUnited States, " in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, May, 1912, pp. 425ff. )

[68] The following account is taken from Chapter X of the _SteelWorkers_ 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 animportant factor in the disruption of the agreement systems in thestructural iron-erecting industry in 1905 and in the carrying industryon the Great Lakes in 1908; in each of these industries the Corporationholds 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 toimprisonment for thirty days and the other two defendants were fined$500 each. These penalties were later lifted by the Supreme Court on atechnicality, 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 AmericanFederation of Labor was obliged to stay on the defensive--on thedefensive against the "open-shop" employers and against the courts. Eventhe periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves. This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of thetype of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raisedthe stock of the radical opposition. 

The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation. Inside itwas the socialist "industrialist" who advocated a political labor partyon a socialist platform, such as the Federation had rejected when itdefeated the "program" of 1893, [75] together with a plan of organizationby industry instead of by craft. Outside the Federation the oppositionmarched under the flag of the Industrial Workers of the World, which waslaunched by socialists but soon after birth fell into the hands ofsyndicalists. 

However, fully to understand the issue between conservatives andradicals in the Federation after 1905, one needs to go back much earlierfor the "background. "

The socialist movement, after it had unwittingly assisted in the birthof the opportunistic trade unionism of Strasser and Gompers, [76] didnot 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 thelabor movement. With this end in view, they adopted an attitude ofenthusiastic cooperation with the Knights of Labor and the Federation intheir wage struggle, which they accompanied, to be sure, by a persistentthough friendly "nudging" in the direction of socialism. During thegreater part of the eighties the socialists were closer to the tradeunionists than to the Knights, because of the larger proportion offoreign born, principally Germans, among them. The unions in the cigarmaking, cabinet making, brewing, and other German trades counted manysocialists, and socialists were also in the lead in the city federationsof unions in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, andother cities. In the campaign of Henry George for Mayor of New York in1886, the socialists cooperated with him and the labor organizations. When, however, the campaign being over, they fell out with George on theissue of the single tax, they received more sympathy from the tradeunionists than George; though one should add that the internal strifecaused the majority of the trade unionists to lose interest in eitherfaction and in the whole political movement. The socialist organizationwent by the name of the Socialist Labor party, which it had kept since1877. Its enrolled membership was under 10, 000, and its activities werenon-political (since it refrained from nominating its own tickets) butentirely agitational and propagandist. The socialist press was chieflyin German and was led by a daily in New York. So it continued untilthere appeared on the scene an imperious figure, one of those men who, had he lived in a country with conditions more favorable to socialismthan the United States, would doubtless have become one of the world'soutstanding 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 hedevoted himself thoroughly to socialist propaganda. He established hisfirst connection with the labor movement in the George campaign in 1886and by 1890 we find him in control of the socialist organization. DeLeonwas impatient with the policy of slow permeation carried on by thesocialists. A convinced if not fanatical Marxian, his philosophy taughthim that the American labor movement, like all national labor movements, had, in the nature of things, to be socialist. He formed the plan of asupreme and last effort to carry socialism into the hosts of the Knightsand the Federation, failing which, other and more drastic means would beused. 

By 1895 he learned that he was beaten in both organizations; not, however, without temporarily upsetting the groups in control. For, theonly time when Samuel Gompers was defeated for President of theFederation was in 1894, when the socialists, angered by his part in therejection of the socialist program at the convention, [77] joined withhis enemies and voted another man into office. Gompers was reelected thenext year and the Federation seemed definitely shut to socialism. DeLeonwas now ready to go to the limit with the Federation. If the establishedunions refused to assume the part of the gravediggers of capitalism, designed for them, as he believed, by the very logic of history, so muchthe worse for the established trade unions. 

Out of this grew the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a life anddeath rival to the Federation. From the standpoint of socialism no moreunfortunate step could have been taken. It immediately stamped thesocialists as wilful destroyers of the unity of labor. To the tradeunionists, yet fresh from the ordeal of the struggle against the Knightsof Labor, the action of the socialists was an unforgivable crime. Allthe bitterness which has characterized the fight between socialist andanti-socialist in the Federation verily goes back to this grossmiscalculation by DeLeon of the psychology of the trade union movement. DeLeon, on his part, attributed the action of the Federation to ahopelessly corrupt leadership and, since he failed to unseat it byworking from within, he now felt justified in striking at the entirestructure. 

The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was a failure from the outset. Only a small portion of even the socialist-minded trade unionists werewilling to join in the venture. Many trade union leaders who had beenallied with the socialists now openly sided with Gompers. In brief, thesocialist "revolution" in the American labor world suffered the fate ofall unsuccessful revolutions: it alienated the moderate sympathizers andforced the victorious majority into taking up a more uncompromisingposition than heretofore. 

Finally, the hopelessness of DeLeon's tactics became obvious. Onefaction in the Socialist Labor party, which had been in opposition eversince he assumed command, came out in revolt in 1898. A fusion tookplace between it and another socialist group, the so-called Debs-BergerSocial Democracy, [78] which took the name of the Social DemocraticParty. Later, at a "Unity Congress" in 1901, it became the SocialistParty of America. What distinguished this party from the Socialist Laborparty (which, although it had lost its primacy in the socialistmovement, has continued side by side with the Socialist party ofAmerica), was well expressed in a resolution adopted at the same "Unity"convention: "We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessityorganized on neutral grounds as far as political affiliation isconcerned. " With this program, the socialists have been fairlysuccessful in extending their influence in the American Federation ofLabor so that at times they have controlled about one-third of the votesin the conventions. Nevertheless the conservatives have never forgiventhe socialists their "original sin. " In the country at large socialismmade steady progress until 1912, when nearly one million votes were castfor Eugene V. Debs, or about 1/16 of the total. After 1912, particularlysince 1916, the socialist party became involved in the War and thedifficulties 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 IndustrialWorkers of the World. As with its predecessor, impatient socialistshelped to set it afoot, but unlike the Alliance, it was at the sametime an outgrowth of a particular situation in the actual labormovement, namely, of the bitter fight which was being waged by theWestern Federation of Miners since the middle nineties. 

Beginning with a violent clash between miners and mine owners in thesilver region of Coeur d'Alène, Idaho, in the early nineties, the miningStates of the West became the scene of many labor struggles which weremore like civil wars than like ordinary labor strikes. 

A most important contributing cause was a struggle, bolder than has beenencountered elsewhere in the United States, for control of government inthe interest of economic class. This was partly due to the absence of aneutral middle class, farmers or others, who might have been able tokeep matters within bounds. 

The Western Federation of Miners was an organization of workers in andaround the metaliferous mines. It also included workers in smelters. Itheld its first convention in 1893 in Butte, Montana. In 1894 the menemployed in the Cripple Creek, Colorado, gold fields demanded a minimumwage of three dollars for an eight-hour day. After four months thestrike resulted in a victory for the union. Other strikes occurred in1896 and 1897 at Leadville, in 1899 in the Coeur d'Alène miningdistrict, and in 1901 at Rossland and Fernie, British Columbia, and alsoin 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 unionquit work in order to compel better working conditions. As thesympathetic strike was a recognized part of the policy of the WesternFederation of Miners, all the miners in the Cripple Creek region werecalled out. The eight-hour day in the smelters was the chief issue. In1899 the Colorado legislature had passed an eight-hour law which wasdeclared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State. To overcomethis difficulty, an amendment to the State constitution was passed in1902 by a large majority, but the legislature, after having thusreceived a direct command to establish the eight-hour law, adjournedwithout taking action. Much of the subsequent disorder and bloodshed inthe Cripple Creek region during 1903-1904 is traceable to this failureon the part of the legislature to enact the eight-hour law. The strugglein Colorado helped to convince the Western miners that agreements withtheir employers were futile, that constitutional amendments and politicswere futile, and from this they drew the conclusion that therevolutionary way was the only way. William D. Haywood, who became thecentral figure in the revolutionary movement of the Industrial Workersof the World since its launching in 1905, was a former national officerof the Western Federation of Miners and a graduate of the Coloradoschool of industrial experience. [79]

Even before 1905 the Western Federation of Miners, which was out oftouch with the American Federation of Labor for reasons of geography andof difference in policy and program, attempted to set up a nationallabor federation which would reflect its spirit. An American Labor Unionwas created in 1902, which by 1905 had a membership of about 16, 000besides the 27, 000 of the miners' federation. It was thus the precursorof the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. In the latter therevolutionary miners from the West joined hands with radical socialistsfrom the East and Middle West of both socialist parties, the Socialistparty of America and DeLeon's Socialist Labor party. 

We shall forbear tracing here the complicated internal history of theI. W. W. , that is the friction which immediately arose between theDeLeonites and the other socialists and later on the struggle betweenthe socialists and the syndicalist-minded labor rebels from the West. Suffice it to say that the Western Federation of Miners, which was itsvery heart and body, convinced of the futility of it all, seceded in1907. In 1911 it joined the American Federation of Labor and afterseveral hard-fought strikes, notably in Michigan in 1913, it practicallybecame assimilated to the other unions in the American Federation ofLabor. 

The remnant of the I. W. W. Split in 1908 into two rival IndustrialWorkers of the World, with headquarters in Detroit and Chicago, respectively, on the issue of revolutionary political versusnon-political or "direct" action. As a rival to the Federation of Laborthe I. W. W. Never materialized, but on the one hand, as an instrument ofresistance 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 andunskilled foreign-speaking workers of the East, the I. W. W. Will for longhave a part to play. 

In fact, about 1912, it seemed as though the I. W. W. Were about to repeatthe performance of the Knights of Labor in the Great Upheaval of1885-1887. Its clamorous appearance in the industrial East, showing inthe strikes by the non-English-speaking workers in the textile mills ofLawrence, Massachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and Little Falls, NewYork, on the one hand, and on the other, the less tangible but no lessdesperate strikes of casual laborers which occurred from time to time inthe West, bore for the observer a marked resemblance to the GreatUpheaval. Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federationespied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which wouldbest be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation thevery same elements to which the I. W. W. Especially addressed itself. Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problemof 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 hadrisen and the organization rapidly retrogressed. At no time did it rollup a membership of more than 60, 000 as compared with the maximummembership of 750, 000 of the Knights of Labor. 

The charge made by the I. W. W. Against the Federation of Labor (and it isin relation to the latter that the I. W. W. Has any importance at all) ismainly two-fold: on aim and on method. "Instead of the conservativemotto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work, '" reads the Preamble, "We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolitionof the wage system. ' It is the historic mission of the working class todo away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, notonly for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but to carry onproduction when capitalism shall have been overthrown. " Then on method:"We find that the centering of management in industries into fewer andfewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever-growingpower of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairswhich allows one set of the workers to be pitted against another set ofworkers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another inwage wars. .. . These conditions must be changed and the interest of theworking class upheld only by an organization founded in such a way thatall 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 organizingindustrially we are forming the structure of the new society within theshell of the old. "

This meant "industrialism" versus the craft autonomy of the Federation. "Industrialism" was a product of the intense labor struggles of thenineties, of the Pullman railway strike in 1894, of the general strikeof the bituminous miners of 1898, and of a decade long struggle andboycott in the beer-brewing industry. Industrialism meant a united frontagainst the employers in an industry regardless of craft; it meant doingaway with the paralyzing disputes over jurisdiction amongst the severalcraft unions; it meant also stretching out the hand of fellowship to theunskilled worker who knowing no craft fitted into no craft union. Butover and above these changes in structure there hovered a new spirit, aspirit of class struggle and of revolutionary solidarity in contrastwith the spirit of "business unionism" of the typical craft union. Industrialism signified a challenge to the old leadership, to theleadership of Gompers and his associates, by a younger generation ofleaders who were more in tune with the social ideas of the radicalintellectuals and the labor movements of Europe than with thetraditional policies of the Federation. 

But there is industrialism and industrialism, each answering the demandsof a _particular stratum_ of the wage-earning class. The class lowest inthe scale, the unskilled and "floaters, " for which the I. W. W. Speaks, conceives industrialism as "one big union, " where not only trade buteven industrial distinctions are virtually ignored with reference toaction against employers, if not also with reference to the principle oforganization. The native floater in the West and the unskilled foreignerin the East are equally responsive to the appeal to storm capitalism ina successive series of revolts under the banner of the "one big union. "Uniting in its ranks the workers with the least experience inorganization and with none in political action, the "one big union" pinsits faith upon assault rather than "armed peace, " upon the strikewithout the trade agreement, and has no faith whatsoever in political orlegislative action. 

Another form of industrialism is that of the middle stratum of thewage-earning group, embracing trades which are moderately skilled andhave had considerable experience in organization, such as brewing, clothing, and mining. They realize that, in order to attain an equalfooting with the employers, they must present a front coextensive withthe employers' association, which means that all trades in an industrymust act under one direction. Hence they strive to assimilate theengineers and machinists, whose labor is essential to the continuance ofthe operation of the plant. They thus reproduce on a minor scale theattempt of the Knights of Labor during the eighties to engulf the moreskilled trade unions. 

At the same time the relatively unprivileged position of these tradesmakes them keenly alive to the danger from below, from the unskilledwhom the employer may break into their jobs in case of strikes. Theytherefore favor taking the unskilled into the organization. Theirindustrialism is consequently caused perhaps more by their own tradeconsideration than by an altruistic desire to uplift the unskilled, although they realize that the organization of the unskilled is requiredby the broader interests of the wage-earning class. However, their longexperience in matters of organization teaches them that the "one bigunion" would be a poor medium. Their accumulated experience likewise hasa moderating influence on their economic activity, and they areconsequently among the strongest supporters inside the AmericanFederation of Labor of the trade agreement. Nevertheless, opportunisticthough they are in the industrial field, their position is notsufficiently raised above the unskilled to make them satisfied with thewage system. Hence, they are mostly controlled by socialists and arestrongly in favor of political action through the Socialist party. Thisform of industrialism may consequently be called "socialistindustrialism. " In the annual conventions of the Federation, industrialists are practically synonymous with socialists. 

