The Armies Of Labor

TEXTBOOK EDITION

THE CHRONICLED

OF AMERICA SERIEJi.

ALLEN JOHNSON

EDITOR

GERHARD R. LOMER

CHARLES W. JEFFERYS

ASSISTANT EDITORS

THE
ARMIES OF LABOR

1 CHRONICLE OF
ORGANIZED WAGE-EARNES.'
BY SAMUEL P. OBTflf

NEW HAVKN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO.

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY FEESS

Copyright,, 1919, by! Yale University Press

CONTENTS

I. THE BACKGROUND Rige 1

II. FORMATIVE YEARS " 19

III. TRANSITION YEARS 40

IV. AMALGAMATION " 63

V. FEDERATION 87

VI. THE TRADE UNION " 112

VII. THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS " 133

VIII. ISSUES AND WARFARE 16P

IX. THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I.W.W. " 188

X. LABOR AND POLITICS " 220
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 261

265

THE OF

CHAPTER I

THE BACKGROUND

THREE momentous things symbolize the era that
begins its cycle with the memorable year of 1776:
the Declaration of Independence, the steam engine,
and Adam Smith's book, The Wealth of Nations.
The Declaration gave birth to a new nation, whose
millions of acres of free land were to shift the eco-
nomic equilibrium of the world; the engine mul-
tiplied man's productivity a thousandfold and up-
rooted in a generation the customs of centuries;
the book gave to statesmen a new view of econom-
ic affairs and profoundly influenced the course of
international trade relations.

The American people, as they faced the ap-
proaching age with the experiences of the race
behind them, fashioned many of their institutions

2 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

and laws on British models. This is true to such
an extent that the subject of this book, the rise of
labor in America, cannot be understood without
a preliminary survey of the British industrial sys-
tem nor even without some reference to the feu-
dal system, of which English society for many cen-
turies bore the marks and to which many relics of
tenure and of class and governmental responsi-
bility may be traced. Feudalism was a society in
which the status of an individual was fixed: he was
underman or overman in a rigid social scale accord-
ing as he considered his relation to his superiors or
to his inferiors. Whatever movement there was
took place horizontally, in the same class or on the
same social level The movement was not vertical,
as it so frequently is today, and men did not ordi-
narily rise above the social level of their birth, never
by design, and only perhaps by rare accident or
genius. It was a little world of lords and serfs: of
knights who graced court and castle, jousted at
tournaments, or fought upon the field of battle;
and of serfs who toiled in the fields, served in the
castle, or, as the retainers of the knight, formed the
crude soldiery of medieval days. For their labor
and allegiance they were clothed and housed and
fed. Yet though there were feast days gay with

THE BACKGROUND 3

the color of pageantry and procession, the worker
was always in a servile state, an underman depen-
dent upon his master, and sometimes looking upon
his condition as lit lie better than slavery.

With the break-up of this rigid system came in
England the emancipation of the serf, the rise of
the artisan class, and the beginnings of peasant
agriculture. That personal gravitation which al-
ways draws together men of similar ambitions
and tasks now began to work significant, changes
in the economic* order. The peasantry, more or
less scattered in the country, found it difficult to
unite their powers for redressing their grievances,
although there were some peasant revolts of no
mean proportions. But the artisans of the towns
were soon grouped into powerful organizations,
called guilds, so carefully managed and so well dis-
ciplined that they dominated every craft and con-
trolled every detail in every trade. The relation of
master to journeyman arid apprentice, the wages,
hours, quantity, and quality of the output, were all
minutely regulated. Merchant guilds, similarly
constituted, also prospered. The magnificent guild
halls that, remain in our day are monuments of the
power and splendor of these organisations that
made the towns of thelaiek' Middle Ages ilourishirig

4 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

centers of trade, of handicrafts, and of art. As
towns developed, they dealt the final blow to an
agricultural system based on feudalism: they be-
came cities of refuge for the runaway serfs, and
their charters, insuring political and economic free-
dom, gave them superior advantages for trading.

The guild system of manufacture was gradually
replaced by the domestic system. The workman's
cottage, standing in its garden, housed the loom
and the spinning wheel, and the entire family was
engaged in labor at home. But the workman,
thus apparently independent, was not the owner of
either the raw material or the finished product. A
middleman or agent brought him the wool, carried
away the cloth, and paid him his hire. Daniel
Defoe, who made a tour of Britain in 1724-6, left
a picture of rural England in this period, often
called the golden age of labor. The land, he says,
"was divided into small inclosures from two acres
to six or seven each, seldom more: every three or
four pieces of land had an house belonging to them,
. . . hardly an house standing out of a speaking
distance from another. . . . We could see at every
house a tenter, and on almost every tenter a piece
of cloth or kersie or shalloon. ... At every con-
siderable house was a manufactory. . . . Every

THE BACKGROUND 5

clothier keeps one horse, at least, to carry his manu-
factures to the market and every one generally
keeps a cow or two or more for his family. By I his
means the small pieces of inclosed land about, each
house are occupied, for they scarce sow corn enough
to feed their poultry. . . . The houses are full of
lusty fellows, some at the dye vai, .sonic a! the
looms, others dressing UK* clothes; the women or
children carding or spinning, being all employed,
from the youngest to the oldest. 1 '

But more significant than these changes was
the rise of the so-called mercantile system, in which
the state took under its care industrial details that
were formerly regulated by the town or guild.
This system, beginning in the sixteenth century
and lasting through the eighteenth, had for its
prime object the upbuilding of national trade.
The state, in order to insure the homogeneous
development of trade and industry, dictated the
prices of commodities. Tl, prescribed the laws of
apprenticeship and the rules of master and servant..
It provided inspectors for passing on the. quality
of goods offered for sale. Tl, weighed the loaves,
measured the cloth, and tested the silverware. It
prescribed wages, rural and urban, and bade the
local justice act as a sort, of guardian over the

6 THE OF

laborers in Ms district. To relieve poverty
laws were passed; to prevent the decline of pro-
ductivity corn laws were passed fixing arbitrary
prices for grain. For a time monopolies creating
artificial prosperity were granted to individuals
and to corporations for the manufacture, sale, or
exploitation of certain articles, such as matches,
gunpowder, and playing-cards.

This highly artificial and paternalistic state was
not content with regulating all these internal mat-
ters but spread its protection over foreign com-
merce. Navigation acts attempted to monopo-
lize the trade of the colonies and especially the trade
in the products needed by the mother country.
England encouraged shipping and during this pe-
riod achieved that dominance of the sea which has
been the mainstay of her vast empire. She fos-
tered plantations and colonies not for their own
sake but that they might be tributaries to the
wealth of the nation. An absurd importance was
attached to the possession of gold and silver, and the
ingenuity of statesmen was exhausted in designing
lures to entice these metals to London. Banking
and insurance began to assume prime importance.
By 1750 England had sent ships into every sea and
had planted colonies around the globe.

THE BACKGROUND 7

But while the mechanism of trade and of govern-
ment made surprising progress during the mer-
cantile period, the mechanism of production re-
mained in the slow handicraft stage. This was
now to change. In 1738 Kay invented the flying
shuttle, multiplying the capacity of the loom. In
1767 Hargreaves completed the spinning-jenny,
and in 1771 Arkwright perfected his roller spinning
machine. A few years later Crompton combined
the roller and the jenny, and after the application
of steam to spinning in 1785 the power loom
replaced the hand loom. The manufacture of
woolen cloth being the principal industry of Eng-
land, it was natural that machinery should first be
invented for the spinning and weaving of wool.
New processes in the manufacture of iron and
steel and the development of steam transportation
soon followed.

Within the course of a few decades the whole
economic order was changed. Whereas many cen-
turies had been required for the slow development
of the medieval system of feudalism, the guild sys-
tem, and the handicrafts, now, like a series of
earthquake shocks, came changes so sudden and
profound that even today society has not yet
learned to adjust itself to the myriads of needs

8 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

and possibilities which the union of man's mind
with nature's forces has produced. The indus-
trial revolution took the workman from the land
and crowded him into the towns. It took the
loom from his cottage and placed it in the factory.
It took the tool from his hand and harnessed it to
a shaft. It robbed him of his personal skill and
joined his arm of flesh to an arm of iron. It
reduced him from a craftsman to a specialist,
from a maker of shoes to a mere stitcher of soles.
It took from him, at a single blow, his interest in
the workmanship of his task, his ownership of the
tools, his garden, his wholesome environment, and
even his family. All were swallowed by the black
maw of the ugly new mill town. The hardships of
the old days were soon forgotten in the horrors of
the new. For the transition was rapid enough to
make the contrast striking. Indeed it was so rapid
that the new class of employers, the capitalists,
found little time to think of anything but increas-
ing their profits, and the new class of employees,
now merely wage-earners, found that their long
hours of monotonous toil gave them little leisure
and no interest.

The transition from the age of handicrafts to the
era of machines presents a picture of greed that

THE BACKGROUND 9

tempts one to bitter invective. Its details are dis-
passionately catalogued by the Royal Commissions
that finally towards the middle of the nineteenth
century inquired into industrial conditions. From
these reports Karl Marx drew inspiration for his
social philosophy, and in them his friend Engles
found the facts that he retold so vividly, for the
purpose of arousing 1 his fellow workmen. And
Carlyle and Ruskin, reading this official record of
selfishness, and knowing its truth, drew their power-
ful indictments against a society which would per-
mit its eight-year-old daughters, its mothers, and
its grandmothers, to be locked up for fourteen
hours a day in dirty, ill-smelling factories, to re-
lease them at night only to find more misery in the
hovels they pitifully called home.

The introduction of machinery into manufactur-
ing wrought vast changes also in the organization
of business. The unit of industry greatly increased
in size. The economies of organized wholesale pro-
duction were soon made apparent; and the tend-
ency to increase the size of the factory and to
amalgamate the various branches of industry un-
der corporate control has continued to the pres-
ent. The complexity of business operations also
increased with the development of transportation.

10 THE ARMIES OF

and the expansion of the empire of trade. A
world market took the place of the old town market*
and the world market necessitated credit on a new
and infinitely larger scale.

No less important than the revolution in indus-
try was the revolution in economic theory which
accompanied it. Unlimited competition replaced
the state paternalism of the mercantilists. Adam
Smith in 1776 espoused the cause of economic lib-
erty, believing that if business and industry were
unhampered by artificial restrictions they would
work out their own salvation. His pronouncement
was scarcely uttered before it became the shib-
boleth of statesmen and business men. The revolt
of the American colonies hastened the general ac-
ceptance of this doctrine, and England soon found
herself committed to the practice of every man
looking after his own interests. Freedom of con-
tract, freedom of trade, and freedom of thought
were vigorous and inspiring but often misleading
phrases. The processes of specialization and cen-
tralization that were at work portended the grow-
ing power of those who possessed the means to
build factories and ships and railways but not nec-
essarily the freedom of the many. The doctrine of
laissez/aire assumed that power would bring with

THE BACKGROUND 11

It a sense of responsibility. For centuries, the old-
country gentry and governing class of England
had shown an appreciation of their duties, as a
class, to those dependent upon them. But now
another class with no benevolent traditions of re-
sponsibility came into power the capitalist, a
parvenu whose ambition was profit, not equity, and
whose dealings with other men were not tempered
by the amenities of the gentleman but were sharp-
ened by the necessities of gain. It was upon such
a class, new in the economic world and endowed
with astounding power, that Adam Smith's new
formularies of freedom were let loose.

During all these changes in the economic order,
the interest of the laborer centered in one question :
What return would he receive for his toil? With
the increasing complexity of society, many other
problems presented themselves to the worker, but
for the most part they were subsidiary to the main
question of wages. As long as man's place was
fixed by law or custom, a customary wage left small
margin for controversy. But when fixed status
gave way to voluntary contract, when payment
was made in money, when workmen were free to
journey from town to town, labor became both
free and fluid, bargaining took the place of custom,

12 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

and the wage controversy began to assume definite
proportions. As early as 1348 the great plague
became a landmark in the field of wage disputes.
So scarce had laborers become through the rav-
ages of the Black Death, that wages rose rapidly,
to the alarm of the employers, who prevailed upon
King Edward III to issue the historic proclama-
tion of 1349, directing that no laborer should de-
mand and no employer should pay greater wages
than those customary before the plague. This
early attempt to outmaneuver an economic law
by a legal device was only the prelude to a long
series of labor laws which may be said to have cul-
minated in the great Statute of Laborers of 1562,
regulating the relations of wage-earner and em-
ployer and empowering justices of the peace to
fix the wages in their districts. Wages steadily
decreased during the two hundred years in which
this statute remained in force, and poor laws were
passed to bring the succor which artificial wages
made necessary. Thus two rules of arbitrary gov-
ernment were meant to neutralize each other. It
is the usual verdict of historians that the estate
of labor in England declined from a flourishing
condition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
to one of great distress by the time of the Industrial

THE BACKGROUND 13

Revolution. This unhappy decline was probably
due i,o several causes, among which the most im-
portant were the arbitrary and artificial attempts
of the Government to keep down wages, the
heavy taxation caused by wars of expansion, and
the want of coercive power on the part of labor.

From the decline of the guild system, which had
placed labor and its products so completely in the
hands of I he master craftsman, the workman had
assumed no controlling part in the labor bargain.
Such guilds and such journeyman's fraternities
as may have survived were practically helpless
against parliamentary rigor and state benevolence.
In the domestic stage of production, cohesion
among workers was not so necessary. But when.
the factory system was substituted for the handi-
craft system and workers with common interests
were thrown together in the towns, they had every
impulsion towards organization. They not only
fell the need of sociability after long hours spent in
spiritless toil but they were impelled by a new
consciousness - the realization that an inevitable
and profound change had come over their condi-
tion. They had ceased to be journeymen con-
trolling in some measure their activities: they were
now merely wage-earners. As the realization of

14 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

this adverse change came over them, they began
to resent the unsanitary and burdensome condi-
tions under which they were compelled to live and
to work. So actual grievances were added to fear
of what might happen, and in their common cause
experience soon taught them unity of action. Par-
liament was petitioned, agitations were organized,
sick-benefits were inaugurated, and when these
methods failed, machinery was destroyed, factories
were burned, and the strike became a common
weapon of self-defense.

Though a few labor organizations can be traced
as far back as 1700, their growth during the eight-
eenth century was slow and irregular. There was
no unity in their methods, and they were known by
many names, such as associations, unions, union
societies, trade clubs, and trade societies. These
societies had no legal status and their meetings
were usually held in secret. And the Webbs in
their History of Trade Unionism allude to the
traditions of "the midnight meeting of patriots in
the comer of the field, the buried box of records,
the secret oath, the long terms of imprisonment of
the leading officials/' Some of these tales were
unquestionably apocryphal, others were exag-
gerated by feverish repetition. But they indicate

THE BACKGROUND 15

the aversion with which the authorities looked
upon these combinations.

There were two legal doctrines long invoked by
the English courts against combined action doc-
trines that became a heritage of the United States
and have had a profound effect upon the labor
movements in America. The first of these was the
doctrine of conspiracy, a doctrine so ancient that
its sources are obscure. It was the natural prod-
uct of a government and of a time that looked
askance at all combined action, fearing sedition,
intrigue, and revolution. As far back as 1305
there was enacted a statute defining conspiracy and
outlining the offense. It did not aim at any defi-
nite social class but embraced all persons who com-
bined for a "malicious enterprise.'* Such an enter-
prise was the breaking of a law. So when Parlia-
ment passed acts regulating wages, conditions of
employment, or prices of commodities, those who
combined secretly or openly to circumvent the act,
to raise wages or lower them, or to raise prices and
curtail markets, at once fell under the ban of con-
spiracy. The law operated alike on conspiring
employers and conniving employees.

The new class of employers during the early
years of the machine age eagerly embraced the

16 THE ARMIES OF LABOK

doctrine of conspiracy. They readily brought un*
der the legal definition the secret connivings of
the wage-earners. Political conditions now also
worked against the laboring class. The unrest in
the colonies that culminated in the independence of
America and the fury of the French Revolution
combined to make kings and aristocracies wary of
all organizations and associations of plain folk,
And when we add to this the favor which the ne\\
employing class, the industrial masters, were able
to extort from the governing class, because of their
power over foreign trade and domestic finance, we
can understand the compulsory laws at length
declaring against all combinations of working men.
The second legal doctrine which Americans have
inherited from England and which has played a
leading role in labor controversies is the doctrine
that declares unlawful all combinations in restraint
of trade. Like its twin doctrine of conspiracy, it is
of remote historical origin. One of the earliest
uses, perhaps the first use, of the term by Parlia-
ment was in the statute of 1436 forbidding guilds
and trading companies from adopting by-laws "in
restraint of trade," and forbidding practices in price
manipulations "for their own profit and to the
common hurt of the people." This doctrine thus

THE BACKGROUND 17

early invoked, and repeatedly reasserted against
combinations of traders and masters, was incorpor-
ated in the general statute of 1800 which declared
all combinations of journeymen illegal. But in spite
of legal doctrines, of innumerable laws and court
decisions, strikes and combinations multiplied, and
devices were found for evading statutory wages.

In 1824 an act of Parliament removed the
general prohibition of combinations and accorded
to workingmen the right to bargain collectively.
Three men were responsible for this noteworthy
reform, each one a new type in British politics.
The first was Francis Place, a tailor who had taken
active part in various strikes. He was secretary
of the London Corresponding Society, a powerful
labor union, which in 1795 had twenty branches in
London. Most of the officers of this organization
were at one time or another arrested, and some
were kept in prison three years without a trial.
Place, schooled in such experience, became a radi-
cal politician of great influence, a friend of Ben-
tham, Owen, and the elder Mill. The second type
of new reformer was represented by Joseph Hume,
a physician who had accumulated wealth in the
India Service, who had returned home to enter
public life, and who was converted from Toryism to

18 THE OF

Radicalism by a careful study of financial, political,
and industrial problems. A great number of re-
form laws can be traced directly to his incredible
activity during his thirty years in Parliament.
The third leader was John R. McCulIoch, an ortho-
dox economist, a disciple of Adam Smith, for some
years editor of The Scotsman, which was then
a violently radical journal cooperating with the
newly established Edinburgh Review in advocating
sociological and political reforms.

Thus Great Britain, the mother country from
which Americans have inherited so many institu-
tions, laws, and traditions, passed in turn through
the periods of extreme paternalism, glorified com-
petition, and governmental antagonism to labor
combinations, into what may be called the age of
conciliation. And today the Labour Party in the
House of Commons has shown itself strong enough
to impose its programme upon the Liberals and,
through this radical coalition, has achieved a pow-
er for the working man greater than even Francis
Place or Thomas Carlyle ever hoped for.

II

FORMATIVE YEARS

AMERICA did not become a cisatlantic Britain, as
some of the colonial adventurers had hoped. A
wider destiny awaited her. Here were economic
conditions which upset all notions of the fixity of
class distinctions. Here was a continent of free
land, luring the disaffected or disappointed artisan
and enabling him to achieve economic independ-
ence. Hither streamed ceaselessly hordes of Immi-
grants from Europe, constantly shifting the social
equilibrium. Here the demand for labor was con-
stant, except during the rare Intervals of financial
stagnation, and here the door of opportunity
swung wide to the energetic and able artisan. The
records of American Industry are replete with
names of prominent leaders who began at the
apprentice's bench.

The old class distinctions brought from the home
country, however, had survived for many years in

20 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

the primeval forests of Virginia and Maryland and
even among the hills of New England. Indeed,
until the Revolution and for some time thereafter,
a man's clothes were the badge of his calling. The
gentleman wore powdered queue and ruffled shirt;
the workman, coarse buckskin breeches, ponder-
ous shoes with brass buckles, and usually a leather
apron, well greased to keep it pliable. Just before
the Revolution the lot of the common laborer was
not an enviable one. His house was rude and
barren of comforts; his fare was coarse and without
variety. His wage was two shillings a day, and
prison usually an indescribably filthy hole
awaited him the moment he ran into debt. The
artisan fared somewhat better. He had spent, as
a rule, seven years learning his trade, and his skill
and energy demanded and generally received a
reasonable return. The account books that have
come down to us from colonial days show that his
handiwork earned him a fair living. This, how-
ever, was before machinery had made inroads upon
the product of cabinetmaker, tailor, shoemaker,
locksmith, and silversmith, and when the main
street of every village was picturesque with the
signs of the crafts that maintained the decent
independence of the community.

FORMATIVE YEARS 21

Such labor organizations as existed before the
Revolution were limited to the skilled trades. In
1648 the coopers and the shoemakers of Boston
were granted permission to organize guilds, which
embraced both master and journeyman, and there
were a few similar organizations in New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore. But these were not
unions like those of today. "There are," says
Richard T. Ely, "no traces of anything like a
modern trades union in the colonial period of Ameri-
can history, and it is evident on reflection that
there was little need, if any, of organization on the
part of labor, at that time." 1

A new epoch for labor came in with the Revolu-
tion. Within a decade wages rose fifty per cent,
and John Jay in 1784 writes of the "wages of me-
chanics and laborers" as "very extravagant."
Though the industries were small and depended
on a local market within a circumscribed area of
communication, they grew rapidly. The period
following the Revolution is marked by consider-
able industrial restiveness and by the formation of
many labor organizations, which were, however,
benevolent or friendly societies rather than unions
and were often incorporated by an act of the

1 The Labor Movement In America, by Richard T. Ely (1905), p. 36.

m THE ARMIES OF LABOR

legislature. In New York, between 1800 and 1810,
twenty-four suck societies were incorporated.
Only in the larger cities were they composed of
artisans of one trade, such as the New York Ma-
sons Society (1807) or the New York Society of
Journeymen Shipwrights (1807). Elsewhere they
included artisans of many trades, such as the
Albany Mechanical Society (1801). In Phila-
delphia the cordwainers, printers, and hatters had
societies. In Baltimore the tailors were the first
to organize, and they conducted in 1795 one of
the first strikes in America. Ten years later they
struck again, and succeeded in raising their pay
from seven shillings sixpence the job to eight shill-
ings ninepence and "extras." At the same time
the pay of unskilled labor was rising rapidly, for
workers were scarce owing to the call of the mer-
chant marine in those years of the rising splendor
of the American sailing ship, and the lure of west-
ern lands. The wages of common laborers rose to
a dollar and more a day.

There occurred in 1805 an important strike of
the Philadelphia cordwainers. Theirs was one of
the oldest labor organizations in the country, and
it had conducted several successful strikes. This
particular occasion, however, is significant, because

FORMATIVE YEARS 3

the strikers were tried for conspiracy in the mayor's
court, with the result that they were found guilty and
fined eight dollars each, with costs. As the court per-
mitted both sides to tell their story in detail, a full
report of the proceedings survives to give us, as it
were, a photograph of the labor conditions of that
time. The trial kindled a great deal of local ani-
mosity. A newspaper called the Aurora contained
inflammatory accounts of the proceedings, and a
pamphlet giving the records of the court was wide-
ly circulated. This pamphlet bore the significant
legend, "It is better that the law be known and
certain, than that it be right," and was dedicated
to the Governor and General Assembly "with the
hope of attracting their particular attention, at the
next meeting of the legislature. "

Another early instance of a strike occurred in
New York City in 1809, when the cordwainers
struck for higher wages and were haled before the
mayor's court on the charge of conspiracy. The
trial was postponed by Mayor DeWitt Clinton
until after the pending municipal elections to avoid
the risk of offending either side. When at length
the strikers were brought to trial, the court-house
was crowded with spectators, showing how keen
was the public interest in the case. The jury's

m THE ARMIES OF LABOR

verdict of " guilty/' and the imposition of a fine of
one dollar each and costs upon the defendants
served but as a stimulus to the friends of the strikers
to gather in a great mass meeting and protest against
the verdict and the law that made it possible.

In 1821 the New York Typographical Society,
which had been organized four years earlier by
Peter Force, a labor leader of unusual energy, set a
precedent for the vigorous and fearless career of
its modern successor by calling a strike in the
printing office of Thurlow Weed, the powerful
politician, himself a member of the society, be-
cause he employed a "rat," as a nonunion worker
was called. It should be noted, however, that the
organizations of this early period were of a loose
structure and scarcely comparable to the labor
unions of today.

Sidney Smith, the brilliant contributor to the
Edinburgh Review, propounded in 1820 certain
questions which sum up the general conditions of
American industry and art after nearly a half
century of independence: "In the four quarters of
the globe," he asked, "who reads an American
book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an
American picture or statue? What does the world

FORMATIVE YEARS 25

yet owe to American physicians or surgeons?
What new substances have their chemists dis-
covered? or what old ones have they analyzed?
What new constellations have been discovered by
the telescopes of Americans? What have they
done in mathematics? Who drinks out of Ameri-
can glasses? or eats from American plates? or wears
American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American
blankets?"

These questions, which were quite pertinent,
though conceived in an impertinent spirit, were
being answered in America even while the witty
Englishman was framing them. The water power
of New England was being harnessed to cotton
mills, woolen mills, and tanneries. Massachu-
setts in 18SO reported one hundred and sixty-one
factories. New York had begun that marvelous
growth which made the city, in the course of a few
decades, the* financial capital of a hemisphere. So
rapidly were people flocking to New York, that
houses had tenants long before they had windows
and doors, and streets were lined with buildings
before they had sewers, sidewalks, or pavements.
New Jersey had well under way those manufacto-
ries of glassware, porcelains, carpets, and textiles
which have since brought her great prosperity*

26 THE OF

Philadelphia was the country's greatest weaving
center, boasting four thousand craftsmen engaged
in that industry. Even on the frontier, Pittsburgh
and Cincinnati were emerging from "settlements"
into manufacturing towns of importance. Mc-
Master concludes his graphic summary of these
years as follows: "In 1820 it was estimated that
200,000 persons and a capital of $75,000,000 were
employed in manufacturing. In 1825 the capital
used had been expanded to $160,000,000 and the
number of workers to 2,000,000."'

The Industrial Revolution had set in. These
new millions who hastened to answer the call of
industry in the new land were largely composed of
the poor of other lands. Thousands of them were
paupers when they landed in America, their pas-
sage having been paid by those at home who wanted
to get rid of them. Vast numbers settled down in
the cities, in spite of the lure of the land. It was
at this period that universal manhood suffrage was
written into the constitutions of the older States,
and a new electorate assumed the reins of power.
Now the first labor representatives were sent to
the legislatures and to Congress, and the older
parties began eagerly bidding for the votes of the

1 History of the People of the United States (1901), vol. v, p. 230.

FORMATIVE YEARS 27

humble. The decision of great questions fell to
this new electorate. With the rise of industry
came the demand for a protective tariff and for
better transportation. State governments vied
with each other, in thoughtless haste, in lending
their credit to new turnpike and canal construc-
tion. And above all political issues loomed the
Bank, the monopoly that became the laborer's
bugaboo and Andrew Jackson's opportunity to
rally to his side the newly enfranchised mechanics.

So the old days of semi-colonial composure were
succeeded by the thrilling experiences that a new
industrial prosperity thrusts upon a really demo-
cratic electorate. Little wonder that the labor
union movement took the political by-path, seek-
ing salvation in the promise of the politician and
in the panacea of fatuous laws. Now there were
to be discerned the beginnings of class solidarity
among the working people. But the individual's
chances to improve; his situation were still very
great and opportunity was still a golden word.

The harsh facts of the hour, however, soon began
to call for united action. The cities were expand-
ing with such eager haste that proper housing con-
ditions were overlooked. Workingmen were obliged
to live in wretched structures. Moreover, human

28 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

beings were still levied on for debt and imprisoned
for default of payment. Children of less than six-
teen years of age were working twelve or more
hours a day, and if they received any education
at all, it was usually in schools charitably called
"ragged schools" or "poor schools," or "pauper
schools." There was no adequate redress for the
mechanic if his wages were in default, for lien laws
had not yet found their way into the statute books.
Militia service was oppressive, permitting only the
rich to buy exemption. It was still considered an
unlawful conspiracy to act in unison for an increase
in pay or a lessening of working hours. By 1840
the pay of unskilled labor had dropped to about
seventy-five cents a day in the overcrowded cities,
and in the winter, in either city or country, many
unskilled workers were glad to work for merely
their board. The lot of women workers was especi-
ally pitiful. A seamstress by hard toil, working
fifteen hours a day might stitch enough shirts to
earn from seventy-two cents to a dollar and twelve
cents a week. Skilled labor, while faring better
in wages, shared with the unskilled in the uni-
versal working day which lasted from sun to sum
Such in brief were the conditions that brought
home to the laboring masses that homogeneous

FORMATIVE YEARS 29

Consciousness which alone makes a group powerful
in a democracy.

The movement can most clearly be discerned
in the cities. Philadelphia claims precedence as
the home of the first Trades' Union. The master
cordwainers had organized a society in 1792, and
their journeymen had followed suit two years
later. The experiences and vicissitudes of these
shoemakers furnished a useful lesson to other
tradesmen, many of whom were organized into
unions. But they were isolated organizations,
each one fighting its own battles. In 1827 the Me-
chanics' Union of Trade Associations was formed.
Of its significance John R. Commons says :

England is considered the home of trade-unionism,
but the distinction belongs to Philadelphia. . . . The
first trades' union in England was that of Manchester,
organized in 1829, although there seems to have been
an attempt to organize one in 1824. But the first one
in America was the " Mechanics' Union of Trade
Associations," organized in Philadelphia in 1827, two
years earlier. The name came from Manchester, but
the thing from Philadelphia. Neither union lasted
long. The Manchester union lived two years, and the
Philadelphia union one year. But the Manchester
union died and the Philadelphia union metamorphosed
into politics. Here again Philadelphia was the pio-
neer, for it called into being the first labor party. Not

30 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

only this, but through the Mechanics' Union Phila-
delphia started probably the first wage-earners' paper
ever published the Mechanics Free Press ante-
dating, in January, 1828, the first similar journal in
England by two years. 1

The union tad its inception in the first general
building strike called in America. In the summer
of 1827 the carpenters struck for a ten-hour day.
They were soon joined by the bricklayers, painters,
and glaziers, and members of other trades. But
the strike failed of its immediate object. A second
effort to combine the various trades into one organ-
ization was made in 1833, when the Trades' Union
of the City and County of Philadelphia, was formed.
Three years later this union embraced some fifty
societies with over ten thousand members. In
June, 1835, this organization undertook what was
probably the first successful general strike in Amer-
ica. It began among the cordwainers, spread to
the workers in the building trades, and was pres-
ently joined in by cigarmakers, carters, saddlers
and harness makers, smiths, plumbers, bakers,
printers, and even by the unskilled workers on the
docks. The strikers' demand for a ten-hour day re-
ceived a great deal of support from the influential

1 Labor Organization and Labor Politics, 18&7-37; in the Quarterly
Journal of Economics, February, 1907.

FORMATIVE YEARS 31

men in the community. After a mass meeting of
citizens had adopted resolutions endorsing the
demands of the union, the city council agreed to
a ten-hour day for all municipal employees.

In 1833 the carpenters of New York City struck
for an increase in wages. They were receiving a
dollar thirty-seven and a half cents a day; they
asked for a dollar and a half. They obtained the
support of other workers, notably the tailors,
printers, brushmakers, tobacconists, and masons,
and succeeded in winning their strike in one month.
The printers, who have always been alert and ac-
tive in New York City, elated by the success of
this coordinate effort, sent out a circular calling
for a general convention of all the trades societies
of the city. After a preliminary meeting in July,
a mass meeting was held in December, at which
there were present about four thousand persons
representing twenty-one societies. The outcome
of the meeting was the organization of the General
Trades' Union of New York City.

It happened in the following year that Ely
Moore of the Typographical Association and the
first president of the new union, a powerful ora-
tor and a sagacious organizer, was elected to Con-
gress on the Jackson ticket. He was backed by

3 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

Tammany Hall, always on the alert for winners,
and was supported by the mechanics, artisans, and
workingmen. He was the first man to take his
seat in Washington as the avowed representative
of labor.

The movement for a ten-hour day was now in full
swing, and the years 1834-7 were full of strikes.
The most spectacular of these struggles was the
strike of the tailors of New York in 1836, in the
course of which twenty strikers were arrested for
conspiracy. After a spirited trial attended by
throngs of spectators, the men were found guilty
by a jury which took only thirty minutes for delib-
eration. The strikers were fined $50 each, except the
president of the society, who was fined $150. After
the trial there was held a mass meeting which was
attended, according to the Evening Post, by twenty-
seven thousand persons. Resolutions were passed
declaring that "to all acts of tyranny and injustice,
resistance is just and therefore necessary," and
"that the construction given to the law in the case
of the journeymen tailors is not only ridiculous and
weak in practice but unjust in principle and sub-
versive of the rights and liberties of American
citizens." The town was placarded with "coffin"
handbills, a practice not uncommon in those days.