The best examples of the "middle stratum" industrialism are the unionsin the garment industries. Enthusiastic admirers have proclaimed themthe harbingers of a "new unionism" in America. One would indeed benarrow to withhold praise from organizations and leaders who in spite ofa most chaotic situation in their industry have succeeded so brilliantlywhere many looked only for failure. Looking at the matter, however, fromthe wider standpoint of labor history, the contribution of thisso-called "new unionism" resides chiefly, first, in that it hasrationalized and developed industrial government by collectivebargaining and trade agreements as no other unionism, and second, inthat it has applied a spirit of broadminded all-inclusiveness to allworkers in the industry. To put it in another way, its merit is in thatit has made supreme use of the highest practical acquisition of theAmerican Federation of Labor--namely, the trade agreement--whilereinterpreting and applying the latter in a spirit of a broader laborsolidarity than the "old unionism" of the Federation. As such theclothing workers point the way to the rest of the labor movement. 

The first successful application of the "new unionism" in the clothingtrades was in 1910 by the workers on cloaks and suits in theInternational Ladies' Garment Workers Union of America, a constituentunion of the American Federation of Labor. They established machinery ofconciliation from the shop to the industry, which in spite of manytempests and serious crises, will probably live on indefinitely. Perhapsthe greatest achievement to their credit is that they have jointly withthe employers, through a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, wrought arevolution in the hygienic conditions in the shops. 

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America have won great power in themen's clothing industry, through aggressive but constructive leadership. The nucleus of the union seceded from the United Garment Workers, anA. F. Of L. Organization, in 1914. The socialistic element within theorganization was and still is numerically dominating. But in thepractical process of collective bargaining, this union's revolutionaryprinciples have served more as a bond to hold the membership togetherthan as a severe guide in its relations with the employers. [80] As aresult, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers attained trade agreements inall the large men's clothing centers. The American Federation of Labor, however, in spite of this union's success, has persistently refused toadmit it to affiliation, on account of its original secessionist originfrom a chartered international union. 

The unions of the clothing workers have demonstrated how immigrants (themajority in the industry are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians) maybe successfully organized on the basis of a broad minded industrialism. On the issue of industrialism in the American Federation of Labor thelast word has not yet been said. It appears, though, that the matter isbeing solved slowly but surely by a silent "counter-reformation" by theold leaders. For industrialism, or the adjustment of union structure tomeet the employer with ranks closed on the front of an entire industry, is not altogether new even in the most conservative portion of theFederation, although it has never been called by that name. 

Long before industrialism entered the national arena as the economiccreed of socialists, the unions of the skilled had begun to evolve anindustrialism of their own. This species may properly be termed craftindustrialism, as it sought merely to unite on an efficient basis thefighting strength of the unions of the skilled trades by devising amethod for speedy solution of jurisdictional disputes betweenoverlapping unions and by reducing the sympathetic strike to a science. The movement first manifested itself in the early eighties in the formof local building trades' councils, which especially devoted themselvesto 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 inthe building trades. For the same reason it was barred from recognitionof the American Federation of Labor. The date of the real birth of craftindustrialism on a national scale, was therefore deferred to 1903, whena Structural Building Trades' Alliance was founded. The formation of theAlliance marks an event of supreme importance, not only because itunited for the first time for common action all the important nationalunions in the building industry, but especially because it promulgated anew principle which, if generally adopted, was apparently destined torevolutionize the structure of American labor organizations. TheAlliance purported to be a federation of the "basic" trades in theindustry, and in reality it did represent an _entente_ of the big andaggressive unions. The latter were moved to federate not only for thepurpose of forcing the struggle against the employers, but also ofexpanding at the expense of the "non-basic" or weak unions, besidesseeking to annihilate the last vestiges of the International BuildingTrades' Council. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, probably themost aggressive union in the American Federation of Labor, was theleader in this movement. From the standpoint of the Federation, theStructural Alliance was at best an extra-legal organization, as it didnot receive the latter's formal sanction, but the Federation couldscarcely afford to ignore it as it had ignored the InternationalBuilding Trades' Council. Thus in 1908 the Alliance was "legitimatized"and made a "Department" of the American Federation of Labor, under thename of the Building Trades' Department, with the settlement ofjurisdictional disputes as its main function. It was accompanied bydepartments 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 avery successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle. Jurisdictional disputes are caused either by technical changes, whichplay havoc with official "jurisdiction, " or else by a plain desire onthe part of the stronger union to encroach upon the province of theweaker one. When the former was the case and the struggle happened to bebetween unions of equal strength and influence, it generally terminatedin a compromise. When, however, the combatants were two unions ofunequal strength, the doctrine of the supremacy of the "basic" unionswas generally made to prevail in the end. Such was the outcome of thestruggle between the carpenters and joiners on the one side and the woodworkers on the other and also between the plumbers and steam fitters. Ineach case it ended in the forced amalgamation of the weaker union withthe stronger one, upon the principle that there must be only one unionin each "basic" trade. In the case of the steam fitters, which wassettled at the convention at Rochester in 1912, the Federation gave whatmight be interpreted as an official sanction of the new doctrine of oneunion in a "basic" trade. 

Notwithstanding these official lapses from the principle of craftautonomy, the socialist industrialists[81] are still compelled to abideby the letter and the spirit of craft autonomy. The effect of such apolicy on the coming American industrialism may be as follows: Thefuture development of the "department" may enable the strong "basic"unions to undertake concerted action against employers, while eachretains its own autonomy. Such indeed is the notable "concertedmovement" of the railway brotherhoods, which since 1907 has begun to seta type for craft industrialism. It is also probable that the majority ofthe craft unions will sufficiently depart from a rigid craft standardfor membership to include helpers and unskilled workers workingalongside the craftsmen. 

The clearest outcome of this silent "counter-reformation" in reply tothe socialist industrialists is the Railway Employes' Department as itdeveloped during and after the war-time period. [82] It is composed ofall the railway men's organizations except the brotherhoods ofengineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen, telegraphers, and severalminor organizations, which on the whole cooperate with the Department. It also has a place for the unskilled laborers organized in the UnitedBrotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers. The Railway Employes' Department therefore demonstrates that under craftunionism the unskilled need not be left out in the cold. It also meetsthe charge that craft unionism renders it easy for the employers todefeat the unions one by one, since this Department has consolidated theconstituent 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 industrialunion in that many of its constituent unions, like the machinists', blacksmiths', boiler-makers', sheet metal workers', and electricalworkers', have large memberships outside the railway industry, whichmight by their dues and assessments come to the aid of the railwayworkers on strike. To be sure, the solidarity of the unions in theDepartment might be weakened through jurisdictional disputes, which issomething to be considered. However, when unions have gone so far as toconfederate for joint collective bargaining, that danger will probablynever 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 disobeyinga court injunction during the Pullman strike of 1894, became a convertto socialism. It is said that his conversion was due to Victor Berger ofMilwaukee. Berger had succeeded in building up a strong socialist partyin that city and in the State of Wisconsin upon the basis of a thoroughunderstanding with the trade unions and was materially helped by thepredominance of the German-speaking element in the population. In 1910the Milwaukee socialists elected a municipal ticket, the first largecity to vote the socialists into office. 

[79] In 1907 Haywood was tried and acquitted with two other officers ofthe Western Federation of Miners at Boisé, Idaho, on a murder chargewhich grew out of the same labor struggle. This was one of the severalsensational trials in American labor history, on a par with the MollyMaguires' case in the seventies, the Chicago Anarchists' in 1887, andthe 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 laborpassing through a period of depression. The preceding winter had seenmuch unemployment and considerable distress and in the summer industrialconditions became scarcely improved. In the large cities demonstrationsby the unemployed were daily occurrences. A long and bloody laborstruggle in the coal fields of Colorado, which was slowly drawing to anunsuccessful end in spite of sacrifices of the heaviest kind, seemedonly to set into bold relief the generally inauspicious outlook. Yet thelabor movement could doubtless find solace in the political situation. Owing to the support it had given the Democratic party in thePresidential campaign of 1912, the Federation could claim return favors. The demand which it was now urging upon its friends in office was thelong standing one for the exemption of labor unions from the operationof the anti-trust legislation and for the reduction to a minimum ofinterference by Federal Courts in labor disputes through injunctionproceedings. 

During 1914 the anti-trust bill introduced in the House by Clayton ofAlabama was going through the regular stages preliminary to enactmentand, although it finally failed to embody all the sweeping changesdemanded by the Federation's lobbyists, it was pronounced at the timesatisfactory 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 illegalcombinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under Federalanti-trust laws. It further proceeds to prescribe the procedure inconnection with the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes as, forinstance, 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 Section20, which says "that no such restraining order or injunction shallprohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, fromterminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform anywork or labor or from recommending, advising, or persuading others bypeaceful means so to do; or from attending at any place where any suchperson or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefullypersuading any person to work or to abstain from working, or fromrecommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawfulmeans so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, anyperson employed in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys orthings of value; or from peacefully assembling in a lawful manner, orfor lawful purposes, or from doing any act or things which mightlawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto;nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered orheld 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 publichearings conducted by the United States Commission on IndustrialRelations. This Commission had been authorized by Congress in 1912 toinvestigate labor unrest after a bomb explosion in the _Los AngelesTimes_ Building, which was set off at the order of some of the nationalofficers 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 theydid around the Colorado outrages, served to popularize the trade unioncause from one end of the country to the other. The report of theCommission or rather the minority report, which was signed by thechairman and the three labor members, and was known as the "staff"report, named _trade unionism_ as the paramount remedy--not compulsoryarbitration which was advocated by the employer members, nor laborlegislation and a permanent governmental industrial commission proposedby the economist on the commission. The immediate practical effects ofthe commission were _nil_, but its agitational value proved of greatimportance to labor. For the first time in the history of the UnitedStates the employing class seemed to be arrayed as a defendant beforethe bar of public opinion. Also, it was for the first time that acommission representing the government not only unhesitatinglypronounced the trade union movement harmless to the country's bestinterests but went to the length of raising it to the dignity of afundamental and indispensable institution. 

The Commission on Industrial Relations on the whole reflected thefavorable attitude of the Administration which came to power in 1912. The American Federation of Labor was given full sway over the Departmentof Labor and a decisive influence in all other government departmentson matters relating to labor. Without a political party of its own, byvirtue only of its "bargaining power" over the old parties, the AmericanFederation of Labor seemed to have attained a position not far behindthat of British labor after more than a decade of independent politicalaction. Furthermore, fortunately for itself, labor in America had comeinto a political patrimony at a time when the country was standing onthe threshold of a new era, during which government was destined tobecome the arbiter of industry. 

The War in Europe did not immediately improve industrial conditions inAmerica. The first to feel its effects were the industries directlyengaged in the making of munitions. The International Association ofMachinists, the organization of the now all-important munition workers, actually had its membership somewhat decreased during 1915, but in thefollowing year made a 50 percent increase. The greater part of the newmembership came from the "munitions towns, " such as Bridgeport, Connecticut, where, in response to the insatiable demand from the Alliednations, new enormous plants were erected during 1915 and shipment ofmunitions in mass began early the next year. Bridgeport and surroundingtowns became a center of a successful eight-hour movement, in which thewomen workers newly brought into the industry took the initiative. TheFederation as a whole lost three percent of its membership in 1915 andgained seven percent during 1916. 

On its War policy the Federation took its cue completely from thenational government. During the greater part of the period of Americanneutrality its attitude was that of a shocked lover of peace who isdesirous to maintain the strictest neutrality if the belligerents willpersist in refusing to lend an ear to reason. To prevent a repetitionof a similar catastrophe, the Federation did the obvious thing, pronouncing for open and democratized diplomacy; and proposed to theseveral national trade union federations that an international laborcongress meet at the close of the war to determine the conditions ofpeace. However, both the British and Germans declined. The convention in1915 condemned the German-inspired propaganda for an embargo onshipments to all belligerents and the fomenting of strikes inmunitions-making plants by German agents. The Federation refused tointerpret neutrality to mean that the American wage earner was to bethrown back into the dumps of depression and unemployment, from which hewas just delivered by the extensive war orders from the Alliedgovernments. 

By the second half of 1916 the war prosperity was in full swing. Cost ofliving was rising rapidly and movements for higher wages became general. The practical stoppage of immigration enabled common labor to get alarger share than usual of the prosperity. Many employers grantedincreases voluntarily. Simultaneously, a movement for the eight-hour daywas spreading from strictly munitions-making trades into others and wasmeeting with remarkable success. But 1916 witnessed what was doubtlessthe most spectacular move for the eight-hour day in Americanhistory--the joint eight-hour demand by the four railway brotherhoods, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. The effectivenessacquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkablesuccess with which these four organizations, with the full support ofthe whole labor movement at their back and aided by a not unfriendlyattitude on the part of the national Administration, brought to bay thegreatest single industry of the country and overcame the opposition ofthe entire business class. 

The four brotherhoods made a joint demand for an eight-hour day early in1916. [84] The railway officials claimed that the demand for thereduction of the work-day from ten to eight hours with ten hours' payand 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 railwayscould not be run on an eight-hour day, the demand was but a covertattempt to gain a substantial increase in their wages, which werealready in advance of any of the other skilled workers. On the otherhand, the brotherhoods stoutly maintained during their directnegotiations with the railway companies and in the public press thattheir demand was a _bona fide_ demand and that they believed that therailway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on aneight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitrationthe demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. Thebrotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind pastdisappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up thewhole transportation system of the country by a strike on Labor Day. 

When the efforts at mediation by the United States Board of Mediationand Conciliation came to naught, President Wilson invited to Washingtonthe executives of the several railway systems and a convention of theseveral hundred division chairmen of the brotherhoods and attemptedpersonal mediation. He urged the railway executives to accept theeight-hour day and proposed that a commission appointed by himselfshould investigate the demand for time and a half overtime. This theemployes accepted, but the executives objected to giving the eight-hourday before an investigation was made. Meantime the brotherhoods hadissued their strike order effective on Labor Day and the crisis becameimminent. To obviate the calamity of a general strike, at a time whenthe country was threatened with troubles on the Mexican frontier andwith the unsettled submarine controversy with Germany ready to flare upany moment, the President went before Congress and asked for a speedyenactment of an eight-hour law for train operatives without a reductionin wages but with no punitive overtime. He coupled it with a request foran authorisation of a special commission to report on the operation ofsuch a law for a period of six months, after which the subject might bereopened. Lastly, he urged an amendment to the Newlands Act making itillegal to call a strike or a lockout pending an investigation of acontroversy by a government commission. Spurred on by the danger of theimpending strike, Congress quickly acceded to the first two requests bythe President and passed the so-called Adamson law. [85] The strike wasaverted, but in the immediately following Presidential campaign labor's"hold-up" of the national government became one of the trump issues ofthe Republican candidate. 

This episode of the summer of 1916 had two sequels, one in the courtsand the other one in a negotiated agreement between the railways and thebrotherhoods. The former brought many suits in courts against thegovernment and obtained from a lower court a decision that the Adamsonlaw was unconstitutional. The case was then taken to the United StatesSupreme Court, but the decision was not ready until the spring of 1917. Meantime the danger of a strike had been renewed. However, on the sameday when the Supreme Court gave out its decision, the railways andbrotherhoods had signed, at the urging of the National Council ofDefense, an agreement accepting the conditions of the Adamson lawregardless of the outcome in court. When the decision became known itwas found to be in favor of the Adamson law. The declaration of waragainst Germany came a few days later and opened a new era in theAmerican labor situation. 

Previous to that, on March 12, 1917, when war seemed inevitable, thenational officers of all important unions in the Federation met inWashington and issued a statement on "American Labor's Position in Peaceor in War. " They pledged the labor movement and the influence of thelabor organizations unreservedly in support of the government in case ofwar. Whereas, they said, in all previous wars "under the guise ofnational necessity, labor was stripped of its means of defense againstenemies at home and was robbed of the advantages, the protections, andguarantees of justice that had been achieved after ages of struggle";and "labor had no representatives in the councils authorized to dealwith the conduct of the war"; and therefore "the rights, interests andwelfare of workers were autocratically sacrificed for the slogan ofnational safety"; in this war "the government must recognize theorganized labor movement as the agency through which it must cooperatewith wage earners. " Such recognition will imply first "representation onall agencies determining and administering policies of nationaldefense" and "on all boards authorized to control publicity during wartime. " Second, that "service in government factories and privateestablishments, in transportation agencies, all should conform to tradeunion standards"; and that "whatever changes in the organization ofindustry are necessary upon a war basis, they should be made in accordwith plans agreed upon by representatives of the government and thoseengaged and employed in the industry. " Third, that the government'sdemand of sacrifice of their "labor power, their bodies or their lives"be accompanied by "increased guarantees and safe-guards, " the imposingof a similar burden on property and the limitation of profits. Fourth, that "organization for industrial and commercial service" be "upon adifferent basis from military service" and "that military service shouldbe carefully distinguished from service in industrial disputes, " since"the same voluntary institutions that organized industrial, commercialand transportation workers in times of peace will best take care of thesame problems in time of war. " For, "wrapped up with the safety of thisRepublic are ideals of democracy, a heritage which the masses of thepeople received from our forefathers, who fought that liberty might livein this country--a heritage that is to be maintained and handed down toeach generation with undiminished power and usefulness. "

We quote at such length because this document gives the quintessence ofthe wise labor statesmanship which this crisis brought so clearly tolight. Turning away from the pacifism of the Socialist party, SamuelGompers and his associates believed that victory over world militarismas well as over the forces of reaction at home depended on labor'sunequivocal support of the government. And in reality, by placing thelabor movement in the service of the war-making power of the nation theyassured for it, for the time being at least, a degree of nationalprestige and a freedom to expand which could not have been conquered bymany years of the most persistent agitation and strikes. 

The War, thus, far from being a trial for organized labor, provedinstead a great opportunity. For the War released organized labor from ablind alley, as it were. The American Federation of Labor, as we saw, had made but slow progress in organization after 1905. At that time ithad succeeded in organizing the skilled and some of the semi-skilledworkers. Further progress was impeded by the anti-union employersespecially 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 AmericanFederation of Labor, situated as it is, is obliged to stake everythingupon the power to organize. [86] The war gave it that all-importantpower. Soon after the Federal government became the arbiter ofindustry--by virtue of being the greatest consumer, and by virtue of apublic opinion clearly outspoken on the subject--we see the Taft-WalshWar Labor Board[87] embody "the right to organize" into a code of rulesfor 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. Inreturn for these gifts American labor gave up nothing so vital asBritish labor had done in the identical situation. The right to strikewas left unmolested and remained a permanent threat hanging over slowmoving officialdom and recalcitrant employers. And the only restraintaccepted by labor was a promise of self-restraint. The Federation wasnot to strike until all other means for settlement had been tried, norwas it to press for the closed shop where such had not existed prior tothe War declaration. But at the same time no employer was to interpose acheck to its expansion into industries and districts heretoforeunorganized. Nor could an employer discipline an employe for joining aunion 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 theAdvisory Commission in charge of all policies dealing with labor andchairman of a committee on labor of his own appointment. Among the firstacts of the Council of Defense was an emphatic declaration for thepreservation of the standards of legal protection of labor against theill-advised efforts for their suspension during War-time. The Federationwas given representation on the Emergency Construction Board, the FuelAdministration Board, on the Woman's Board, on the Food AdministrationBoard, and finally on the War Industries Board. The last named board wasduring the war the recognized arbiter of the country's industries, alllabor matters being handled by its labor representative. The Departmentof Labor, which in the War emergency could rightly be considered theFederation's arm in the Administration, was placed in supreme charge ofgeneral labor administration. Also, in connection with theadministration of the military conscription law, organized labor wasgiven representation on each District Exemption Board. But perhaps thestrongest expression of the official recognition of the labor movementwas offered by President Wilson when he took time from the pressingbusiness in Washington to journey to Buffalo in November 1917, todeliver an address before the convention of the American Federation ofLabor. 

In addition to representation on boards and commissions dealing withgeneral policies, the government entered with the Federation into anumber of agreements relative to the conditions of direct and indirectemployment by the government. In each agreement the prevalent tradeunion standards were fully accepted and provision was made for athree-cornered board of adjustment to consist of a representative of theparticular government department, the public and labor. Such agreementswere concluded by the War and Navy departments and by the United StatesEmergency Fleet Corporation. The Shipping Board sponsored a similaragreement between the shipping companies and the seafaring unions; andthe War Department between the leather goods manufacturers and leatherworkers' union. When the government took over the railways on January 1, 1918, it created three boards of adjustment on the identical principleof a full recognition of labor organizations. The spirit with which thegovernment faced the labor problem was shown also in connection with theenforcement of the eight-hour law. The law of 1912 provided for aneight-hour day on contract government work but allowed exceptions inemergencies. In 1917 Congress gave the President the right to waive theapplication of the law, but provided that in such event compensation becomputed on a "basic" eight-hour day. The War and Navy departmentsenforced these provisions not only to the letter but generally gave tothem a most liberal interpretation. 

The taking over of the railways by the government revolutionized therailway labor situation. Under private management, as was seen, the fourbrotherhoods alone, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmenenjoyed universal recognition, the basic eight-hour day (since 1916), and high wages. The other organizations of the railway workers, theshopmen, the yardmen, the maintenance of way men, the clerks, and thetelegraphers were, at best, tolerated rather than recognized. Under thegovernment administration the eight-hour day was extended to all gradesof workers, and wages were brought up to a minimum of 68 cents per hour, with a considerable though not corresponding increase in the wages ofthe higher grades of labor. All discrimination against union men wasdone away with, so that within a year labor organization on the railwayswas nearing the hundred percent mark. 

The policies of the national railway administration of the open door totrade unionism and of recognition of union standards were successfullypressed upon other employments by the National War Labor Board. On March29, 1918, a National War Labor Conference Board, composed of fiverepresentatives of the Federation of Labor, five representatives ofemployers' associations and two joint chairmen, William H. Taft for theemployers and Frank P. Walsh for the employes, reported to the Secretaryof Labor on "Principles and Policies to govern Relations between Workersand Employers in War Industries for the Duration of the War. " These"principles and policies, " which were to be enforced by a permanent WarLabor Board organized upon the identical principle as the reportingboard, included a voluntary relinquishment of the right to strike andlockout by employes and employers, respectively, upon the followingconditions: First, there was a recognition of the equal right ofemployes and employers to organize into associations and trade unionsand to bargain collectively. This carried an undertaking by theemployers not to discharge workers for membership in trade unions or forlegitimate trade union activities, and was balanced by an undertaking ofthe workers, "in the exercise of their right to organize, " not to "usecoercive measures of any kind to induce persons to join theirorganizations, nor to induce employers to bargain or deal therewith. "Second, both sides agreed upon the observance of the _status quo antebellum_ as to union or open shop in a given establishment and as tounion standards of wages, hours, and other conditions of employment. This carried the express stipulation that the right to organize was notto be curtailed under any condition and that the War Labor Board couldgrant 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 agreedthat "the basic eight-hour day was to be recognized as applying in allcases in which the existing law required it, while in all other casesthe question of hours of labor was to be settled with due regard togovernment necessities and the welfare, health, and proper comfort ofthe workers. " Fifth, restriction of output by trade unions was to bedone away with. Sixth, in fixing wages and other conditions regard wasto 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 workerand his family in health and reasonable comfort. "

The establishment of the War Labor Board did not mean that the countryhad gone over to the principle of compulsory arbitration, for the Boardcould not force any party to a dispute to submit to its arbitration orby an umpire of its appointment. However, so outspoken was publicopinion on the necessity of avoiding interruptions in the War industriesand so far-reaching were the powers of the government over the employeras the administrator of material and labor priorities and over theemployes as the administrator of the conscription law that the indirectpowers of the Board sufficed to make its decision prevail in nearlyevery instance. 

The packing industry was a conspicuous case of the "new course" inindustrial relations. This industry had successfully kept unionism outsince an ill-considered strike in 1904, which ended disastrously for thestrikers. Late in 1917, 60, 000 employes in the packing houses went onstrike for union recognition, the basic eight-hour day, and otherdemands. Intervention by the government led to a settlement, which, although denying the union formal recognition, granted the basiceight-hour day, a living wage, and the right to organize, together withall that it implied, and the appointment of a permanent arbitrator toadjudicate disputes. Thus an industry which had prohibited labororganization for fourteen years was made to open its door to tradeunionism. [88] Another telling gain for the basic eight-hour day was madeby the timber workers in the Northwest, again at the insistence of thegovernment. 

What the aid of the government in securing the right to organize meantto the strength of trade unionism may be derived from the followingfigures. In the two years from 1917 to 1919 the organization of the meatcutters and butcher workmen increased its membership from less than10, 000 to over 66, 000; the boilermakers and iron shipbuilders from31, 000 to 85, 000; the blacksmiths from 12, 000 to 28, 000; the railwayclerks from less than 7000 to over 71, 000; the machinists from 112, 000to 255, 000; the maintenance of way employes from less than 10, 000 to54, 000; the railway carmen from 39, 000 to 100, 000; the railwaytelegraphers from 27, 000 to 45, 000; and the electrical workers from42, 000 to 131, 000. The trades here enumerated--mostly related toshipbuilding and railways--accounted for the greater part of the totalgain in the membership of the Federation from two and a half millionmembers in 1917 to over three and a third in 1919. 

An important aspect of the cooperation of the government with theFederation was the latter's eager self-identification with thegovernment's foreign policy, which went to the length of choosing toplay a lone hand in the Allied labor world. Labor in America had animplicit faith in the national government, which was shared by neitherEnglish nor French labor. Whereas the workers in the other AlliedNations believed that their governments needed to be prodded or forcedinto accepting the right road to a democratic peace by an internationallabor congress, which would take the entire matter of war and peace outof the diplomatic chancellories into an open conference of therepresentatives of the workers, the American workers were only too eagerto follow the leadership of the head of the American nation. To thisdoubtless was added the usual fervor of a new convert to any cause (inthis instance the cause of the War against Germany) and a strongdistrust of German socialism, which American labor leaders havedeveloped during their drawn-out struggle against the German-trainedsocialists inside the Federation who have persistently tried to"capture" the organization. 

When on January 8, 1918, President Wilson enunciated his famous FourteenPoints, the Federation of course gave them an enthusiastic endorsement. In the autumn of 1918 Gompers went to Europe and participated in anInter-Allied labor conference. He refused, however, to participate inthe first International Labor and Socialist Congress called since theWar, which met at Berne, Switzerland, in March 1919, since he would notsit with the Germans while their country was not formally at peace withthe United States. The convention of the Federation in June 1919 gavecomplete endorsement to the League of Nations Pact worked out atVersailles, --on general grounds and on the ground of its specificprovisions for an international regulation of labor conditions designedto equalize labor standards and costs. Contrasting with this was theposition of British labor, which regarded the Pact with a critical eye, frankly confessing disillusionment, but was willing to accept it for thesake of its future possibilities, when the Pact might be remodelled bymore liberal and more democratic hands. 

The contrast in outlook between the mild evolutionism of the AmericanFederation of Labor and the social radicalism of British labor stood outnowhere so strongly as in their respective programs for Reconstructionafter the War. The chief claim of the British Labor party forrecognition at the hands of the voter at the General Election inDecember 1918, was its well-thought-out reconstruction program put forthunder the telling title of "Labour and the New Social Order. " Thisprogram was above all a legislative program. It called for athoroughgoing governmental control of industry by means of a control ofprivate finance, natural resources, transportation, and internationaltrade. To the workingmen such control would mean the right to steadyemployment, the right to a living wage, and the appropriation ofeconomic surpluses by the state for the common good--be they in the formof rent, excessive profits, or overlarge personal incomes. Beyond thisminimum program loomed the cooperative commonwealth with the privatecapitalist totally eliminated. 

Such was the program of British labor. What of the Reconstructionprogram of American labor? First of all, American labor thought ofReconstruction as a program to be carried out by the trade union, not bythe government. Moreover, it did not see in Reconstruction the greatbreak with the past which that meant to British labor. The AmericanFederation of Labor applied to Reconstruction the same philosophy whichlies at the basis of its ordinary, everyday activity. It concerneditself not with any far-reaching plan for social reorganization, butwith a rising standard of living and an enlarged freedom for the union. The American equivalent of a government-guaranteed right to employmentand a living wage was the "right to organize. " Assure to labor thatright, free the trade unions of court interference in strikes andboycotts, prevent excessive meddling by the government in industrialrelations--and the stimulated activities of the "legitimate"organizations of labor, which will result therefrom, will achieve a farbetter Reconstruction than a thousand paper programs however beautiful. So reasoned the leaders of the American Federation of Labor. During theperiod of War, they of course gladly accepted directly from thegovernment the basic eight-hour day and the high wages, which underother circumstances they could have got only by prolonged and bitterstriking. But even more acceptable than these directly bestowed boonswas the indirect one of the right to organize free from anti-uniondiscriminations by employers. Having been arrested in its expansion, aswe saw, by anti-union employers and especially "trusts, " the AmericanFederation of Labor took advantage of the War situation to overflow newterritory. Once entrenched and the organization well in hand, it thoughtit 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 haveintroduced in the United States the Canadian system of "CompulsoryInvestigation. "

[86] See below, 283-287. 