FORMATIVE YEARS 33

Enclosed in a device representing a coffin were
these words:

THE RICH AGAINST THE POOR!

Twenty of your brethren have been found guilty for
presuming to resist a reduction in their wages! . . .
Judge Edwards has charged . . . the Rich are the only
judges of the wants of the poor. On Monday, June 6,
1836, the Freemen are to receive their sentence, to
gratify the hellish appetites of aristocracy! ... Go!
Go! Go! Every Freeman, every Workingman, and
hear the melancholy sound of the earth on the Coffin
of Equality. Let the Court Room, the City-hall
yea, the whole Park, be filled with mourners! But
remember, offer no violence to Judge Edwards ! Bend
meekly and receive the chains wherewith you are to
be bound! Keep the peace! Above all things, keep
the peace !

The Evening Post concludes a long account of the
affair by calling attention to the fact that the
Trades Union was not composed of "only foreign-
ers." "It is a low calculation when we estimate
that two-thirds of the workingmen of the city, num-
bering several thousand persons, belong to it," and
that "it is controlled and supported by the great
majority of our native born."

The Boston Trades Union was organized in 1834
and started out with a great labor parade on the

34 THE OF

Fourth of July, followed by a dinner served to a
thousand persons in Faneuil Hall. This union
was formed primarily to fight for the ten-hour
day, and the leading crusaders were the house car-
penters, the ship carpenters, and the masons. Simi-
lar unions presently sprang up in other cities,
including Baltimore, Albany, Troy, Washington,,
Newark, Schenectady, New Brunswick, Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, and St. Louis. By 1835 all the larger
centers of industry were familiar with the idea, and
most of them with the practice, of the trades organ-
izations of a community uniting for action.

The local unions were not unmindful of the need
for wider action, either through a national union
of all the organizations of a single trade, or through
a union of all the different trades unions. Both
courses of action were attempted. In 1834 the
National Trades Union came into being and from
that date held annual national conventions of all
the trades until the panic of 1837 obliterated the
movement. When the first convention was called,
it was estimated that there were some S6,50 mem-
bers of trades unions then in the United States.
Of these 11,500 were in New York and its vicinity,
6000 in Philadelphia, 4000 in Boston, and 3500
in Baltimore. Meanwhile a movement was under

FORMATIVE YEARS 35

way to federate the unions of a single trade.
In 1835 the cordwainers attending the National
Trades Union formed a preliminary organization
and called a national cordwainers' convention.
This met in New York in March, 1836, and in-
cluded forty-live delegates from New York, New
Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut. In the fall
of 1836 the comb-makers, the carpenters, the
hand-loom weavers, and the printers likewise or-
ganized separate national unions or alliances,
and several other trades made tentative efforts
by correspondence to organize themselves in the
same manner.

Before the dire year of 1837, there are, then, to
be found the beginnings of most of the elements of
modern labor organizations benevolent societies
and militant orders; political activities and trades
activities; amalgamations of local societies of the
same trades and of all trades; attempts at national
organization on the part of both the local trades
unions and of the local trade unions; a labor press
to keep alive the interest of the workman; mass
meetings, circulars, conventions, and appeals to
arouse the interest of the public in the issues of the
hour. The persistent demand of the workingmen
was for a ten-hour day. Harriet Martineau, who

36 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

traveled extensively through the United States, re-
marked that all the strikes she heard of were on
the question of hours, not wages. But there were
nevertheless abundant strikes either to raise wages
or to maintain them. There were, also, other
fundamental questions in controversy which could
not be settled by strikes, such as imprisonment for
debt, lien and exemption and homestead laws,
convict labor and slave labor, and universal edu-
cation. Most of these issues have since that time
been decided in favor of labor, and a new series
of demands takes their place today. Yet as one
reads the records of the early conspiracy cases or
thumbs through the files of old periodicals, he
learns that there is indeed nothing new under the
sun and that, while perhaps the particular issues
have changed, the general methods and the spirit
of the contest remain the same.

The laborer believed then, as he does now, that
his organization must be all-embracing. In those
days also there were "scabs," often called "rats"
or " dung. " Places under ban were systematically
picketed, and warnings like the following were sent
out: "We would caution all strangers and others
who profess the art of horseshoeing, that if they go
to work for any employer under the above prices,

FORMATIVE YEARS 37

they must abide by the consequences." Usually
the consequences were a fine imposed by the union,
but sometimes they were more severe. Coercion
by the union did not cease with the strike. Jour-
neymen who were not members were pursued with
assiduity and energy as soon as they entered a
town and found work. The boycott, was a method
early used against prison labor. New York stone-
cutters agreed that they would not "either col-
lectively or individually purchase any goods manu-
factured 11 by convicts and that they would not
"countenance" any merchants who dealt in them;
and employers who incurred the displeasure of or-
ganized labor were "nullified/ 1

The use of the militia during strikes presented
the same difficulties then as now. During the gen-
eral strike in Philadelphia in 18155 there was con-
siderable rowdyism, and Michel Chevalier, a keen
observer of American life, wrote that "the militia
looks on; the sheriff stands with folded hands."
Nor was there any difference in the altitude of the
laboring man towards unfavorable court, decisions.
In the tailors" strike in New York in 183(1, for
instance, twenty-seven thousand sympathizers as-
sembled with bands and banners to protest, against
the jury's verdict, and after sentence had been

38 THE OF

imposed upon the defendants, the lusty throng
burned the judge in effigy.

Sabotage is a new word, but the practice itself is
old. In 1885 the striking cabinet-makers in New
York smashed thousands of dollars 5 worth of chairs,
tables, and sofas that had been imported from
France, and the newspapers observed the signi-
ficant fact that the destroyers boasted in a for-
eign language that only American-made furniture
should be sold in America. Houses were burned
in Philadelphia because the contractors erecting
them refused to grant the wages that were demand-
ed. Vengeance was sometimes sought against new
machinery that displaced hand labor. In June,
1885, a New York paper remarked that "it is well
known that many of the most obstinate turn-outs
among workingmen and many of the most violent
and lawless proceedings have been excited for the
purpose of destroying newly invented machinery. "
Such acts of wantonness, however, were few, even
in those first tumultuous days of the thirties.
Striking became in those days a sort of mania, and
not a town that, had a mill or shop was exempt.
Men struck for "grog or death," for "Liberty,
Equality, and the Rights of Man, " and even for
the right to smoke their pipes at work.

FORMATIVE YEARS 39

Strike benefits, too, were known in this early
period. Strikers in New York received assistance
from Philadelphia, and Boston strikers were simi-
larly aided by both New York and Philadelphia.
When the high cost of living threatened to deprive
the wage-earner of half his income, bread riots
occurred in the cities, and handbills circulated
in New York bore the legend :

BREAD, MEAT, RENT, FUEL
THEIR PRICES MUST COME DOWN

CHAPTER III

TRANSITION YEARS

WITH the panic of 1837 the mills were closed,
thousands of unemployed workers were thrown
upon private charity, and, in the long years of
depression which followed, trade unionism suffered
a temporary eclipse. It was a period of social
unrest in which all sorts of philanthropic reforms
were suggested and tried out. Measured by later
events, it was a period of transition, of social
awakening, of aspiration tempered by the bitter
experience of failure.

In the previous decade Robert Owen, the dis-
tinguished English social reformer and philanthro-
pist, had visited America and had begun in 1826
his famous colony at New Harmony, Indiana.
His experiments at New Lanark, in England,
had already made him known to working people
the world over. Whatever may be said of his
quaint attempts to reduce society to a common

40

TRANSITION YEARS 41

denominator, it is certain that his arrival in Ameri-
ca, at a time when people's minds were open to
all sorts of economic suggestions, had a stimu-
lating effect upon labor reforms and led, in the
course of time, to the founding of some forty
communistic colonies, most of them in New York,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio. "We are all a little wild
here with numberless projects of social reform/*
wrote Emerson to Thomas Carlyle; u not a reading
man but has the draft of a new community in his
waistcoat pocket." One of these experiments, at
Red Bank, New Jersey, lasted for thirteen years,
and another, in Wisconsin, for six years. But most
of them after a year or two gave up the struggle.
Of these failures, the best known is Brook Farm,
an intellectual community founded in 1841 by
George Ripley at West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Six years later the project was abandoned and is
now remembered as an example of the futility of
trying to leaven a world of realism by means of an
atom of transcendental idealism. In a sense, how-
ever, Brook Farm typifies this period of transition.
It was a time of vagaries and longings. People
seemed to be conscious of the fact that a new social
solidarity was dawning. It is not strange, there-
fore, that while the railroads were feeling their

42 THE OF LABOR

way from town to town and across the prairies,
while water-power and steam-power were multi-
plying man's productivity, indicating that the old
days were gone forever many curious dreams
of a new order of things should be dreamed, nor
that among them some should be ridiculous, some
fantastic, and some unworthy, nor that, as the fu-
tility of a universal social reform forced itself upon
the dreamers, they merged the greater in the les-
ser, the general in the particular, and sought an out-
let in espousing some specific cause or attacking
some particular evil.

Those movements which had their inspiration in
a genuine humanitarianism achieved great good.
Now for the first time the blind, the deaf, the dumb,
and the insane were made the object of social
solicitude and communal care. The criminal, too,
and the jail in which he was confined remained no
longer utterly neglected. Men of the debtor class
were freed from that medieval barbarism which
gave the creditor the right to levy on the person of
his debtor. Even the public schools were dragged
out of their lethargy. When Horace Mann was
appointed secretary of the newly created Massa-
chusetts Board of Education in 1837, a new day
dawned for American public schools.

TRANSITION YEARS 43

While these and other substantial improvements
were under way, the charlatan and the faddist were
not without their opportunities or their votaries.
Spirit rapplngs beguiled or awed the villagers;
thousands of religious zealots in 1844 abandoned
their vocations and, drawing on white robes,
awaited expectantly the second coming of Christ :
every cult from free love to celibate austerity found
zealous followers; the "new woman" declared her
independence in short hair and bloomers; people
sought so'" salvation in new health codes, in
vegetarian boarding-houses, and in physical cul-
ture cluL ; and some pursued the way to perfection
through sensual religious exercises.

In this seething milieu, this medley of practical
humanitarianism and social fantasies, the labor
movement was revived. In the forties, Thomas
Mooney, an observant Irish traveler who had
spent several years in the United States wrote
as follows J :

The average value of a common uneducated labourer is
eighty cents a day. Of educated or mechanical la-
bour, one hundred twenty-five and two hundred
cents a day; of female labour forty cents a day.
Against meat, flour, vegetables, and groceries at

*Nine Years in America (1850), p. 22.

44 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

one-third less than they rate in Great Britain and
Ireland; against clothing, house rent and fuel at about
equal; against public taxes at about three-fourths less;
and a certainty of employment, and a facility of ac-
quiring homes and lands, and education for children,
a hundred to one greater. The further you penetrate
into the country, Patrick, the higher in general will you.
find the value of labour, and the cheaper the price of all
kinds of living. . . . The food of the American farm-
er, mechanic or labourer is the best I believe enjoyed
by any similar classes in the whole world. At every
meal there is meat or fish or both; indeed I think the
women, children, and sedentary classes eat too much
meat for their own good health.

This highly optimistic picture, writter >jy a san-
guine observer from the land of greatest agrarian
oppression, must be shaded by contrasting details.
The truck system of payment, prevalent in mining
regions and many factory towns, reduced the ac-
tual wage by almost one-half. In the cities, un-
skilled immigrants had so overcrowded the com-
mon labor market that competition had reduced
them to a pitiable state. Hours of labor were
generally long in the factories. As a rule only the
skilled artisan had achieved the ten-hour day,
and then only in isolated instances. Woman's
labor was the poorest paid, and her condition
was the most neglected. A visitor to Lowell in

TRANSITION YEARS 45

1846 thus describes the conditions in an average
factory of that town:

In Lowell live between seven and eight thousand
young women, who are generally daughters of farmers
of the different States of New England. Some of them
are members of families that were rich the generation
before, . . . The operatives work thirteen hours a
day in the summer lime, and from daylight to dark
in the winter. At half-past four in the morning the
factory boll rings and at five the girls must be in the
mills. A clerk, placed as a watch, observes those
who are a few minutes behind the time, and effectual
means are taken to stimulate punctuality. ... At
seven the girls are allowed thirty minutes for break-
fast, and at noon thirty minutes more for dinner,
except during the first quarter of the year, when the
time is extended to forty-five minutes. But within
this time they must hurry to their boarding-houses
and return to the factory. ... At seven o'clock in
the evening the factory bell sounds the close of the
day's work.

It was under these conditions that the coopera-
tive movement had its brief day of experiment. As
early as 1828 the workmen of Philadelphia and Cin-
cinnati had begun cooperative stores. The Phila-
delphia group were "fully persuaded," accord-
ing to their constitution, "that nothing short of
an entire change in the present regulation of trade
and commerce will ever be permanently beneficial

40 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

to the productive part of the community/'' But
their little shop survived competition for only a
few months. The Cincinnati " Cooperative Maga-
zine" was a sort of combination of store and shop,
where various trades were taught, but it also soon
disappeared.

In 1845 the New England Workingmen's Associ-
ation organized a protective union for the purpose
of obtaining for its members "steady and profitable
employment" and of saving the retailer's profit for
the purchaser. This movement had a high moral
flavor. "The dollar was to us of minor impor-
tance; humanitary and not mercenary were our
motives," reported their committee on organiza-
tion of industry. "We must proceed from com-
bined stores to combined shops, from combined
shops to combined homes, to joint ownership in
God's earth, the foundation that our edifice must
stand upon. " In this ambitious spirit u they com-
menced business with a box of soap and half a
chest of tea. " In 185 they had 167 branches, a
capital of $241,712.66, and a business of nearly
$2,000,000 a year.

In the meantime similar cooperative movements
began elsewhere. The tailors of Boston struck for
higher wages in 1850 and, after fourteen weeks of

TRANSITION YEARS 47

futile struggle, decided that their salvation lay in
cooperation rather than in trade unionism, which
at best afforded only temporary relief. About
seventy of them raised $700 as a cooperative
nest egg and netted a profit of $510.60 the first
year. In the same year the Philadelphia printers,
disappointed at their failure to force a higher wage,
organized a cooperative printing press.

The movement spread to New York, where a
strike of the tailors was in progress. The strikers
were addressed at a great mass meeting by Albert
Brisbane, an ardent disciple of Fourier, the French
social economist, and were told that they must do
away with servitude to capital. "What we want
to know/' said Brisbane, "is how to change, peace-
fully, the system of today. The first great princi-
ple is combination." Another meeting was ad-
dressed by a German, a follower of Karl Marx, who
littered in his native tongue these words that sound
like a modern I. W. W. prophet: "Many of us have
fought for liberty in the fatherland. We came
here because we were opposed, and what have we
gained? Nothing but misery, hunger, and tread-
ing down. But we are in a free country and it is our
fault if we do not get our rights. . . . Let those
who strike eat; the rest starve. Butchers and

48 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

bakers must withhold supplies. Yes. they must
all strike, and then the aristocrat will starve. We
must have a revolution. We cannot submit any
longer." The cry of "Revolution! Revolution!"
was taken up by the throng.

In the midst of this agitation a New York
branch of the New England Protective Union was
organized as an attempt at peaceful revolution
by cooperation. The New York Protective Union
went a step farther than the New England Union.
Its members established their own shops and so
became their own employers. And in many other
cities striking workmen and eager reformers joined
hands in modest endeavors to change the face of
things. The revolutionary movements of Europe
at this period were having a seismic effect upon
American labor. But all these attempts of the
workingmen to tourney a ro^gh world with a needle
were foredoomed to failure. Lacking the essential
business experience and the ability to cooperate,
they were soon undone, and after a few years
little more was heard of cooperation.

In the meantime another economic movement
gained momentum under the leadership of George
Henry Evans, who was a land reformer and may
be called a precursor of Henry George. Evans

TRANSITION YEARS 49

inaugurated a campaign for free farms to entice to
the land the unprosperous toilers of the city. In
spite of the vast areas of the public domain still un-
occupied, the cities were growing denser and larger
and filthier by reason of the multitudes from Ire-
land and other countries who preferred to cast them-
selves into the eager maw of factory towns rather
than go out as agrarian pioneers. To such Evans
and other agrarian reformers made their appeal.
For example, a handbill distributed everywhere in
1846 asked:

Are you an American citizen? Then you are a joint-
owner of the public lands. Why not take enough of
your property to provide yourself a home? Why not
vote yourself a farm?

Are you a party follower? Then you have long
enough employed your vote to benefit scheming office
seekers. Use it for once to benefit yourself: Vote
yourself a farm.

Are you tired of slavery of drudging for others
of poverty and its attendant miseries? Then, vote
yourself a farm.

Would you free your country and the sons of toil
everywhere from the heartless, irresponsible mastery
of the aristocracy of avarice? . . . Then join with
your neighbors to form a true American party . . .
whose chief measures will be first to limit the quantity
of land that any one may henceforth monopolize or
inherit: and second to make the public lands free to

50 THE OF

actual settlers only, each having the right to sell his
Improvements to any man not possessed of other lands,

"Vote yourself a farm' 5 became a popular shib-
boleth and a part of the standard programme of
organized labor. The donation of public lands to
heads of families, on condition of occupancy and
cultivation for a term of years, was proposed in bills
repeatedly introduced in Congress. But the cry of
opposition went up from the older States that
they would be bled for the sake of the newer, that
giving land to the landless was encouraging idle-
ness and wantonness and spreading demoralization,
and that Congress had no more power to give away
land than it had to give away money. These argu-
ments had their effect at the Capitol, and it was not
until the new Republican party came into power
pledged to "a complete and satisfactory home-
stead measure" that the Homestead Act of 1862
was placed on the statute books.

A characteristic manifestation of the humani-
tarian impulse of the forties was the support given
to labor in its renewed demand for a ten-hour
day. It has already been indicated how this
movement started in the thirties, how its object was
achieved by a few highly organized trades, and how
it was interrupted in its progress by the panic of

TRANSITION YEARS 51

1837. The agitation, however, to make the ten-
hour day customary throughout the country was
not long in coining back to life. In March, 1840,
an executive order of "President Van Buren declar-
ing ten hours to be the working day for laborers
and mechanics in government employ forced the
issue upon private employers. The earliest con-
certed action, it would seem, arose in New Eng-
land, where the New England Workingmen's As-
sociation, later called the Labor Reform League,,
carried on the crusade. In 1845 a committee
appointed by the Massachusetts Legislature to
investigate labor conditions affords the first in-
stance on record of an American legislature con-
cerning itself with the affairs of the labor world
to the extent of ordering an official investigation.
The committee examined a number of factory oper-
atives, both men and women, visited a few of the
mills, gathered some statistics, and made certain
neutral and specious suggestions. They believed
the remedy for such evils as they discovered lay not
in legislation but "in the progressive improvement
in art and science, in a higher appreciation of
man's destiny, in a less love for money, and a more
ardent love for social happiness and intellectual
superiority. "

52 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

The first ten-hour law was passed in 1847 by the
New Hampshire Legislature. It provided that
"ten hours of actual labor shall be taken to be a
day's work, unless otherwise agreed to by the par-
ties, 5S and that no minor under fifteen years of age
should be employed more than ten hours a day
without the consent of parent or guardian. This
was the unassuming beginning of a movement to
have the hours of toil fixed by society rather
than by contract. This law of New Hampshire,
which was destined to have a widespread influence,
was hailed by the workmen everywhere with de-
light; mass meetings and processions proclaimed
it as a great victory; and only the conservatives
prophesied the worthlessness of such legislation.
Horace Greeley sympathetically dissected the bill
He had little faith, it is true, in legislative inter-
ference with private contracts. "But," he asks,
"who can seriously doubt that it is the duty of
the Commonwealth to sec that the tender frames
of its youth are not shattered by excessively pro-
tracted toil? . . . Will any one pretend that ten
hours per day, especially at confining and mono-
tonous avocations which tax at once the brain
and the sinews are not quite enough for any child
to labor statedly and steadily?" The consent of

TRANSITION YEARS 53

guardian or parent he thought a fraud against the
child that could be averted only by the positive
command of the State specifically limiting the hours
of child labor.

In the following year Pennsylvania enacted a
law declaring ten hours a legal day in certain indus-
tries and forbidding children under twelve from
working in cotton, woolen, silk, or flax mills.
Children over fourteen, however, could, by special
arrangement with parents or guardians, be com-
pelled to work more than ten hours a day. "This
act is very much of a humbug," commented
Greeley, "but it will serve a good end. Those
whom it was intended to put asleep will come back
again before long, and, like Oliver Twist, Vant
some more. ' "

The ten-hour movement had thus achieved so-
cial recognition. It had the stanch support of
such men as Wendell Phillips, Edward Everett,
Horace Greeley, and other distinguished publicists
and philanthropists. Public opinion was becom-
ing so strong that both the Whigs and Democrats
in their party platforms declared themselves in
favor of the ten-hour day. When, in the sum-
mer of 1847, the British Parliament passed a ten-
hour law, American unions sent congratulatory

54 THE ARMIES OF

messages to the British workmen. Gradually the
various States followed the example of New Hamp-
shire and Pennsylvania New Jersey in 1851,
Ohio in 1852, and Rhode Island in 1853 and
the " ten-hour system" was legally established.

But it was one thing to write a statute and an-
other to enforce it. American laws were, after
all, based upon the ancient Anglo-Saxon principle
of private contract. A man could agree to work
for as many hours as he chose, and each employ-
er could drive his own bargain. The cotton mill
owners of Allegheny City, for example, declared
that they would be compelled to run their mills
twelve hours a day. They would not, of course,
employ children under twelve, although they felt
deeply concerned for the widows who would there-
by lose the wages of their children. But they must
run on a twelve-hour schedule to meet compe-
tition from other States. So they attempted to
make special contracts with each employee. The
workmen objected to this and struck. Finally
they compromised on a ten-hour day and a sixteen
per cent reduction in wages. Such an arrangement
became a common occurrence in the industrial
world of the middle of the century.

In the meantime the factory system was rapidly

TRANSITION YEARS 55

recruiting women workers, especially in the New
England textile mills. Indeed, as early as 1825
"tailoresses" of New York and other cities had
formed protective societies. In 1829 the mill girls
of Dover, New Hampshire, caused a sensation by
striking. Several hundred of them paraded the
streets and, according to accounts, "fired off a
lot of gunpowder. 5J In 1836 the women workers
in the Lowell factories struck for higher wages and
later organized a Factory Girls' Association which
included more than 2,500 members. It was aimed
against the strict regimen of the boarding houses,
which were owned and managed by the mills.
"As our fathers resisted unto blood the lordly ava-
rice of the British Ministry," cried the strikers,
"so we, their daughters, never will wear the yoke
which has been prepared for us."

In this vibrant atmosphere was born the power-
ful woman's labor union, the Female Labor Reform
Association, later called the Lowell Female Indus-
trial Reform and Mutual Aid Society. Lowell
became the center of a far-reaching propaganda
characterized by energy and a definite conception
of what was wanted , The women joined in strikes,
carried banners, sent delegates to the labor con-
ventions, and were zealous in propaganda. It was

56 THE OF

the women workers of Massachusetts who first
forced the legislature to investigate labor condi-
tions and who aroused public sentiment to a pitch
that finally compelled the enactment of laws for
the bettering of their conditions. When the mill
owners in Massachusetts demanded in 1846 that
their weavers tend four looms instead of three, the
women promptly resolved that "we will not tend
a fourth loom unless we receive the same pay per
piece as on three. . . . This we most solemnly
pledge ourselves to obtain. "

In New York, in 1845, the Female Industry
Association was organized at a large meeting
held in the court house. It included "tailoresses,
plain and coarse sewing, shirt makers, book-fold-
ers and stickers, capmakers, straw-workers, dress-
makers, crimpers, fringe and lacemakers, " and
other trades open to women "who were like op-
pressed. " The New York Herald reported "about
700 females generally of the most interesting
age and appearance" in attendance. The presi-
dent of the meeting unfolded a pitiable condi-
tion of affairs. She mentioned several employers
by name who paid only from ten to eighteen cents
a day, and she stated that, after acquiring skill
in some of the trades and by working twelve

TRANSITION YEAES 57

to fourteen hours a day, a woman might earn
twenty-five cents a day! "How is it possible/ 5
she exclaimed., "that at such an income we can
support ourselves decently and honestly? 3 "

So we come to the fifties, when the rapid rise
In the cost of living due to the influx of gold from
the newly discovered California mines created new
economic conditions. By 1853, the cost of living
had risen so high that the length of the working
day was quite forgotten because of the utter inade-
quacy of the wage to meet the new altitude of
prices. Hotels issued statements that they were
compelled to raise their rates for board from a
dollar and a half to two dollars a day. News-
papers raised their advertising rates. Drinks went
up irom six cents to ten and twelve and a half
cents. In Baltimore, the men in the Baltimore
and Ohio Railway shops struck. They were fol-
lowed by all the conductors, brakemen, and loco-
motive engineers. Machinists employed in other
shops soon joined them, and the city's industries
were virtually paralyzed. In New York nearly
every indus try was stopped by strikes. In Philadel-
phia, Boston, Pittsburgh, in cities large and small,
the striking workmen made their demands known,

By this time thoughtful laborers had learned the

58 THE AEMIES OF

futility of programmes that attempted to reform
society. They had watched the birth and death
of many experiments. They had participated in
short-lived cooperative stores and shops; they had
listened to Owen's alluring words and had seen
his World Convention meet and adjourn; had wit-
nessed national reform associations, leagues, and
industrial congresses issue their high-pitched reso-
lutions; and had united on legislative candidates.
And yet the old world wagged on in the old way.
Wages and hours and working conditions could be
changed, they had learned, only by coercion. This
coercion could be applied, in general reforms, only
by society, by stress of public opinion. But in
concrete cases, in their own personal environment,
the coercion had to be first applied by themselves.
They had learned the lesson of letting the world
in general go its way while they attended to their
own business.

In the early fifties, then, a new species of union
appears. It discards lofty phraseology and the
attempt at world-reform and it becomes simply a
trade union. It restricts its house-cleaning to its
own shop, limits its demands to its trade, asks
for a minimum wage and minimum hours, and lays
out with considerable detail the conditions under

TRANSITION YEARS 59

which its members will work. The weapons in its
arsenal are not new the strike and the boycott.
Now that he has learned to distinguish essentials.,
the new trade unionist can bargain with his em-
ployer, and as a result trade agreements stipu-
lating hours, wages, and conditions, take the place
of the desultory and ineffective settlements which
had hitherto issued from labor disputes. But it
was not without foreboding that this development
was witnessed by the adherents of the status quo.
According to a magazine writer of 1853:

After prescribing the rate of remuneration many of the
Trades' Unions go to enact laws for the government of
the respective departments, to all of which the employ-
er must assent, . . . The result even thus far is that
there is found no limit to this species of encroachment.
If workmen may dictate the hours and mode of service,
and the number and description of hands to be em-
ployed, they may also regulate other items of the
business with which their labor is connected. Thus
we find that within a few days, in the city of New
York, the longshoremen have taken by force from their
several stations the horses and labor-saving gear used
for delivering cargoes, it being part of their regulations
not to allow of such competition.

The gravitation towards common action was
felt over a wide area during this period. Some
trades met in national convention to lay down

60 THE OF

rules for their craft. One of the earliest national
meetings was that of the carpet-weavers (1846) in
New York City, when thirty-four delegates, repre-
senting over a thousand operatives, adopted rules
and took steps to prevent a reduction in wages.
The National Convention of Journeymen Printers
met in 1850, and out of this emerged two years
later an organization called the National Typo-
graphical Union, which ten years later still, on
the admission of some Canadian unions, became
the International Typographical Union of North
America; and as such it flourishes today. In 1855
the Journeymen Stone Cutters' Association of
North America was organized and in the following
year the National Trade Association of Hat Finish-
ers, the forerunner of the United Hatters of North
America. In 1859 the Iron Holders' Union of
North America began its aggressive career.

The conception of a national trade unity was
now well formed; compactly organized national
and local trade unions with very definite industrial
aims were soon to take the place of ephemeral,
loose-jointed associations with vast and vague
ambitions. Early in this period a new impetus
was given to organized labor by the historic de-
cision of Chief Justice Shaw of Massachusetts in

TRANSITION YEARS 61

n, case * brought against seven bootmakers charged
with conspiracy. Their offense consisted in at-
tempting to induce all the workmen of a given
shop to join the union and compel the master
to employ only union men. The trial court found
them guilty; hut the Chief Justice decided that
he did not "perceive that it is criminal for men to
agree together to exercise their own acknowledged
rights in such a manner as best to subserve their
own interests." In order to show criminal con-
spiracy, therefore, on the part of a labor union,
it was necessary to prove that either the intent or
the method was criminal, for it was not a criminal
offense to combine for the purpose of raising wages
or bettering conditions or seeking to have all la-
borers join the union. The liberalizing influence
of this decision upon labor law can hardly be
over-estimated.

The period closed amidst general disturbances
and forebodings, political and economic. In 1857
occurred a panic which thrust the problem of
unemployment, on a vast scale, before the Ameri-
can consciousness. Instead of demanding higher
wages, multitudes now cried for work. The march-
ing masses, in New York, carried banners asking

1 Commonwealth vs. Hunt.

2 THE ARMIES OF

for bread, while soldiers from Governor's Island
and marines from the Navy Yard guarded the Cus-
tom House and the Sub-Treasury. From Phila-
delphia to New Orleans, from Boston to Chicago,
came the same story of banks failing, railroads
in bankruptcy, factories closing, idle and hungry
throngs moving restlessly through the streets. In
New York 40,000, in Lawrence 3500, in Philadel-
phia 20,000, were estimated to be out of work.
Labor learned anew that its prosperity was inalien-
ably identified with the well-being of industry and
commerce; and society learned that hunger and
idleness are the golden opportunity of the dema-
gogue and agitator. The word u socialism" now
appears more and more frequently in the daily
press and always a synonym of destruction or of
something to be feared. No sooner had business
revived than the great shadow of internal strife
was cast over the land, and for the duration of the
Civil War the peril of the nation absorbed all the
energies of the people*

IV

AMALGAMATION

AFTER Appomattox, every one seemed bent oil
finding a, short cut to opulence. To foreign obser-
vers, the United States was then simply a scram-
bling mass of selfish units, for there seemed to be
among the American people no disinterested group
to balance accounts between the competing ele-
ments - no leisure class, living on secured incomes,

mellowed by generations of travel, education, and
reflection; no bureaucracy arbitrarily guiding the
details of governmental routine; no aristocracy,,
born umpires of the doings of their underlings. All
the manifold currents of life seemed swallowed up
in the commercial maelstrom. By the standards
of what happened in this season of exuberance
and intense materialism, the American people were
hastily judged by critics who failed to see that
the period was but the prelude to a maturer
national life.

63

64 THE ARMIES OF

It was a period of a remarkable industrial expan-
sion. Then "plant" became a new word in the
phraseology of the market place, denoting the
enlarged factory or mill and suggesting the hardy
perennial, each succeeding year putting forth new
shoots from its side. The products of this seed-
time are seen in the colossal industrial growths of
today. Then it was that short railway lines began
to be welded into "systems," that the railway
builders began to strike out into the prairies and
mountains of the West, and that partnerships
began to be merged into corporations and corpora-
tions into trusts, ever reaching out for the great-
er markets. Meanwhile the inventive genius of
America was responding to the call of the time.
In 1877 Bell telephoned from Boston to Salem;
two years later, Brush lighted by electricity the
streets of San Francisco. In 188$ Edison was
making incandescent electric lights for New York
and operating his first electric car in Menlo Park,
New Jersey.

All these developments created a new demand
for capital. Where formerly a manufacturer had
made products to order or for a small number of
known customers, now he made on speculation, for
a great number of unknown customers, taking

AMALGAMATION 65

Ms risks In distant markets. Where formerly the
banker had lent money on local security, now he
gave credit to vast enterprises far away. New in-
ventions or industrial processes brought on new
speculations. This new demand for capital made
necessary a new system of credits, which was erect-
ed at first, as the recurring panics disclosed, on
sand, but gradually, through costly experience, on
a more stable foundation.