[87] See below, 238-240. 

[88] The unions again lost their hold upon the packing industry in theautumn of 1921. 

CHAPTER 11

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

The Armistice with Germany came suddenly and unexpectedly. To theorganized workers the news was as welcome as to other citizens. But, hadthey looked at the matter from a special trade union standpoint, theywould probably have found a longer duration of the War not entirelyamiss. For coal had been unionized already before the War, the railwaysfirst during the War, but the third basic industry, steel, was nottouched either before or during the War. However, it was precisely inthe steel industry that opposition to unionism has found its chief seat, not only to unionism in that industry alone but to unionism in relatedor subsidiary industries as well. 

The first three months after the Armistice the general expectation wasfor a set-back in business conditions due to the withdrawal of theenormous government War-time demand. Employers and trade unions stoodequally undecided. When, however, instead of the expected slump, therecame a prosperity unknown even during the War, the trade unions resumedtheir offensive, now unrestrained by any other but the strictly economicconsideration. As a matter of fact, the trade unions were not at allfree agents, since their demands, frequent and considerable though theywere, barely sufficed to keep wages abreast of the soaring cost ofliving. Through 1919 and the first half of 1920 profits and wages weregoing up by leaps and bounds; and the forty-four hour week, --no longerthe mere eight-hour day, --became a general slogan and a partial reality. Success was especially notable in clothing, building, printing, and themetal trades. One cannot say the same, however, of the three basicindustries, steel, coal, and railways. In steel the twelve-hour day andthe seven-day week continued as before for approximately one-half of theworkers and the unions were preparing for a battle with the "SteelTrust. " While on the railways and in coal mining the unions now began toencounter opposition from an unexpected quarter, namely, the government. 

When in the summer of 1919 the railway shopmen demanded an increase intheir wages, which had not been raised since the summer of 1918, President Wilson practically refused the demand, urging the need of ageneral deflation but binding himself to use all the powers of thegovernment immediately to reduce the cost of living. A significantincident in this situation was a spontaneous strike of shopmen on manyroads unauthorized by international union officials, which disarrangedthe movement of trains for a short time but ended with the men returningto work under the combined pressure of their leaders' threats and thePresident's plea. 

In September 1919, the United States Railroad Administration and theshopmen's unions entered into national agreements, which embodied thepractices under the Administration as well as those in vogue on the moreliberal roads before 1918, including recognition and a large number of"working rules. " These "national agreements" became an important issueone year later, when their abolition began to be pressed by the railwayexecutives before the Railroad Labor Board, which was established underthe 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 laborforce than heretofore in order to reduce a costly high labor turnoverand no less costly stoppages of work. This created a veritable Eldoradofor "employment managers" and "labor managers, " real and spurious. Universities and colleges, heretofore wholly uninterested in the problemof labor or viewing training in that problem as but a part of a generalcultural education, now vied with one another in establishing "labormanagement" and "labor personnel" courses. One phase of the "laborpersonnel" work was a rather wide experimentation with "industrialdemocracy" plans. These plans varied in form and content, from simpleprovision for shop committees for collective dealing, many of which hadalready been installed during the War under the orders of the War LaborBoard, to most elaborate schemes, some modelled upon the Constitution ofthe United States. The feature which they all had in common was thatthey attempted to achieve some sort of collective bargaining outside thechannels of the established trade unions. The trade unionists termed thenew fashioned expressions of industrial democracy "company unions. " Thisterm one may accept as technically correct without necessarily acceptingthe sinister connotation imputed to it by labor. 

The trade unions, too, were benefiting as organizations. The AmalgamatedClothing Workers' Union firmly established itself by formal agreement onthe men's clothing "markets" of Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore, and NewYork. The membership of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union rose to175, 000. Employers in general were complaining of increased laborunrest, a falling off of efficiency in the shop, and looked askance atthe rapid march of unionization. The trade unions, on their part, wereaware of their opportunity and eager for a final recognition as aninstitution in industry. As yet uncertainty prevailed as to whetherenough had survived of the War-time spirit of give and take to make astruggle avoidable, or whether the issue must be solved by a bitterconflict of classes. 

A partial showdown came in the autumn of 1919. Three great events, whichcame closely together, helped to clear the situation: The steel strike, the President's Industrial Conference, and the strike of the soft coalminers. The great steel strike, prepared and directed by a Committeerepresenting twenty-four national and international unions with WilliamZ. Foster as Secretary and moving spirit, tried in September 1919 towrest from the owners of the steel mills what the railway shopmen hadachieved in 1918 by invitation of the government, namely, "recognition"and the eight-hour day. Three hundred thousand men went out on strike atthe call of the committee. The industry came to a practical standstill. But in this case the twenty-four allied unions were not dealing with agovernment amenable to political pressure, nor with a loosely joinedassociation of employers competing among themselves. Furthermore, thetime had passed when the government had either the will or the power tointerfere and order both sides to arbitrate their dispute. On thecontrary, the unions were now dealing unaided with the strongestcapitalist aggregation in the world. 

At the request of President Wilson, Gompers had urged the strikecommittee to postpone the strike until after the meeting of the nationalindustrial conference called by the President in October, but thecommittee claimed that it could not have kept the men back after asummer of agitation and feverish organization had they even tried. ThePresident's conference, modelled upon a similar conference which metearlier in Great Britain, was composed of three groups ofrepresentatives equal in number, one for capital, one for labor, and onefor the general public. Decisions, to be held effective, had to beadopted by a majority in each group. The labor representation, dominatedof course by Gompers, was eager to make the discussion turn on the steelstrike. It proposed a resolution to this effect which had the support ofthe public group, but fearing a certain rejection by the employer groupthe matter was postponed. The issue upon which the alignment waseffected was industrial control and collective bargaining. All threegroups, the employer and public groups and of course the labor group, advocated collective bargaining, --but with a difference. The labor groupinsisted that collective bargaining is doomed to be a farce unless theemployes are allowed to choose as their spokesmen representatives of thenational trade union. In the absence of a powerful protector in thenational union, they argued, the workers in a shop can never feelthemselves on a bargaining equality with their employer, nor can they berepresented by a spokesman of the necessary ability if their choice berestricted to those working in the same plant. The employers, now nolonger dominated by the War-time spirit which caused them in 1917 totolerate an expansion of unionism, insisted that no employer must beobliged to meet for the purpose of collective bargaining with otherthan his own employes. [89] After two weeks of uncertainty, when it hadbecome clear that a resolution supported by both labor and publicgroups, which restated the labor position in a milder form, would becertain to be voted down by the employer group, the labor group withdrewfrom the conference, and the conference broke up. The period of thecooperation of classes had definitely closed. 

Meantime the steel strike continued. Federal troops patrolled the steeldistricts and there was no violence. Nevertheless, a large part of thecountry's press pictured the strike by the steel workers for unionrecognition and a normal workday as an American counterpart of theBolshevist revolution in Russia. Public opinion, unbalanced and excitedas it was over the whirlpool of world events, was in no position toresist. The strike failed. 

Nothing made so clear to the trade unionists the changed situation sincethe War ended as the strike of the bituminous coal miners which beganNovember 1. The miners had entered, in October 1917, into a wageagreement with the operators for the duration of the War. The purchasingpower of their wages having become greatly reduced by the ever risingcost of living, discontent was general in the union. A furthercomplication arose from the uncertain position of the United States withreference to War and Peace, which had a bearing on the situation. Theminers claimed that the Armistice had ended the War. The War havingended, the disadvantageous agreement expired with it. So argued theminers and demanded a sixty percent increase in tonnage rates, acorresponding one for yardmen and others paid by the day or hour, and athirty-hour week to spread employment through the year. The operatorsmaintained that the agreement was still in force, but intimated areadiness to make concessions if they were permitted to shift the costto the consumer. At this point, the Fuel Administration, a War-timegovernment body, already partly in the process of dissolution, intervened and attempted to dictate a settlement at a fourteen percentincrease, which was entirely unacceptable to the union. The strikecontinued and the prospect of a dire coal famine grew nearer. To breakthe deadlock, on motion of Attorney-General Palmer, Judge Anderson ofIndianapolis, under the War-time Lever Act, issued an injunctionforbidding the union officials to continue conducting the strike. Thestrike continued, the strikers refusing to return to work, and aBituminous Coal Commission appointed by the President finally settled itby an award of an increase of twenty-seven percent. But that the sameAdministration which had given the unions so many advantages during theWar should now have invoked against them a War-time law, which hadalready been considered practically abrogated, was a clear indication ofthe change in the times. In a strike by anthracite coal miners in thefollowing 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, " theindividual strikers staying away on a so-called vacation, nominallyagainst the will of the union officers. They finally returned to work. 

Both the steel and coal strikes furnished occasions for considerableanti-union propaganda in the press. Public sentiment long favorable tolabor became definitely hostile. [90] In Kansas the legislature passed acompulsory arbitration law and created an Industrial Relations Court toadjudicate trade disputes. Simultaneously an "anti-Red" campaigninaugurated by Attorney-General Palmer contributed its share to thepublic excitement and helped to prejudice the cause of labor more byimplication than by making direct charges. It was in an atmosphere thussurcharged with suspicion and fear that a group of employers, led by theNational 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, normallyopposed to unionism, who in War-time had permitted unionism to acquirescope, were now trying to reconquer their lost positions. The example ofthe steel industry and the fiasco of the President's IndustrialConference crystallized this reviving anti-union sentiment into action. 

Meanwhile the railway labor situation remained unsettled and fraughtwith danger. The problem was bound up with the general problem as towhat to do with the railways. Many plans were presented to Congress, from an immediate return to private owners to permanent governmentownership and management. The railway labor organizations, that is, thefour brotherhoods of the train service personnel and the twelve unionsunited in the Railway Employes' Department of the American Federationof Labor, came before Congress with the so-called Plumb Plan, worked outby Glenn E. Plumb, the legal representative of the brotherhoods. Thisplan proposed that the government take over the railways for good, paying a compensation to the owners, and then entrust their operation toa board composed of government officials, union representatives, andrepresentatives of the technical staffs. [91] So much for ultimate plans. On the more immediate wage problem proper, the government had clearlyfallen down on its promise made to the shopmen in August 1919, whentheir demands for higher wages were refused and a promise was made thatthe cost of living would be reduced. Early in 1920 President Wilsonnotified Congress that he would return the roads to the owners on March1, 1920. A few days before that date the Esch-Cummins bill was passedunder the name of the Transportation Act of 1920. Strong efforts weremade to incorporate in the bill a prohibition against strikes andlockouts. In that form it had indeed passed the Senate. In the Housebill, however, the compulsory arbitration feature was absent and thefinal 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 withthe right to strike or lockout unimpaired either before, during, orafter the investigation. It was the first appointed board of thisdescription which was to pass on the clamorous demands by the railwayemployes for higher wages. [92]

No sooner had the roads been returned under the new law, and before theboard was even appointed, than a strike broke out among the switchmenand yardmen, whose patience had apparently been exhausted. The strikewas an "outlaw" strike, undertaken against the wishes of nationalleaders and organized and led by "rebel" leaders risen up for theoccasion. For a time it threatened not only to paralyze the country'srailway system but to wreck the railway men's organizations as well. Itwas finally brought to an end through the efforts of the nationalleaders, and a telling effect on the situation was produced by anannouncement by the newly constituted Railroad Labor Board that no"outlaw" organization would have standing before it. The Board issued anaward on July 20, retroactive to May 1, increasing the total annual wagebill of the railways by $600, 000, 000. The award failed to satisfy theunion, but they acquiesced. 

When the increase in wages was granted to the railway employes, industryin general and the railways in particular were already entering a periodof slump. With the depression the open-shop movement took on a greatervigor. With unemployment rapidly increasing employers saw their chanceto regain freedom from union control. A few months later the tide alsoturned in the movement of wages. Inside of a year the steel industryreduced wages thirty percent, in three like installments; and thetwelve-hour day and the seven-day week, which had figured among thechief causes of the strike of 1919 and for which the United States SteelCorporation was severely condemned by a report of a Committee of theInterchurch World Movement, [93] has largely continued as before. In theNew York "market" of the men's clothing industry, where the union facesthe most complex and least stable condition mainly owing to theheterogeneous character of the employing group, the latter grasped theopportunity to break with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union. Bythe 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 afighting machine as any of the older unions. It was this union also andseveral local branches of the related union in the ladies' garmentindustry, which realized the need of assuring to the employer at least aminimum of labor efficiency if the newly established level of wages wasnot to be materially lowered. Hence the acceptance of the principle of"standards of production" fixed with the aid of scientific managersemployed 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 buildingtrades. The building industry went through in 1921 and 1922 one of itsperiodic upheavals against the tyranny of the "walking delegates" andagainst the state of moral corruption for which some of the lattershared responsibility together with an unscrupulous element among theemployers. In San Francisco, where the grip of the unions upon theindustry was strongest, the employers turned on them and installed the"open-shop" after the building trades' council had refused to accept anaward by an arbitration committee set up by mutual agreement. The unionclaimed, however, in self-justification that the Committee, by awardinga _reduction_ in the wages of fifteen crafts while the issue asoriginally submitted turned on a demand by these crafts for a _raise_in wages, had gone outside its legitimate scope. In New York City aninvestigation by a special legislative committee uncovered a state ofreeking corruption among the leadership in the building trades' counciland among an element in the employing group in connection with asuccessful attempt to establish a virtual local monopoly in building. Some of the leading corruptionists on both sides were given courtsentences and the building trades' council accepted modifications in the"working rules" formulated by the counsel for the investigatingcommittee. In Chicago a situation developed in many respects similar tothe one in San Francisco. In a wage dispute, which was submitted by bothsides to Federal Judge K. M. Landis for arbitration, the award authorizednot 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 situationdeveloped into literal warfare. In Chicago the employers' side wasaggressively upheld by a "citizens' committee" formed to enforce theLandis award. The committee claimed to have imported over 10, 000out-of-town building mechanics to take the places of the strikers. 

In the autumn of 1921 the employers in the packing industry discontinuedthe arrangement whereby industrial relations were administered by an"administrator, "[94] Judge Alschuler of Chicago, whose rulings hadmaterially restricted the employers' control in the shop. Some of theemployers put into effect company union plans. This led to a strike, butin the end the unions lost their foothold in the industry, which the Warhad enabled them to acquire. By that time, however, the open-shopmovement seemed already passing its peak, without having caused anirreparable breach in the position of organized labor. Evidently, thelong years of preparation before the War and the great opportunityduring the War itself, if they have failed to give trade unionism theposition of a recognized national institution, have at least made itimmune from destruction by employers, however general or skillfullymanaged the attack. In 1920 the total organized union membership, including the 871, 000 in unions unaffiliated with the AmericanFederation of Labor, was slightly short of 5, 000, 000, or over fourmillion in the Federation itself. In 1921 the membership of theFederation declined slightly to 3, 906, 000, and the total organizedmembership probably in proportion. In 1922 the membership of theFederation declined to about 3, 200, 000, showing a loss of about 850, 000since the high mark of 1920. 

The legal position of trade unions has continued as uncertain andunsatisfactory to the unions, as if no Clayton Act had been passed. Theclosed shop has been condemned as coercion of non-unionists. Yet in theCoppage case[95] the United States Supreme Court found that it is notcoercion when an employer threatens discharge unless union membership isrenounced. Similarly, it is unlawful for union agents to attemptorganization, even by peaceful persuasion, when employes have signedcontracts not to join the union as a condition of employment. [96] Adecision which arouses strong doubt whether the Clayton Act made anychange in the status of trade unions was given by the Supreme Court inthe recent Duplex Printing case. [97] In this decision the union restedits defense squarely on the immunities granted by the Clayton Act. Despite this, the injunction was confirmed and the boycott againdeclared illegal, the court holding that the words "employer andemployes" in the Act restrict its benefits only to "parties standing inproximate relation to a controversy, " that is to the employes who areimmediately involved in the dispute and not to the national union whichundertakes to bring their employer to terms by causing their othermembers to boycott his goods. 

The prevailing judicial interpretation of unlawful union methods isbriefly as follows: Strikes are illegal when they involve defamation, fraud, actual physical violence, threats of physical violence, orinducement of breach of contract. Boycotts are illegal when they bringthird parties into the dispute by threats of strikes, or loss ofbusiness, publication of "unfair lists, "[98] or by interference withInterstate commerce. Picketing is illegal when accompanied by violence, threats, intimidation, and coercion. In December 1921 the Supreme Courtdeclared mere numbers in groups constituted intimidation and, whileadmitting that circumstances may alter cases, limited peaceful picketingto one picket at each point of ingress or egress of the plant. [99] Inanother case the Court held unconstitutional an Arizona statute, whichreproduced _verbatim_ the labor clauses of the Clayton Act;[100] this onthe ground that concerted action by the union would be illegal if themeans used were illegal and therefore the law which operated to makethem legal deprived the plaintiff of his property without due process oflaw. In June 1922, in the Coronado case, the Court held that unions, although unincorporated, are in every respect like corporations and areliable for damages in their corporate capacity, including triple damagesunder the Sherman Anti-Trust law, and which may be collected from theirfunds. 

We have already pointed out that since the War ended the American labormovement has in the popular mind become linked with radicalism. Thesteel strike and the coal miners' strike in 1919, the revolt against thenational leaders and "outlaw" strikes in the printing industry and onthe railways in 1920, the advocacy by the organizations of the railwaymen of the Plumb Plan for nationalization of railways and its repeatedendorsement by the conventions of the American Federation of Labor, theresolutions in favor of the nationalization of coal mines passed at theconventions of the United Mine Workers, the "vacation" strike by theanthracite coal miners in defiance of a government wage award, thesympathy expressed for Soviet Russia in a number of unions, notably ofthe clothing industry, have led many to see, despite the assertions ofthe leaders of the American Federation of Labor to the contrary, anapparent drift in the labor movement towards radicalism, or even theprobability of a radical majority in the Federation in the not distantfuture. 

The most startling shift has been, of course, in the railway men'sorganizations, which have changed from a pronounced conservatism to anadvocacy of a socialistic plan of railway nationalization under thePlumb Plan. The Plumb Plan raises the issue of socialism in itsAmerican form. In bare outline the Plan proposes government acquisitionof the railroads at a value which excludes rights and privileges notspecifically granted to the roads in their charters from the States. Thegovernment would then lease the roads to a private operating corporationgoverned by a tri-partite board of directors equally representing theconsuming public, the managerial employes, and the classified employes. An automatic economy-sharing scheme was designed to assure efficientservice at low rates calculated to yield a fixed return on a value shornof capitalized privileges. 

The purpose of the Plumb Plan is to equalize the opportunities of laborand capital in using economic power to obtain just rewards for servicesrendered to the public. In this respect it resembles many of the landreform and other "panaceas" which are scattered through labor history. Wherein it differs is in making the trade unions the vital and organizedrepresentatives of producers' interests entitled to participate in thedirect management of industry. An ideal of copartnership andself-employment was thus set up, going beyond the boundaries ofself-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 Americanlabor program. Although the American Federation of Labor endorsed theprinciple of government ownership of the railways at its conventions of1920 and 1921, President Gompers, who spoke against the Plan, wasreelected and again reelected. And in obeying instructions to cooperatewith brotherhood leaders, he found that they also thought it inopportuneto press Plumb Plan legislation actively. So far as the railway menthemselves are concerned, after the Railroad Labor Board set up underthe Esch-Cummins act had begun to pass decisions actually affectingwages and working rules, the pressure for the Plumb Plan subsided. Instead, the activities of the organizations, though scarcely lessenedin intensity, have become centered upon the issues of conditions ofemployment. 

The drift towards independent labor politics, which many anticipate, also remains quite inconclusive. A Farmer-Labor party, launched in 1920by influential labor leaders of Chicago (to be sure, against the wishesof the national leaders), polled not more than 350, 000 votes. And in thesame election, despite a wide dissatisfaction in labor circles with thechange in the government's attitude after the passage of the Waremergency and with a most sweeping use of the injunction in the coalstrike, the vote for the socialist candidate for President fell below amillion, that is behind the vote of 1912, notwithstanding a doubling ofthe electorate with women's suffrage. Finally, the same convention ofthe American Federation of Labor, which showed so much sympathy for theideas of the Plumb Plan League, approved a rupture with theInternational Trade Union Federation, with headquarters in Amsterdam, Holland, mainly on account of the revolutionary character of theaddresses issued by the latter. 

FOOTNOTES:

[89] The most plausible argument in favor of the position taken by theemploying group is that no employer should be forced to decide mattersas intimately connected with the welfare of his business as the onesrelating to his labor costs and shop discipline with national unionleaders, since the latter, at best, are interested in the welfare of thetrade 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 astrike 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 avictory for the brotherhoods, but also extremely useful to the enemiesof 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 September1, 1920, the railways could not reduce wages. 

[93] A Protestant interdenominational organization of influence, whichinvestigated 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 allboycotts. 

[99] American Steel Foundries of Granite City, Illinois, _v. _ Tri-CityCentral 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 strugglebetween labor and capital in our present society. According to KarlMarx, the founder of modern socialism, the efficient cause in all theclass struggles of history has been technical progress. Progress in themode of making a living or the growth of "productive forces, " says Marx, causes the coming up of new classes and stimulates in each and allclasses a desire to use their power for a maximum class advantage. Referring to the struggle between the class of wage earners and theclass of employers, Marx brings out that modern machine technique hasconcentrated the social means of production under the ownership of thecapitalist, who thus became absolute master. The laborer indeed remainsa free man to dispose of his labor as he wishes, but, having lostpossession of the means of production, which he had as a master-workmanduring the preceding handicraft stage of industry, his freedom is onlyan illusion and his bargaining power is no greater than if he were aslave. 

But capitalism, Marx goes on to say, while it debases the worker, at thesame time produces the conditions of his ultimate elevation. Capitalismwith its starvation wages and misery makes the workers conscious oftheir common interests as an exploited class, concentrates them in alimited number of industrial districts, and forces them to organize fora struggle against the exploiters. The struggle is for the completedisplacement of the capitalists both in government and industry by therevolutionary labor class. Moreover, capitalism itself renders effectivealthough unintended aid to its enemies by developing the following threetendencies: First, we have the tendency towards the concentration ofcapital 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 agrowing misery of the wage-earning class, which keeps revolutionaryardor alive. And lastly, the inevitable and frequent economic crisesunder capitalism disorganize it and hasten it on towards destruction. The last and gravest capitalistic industrial crisis will coincide withthe social revolution which will bring capitalism to an end. Thewage-earning class must under no condition permit itself to be divertedfrom 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 ofMarxians by their refusal to accept the Marxian theory of socialdevelopment and the Marxian revolutionary goal. In fact, in theirthinking, most American wage earners do not start with any generaltheory of industrial society, but approach the subject as bargainers, desiring to strike the best wage bargain possible. They also have aconception of what the bargain ought to yield them by way of realincome, measured in terms of their customary standard of living, interms 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 thatthe employer owns the employment opportunities but that he possesses ahigh degree of bargaining advantage over them. Viewing the situation asbargainers, they are forced to give their best attention to the menacesthey encounter as bargainers, namely, to the competitive menaces; for onthese the employer's own advantage as a bargainer rests. Their impulseis therefore not to suppress the employer, but to suppress thosecompetitive menaces, be they convict labor, foreign labor, "green" oruntrained workers working on machines, and so forth. To do so they feelthey must organize into a union and engage in a "class struggle" againstthe employer. 

It is the employer's purpose to bring in ever lower and lower levels incompetition among laborers and depress wages; it is the purpose of theunion to eliminate those lower levels and to make them stay eliminated. That brings the union men face to face with the whole matter ofindustrial control. They have no assurance that the employer will notget the best of them in bargaining unless they themselves possess enoughcontrol over the shop and the trade to check him. Hence they will strivefor the "recognition" of the union by the employer or the associatedemployers as an acknowledged part of the government of the shop and thetrade. It is essential to note that in struggling for recognition, laboris struggling not for something absolute, as would be a struggle for acomplete dispossession of the employer, but for the sort of an end thatadmits of relative differences and gradations. Industrial control may bedivided in varying proportions, [101] reflecting at any one time therelative ratio of bargaining power of the contesting sides. It islabor's aim to continue increasing its bargaining power and with it itsshare of industrial control, just as it is the employer's aim tomaintain a _status quo_ or better. Although this presupposes acontinuous struggle, it is not a revolutionary but an "opportunist"struggle. 

Once we accept the view that a broadly conceived aim to controlcompetitive menaces is the key to the conduct of organized labor inAmerica, light is thrown on the causes of the American industrial classstruggles. In place of looking for these causes, with the Marxians, inthe domain of technique and production, we shall look for them on themarket, where all developments which affect labor as a bargainer andcompetitor, of which technical change is one, are sooner or later boundto register themselves. It will then become possible to account for thelong stretch of industrial class struggle in America prior to thefactory system, while industry continued on the basis of the handicraftmethod of production. Also we shall be able to render to ourselves aclearer account of the changes, with time, in the intensity of thestruggle, which, were we to follow the Marxian theory, would appearhopelessly irregular. 

We shall take for an illustration the shoe industry. [102] The ease withwhich shoes can be transported long distances, due to the relativelyhigh money value contained in small bulk, rendered the shoe industrymore sensitive to changes in marketing than other industries. Indeed wemay say that the shoe industry epitomized the general economic evolutionof the country. [103]

We observe no industrial class struggle during Colonial times when themarket remained purely local and the work was custom-order work. Thejourneyman found his standard of life protected along with the master'sown through the latter's ability to strike a favorable bargain with theconsumer. This was done by laying stress upon the quality of the work. It was mainly for this reason that during the custom-order stage ofindustry the journeymen seldom if ever raised a protest because theregulation of the craft, be it through a guild or through an informalorganization, lay wholly in the hands of the masters. Moreover, thetypical journeyman expected in a few years to set up with an apprenticeor two in business for himself--so there was a reasonable harmony ofinterests. 

A change came when improvements in transportation, the highway and laterthe canal, had widened the area of competition among masters. As a firststep, 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 hisbargaining capacity over the consumer was lessened and so priceseventually had to be reduced, and with them also wages. The next stepwas even more serious. Having succeeded in his retail business, themaster began to covet a still larger market, --the wholesale market. However, the competition in this wider market was much keener than ithad been in the custom-order or even in the retail market. It wasinevitable that both prices and wages should suffer in the process. Themaster, of course, could recoup himself by lowering the quality of theproduct, but when he did that he lost a telling argument in bargainingwith the consumer or the retail merchant. Another result of this new wayof conducting the business was that an increased amount of capital wasnow required for continuous operation, both in raw material and incredits extended to distant buyers. 