The economic and industrial development of the
time demanded not only new money and credit but
new men. A new type of executive was wanted,
and he soon appeared to satisfy the need. Neither
a capitalist nor a merchant, he combined in some
degree the functions of both, added to them the
greater function of industrial manager, and received
from great business concerns a high premium for
his talent and foresight. This Captain of Industry,
as he has been called, is the foremost figure of the
period, the hero of the industrial drama.

But much of what is admirable in that generation
of nation builders is obscured by the Industrial an-
archy which prevailed. Everybody was for himself
and the devil was busy harvesting the hindmost,
There were " rate- wars," " cut-rate sales," secret in-
trigues, and rebates; and there were* subterranean

66 THE OF

passages some, indeed, scarcely under the sur-
face to council chambers, executive mansions,
and Congress. There were extreme fluctuations
of industry: prosperity was either at a very high
level or depression at a very low one. Prosperity
would bring on an expansion, of credits, a rise in
prices, higher cost of living, strikes and boycotts
for higher wages; then depression would follow
with the shutdown and that most distressing of so-
cial diseases, unemployment. During the panic of
1873-74 many thousands of men marched the
streets crying earnestly for work.

Between the panics, strikes became a part of the
economic routine of the country. They were ex-
pected, just as pay days and legal holidays are
expected. Now for the first time came strikes that
can only be characterized as stupendous. They
were not mere slight economic disturbances; they
were veritable industrial earthquakes. In 1873
the coal miners of Pennsylvania, resenting the
truck system and the miserable housing which the
mine owners forced upon them, struck by the tens
of thousands. In Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Mary-
land, Ohio, and New York strikes occurred in all
sorts of industries. There were the usual parades
and banners, some appealing, some insulting, and

AMALGAMATION 67

all the while the militia guarded property. In
July, 1877, the men of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad refused to submit to a fourth reduction
in wages in seven years and struck. From Balti-
more Ihe resentment spread to Pennsylvania and
culminated with riots in Pittsburgh. All the an-
thracite coal miners struck, followed by most of the
bituminous miners of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
The militia, were impotent to subdue the mobs;
Federal troops had to be sent by President Hayes
into many of the States; and a proclamation by the
President commanded all citizens to keep the peace.
Thus was Federal authority introduced to bolster
up the administrative weakness of the States, and
the first step was taken on the road to industrial
nationalization.

The turmoil had hardly subsided when, in 1880,
new strikes broke out. In the long catalogue of the
strikers of that year are found the ribbon weavers of
Philadelphia,, Paterson, and New York, the stable-
men of New York, New Jersey, and San Francisco,
the cotton yard workers of New Orleans, the cotton
weavers of New England and New York, the stock-
yard employees of Chicago and Omaha, the potters
of Green Point, Long Island, the puddlers of Johns-
town and Columbia, Pennsylvania, the machinists

68 THE ARMIES OF

of Buffalo, the tailors of New York, and the shoe-
makers of Indiana. The year 1882 was scarcelj
less restive. But 1886 is marked in labor annals
as "the year of the great uprising/* when twice
as many strikes as in any previous year were re-
ported by the United States Commissioner of La-
bor, and when these strikes reached a tragic climas
b the Chicago Haymarket riots.

It was during this feverish epoch that organized
labor first entered the arena of national politics.
When the policy as to the national currency be-
came an issue, the lure of cheap money drew labor
into an alliance in 1880 with the Greenbackers,
whose mad cry added to the general unrest. In
this, as in other fatuous pursuits, labor was only
responding to the forces and the spirit of the
hour. These have been called the years of amal-
gamation, but they were also the years of tumult,
for, while amalgamation was achieved, discipline
was not. Authority imposed from within was not
sufficient to overcome the decentralizing forces, and
just as big business had yet to learn by self-imposed
discipline how to overcome the extremely indi-
vidualistic tendencies which resulted in trade
anarchy, so labor had yet to learn through disci-
pline the lessons of self-restraint. Moreover, in the

AMALGAMATION 69

sudden expansion and great enterprises of these
days, labor even more than capital lost in stability.
One great steadying influence, the old personal rela-
tion between master and servant,, which prevailed
during the days of handicraft and even of the
small factory, had disappeared almost completely.
Now labor was put up on the market a heart-
less term descriptive of a condition from which hu-
man beings might be expected to react violent-
ly and they did, for human nature refused to
be an inert, marketable thing.

The labor market must expand with the trader's
market. In 1860 there were about one and a third
million wage-earners in the United States; in 1870
well over two million; in 1880 nearly two and
three-quarters million; and in 1890 over four and a
quarter million . The ci ty sucked them in from the
country; but by far the larger augmentation came
from Europe; and the immigrant, normally opti-
mistic, often untaught, sometimes sullen and filled
with a destructive resentment, and always accus-
tomed to low standards of living, added to the
armies of labor his vast and complex bulk.

There were two paramount issues wages and
the hours of labor to which all other issues were
and always have been secondary. Wages tend

70 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

constantly to become inadequate 'when the stand*
ard of living is steadily rising, and they consequent-
ly require periodical readjustment. Hours of labor,
of course, are not subject in the same degree to
external conditions. But the tendency has always
been toward a shorter day. In a previous chap-
ter, the inception of the ten-hour movement, was
outlined. Presently there began the eight-hour
movement. As early as 1842 the carpenters and
caulkers of the Charleston Navy Yard achieved an
eight-hour day; but 1863 may more properly be
taken as the beginning of the movement. In this
year societies were organized in Boston and its vi-
cinity for the precise purpose of winning the eight-
hour day, and soon afterwards a national Eight-
Hour League was established with local leagues
extending from New England to San Francisco
and New Orleans.

This movement received an intelligible philoso-
phy, and so a new vitality, from Ira Steward,
a member of the Boston Machinists' and Black-
smiths' Union. Writing as a workingman for work-
ingmen, Steward found in the standard of living
the true reason for a shorter workday. With beau-
tiful simplicity he pointed out to the laboring man
that the shorter period of labor would not mean

AMALGAMATION 71

smaller pay, and to the employer that it would not
mean a diminished output. On the contrary, it
would be mutually beneficial, for the unwearied
workman could produce as much in the shorter day
as the wearied workman in the longer. " As long/'
Steward wrote, "as tired human hands do most of
the world's hard work, the sentimental pretense
of honoring and respecting the horny-handed
toiler is as false and absurd as the idea that a
solid foundation for a house can be made out of
soap bubbles."

In 1865 Steward's pamphlet, A Reduction of Hours'
and Increase of Wages, was widely circulated by
the Boston Labor Reform Association. It em-
phasized the value of leisure and its beneficial re-
flex effect upon both production and consumption.
Gradually these well reasoned and conservatively
expressed doctrines found champions such as
Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, and Hor-
ace Greeley to give them wider publicity and to
impress them upon the public consciousness. In
1867 Illinois, Missouri, and New York passed
eight-hour laws and Wisconsin declared eight hours
a day's work for women and children. In 1868
Congress established an eight-hour day for public
work. These were promising signs, though the

72 THE OF

battle was still far from being won. The eight-
hour day has at last received "the sanction of
society" to use the words of President Wilson
in his message to Congress in 1916, when he called
for action to avert a great railway strike. But to
win that sanction required over half a century of
popular agitation, discussion, and economic and
political evolution.

Such, in brief, were the general business con-
ditions of the country and the issues which en-
gaged the energies of labor reformers during the
period following the Civil War. Meanwhile great
changes were made in labor organizations. Many
of the old unions were reorganized, and numer-
ous local amalgamations took place. Most of the
organizations now took the form of secret socie-
ties whose initiations were marked with nai've for-
malism and whose routines were directed by a
group of officers with royal titles and fortified by
signs, passwords, and ritual. Some of these or-
ders decorated the faithful with high-sounding
degrees. The societies adopted fantastic names
such as "The Supreme Mechanical Order of the
Sun," "The Knights of St. Crispin," and "The
Noble Order of the Knights of Labor," of which
more presently.

AMALGAMATION 73

Meanwhile, too, there was a growing desire to
unify the workers of the country by some sort of
national organization. The outcome was a notable
Labor Congress held at Baltimore in August, 1866,
which included all kinds of labor organizations
and was attended by seventy-seven delegates from
thirteen States. In the light of subsequent events
its resolutions now seem conservative and con-
structive. This Congress believed that, "all re-
forms in the labor movement can only be effected by
an intelligent, systematic effort of the industrial
classes . . . through the trades organizations. " Of
strikes it declared that "they have been injudicious
and ill-advised, the result of impulse rather than
principle, . . . and we would therefore discounte-
nance them except as a dernier ressort, and when all
means for an amicable and honorable adjustment
has been abandoned." It issued a cautious and
carefully phrased Address to the Workmen through-
out the Country, urging them to organize and assur-
ing them that "the first thing to be accomplished
before we can hope for any great results is
the thorough organization of all the departments
of labor/ 1

The National Labor Union which resulted from
this convention held seven Annual Congresses,

74 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

and its proceedings show a statesmanlike conser-
vatism and avoid extreme radicalism. This or-
ganization, which at its high tide represented a
membership of 640,000, in its brief existence was
influential in three important matters: first, it
pointed the way to national amalgamation and
was thus a forerunner of more lasting efforts in
this direction; secondly, it had a powerful influence
in the eight-hour movement; and, thirdly, it was
largely instrumental in establishing labor bureaus
and in gathering statistics for the scientific study
of labor questions. But the National Labor Union
unfortunately went into politics; and politics
proved its undoing. Upon affiliating with the
Labor Reform party it dwindled rapidly, and after
1871 it disappeared entirely.

One of the typical organizations of the time
was the Order of the Knights of St. Crispin, so
named after the patron saint of the shoemakers,,
and accessible only to members of that craft. It
was first conceived in 1864 by Newell Daniels, a
shoemaker in Milford, Massachusetts, but no or-
ganization was effected until 1867, when the foun-
der had moved to Milwaukee. The ritual and
constitution he had prepared was accepted then by
a group of seven shoemakers, and in four years

AMALGAMATION 75

this insignificant mustard seed had grown into a
great tree. The story is told by Frank K. Foster, l
who says, speaking of the order in 1868 : "It made
and unmade politicians; it established a monthly
journal; it started cooperative stores; it fought,
often successfully, against threatened reductions
of wages . . .; it became the undoubted foremost
trade organization of the world. " But within five
years the order was rent by factionalism and in
1878 was acknowledged to be dead. It perished
from various causes partly because it failed to
assimilate or imbue with its doctrines the thou-
sands of workmen who subscribed to its rules
and ritual, partly because of the jealousy and
treachery which is the fruitage of sudden pros-
perity, partly because of failure to fulfill the fer-
vent hopes of thousands who joined it as a prelude
to the industrial millennium; but especially it failed
to endure because it was founded on an economic
principle which could not be imposed upon society.
The rule which embraced this principle reads as
follows: u No member of this Order shall teach, or
aid in teaching, any fact or facts of boot or shoe-
making, unless the lodge shall give permission by

1 The Labor Movement, the Problem of Today, edited by George
E. McNeil!, Chapter VIII.

76 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

a three-fourths vote . . . provided that this arti-
cle shall not be so construed as to prevent a father
from teaching his own son. Provided also, that
this article shall not be so construed as to hinder
any member of this organization from learning any
or all parts of the trade." The medieval craft
guild could not so easily be revived in these days
of rapid changes, when a new stitching machine
replaced in a day a hundred workmen. And so
the Knights of St. Crispin fell a victim to their
own greed.

The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, an-
other of those societies of workingmen, was organ-
ized in November, 1869, by Uriah S. Stephens, a
Philadelphia garment cutter, with the assistance
of six fellow craftsmen. It has been said of Ste-
phens that he was " a man of great force of char-
acter, a skilled mechanic, with the love of books
which enabled him to pursue his studies during
his apprenticeship, and feeling withal a strong
affection for secret organizations, having been for
many years connected with the Masonic Order/*
He was to have been educated for the ministry
but, owing to financial reverses in his family, was
obliged instead to learn a trade. Later he taught
school for a few years, traveled extensively in

AMALGAMATION 77

the West Indies, South America, and California,
and became an accomplished public speaker and
a diligent observer of social conditions.

Stephens and his six associates had witnessed
the dissolution of the local garment cutters' union.
They resolved that the new society should not be
limited by the lines of their own trade but should
embrace a all branches of honorable toil. " Subse-
quently a rule was adopted stipulating that at
least three-fourths of the membership of lodges
must be wage-earners eighteen years of age. More-
over, " no one who either sells or makes a living, or
any part of it, by the sale of intoxicating drinks
either as manufacturer, dealer, or agent, or through
any member of his family, can be admitted to
membership in this order; and no lawyer, bank-
er, professional gambler, or stock broker can be
admitted/' They chose their motto from Solon,
the wisest of lawgivers: "That is the most per-
fect government in which an injury to one is the
concern of all"; and they took their preamble
from Burke, the most philosophical of statesmen:
"When bad men combine, the good must asso-
ciate, else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied
sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
The order was a secret society and for years

78 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

kept Its name from the public. It was generally
known as the "Five Stars," because of the five as-
terisks that represented its name in all public no-
tices. While mysterious initials and secret cere-
monies gratified the members, they aroused a cor-
responding antagonism, even fear, among the pub-
lic, especially as the order grew to giant size. What
were the potencies of a secret organization that had
only to post a few mysterious words and symbols
to gather hundreds of workingmen in their halls?
And what plottings went on behind those locked
and guarded doors? To allay public hostility se-
crecy was gradually removed and in 1881 was en-
tirely abolished not, however, without serious
opposition from the older members.

The atmosphere of high idealism in which the or-
der had been conceived continued to be fostered by
Stephens, its founder and its first Grand Mas-
ter Workman. He extolled justice, discounte-
nanced violence, and pleaded for "the mutual de-
velopment and moral elevation of mankind. 1 ' His
exhortations were free from that narrow class an-
tagonism which frequently characterizes the utter-
ances of labor. One of his associates, too, invoked
the spirit of chivalry, of true knighthood, when he
said that the old trade union had failed because "it

AMALGAMATION 79

had failed to recognize the rights of man and looked
only to the rights of tradesmen/' that the labor
movement needed "something that will develop
more of charity, less of selfishness, more of gener-
osity, less of stinginess and nearness, than the av-
erage society has yet disclosed to its members."
Nor were these ideas and principles betrayed by
Stcphcns's successor, Terence V. Powderly, who
became Grand Master in 1879 and served dur-
ing the years when the order attained its greatest
power. Powderly, also, was a conservative ideal-
ist. His career may be regarded as a good ex-
ample of the rise of many an American labor
leader. He had been a poor boy. At thirteen he
began work as a switchtender; at seventeen he was
apprenticed as machinist; at nineteen he was ac-
tive in a machinists' and blacksmiths' union. After
working at his trade in various places, he at length
settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and became
one of the organizers of the Greenback Labor
party. He was twice elected mayor of Scranton,
and might have been elected for a third term had
he not declined to serve, preferring to devote all
his time to the society of which he was Grand
Master. The obligations laid upon every member
of the Knights of Labor were impressive:

80 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

Labor is noble and holy. To defend it from degrada-
tion; to divest it of the evils to body, mind and estate
which ignorance and greed have imposed ; to rescue the
toiler from the grasp of the selfish is a work worthy
of the noblest and best of our race. In all the multi-
farious branches of trade capital has its combinations;
and, whether intended or not, it crushes the manly
hopes of labor and tramples poor humanity in the
dust. We mean no conflict with legitimate enterprise,
no antagonism to necessary capital; but men in their
haste and greed, blinded by self-interests, overlook the
interests of others and sometimes violate the rights
of those they deem helpless. We mean to uphold the
dignity of labor, to affirm the nobility of all who earn
their bread by the sweat of their brows. We mean to
create a healthy public opinion on the subject of labor
(the only creator of values or capital) arid the justice
of its receiving a full, just share of the values or capital
it has created. We shall, with all our strength, support
laws made to harmonize the interests of labor and
capital, for labor alone gives life and value to capital,,
and also those laws which tend to lighten the cxhaus-
tiveness of toil. To pause in his toil, to devote himself
to his own interests, to gather a knowledge of the
world's commerce, to unite, combine and cooperate
in the great army of peace and industry, to nourish
and cherish, build and develop the temple he lives in
is the highest and noblest duty of man to himself, to
his fellow men and to his Creator.

The phenomenal growth and collapse of the
Knights of Labor is one of the outstanding events

AMALGAMATION 81

in American economic history. The membership
in 1869 consisted of eleven tailors. This small
beginning grew into the famous Assembly No. 1.
Soon the ship carpenters wanted to join, and As-
sembly No. 2 was organized. The shawl-weavers
formed another assembly, the carpet-weavers an-
other, and so on, until over twenty assemblies, cov-
ering almost every trade, had been organized in
Philadelphia alone. By 1875 there were eighty as-
semblies in the city and its vicinity. As the num-
ber of lodges multiplied, it became necessary to
establish a common agency or authority, and a
Committee on the Good of the Order was consti-
tuted to represent all the local units, but this com-
mittee was soon superseded by a delegate body
known as the District Assembly. As the move-
ment spread from city to city and from State to
State, a General Assembly was created in 1878
to hold annual conventions and to be the supreme
authority of the order. In 1883 the membership of
the order was 52,000; within three years, it had
mounted to over 700,000; and at the climax of
its career the society boasted over 1,000,000 work-
men in the United States and Canada who had
vowed fealty to its knighthood.

It is not to be imagined that every member

82 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

of this vast horde so suddenly brought together
understood the obligations of the workman's chiv-
alry. The selfish and the lawless rushed in with
the prudent and sincere. But a resolution of the
executive board to stop the initiation of new mem-
bers came too late. The undesirable and radi-
cal element in many communities gained control of
local assemblies, and the conservatism and intel-
ligence of the national leaders became merely a
shield for the rowdy and the ignorant who brought
the entire order into popular disfavor.

The crisis came in 1886. In the early months
of this turbulent year there were nearly five hun-
dred labor disputes, most of them Involving an
advance in wages. An epidemic of strikes then
spread over the country, many of them actual-
ly conducted by the Knights of Labor and all of
them associated in the public mind with that or-
der. One of the most important of these occurred
on the Southwestern Railroad. In the preceding
year, the Knights had increased their lodges in
St. Louis from five to thirty, and these were un-
der the domination of a coarse and ruthless dis-
trict leader. When in February, 1886, a me-
chanic, working in the shops of the Texas and Pa-
cific Railroad at Marshall, Texas, was discharged

AMALGAMATION 83

for cause and the road refused to reinstate him,
a strike ensued which spread over the entire six
thousand miles of the Gould system; and St. Louis
became the center of the tumult. After nearly
two months of violence, the outbreak ended in the
complete collapse of the strikers. This result was
doubly damaging to the Knights of Labor, for
they had officially taken charge of the strike and
were censured on the one hand for their conduct of
the struggle and on the other for the defeat which
they had sustained.

In the same year, against the earnest advice of
the national leaders of the Knights of Labor, the
employees of the Third Avenue Railway in New
York began a strike which lasted many months and
which was characterized by such violence that po-
licemen were detailed to guard every car leaving
the barns. In Chicago the freight handlers struck,
and some 60,000 workmen stopped work in sym-
pathy. On the 3d of May, at the McCormick
Harvester Works, several strikers were wounded
in a tussle with the police. On the following day
a mass meeting held in Haymarket Square, Chi-
cago, was harangued by a number of anarchists.
When the police attempted to disperse the mob,
guns were fired at the officers of the law and a bomb

84 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

was hurled into their throng, killing seven and
wounding sixty. For this crime seven anarchists
were indicted, found guilty, and sentenced to
be hanged. The Knights of Labor passed resolu-
tions asking clemency for these murderers and
thereby grossly offended public opinion, and that
at a time when public opinion was frightened by
these outrages, angered by the disclosures of bra-
zen plotting, and upset by the sudden conscious-
ness that the immunity of the United States from
the red terror of Europe was at an end.

Powderly and the more conservative national
officers who were opposed to these radical machin-
ations were strong enough in the Grand Lodge in
the following year to suppress a vote of sympathy
for the condemned anarchists. The radicals there-
upon seceded from the organization. This out-
come, however, did not restore the order to the
confidence of the public, and its strength now rap-
idly declined. A loss of 300,000 members for the
year 1888 was reported. Early in the nineties,
financial troubles compelled the sale of the Phila-
delphia headquarters of the Knights of Labor and
the removal to more modest quarters in Washing-
ton. A remnant of members still retain an organi-
zation, but it is barely a shadow of the vast army of

AMALGAMATION 85

Knights who at one time so hopefully carried on a
crusade in every center of industry. It was not
merely the excesses of the lawless but the multi-
plicity of strikes which alienated public sympa-
thy. Powderly's repeated warnings that strikes, in
and of themselves, were destructive of the stable
position of labor were shown to be prophetic.

These excesses, however, were forcing upon the
public the idea that it too had not only an inter-
est but a right and a duty in labor disputes. Meth-
ods of arbitration and conciliation were now dis-
cussed in every legislature. In 1883 the House of
Representatives established a standing committee
on labor. In 1884 a national Bureau of Labor
was created to gather statistical information. In
1886 President Cleveland sent to Congress a mes-
sage which has become historic as the first presi-
dential message devoted to labor. In this he pro-
posed the creation of a board of labor commis-
sioners who should act as official arbiters in labor
disputes, but Congress was unwilling at that
time to take so advanced a step. In 1888, how-
ever, it enacted a law providing for the settle-
ment of railway labor disputes by arbitration, upon
agreement of both parties.

Arbitration signifies a judicial attitude of mind, a

86 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

judgment based on facts. These facts are derived
from specific conditions and do not grow out of
broad generalizations. Arbitral tribunals are cre-
ated to decide points in dispute, not philosophies
of human action. The businesslike organization
of the new trade union could as readily adapt it-
self to arbitration as it had already adapted itself,
in isolated instances, to collective bargaining. A
new stage had therefore been reached in the labor
movement.

FEDERATION

EXPERIENCE and events had now paved the way
for that vast centralization of industry which char
acterizes the business world of the present era.
The terms sugar, coffee, steel, tobacco, oil, acquire
on the stock exchange a new and precise mean-
ing. Seventy-five per cent of steel, eighty-three
per cent of petroleum, ninety per cent of sugar pro-
duction are brought under the control of indus-
trial combinations. Nearly one-fourth of the wage-
earners of America are employed by great cor-
portionSo But while financiers are talking only
in terms of millions, while super-organization is
reaching its eager fingers into every industry, and
while the units of business are becoming national in
scope, the workingman himself is being taught at
last to rely more and more upon group action in
his endeavor to obtain better wages and working
conditions. He Is taught also to widen the area of

87

88 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

his organization and to intensify its efforts. So,
while the public reads in the daily and periodical
press about the oil trust and the coffee trust, it
is also being admonished against a labor trust and
against two personages, both symbols of colossal
economic unrest the promoter, or the stalking-
horse of financial enterprise, and the walking dele-
gate, or the labor union representative and only
too frequently the advance agent of bitterness
and revenge.

In response to the call of the hour there appeared
the American Federation of Labor, frequently called
in these later days the labor trust. The Federa-
tion was first suggested at Terre Haute, Indiana,
on August %, 1881, at a convention called by the
Knights of Industry and the Amalgamated La-
bor Union, two secret societies patterned after the
model common at that period. The Amalgamated
Union was composed largely of disaffected Knights
of Labor, and the avowed purpose of the Conven-
tion was to organize a new secret society to sup-
plant the Knights. But the trades union clement
predominated and held up the British Trades Un-
ion and its powerful annual congress as a model.
At this meeting the needs of intensive local organi-
zation, of trades autonomy, and of comprehensive

FEDERATION 89

team work were foreseen, and from the discussion
there grew a plan for a second convention. With
this meeting, which was held at Pittsburgh in No-
vember, 1881, the actual work of the new association
began under the name, "The Federation of Organ-
ized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States
of America and Canada. "

When this Federation learned that a conven-
tion representing independent trade unions was
called to meet in Columbus, Ohio, in December,
1886, it promptly altered its arrangements for its
own annual session so that it, too, met at the same
time and place. Thereupon the Federation effect-
ed a union with this independent body, which
represented twenty-five organizations. The new
organization was called the American Federation
of Labor. Until 1889, this was considered as the
first annual meeting of the new organization, but ia
that year the Federation resolved that its "con-
tinuity ... be recognized and dated from the
year 1881."

For some years the membership increased slowly;
but in 1889 over 70,000 new members were re-
ported, in 1900 over 00,000, and from that time
the Federation has given evidence of such growth
and prosperity that it easily is the most powerful

90 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

labor organization America has known, and it
takes its place by the side of the British Trades
Union Congress as "the sovereign organization in
the trade union world/' In 1917 its membership
reached ,371,434, with 110 affiliated national
unions, representing virtually every element of
American industry excepting the railway brother-
hoods and a dissenting group of electrical workers.

The foundation of this vast organization was the
interest of particular trades rather than the inter-
ests of labor in general. Its membership is made
up "of such Trade and Labor Unions as shall con-
form to its rules and regulations." The preamble
of the Constitution states: "We therefore declare
ourselves in favor of the formation of a thorough
federation, embracing every trade and labor organ-
ization in America under the Trade Union System
of organization/' The Knights of Labor had en-
deavored to subordinate the parts to the whole;
the American Federation is willing to bend the
whole to the needs of the unit. It zealously sends
out its organizers to form local unions and has
made provision that s6 any seven wage workers of
good character following any trade or calling" can
establish a local union with federal affiliations.

This vast and potent organization is based upon

FEDERATION 91

the principle of trade homogeneity namely, that
each trade Is primarily interested in its own par-
ticular affairs but that all trades are interested
in those general matters which affect all laboring
men as a, class. To combine effectually these dual
interests, the Federation espouses the principle of
home rule in purely local matters and of federal
supervision in all general matters. It combines,
with a great singleness of purpose, so diverse a
variety of details that it touches the minutiae of
every trade and places at the disposal of the hum-
blest craftsman or laborer the tremendous powers
of its national influence. While highly centralized in
organization, it is nevertheless democratic in oper-
ation, depending generally upon the referendum
for its sanctions. It is flexible in its parts and
can mobilize both its heavy artillery and its caval-
ry with equal readiness. It has from the first been
managed with skill, energy, and great adroitness.

The supreme authority of the American Feder-
ation is its Annual Convention composed of dele-
gates chosen from national and international un-
ions, from state, central, and local trade unions,
and from fraternal organizations. Experience has
evolved a few simple rules by which the conven-
tion is safeguarded against political and factional

m THE ARMIES OF LABOR

debate and against the interruptions of "sore-
heads." Besides attending to the necessary rou-
tine, the Convention elects the eleven national
officers who form the executive council which
guides the administrative details of the organi-
zation. The funds of the Federation are derived
from a per capita tax on the membership. The
official organ is the American Federationist. It is
interesting to note in passing that over two hun-
dred and forty labor periodicals together with a
continual stream of circulars and pamphlets issue
from the trades union press.

The Federation is divided into five departments,
representing the most important groups of labor:
the Building Trades, the Metal Trades, Mining,
Railroad Employees, and the Union Label Trades. *
Each of these departments has its own autonomous
sphere of action, its own set of officers, its own
financial arrangements, its own administrative
details. Each holds an annual convention, in the
same place and week, as the Federation. Each is
made up of affiliated unions only and confines itself
solely to the interest of its own trades. This sub-
organization serves as an admirable clearing house

1 There is in the Federation, however, a group of unions not
Affiliated with any of these departments.

FEDERATION 93

and shock-absorber and succeeds in eliminating
much of the friction which occurs between the
several unions,.

There are also forty-three state branches of the
Federation, each with its own separate organization.
There are annual state conventions whose member-
ship, however, is not always restricted to unions
affiliated with the American Federation. Some of
these state organizations antedate the Federation.

There remain the local unions, into personal
touch with which each member comes. There
were in 1916 as many as 647 "city centrals/' the
term used to designate the affiliation of the unions
of a city. The city centrals are smaller replicas of
the state federations and are made up of delegates
elected by the individual unions. They meet at
stated intervals and freely discuss questions relat-
ing to the welfare of organized labor in general as
well as to local labor conditions in every trade.
Indeed, vigilance seems to be the watchword of
the Central. Organization, wages, trade agree-
ments, and the attitude of public officials and city
councils which even remotely might affect labor
rarely escape their scrutiny. This oldest of all the
groups of labor organizations remains the most
vital part of the Federation.

94 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

The success of the American Federation of Labor
is due in large measure to the crafty generalship
of its President, Samuel Gompers, one of the most
astute labor leaders developed by American econo-
mic conditions. He helped organize the Feder-
ation, carefully nursed it through its tender years,
and boldly and unhesitatingly used its great power
in the days of its maturity. In fact, in a very real
sense the Federation is Gompers, and Gompers is
the Federation. Born in London of Dutch-Jewish
lineage, on January 27, 1850, the son of a cigar-
maker, Samuel Gompers was early apprenticed to
that craft. At the age of thirteen he went to New
York City, where in the following year he joined
the first cigar-makers' union organized in that city.
He enlisted all his boyish ardor in the cause of the
trade union and, after he arrived at maturity, was
elected successively secretary and president of his
union. The local unions were, at that time, gin-
gerly feeling their way towards state and national
organization, and in these early attempts young
Gompers was active. In 1887, he was one of the
delegates to a national meeting which constituted
the nucleus of what is now the Cigar-makers'
International Union.

The local cigar-makers' union in which Gompers

FEDERATION 95

received his necessary preliminary training was one
of the most enlightened and compactly organized
groups of American labor. It was one of the first
American Unions to adopt in an efficient manner
the British system of benefits in the case of sick-
ness, death, or unemployment. It is one of the few
American unions that persistently encourages skill
in its craft and intelligence in its membership. It
has been a pioneer in collective bargaining and in
arbitration. It has been conservatively and yet
enthusiastically led and has generally succeeded
in enlisting the respect and cooperation of employ-
ers. This union has been the kindergarten and
preparatory school of Samuel Gompers, who, dur-
ing all the years of his wide activities as the head
of the Federation of Labor, has retained his mem-
bership in his old local and has acted as first
vice-president of the Cigar-makers' International.
These early experiences, precedents, and enthusi-
asms Gompers carried with him into the Federa-
tion of Labor. He was one of the original group
of trade union representatives who organized the
Federation in 1881. In the following year he was
its President. Since 1885 he has, with the excep-
tion of a single year, been annually chosen as
President. During the first years the Federation

96 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

was very weak, and it was even doubtful if the
organization could survive the bitter hostility of
the powerful Knights of Labor. It could pay its
President no salary and could barely meet his
expense account. 1 Gompers played a large part
in the complete reorganization of the Federation
in 1886. He subsequently received a yearly salary
of $1000 so that he could devote all of his time to
the cause. From this year forward the growth of
the Federation was steady and healthy. In the
last decade it has been phenomenal. The earlier
policy of caution has, however, not been discarded
for caution is the word that most aptly de-
scribes the methods of Gompers. From the first, he
tested every step carefully, like a wary mountain-
eer, before he urged his organization to follow.
From the beginning Gompers has followed three
general lines of policy. First, he has built the im-
posing structure of his Federation upon the au-
tonomy of the constituent unions. This is the se-
cret of the united enthusiasm of the Federation.
It is the Anglo-Saxon instinct for home rule applied
to trade union politics. In the tentative years of its
early struggles, the Federation could hope for survi-
val only upon the suffrance of the trade union, and

1 In- one of the early years this was $13.

FEDERATION 97

today, when the Federation has become powerful,
its potencies rest upon the same foundation.

Secondly, Gompers has always advocated frugal-
ity in money matters. His Federation is powerful
but not rich. Its demands upon the resources of
the trade unions have always been moderate, and
the salaries paid have been modest. 1 When the
Federation erected a new building for its headquar-
ters in Washington a few years ago, it symbolized
in its architecture and equipment this modest yet
adequate and substantial financial policy. Amer-
ican labor unions have not yet achieved the op-
ulence, ambitions, and splendors of the guilds of the
Middle Ages and do not yet direct their activities
from splendid guild halls.

In the third place, Gompers has always insisted
upon the democratic methods of debate and refer-
endum in reaching important decisions. However
arbitrary and intolerant his impulses may have
been, and however dogmatic and narrow his
conclusions in regard to the relation of labor to
society and towards the employer (and his Dutch
inheritance gives him great obstinacy), he has

1 Before 1899 the annual income of the Federation was less than
$25,000; in 1901 it reached the $100,000 mark; and since 1903 it has
exceeded $200,000.