The next phase in the evolution of the market rendered the separation ofthe journeymen into a class by themselves even sharper as well as morepermanent. The market had grown to such dimensions that only aspecialist in marketing and credit could succeed in business, namely, the "merchant-capitalist. " The latter now interposed himself permanentlybetween "producer" and consumer and by his control of the market assumeda commanding position. The merchant-capitalist ran his business upon theprinciple of a large turn-over and a small profit per unit of product, which, of course, made his income highly speculative. He was accordinglyinterested primarily in low production and labor costs. To depress thewage levels he tapped new and cheaper sources of labor supply, in prisonlabor, low wage country-town labor, woman and child labor; and set themup as competitive menaces to the workers in the trade. Themerchant-capitalist system forced still another disadvantage upon thewage earner by splitting up crafts into separate operations and tappinglower levels of skill. In the merchant-capitalist period we find the"team work" and "task" system. The "team" was composed of severalworkers: a highly skilled journeyman was in charge, but the othermembers possessed varying degrees of skill down to the practicallyunskilled "finisher. " The team was generally paid a lump wage, whichwas divided by an understanding among the members. With all that themerchant-capitalist took no appreciable part in the productive process. His equipment consisted of a warehouse where the raw material was cut upand given out to be worked up by small contractors, to be worked up insmall shops with a few journeymen and apprentices, or else by thejourneyman at his home, --all being paid by the piece. This was thenotorious "sweatshop system. "

The contractor or sweatshop boss was a mere labor broker deriving hisincome from the margin between the piece rate he received from themerchant-capitalist and the rate he paid in wages. As any workman couldeasily become a contractor with the aid of small savings out of wages, or with the aid of money advanced by the merchant-capitalist, thecompetition between contractors was of necessity of the cut-throat kind. The industrial class struggle was now a three-cornered one, thecontractor aligning himself here with the journeymen, whom he was forcedto exploit, there with the merchant-capitalist, but more often with thelatter. Also, owing to the precariousness of the position of bothcontractor and journeyman, the class struggle now reached a new pitch ofintensity hitherto unheard of. It is important to note, however, that asyet the tools of production had not undergone any appreciable change, remaining hand tools as before, and also that the journeyman still ownedthem. So that the beginning of class struggles had nothing to do withmachine technique and a capitalist ownership of the tools of production. The capitalist, however, had placed himself across the outlets to themarket and dominated by using all the available competitive menaces toboth contractor and wage earner. Hence the bitter class struggle. 

The thirties witnessed the beginning of the merchant-capitalist systemin the cities of the East. But the situation grew most serious duringthe forties and fifties. That was a period of the greatestdisorganization of industry. The big underlying cause was the rapidextension 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 themerchant-capitalists. But the industrial equipment at their disposal hadmade no considerable progress. Except in the textile industry, machineryhad not yet been invented or sufficiently perfected to make itsapplication profitable. Consequently industrial society was in theposition of an antiquated public utility in a community whichpersistently forces ever lower and lower rates. It could continue torender service only by cutting down the returns to the factors ofproduction, --by lowering profits, and especially by pressing down wages. 

In the sixties the market became a national one as the effect of theconsolidation into trunk lines of the numerous and disconnected railwaylines built during the forties and fifties. Coincident with thenationalized market for goods, production began to change from ahandicraft to a machine basis. The former sweatshop boss havingaccumulated some capital, or with the aid of credit, now became a small"manufacturer, " owning a small plant and employing from ten to fiftyworkmen. Machinery increased the productivity of labor and gave aconsiderable margin of profits, which enabled him to begin laying afoundation 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 bedistributed, called more than ever before for the services of thespecialist in marketing, namely, the wholesale-jobber. As the marketextended, he sent out his traveling men, established businessconnections, and advertised the articles which bore his trade mark. Hiscontrol of the market opened up credit with the banks, while themanufacturer, who with the exception of his patents possessed onlyphysical capital and no market opportunities, found it difficult toobtain credit. Moreover, the rapid introduction of machinery tied up allof the manufacturers' available capital and forced him to turn hisproducts into money as rapidly as possible, with the inevitable resultthat the merchant was given an enormous bargaining advantage over him. Had the extension of the market and the introduction of machineryproceeded at a less rapid pace, the manufacturer probably would havebeen able to obtain greater control over the market opportunities, andthe larger credit which this would have given him, combined with theaccumulation of his own capital, might have been sufficient to meet hisneeds. However, as the situation really developed, the merchant obtaineda superior bargaining power and, by playing off the competingmanufacturers one against another, produced a cut-throat competition, low prices, low profits, and consequently a steady and insistentpressure upon wages. This represents the situation in the seventies andeighties. 

For labor the combination of cut-throat competition among employers withthe new machine technique brought serious consequences. In this era ofmachinery the forces of technical evolution decisively joined handswith the older forces of marketing evolution to depress the conditionsof the wage bargain. It is needless to dilate upon the effects ofmachine technique on labor conditions--they have become a commonplace ofpolitical economy. The shoemakers were first among the organized tradesto feel the effects. In the later sixties they organized what was thenthe 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 onmachines. With the machinists and the metal trades in general, theinvasion of unskilled and little skilled competitors began a decadelater. But the main and general invasion came in the eighties, theproper era from which to date machine production in America. It wasduring the eighties that we witness an attempted fusion into oneorganization, the Order of the Knights of Labor, of the machine-menacedmechanics and the hordes of the unskilled. [105]

With the nineties a change comes at last. The manufacturer finally winshis independence. Either he reaches out directly to the ultimateconsumer by means of chains of stores or other devices, or else, hemakes use of his control over patents and trade marks and thus succeedsin reducing the wholesale-jobber to a position which more nearlyresembles that of an agent working on a commission basis than that ofthe _quondam_ industrial ruler. The immediate outcome is, of course, aconsiderable increase in the manufacturer's margin of profit. Theindustrial class struggle begins to abate in intensity. The employer, now comparatively free of anxiety that he may be forced to operate at aloss, is able to diminish pressure on wages. But more than this: thegreater certainty about the future, now that he is a free agent, enableshim to enter into time agreements with a trade union. At first he isgenerally disinclined to forego any share of his newly acquired freedomby tying himself up with a union. But if the union is strong and canoffer battle, then he accepts the situation and "recognizes" it. Thusthe class struggle instead of becoming sharper and sharper with theadvance of capitalism and leading, as Marx predicted, to a socialrevolution, in reality, grows less and less revolutionary and leads to acompromise or succession of compromises, --namely, collective tradeagreements. 

But the manufacturer's emancipation from the middleman need not alwayslead to trade agreements. In the shoe industry this process did not doaway with competition. In other industries such an emancipation wasidentical with the coming in of the "trust, " or a combination ofcompeting manufacturers into a monopoly. As soon as the "trust" becomespractically the sole employer of labor in an industry, the relationsbetween labor and capital are thrown almost invariably back into thestate of affairs which characterized the merchant-capitalist system atits worst, but with one important difference. Whereas under themerchant-capitalist system the employer was _obliged_ to press down onwages and fight unionism to death owing to cut-throat competition, the"trust, " its strength supreme in both commodity and labor market, can doso and usually does so _of free choice_. 

The character of the labor struggle has been influenced by cyclicalchanges in industry as much as by the permanent changes in theorganization of industry and market. In fact, whereas reaction to thelatter has generally been slow and noticeable only over long periods oftime, with a turn in the business cycle, the labor movement reactedsurely and instantaneously. 

We observed over the greater part of the history of American labor analternation 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, whileaction took the form of politics. On the lower plane, labor abandonedthe ultimate for the proximate, centering on betterments within thelimits of the wage system and on trade-union activity. Labor history inthe past century was largely a story of labor's shifting from one planeto another, and then again to the first. It was also seen that whatdetermined the plane of thought and action at any one time was the stateof business measured by movements of wholesale and retail prices andemployment and unemployment. When prices rose and margins of employers'profits were on the increase, the demand for labor increased andaccordingly also labor's strength as a bargainer; at the same time, labor was compelled to organize to meet a rising cost of living. At suchtimes trade unionism monopolized the arena, won strikes, increasedmembership, and forced "cure-alls" and politics into the background. When, however, prices fell and margins of profit contracted, labor'sbargaining strength waned, strikes were lost, trade unions faced thedanger of extinction, and "cure-alls" and politics received their day incourt. Labor would turn to government and politics only as a lastresort, when it had lost confidence in its ability to hold its own inindustry. This phenomenon, noticeable also in other countries, came outwith 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, anirredeemable paper currency moved up the water mark of prices totremendous heights followed by reactions of corresponding depth. Fromthe war of 1812, the actual beginning of an industrial America, to theend of the century, the country went through several such completeindustrial and business cycles. We therefore conveniently divide laborand trade union history into periods on the basis of the industrialcycle. It was only in the nineties, as we saw, that the response of thelabor movement to price fluctuations ceased to mean a complete or nearlycomplete abandonment of trade unionism during depressions. A continuousand stable trade union movement consequently dates only from thenineties. 

The cooperative movement which was, as we saw, far less continuous thantrade unionism, has also shown the effects of the business cycle. Thecareer of distributive cooperation in America has always been intimatelyrelated to the movements of retail prices and wages. If, in the advanceof wages and prices during the ascending portion of the industrialcycle, the cost of living happened to outdistance wages by a widemargin, the wage earners sought a remedy in distributive cooperation. They acted likewise during the descending portion of the industrialcycle, when retail prices happened to fall much less slowly than wages. 

Producers' cooperation in the United States has generally been a "hardtimes" remedy. When industrial prosperity has passed its high crest andstrikes have begun to fail, producers' cooperation has often been usedas a retaliatory measure to bring the employer to terms by menacing tounderbid him in the market. Also, when in the further downward course ofindustry the point has been reached where cuts in wages and unemploymenthave become quite common, producers' cooperation has sometimes come inas an attempt to enable the wage earner to obtain both employment andhigh earnings bolstered through cooperative profits. 

FOOTNOTES:

[101] The struggle for control, as carried on by trade unions, centerson such matters as methods of wage determination, the employer's rightof discharge, hiring and lay-off, division of work, methods of enforcingshop discipline, introduction of machinery and division of labor, transfers of employes, promotions, the union or non-union shop, andsimilar subjects. 

[102] The first trade societies were organized by shoemakers. (Seeabove, 4-7. )

[103] See Chapter on "American Shoemakers, " in _Labor andAdministration_, 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, itslimited objective. As we saw before, the social order which the typicalAmerican trade unionist considers ideal is one in which organized laborand organized capital possess equal bargaining power. The American tradeunionist wants, first, an equal voice with the employer in fixing wagesand, second, a big enough control over the productive processes toprotect job, health, and organization. Yet he does not appear to wish tosaddle himself and fellow wage earners with the trouble of runningindustry without the employer. 

But materialistic though this philosophy appears, it is nevertheless theproduct of a long development to which the spiritual contributed no lessthan the material. In fact the American labor movement arrived at anopportunist trade unionism only after an endeavor spread over more thanseventy years to realize a more idealistic program. 

American labor started with the "ideology" of the Declaration ofIndependence in 1776. Intended as a justification of a politicalrevolution, the Declaration was worded by the authors as an expressionof faith in a social revolution. To controvert the claims of George III, Thomas Jefferson quoted Rousseau. To him Rousseau was in all probabilitylittle more than an abstract "beau idéal, " but Rousseau's abstractionswere no mere abstractions to the pioneer American farmer. To the latterthe doctrine that all men are born free and equal seemed to have growndirectly out of experience. So it appeared, two or three generationslater, to the young workmen when they for the first time achievedpolitical consciousness. And, if reality ceased to square with theprinciples of the Declaration, it became, they felt, the bounden duty ofevery true American to amend reality. 

Out of a combination of the principles of individual rights, individualself-determination, equality of opportunity, and political equalityenumerated and suggested in the Declaration, arose the first and mostpersistent American labor philosophy. This philosophy differed in nowise from the philosophy of the old American democracy except inemphasis and particular application, yet these differences are highlysignificant. Labor read into the Declaration of Independence acondemnation of the wage system as a permanent economic régime; sooneror later in place of the wage system had to come _self-employment_. Americanism to them was a social and economic as well as a politicalcreed. Economic self-determination was as essential to the individual aspolitical equality. Just as no true American will take orders from aking, 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 thepropelling force of the changing economic environment that molded theAmerican labor program. 

We find it at work at first in the decade of the thirties at the verybeginning of the labor movement. It then took the form of a demand for afree public school system. These workingmen in Philadelphia and New Yorkdiscovered that in the place of the social democracy of theDeclaration, America had developed into an "aristocracy. " They thoughtthat the root of it all lay in "inequitable" legislation which fostered"monopoly, " hence the remedy lay in democratic legislation. But theyfurther realized that a political and social democracy must be based onan educated and intelligent working class. No measure, therefore, couldbe more than a palliative until they got a "Republican" system ofeducation. The workingmen's parties of 1828-1831 failed as parties, buthumanitarians like Horace Mann took up the struggle for free publiceducation and carried it to success. 

If in the thirties the labor program was to restore a social andpolitical democracy by means of the public school, in the forties theprogram centered on economic democracy, on equality of economicopportunity. This took the form of a demand of a grant of public landfree of charge to everyone willing to brave the rigors of pioneer life. The government should thus open an escape to the worker from the wagesystem into self-employment by way of free land. After years ofagitation, the same cry was taken up by the Western States eager formore settlers to build up their communities and this combined agitationproved irresistible and culminated in the Homestead law of 1862. 

The Homestead law opened up the road to self-employment by way of freeland and agriculture. But in the sixties the United States was alreadybecoming an industrial country. In abandoning the city for the farm, thewage earner would lose the value of his greatest possession--his skill. Moreover, as a homesteader, his problem was far from solved by mereaccess to free land. Whether he went on the land or stayed in industry, he needed access to reasonably free credit. The device invented byworkingmen to this end was the bizarre "greenback" idea which held theirminds as if in a vise for nearly twenty years. "Greenbackism" left nosuch permanent trace on American social and economic structure as"Republican education" or "free land. "

The lure of "greenbackism" was that it offered an opportunity forself-employment. But already in the sixties, it became clear that theworkingman 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 hadgone beyond the one-man-shop stage; self-employment had to stand or fallwith the cooperative or self-governing workshop. The protagonist of thismost interesting and most idealistic striving of American labor was the"Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, " which reached its height in themiddle of the eighties. 

The period of the greatest enthusiasm for cooperation was between 1884and 1887; and by 1888 the cooperative movement had passed the full cycleof life and succumbed. The failure of cooperation proved a turning pointin the evolution of the American labor program. Whatever the specialcauses of failure, the idealistic unionism, for which the ideas of theDeclaration of Independence served as a fountain head, suffered in theeyes of labor, a degree of discredit so overwhelming that to regain itsold position was no longer possible. The times were ripe for theopportunistic unionism of Gompers and the trade unionists. 

These latter, having started in the seventies as Marxian socialists, hadbeen made over into opportunistic unionists by their practical contactwith American conditions. Their philosophy was narrower than that of theKnights and their concept of labor solidarity narrower still. However, these trade unionists demonstrated that they could win strikes. It wasto this practical trade unionism, then, that the American labor movementturned, about 1890, when the idealism of the Knights of Labor hadfailed. From groping for a cooperative economic order orself-employment, labor turned with the American Federation of Labor todeveloping bargaining power for use against employers. This tradeunionism stood for a strengthened group consciousness. While itcontinued to avow sympathy with the "anti-monopoly" aspirations of the"producers, " who fought for the opportunity of self-employment, it alsodeclared that the interests of democracy will be best served if the wageearners organized by themselves. 