98 THE OF LABOR

astutely refrained from too obviously bossing Ms
own organization.

With, this sagacity of leadership Gompers has
combined a fearlessness that sometimes verges on
brazenness. He has never hesitated to enter a con-
test when it seemed prudent to him to do so. He
crossed swords with Theodore Roosevelt on more
than one occasion and with President Eliot of Har-
vard in a historic newspaper controversy over trade
union exclusiveness. He has not been daunted by
conventions, commissions, courts, congresses, or
public opinion. During the long term of his Federa-
tion presidency, which is unparalleled in labor his-
tory and alone is conclusive evidence of his executive
skill, scarcely a year has passed without some dra-
matic incident to cast the searchlight of publicity
upon him a court decision, a congressional in-
quiry, a grand jury inquisition, a great strike, a
nation-wide boycott, a debate with noted public
men, a political maneuver, or a foreign pilgrimage.
Whenever a constituent union in the Federation
has been the object of attack, he has jumped into
the fray and has rarely emerged humiliated from
the encounter. This is the more surprising when
one recalls that he possesses the limitations of the
zealot and the dogmatism of the partisan.

FEDERATION 09

One of the most Important functions of Gompers
lias been that of national lobbyist for the Feder-
ation. He was one of the earliest champions of
the eight-hour day and the Saturday half-holiday.
He has energetically espoused Federal child labor
legislation, the restriction of immigration, alien
contract labor laws, and employers' liability laws.
He advocated the creation of a Federal Depart-
ment of Labor which has recently developed into a
cabinet secretariat. His legal bete noire, however,
was the Sherman Anti-Trust Law as applied to la-
bor unions. For many years he fought vehement-
ly for an amending act exempting the laboring class
from the rigors of that famous statute. Presi-
dent Roosevelt with characteristic candor told a
delegation of Federation officials who called on
him to enlist his sympathy in their attempt, that
he would enforce the law impartially against law-
breakers, rich and poor alike. Roosevelt recom-
mended to Congress the passage of an amendment
exempting "combinations existing for and engaged
in the promotion of innocent and proper pur-
poses." An exempting bill was passed by Con-
gress but was vetoed by President Taft on the
ground that it was class legislation. Finally, during
President Wilson's administration, the Federation

100 THE ARMIES OF

accomplished Its purpose, first indirectly by a rider
on an appropriation bill, then directly by the
Clayton Act, which specifically declared labor
combinations, instituted for the u purpose of mu-
tual help and . . . not conducted for profit," not
to be in restraint of trade. Both measures were
signed by the President. Encouraged by their
success, the Federation leaders have moved with
a renewed energy against the other legal citadel
of their antagonists, the use of the injunction in
strike cases.

Gompers has thus been the political watchman
of the labor interests. Nothing pertaining, even
remotely, to labor conditions escapes the vigilance
of his Washington office. During President Wil-
son's administration, Gompers's influence achieved
a power second to none in the political field, ow-
ing partly to the political power of the labor vote
which he ingeniously marshalled, partly to the
natural inclination of the dominant political party,
and partly to the strategic position of labor in the
war industries.

The Great War put an unprecedented strain
upon the American Federation of Labor. In
every center of industry laborers of foreign birth
early showed their racial sympathies, and under

FEDERATION 101

the stimuli of the Intriguing German and Austrian
ambassadors sinister plots for crippling munitions
plants and the shipping industries were hatched
everywhere. Moreover, workingmen became res-
tive under the burden of increasing prices, and
strikes for higher wages occurred almost daily.

At the beginning of the War, the officers of the
Federation maintained a calm and neutral atti-
tude which increased in vigilance as the strain
upon American patience and credulity increased.
As soon as the United States declared war, the
whole energies of the officials of the Federation
were cast into the national cause. In 1917, under
the leadership of Gompers, and as a practical anti-
dote to the I. W. W. and the foreign labor and
pacifist organization known as The People's Coun-
cil, there was organized The American Alliance
for Labor and Democracy in order "to American-
ize the labor movement/ 5 Its campaign at once
became nation wide. Enthusiastic meetings were
held in the great manufacturing centers, stimulated
to enthusiasm by the incisive eloquence of Gom-
pers. At the annual convention of the Federa-
tion held in Buffalo in November,, 1017, full
endorsement was given to the Alliance by a vote of
21,602 to 402. In its formal statement the Alliance

102 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

declared: "It is our purpose to try, by educational
methods, to bring about a more American spirit
in the labor movement, so that what is now the
clear expression of the vast majority may become
the conviction of all. Where we find ignorance, we
shall educate. Where we find something worse, we
shall have to deal as the situation demands. But
we are going to leave no stone unturned to put
a stop to anti-American activities among work-
ers/' And in this patriotic effort the Alliance was
successful.

This was the first great step taken by Gompers
and the Federation. The second was equally im-
portant. With characteristic energy the organi-
zation put forward a programme for the readjust-
ment of labor to war conditions. '"This is labor's
war" declared the manifesto issued by the Feder-
ation. " It must be won by labor, and every stage
in the fighting and the final victory must be made to
count for humanity." These aims wen* embodied
in constructive suggestions adopted by the Council
of National Defense appointed by President Wil-
son. This programme was in a large measure the
work of Gompers, who was a member of the Coun-
cil. The following outline shows the comprehen-
sive nature of the view which the laborer took of

FEDERATION 103

the relation between task and the War. The plan
embraced :

1. Means for furnishing an adequate supply of
labor to war industries.

This included: (a) A system of labor exchanges.
(b) The training of workers, (c) Agencies for
determining priorities in labor demands, (d)
Agencies for the dilution of skilled labor.

2. Machinery for adjusting disputes between
capital and labor, without stoppage of work.

3. Machinery for safeguarding conditions of la-
bor, including industrial hygiene, safety appliances,
etc.

4. Machinery for safeguarding conditions of
living, including housing, etc.

5. Machinery for gathering data necessary for
effective executive action.

6. Machinery for developing sound public senti-
ment and an exchange of information between the
various departments of labor administration, the
numerous industrial plants, and the public, so as
to facilitate the carrying out of a national labor
programme.

Having thus first laid the foundations of a na-
tional labor policy and having, in the second place,
developed an effective means of Americanizing, as

104 THE ARMIES OF

far as possible, the various labor groups, the Fed-
eration took another step. As a third essential
element in uniting labor to help to win the war,
it turned its attention to the inter-allied solidar-
ity of workingmen. In the late summer and au-
tumn of 1917, Gompers headed an American labor
mission to Europe and visited England, Belgium,
France, and Italy. His frequent public utterances
in numerous cities received particular attention in
the leading European newspapers and were eagerly
read in the allied countries. The pacifist group
of the British Labour Party did not relish his out-
spokenness on the necessity of completely defeat-
ing the Teutons before peace overtures could be
made. On the other hand, some of the ultracon-
servative papers misconstrued his sentiments on
the terms which should be exacted from the enemy
when victory was assured. This misunderstand-
ing led to an acrid international newspaper con-
troversy, to which Gompers finally replied: "I ut-
tered no sentence or word which by the wildest
imagination could be interpreted as advocating
the formula c no annexations, and no indemnities/
On the contrary, I have declared, both in the
United States and in conferences and public meet-
ings while abroad, that the German forces must be

FEDERATION 105

driven back from the invaded territory before even
peace terms could be discussed, that Alsace-Lor-
raine should be returned to France, that the 'Irre-
denta* should be returned to Italy, and that the
imperialistic militarist machine which has so out-
raged the conscience of the world must be made to
feel the indignation and righteous wrath of all
liberty and peace loving peoples." This mission
had a deep effect in uniting the labor populations of
the allied countries and especially in cheering the
over-wrought workers of Britain and France, and
it succeeded in laying the foundation for a more
lasting international labor solidarity.

This considerable achievement was recognized
when the Peace Conference at Paris formed a Com-
mission on International Labor Legislation. Gom-
pers was selected as one of the American represen-
tatives and was chosen chairman. While the Com-
mission was busy with its tasks, an international
labor conference was held at Berne. Gompers and
his colleagues, however, refused to attend this con-
ference. They gave as their reasons for this aloof-
ness the facts that delegates from the Central pow-
ers, with whom the United States was still at war 5
were in attendance; that the meeting was held "for
the purpose of arranging socialist procedure of an

106 THE ARMIES OF

international character ?? ; and that the convention
was irregularly called, for it had been announced as
an inter-allied conferencebuthad been surreptitious-
ly converted into an international pacifist gather-
ing, conniving with German and Austrian socialists.
Probably the most far-reaching achievement of
Gompers is the by no means inconsiderable con-
tribution he has made to that portion of the treaty
of peace with Germany relating to the interna-
tional organization of labor. This is an entirely
new departure in the history of labor, for it at-
tempts to provide international machinery for
stabilizing conditions of labor in the various sig-
natory countries. On the ground that "the well-
being, physical and moral, of the industrial wage-
earners is of supreme international importance,' 9
the treaty lays down guiding principles to be fol-
lowed by the various countries, subject to such
changes as variations in climate, customs, and
economic conditions dictate. These principles are
as follows: labor shall not be regarded merely as a
commodity or an article of commerce; employers
and employees shall have the right of forming
associations; a wage adequate to maintain a rea-
sonable standard of living shall be paid; an eight-
hour day shall be adopted; a weekly day of rest

FEDERATION 10?

shall be allowed ; child labor shall be abolished and
provision shall be made for the education of youth;
men and women shall receive equal pay for equal
work; equitable treatment shall be accorded to
all workers, including aliens resident in foreign
lands; and an adequate system of inspection shall
be provided in which women should take part

While these international adjustments were tak-
ing place, the American Federation began to antici-
pate the problems of the inevitable national labor
readjustment after the war. Through a committee
appointed for that purpose, it prepared an ample
programme of reconstruction in which the basic
features are the greater participation of labor in
shaping its environment, both in the factory and in
the community, the development of cooperative
enterprise, public ownership or regulation of pub-
lic utilities, strict supervision of corporations, re-
striction of immigration, and the development of
public education. The programme ends by de-
claring that "the trade union movement is unal-
terably and emphatically opposed ... to a large
standing army."

During the entire period of the war, both at
home and abroad, Gompers fought the pacifist and
the socialist elements in the labor movement. At

108 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

the same time he was ever vigilant in pushing for-
ward the claims of trade unionism and was always
beforehand in constructive suggestions. His life
has spanned the period of great industrial expan-
sion in America. He has had the satisfaction of
seeing his Federation grow under his leadership at
first into a national and then into an internation-
al force. Gompers is an orthodox trade unionist of
the British School. Bolshevism is to him a syn-
onym for social ruin. He believes that capital
and labor should cooperate but that capital should
cease to be the predominant factor in the equation.
In order to secure this balance he believes la-
bor must unite and fight, and to this end he has
devoted himself to the federation of American
trade unions and to their battle. He has stead-
fastly refused political preferment and has de-
clined many alluring offers to enter private busi-
ness. In action he is an opportunist a shrewd,
calculating captain, whose knowledge of human
frailties stands him in good stead, and whose per-
sonal acquaintance with hundreds of leaders of
labor, of finance, and of politics, all over the coun-
try, has given him an unusual opportunity to use
his influence for the advancement of the cause of
labor in the turbulent field of economic warfare.

FEDERATION 109

The American Federation of Labor has been
forced by the increasing complexity of modern
industrial life to recede somewhat from its early
trade union isolation. This broadening point of
view is shown first in the recognition of the man of
no trade, the unskilled worker. For years the
skilled trades monopolized the Federation and
would not condescend to interest themselves in
their humble brethren. The whole mechanism of
the Federation in the earlier period revolved
around the organization of the skilled laborers.
In England the great dockers' strike of 1889 and in
America the lurid flare of the I. W. W. activities
forced the labor aristocrat to abandon his pharisaic
attitude and to take an interest in the welfare of
the unskilled. The future will test the stability
of the Federation, for it is among the unskilled
that radical and revolutionary movements find
their first recruits.

A further change in the internal policy of the
Federation is indicated by the present tendency
towards amalgamating the various allied trades
into one union. For instance, the United Bro-
therhood of Carpenters and the Amalgamated
Wood Workers' Association, composed largely of
furniture makers and machine wood workers,

110 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

combined a few years ago and then proceeded to
absorb the Wooden Box Makers, and the Wood
Workers in the shipbuilding industry. The gen-
eral secretary of the new amalgamation said that
the organization looked ''forward with pleasur-
able anticipations to the day when it can truly be
said that all men of the wood- working craft on this
continent hold allegiance to the United Brother-
hood of Carpenters and Joiners of America." A
similar unification has taken place in the lumber-
ing industry. When the shingle weavers formed an
international union some fifteen years ago, they
limited the membership "to the men employed in
skilled departments of the shingle trade." In 1912
the American Federation of Labor sanctioned a
plan for including iu one organization all the
workers in the lumber industry, both skilled and
unskilled. This is a far cry from the minute trade
autocracy taught by the orthodox unionist thirty
years ago.

Today the Federation of Labor is one of the most
imposing organizations in the social system of
America. It reaches the workers in every trade.
Every contributor to the physical necessities of
our materialistic civilization has felt the far-reach-
ing influence of confederated power. A sense of its

FEDERATION 111

strength, pervades the Federation. Like a healthy,
self-conscious giant, it stalks apace among our
national organizations. Through its cautious yet
pronounced policy, through its seeking after defi-
nite results and excluding all economic vagaries, it
bids fair to overcome the disputes that disturb it
from within and the onslaughts of Socialism and of
Bolshevism that threaten it from without*

VI

THE TRADE UNION

THE trade union 1 forms the foundation upon which
the whole edifice of the American Federation of
Labor is built. Like the Federation, each particu-
lar trade union has a tripartite structure : there is
first the national body called the Union, the Inter-
national, the General Union, or the Grand Lodge;
there is secondly the district division or council,
which is merely a convenient general union in min-
iature; and finally there is the local individual
union, usually called "the local." Some unions,
such as the United Mine Workers, have a fourth.
division or subdistrict, but this is not the general
practice.

The sovereign authority of a trade union is its
general convention, a delegate body meeting at
stated times. Some unions meet annually, some

1 The term " trade union " is used here in its popular scn.sc, em-
bracing labor, trade, and industrial unions, unless otherwise specified,

112

THE TRADE UNION US-

biennially, some triennially, and a few determine
by referendum when the convention is to meet.
Sometimes a long interval elapses: the granite cut-
ters, for instance, held no convention between
1880 and 1912, and the cigar-makers, after a con-
vention in 1896, did not meet for sixteen years.
The initiative and referendum are, in some of the
more compact unions, taking the place of the gen-
eral convention, while the small executive council
insures promptness of administrative action.

The convention elects the general officers. Of
these the president is the most conspicuous, for he
is the field marshal of the forces and fills a large
place in the public eye when a great strike is called.
It was in this capacity that John Mitchell rose to
sudden eminence during the historic anthracite
strike in 1902, and George W. Perkins of the cigar-
makers' union achieved his remarkable hold upon
the laboring people. As the duties of the president
of a union have increased, it has become the custom
to elect numerous vice-presidents to relieve him.
Each of these has certain specific functions to per-
form, but all remain the president's aides. One,
for instance, may be the financier, another the
strike agent, another the organizer, another the
agitator. With such a group of virtual specialists

114 THE ARMIES OF

around a chieftain, a union has the immense ad-
vantage of centralized command and of highly
organized leadership. The tendency, especially
among the more conservative unions, is to reeled
these officers year after year. The president of
the Carpenters 5 Union held his office for twenty
years, and John Mitchell served the miners as
president ten years. Under the immediate super-
vision of the president, an executive board com-
posed of all the officers guides the destinies of the
union. When this board is not occupied with the
relations of the men to their employers, it gives its
judicial consideration to the more delicate and
more difficult questions of inter-union comity and
d: local differences.

The local union is the oldest labor organization,
and a few existing locals can trace their origin a?
far back as the decade preceding the Civil War.
Many more antedate the organization of the Fed-
eration. Not a few of these almost historic local
unions have refused to surrender their complete
independence by affiliating with those of recent
origin, but they have remained merely isolated in-
dependent locals with very little general influence.
The vast majority of local unions are members of
the national trades union and of the Federation.

THE TRADE UNION 1U

The local union is the place where the laborer
conies Into direct personal contact with this power-
ful entity that has become such a factor in his daily
life. Here he can satisfy that longing for the rec-
ognition of his point of view denied him in the
great factory and here he can meet men of similar
condition, on terms of equality, to discuss freely
and without fear the topics that interest him most.
There is an immense psychic potency in this inti-
mate association of fellow workers, especially in
some of the older unions which have accumulated
a tradition.

It is in the local union that the real life of the
labor organization must be nourished, and the
statesmanship of the national leaders is directed to
maintaining the greatest degree of local autonomy
consistent with the interests of national homo-
geneity. The individual laborer thus finds himself
a member of a group of his fellows with whom he is
personally acquainted, who elect their own officers,
to a large measure fix their own dues, transact their
own routine business, discipline their own mem-
bers, and whenever possible make their own terms
of employment with their employers. The local
unions are obliged to pay their tithe into the great-
er treasury, to make stated reports, to appoint a

116 THE OF

certain roster of committees, and in certain small
matters to conform to the requirements of the na-
tional union. On the whole, however, they are
independent little democracies confederated, with
others of their kind, by means of district and
national organizations.

The unions representing the different trades vary
in structure and spirit. There is an immense
difference between the temper of the tumultuous
structural iron workers and the contemplative
cigar-makers, who often hire one of their number to
read to them while engaged in their work, the
favorite authors being in many instances Ruskin
and Carlyle. Some unions are more successful than
others in collective bargaining. Martin Fox, the
able leader of the iron moulders, signed one of the
first trade agreements in America and fixed the
tradition for his union; and the shoemakers, as well
as most of the older unions are fairly well accus-
tomed to collective bargaining. In matters of dis-
cipline, too, the unions vary. Printers and certain
of the more skilled trades find it easier to enforce
their regulations than do the longshoremen and
unions composed of casual foreign laborers. In
size also the unions of the different trades vary.
In 1910 three had a membership of over 100,000

THE TRADE UNION 117

each. Of these the United Mine Workers reached a
total of 370,800, probably the largest trades union
in the world. The majority of the unions have a
membership between 1000 and 10,000, the average
for the entire number being 5000; but the member-
ship fluctuates from year to year, according to the
conditions of labor, and is usually larger in seasons
of contest. Fluctuation in membership is most
evident in the newer unions and in the unskilled
trades. The various unions differ also in resources.
In some, especially those composed largely of for-
eigners, the treasury is chronically empty; yet at
the other extreme the mine workers distributed
$1,890,000 in strike benefits in 190 and had $750,-
000 left when the board of arbitration sent the
workers back into the mines.

The efforts of the unions to adjust themselves to
the quickly changing conditions of modern indus-
try are not always successful. Old trade lines are
constantly shifting, creating the most perplexing
problem of inter-union amity. Over two score
jurisdictional controversies appear for settlement
at each annual convention of the American Fed-
eration. The Association of Longshoremen and
the Seamen's Union, for example, both claim juris-
diction over employees in marine warehouses. The

118 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

cigar-makers and the stogie-makers Lave also long
been at swords' points. Who shall have control
over the coopers who work in breweries the
Brewery Workers or the Coopers'* Union? Who
shall adjust the machinery in elevators the Ma-
chinists or Elevator Constructors? Is the opera-
tor of a linotype machine a typesetter? So plaster-
ers and carpenters, blacksmiths and structural iron
workers, printing pressmen and plate engravers,
hod carriers and cement workers, are at logger-
heads; the electrification of a railway creates a
jurisdictional problem between the electrical rail-
way employees and the locomotive engineers; and
the marble workers and the plasterers quarrel as to
the setting of imitation marble. These quarrels
regarding the claims of rival unions reveal the
weakness of the Federation as an arbitral body.
There is no centralized authority to impose a stand-
ard or principle which could lead to the settlement
of such disputes. Trade jealousy has overcome the
suggestions of the peacemakers that either the
nature of the tools used, or the nature of the opera-
tion, or the character of the establishment be taken
as the basis of settlement.

When the Federation itself fails as a peacemaker,
it cannot be expected that locals will escape these

THE TRADE UNION 119

controversies. There are many examples, often
ludicrous, of petty jealousies and trade rivalries.
The man who tried to build a brick house, employ-
ing union bricklayers to lay the brick and union
painters to paint the brick walls, found to his loss
that such painting was considered a bricklayer's
job by the bricklayers' union, who charged a higher
wage than the painters would have done. It would
have relieved him to have the two unions amalga-
mate. And this in general has become a real way
out of the difficulty. For instance, a dispute be-
tween the Steam and Hot Water Fitters and the
Plumbers was settled by an amalgamation called
the United Association of Journeymen Plumbers,
Gas Fitters, Steam Fitters, and Steam Fitters'
Helpers, which is now affiliated with the Federa-
tion. But the International Association of Steam,
Hot Water, and Power Pipe Fitters and Helpers
is not affiliated, and inter-union war results. The
older unions, however, have a stabilizing influence
upon the newer, and a genuine conservatism such
as characterizes the British unions is becoming
more apparent as age solidifies custom and lends
respect to by-laws and constitutions. But even
time cannot obviate the seismic effects of new in-
ventions, and shifts in jurisdictional matters are

120 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

always imminent. The dominant policy of the
trade union is to keep its feet on the earth, no
matter where its head may be, to take one step at
a time, and not to trouble about the future of
society. This purpose, which has from the first
been the prompter of union activity, was clearly
enunciated in the testimony of Adolph Strasser, a
converted socialist, one of the leading trade union-
ists, and president of the Cigar-makers' Union,
before a Senate Committee in 1883:

Chairman : You are seeking to improve home matters

first?
Witness : 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

interests.
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.
Chairman: You want something better to eat and to

wear, and better houses io live in?
Witness: Yes, we want to dress bettor and to live

better, and become better citizens gener-

ally.
Chairman: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it

should be thought that you are a more

THE TRADE UNION 121

iheorizer. I do not look upon you in that
light at all.

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.

This remains substantially the trade union plat-
form today. Trade unionists all aim to be "prac-
tical men."

The trade union has been the training school
for the labor leader, that comparatively new and
increasingly important personage who is a product
of modern industrial society. Possessed of natural
aptitudes, he usually passes by a process of logical
evolution, through the important committees and
offices of his local into the wider sphere of the
national union, where as president or secretary,
he assumes the leadership of his group. Circum-
stances and conditions impose a heavy burden
upon him, and his tasks call for a variety of gifts.
Because some particular leader lacked tact or a
sense of justice or some similar quality, many a
labor maneuver has failed, and many a labor organi-
zation has suffered in the public esteem. No other
class relies so much upon wise leadership as does
the laboring class. The average wage-earner is

122 THE OF

without experience in confronting a new situation
or trained and superior minds. From his tasks he
has learned only the routine of his craft. When
he is faced with the necessity of prompt action,
he is therefore obliged to depend upon his chosen
captains for results.

In America these leaders have risen from the
rank and file of labor. Their education is limited.
The great majority have only a primary schooling.
Many have supplemented this meager stock of
learning by rather wide but desultory reading and
by keen observation. A few have read law, and
some have attended night schools. But all have
graduated from the University of Life. Many of
them have passed through the bitterest poverty,
and all have been raised among toilers and from
infancy have learned to sympathize with the toiler's
point of view. r They are therefore by training and
origin distinctly leaders of a class, with the outlook

: A well-known labor leader once said to the writer: "No
matter how much you go around among laboring people, you will
never really understand us unless you were brought up among us.
There is a real gulf between your way of looking on life and ours.
You can be only an investigator or an intellectual sympathizer
with my people. But you cannot really understand our view-
point." Whatever of misconception there may be in this attitude,
it nevertheless marks the actual temper of the average wage-
earner, in spite of the fact that in America many employers have
risen from the ranks of labor.

THE TRADE UNION 123

upon life, the prejudices, the limitations, and the
fervent hopes of that class.

In a very real sense the American labor leader is
the counterpart of the American business man
intensively trained, averse to vagaries, knowing
thoroughly one thing and only one thing, and
caring very little for anything else.

This comparative restriction of outlook marks
a sharp distinction between American and British
labor leaders. In Britain such leadership is a dis-
tinct career for which a young man prepares him-
self. He is usually fairly well educated, for not
frequently he started out to study for the law or the
ministry and was sidetracked by hard necessity.
A few have come into the field from journalism.
As a result, the British labor leader has a certain
veneer of learning and puts on a more impressive
front than the American. For example, Britain
has produced Ramsey MacDonald, who writes
books and makes speeches with a rare grace: John
Burns, who quotes Shakespeare or recites history
with wonderful fluency: Keir Hardie, a miner from
the ranks, who was possessed of a charming poetic
fancy: Philip Snowden, who displays the spiritual
qualities of a seer; and John Henderson, who com-
bines philosophical power with skill in dialectics.

124 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

On tlie other hand, the rank and file of American
labor is more intelligent and alert than that of
British labor, and the American labor leader
possesses a greater capacity for intensive growth
and is perhaps a better specialist at rough and
tumble fighting and bargaining than his British
colleague. I

In a very real sense every trade union is typi-
fied by some aggressive personality. The Granite
Cutters' National Union was brought into active
being in 1877 largely through the instrumentality
of James Duncan, a rugged fighter who, having
federated the locals, set out to establish an eight-
hour day through collective bargaining and to set-
tle disputes by arbitration. He succeeded in form-
ing a well-disciplined force out of the members of
his craft, and even the employers did not escape the
touch of his rod.

The Glassblowers* Union was saved from dis-
ruption by Dennis Hayes, who, as president of the
national union, reorganized the entire force in the
years 1896-99, unionized a dozen of the largest

1 The writer recalls spending a day in one of the Midland manu
facturing towns with the secretary of a local cooperative society,
a man who was steeped in Bergson's philosophy and talked on
local botany and geology as fluently as on local labor conditions.
It would be difficult to duplicate this experience in America.

THE TRADE UNION 125

glass producing plants in the United States and
succeeded in raising the wages fifteen per cent.
He Introduced methods of arbitration and col-
lective agreements and established a successful
system of insurance.

James O'Connell, the president of the Inter-
national Association of Machinists, led his organi-
zation safely through the panic of 1893, reorganized
it upon a broader basis, and Introduced sick bene-
fits,, In 1901 after a long and wearisome dickering
with the National Metal Trades Association, a
shorter day was agreed upon, but, as the employers
would not agree to a ten-hour wage for a nine-hour
day, O'Connell led his men out on a general strike
and won.

Thomas Kidd, secretary of the Wood- Workers 9
International Union, was largely responsible for the
agreement made with the manufacturers in 1897
for the establishment of a minimum wage of fifteen
cents an hour for a ten-hour day, a considerable
advance over the average wage paid up to that
time. Kidd was the object of severe attacks In
various localities, and in Oshkosh, Wisconsin,
where labor riots look place for the enforcement of
the Union demands, lie was arrested for conspiracy
but acquitted by the trial jury.

126 THE ARMIES OF

When the Amalgamated Association of Iron and
Steel Workers lost their strike at Homestead, Penn-
sylvania, in 1892, the union was thought to be
dead. It was quietly regalvanized into activity,
however, by Theodore Schaffer, who has displayed
adroitness in managing its affairs in the face of
tremendous opposition from the great steel manu-
facturers who refuse to permit their shops to be
unionized.

The International Typographical Union, com-
posed of an unusually intelligent body of men, owes
Its singular success in collective contracting largely
to James M. Lynch, its national president. The
great newspapers did not give in to the demands of
the union without a series of struggles in which
Lynch manipulated his forces with skill and tact.
Today this is one of the most powerful unions in
the country.

Entirely different was the material out of which
D. J. Keefe formed his Union of Longshoremen,
Marine and Transport Workers. His was a mass of
unskilled workers, composed of many nationalities
accustomed to rough conditions, and not easily led,
Keefe, as president of their International Union,
has had more difficulty in restraining his men and
in teaching them the obligations of a contract than

THE TRADE UNION 127

any other leader. At least on one occasion he
employed non-union men to carry out the agree-
ment which his recalcitrant following had made
and broken.

The evolution of an American labor leader is
shown at its best in the career of John Mitchell,
easily the most influential trade unionist of this
generation. He was born on February 4, 1870, on
an Illinois farm, but at two years of age he lost his
mother and at four his father. With other lads of
his neighborhood he shared the meager privileges
of the school terms that did not interfere with
farm work. At thirteen he was in the coal mines in
Braidwood, Illinois, and at sixteen he was the out-
er doorkeeper in the local lodge of the Knights of
Labor. Eager to see the world, he now began a
period of wandering, working his way from State
to State. So he traversed the Far West and the
Southwest, alert in observing social conditions and
coming in contact with many types of men. These
wanderings stood him in lieu of an academic course,
and when he returned to the coal fields of Illinois
he was ready to settle down. From his Irish par-
entage he inherited a genial personality and a
gift of speech. These traits, combined with his
continual reading on economic and sociological

128 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

subjects, soon lifted him into local leadership. He
became president of the village school board and of
the local lodge of the Knights of Labor. He joined
the United Mine Workers of America upon its or-
ganization in 1890. He rose rapidly in its ranks,
was a delegate to the district and sub-district con-
ventions, secretary-treasurer of the Illinois district,
chairman of the Illinois legislative committee,
member of the executive board, and national or-
ganizer. In January, 1898, he was elected national
vice-president, and in the following autumn, upon
the resignation of the president, ho became acting
president. The national convention in 1899 chose
him as president, a position which he held for ten
years. He has served as one of the vice-presidents
of the American Federation of Labor since 1898,
was for some years chairman of the Trade Agree-
ment Department of the National Civic Federation
and has held the position of Chairman of the New
York State Industrial Commission.

When he rose to the leadership of the United
Mine Workers, this union had only 43,000 mem-
bers, confined almost exclusively to the bitumi-
nous regions of the West. I Within the decade of his

x Less than 10,000 out of 140,000 anthracite miners were members
of the union.

THE TRADE UNION 129

presidency he brought virtually all the miners of
the United States under his leadership. Wherever
iiis union went, there followed sooner or later the
eight-hour day, raises in wages of from thirteen to
twenty-five per cent, periodical joint conventions
with the operators for settling wage scales and
other points in dispute, and a spirit of prosperity
that theretofore was unknown among the miners.

In unionizing the anthracite miners, Mitchell
had his historic fight with the group of powerful
corporations that owned the mines and the rail-
ways which fed them. This great strike, one of
the most significant in our history, attracted uni-
versal attention because of the issues involved,
because a coal shortage threatened many Eastern
cities, and because of the direct intervention of
President Roosevelt. The central figure of this
gigantic struggle was the miners' young leader,
barely thirty years old, with the features of a schol-
ar and the demeanor of an ascetic, marshaling his
forces with the strategic skill of a veteran general.

At the beginning of the strike Mitchell, as presi-
dent of the Union, announced that the miners were
eager to submit all their grievances to an impartial
arbitral tribunal and lo abide by its decisions.
The ruthless and prompt refusal of the mine owners

130 THE OF

to consider this proposal reacted powerfully in the
strikers 3 favor among the public. As the long weeks
of the struggle wore on ? increasing daily in bitter-
ness, multiplying the apprehension of the strikers
and the restiveness of the coal consumers, Mitch-
ell bore the increasing strain with his customary
calmness and self-control.

After the parties had been deadlocked for many
weeks, President Roosevelt called the mine owners
and the union leaders to a conference in the White
House. Of Mitchell's bearing, the President after-
wards remarked: "There was only one man in the
room who behaved like a gentleman, and that man
was not I."

The Board of Arbitration eventually laid the
blame on both sides but gave the miners the bulk
of their demands. The public regarded the victory
as a Mitchell victory, and the unions adored the
leader who had won their first strike in a quarter of
a century, and who had won universal confidence
by his ability and demeanor in the midst of the
most harassing tensions of a class war. *

1 Mitchell was cross-examined for three days when he was tes-
tifying before the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. Every
weapon which craft, prejudice, and skill could marshal against
him failed to ruffle his temper or to lead him into damaging
admissions or contradictions.

THE UNION 131

John Mitchell's powerful hold upon public opin-
ion today is not alone due to his superior intelli-
gence, his self-possession, his business skill, nor his
Irish gift of human accommodation, but to the
greater facts that he was always aware of the grave
responsibilities of leadership, that he realized the
stern obligation of a business contract, and that he
always followed the trade union policy of asking
only for that which was attainable. Soon after the
Anthracite strike he wrote:

I am opposed to strikes as I am opposed to war. As
yet, however, the world with all its progress has not
made war impossible: neither, I fear, considering the
nature of men and their institutions, will the strike
entirely disappear for years to come. . . .

This strike has taught both capital and labor that
they owe certain obligations to society and that their
obligations must be discharged in good faith. If both
are fair and conciliatory, if both recognize the moral
restraint of the state of society by which they are sur-
rounded, there need be few strikes. They can, and it
is better that they should, settle their differences
between themselves. . . .

Since labor organizations are here, and here to stay,
the managers of employing corporations must choose
what they are to do with them. They may have the
union as a present, active, and unrecognized force,
possessing influence for good or evil, but without
direct responsibility; or they may deal with it, give it

132 THE AEMIES OF LABOR

responsibility as well as power, define and regulate
that power, and make the union an auxiliary in the
promotion of stability and discipline and the amicable
adjustment of all local disputes*

VI!

THE EAILWAY BROTHERHOODS

THE solidarity and statesmanship of the trade un-
ions reached perfection in the railway " Brother-
hoods." Of these the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers 1 is the oldest and most powerful. It
grew out of the union of several early associations;
one of these was the National Protective Associa-
tion formed after the great Baltimore and Ohio
strike in 1854; another was the Brotherhood of the
Footboard, organized in Detroit after the bitter
strike on the Michigan Central in 1862. Though
born thus of industrial strife, this railroad union
has nevertheless developed a poise and a conserv-
atism which have been its greatest assets in the

1 Up to this time the Brotherhoods have not affiliated with the
Knights of Labor nor with the American Federation of Labor.
After the passage of I lie eight-hour law by Congress in 1016, defi-
nite steps were taken towards affiliating the Railway Brotherhoods
with the Federal ion, and at its annual convention in 1919 the
Federation voted to grant them a charter.

1IJ3

134 THE ARMIES OF

numerous controversies engaging its energies. No-
other union has had a more continuous and hard-
headed leadership, and no other has won more
universal respect both from the public and from
the employer.

This high position is largely due, no doubt, to the
fact that the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
is composed of a very select and intelligent class of
men. Every engineer must first serve an appren-
ticeship as a fireman, which usually lasts from four
to twelve years. Very few are advanced to the
rank of engineer in less than four years. The fire-
men themselves are selected men who must pass
several physical examinations and then submit to
the test of as arduous an apprenticeship as modern
industrialism affords. In the course of an eight- to
twelve-hour run firemen must shovel from fifteen
to twenty-five tons of coal into the blazing fire box
of a locomotive. In winter they are constantly
subjected to hot blasts from the furnace and freez-
ing drafts from the wind. Records show that
out of every hundred who begin as firemen only
seventeen become engineers and of these only
six ever become passenger engineers. The mere
strain on the eyes caused by looking into the coal
blaze eliminates 17 per cent. Those who eventually

THE RAILWAY 135

become engineers are therefore a select group as far
as physique is concerned

The constant dangers accompanying their daily
work require railroad engineers to be no less de-
pendable from the moral point of view. The his-
tory of railroading is as replete with heroism as is
the story of any war. A coward cannot long sur-
vive at the throttle. The process of natural selec-
tion which the daily labor of an engineer involves
the Brotherhood has supplemented by most rigid
moral tests. The character of every applicant for
membership is thoroughly scrutinized and must be
vouched for by three members. He must demon-
strate his skill and prove his character by a year's 1 -
probation before his application is finally voted
upon. Once within the fold, the rules governing
his conduct are ipexorable. If he shuns his finan-
cial obligations or is guilty of a moral lapse, he is
summarily expelled. In 1909, thirty-six members
were expelled for " unbecoming conduct. " Drunk-
ards are particularly dangerous in railroading.
When the order was only five years old and stil)
struggling for its life, it nevertheless expelled 172
members for drunkenness. In proven cases of this
sort the railway authorities are notified, the offend-
ing engineer is dismissed from the service, and the

136 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

shame of these culprits is published to the world in
the Locomotive Engineers' Journal, which reaches
every member of the order. There is probably no
other club or professional organization so exact-
ing in its demands that its members be self-re-
specting, faithful, law-abiding, and capable; and
surely no other is so summary and far-reaching
in its punishments.

Today ninety per cent of all the locomotive en-
gineers in the United States and Canada belong to
this union. But the Brotherhood early learned the
lesson of exclusion. In 1864 after very annoying
experiences with firemen and other railway em-
ployees on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chi-
cago Railroad, it amended its constitution and ex-
cluded firemen and machinists from the order.
This exclusive policy, however, is based upon the
stern requirements of professional excellence and
is not displayed towards engineers who are not
members of the Brotherhood. Towards them there
is displayed the greatest toleration and none of
the narrow spirit of the "closed shop." The non-
union engineer is not only tolerated but is even
on occasion made the benefici ry of the activities
of the union. He shares, for example, in the rise
of wages and readjustment of runs. There are

THE RAILWAY 137

even cases on record where the railroad unions
have taken up a specific grievance between a non-
union man and his employer and have attempted
a readjustment.

From the inception of the Brotherhood, the
policy of the order towards the employing railroad
company has been one of business and not of senti-
ment. The Brotherhood has held that the relation
between the employer and employee concerning
wages, hours, conditions of labor, and settlement of
difficulties should be on the basis of a written con-
tract; that the engineer as an individual was at a
manifest disadvantage in making such a contract
with a railway company; that he therefore had a
right to join with his fellow engineers in pressing
his demands and therefore had the right to a col-
lective contract. Though for over a decade the
railways fought stubbornly against this policy, in
the end every important railroad of this country
and Canada gave way. It is doubtful, indeed, if
any of them would today be willing to go back to
the old method of individual bargaining, for the
Brotherhood has insisted upon the inviolability of
a contract once entered into. It has consistently
held that **a bargain is a bargain, even if it is a poor
bargain." Members who violate an agreement

138 THE OF

are expelled, and any local lodge which is guilty
of such an offense has its charter revoked. *

Once the practice of collective contract was
fixed, it naturally followed that some mechanism
for adjusting differences would be devised. The
Brotherhood and the various roads now maintain
a general board of adjustment for each railway
system. The Brotherhood is strict in insisting that
the action of this board is binding on all its mem-
bers. This method of bargaining and of settling
disputes has been so successful that since 1888 the
Brotherhood has not engaged in an important
strike. There have been minor disturbances, it is
true, and several nation-wide threats, but no seri-
ous strikes inaugurated by the engineers. This
great achievement of the Brotherhood could not
have been possible without keen ability in the
leaders and splendid solidarity among the men.

The individual is carefully looked after by the
Brotherhood. The Locomotive Engineers' Mutual
Life and Accident Insurance Association is an in-
tegral part of the Brotherhood, though it main-
tains a separate legal existence in order to comply

1 In 1905 in New York City 393 members were expelled and
their charter was revoked for violation of their contract of em-
ployment by taking part in a sympathetic strike of the subway
and elevated roads.

THE RAILWAY 139

with the statutory requirements of many States. 1
Every member must carry an insurance policy in
this Association for not less than $1500, though
he cannot take more than $4500. The policy is car-
ried by the order if the engineer becomes sick or
is otherwise disabled, but if he fails to pay assess-
ments when he is in full health, he gives grounds
for expulsion. There is a pension roll of three hun-
dred disabled engineers, each of whom receives $25
a month; and the four railroad brotherhoods to-
gether maintain a Home for Disabled Railroad
Men at Highland Park, Illinois.

The technical side of engine driving is empha-
sized by the Locomotive Engineers' Journal, which
goes to every member, and in discussions in the
stated meetings of the Brotherhood. Intellectual
and social interests are maintained also by lec-
ture courses, study clubs, and women's auxiliaries.
Attendance upon the lodge meetings has been
made compulsory with the intention of insuring
the order from falling prey to a designing minority

1 The following figures show the status of the Insurance Asso-
ciation in 1918. The total amount of life insurance in force was
$161,205,500.00. The total amount of claims paid from 1868 to
1918 was $41,085,123.04. The claims paid in 1918 amounted to
$3,014,540.22. The total amount of indemnity insurance in force
in 1918 was $12,486,307.50. The total claims paid up to 1918
were $1,624,537.01; and during 1918, $241,780.08.

140 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

a, condition which has proved the cause of the
downfall of more than one labor union.

The Brotherhood of Engineers is virtually a large
and prosperous business concern. It s management
has been enterprising and provident; its treasury
is full; its insurance policies aggregate many mil-
lions; it owns a modern skyscraper in Cleveland
which cost $1,250,000 and which yields a substantial
revenue besides housing the Brotherhood offices.

The engineers have, indeed, succeeded in form-
ing a real Brotherhood a u feudal" brotherhood
an opposing lawyer once called them reestab-
lishing the medieval guild-paternalism so that each
member is responsible for every other and all are
responsible for each. They therefore merge them-
selves through self-discipline into a powerful uni-
ty for enforcing their demands and fulfilling their
obligations.

The supreme authority of the Brotherhood is the
Convention, which is composed of delegates from
the local subdivisions. In the interim between con-
ventions, the authorized leader of the organization
is the Grand Chief Engineer, whose decrees tire
final unless reversed by the Convention. This au-
thority places a heavy responsibility upon him,
but the Brotherhood has been singularly fortunate

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 141

in Its choice of chiefs. Since 1873 there have been
only two. The first of these was P. M. Arthur, a
sturdy Scot, born in 1831 and brought to America in
boyhood. He learned the blacksmith and machinist
trades but soon took to railroading, in which he
rose rapidly from the humblest place to the position
of engineer on the New York Central lines. He
became one of the charter members of the Brother-
hood in 1863 and was active in its affairs from
the first. In 1873 the union became involved in a
bitter dispute with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and
Arthur, whose prompt and energetic action had
already designated him as the natural leader of
the Brotherhood, was elected to the chieftainship.
For thirty years he maintained his prestige and
became a national figure in the labor world. He
died suddenly at Winnipeg in 1003 while speaking
at the dinner which closed the general convention
of the Brotherhood.

When P. M . Arthur joined the engineers' union,
the condition of locomotive engineers was unsatis-
factory. Wages were unstable; working conditions
were hard and, in the freight service, intolerable.
For the first decade of the existence of the Brother-
hood, strike after strike took place in the effort to
establish the righl, of organizing and the principle

142 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

of the collective contract. Arthur became head
of the order at the beginning of the period of great
financial depression which followed the first Civil
War boom and which for six years threatened
wages in all trades. But Arthur succeeded, by
shrewd and careful bargaining, in keeping the pay
of engineers from slipping down and in some in-
stances he even advanced them. Gradually .strikes
became more and more infrequent; and the rail-
ways learned to rely upon his integrity, and the
engineers to respect his skill as a negotiator. He
proved to the first that he was not a labor agitator
and to the others that lie was not a, visionary.

Year by year, Arthur accumulated prestige and
power for his union by practical methods and by
being content with a step at a time. This success,
however, cost him the enmity of virtually all the
other trades unionists. To them the men of his
order were aristocrats, and he was lord over the
aristocrats. He is said to have "had rare skill in
formulating reasonable demands, and by consist-
ently putting moderate demands strongly instead
of immoderate demands weakly he kepi Hie good
will of railroad managers, while steadily obtaining
better terms for his men." In this practice, he
could not succeed without the solid good will of the

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 143

members of the Brotherhood; and this good will was
possible only in an order which insisted upon that
high standard of personal skill and integrity essen-
tial to a first-class engineer. Arthur possessed a
genial, fatherly personality. His Scotch shrewdness
was seen in his own real estate investments, which
formed the foundation of an independent fortune.
He lived in an imposing stone mansion in Cleve-
land; he was a director in a leading bank; and he
identified himself with the public affairs of the city.
When Chief Arthur died, the Assistant Grand
Chief Engineer, A. B. Youngson, who would other-
wise have assumed the leadership for the unexpired
term, was mortally ill and recommended the ad-
visory board to telegraph Warren S. Stone an offer
of the chieftainship. Thus events brought to the
fore a man of marked executive talent who had
hitherto been unknown but who was to play a tre-
mendous role in later labor politics. Stone was
little known east of the Mississippi. He had spent
most of his life on the Rock Island system, had
visited the East only once, and had attended but
one meeting of the General Convention. In the
West, however, he had a wide reputation for sound
sense, and, as chairman of the general committee
of adjustment of the Rock Island system, he had

144 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

made a deep impression on his union and his em-
ployers. Born in Ainsworth, Iowa, in 1800, Stone
had received a high school education and had be-
gun his railroading career as fireman on the Rock
Island when he was nineteen years old. Al twenty-
four he became an engineer. In this capacity he
spent the following nineteen years on the Rock
Island road and then accepted the chieftainship
of the Brotherhood.

Stone followed the general policy of his pred-
ecessor, and brought to his tasks the energy of
youth and the optimism of the West. When he
assumed the leadership, the cost of living was rising
rapidly and he addressed himself to the adjustment
of wages. He divided the country into three sec-
tions in which conditions were similar. lie began
in the Western section, as he was most familiar
with that field, and asked all the general managers
of that section to meet the Brotherhood for a wage
conference. The roads did not accept his invita-
tion until it wa,s reenforced by the threat of a West-
ern strike. The conference was a memorable one*
For nearly three weeks the grand officers of the
Brotherhood wrangled and wrought with the man-
agers of the Western roads, who yielded ground
slowly, a few pennies" increase at a time, until a

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 145

satisfactory wage scale was reached. Similarly the
Southern section was conquered by the inexorable
hard sense and perseverance of this new chieftain.

The dispute with the fifty- two leading roads in
the so-called Eastern District, east of the Missis-
sippi and north of the Norfolk and Western Rail-
road, came to a head in 19H. The engineers de-
manded that their wages should be " standardized "
on a basis that one hundred miles or less, or ten
hours or less, constitute a day's work; that is, the
inequalities among the different roads should be
leveled and similar service on the various roads
be similarly rewarded. They also asked that their
wages be made equal to the wages on the Western
roads and presented several minor demands. All
the roads concerned flatly refused to grant the de-
mand for a standardized and increased wage, on
the ground that it would involve an increased ex-
penditure of $7,000,000 a year. This amount could
be made up only by increased rates, which the In-
terstate Commerce Commission must sanction, or
by decreased dividends, which would bring a rea!
hardship to thousands of stockholders.

The unions were fully prepared for a strike which
would paralyze the essential traffic supplying ap-
proximately 38,000,000 people. Through the agency

146 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

of Judge Knapp of the United States Commerce
Court and Dr. Neill of the United States Depart-
ment of Labor, and under the authority of the Erd-
man Act, there was appointed aboard of arbitration
composed of men whose distinction commanded
national attention. P. H. Morrissey, a former
chief of the Conductors' and Trainmen's Union,
was named by the engineers. President Daniel Wil-
lard of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, known for
his fair treatment of his employees, was chosen by
the roads. The Chief Justice of the United States
Supreme Court, the Commissioner of Labor, and
the presiding judge of the United States Commerce
Court designated the following members of the
tribunal: Oscar S. Straus, former Secretary of
Commerce and Labor, chairman; Albert Shaw,
editor of the Review of Reviews; Otto M. Eidlitz,
former president of the Building Trades Associa-
tion; Charles R. Van Hise, president of the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin; and Frederick N. Judson, of
the St. Louis bar.

After five months of hearing testimony and de-
liberation, this distinguished board brought in a
report that marked, it was hoped, a new epoch in
railway labor disputes, for it recognized the rights
of the public, the great third party to such disputes.

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 147

It granted the principle of standardization and
minimum wage asked for by the engineers, but it
allowed an increase in pay which was less by one-
half than that demanded. In order to prevent sim-
ilar discord in the future, the board recommended
the establishment of Federal and state wage com-
missions with functions pertaining to wage disputes
analogous to those of the public service commis-
sions in regard to rates and capitalization. The
report stated that, "while the railway employees
feel that they cannot surrender their right to strike,
if there were a wage commission which would se-
cure them just wages the necessity would no longer
exist for the exercise of their power. It is believed
that, in the last analysis, the only solution un-
less we are to rely solely upon the restraining power
of public opinion is to qualify the principle of free
contract in the railroad service." 1
While yielding to the wage findings of the board,

1 The board recognized the great obstacles in the way of such a
solution but went on to say: "The suggestion, however, grows
out of a profound conviction that the food and clothing of our
people, the industries and the general welfare of our nation, can-
not be permitted to depend upon the policies and dictates of any
particular group of men, whether employers or employees." And
this conviction has grown apace with the years until it stands to-
day as the most potent check to aggression by either trade unions
or capital.

148 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

P. H. Morrissey vigorously dissented from the
principle of the supremacy of public interest in
these matters. He made clear his position in an
able minority report: a l wish to emphasize my
dissent from that recommendation of the board
which in its effect virtually means compulsory ar-
bitration for the railroads and their employees.
Regardless of any probable constitutional prohibi-
tion which might operate against its being adopted,
it is wholly impracticable. The progress towards
the settlement of disputes between llic railways
and their employees without recourse to industrial
warfare has been marked. There is nothing under
present conditions to prevent its continuance. We
will never be perfect, but even so, it will be im-
measurably better than it will be under conditions
such as the board proposes."

The significance of these words was brought out
four years later when the united railway brother-
hoods made their famous coup In Congress. For
the time being, however, the public with its usual
self-assurance thought the railway employee ques-
tion was solved, though the findings were for one
year only/

1 The award dated back to May I, 11>12, and was valid <ml.y oue
year from that dale.

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 149

Daniel Willard speaking for the railroads, said:
"My acceptance of the award as a whole does not
signify my approval of all the findings in detail. It
is intended, however, to indicate clearly that, al-
though the award is not such as the railroads had
hoped for, nor is it such as they felt would be jus-
tified by a full consideration of all the facts, yet
having decided to submit this case to arbitra-
tion and having been given ample opportunity to
present the facts and arguments in support of
their position, they now accept without question
the conclusion which was reached by the board
appointed to pass upon the matter at issue."

A comparison of these statements shows how the
balance of power had shifted, since the days when
railway policies reigned supreme, from the corpora-
tion to the union. The change was amply dem-
onstrated by the next grand entrance of the rail-
way brotherhoods upon the public stage. After
his victory in the Western territory, Chief Stone
remarked: "Most labor troubles are the result of
one of two things, misrepresentation or misunder-
standing. Unfortunately, negotiations are some-
times entrusted to men who were never intended
by nature for this mission, since they cannot dis-
cuss a question without losing their temper. . . .

150 THE OF

It may be laid down as a fundamental principle
without which no labor organization can hope to
exist, that it must carry out its contracts. No em-
ployer can be expected to live up to a contract that
is not regarded binding by the union."

The other railway brotherhoods to a consider-
able degree follow the model set by the engineers.
The Order of Railway Conductors developed rap-
idly from the Conductors' Union which was or-
ganized by the conductors of the Illinois Central
Railroad at Amboy, Illinois, in the spring of 1868.
In the following July this union was extended to
include all the lines in the State. In November of
the same year a call to conductors on all the roads
in the United States and the British Provinces was
issued to meet at Columbus., Ohio, in December, to
organize a general brotherhood. Ten years later
the union adopted its present name. It has an
ample insurance fund 1 based upon the principle
that policies are not matured but members arriving
at the age of seventy years are relieved from further
payments. About thirty members are thus annu-
ally retired. At Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the national
headquarters, the order publishes The Railway

1 In 1910 the total amount of outstanding iiusunince was some-
what over $90,000,000.

THE RAILWAY 151

Conductor., a journal which aims not only at the
solidarity of the membership but at increasing their
practical efficiency.

The conductors are a conservative and carefully
selected group of men. Each must pass through a
long term of apprenticeship and must possess abil-
ity and personality. The order has been carefully
and skillfully led and in recent years has had but
few differences with the railways which have not
been amicably settled. Edgar E. Clark was chosen
president in 1890 and served until 1906, when he
became a member of the Interstate Commerce
Commission. He was born in 1856, received a
public school education, and studied for some time
in an academy at Lima, New York. At the age of
seventeen, he began railroading and served as con-
ductor on the Northern Pacific and other Western
lines. He held numerous subordinate positions in
the Brotherhood and in 1889 became its vice-presi-
dent. He was appointed by President Roosevelt
as a member of the Anthracite Coal Strike Com-
mission in 1902 and is generally recognized as one
of the most judicial heads in the labor world. He
was succeeded as president of the order by Austin B.
Garretson, who was bom in Win Lerset, Iowa, in 1856.
He began his railroad career at nineteen years of

152 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

age, became a conductor on the Burlington system,
and had a varied experience on several Western
lines, including the Mexican National and Mexican
Central railways. His rise in the order was rapid
and in 1889 he became vice-president. One of his
intimate friends wrote that ""in his capacity as
Vice-President and President of the Order he has
written more schedules and successfully negotiated
more wage settlements, including the eight-hour
day settlement in 1916, under the method of col-
lective bargaining than any other labor leader on
the American continent.' 5

Garretson has long served as a member of the
executive committee of the National Civic Federa-
tion and in 1912 was appointed by President Wil-
son a member of the Federal Commission on Indus-
trial Relations. A man of great energy and force
of character, he has recently assumed a leading
place in labor union activities.

In addition to the locomotive engineers and the
conductors, the firemen also have their union.
Eleven firemen of the Erie Railroad organized a
brotherhood at Port Jcrvis, New York, in Decem-
ber, 1873, but it was a fraternal order rather than
a trade union. In 1877, [he year of the grtNil rail-
way strikes, it was joined by the International

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 153

Firemen's Union, an organization without any fra-
ternal or insurance features. In spite of this amal-
gamation, however, the growth of the Brother-
hood was very slow. Indeed, so unsatisfactory
was the condition of affairs that in 1879 the order
took an unusual step. "So bitter was the contin-
ued opposition of railroad officials at this time,"
relates the chronicler of the Brotherhood (in some
sections of the country it resulted in the disband-
ment of the lodges and the depletion of member-
ship) "that it was decided, in order to remove the
cause of such opposition, to eliminate the protec-
tive feature of the organization. With a view to
this end a resolution was adopted ignoring strikes."
This is one of the few recorded retreats of militant
trade unionism. The treasury of the Brotherhood
was so depleted that it was obliged to call upon
local lodges for donations. By 1885, however, the
order had sufficiently recovered to assume again
the functions of a labor union in addition to its
fraternal and beneficiary obligations. The days
of its greatest hardships were over, although the
historic strike on the Burlington lines that lasted
virtually throughout the year 1888 and the Pull-
man strike in 1894 wrought a severe strain upon
its slaying powers. In 1906 the engineinen were

154 THE OF

incorporated Into the order, and thenceforth the
membership grew rapidly. In 1913 a joint agree-
ment was effected with the Brotherhood of Loco-
motive Engineers whereby the two organizations
could work together "on a labor union basis.' 9
Today men operating electric engines or motor or
gas cars on lines using electricity are eligible for
membership, if they are otherwise qualified. This
arrangement does not interfere with unions already
established on interurban lines.

The leadership of this order of firemen has been
less continuous, though scarcely less conspicuous,
than that of the other brotherhoods. Before 1886
the Grand Secretary and Treasurer was invested
with greater authority than the grand master,
and in this position Eugene V. Debs, who served
from 1881 to 1892, and Frank W. Arnold, who
served from 1893 to 1903, were potent in shaping
the policies of the Union. There have been seven
grand masters and one president (the name now
used to designate the chief officer) since 1874. Of
these leaders Frank P. Sargent served from 1886
until 1892, when he was appointed Commissioner
General of Immigration by President Roosevelt*
Since 1909, William S. Carter has been president
of the Brotherhood. Born in Texas in 1859, he

THE RAILWAY 155

began railroading at nineteen years of age and
served in turn as fireman, baggageman, and en-
gineer. Before his election to the editorship of the
Firemen s Magazine, he held various minor offices
in local lodges. Since 1894 he has served the
order successively as editor, grand secretary and
treasurer, and president. To his position he has
brought an intimate knowledge of the affairs of the
Union as well as a varied experience in practical
railroading. Upon the entrance of America into
the Great War, President Wilson appointed him
Director of the Division of Labor of the United
States Railway Administration.

Of the government and policy of the firemen's
union President Carter remarked:

This Brotherhood may be compared to a state in a re-
public of railway unions, maintaining almost complete
autonomy in its own affairs yet uniting with other rail-
way brotherhoods in matters of mutual concern and in
common defense. It is true that these railway brother-
hoods carry the principle of home rule to great lengths
and have acknowledged no common head, and by this
have invited the criticism from those who believe . . .
that only in one "big" union can railway employees
hope for improved working condition. . . . That in
union there is strength, no one will deny, but in any
confederation of forces there must be an exchange
of individual rights for this collective power. There is

156 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

a point in the combining of working people in la-
bor unions where the loss of individual rights is not
compensated by the increased power of the masses
of workers.

In the cautious working out of this principle, the
firemen have prospered after the manner of their
colleagues in the other brotherhoods. Their mem-
bership embraces the large majority of their craft.
Prom the date of the establishment of their bene-
ficiary fund to 1918 a total of $21,860,103.00 has
been paid in death and disability claims and in 1 918
the amount so paid was $1,538,207.00. The Fire-
men's Magazine, established in 1870 and now pub-
lished from headquarters in Cleveland, is indicative
of the ambitions of the membership, for its avowed
aim is to "make a specialty of educational matter
for locomotive enginemen and other railroad em-
ployees." An attempt was even made in 1908 to
conduct a correspondence school, under the super-
vision of the editor and manager of the magazine,
but after three years this project was discontinued
because it could not be made self-supporting.

The youngest of the railway labor organizations
is the Brotherhood of Trainmen, organized in
September, 1 883, at Oneonta, New York. Its early
years were lean and filled with bickerings and

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 157

doubts, and it was not until S. E. Wilkinson was
elected grand master in 1885 that it assumed an
important role in labor organizations. Wilkinson
was one of those big, rough and ready men, with a
natural aptitude for leadership, who occasionally
emerge from the mass. He preferred railroading
to schooling and spent more time in the train sheds
of his native town of Monroeville, Ohio, than he
did at school. At twelve years of age he ran away
to join the Union Army, in which he served as an
orderly until the end of the war. He then followed
his natural bent, became a switchman and later a
brakeman, was a charter member of the Brother-
hood, and, when its outlook was least encourag-
ing, became its Grand Master. At once under his
leadership the organization became aggressive.

The conditions under which trainmen worked
were far from satisfactory. At that time, in the
Eastern field, the pay of a brakeman was between
$1.50 and $2 a day in the freight service, $45 a
month in the passenger service, and $50 a month
for yard service. In the Southern territory, the
wages were very much lower and in the Western
about $5 per month higher. The runs in the differ-
ent sections of the country were not equalized:
there was no limit to the number of hours called a

158 THE ARMIES OF

day's work; overtime and preparatory time were
not counted in; and there were many complaints
of arbitrary treatment of trainmen by their supe-
riors. Wilkinson set to work to remedy the wage
situation first. Almost at once he brought about
the adoption of the principle of collective bargain-
ing for trainmen and yardmen. By 1895, when he
relinquished his office, the majority of the rail-
ways in the United States and Canada had work-
ing agreements with their train and yard service
men. Wages had been raised, twelve hours or less
and one hundred miles or less became recognized
as a daily measure of service, and overtime was
paid extra.

The panic of 1893 hit the railway service very
hard. There followed many strikes engineered by
the American Railway Union, a radical organiza-
tion which carried its ideas of violence so far that it
wrecked not only itself but brought the newer and
conservative Brotherhoods to the verge of ruin.
It was during this period of strain that, in 1895,
P. H. Morrissey was chosen Grand Master of the
Trainmen. With a varied training in railroading,
in insurance, and in labor organization work, Mor-
rissey was in many ways the antithesis of his pred-
ecessors who had, in a powerful and brusque way,

THE RAILWAY 159

prepared the ground for his analytical and judi-
cial leadership. He was unusually well informed
on all matters pertaining to railroad operations,
earnings, and conditions of employment, and on
general economic conditions. This knowledge,
together with his foreefulness, tact, parliamen-
tary ability, and rare good judgment, soon made
him the spokesman of all the railway Brother-
hoods in their joint conferences and their leader
before the public. He was not afraid to take
the unpopular side of a cause, cared nothing for
mere temporary advantages, and had the gift of
inspiring confidence.

When Morrissey assumed the leadership of the
Trainmen, their order had lost 10,000 members in
two years and was about $200,000 in debt. The
panic had produced unemployment and distrust,
and the violent reprisals of the American Railway
Union had reaped a harvest of bitterness and dis-
loyalty. During his fifteen years of service until
he retired in 1909, Morrissey saw his order re-
juvenated and virtually reconstructed, the work of
the men standardized in the greater part of the
country, slight increases of pay given to the freight
and passenger men, and very substantial increases
granted to the yard men. But his greatest service

160 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

to his order was in thoroughly establishing it in
the public confidence.

He was succeeded by William G. Lee, who had
served in many subordinate offices in local lodges
before he had been chosen First Vice- Grand Mas-
ter in 1895. For fifteen years he was a faithful
understudy to Morrissey whose policy he has con-
tinued in a characteristically fearless and thor-
oughgoing manner. When he assumed the presi-
dency of the order, he obtained a ten-hour day in
the Eastern territory for all train and yard men,
together with a slight increase in pay for all classes
fixed on the ten-hour basis. The ten-hour day was
now adopted in Western territory where it had not
already been put into effect. The Southern terri-
tory, however, held out until 1912, when a general
advance on all Southern railroads, with one excep-
tion, brought the freight and passenger men to a
somewhat higher level of wages than existed in
other parts of the country. In the following year
the East and the West raised their wages so that
finally a fairly level rate prevailed throughout the
United States. In the movement for the eight-
hour day which culminated in the passage of the
Adamson Law by Congress, Lee and his order took
a prominent part. In 1919 the Trainmen had

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 161

$253,000,000 insurance in force, and up to that year
had paid out $42,500,000 in claims. Of this latter
amount $3,604,000 was paid out in 1918, one-half
of which was attributed to the influenza epidemic.

Much of the success and power of the railroad
Brotherhoods is due to the character of their mem-
bers as well as to able leadership. The editor of
a leading newspaper has recently written: u The
impelling power behind every one of these or-
ganizations is the membership. I say this without
detracting from the executive or administrative
abilities of the men who have been at the head of
these organizations, for their influence has been
most potent in carrying out the will of their several
organizations. But whatever is done is first de-
cided upon by the men and it is then put up to their
chief executive officers for their direction/'

With a membership of 375,000 uniformly clean
and competent, so well captained and so well for-
tified financially by insurance, benefit, and other
funds, it is little wonder that the Brotherhoods
have reached a permanent place in the railroad
industry. Their progressive power can be dis-
cerned in Federal legislation pertaining to arbitra-
tion and labor conditions in interstate carriers.
In 1888 an sicl was passed providing that, in cases

m THE OF

of railway labor disputes, the President might
appoint two investigators who, with the United
States Commission of Labor, should form a board
to investigate the controversy and recommend
"the best means for adjusting it." But as they
were empowered to produce only findings and not
to render decisions, the law remained a dead letter,
without having a single case brought up under it.
It was superseded in 1898 by the Erdman Act,
which provided that certain Federal officials should
act as mediators and that, in case they failed, a
Board of Arbitrators was to be appointed whose
word should be binding for a certain period of time
and from whose decisions appeal could be taken to
the Federal courts. Of the hundreds of disputes
which occurred during the first eight years of the
existence of this statute, only one was brought
under the mechanism of the law. Federal arbitra-
tion was not popular. In 1905, however, a rather
sudden change came over the situation. Over
sixty cases were brought under the Erdman Act
in about eight years. In 1913 the Newlands Law
was passed providing for a permanent Board of
Mediation and Conciliation, by which over sixty
controversies have been adjusted.
The increase of brotherhood influence which

THE RAILWAY 163

such legislation represents was accompanied by a
consolidation in power. At first the Brotherhoods
operated by railway systems or as individual orders.
Later on they united into districts, all the Brother-
hoods of a given district cooperating in their de-
mands. Finally the cooperation of all the Brother-
hoods in the United States on all the railway sys-
tems was effected. This larger organization came
clearly to light in 1912, when the Brotherhoods
submitted their disputes to the board of arbitra-
tion. This step was hailed by the public as going a
long way towards the settlement of labor disputes
by arbitral boards.