This opportunist unionism, now at last triumphant over the idealisticunionism induced by America's spiritual tradition, soon was obliged tofight against a revolutionary unionism which, like itself, was anoffshoot of the socialism of the seventies. At first, the AmericanFederation of Labor was far from hostile to socialism as a philosophy. Its attitude was rather one of mild contempt for what it considered tobe wholly impracticable under American conditions, however necessary orefficacious under other conditions. When, about 1890, the socialistsdeclared their policy of "boring from within, " that is, of capturing theFederation for socialism by means of propaganda in Federation ranks, this attitude remained practically unchanged. Only when, dissatisfiedwith the results of boring from within, the socialists, now led by amore determined leadership, attempted in 1895 to set up a rival to theFederation in the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, was there a sharpline drawn between socialist and anti-socialist in the Federation. Theissue once having become a fighting issue, the leaders of the Federationexperienced the need of a positive and well rounded-out socialphilosophy capable of meeting socialism all along the front instead ofthe former self-imposed super-pragmatism. 

By this time, the Federation had become sufficiently removed in point oftime from its foreign origin to turn to the social ideal derived frompioneer America as the philosophy which it hoped would successfullycombat an aggressive and arrogant socialism. Thus it came about that thefront against socialism was built out from the immediate and practicalinto the ultimate and spiritual; and that inferences drawn from areading of Jefferson's Declaration, with its emphasis on individualliberty, were pressed into service against the seductive collectivistforecasts of Marx. 

CHAPTER 14

WHY THERE IS NOT AN AMERICAN LABOR PARTY

The question of a political labor party hinges, in the last analysis, onthe benefits which labor expects from government. If, under theconstitution, government possesses considerable power to regulateindustrial relations and improve labor conditions, political power isworth striving for. If, on the contrary, the power of the government isrestricted by a rigid organic law, the matter is reversed. The latter isthe situation in the United States. The American constitutions, bothFederal and State, contain bills of rights which embody in fullness theeighteenth-century philosophy of economic individualism and governmental_laissez-faire_. The courts, Federal and State, are given the right tooverride any law enacted by Congress or the State legislatures which maybe shown to conflict with constitutional rights. 

In the exercise of this right, American judges have always inclined tobe very conservative in allowing the legislature to invade the provinceof economic freedom. At present after many years of agitation byhumanitarians and trade unionists, the cause of legislative protectionof child and woman laborers seems to be won in principle. But thisprogress has been made because it has been shown conclusively that theprotection of these most helpless groups of the wage-earning classclearly falls within the scope of public purpose and is therefore alawful exercise of the state's police power within the meaning of theconstitution. However, adult male labor offers a far different case. Moreover, should the unexpected happen and the courts become convertedto a broader view, the legislative standards would be small comparedwith the standards already enforced by most of the trade unions. Consequently, so far as adult male workers are concerned (and they areof course the great bulk of organized labor), labor in America wouldscarcely be justified in diverting even a part of its energy from tradeunionism to a relatively unprofitable seeking of redress throughlegislatures and courts. [106]

But this is no more than half the story. Granting even that politicalpower may be worth having, its attainment is beset with difficulties anddangers more than sufficient to make responsible leaders pause. Thecauses reside once more in the form of government, also in the generalnature of American politics, and in political history and tradition. Tobegin with, labor would have to fight not on one front, but onforty-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 thelegislature. Decidedly, government in America was built not for strengthbut for weakness. The splitting up of sovereignty does not especiallyinterfere with the purposes of a conservative party, but to a party ofsocial and industrial reform it offers a disheartening obstacle. A laborparty, to be effective, would be obliged to capture all the diffusedbits 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 simultaneouslywith a new gain. But we have assumed here that the labor party hadreached the point where its trials are the trials of a party in power ornearing power. In reality, American labor parties are spared this sortof trouble by trials of an anterior order residing in the nature ofAmerican politics. 

The American political party system antedates the formation of moderneconomic classes, especially the class alignment of labor and capital. Each of the old parties represents, at least in theory, the entireAmerican community regardless of class. Party differences are considereddifferences of opinion or of judgment on matters of public policy, notdifferences of class interest. The wage earner in America, who never hadto fight for his suffrage but received it as a free gift from theJeffersonian and Jacksonian democratic movements and who did nottherefore develop the political class consciousness which was stampedinto the workers in Europe by the feeling of revolt against an upperruling class, is prone to adopt the same view of politics. Class partiesin America have always been effectively countered by the old establishedparties with the charge that they tend to incite class against class. 

But the old parties had on numerous occasions, as we saw, an even moreeffective weapon. No sooner did a labor party gain a foothold, than theold party politician, the "friend of labor, " did appear and start arival attraction by a more or less verbal adherence to one or moreplanks of the rising party. Had he been, as in Europe, a brandedspokesman of a particular economic class or interest, it would not havebeen difficult to ward him off. But here in America, he said that he toowas a workingman and was heart and soul for the workingman. Moreover, the workingman was just as much attached to an old party label as anyaverage American. In a way he considered it an assertion of his socialequality with any other group of Americans that he could afford to takethe same "disinterested" and tradition-bound view of political strugglesas the rest. This is why labor parties generally encountered suchdisheartening receptions at the hands of workingmen; also why it wasdifficult to "deliver the labor vote" to any party. This, on the whole, describes the condition of affairs today as it does the situations inthe past. 

In the end, should the workingman be pried loose from his traditionalparty affiliation by a labor event of transcendent importance for thetime being, should he be stirred to political revolt by an oppressivecourt decision, or the use of troops to break a strike; then, at thenext election, when the excitement has had time to subside, he willusually return to his political normality. Moreover, should labordiscontent attain depth, it may be safely assumed that either one or theother of the old parties or a faction therein will seek to divert itsdriving force into its own particular party channel. Should the laborparty still persist, the old party politicians, whose bailiwick it willhave particularly invaded, will take care to encourage, by means notalways ethical but nearly always effective, strife in its ranks. Shouldthat fail, the old parties will in the end "fuse" against the upstartrival. If they are able to stay "fused" during enough elections and alsowin them, the fidelity of the adherent of the third party is certain tobe put to a hard and unsuccessful test. To the outsider theseconclusions may appear novel, but labor in America learned these lessonsthrough a long experience, which began when the first workingmen'sparties were attempted in 1828-1832. The limited potentialities of laborlegislation together with the apparent hopelessness of labor partypolitics compelled the American labor movement to develop a sort ofnon-partisan political action with limited objectives thoroughlycharacteristic of American conditions. Labor needs protection frominterference by the courts in the exercise of its economic weapons, thestrike and the boycott, upon which it is obviously obliged to placeespecial reliance. In other words, though labor may refuse to be drawninto 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 sakeof a _negative_ gain--a judicial _laissez-faire_. That labor does bypursuing a policy of "reward your friends" and "punish your enemies" inthe sphere of politics. The method itself is an old one in the labormovement; we saw it practiced by George Henry Evans and the landreformers of the forties as well as by Steward and the advocates of theeight-hour day by law in the sixties. The American Federation of Labormerely 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 matchedin strength, that portion of the labor vote which is politicallyconscious of its economic interests may swing the election to whicheverside it turns. Under certain conditions[108] labor has been known evento attain through such indirection in excess of what it might have wonhad it come to share in power as a labor party. 

The controversy around labor in politics brings up in the last analysisthe whole problem of leadership in labor organizations, or to bespecific, the role of the intellectual in the movement. In America hisrole has been remarkably restricted. For a half century or more theeducated classes had no connection with the labor movement, for in theforties and fifties, when the Brook Farm enthusiasts and theirassociates took up with fervor the social question, they were reallyalone in the field, since the protracted trade depression had laid alllabor organization low. It was in the eighties, with the turmoil of theKnights of Labor and the Anarchist bomb in Chicago, that the"intellectuals" first awakened to the existence of a labor problem. Tothis awakening no single person contributed more than the economistProfessor Richard T. Ely, then of Johns Hopkins University. His pioneerwork on the _Labor Movement in America_ published in 1886, and the worksof his many capable students gave the labor movement a permanent placein the public mind, besides presenting the cause of labor withscientific precision and with a judicious balance. Among the otherpioneers were preachers like Washington Gladden and Lyman Abbott, whoconceived their duty as that of mediators between the business class andthe wage earning class, exhorting the former to deal with their employesaccording to the Golden Rule and the latter to moderation in theirdemands. Together with the economists they helped to break down theprejudice against labor unionism in so far as the latter wasnon-revolutionary. And though their influence was large, they understoodthat their maximum usefulness would be realized by remaining sympatheticoutsiders and not by seeking to control the course of the labormovement. 

In recent years a new type of intellectual has come to the front. Aproduct of a more generalized mental environment than his predecessor, he is more daring in his retrospects and his prospects. He is just asready to advance an "economic interpretation of the constitution" as toadvocate a collectivistic panacea for the existing industrial and socialills. Nor did this new intellectual come at an inopportune time forgetting a hearing. Confidence in social conservatism has been underminedby an exposure in the press and through legislative investigations ofthe disreputable doings of some of the staunchest conservatives. At sucha juncture "progressivism" and a "new liberalism" were bound to comeinto their own in the general opinion of the country. 

But the labor movement resisted. American labor, both during the periodsof neglect and of moderate championing by the older generation ofintellectuals, has developed a leadership wholly its own. Thisleadership, of which Samuel Gompers is the most notable example, hasgiven years and years to building up a united fighting _morale_ in thearmy of labor. And because the _morale_ of an army, as these leadersthought, is strong only when it is united upon one common attainablepurpose, the intellectual with his new and unfamiliar issues has beengiven the cold shoulder by precisely the trade unionists in whom he hadanticipated to find most eager disciples. The intellectual might go fromsuccess to success in conquering the minds of the middle classes; thelabor movement largely remains closed to him. 

To make matters worse the intellectual has brought with him a psychologywhich is particularly out of fit with the American labor situation. Wenoted that the American labor movement became shunted from the politicalarena into the economic one by virtue of fundamental conditions ofAmerican political institutions and political life. However, it isprecisely in political activity where the intellectual is most at home. The clear-cut logic and symmetry of political platforms based on generaltheories, the broad vistas which it may be made to encompass, and lastlythe opportunity for eloquent self-expression offered by parliamentarydebates, all taken together exert a powerful attraction for theintellectualized mind. Contrast with this the prosaic humdrum work of atrade union leader, the incessant wrangling over "small" details and"petty" grievances, and the case becomes exceedingly clear. The mind ofthe typical intellectual is too generalized to be lured by any suchalternative. He is out of patience with mere amelioration, even thoughit may mean much in terms of human happiness to the worker and hisfamily. 

When in 1906, in consequence of the heaping up of legal disabilitiesupon the trade unions, American labor leaders turned to politics to seeka restraining hand upon the courts, [109] the intellectuals foresaw apolitical labor party in the not distant future. They predicted that onestep would inevitably lead to another, that from a policy of barteringwith the old parties for anti-injunction planks in their platforms, labor would turn to a political party of its own. The intellectualcritic continues to view the political action of the AmericanFederation 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 ofold-party politicians. On the contrary, the Federation leaders, as weknow, regard their political work as a necessary evil, due to anunfortunate turn of affairs, which forces them from time to time to stepout 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 unionisthas begun to take place. However, it is not founded on the relationshipof leader and led, but only on a business relationship, or that of giverand receiver of paid technical advice. The role of the trained economistin handling statistics and preparing "cases" for trade unionists beforeboards of arbitration is coming to be more and more appreciated. Therailway men's organizations were first to put the intellectual to thisuse, the miners and others followed. From this it is still a far cry tothe role of such intellectuals as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, G. D. H. Coleand the Fabian Research group in England, who have really permeated theBritish labor movement with their views on labor policy. However, thereis also a place for the American intellectual as an ally of tradeunionism, not only as its paid servant. The American labor movement hascommitted a grave and costly error because it has not made use of theservices of writers, journalists, lecturers, and speakers to popularizeits cause with the general public. Some of its recent defeats, notablythe steel strike of 1919, were partly due to the neglect to provide asufficient organization of labor publicity to counteract the anti-unionpublicity by the employers. 

FOOTNOTES:

[106] This assumes that the legislative program of labor would dealprimarily with the regulation of labor conditions in private employmentanalogous to the legislative program of the British trade unions untilrecent years. Should labor in America follow the newer program of laborin Britain and demand the taking over of industries by government withcompensation, it is not certain that the courts would prove as serious abarrier as in the other case. However, the situation would remainunchanged so far as the difficulties discussed in the remainder of thischapter are concerned. 

[107] For the control of the national government and of the forty-eightState 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-earningclass in revolutionary Russia in 1917 has focussed public opinion on thelabor question as no other event ever did. But one will scarcely saythat it has tended to clarity of thought. On the one hand, theconservative feels confirmed in his old suspicions that there issomething inherently revolutionary in any labor movement. The extremeradical, on the other hand, is as uncritically hopeful for a Bolshevistupheaval in America as the conservative or reactionary is uncriticallyfearful. Both forget that an effective social revolution is not theproduct of mere chance and "mob psychology, " nor even of propagandahowever assiduous, but always of a new preponderance of power as betweencontending economic classes. 

To students of the social sciences, it is self-evident that theprolonged rule of the proletariat in Russia in defiance of nearly thewhole world must be regarded as a product of Russian life, past andpresent. In fact, the continued Bolshevist rule seems to be an index ofthe relative fighting strength of the several classes in Russiansociety--the industrial proletariat, the landed and industrialpropertied class, and the peasantry. 

It is an irony of fate that the same revolution which purports to enactinto life the Marxian social program should belie the truth of Marx'smaterialistic interpretation of history and demonstrate that history isshaped by both economic and non-economic forces. Marx, as is well known, taught that history is a struggle between classes, in which the landedaristocracy, the capitalist class, and the wage earning class are raisedsuccessively to rulership as, with the progress of society's technicalequipment, first one and then another class can operate it with themaximum efficiency. Marx assumed that when the time has arrived for agiven economic class to take the helm, that class will be found in fullpossession of all the psychological attributes of a ruling class, namely, an indomitable will to power, no less than the more vulgardesire for the emoluments that come with power. Apparently, Marx tookfor granted that economic evolution is inevitably accompanied by acorresponding development of an effective will to power in the classdestined to rule. Yet, whatever may be the case in the countries of theWest, in Russia the ruling classes, the gentry and the capitalists, clearly failed in the psychological test at the critical time. Thisfailure is amply attested by the manner in which they submittedpractically without a fight after the Bolshevist coup _d'état_. 