The latest victory of the Brotherhoods, however,
has shaken public confidence and has ushered in
a new era of brotherhood influence and Federal in-
terference in railroad matters. In 1916, the four
Brotherhoods threatened to strike. The mode of
reckoning pay whether upon an eight-hour or a
longer day was the subject of contention. The
Department of Labor, through the Federal Con-
ciliation Board, tried in vain to bring the oppo-
nents together. Even President Wilson's efforts to
bring about an agreement proved futile. The
roads agreed to arbitrate all the points, allowing
the President to name the arbitrators; but the

164 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

Brotherhoods, probably realizing their temporary
strategic advantage, refused point-blank to arbi-
trate. When the President tried to persuade the
roads to yield the eight-hour day, they replied that
it was a proper subject for arbitration.

Instead of standing firmly on the principle of
arbitration, the President chose to go before Con-
gress, on the afternoon of the 29th of August, and
ask, first, for a reorganization of the Interstate
Commerce Commission; second, for legal recogni-
tion of the eight-hour day for interstate carriers;
third, for power to appoint a commission to ob-
serve the operation of the eight-hour day for a
stated time; fourth, for reopening the question of
an increase in freight rates to meet the enlarged
cost of operation; fifth, for a law declaring railway
strikes and lockouts unlawful until a public inves-
tigation could be made; sixth, for authorization to
operate the roads in case of military necessity.

The strike was planned to fall on the expect-
ant populace, scurrying home from Lheir vacations,
on the 4th of September. On the 1st of September
an eight-hour bill, providing also for the appoint-
ment of a board of observation, was rushed through
the House; on the following day it was hastened
through the staid Senate; and on the third it

THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 165

received the President's signature. 1 The other
recommendations of the President were rna.de to
await the pleasure of Congress and the unions. To
the suggestion that railway strikes be made unlaw-
ful until their causes are disclosed the Brotherhoods
were absolutely opposed.

Many readjustments were involved in launch-
ing the eight-hour law, and in March, 1917, the
Brotherhoods again threatened to strike. The
President sent a committee, including the Secre-
tary of the Interior and the Secretary of Labor, to
urge the parties to come to an agreement. On the
19th of March, the Supreme Court upheld the
validity of the law, and the trouble subsided. But
in the following November, after the declaration
of war, clouds reappeared on the horizon, and
again the unions refused the Government's sugges-
tion of arbitration. Under war pressure, however,
the Brotherhoods finally consented to hold their
grievance in abeyance.

The haste with which the eight-hour law was
enacted, and the omission of the vital balance sug-
gested by the President appeared to many citizens

1 This was on Sunday. In order to obviate any objection as to
the legality of the signature the President signed the bill again on
the following Tuesday, the intervening Monday being Labor Day.

166 THE OP

to be a holdup of Congress, and the nearness of
the presidential election suggested that a political
motive was not absent. The fact that in the en-
suing presidential election, Ohio, the home of the
Brotherhoods, swung from the Republican to the
Democratic column, did not dispel this suspicion
from, the public mind. Throughout this maneuver
it was apparent that the unions were very con-
fident, but whether because of a prearranged pact,
or because of a full treasury, or because of a feeling
that the public was with them, or because of the
opposite belief that the public feared them, must
be left to individual conjecture. None the less, the
public realized that the principle of arbitration had
given way to the principle of coercion.

Soon after the United States had entered the
Great War, the Government, under authority of
an act of Congress, took over the management of
all the interstate railroads, and the nation was
launched upon a vast experiment destined to test
the capacities of all the parties concerned. The dis-
pute over wages that had been temporarily quieted
by the Adamson Law broke out afresh until settled
by the famous Order No. 27, issued by William
G. McAdoo, the Director General of Railroads,
and providing a substantial readjustment of wages

THE RAILWAY 167

and hours. In the spring of 1919 another large
wage increase was granted to the men by Director
General Hines, who succeeded McAdoo. Mean-
while the Brotherhoods, through their counsel,
laid before the congressional committee a plan for
the government ownership and joint operation of
the roads, known as the Plumb plan, and the Amer-
ican people are now face to face with an issue which
will bring to a head the paramount question of the
relation of employees on government works to the
Government and to the general public*

VIII

ISSUES AND WARFARE

THERE lias been an enormous expansion In the de-
mands of the unions since the early days of the
Philadelphia cordwainers; yet these demands in-
volve the same fundamental issues regarding hours,
Wages, and the closed shop. Most unions, when
all persiflage is set aside, are primarily organized
for business the business of looking after their
own interests. Their treasury is a war chest rather
than an insurance fund. As a benevolent organi-
zation, the American union is far behind the British
union with its highly developed Friendly Societies.
The establishment of a standard rate of wages is
perhaps, as the United States Industrial Commis-
sion reported in 1901, "the primary object of trade
union policy." The most promising method of
adjusting the wage contract is by the collective
trade agreement. The mechanism of the union
has made possible collective bargaining, and in

ISSUES AND WARFARE 169

numerous trades wages and other conditions are
now adjusted by this method. One of the earliest
of these agreements was effected by the Iron Hold-
ers' Union in 1891 and has been annually renewed.
The coal operatives, too, for a number of years
have signed a wage agreement with their miners,
and the many local difficulties and differences have
been ingeniously and successfully met. The great
railroads have, likewise, for many years made pe-
riodical contracts with the railway Brotherhoods.
The glove-makers, cigar-makers, and, in many
localities, workers in the building trades and on
street-railway systems have the advantage of simi-
lar collective agreements. In 1900 the American
Newspaper Publishers Association and the Inter-
national Typographical Union, after many years
of stubborn fighting merged their numerous differ-
ences in a trade contract to be in effect for one year.
This experiment proved so successful that the
agreement has since then been renewed for five-
year periods. In 1915 a bitter strike of the gar-
ment makers in New York City was ended by a
"protocol." The principle of collective agreement
has become so prevalent that the Massachusetts
Bureau of Labor believes that it "is being ac-
cepted with increasing favor by both employers

170 THE OF

and employees, ? ' and John Mitchell, speaking from
wide experience and an intimate knowledge of con-
ditions, says that "the hope of future peace in
the industrial world lies in the trade agreement. "
These agreements are growing in complexity, and
today they embrace not only questions of wages
and hours but also methods for adjusting all the
differences which may arise between the parties to
the bargain.

The very success of collective bargaining hinges
upon the solidarity and integrity of the union which
makes the bargain. A union capable of enforcing
an agreement is a necessary antecedent condition
to such a contract. With this fact in mind, one
can believe that John Mitchell was not unduly
sanguine in stating that "the tendency is toward
the growth of compulsory membership . . . and
the time will doubtless come when this compulsion
will be as general and will be considered as little of
a grievance as the compulsory attendance of chil-
dren at school." There are certain industries so
well centralized, however, that their coercive power
is greater than that of the labor union, and these
have maintained a consistent hostility to the closed
shop. The question of the closed shop is, indeed,
the most stubborn issue confronting the union.

ISSUES AND WARFARE 171

The principle involves the employment of only
union men in a shop; it means a monopoly of jobs
by members of the union. The issue is as old as the
unions themselves and as perplexing as human
nature. As early as 1806 it was contended for by
the Philadelphia cordwainers and by 1850 it had
become an established union policy. While wages
and hours are now, in the greater industrial fields,
the subject of a collective contract, this question
of union monopoly is still open, though there has
been some progress towards an adjustment. Wher-
ever the trade agreement provides for a closed
shop, the union, through its proper committees and
officers, assumes at least part of the responsibility
of the discipline. The agreement also includes
methods for arbitrating differences. The acid test
of the union is its capacity to live up to this
trade agreement.

For the purpose of forcing its policies upon its
employers and society the unions have resorted to
the strike and picketing, the boycott, and the union
label. When violence occurs, it usually is the con-
comitant of a strike; but violence unaccompanied
by a strike is sometimes used as a union weapon.

The strike is the oldest and most spectacular
weapon in the hands of labor. For many years it

172 THE ARMIES OF LABOB

was thought a necessary concomitant of machine
industry. The strike, however, antedates machin-
ery and was a practical method of protest long
before there were unions. Men in a shop simply
agreed not to work further and walked out. The
earliest strike in the United States, as disclosed by
the United States Department of Labor occurred
in 1741 among the journeymen bakers in New York
City. In 1792 the cordwainers of Philadelphia
struck. By 1834 strikes were so prevalent that the
New York Daily Advertiser declared them to be
"all the fashion." These demonstrations were all
small affairs compared with the strikes that dis-
organized industry after the Civil War or those
that swept the country in successive waves in the
late seventies, the eighties, and the nineties. The
United States Bureau of Labor has tabulated the
strike statistics for the twenty-five year period
from 1881 to 1 905. This list discloses the fact that
38,303 strikes and lockouts occurred, involving
199,954 establishments and 7,444,279 employees.
About 2,000,000 other employees were thrown out
of work as an indirect result. In 1894, the year of
the great Pullman strike, 610,425 men wore out of
work at one time ; and 659,792 iu 1902. How much
time and money these ten million wage-earners

ISSUES AND WARFARE 173

lost, and their employers lost, and society lost, can
never be computed, nor how much nervous energy
was wasted, good will thrown to the winds, and
mutual suspicion created.

The increase of union influence is apparent, for
recognition of the union has become more fre-
quently a cause for strikes. T Moreover, while the
unions were responsible for about 47 per cent of the
strikes in 1881, they had originated, directly or
indirectly, 75 per cent in 1905. More significant,
indeed, is the fact that striking is a growing habit,
In 1903, for instance, there were 3494 strikes, an
average of about ten a day.

Preparedness is the watchword of the Unions in
this warfare. They have generals and captains, a
war chest and relief committees, as well as publici-
ty agents and sympathy scouts whose duty it is
to enlist the interest of the public. Usually the
leaders of the unions are conservative and deprecate

1 The cause of the strikes tabulated by the Bureau of Labor?
shown iii the following table of percentages:

1881 1891 1901 1905

For increase of wages: Cl 27 9 32

Against reduction of wages: 10 II 4 5

For reduction in hours: 3575

Recognition of Union: (5 14 8 31

174 THE OF

violence. But a strike by its very nature offers
an opportunity to the lawless. The destruction of
property and the coercion of workmen have been
so prevalent in the past that, in the public mind,
violence has become universally associated with
strikes. Judge Jenkins, of the United States Circuit
Court, declared, in a leading case, that a a strike
without violence would equal the representation of
Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted. " Justice
Brewer of the United States Supreme Court said
that "the common rule as to strikes" is not only
for the workers to quit but to "forcibly prevent
others from taking their place." Historic examples
involving violence of this sort are the great railway
strikes of 1877, when Pittsburgh, Reading, Cincin-
nati, Chicago, and Buffalo were mob-ridden; the
strike of the steel-workers at Homestead, Pennsyl-
vania, in 189; the Pullman strike of 1894, when
President Cleveland sent Federal troops to Chicago ;
the great anthracite strike of 1902, which the Fed-
eral Commission characterized as "stained with
a record of riot and bloodshed "; the civil war in the
Colorado and Idaho mining regions, where the West-
ern Federation of Miners battled with the militia
and Federal troops; the dynamite outrages, per-
petrated by the structural iron workers, stretching

ISSUES AND WARFARE ITS

across the entire country, and reaching a das-
tardly climax in the dynamiting of the Los Angeles
Times building on October 1, 1910, in which some
twenty men were killed. The recoil from this out-
rage was the severest blow which organized labor
has received in America. John J. McNamara,
Secretary of the Structural Iron Workers' Associa-
tion, and his brother James were indicted for mur-
der. After the trial was staged aad the eyes of the
nation were upon it, the public was shocked and
the hopes of labor unionists were shattered by the
confessions of the principals. In March, 1912, a
Federal Grand Jury at Indianapolis returned fifty-
four indictments against officers and members of
the same union for participation in dynamite out-
rages that had occurred during the six years in
many parts of the country, with a toll of over one
hundred lives and the destruction of property
valued at many millions of dollars. Among those
indicted was the president of the International
Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers.
Most of the defendants were sentenced to various
terms in the penitentiary.

The records of this industrial warfare are re-
plete with lesser battles where thuggery joined
hands with desperation in the struggle for wages.

176 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

Evidence is not wanting that local leaders have
frequently incited their men to commit acts of vio-
lence in order to impress the public with their
earnestness. It is not an inviting picture, this
matching of the sullen violence of the mob against
the sullen vigilance of the corporation. Yet such
methods have not always been used., for the union
has done much to systematize this guerrilla war-
fare. It has matched the ingenuity and the resolu-
tion of the employer, backed by his detectives and
professional strike-breakers; it has perfected its
organization so that the blow of a whistle or the
mere uplifting of a hand can silence a great mill.
Some of the notable strikes have been managed
with rare skill and diplomacy. Some careful ob-
servers, indeed, are inclined to the opinion that the
amount of violence that takes place in the average
strike has been grossly exaggerated. They main-
tain that, considering the great number of strikes,
the earnestness with which they are fought, the op-
portunity they offer to the lawless, and the vast
range of territory they cover, the amount of dam-
age to property and person is unusually small and
that the public, through sensational newspaper re-
ports of one or two acts of violence, is led to an
exaggerated opinion of its prevalence.

ISSUES AND WARFARE 177

It must be admitted, however, that the wisdom
and conservatism of the national labor leaders is
neutralized by their lack of authority in their par-
ticular organization. A large price is paid for the
autonomy that permits the local unions to declare
strikes without the sanction of the general officers.
There are only a few unions, perhaps half a dozen,
in which, a local can be expelled for striking con-
trary to the wish of the national officers. In the
United Mine Workers' Union, for example, the
local must secure the consent of the district offi-
cers and national president, or, if these disagree,
of the executive board, before it can declare a
strike. The tendency to strike on the spur of the
moment is much more marked among the newer
unions than among the older ones, which have per-
fected their strike machinery through much ex-
perience and have learned the cost of hasty and
unjustified action.

A less conspicuous but none the less effective
weapon in the hands of labor is the boycott, 1
which is carried by some of the unions to a terrible

1 In 1880, Lord Erne, an absentee Irish landlord, sent Captain
Boycott to Connemara to subdue his irate tenants. The people of
the region refused to have any intercourse whatever with the agent
or liis family. And social and business ostracism has since been
known as the boycott.

178 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

perfection. It reached its greatest power In the dec-
ade between 1881 and 1891. Though It was aimed
at agreat variety of industries, it seemed to be pecu-
liarly- effective in the theater, hotel, restaurant, and
publishing business, and in the clothing and cigar
trades. For sheer arbitrary coerciveness, nothing
in the armory of the union is so effective as the boy-
cott. A flourishing business finds its trade gone
overnight. Leading customers withdraw their pat-
ronage at the union's threat. The alert picket is
the harbinger of ruin, and the union black list is as
fraught with threat as the black hand.

The New York Bureau of Statistics of Labor
has shown that during the period of eight years
between 1885 and 1892 there were 1358 boycotts
in New York State alone. A sort of terrorism
spread among the tradespeople of the cities. But
the unions went too far. Instances of gross unfair-
ness aroused public sympathy against the boy-
cotters. In New York City, for instance, a Mrs.
Grey operated a small bakery with nonunion help.
Upon her refusal to unionize her shop at the com-
mand of the walking delegate, her customers were
sent the usual boycott notice, and pickets were
posted. Her delivery wagons were followed, and
her customers were threatened. Grocers selling

ISSUES AND WARFARE 179

her bread were systematically boycotted. All this
persecution merely aroused public sympathy for
Mrs. Grey, and she found her bread becoming im-
mensely popular. The boycotters then demanded
$2500 for paying their boycott expenses. When
news of this attempt at extortion was made public,
it heightened the tide of sympathy, the courts took
up the matter, and the boycott failed. The New
York Boy cotter., a journal devoted to this form of
coercion, declared: "In boycotting we believe it
to be legitimate to strike a man financially, socially,
or politically. We believe in hitting him where it
will hurt the most; we believe in remorselessly
crowding him to the wall; but when he is down,
instead of striking him, we would lift him up and
stand him once more on his feet." When the boy-
cott thus enlisted the aid of blackmail, it was
doomed in the public esteem. Boycott indictments
multiplied, and in one year in New York City alone,
over one hundred leaders of such attempts at
coercion were sentenced to imprisonment.

The boycott, however, was not laid aside as a
necessary weapon of organized labor because it
had been abused by corrupt or overzealous union-
ists, nor because it had been declared illegal by the
courts. All the resources of the more conservative

180 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

unions and of the American Federation of Labor
have been enlisted to make it effective in extreme
instances where the strike lias failed. This appli-
cation of the method can best be illustrated by the
two most important cases of boycott in our history,
the Buck's Stove and Range case and the Danbury
Hatters' case. Both were fought through the Feder-
al courts, with the defendants backed by the Ameri-
can Federation and opposed by the Anti-Boycott
Association, a federation of employers.

The Buck's Stove and Range Company of St.
Louis incurred the displeasure of the Metal Polish-
ers' Union by insisting upon a ten-hour day. On
August 37, 1906, at five o'clock in the afternoon, on
a prearranged signal, the employees walked out.
They returned to work the next morning and all
were permitted to take their accustomed places
except those who had given the signal They were
discharged. At five o'clock thai, aflernoon the
men put aside their work, and the following morn-
ing reappeared. Again the men who had given the
signal were discharged, and I he rest went to work.
The union then sent notice to the foreman that the
discharged men must be reinstated or that, all would
quit. A strike ensued which soon led lo a, boycott
of national proportions. It spread from the local

ISSUES AND WARFARE 181

to the St. Louis Central Trades and Labor Union
and to the Metal Polishers' Union. In 1907 the
executive council of the American Federation of
Labor officially placed the Buck's Stove and Range
Company on the unfair list and gave this action
wide and conspicuous circulation in The Federa-
tionist. This boycott received further impetus
from the action of the Mine Workers, who in their
Annual Convention resolved that the Buck's Stove
and Range Company be put on the unfair list and
that <k any member of the United Mine Workers of
America purchasing a stove of above make be
fined $5.00 and failing to pay the same be expelled
from the organization."

Espionage became so efficient and letters from
old customers withdrawing patronage became so
numerous and came from so wide a range of terri-
tory that the company found itself rapidly Hearing
ruin. An injunction was secured, enjoining the
American Federation from blacklisting the com-
pany. The labor journals circumvented this man-
date by publishing in display type the statement
that "It is unlawful for the American Federation
of Labor to boycott Buck's Stoves and Ranges/'
and then in small type adroitly recited the news of
the court's decision in such a way that the reader

182 THE OF LABOR

would see at a glance that the company was under
union ban. These evasions of the court's order
were interpreted as contempt, and in punishment
the officers of the Federation were sentenced to
imprisonment Frank Morrison for six months,
John Mitchell for nine months, Samuel Gompers
for twelve months. But a technicality intervened
between the leaders and the cells awaiting them.
The public throughout the country had followed
the course of this case with mingled feelings of
sympathy and disfavor, and though the boycott
had never met with popular approval, on the
whole the public was relieved to learn that the
jail-sentences were not to be served.

The D anbury Hatters' boycott was brought on
in 1903 by the attempt of the Hatters' Union to
make a closed shop of a manufacturing concern in
Danbury, Connecticut. The unions moved upon
Danbury, flushed with two recent victories -- one
in Philadelphia, where an important hat factory
had agreed to the closed shop after spending
some $40,000 in fighting, and another at Orange,
New Jersey, where a manufacturer had spent
$25,000. But as the Danbury concern was de-
termined to fight the union, in 1J)02 a nation-
wide boycott was declared. The company then

ISSUES AND WARFARE 183

brought suit against members of the union in the
United States District Court. Injunction proceed-
ings reached the Supreme Court of the United
States on a demurrer, and in February, 1908, the
court declared that the Sherman Anti-Trust Law
forbade interstate boycotts. The case then re-
turned to the original court for trial. Testimony
was taken in many States, and after a trial lasting
twelve weeks the jury assessed the damages to the
plaintiff at $74,000. On account of error, the case
was remanded for re-trial in 1911. At the second
trial the jury gave the plaintiff a verdict for
$80 9 ()00, the full amount asked. According to the
law, this amount was trebled, leaving the judg-
ment, with costs added, at $252,000. The Supreme
Court having sustained the verdict, the puzzling
question of how to collect it arose. As such funds
as the union had were invulnerable to process, the
savings bank accounts of the individual defendants
were attached. The union insisted that the defend-
ants were not taxable for accrued interest, and the
United States Supreme Court, now appealed to
for a third time, sustained the plaintiff's contention.
In this manner $60,000 were obtained. Fore-
closure proceedings were then begun against one
hundred and forty homes belonging to union men

184 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

In the towns of Danbury, Norwalk, and Bethel.

The union boasted that this sale would prove only
an incubus to the purchasers, for no one would
dare occupy the houses sold under such circum-
stances. In the meantime the American Federa-
tion, which had financed the litigation, undertook
to raise the needed sum by voluntary collection
and made Gompers's birthday the occasion for a
gift to the Danbury local. The Federation insisted
that the houses be sold on foreclosure and that the
collected money be used not as a prior settlement
but as an indemnity to the individuals thus de-
prived of their homes. Rancor gave way to reason,
however, and just before the day fixed for the fore-
closure sale the matter was settled. In all, $235,-
000 was paid in damages by the union to the com-
pany. In the fourteen years during which this
contest was waged, about forty defendants, one of
the plaintiffs, and eight judges who had passed on
the controversy, died. The outcome served us a
spur lo the Federation in hastening through Con-
gress the Clayton bill of 1014, designed to place la-
bor unions beyond the read) of the anti-trust laws.
The union label has in more recent years achieved
importance as a weapon in union warfare. This
is a mark or device denoting a, union-made article.

ISSUES AND 185

It might be termed a sort of labor union trade-
mark. Union men are admonished to favor the
goods so marked, but it was not until national
organizations were highly perfected that the label
could become of much practical value. It is a
device of American invention and was first used
by the cigar makers in 1874. In 1880 their nation-
al body adopted the now familiar blue label and $
with great skill and perseverance and at a consider-
able outlay of money, has pushed its union-made
ware, in the face of sweat-shop competition, of
the introduction of cigar making machinery, and
of fraudulent imitation. Gradually other unions
making products of common consumption adopted
labels. Conspicuous among these were the gar-
ment makers, the hat makers, the shoe makers,
and the brewery workers. As the value of the
label manifestly depends upon the trade it en-
tices, the unions are careful to emphasize the
sanitary conditions and good workmanship which
a label represents.

The application of the label is being rapidly
extended. Building materials are now in many
large cities under label domination. In Chicago
the bricklayers have for over fifteen years been
able to force the builders to use only union-label

186 THE ARMIES OF

brick, and the carpenters have forced the contrac-
tors to use only material from union mills. There
is practically no limit to this form of mandatory
boycott. The barbers, retail clerks, hotel em-
ployees, and butcher workmen hang union cards
in their places of employment or wear badges as
insignia of union loyalty. As these labels do not
come under the protection of the United States
trade-mark laws, the unions have not infrequently
been forced to bring suits against counterfeiters.

Finally, in their efforts to fortify themselves
against undue increase in the rate of production or
"speeding up," against the inrush of new machin-
ery, and against the debilitating alternation of rush
work and no work, the unions have attempted to
restrict the output. The United States Industri-
al Commission reported in 1901 thai, "there has
always been a strong tendency among labor or-
ganizations to discourage exertion beyond a certain
limit. The tendency does not express itself in for-
mal rules. On the contrary, if- appears chiefly in
the silent, or at least informal pressure of working
class opinion." Some unions have rules, others a
distinct understanding, on the subject of a normal
day's work, and some discourage piecework. But
it is difficult to determine how far this policy has

ISSUES AND WARFARE 187

been carried in application. Carroll D. Wright,
in a special report as United States Commissioner
of Labor in 1904, said that "unions in some cases
fix a limit to the amount of work a workman may
perform a day. Usually it is a secret understand-
ing, but sometimes, when the union is strong,
no concealment is made." His report mentioned
several trades, including the building trades, in
which this curtailment is prevalent.

The course of this industrial warfare between
the unions and the employers has been replete
with sordid details of selfishness, corruption, hatred,
suspicion, and malice. In every community the
strike or the boycott has been an ominous visitant,
leaving in its trail a social bitterness which even
time finds it difficult to efface. In the great cities
and the factory towns, the constant repetition of
labor struggles has created centers of perennial dis-
content which are sources of never-ending reprisals.
In spite of individual injustice, however, one can
discern in the larger movements a current setting
towards a collective justice and a communal ideal
which society in self-defense is imposing upon
the combatants.

IX
THE NEW TERRORISM: THE i. w. w.

IT was not to be expected that the field of organized
labor would be left undisputed to the moderation
of the trade union after its triumph over the ex-
treme methods of the Knights of Labor. The
public, however, did not anticipate the revolution-
ary ideal which again sought to inflame industrial
unionism. After the decadence of the older type
of the industrial union several conditions mani-
fested themselves which now, in retrospect, appear
to have encouraged the violent militants who call
themselves the Industrial Workers of the World.

First of all, there took place in Europe the rise
of syndicalism with its adoption of sympathetic
strikes as one of its methods. Syndicalism flour-
ished especially in France, where from its incep-
tion the alert French mind had shaped for it a
philosophy of violence, whose subtlest exponent
was Georges Sorel. The Socialist Future of Trade

188

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I. W. W. 189

Unions, which he published in 1897, was an early
exposition of his views, but his Reflections upon
Violence in 1908 is the best known of his contribu-
tions to this newer doctrine. With true Gallic fer-
vor, the French workingman had sought to trans-
late his philosophy into action, and in 1906 under-
took, with the aid of a revolutionary organization
known as the Confederation General dn Travail, a
series of strikes which culminated in the railroad
and post office strike of 1909. All these uprisings
for they were in reality more than strikes
were characterized by extreme language, by vio-
lent action, and by impressive public demonstra-
tions. In Italy, Spain, Norway, and Belgium, the
syndicalists were also active. Their partiality to
violent methods attracted general attention in
Europe and appealed to that small group of Ameri-
can labor leaders whose experience in the Western
Federation of Miners had taught them the value of
dynamite as a press agent.

In the meantime material was being gathered
for a new outbreak in the United States. The
casual laborers had greatly increased in numbers,
especially in the West. These migratory working-
men- the u hobo miners," the "hobo lumber-
jacks," the "blanket stiffs," of colloquial speech

190 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

wander about the country in search of work. They
rarely have ties of family and seldom ties of local-
ity. About one-half of these wanderers are Ameri-
can born. They are to be described with precision
as " floaters. " Their range of operations includes
the wheat regions west of the Mississippi, the iron
mines of Michigan and Minnesota, the mines and
forests of Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Washington,
and Oregon, and the fields of California and Ari-
zona. They prefer to winter in the cities, but, as
their only refuge is the bunk lodging house, they
increase the social problem in New York, Chicago,
San Francisco, and other centers of the unem-
ployed. Many of these migrants never were skilled
workers; but a considerable portion of them have
been forced down into the ranks of the unskilled
by the inevitable tragedies of prolonged unemploy-
ment. Such men lend a willing ear to the labor
agitator. The exact number in this wandering
class is not known. The railroad companies have
estimated that at a given time there have been
500,000 hobos trying to beat their way from place
to place. Unquestionably a large percentage of
the 23,964 trespassers killed and of the 25,236 in-
jured on railway rights of way from 1901 to 1904
belonged to this class.

THE NEW TERRORISM; THE I W. W. 191

It Is not alone these drifters, however, who be-
cause of their Irresponsibility and their hostility
toward society became easy victims to the indus-
trial organizer. The great mass of unskilled work-
ers in the factory towns proved quite as tempting
to the propagandist. Among laborers of this class,
wages are the lowest and living conditions the most
uninviting. Moreover, this group forms the indus-
trial reservoir which receives the settlings of the
most recent European and Asiatic immigration.
These people have a standard of living and concep-
tions of political and individual freedom which are
at variance with American traditions. Though their
employment is steadier than that of the migratory
laborer, and though they often have ties of family
and other stabilizing responsibilities, their lives
are subject to periods of unemployment, and these
fluctuations serve to feed their innate restlessness.
They are, in quite the literal sense of the word,
American proletarians. They are more volatile
than any European proletarian, for they have
learned the lesson of migration, and they retain
the socialistic and anarchistic philosophy of their
European fellow-workers.

There were several attempts to organize casual
labor after the decline of the Knights of Labor.

192 THE ARMIES OP

But it is difficult to arouse any sustained interest
In industrial organizations among workingmen of
this class. They lack the motive of members of a
trade union, and the migratory character of such
workers deprives their organization of stability.
One industrial organization, however, has been of
the greatest encouragement to the I. W. W. The
Western Federation of Miners, which was organ-
ized at Butte, Montana, on May 15, 1893, has
enjoyed a more turbulent history than any other
American labor union. It was conceived in that
spirit of rough resistance which local unions of
miners, for some years before the amalgamation
of the unions, had opposed to the ruthless and firm
determination of the mine owners. In 1897, the
president of the miners, after quoting the words of
the Constitution of the United States giving citi-
zens the right to bear arms, said: "This you should
comply with immediately. Every union should
have a rifle club. I strongly advise you to provide
every member with the latest improved rifle which
can be obtained from the factory at a nominal
price. I entreat you to take action on this impor-
tant question, so that in two years we can hear the
inspiring music of the martial tread of 25,000
armed men in the ranks of labor."

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I. W, W. 193

This militant vision was fortunately never quite
fulfilled. But armed strikers there were, by the thou-
sands, and the gruesome details of their fight with
mine owners in Colorado are set forth in a special re-
port of the United States Commissioner of Labor in
1905 . The use of dynamite became early associated
with this warfare in Colorado. In 1903 a fatal ex-
plosion occurred in the Vindicator mine in Teller
County, and serious disorders broke out in Telluride,
the county seat of San Miguel County. In 1904 a
cage lifting miners from the shaft in the Independ-
ence mine at Victor was dropped and fifteen men
were killed. There were many minor outrages, iso-
lated murders, "white cap" raids, infernal machines,
deportations, black lists, and so on. In Montana
and Idaho similar scenes were enacted and reached
a climax in the murder of Governor Steunenberg
of Idaho. Yet the union officers indicted for this
murder were released by the trial jury.

Such was the preparatory school of the new
unionism, which had its inception in several infor-
mal conferences held in Chicago. The first, at-
tended by only six radical leaders, met in the au-
tumn of 1904. The second, held in January, 1905,
issued a manifesto attacking the trade unions, call-
ing for a "new departure" in the labor movement.

194 THE OF

and inviting those who desired to join in organ-
izing such a movement to "meet in convention
in Chicago the 7th day of June, 1905. " About
two hundred persons responded to this appeal and
organized the Industrial Workers of the World,
almost unnoticed by the press of the day and
scorned by the American Federation of Labor,
whose official organ had called those in attendance
at the second conference "engaged in the delecta-
ble work of trying to divert, pervert, and disrupt
the labor movement of the country."

An overwhelming influence in this convention
was wielded by the Western Federation of Miners
and the Socialistic American Labor Union, two
radical labor bodies which looked upon the trade
unions as "union snobbery" and the "aristocracy
of labor," and upon the American Federation as
"the consummate flower of craft unionism" and
"a combination of job trusts." They believed
trade unionism wrong in principle. They discarded
the principle of trade autonomy for the principle
of laboring class solidarity, for, as one of their
spokesmen said, "The industrial union, in contra-
distinction to the craft union, is thai, organization
through which all its members in one industry, or
in all industries if necessary, can act as a unit/'

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I. W. W. 195

While this convention was united in denouncing
the trade unions, it was not so unanimous in other
matters, for the leaders were all veterans in those
factional quarrels which characterize Socialists the
world over. Eugene V. Debs, for example, was the
hero of the Knights of Labor and had achieved
wide notoriety during the Pullman strike by being
imprisoned for contempt of court. William D.
Hay wood, popularly known as "Big Bill/' re-
ceived a rigorous training in the Western Federa-
tion of Miners. Daniel DeLeon, whose right name,
the American Federationist alleged, was Daniel
Loeb, was a university graduate and a vehement
revolutionary, the leader of the Socialistic Labor
party, and the editor of the Daily People. A. M.
Simons, the leader of the Socialist party and the
editor of the Coming Nation, was at swords' points
with DeLeon. William E. Trautmann was the flu-
ent spokesman of the anti-political faction. These
men dominated the convention.

After some twelve days of discussion, they
agreed upon a constitution which established six
departments, 1 provided for a general executive

1 1. Agriculture, Land, Fisheries, and Water Products. 2.
Mining. 8. Transportation and Communication. 4. Manu-
facturing and General Production. 5. Construction. 6. Public
Service.