To get at the secret of this apparent feebleness and want of spunk inRussia's ruling class one must study a peculiarity of her history, namely, the complete dominance of Russia's development by organizedgovernment. Where the historian of the Western countries must takeaccount of several independent forces, each standing for a social class, the Russian historian may well afford to station himself on the highpeak of government and, from this point of vantage, survey the hills andvales 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 ashadow of the Western contemporary medieval landed aristocracy. When theseveral principalities became united with the Czardom of Muscovy manycenturies ago, the Boyar was in fact no more than a steward of theCzar's estate and a leader of a posse defending his property; the mosthe dared to do was surreptitiously to obstruct the carrying out of theCzar's intentions; he dared not try to impose the will of his class uponthe crown. The other classes were even more apolitical. So little didthe several classes aspire to domination that they missed many goldenopportunities to seize and hold a share of the political power. In theseventeenth century, when the government was exceptionally weak afterwhat is known as the "period of troubles, " it convoked periodical"assemblies of the land" to help administer the country. But, as amatter of fact, these assemblies considered themselves ill used becausethey were asked to take part in government and not once did they aspireto an independent position in the Russian body politic. Another andperhaps even more striking instance we find a century and a half later. Catherine the Great voluntarily turned over the local administration tothe nobles and to that end decreed that the nobility organize themselvesinto provincial associations. But so little did the nobility care forpolitical power and active class prerogative that, in spite of thebroadest possible charters, the associations of nobles were never morethan social organizations in the conventional sense of the word. 

Even less did the commercial class aspire to independence. In the Westof Europe mercantilism answered in an equal measure the needs of anexpanding state and of a vigorous middle class, the latter being no lessardent in the pursuit of gain than the former in the pursuit ofconquest. In Russia, on the other hand, when Peter the Great wantedmanufacturing, he had to introduce it by government action. Hence, Russian mercantilism was predominantly a state mercantilism. Even wherePeter succeeded in enlisting private initiative by subsidies, instead ofbuilding up a class of independent manufacturers, he merely createdindustrial 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 factorysystem likewise owes its origin to governmental initiative, namely, tothe government's railway-building policy. The government built therailways for strategic and fiscal reasons but incidentally created aunified internal market which made mass-production of articles of commonconsumption profitable for the first time. But, even after Russiancapitalism was thus enabled to stand on its own feet, it did not unlearnthe habit of leaning on the government for advancement rather thanrelying on its own efforts. On its part the autocratic government wasloath to let industry alone. The government generously dispensed to thecapitalists tariff protection and bounties in the form of profitableorders, but insisted on keeping industry under its thumb. And thoughthey might chafe, still the capitalists never neglected to make the bestof the situation. For instance, when the sugar producers foundthemselves running into a hole from cut-throat competition, theyappealed to the Minister of Finances, who immediately created agovernment-enforced "trust" and assured them huge dividends. Sincebusiness success was assured by keeping on the proper footing with agenerous government rather than by relying on one's own vigor, it standsto reason that, generally speaking, the capitalists and especially thelarger capitalists, could develop only into a class of industrialcourtiers. And when at last the autocracy fell, the courtiers were notto be turned overnight into stubborn champions of the rights of theirclass amid the turmoil of a revolution. To be sure, Russia had enteredthe capitalistic stage as her Marxians had predicted, but neverthelessher capitalists were found to be lacking the indomitable will to powerwhich makes a ruling class. 

The weakness of the capitalists in the fight on behalf of privateproperty may be explained in part by their want of allies in the otherclasses in the community. The Russian peasant, reared in the atmosphereof communal land ownership, was far from being a fanatical defender ofprivate property. No Thiers could have rallied a Russian peasant armyfor the suppression of a communistic industrial wage-earning class by anappeal to their property instinct. To make matters worse for thecapitalists, the peasant's strongest craving was for more land, all theland, without compensation! This the capitalists, being capitalists, were unable to grant. Yet it was the only sort of currency which thepeasant would accept in payment for his political support. In November, 1917, when the Bolsheviki seized the government, one of their first actswas to satisfy the peasant's land hunger by turning over to his use allthe land. The "proletariat" had then a free hand so far as the mostnumerous class in Russia was concerned. 

Just as the capitalist class reached the threshold of the revolutionpsychologically below par, so the wage-earning class in developing thewill to rule outran all expectations and beat the Marxian time-schedule. Among the important contributing factors was the unity of the industriallaboring class, a unity broken by no rifts between highly paid skilledgroups and an inferior unskilled class, or between a well-organizedlabor aristocracy and an unorganized helot class. The economic andsocial oppression under the old régime had seen to it that no group oflaborers should possess a stake in the existing order or desire toseparate from the rest. Moreover, for several decades, and especiallysince the memorable days of the revolution of 1905, the laboring classhas been filled by socialistic agitators and propagandists with ideas ofthe great historical role of the proletariat. The writer remembers howin 1905 even newspapers of the moderately liberal stamp used to speak ofthe "heroic proletariat marching in the van of Russia's progress. " Nowonder then that, when the revolution came, the industrial wage earnershad developed such self-confidence as a class that they were tempted todisregard the dictum of their intellectual mentors that this was merelyto 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 inthe course of the abortive revolution of 1905-1906. After a victory forthe people in October, 1905, the bourgeoisie grew frightened over theaggressiveness of the wage-earning class and sought safety in anunderstanding with the autocracy. An order by the Soviet of Petrogradworkmen in November, 1905, decreeing the eight-hour day in all factoriessufficed to make the capitalists forego their historical role ofchampions of popular liberty against autocracy. If the bourgeoisieitself will not fight for a democracy, reasoned the revolutionarysocialists, why have such a democracy at all? Have we not seen thedemocratic form of government lend itself to ill-concealed plutocracy inEurope and America? Why run at all the risk of corruption of thepost-revolutionary government at the hands of the capitalists? Why firstadmit the capitalists into the inner circle and then spend time andeffort in preventing them from coming to the top? Therefore, theydeclined parliamentarism with thanks and would accept nothing less thana government by the representative organ of the workers--the Soviets. 

If we are right in laying the emphasis on the relative fighting will andfighting strength of the classes struggling for power rather than on thedoctrines which they preach and the methods, fair or foul, which theypractice, then the American end of the problem, too, appears in a newlight. No longer is it in the main a matter of taking sides for oragainst the desirability of a Bolshevist rule or a dictatorship by theproletariat, but a matter of ascertaining the relative strength andprobable 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 forBolshevism's advent in the United States. Either view misses theall-important point that so far as social structure is concerned Americais the antipodes of Russia, where the capitalists have shown littlefighting spirit, where the tillers of the soil are only first awakeningto a conscious desire for private property and are willing to foregotheir natural share in government for a gift of land, and where theindustrial proletariat is the only class ready and unafraid to fight. Bolshevism is unthinkable in America, because, even if by someimaginable accident the government were overthrown and a labordictatorship declared, it could never "stay put. " No one who knows theAmerican business class will even dream that it would under anycircumstances surrender to a revolution perpetrated by a minority, orthat it would wait for foreign intervention before starting hostilities. A Bolshevist _coup d'état_ in America would mean a civil war to thebitter end, and a war in which the numerous class of farmers would jointhe capitalists in the defense of the institution of privateproperty. [110]

But it is not only because the preponderance of social power in theUnited States is so decisively with private property that America isproof against a social upheaval like the Russian one. Another andperhaps as important a guarantee of her social stability is found in herfour million organized trade unionists. For, however unjustly they mayfeel to have been treated by the employers or the government; howeverslow they may find the realization of their ideals of collectivebargaining in industry; their stakes in the existing order, bothspiritual and material, are too big to reconcile them to revolution. Thetruth is that the revolutionary labor movement in America looms up muchbigger than it actually is. Though in many strikes since the famoustextile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1911, the leadership wasrevolutionary, it does not follow that the rank and file was animated bythe same purpose. Given an inarticulate mass of grievously exploitedworkers speaking many foreign tongues and despised alike by thepolitician, the policeman, and the native American labor organizer;given a group of energetic revolutionary agitators who make the cause ofthese workers their own and become their spokesmen and leaders; and asituation will clearly arise where thousands of workmen will beapparently marshalled under the flag of revolution while in reality itis the desire for a higher wage and not for a realization of thesyndicalist program that reconciles them to starving their wives andchildren and to shedding their blood on picket duty. If they follow aHaywood or an Ettor, it is precisely because they have been ignored by aGolden or a Gompers. 

Withal, then, trade unionism, despite an occasional revolutionary facetand despite a revolutionary clamor especially on its fringes, is aconservative social force. Trade unionism seems to have the samemoderating effect upon society as a wide diffusion of private property. In fact the gains of trade unionism are to the worker on a par withprivate property to its owner. The owner regards his property as aprotective dyke between himself and a ruthless biological struggle forexistence; his property means liberty and opportunity to escapedictation by another man, an employer or "boss, " or at least a chance tobide his time until a satisfactory alternative has presented itself forhis choice. The French peasants in 1871 who flocked to the army of thegovernment of Versailles to suppress the Commune of Paris (the firstattempt in history of a proletarian dictatorship), did so because theyfelt that were the workingmen to triumph and abolish private property, they, the peasants, would lose a support in their daily struggle forlife for the preservation of which it was worth endangering life itself. And having acquired relative protection in their private property, smallthough it might be, they were unwilling to permit something which wereit 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 istherefore worth being protected by him in turn. The trade unionist, too, is just such a protectionist. When his trade union has had the time andopportunity to win for him decent wages and living conditions, areasonable security of the job, and at least a partial voice in shopmanagement, he will, on the relatively high and progressive level ofmaterial welfare which capitalism has called into being, be chary toraze the existing economic system to the ground on the chance ofbuilding up a better one in its place. A reshuffling of the cards, whicha revolution means, might conceivably yield him a better card, but thenagain it might make the entire stack worthless by destroying the stakesfor which the game is played. But the revolution might not even succeedin the first round; then the ensuing reaction would probably destroy thetrade union and with it would go the chance of a recovery of theoriginal ground, modest though that may have been. In practice, therefore, the trade union movements in nearly all nations[111] haveserved as brakes upon the respective national socialist movements; and, from the standpoint of society interested in its own preservationagainst catastrophic change, have played and are playing a role ofsociety's policemen and watch-dogs over the more revolutionary groups inthe wage-earning class. These are largely the unorganized andill-favored groups rendered reckless because, having little to lose froma revolution, whatever the outcome might be, they fear none. 

In America, too, there is a revolutionary class which, unlike thestriking textile workers in 1911-1913, owes its origin neither to chancenor to neglect by trade union leaders. This is the movement of nativeAmerican or Americanized workers in the outlying districts of the Westor South--the typical I. W. W. , the migratory workers, the industrialrebels, and the actors in many labor riots and lumber-field strikes. This type of worker has truly broken with America's spiritual past. Hehas become a revolutionist either because his personal character andhabits unfit him for success under the exacting capitalistic system; orbecause, starting out with the ambitions and rosy expectations of theearly pioneer, he found his hopes thwarted by a capitalistic preemptorof the bounty of nature, who dooms to a wage-earner's position all whocame too late. In either case he is animated by a genuine passion forrevolution, a passion which admits no compromise. Yet his numbers aretoo few to threaten the existing order. 

In conclusion, American trade unionism, no matter whether the AmericanFederation of Labor keeps its old leaders or replaces them by"progressives" or socialists, seems in a fair way to continue itsconservative 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 withthe will of employers to rule as autocrats. 

FOOTNOTES:

[110] Though writers and public speakers of either extreme have oftenoverlooked the fundamental consideration of where the preponderance ofsocial power lies in their prognostications of revolutions, this has notescaped the leaders of the American labor movement. The vehemence withwhich the leaders of the American Federation of Labor have denouncedSovietism and Bolshevism, and which has of late been brought to a highpitch by a fear lest a shift to radicalism should break up theorganization, is doubtless sincere. But one cannot help feeling that inpart at least it aimed to reassure the great American middle class onthe score of labor's intentions. The great majority of organized laborrealize that, though at times they may risk engaging in unpopularstrikes, it will never do to permit their enemies to tar them with thepitch of subversionism in the eyes of the great American majority--amajority which remains wedded to the régime of private property andindividual enterprise despite the many recognized shortcomings of theinstitution. 

[111] Notably in Germany since the end of the World War. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The first seven chapters of the present work are based on the _Historyof Labour in the United States_ by John R. Commons and Associates, [112]published in 1918 in two volumes by the Macmillan Company, New York. Themajor portion of the latter was in turn based on _A Documentary Historyof the American Industrial Society_, edited by Professor Commons andpublished in 1910 in ten volumes by Clark and Company, Cleveland. Inpreparing chapters 8 to 11, dealing with the period since 1897, which isnot covered in the _History of Labour_, the author used largely the samesort 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 thelabor movement, especially histories of unionism in individual trades orindustries, to which the author wishes to refer the reader for moreample accounts of the several phases of the subject, which he himselfwas of necessity obliged to treat but briefly. The following is aselected list of such works together with some others relating toearlier 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 andCo. , 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 inthe United States, 1820-1850_, University of Wisconsin, 1908. 

DEIBLER, FREDERICK S. , _The Amalgamated Wood Workers' InternationalUnion 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_, ColumbiaUniversity, 1917. 

INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT, Commission of Inquiry, Report on the SteelStrike 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'sMovement in America_, International Union of Brewery Workmen, 1910. 

SUFFERN, ARTHUR E. , _Conciliation and Arbitration in the Coal MiningIndustry in America_, Mifflin, 1915. 

SYDENSTRICKER, EDGAR, _Collective Bargaining in the Anthracite CoalIndustry_, Bulletin No. 191 of the United States Bureau of LaborStatistics, 1916. 

WOLMAN, LEO, _The Boycott in American Trade Unions_, Johns HopkinsUniversity, 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.