196 THE OF

board with centralized powers, and at the same
time left to the local and department organi-
zations complete industrial autonomy. The I.
W. W. in "the first constitution, crude and provi-
sional as it was, made room for all the world's
workers. 551 This was, indeed, the great object of
the organization.

Whatever visions of world conquest the mili-
tants may at first have fostered were soon shattered
by internal strife. There were unreconcilable ele-
ments in the body: those who regarded the politi-
cal aspect as paramount and industrial unions as
allies of socialism; those who regarded the forming
of unions as paramount and politics as secondary;
and those who regarded all forms of political activ-
ity as mere waste of energy. The first two groups
were tucked under the wings of the Socialist party
and the Socialist Labor party. The third group
was frankly anarchistic and revolutionary. In the
fourth annual convention the Socialist factions
withdrew, established headquarters at Detroit,
organized what is called the Detroit branch, and
left the Chicago field to the revolutionists. So
socialism "pure and simple, " and what amounts to

1 J. G. Brissenden, The Launching of the Industrial Workers o/
the World, page 41.

THE NEW THE L W. W. 107

anarchism "pure and simple/ 9 fell out, after they
had both agreed to disdain trade unionism "pure
and simple."

This shift proved the great opportunity for Hay-
wood and his disciples. Feeling himself now free
of all political encumbrances, he gathered around
him a small group of enthusiastic leaders, some of
whom had a gift of diabolical intrigue, and with in-
domitable perseverance and zeal he set himself to
seeking out the neglected, unskilled, and casual
laborer. Within a few years he so dominated the
movement that, in the public mind, the I. W. W. is
associated with the Chicago branch and the Detroit
faction is well-nigh forgotten.

As a preliminary to a survey of some of the
battles that made the I. W. W. a symbol of terror
in many communities it will be well to glance for a
moment at the underlying doctrines of the organi-
zation. In a preamble now notorious it declared
that "the working class and the employing class
have nothing in common. There can be no peace
so long as hunger and want are found among mil-
lions of working people, and the few who make up
the employing class have all the good things of
life. Between these two classes a struggle must
go on until the workers of the world as a class take

198 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

possession of the earth and the machinery of
production and abolish the wage system/ 9

This thesis is a declaration of war as well as a
declaration of principles. The I. W. W. aims at
nothing less than the complete overthrow of mod-
ern capitalism and the political structure which
accompanies it. Emma Goldman, who prides
herself on having received her knowledge of syn-
dicalism "from actual contact" and not from
books, says that "syndicalism repudiates and con-
demns the present industrial arrangement as un-
just and criminal." Edward Hamoncl calls the
labor contract "the sacred cow" of industrial
idolatry and says that the aim of the I. W. W. is
"the abolition of the wage system. 1 ' And W. E.
Trautmann affirms that "the industrial unionist
holds that there can be no agreement with the em-
ployers of labor which the workers have to consider
sacred and inviolable/' In place of what they
consider an unjust and universal capitalistic order
they would establish a new society in which "the
unions of the workers will own and manage all
industries, regulate consumption, arid administer
the general social interests."

How is this contemplated revolution to be
achieved? By the working classes themselves and

THE NEW TEREORISM: THE I W. W. 199

ftot through political activity, for "one of the first
principles of the I. W. W. is that political power
rests on economic power. ... It must gain con-
trol of the shops, ships, railways, mines, mills. 3 *
And how is it to gain this all-embracing control?
By persuading every worker to join the union, the
"one great organization" which, according to Hay-
wood, is to be "big enough to take in the black
man, the white man; big enough to take in all
nationalities an organization that will be strong
enough to obliterate state boundaries, to obliter-
ate national boundaries. . . . We, the I. W. W.,
stand on our two feet, the class struggle and indus-
trial unionism, and coolly say we want the whole
earth." When the great union has become uni-
versal, it will simply take possession of its own, will
"lock the employers out for good as owners and
parasites, and give them a chance to become use-
ful toilers." The resistance that will assuredly be
made to this process of absorption is to be met by
direct action, the general strike, and sabotage
a trinity of phrases imported from Europe, each
one of special significance.

"The general strike means a stoppage of work,"
says Emma Goldman with naive brevity. It was
thought of long before the I. W. W. existed, but it

00 THE ARMIES OF

has become the most valuable weapon In their
arsenal. Their pamphlets contain many allusions
to the great strikes in Belgium, Russia, Italy,
France, Scandinavia, and other European coun-
tries, that were so widespread as to merit being
called general. If all the workers can be induced
to stop work, even for a very brief interval,
such action would be regarded as the greatest
possible manifestation of the "collective power
of the producers."

Direct action, a term translated directly from
the French, is more difficult to define. This
method sets itself in opposition to the methods of the
capitalist in retaining control of industry, which is
spoken of as indirect action. Laws, machinery,
credits, courts, and constabulary are indirect
methods whereby the capitalist keeps possession of
his property. The industrialist matches this with
a direct method. For example, he engages in a
passive strike, obeying rules so literally as to de-
stroy both their utility and his work; or in an oppor-
tune strike, ceasing work suddenly when he knows
his employei has orders that must be immediately
filled; or in a temporary strike, quitting work one
day and coming back the next. His weapon is
organized opportunism, wielding an unexpected

THE NEW THE I. W. W. 201

blow, and keeping the employer In a frenzy of
fearful anticipation.

Finally, sabotage is a word that expresses the
whole philosophy and practice of revolutionary
labor. John Spargo, in his Syndicalism, Industrial
Unionism and Socialism, traces the origin of the
word to the dockers' union in London. Attempt
after attempt had proved futile to win by strikes
the demands of these unskilled workers. The men
were quite at the end of their resources, when
finally they hit upon the plan of "lying down on
the job" or "soldiering." As a catchword they
adopted the Scotch phrase ca'canny, to go slow or
be careful not to do too much. As an example they
pointed to the Chinese coolies who met a refusal of
increased wages by cutting off a few inches from
their shovels on the principle of "small pay, small
work." He then goes on to say that "the idea
was very easily extended. From the slowing up
of the human worker to the slowing up of the iron
worker, the machine, was an easy transition. Judi-
ciously planned "accidents' might easily create
confusion for which no one could be blamed. A
few * mistakes' in handling cargoes might easily
cost the employers far more than a small increase
in wages would. "

202 THE OF

Some French syndicalists, visiting London, were
greatly impressed with this new cunning. But as
they had no ready translation for the Scottish ca'-
canny, they ingeniously abstracted the same idea
from the old French saying Travailler a coups de
sabots to work as if one had on wooden shoes
and sabotage thus became a new and expressive
phrase in the labor war.

Armed with these weapons, Haywood and his
henchmen moved forward. Not long after the
first convention in 1905, they made their presence
known at Goldfield, Nevada. Then they struck
simultaneously at Youngstown, Ohio, and Port-
land, Oregon. The first battle, however, to attract
general notice was at McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania,
in 1909. In this warfare between the recently or-
ganized unskilled workers and the efficient state
constabulary, the I. W. W. sent notice "that for
every striker killed or injured by the cossacks, the
life of a cossack will be exacted in return." And
they collected their gruesome toll.

In 1912 occurred the historic strike in the mill

town of Lawrence, Massachusetts. This affair

was so adroitly managed by the organizers of the

Workers that within a few weeks every newspaper

of importance in America was publishing long

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I. W. W. 203

descriptions of the new anarchism. Magazine writ-
ers, self-appointed reformers, delegations represent-
ing various organizations, three committees of the
state legislature, the Governor's personal emissary,
the United States Attorney, the United States
Commissioner of Labor, and a congressional com-
mittee devoted their time to numerous investiga-
tions, thereby giving immense satisfaction to those
obscure agitators who were lifted suddenly into
the glare of universal notoriety, to the disgust of
the town thus dragged into unenviable publicity,
and to the discomfiture of the employers.

The legislature of Massachusetts had reduced
the hours of work of women and children from fifty-
six to fifty-four hours a week. Without making
adequate announcement, the employers withheld
two hours' pay from the weekly stipend. A large
portion of the workers were foreigners, represent-
ing eighteen different nationalities, most of them
with a wholly inadequate knowledge of English,
and all of an inflammable temperament. When
they found their pay short, a group inarched
through the mills, inciting others to join them, and
the strike was on. The American Federation of
Labor had paid little attention to these workers.
There were some trade unions in the mills, bat

04 THE OF LABOR

most of the workers were unorganized except for
the fact that the I. W. W. had, about eight months
before, gathered several hundred into an industrial
union. Yet it does not appear that this union
started the strike. It was a case of spontaneous
combustion. No sooner had it begun, however, than
Joseph J. Ettor, an I. W. W. organizer, hastened
to take charge, and succeeded so well that within
a few weeks he claimed 7000 members in his union.
Ettor proved a crafty, resourceful general, quick
in action, magnetic in personality, a linguist who
could command his polyglot mob. He was also a
successful press agent who exploited fully the un-
palatable drinking water provided by the com-
panies, the inadequate sewerage, the unpaved
streets, and the practical destitution of many of
the workers. The strikers made an attempt to
send children to other towns so that they might be
better cared for. After several groups had thus
been taken away, the city of Lawrence interfered,
claiming that many children had been sent without
their parents' consent. On the 24th of February,
when a group of forty children and their mothers
gathered at the railway station to take a train for
Philadelphia, the police after due warning refused
to let them depart. It was then that the Federal

THE NEW THE I. W. W. 05

Government was called upon to take action. The
strike committee telegraphed Congress : " Twenty-
five thousand striking textile workers and citizens
of Lawrence protest against the hideous brutality
with which the police handled the women and
children of Lawrence this morning. Carrying out
the illegal and original orders of the city marshal
to prevent free citizens from sending their children
out of the city, striking men were knocked down,
women and mothers who were trying to protect
their children from the onslaught of the police
were attacked and clubbed." So widespread was
the opinion that unnecessary brutality had taken
place that petitions for an investigation poured in
upon Congress from many States and numerous
organizations.

The whole country was watching the situation.
The hearings held by a congressional committee
emphasized the stupidity of the employers in ar-
bitrarily curtailing the wage, the inadequacy of the
town government in handling the situation, and
the cupidity of the I. W. W. leaders in taking ad-
vantage of the fears, the ignorance, the inflamma-
bility of the workers, and in creating a "terrorism
which impregnated the whole city for days." Law-
rence became a symbol. It stood for the American

206 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

factory town; for municipal indifference and social
neglect, for heterogeneity in population, for the
tinder pile awaiting the incendiary match.

At Little Falls, New York, a strike occurred in
the textile mills in October, 1912, as a result of a
reduction of wages due to a fifty-four hour law.
No organization was responsible for the strike, but
no sooner had the operatives walked out than here
also the I. W. W. appeared. The leaders ordered
every striker to do something which would involve
arrest in order to choke the local jail and the courts.
The state authorities investigating the situation
reported that *' all of those on strike were foreigners
and few, if any, could speak or understand the Eng-
lish language, complete control of the strike being
in the hands of the I. W. W."

In February, 1913, about 15,000 employees in
the rubber works at Akron, Ohio, struck. The in-
troduction of machinery into the manufacture of
automobile tires caused a reduction in the piece-
work rate in certain shops. One of the companies
posted a notice on the 10th of February that this
reduction would take effect immediately. No time
was given for conference, and it was this sudden
arbitrary act which precipitated all the discontent
lurking for a long time in the background; and the

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I. W. W, 207

employees walked out. The legislative investigat-
ing committee reported "there was practically no
organization existing among the rubber employees
when the strike began- A small local of the Indus-
trial Workers of the World comprised of between
fifteen and fifty members had been formed. . . .
Simultaneously with the beginning of the strike,
organizers of the I. W. W. appeared on the ground
inviting and urging the striking employees to unite
with their organization." Many of these testified
before the public authorities that they had not
joined because they believed in the preachings of
the organization but because "they hoped through
collective action to increase their wages and im-
prove their conditions of employment." The tac-
tics of the strike leaders soon alienated the public,
which had at first been inclined towards the strikers,
and acts of violence led to the organization of a
vigilance committee of one thousand citizens which
warned the leaders to leave town.

In February, 1913, some 25,000 workers in the
silk mills of Paterson, New Jersey, struck, and
here again the I. W. W repeated its maneuvers.
Sympathetic meetings took place in New York and
other cities. Daily "experience meetings" were
held in Paterson and all sorts of devices were

208 THE ARMIES OF

invented to maintain the fervor of the strikers.
The leaders threatened to make Patcrson a a howl
ing wilderness," an "industrial graveyard/ 5 and
<k to wipe it off the map." This threat naturally
arrayed the citizens against the strikers, over one
thousand of whom were lodged in jail before the
outbreak was over. Among the five ringleaders ar-
rested and held for the grand jury were Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn and Patrick Quinlan, whose trials
attracted wide attention. Elizabeth Flynn, an
appealing young widow scarcely over twenty-one,
testified that she had begun her work as an organ-
izer at the age of sixteen, that she had not incited
strikers to violence but had only advised them to
picket and to keep their hands in their pockets,
"so that detectives could not put stones in them
as they had done in other strikes." The jury dis-
agreed and she was discharged. Quinla.n, an un-
usually attractive young man, also a professional
I. W. Wo agitator, was found guilty of inciting to
violence and was sentenced to a long term of im-
prisonment. After serving nine months he was
freed because of a monster petition signed by some
20,000 sympathetic persons all over the United
States. Clergymen, philanthropists, and promi-
nent public men, were among the signers, as well as

THE NEW THE I. W. W. 209

the jurors who convicted and the sheriff who locked
up the defendant.

These cases served to fix further public atten-
tion upon the nature of the new movement and the
sort of revivalists its evangel of violence was pro-
ducing. Employers steadfastly refused to deal
with the I. W. W., although they repeatedly as-
serted they were willing to negotiate with their em-
ployees themselves. After three months of strike
and turmoil the mayor of Paterson had said:
"The fight which Paterson is making is the fight of
the nation. Their agitation has no other object in
view but to establish a reign of terror throughout
the United States." A large number of thoughtful
people all over the land were beginning to share
this view.

In New York City a new sort of agitation was
devised in the winter of 1913-14 under the cap-
taincy of a young man who quite suddenly found
himself widely advertised. Frank Tannenbaum
organized an "army of the unemployed," com-
mandeered Rutgers Square as a rendezvous, Fifth
Avenue as a parade ground, and churches and
parish houses as forts and commissaries. Several
of the churches were voluntarily opened to them,
but other churches they attempted to enter by

210 THE ARMIES OF

storm. In March, 1914, Tannenbaum led several
score into the church of St. Alphonsus while mass
was being celebrated. Many arrests followed this
bold attempt to emulate the French Revolution-
ists. Though sympathizers raised $7500 bail for
the ringleader, Tannenbaum loyally refused to ac-
cept it as long as any of his '"army" remained in
jail. Squads of his men entered restaurants, ate
their fill, refused to pay, and then found their
way to the workhouse. So for several months
a handful of unemployed, some of them profes-
sional unemployed, held the headlines of the met-
ropolitan papers, rallied to their defense sentimen-
tal social sympathizers, and succeeded in calling
the attention of the public to a serious industrial
condition.

At Granite City, Illinois, another instance of
unrest occurred when several thousand laborers in
the steel mills, mostly Roumanians and Bulgarians,
demanded an increase in wages. When the whistle
blew on the appointed morning, they gathered at
the gates, refused to enter, and continued to shout
" Two dollars a day ! " Though the manager feared
violence and posted guards, no violence was offered.
Suddenly at the end of two hours the men quietly
resumed their work, and the management believed

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I. W. W. 211

the trouble was over. But for several successive
mornings this maneuver was repeated. Strike
breakers were then sent for. For a week, however,
the work went forward as usual. The order for
strike breakers was countermanded. Then came
a continued repetition of the early morning strikes
until the company gave way.

Nor were the subtler methods of sabotage for-
gotten in these demonstrations. From many
places came reports of emery dust in the gearings
of expensive machines. Men boasted of powdered
soap emptied into water tanks that fed boilers, of
kerosene applied to belting, of railroad switches
that had been tampered with. With these and
many similar examples before them, the public
became convinced that the mere arresting of a few
leaders was futile. A mass meeting at Ipswich,
Massachusetts, in 1913, declared, as its principle of
action, "We have got to meet force with force,"
and then threatened to run the entire local I. W,
W. group out of town. In many towns vigilance
committees acted as eyes, ears, and hands for the
community. When the community refused to
remain neutral, the contest assumed a different
aspect and easily became a feud between a small
group of militants and the general public.

212 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

In the West this contest assumed its most aggres-
sive form. At Spokane, In 1910, the jail was soon
filled, and sixty prisoners went on a hunger strike
which cost, several lives. In the lumber mills of
Aberdeen, South Dakota, explosions and riots
occurred. In Hoquiam, Washington, a twelve-
foot stockade surmounted by barbed wire entangle-
ments failed to protect the mills from the assaults
of strikers. At Gray's Harbor, Washington, a citi-
zens' committee cut the electric light wires to
darken the meeting place of the I. W. W. and then
used axe handles and wagon spokes to drive the
members out of town. At Everett, Washington, a
strike in the shingle mills led to the expulsion of
the I. W. W. The leaders then called for volun-
teers to invade Everett, and several hundred mem-
bers sailed from Seattle. They were met at the
dock, however, by a large committee of citizens
and were informed by the sheriff that they would
not be allowed to land. After some parley, the
invaders opened fire, and in the course of the shoot-
ing that followed the sheriff was seriously wound*
ed, five persons were killed, and many were in-
jured. The boat and its small invading army then
returned to Seattle without making a landing
at Everett.

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE L W. W. 213
The I. W. W, found an excuse for their riotous
action in the refusal of communities to permit them
to speak in the streets and public places. This,
they claimed, was an invasion of their constitu-
tional right of free speech. The experience of San
Diego serves as an example of their "free speech"
campaigns. In 1910, I. W. W. agitators began to
hold public meetings in the streets, in the course of
which their language increased in ferocity until the
indignation of the community was aroused. An
ordinance was then passed by the city council pro-
hibiting street speaking within the congested por-
tions of the city, but allowing street meetings in
other parts of the city if a permit from the police
department were first obtained. There was, how-
ever, no law requiring the issue of such a permit,
and none was granted to the agitators. This re-
striction of their liberties greatly incensed the agita-
tors, who at once raised the cry of "free speech'*
and began to hold meetings in defiance of the
ordinance. The jail was soon glutted with these
apostles of riotous speaking. In order to delay
the dispatch of the court's overcrowded calendar,
every one demanded a jury trial. The mayor of
the town then received a telegram from the general
secretary of the organization which disclosed their

214 THE ARMIES OF

tactics: "This fight will be continued until free
speech Is established in San Diego if it takes twenty
thousand members and twenty years to do so."
The national membership of the I. W. W. had been
drafted as an invading army, to be a constant irri-
tation to the city until it surrendered- The police
asserted that "there are bodies of men leaving all
parts of the country for San Diego " for the purpose
of defying the city authorities and overwhelming
its municipal machinery. A committee of vigi-
lantes armed with "revolvers, knives, night-sticks,
black jacks, and black snakes," supported by the
local press and commercial bodies, undertook to
run the unwelcome guests out of town. That this
was not done gently is clearly disclosed by subse-
quent official evidence. Culprits were loaded into
auto trucks at night, taken to the county line, made
to kiss the flag, sing the national anthem, run the
gauntlet between rows of vigilantes provided with
cudgels and, after thus proving their patriotism
under duress, were told never to return.

"There is an unwritten law," one of the local
papers at this time remarked, "that permits a citi-
zen to avenge his outraged honor. There is an un-
written law that permits a community to defend
itself by any means in its power, lawful or unlawful,

THE NEW TERRORISM : THE I. W. W. 215

against any evil which the operation of the written
law' is inadequate to oppose or must oppose by
slow, tedious, and unnecessarily expensive proceed-
ings," So this municipal homeopathy of curing law-
lessness with lawlessness received public sanction.
With the declaration of war against Germany in
April, 1917, hostility to the I. W. W. on the part
of the American public was intensified. The mem-
bers of the organization opposed war. Their leaflet
War and the Workers, bore this legend :

GENERAL SHERMAN SAID
"WAR IS HELL"

DON'T GO TO HELL

IN ORDER TO GIVE A BUNCH OF

PIRATICAL

PLUTOCRATIC

PARASITES

A BIGGER SLICE OF HEAVEN

Soon rumors abounded that German money wag
being used to aid the I. W. W. in their plots. In

216 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, Kansas, and othei
States, members of the organization were arrested
for failure to comply with the draft law. The gov-
ernors of Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho,
and Nevada met to plan laws for suppressing the
I. W. W. Similar legislation was urged upon Con-
gress. Senator Thomas, in a report to the Senate,
accused the I. W. W. of cooperating with German
agents in the copper mines and harvest fields of the
West by inciting the laborers to strikes and to the
destruction of food and material Popular opinion
in the West inclined to the view of Senator Poin-
dexter of Washington when he said that "most of
the I. W. W. leaders are outlaws or ought to be
made outlaws because of their official utterances,
inflammatory literature and acts of violence/*
Indeed, scores of communities in 1917 took matters
into their own hands. Over a thousand I. W. W.
strikers in the copper mines of Bisbee, Arizona,
were loaded into freight cars and shipped over the
state line. In Billings, Montana, one leader was
horsewhipped, and two others were hanged until
they were unconscious. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a
group of seventeen members were taken from
policemen, thoroughly flogged, tarred, feathered,
and driven out of town by vigilantes.

THE NEW THE I. W. W. 217

The Federal Governments after an extended
inquiry through, the secret service, raided the De-
troit headquarters of the I. W. W., where a plot to
tie up lake traffic was brewing. The Chicago offices
were raided some time later; over one hundred and
sixty leaders of the organization from all parts of
the country were indicted as a result of the exami-
nation of the wagon-load of papers and documents
seized. As a result, 166 indictments were returned.
Of these 99 defendants were found guilty by the
trial jury, 16 were dismissed during the trial, and
51 were dismissed before the trial In Cleveland,
Buffalo, and other lake ports similar disclosures
were made, and everywhere the organization fell
under popular and official suspicion.

In many other portions of the country members
of the I. W. W. were tried for conspiracy under the
Federal espionage act. In January, 1919, a trial
jury in Sacramento found 46 defendants guilty.
The offense in the majority of these cases con-
sisted in opposing military service rather than in
overt acts against the Government. But in May
and June, 1919, the country was startled by a series
of bomb outrages aimed at the United States
Attorney-General, certain Federal district judges,
and other leading public personages, which were

18 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

evidently the result of centralized planning and
were executed by members of the I. W. W., aided
very considerably by foreign Bolshevists

In spite of its spectacular warfare and its mo-
nopoly of newspaper headlines, the I. W. W. has
never been numerically strong. The first conven-
tion claimed a membership of 60,000. All told, the
organization has issued over 200,000 cards since
its inception, but this total never constituted its
membership at any given time, for no more fluc-
tuating group ever existed. When the I. W. W,
fosters a strike of considerable proportions, the
membership rapidly swells 5 only to shrink again
when the strike is over. This temporary member-
ship consists mostly of foreign workmen who are
recent immigrants. What may be termed the
permanent membership is difficult to estimate.
In 1913 there were about 14,000 members. In 1917
the membership was estimated at 75,000. Though
this is probably a maximum rather than an aver-
age, nevertheless the members are mostly young
men whose revolutionary ardor counterbalances
their want in numbers. It is, moreover, an or-
ganization that has a wide penumbra. It readily
attracts the discontented, the unemployed, the
man without a horizon. In an instant it can lay

THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I. W. W. 19

a fire and put an entire police force on the quivive.
The organization has always been in financial
straits. The source of its power is to be sought
elsewhere. Financially bankrupt and numerically
unstable, the I. W. W. relies upon the brazen
cupidity of its stratagems and the habitual timor-
ousness of society for its power. It is this self-
seeking disregard of constituted authority that has
given a handful of bold and crafty leaders such
prominence in the recent literature of fear. And
the members of this industrial Ku Klux Klan, these
American Bolsheviki, assume to be the "conscious
minority" which is to lead the ranks of labor into
the Canaan of industrial bliss.

X

LABOR AND POLITICS

IN a democracy it is possible for organized labor to
extend its influence far beyond the confines of a
mere trade policy. It can move the political mech-
anism directly in proportion to its capacity to en-
list public opinion. It is not surprising, therefore,
to find that labor is eager to take part in politics
or that labor parties were early organized. They
were, however, doomed to failure, for no working-
man's party can succeed, except in isolated locali-
ties, without the cooperation of other social and
political forces. Standing alone as a political entity,
labor has met only rebuff and defeat at the hands
of the American voter.

The earlier attempts at direct political action
were local. In Philadelphia a worknignian's par-
ty was organized in 1828 as a result of the disap-
pointment of the Mechanics' Union at its failure
to achieve its ambitions by strikes. At a public

LABOR AND POLITICS 221

meeting it was resolved to support only such candi-
dates for the legislature and city council as would
pledge themselves to the interests of "the working
classes. " The city was organized, and a delegate
convention was called which nominated a ticket of
thirty candidates for city and county offices. But
nineteen of these nominees were also on the Jack-
son ticket, and ten on the Adams ticket; and both
of these parties used the legend "Working Man's
Ticket, " professing to favor a shorter working day.
The isolated labor candidates received only from
229 to 539 votes, while the Jackson party vote
ranged from 3800 to 7000 and the Adams party
vote from 2500 to 3800. So that labor's first excur-
sion into politics revealed the eagerness of the
older parties to win the labor vote, and the futility
of relying on a separate organization, except for
propaganda purposes.

Preparatory to their next campaign, the working-
men organized political clubs in all the wards of
Philadelphia. In 1829 they nominated thirty-two
candidates for local offices, of whoir nine received
the endorsement of the Federalists and three that
of the Democrats. The workingmen fared bet-
ter in this election, polling nearly 2000 votes in
the county and electing sixteen candidates. So

m THE ARMIES OF LABOR

encouraged were they by this success that they
attempted to nominate a state ticket, but the domi-
nant parties were too strong. In 1831 the work-
ingmen's candidates, who were not endorsed by
the older parties, received less than 400 votes in
Philadelphia, After this year the party vanished.
New York also early had an illuminating experi-
ence in labor politics. In 1829 the workingmen
of the city launched a political venture under the
immediate leadership of an agitator by the name
of Thomas Skidmore. Skidmore set forth his social
panacea in a book whose elongated title betrays
his secret: The Rights of Man to Property! Being
a Proposition to Make it Equal among the Adults of
the Prevent Generation; and to Provide for its Equal
Transmission to Every Individual of Each Succeeding
Generation, on Arriving at the Age of Maturity.
The party manifesto began with the startling dec-
laration that "all human society, our own as well
as every other, is constructed radically wrong."
The new party proposed to right this defect by an
equal distribution of the land and by an elaborate
system of public education. Associated with Skid-
more were Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright
of the Free Enquirer,, a paper advocating all sorts
of extreme social and economic doctrines. It was

LABOR AND POLITICS m

not strange, therefore, that the new party was at
once connected, in the public mind, with all the
erratic vagaries of these Apostles of Change. It
was called the "Fanny Wright ticket" and the
"Infidel Ticket." Every one forgot that it aimed
to be the workingman's ticket. The movement,
however, was supported by The Working Man's
Advocate, a new journal that soon reached a
wide influence.

There now appeared an eccentric Quaker, Rus-
sell Comstock by name, to center public attention
still more upon the new party. As a candidate
for the legislature, he professed an alarmingly ad-
vanced position, for he believed that the State
ought to establish free schools where handicrafts
and morals, but not religion, should be taught;
that husband and wife should be equals before the
law; that a mechanics' lien and bankruptcy law
should be passed; and that by wise graduations all
laws for the collection of debts should be repealed.
At a meeting held at the City Hall, for the further
elucidation of his "pure Republicanism," he was
greeted by a great throng but was arrested for
disturbing the peace. He received less than one
hundred and fifty votes, but his words went far to
excite, on the one hand, the interest of the laboring

224 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

classes in reform, and, on the other hand, the de-
termination of the conservative classes to defeat
*"a ticket got up openly and avowedly/ 5 as one
newspaper said, "in opposition to all banks, in
opposition to social order, in opposition to rights
of property."

Elections at this time lasted three days. On the
first day there was genuine alarm at the large vote
cast for "the Infidels." Thoughtful citizens were
importuned to go to the polls, and on the second
and third days they responded in sufficient num-
bers to compass the defeat of the entire ticket,
excepting only one candidate for the legislature.

The Workingman's party contained too many
zealots to hold together. After the election of I89
& meeting was called to revise the party platform.
The more conservative element prevailed and omit-
ted the agrarian portions of the platform. Skid-
more, who was present, attempted to protest, but
his voice was drowned by the clamor of the audi-
ence. He then started a party of his own, which he
called the Original Workingman's party but which
became known as the Agrarian party. The major-
ity endeavored to rectify their position in the com-
munity by an address to the people. "We take
this opportunity/' they said, "to aver, whatever

AND POLITICS 225

may be said to the contrary by ignorant or de-
signing individuals or biased presses, that we have
no desire or intention of disturbing the rights
of property in individuals or the public." In the
meantime Robert Dale Owen and Fanny Wright
organized a party of their own, endorsing an ex-
treme form of state paternalism over children.
This State Guardianship Plan, as it was called,
aimed to "regenerate America in a generation 55
and to "make but one class out of the many that
now envy and despise each other."

There were, then, three workingmen's parties in
New York, none of which, however, succeeded in
gaining an influential position in state politics.
After 1830 all these parties disappeared, but not
without leaving a legacy of valuable experience.
The Working Man's Advocate discovered political
wisdom when it confessed that "whether these
measures are carried by the formation of a new
party, by the reform of an old one, or by the abol-
ishment of party altogether, is of comparative
unimportance."

In New England, the workingmen's political
endeavors were joined with those of the farmers
under the agency of the New England Association
of Farmers, Mechanics, and Workingmen. This

226 THE ARMIES OF

organization was initiated in 1830 by the working-
men of Woodstock, Vermont, and their journal, the
Working Man's Gazette, became a medium of agi-
tation which affected all the New England man-
ufacturing towns as well as many farming com-
munities. u Woodstock meetings/' as they were
called, were held everywhere and aroused both
workingmen and farmers to form a new political
party. The Springfield Republican summarized
the demands of the new party thus:

The avowed objects generally seem to be to abolish
imprisonment for debt, the abolishment of litigation,
and in lieu thereof the settlement of disputes by refer-
ence to neighbors; to establish some more equal and
universal system of public education; to diminish the
.salaries and extravagance of public officers; to support
no men for offices of public trust, but farmers, mechan-
ics, and what the party call u working men"; and to
elevate the character of this class by mental instruc-
tion and mental improvement. . . . Much is said
against the wealth and aristocracy of the land, their
influence, and the undue influence of lawyers and other
professional men. . . . The most of these objects
appear very well on paper and we believe they are
already sustained by the good sense of the people. . . .
What is most ridiculous about this party is, that in
many places where the greatest noise is made about it,
the most indolent and most worthless persons, men of
no trade or useful occupation have taken the lead.

LABOR AND POLITICS 227

We cannot of course answer for the character for in-
dustry of many places where this party is agitated:
but we believe the great body of our own community,
embracing every class and profession, may justly be
called workingmen: nor do we believe enough can be
found who are not such, to make even a decent party
of drones.

In the early thirties many towns and cities in
Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut,
and Rhode Island elected workingmen's candidates
to local offices, usually with the help of small
tradespeople. In 1833 and 1834 the workingmen
of Massachusetts put a state ticket in the field
which polled about 2000 votes, and in Boston a
workingman's party was organized, but it did not
gather much momentum and soon disappeared.

These local and desultory attempts at forming a
separate labor party failed as partisan movements.
The labor leader proved an inefficient amateur
when matched against the shrewd and experienced
party manipulator; nor was there a sufficient class
homogeneity to keep the labor vote together; and,
even if it had so been united, there were not enough
labor votes to make a majority. So the labor can-
didate had to rely on the good will of other classes
in order to win his election. And this support
was not forthcoming. Americans have, thus far,

228 THE ARMIES OF

always looked with suspicion upon a party that
represented primarily the interests of only one
class. This tendency shows a healthy instinct
founded upon the fundamental conception of
society as a great unity whose life and progress
depend upon the freedom of all its diverse parts.

It is not necessary to assume, as some observers
have done, that these petty political excursions
wrecked the labor movement of that day. It was
perfectly natural that the laborer, when he awoke
to the possibilities of organization and found him-
self possessed of unlimited political rights, should
seek a speedy salvation in the ballot box. He took,
by impulse, the partisan shortcut and soon found
himself lost in the slough of party intrigue. On
the other hand, it should not be concluded that
these intermittent attempts to form labor parties
were without political significance. The politician
is usually blind to every need except f he nml of his
party; and the one permanent need of his parly is
votes. A demand backed by reason will usually
find him inert; a demand backed by voles gal-
vanizes him into nervous attention. When, there-
fore, it was apparent that there was a labor vote,
even though a small one, the demands of this
vote were not to be ignored, especially in States

LABOB AND POLITICS 229

where the parties were well balanced and the
scale was tipped by a few hundred votes. With-
in a few decades after the political movement
began, many States had passed Hen laws, had
taken active measures to establish efficient free
schools, had abolished imprisonment for debt, had
made legislative inquiry into factory conditions^
and had recognized the ten-hour day. These had
been the leading demands of organized labor, and
they had been brought home to the public con-
science, in part at least, by the influence of the
workingmen's votes.

It was not until after the Civil War that labor
achieved sufficient national homogeneity to at-
tempt seriously the formation of a national party.
In the light of later events it is interesting to sketch
briefly the development of the political power of
the workingman. The National Labor Union at
its congress of 1866 resolved "that, so far as po-
litical action is concerned, each locality should be
governed by its own policy, whether to run an in-
dependent ticket of workingmen, or to use political
parties already existing, but at all events to cast
no vote except for men pledged to the interests of
labor." The issue then seemed clear enough. But
six years later the Labor Reform party struck out

230 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

on an Independent course and held Its first and
only national convention. Seventeen States were
represented. * The Labor party, however, had yet
to learn how hardly won are independence and
unity in any political organization. Rumors of
pernicious intermeddling by the Democratic and
Republican politicians were afloat, and it was
charged that the Pennsylvania delegates had come
on passes issued by the president of the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad. Judge David Davis of Illinois,
then a member of the United States Supreme Court,
was nominated for President and Governor Joel
Parker of New Jersey for Vice-President. Both
declined, however, and Charles (TConor of New
York, the candidate of "the Straight-Out Demo-
crats," was named for President, but no nomina-
tion was made for Vice-President. Considering
the subsequent phenomenal growth of the labor
vote, it is worth noting in passing that O'Conor
received only 29,489 votes and that these em-
braced both the labor and the so-called "straight "
Democratic strength.

For some years the political labor movement

1 It is interesting to note that in this first National Labor Party
Convention a motion favoring government ownership and the
referendum was voted down.

LABOR AND POLITICS 231

lost its independent character and was absorbed
by the Greenback party which offered a meeting-
ground for discontented farmers and restless work-
ingmen. In 1876 the party nominated for Presi-
dent the venerable Peter Cooper, who received
about eighty thousand votes most of them prob-
ably cast by farmers. During this time the leaders
of the labor movement were serving a political ap-
prenticeship and were learning the value of co-
operation. On February 22, 1878, a conference
held at Toledo, Ohio, including eight hundred
delegates from twenty-eight States, perfected an
alliance between the Labor Reform and Greenback
parties and invited all "patriotic citizens to unite
in an effort to secure financial reform and industrial
emancipation." Financial reform meant the adop-
tion of the well-known greenback free silver policy.
Industrial emancipation involved the enactment
of an eight-hour law; the inspection of workshops,
factories, and mines; the regulation of interstate
commerce; a graduated federal income tax; the
prohibition of the importation of alien contract
labor; the forfeiture of the unused portion of the
princely land grants to railroads; and the direct
participation of the people in government. These
fundamental issues were included in the demands

23$ THE ARMIES OF LABOR

of subsequent labor and populist parties, and some
of them were bequeathed lo the Progressive party
of a later date. The convention was thus a fore-
runner of genuine reform, for its demands were
based upon industrial needs. For the moment it
made a wide popular appeal. In the stale elections
of 1878 about a million votes were polled by the
party candidates. The bulk of these were fanners'
votes cast in the Middle and Far West, though in
the East, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York,
Maine, and New Jersey cast a considerable vote
for the party.

With high expectations the new party entered
the campaign of 1880. It had over a dozen mem-
bers in Congress, active organizations in nearly
every State, and ten thousand local clubs. General
James B. Weaver, the presidential nominee of the
party, was the first candidate to make extensive
campaign journeys into distant sections of the
country. His energetic canvass netted him only
308,578 votes, most of which came from the West.
The party was distinctly a farmers' party. In
1884, it nominated the lurid Ben Butler who had
been, according to report, "ejected from the Demo-
cratic party and booted out of the Republican/'
His demagogic appeals, however, brought him not

AND POLITICS 233

much more than half as many votes as the party
received at the preceding election, and helped to
end the political career of the Greenbackers.

With the power of the farmers on the wane, the
balance began to shift. There now followed a num-
ber of attempts to organize labor in the Union
Labor party, the United Labor party, the Pro-
gressive Labor party, the American Reform party,
and the Tax Reformers. There were still numerous
farmers' organizations such as the Farmers' Al-
liance, the Anti-Monopolists, the Homesteaders,
and others, but they were no longer the dominant
force. Under the stimulus of the labor unions,
delegates representing the Knights of Labor, the
Grangers, the Anti-Monopolists, and other farm-
ers' organizations, met in Cincinnati on February
22, 1887, and organized the National Union Labor
party. l The following May the party held its only
nominating convention. Alson J. Streeter of Illi-
nois was named for President and Samuel Evans of
Texas for Vice-President. The platform of the
party was based upon the prevalent economic and
political discontent. Farmers were overmortgaged,
laborers were underpaid, and the poor were growing
poorer, while the rich were daily growing richer.

1 McKec, National Conventions and Platforms, p. 251.

234 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

"The paramount issues/ 3 the new party declared,
"are the abolition of usury, monopoly, and trusts*
and we denounce the Republican and Democrat-
ic parties for creating and perpetuating these mon-
strous evils."

In the meantime Henry George, whose Progress
and Poverty had made a profound impression upon
public thought, had become in 1886 a candidate for
mayor of New York City, and polled the phenome-
nal total of 68,110 votes, while Theodore Roose-
velt, the Republican candidate, received (HK4S5,
and Abram S. Hewitt,, the successful Democratic
candidate, polled 90,552. The evidence of popular
support which attended Henry George's brief po-
litical career was the prelude to a national effort
which culminated in the formation of I he United
Labor party. Its platform was similar lo that of
the Union party, except that the single lax now
made its appearance. This method contemplated
the "taxation of land according to its value and
not according to its area, to devote- to common use
and benefit those values which arise, not from the
exertion of the individual, but, from the growth of
society," and the abolition of all taxes on industry
and its products. But it was apparent, from the
similarity of their platforms and the geographical

LABOR AND POLITICS 235

distribution of their candidates that the two labor
parties were competing for the same vote. At a
conference held in Chicago to effect a union, how-
ever, the Union Labor party insisted on the com-
plete effacement of the other ticket and the single
taxers refused to submit. In the election which
followed, the Union Labor party received about
147,000 votes, largely from the South and West
and evidently the old Greenback vote, while the
United party polled almost no votes outside of
Illinois and New York. Neither party survived
the result of this election.

In December, 1889, committees representing
the Knights of Labor and the Farmers' Alliance
met in St. Louis to come to some agreement on
political policies. Owing to the single tax predilec-
tion of the Knights, the two organizations were
unable to enter into a close union, but they never-
theless did agree that "the legislative committees
of both organizations [would] act in concert before
Congress for the purpose of securing the enactment
of laws in harmony with their demands." This
cooperation was a forerunner of the People's party
or, as it was commonly called, the Populist party,
the largest third party that had taken the field
since the Civil War. Throughout the West and the

236 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

South political conditions now were feverish. Old
party majorities were overturned, and a new type
of Congressman invaded Washington. When the
first national convention of the People's party me I
in Omaha on July 2, 1892, the outlook was bright,
General Weaver was nominated for President and
James G. Field of Virginia for Vice-President,
The platform rehabilitated Greenbackism in co-
gent phrases, demanded government control of
railroads and telegraph and telephone systems, the
reclamation of land held by corporations, an in<
come tax, the free coinage of silver and gold "at
the present legal ratio of sixteen to one," and postal
savings banks. In a series of resolutions which
were not a part of the platform but were neverthe-
less "expressive of the sentiment of this conven-
tion, " the party declared itself in sympathy "with
the efforts of organized workingmcn to shorten the
hours of labor"; it condemned "the fallacy of pro-
tecting American labor under the present system,
which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal
classes of the world and crowds out our wage-
earners"; and it opposed the Pinkerton system of
capitalistic espionage as "a menace to our liber-
ties." The party formally declared itself to be a
"union of the labor forces of the United States, 5 *

LABOR" AND POLITICS 237

for "the Interests of rural and city labor are the
same; their enemies identical. 55

These national movements prior to 1896 are
not, however, an adequate index of the political
strength of labor in partisan endeavor. Organized
labor was more of a power in local and state elec-
tions, perhaps because in these cases its pressure
was more direct, perhaps because it was unable to
cope with the great national organization of the
older parties. During these years of effort to gain
a footing in the Federal Government, there are
numerous examples of the success of the labor
party in state elections. As early as 1872 the labor
reformers nominated state tickets in Pennsylvania
and Connecticut. In 1875 they nominated Wen-
dell Phillips for Governor of Massachusetts. In
1878, in coalition with the Greenbackers, they
elected many state officers throughout the West.
Ten years later, when the Union Labor party was
at its height, labor candidates were successful in
several municipalities. In 1888 labor tickets were
nominated in many Western States, including
Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan,
Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Of these
Kansas cast the largest labor vote, with nearly
36,000, and Missouri came next with 15,400. In

238 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

the East, however, the showing of the party in state
elections was far less impressive.

In California the political labor movement
achieved a singular prominence. In 1877 the labor
situation in San Francisco became acute because of
the prevalence of unemployment. Grumblings of
dissatisfaction soon gave way to parades and infor-
mal meetings at which imported Chinese labor and
the rich "nobs, " the supposed dual cause of all the
trouble, were denounced in lurid language. The
agitation, however, was formless until the necessary
leader appeared in Dennis Kearney, a native of
Cork County, Ireland. For fourteen years he had
been a sailor, had risen rapidly to first officer of a
clipper ship, and then had settled in San Francisco
as a drayman. He was temperate and industrious
in his personal life, and possessed a clear eye, a
penetrating voice, the vocabulary of one versed
in the crude socialistic pamphlets of his day, and,
in spite of certain domineering habits bred in the
sailor, the winning graces of his nationality.

Kearney appeared at meetings on the vacant lots
known as the "sand lots," in front of the City Hall
of San Francisco, and advised the discontented
ones to " wrest the government from the hands of
the rich and place it in those of the people/' On

LABOR AND POLITICS 239

September 12, 1877, lie rallied a group of unem-
ployed around him and organized the Working-
man's Trade and Labor Union of San Francisco.
On the 5th of October, at a great public meeting,
the Workingman's party of California was formed
and Kearney was elected president. The platform
adopted by the party proposed to place the govern-
ment in the hands of the people, to get rid of the
Chinese, to destroy the money power, to "provide
decently for the poor and unfortunate, the weak
and the helpless," and "to elect none but com-
petent workingmen and their friends to any office
whatever. . . . When we have 10,000 members
we shall have the sympathy and support of 20,000
other workingmen. This party," concluded the
pronouncement, "will exhaust all peaceable means
of attaining its ends, but it will not be denied jus-
tice, when it has the power to enforce it. It will
encourage no riot or outrage, but it will not volun-
teer to repress or put down or arrest or prosecute
the hungry and impatient, who manifest their ha-
tred of the "Chinamen by a crusade against 'John/
or those who employ him. Let those who raise
the storm by their selfishness, suppress it them-
selves. If they dare raise the devil, let them
meet him face to face. We will not help them."

240 THE ARMIES OF

In advocating these views, Kearney held meeting
after meeting, each rhetorically more violent than
the last, until on the 3d of November he was ar-
rested. This martyrdom in the cause of labor
increased his power, and when he was released
he was drawn by his followers in triumph through
the streets on one of his own drays. His lan-
guage became more and more extreme. He blud-
geoned the "thieving politicians" and the "blood-
sucking capitalists," and he advocated "judicious
hanging" and "discretionary shooting." The City
Council passed an ordinance intended to gag him;
the legislature enacted an extremely harsh riot
act; a body of volunteers patrolled the streets of
the city; a committee of safety was organized. On
January 5, 1878, Kearney and a number of as-
sociates were indicted, arrested, and released on
bail. When the trial jury acquitted Kearney, what
may be called the terrorism of the movement at-
tained its height, but it fortunately spent itself in
violent adjectives.

The Workingman's party, however, elected a
workingman mayor of San Francisco, joined forces
with the Grangers, and elected a majority of the
members of the state constitutional convention
which met in Sacramento on September 28 ? 1878*

LABOR AND POLITICS m

This was a notable triumph for a third party. The
framing of a new constitution gave this coalition of
farmers and workingmen an unusual opportunity
to assail the evils which they declared infested the
State. The instrument which they drafted bound
the stale legislature with numerous restrictions and
made lobbying a felony; it reorganized the courts,
placed innumerable limitations upon corporations,
forbade the loaning of the credit or property of the
State to corporations, and placed a state commis-
sion in charge of the railroads, which had been per-
niciously active in state politics. Alas for these
visions of reform ! A few years after the adoption
of this new constitution by California, Hubert H.
Bancroft wrote:

Those objects which it particularly aimed at, it failed
to achieve. The effect upon corporations disappointed
Its authors and supporters. Many of them were strong
enough still to defy state power and evade state laws,
in protecting their interests, and this they did without
scruple. The relation of capital and labor is even,
more strained than before the constitution was adopt-
ed. Capital soon recovered from a temporary intimi-
dation. . . . Labor still uneasy was still subject to
the inexorable law of supply and demand. Legis-
latures were still to be approached by agents. . . .
Chinese were still employed in digging and grad-
ing. The state board of railroad Commissioners was a

1 6

242 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

useless expense, . . . being as wax in the hands of the
companies it was set to watch. r

After the collapse of the Populist party, there is
to be discerned in labor politics a new departure,
due primarily to the attitude of the American Fed-
eration of Labor in partisan matters, and second-
arily to the rise of political socialism. A social-
istic party deriving its support almost wholly from
foreign-born workmen had appeared in a, few of the
large cities in 1877, but it was not until 1892 that a
national party was organized, and not until alter
the collapse of Populism that it assumed some
political importance.

In August, 1892, a, Socialist-Labor convention
which was held in New York City nominal ed
candidates for President and Vice-President and
adopted a platform that contained, besides the
familiar economic demands of socialism, the rath-
er unusual suggestion that the Presidency, Vice-
Presidency, and Senate of the United States be
abolished and that an executive board be estab-
lished a whose members are to be elected, and
may at any time be recalled, by the House of
Representatives, as the only legislative* body, the
States and municipalities to adopt corresponding

15 Works (voL xxiv): History of California, vol. vn, p. 404.

LABOR AND POLITICS 43

amendments to their constitutions and statutes."
Under the title of the Socialist-Labor party, this
ticket polled 1,532 votes in 1892, and in 1896,
36,373 votes.

In 1897 the inevitable split occurred in the Social-
ist ranks. Eugene V. Debs, the radical labor leader,
who, as president of the American Railway Union,
had directed the Pullman strike and had become a
martyr to the radical cause through his imprison-
ment for violating the orders of a Federal Court,
organized the Social-Democratic party. In 1900
Debs was nominated for President, and Job Harri-
man, representing the older wing, for Vice-Presi-
dent. The ticket polled 94,864 votes. The Social-
ist-Labor party nominated a ticket of their own
which received only 33,432 votes. Eventually this
party shrank to a mere remnant, while the Social
Democratic party became generally known as the
Socialist party. Debs became their candidate in
three successive elections. In 1904 and 1908 his
vote hovered around 400,000. In 1910 congres-
sional and local elections spurred the Socialists
to hope for a million votes in 1912 but they
fell somewhat short of this mark. Debs re-
ceived 901,873 votes, the largest number which a
Socialist candidate has ever yet received. Benson,

244 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

the presidential candidate in 1916, received 590,-
579 votes. 1

In the meantime, the influence of the Socialist
labor vote in particular localities vastly increased.
In 1910 Milwaukee elected a Socialist mayor by a
plurality of seven thousand, sent Victor Berger to
Washington as the first Socialist Congressman, and
elected labor-union members as five of the twelve
Socialist councilmen, thus revealing the sympathy
of the working class for the cause. On January 1,
1912, over three hundred towns and cities had one
or more Socialist officers. The estimated Socialist
vote of these localities was 1,500,000. The 1039
Socialist officers included 56 mayors, 205 aldermen
and councilmen, and 148 school officers. This was
not a sectional vote but represented New England
and the far West, the oldest commonwealths and
the newest, the North and the South, and cities filled
with foreign workingmen as well as staid towns
controlled by retired farmers and shopkeepers.

When the United States entered the Great War,
the Socialist party became a reservoir for all the
unsavory disloyalties loosened by the shock of the

1 The Socialist vote is stated differently by McJvee, National
Conventions and Platforms. The above figures, to 1912, are taken
from Stanwood's History of the Presidency, and for 1012 and 1916
from the World Almanac,

LABOR AND POLITICS 245

great conflict. Pacifists and pro-Germans found a
common refuge under its red banner. In the New
York mayoralty elections in 1917 these Socialists
cast nearly one-fourth of the votes, and in the Wis-
consin senatorial election in 1918 Victor Berger,
their standard-bearer, swept Milwaukee, carried
seven counties, and polled over one hundred thou-
sand votes. On the other hand, a large number of
American Socialists, under the leadership of Wil-
liam English Walling and John Spargo, vigorously
espoused the national cause and subordinated their
economic and political theories to their loyalty.

The Socialists have repeatedly attempted to
make official inroads upon organized labor. They
have the sympathy of the I. W. W., the remnant of
the Knights of Labor, and the more radical trades
unions, but from the American Federation of La-
bor they have met only rebuff. A number of state
federations, especially in the Middle West, not a
few city centrals, and some sixteen national unions,
have officially approved of the Socialist programme,
but the Federation has consistently refused such
an endorsement.

The political tactics assumed by the Federation
discountenance a distinct labor party movement,,
as long as the old parties are willing to subserve the

246 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

ends of the unions. This self-restraint does not
mean that the Federation is not " in politics." On
the contrary, it is constantly vigilant and aggres-
sive and it engages every year in political maneu-
vers without, however, having a partisan organi-
zation of its own. At its annual conventions it has
time and again urged local and state branches to
scrutinize the records of legislative candidates and
to see that only friends of union labor receive the
union laborer's ballot. In 1897 it "firmly and un-
equivocally" favored "the independent use of the
ballot by trade unionists and workmen united re
gardless of party, that we may elect men from our
own ranks to write new laws and administer them
along lines laid down in the legislative demands of
the American Federation of Labor and at the same
time secure an impartial judiciary that will not
govern us by arbitrary injunctions of the courts?
nor act as the pliant tool of corporate wealth."
And in 1906 it determined, first, to defeat all candi-
dates who are either hostile or indifferent to labor's
demands; second, if neither party names such can-
didates, then to make independent labor nomina-
tions; third, in every instance to support "the
men who have shown themselves to bo friendly
to labor."

LABOR AND POLITICS 47

With great astuteness, perseverance, and alert-
ness, the Federation has pursued this method to its
uttermost possibilities. In Washington it has met
with singular success, reaching a high-water mark
in the first Wilson Administration, with the pas-
sage of the Clayton bill and the eight-hour railroad
bill. After this action, a great New York daily
lamented that " Congress is a subordinate branch
of the American Federation of Labor. . . . The
unsleeping watchmen of organized labor know how
intrepid most Congressmen are when threatened
with the fc labor vote. ' The American laborites don't
have to send men to Congress as their British
brethren do to the House of Commons. From the
galleries they watch the proceedings. They are
mighty in committee rooms. They reason with the
recalcitrant. They fight opponents in their Congress
districts. There are no abler or more potent poli-
ticians than the labor leaders out of Congress. Why
should rulers like Mr. Gompers and Mr. Furuseth 1
go to Congress? They are a Super-Congress. "

Many Congressmen have felt the retaliatory
power of the Federation. Even such powerful
leaders as Congressman Littlefield of Maine and

1 Andrew Furuseth, the president of the Seamen's Union and
reputed author of the Seaman's Act of 1915.

248 THE ARMIES OF

Speaker Cannon were compelled to exert their ut
most to overcome union opposition . The Federa-
tion has been active in seating union men in Con-
gress. In 1908 there were six union members in
the House; in 1910 there were ten; in 1912 there
were seventeen. The Secretary of Labor himself
holds a union card. Nor has the Federation shrunk
from active participation in the presidential lists.
It bitterly opposed President Roosevelt when he
espoused the open shop in the Government Print-
ing Office; and in 1908 it openly espoused the
Democratic ticket.

In thus maintaining a sort of grand partisan
neutrality, the Federation not only holds in numer-
ous instances the balance of power but it makes
party fealty its slave and avoids the costly luxury
of maintaining a separate national organization
of its own. The all-seeing lobby which it maintains
at Washington is a prototype of what one may dis-
cern in most state capitals when the legislature is
in session. The legislative programmes adopted by
the various state labor bodies are metamorphosed
into demands, and well organized committees are
present to cooperate with the labor members
who sit in the legislature. The unions, through
their steering committee, select with caution the

LABOR AND POLITICS 249

members who are to introduce the labor bills and
watch paternally over every stage In the progress
of a measure.

Most of this legislative output has been strictly
protective of union interests. Labor, like all other
interests that aim to use the power of government,
has not been wholly altruistic in its motives, es-
pecially since in recent years it has found itself
matched against such powerful organizations of
employers as the Manufacturers' Association, the
National Erectors' Association, and the Metal
Trades Association. In fact, in nearly every im-
portant industry the employers have organized for
defensive and offensive purposes. These organi-
zations match committee with committee, lobby
with lobby, add espionage to open warfare, and
issue effective literature in behalf of their open
shop propaganda.

The voluminous labor codes of such great manu-
facturing communities as Massachusetts, New
York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, reflect a new and
enlarged conception of the modern State. Labor
has generally favored measures that extend the
inquisitional and regulative functions of the State,
excepting where this extension seemed to interfere
with the autonomy of labor itself. Workshops,

250 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

mines, factories, and other places of employment
are now minutely inspected, and innumerable sani-
tary and safety provisions are enforced. A work-
man's compensation law removes from the em-
ployee's mind his anxiety for the fate of his family
if he should be disabled. The labor contract, long
extolled as the segis of economic liberty, is no longer
free from state vigilance. The time and method
of paying wages are ordered by the State, and in
certain industries the hours of labor are fixed by
law. Women and children are the special proteges
of this new State, and great care is taken that they
shall be engaged only in employment suitable to
their strength and under an environment that will
not ruin their health.

The growing social control of the individual is
significant, for it is not only the immediate condi-
tions of labor that have come under public sur-
veillance. Where and how the workman lives is no
longer a matter of indifference to the public, nor
what sort of schooling his children get, what games
they play, and what motion pictures they see. The
city, in cooperation with the State, now provides
nurses, dentists, oculists, and surgeons, as well as
teachers for the children. This local paternalism
increases yearly in its solicitude and receives the

LABOR AND POLITICS 251

eager sanction of the labor members of city councils.
The State has also set up elaborate machinery for
observing all phases of the labor situation and for
gathering statistics and other information that
should be helpful in framing labor laws, and has
also established state employment agencies and
boards of conciliation and arbitration.

This machinery of mediation is significant not
because of what it has already accomplished but as
evidence of the realization on the part of the State
that labor disputes are not merely the concern of
the two parties to the labor contract. Society has
finally come to realize that, in the complex of the
modern State, it also is vitally concerned, and, in
despair at thousands of strikes every year, with
their wastage and their aftermath of bitterness,
it has attempted to interpose its good offices
as mediator.

The modern labor laws cannot be credited, how-
ever, to labor activity alone. The new social at-
mosphere has provided a congenial milieu for this
vast extension of state functions. The philan-
thropist, the statistician, and the sociologist have
become potent allies of the labor-legislator; and
such non-labor organizations, as the American
Association for Labor Legislation, have added

52 THE ARMIES OF

their momentum to the movement. New ideals
of social cooperation have been established, and
new conceptions of the responsibilities of private
ownership have been evolved.

While labor organizations have succeeded rather
readily in bending the legislative power to their
wishes, the military arm of the executive and the
judiciary which ultimately enforce the command of
the State have been beyond their reach. To bend
these branches of the government to its will, or-
ganized labor has fought a persistent and aggres-
sive warfare. Decisions of the courts which do not
sustain union contentions are received with great
disfavor. The open shop decisions of the United
States Supreme Court are characterized as unfair
and partisan and are vigorously opposed in all the
labor journals. It is not, however, until the sanc-
tion of public opinion eventually backs the attitude
of the unions that the laws and their interpretation
can conform entirely to the desires of labor.

The chief grievance of organized labor against
the courts is their use of the injunction to prevent
boycotts and strikes. "Government by injunc-
tion" is the complaint of the unions and it is based
upon the common, even reckless, use of a writ
which was in origin and intent a high and rarely

AND POLITICS m

used prerogative of the Court of Chancery. What
was in early times a powerful weapon in the hands
of the Crown against riotous assemblies and threat-
ened lawlessness was invoked in 1868 by an English
court as a remedy against industrial disturbances. 1
Since the Civil War the American courts in rap-
Idly increasing numbers have used this weapon,
and the Damascus blade of equity has been trans-
formed into a bludgeon in the hands even of
magistrates of inferior courts.

The prime objection which labor urges against
this use of the injunction is that it deprives the de-
fendant of a jury trial when his liberty is at stake.
The unions have always insisted that the law
should be so modified that this right would accom-
pany all injunctions growing out of labor disputes.
Such a denatured injunction, however, would de-
feat the purpose of the writ; but the union leader
maintains, on the other hand, that he is placed un-
fairly at a disadvantage, when an employer can
command for his own aid in an industrial dispute
the swift and sure arm of a law originally intended
for a very different purpose. The imprisonment of
Debs during the Pullman strike for disobeying a
Federal injunction brought the issue vividly before

1 Springfield Spinning Company vs. Riley, L. R. 6 Eq. 551.

m THE OF

the public; and the sentencing of Gompers, Mitch-
ell, and Morrison to prison terms for violating
the Buck's Stove injunction produced new waves
of popular protest. Occasional dissenting opinions
by judges and the gradual conviction of lawyers
and of society that some other tribunal than a
court of equity or even a court of law would be
more suitable for the settling of labor disputes is
indicative of the change ultimately to be wrought
in practice.

The unions are also violently opposed to the use
of military power by the State during strikes. Not
only can the militia be called out to enforce the
mandates of the State but whenever Federal inter-
ference is justified the United States troops may
be sent to the scene of turmoil. After the period
of great labor troubles culminating in the Pullman
strike, many States reorganized their militia into
national guards. The armories built for the ac-
commodation of the guard were called by the
unions ''plutocracy's bastiles," and the mounted
State constabulary organized in 1906 by Pennsyl-
vania were at once dubbed "American Cossacks."
Several States following the example of Pennsyl-
vania have encountered the bitterest hostility on
the part of the labor unions. Already opposition

LABOR AND POLITICS $55

to the militia has proceeded so far that some un-
ions have forbidden their members to perform mili-
tia service when called to do strike duty, and the
military readjustments involved in the Great War
have profoundly affected the relation of the State
to organized labor. Following the signing of the
armistice, a movement for the organization of an
American Labor party patterned after the British
Labour party gained rapid momentum, especially
in New York and Chicago. A platform of fourteen
points was formulated at a general conference of
the leaders, and provisional organizations were per-
fected in a number of cities. What power this
latest attempt to enlist labor in partisan politics
will assume is problematical. It is obviously in-
spired by European experiences and promulgated
by socialistic propaganda. It has not succeeded in
invading the American Federation of Labor, which
did not formally endorse the movement at its An-
nual Convention in 1919. Gompers, in an inti-
mate and moving speech, told a group of labor lead-
ers gathered in New York on December 9, 1918,
that "the organization of a political party would
simply mean the dividing of the activities and al-
legiance of the men and women of labor between
two bodies, such as would often come in conflict."

56 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

Under present conditions, it would appear that no
Labor party could succeed in theUnited States with-
out the cooperation of the American Federation
of Labor,

The relation between the American Federation
of Labor and the socialistic and political labor
movements, as well as the monopolistic eagerness
of the socialists to absorb these activities, is clearly
indicated in Gompers's narrative of his experiences
as an American labor representative at the Lon-
don Conference of 1918. The following paragraphs
are significant:

When the Inter-Allied Labor Conference opened in
London, on September 17th, early in the morning,
there were sent over to my room at the hotel cards
which were intended to be the credential cards for our
delegation to sign and hand in as our credentials. The
card read something like this: "The undersigned is
a duly accredited delegate to the Inter- Allied Socialist
Conference to be held at London," etc., and giving
the dates.

I refused to sign my name, or permit my name to be
put upon any card of that character. My associates
were as indignant as I was and refused to sign any such
credential. We went to the hall where the conference
was to be held. There was a young lady at the door.
When we made an effort to enter she asked for our
cards. We said we had no cards to present. " W 7 ell, "

LABOR AND POLITICS 57

the answer came, "you cannot be admitted." We
replied, "That may be true we cannot be admitted
but we will not sign any such card. We have our
credentials written out, signed, and sealed and will
present them to any committee of the conference for
scrutiny and recommendation, but we are not going to
sign such a card."

Mr. Charles Bowerman, Secretary of the Parlia-
mentary Committee of the British Trade Union Con-
gress, at that moment emerged from the door. He
asked why we had not entered. I told him the situa-
tion, and he persuaded the young lady to permit us to
pass in. We entered the hall and presented our cre-
dentials. Mr. James Sexton, officer and representa-
tive of the Docker's Union of Liverpool, arose and
called the attention of the Conference to this situa-
tion, and declared that the American Federation of
Labor delegates refused to sign any such document.
He said it was not an Inter-Allied Socialist Con-
ference, but an Inter-Allied Socialist and Labor
Conference.

Mr. Arthur Henderson, of the Labor Party, made an
explanation something to this effect, if my memory
serves me: "It is really regrettable that such an error
should have been made. It was due to the fact
that the old card of credentials which has been used
in former conferences was sent to the printer, no
one paying any attention to it, thinking it was all
right."

I want to call your attention to the significance of
that explanation, that is, that the trade union move-
ment of Great Britain was represented at these former
conferences, but at this conference the importance of

258 THE ARMIES OF LABOR

Labor was regarded as so insignificant that everybody
took it for granted that it was perfectly all right to
have the credential card read "Inter- Allied Social-
ist Conference" and with the omission of this more
important term, " Labor." 1

As one looks back upon the history of the work-
ingman, one finds something impressive, even
majestic, in the rise of the fourth estate from a
humble place to one of power in this democratic
nation. In this rise of fortune the laborer's union
has unquestionably been a moving force, perhaps
even the leading cause. At least this homogeneous
mass of workingmen, guided by self-developed
leadership, has aroused society to safeguard more
carefully the individual needs of all its parts. La-
bor has awakened the state to a sense of respon-
sibility for its great sins of neglect and has made
it conscious of its social duties. Labor, like other
elements of society, has often been selfish, narrow,
vindictive; but it has also shown itself earnest and
constructive. The conservative trades union, at
the hour of this writing, stands as a bulwark be-
tween that amorphous, inefficient, irresponsible
Socialism which has made Russia a lurid warning
and Prussia a word of scorn, and that rational

1 American Federationist, January, 1919, pp. 40-41.

LABOR AND POLITICS 259

social ideal which is founded upon the conviction
that society, is ultimately an organic spiritual unity,
the blending of a thousand diverse interests whose
justly combined labors and harmonized talents
create civilization and develop culture.

NOTE

WHILE there is a vast amount of writing on the labor
problem, there are very few works on the history of
labor organizations in the United States. The main
reliance for the earlier period, in the foregoing pages,
has been the Documentary History of American Indus-
trial Society, edited by John R. Commons, 10 vok
(1910). The History of Labour in the United States, %
vols. (1918), which he published with associates, is the
most convenient and complete compilation that has
yet appeared and contains a large mass of historical
material on the labor question.

The following works are devoted to discussions of
various phases of the history of American labor and
industry:

T. S. Adams and Helen L. Sumner, Labor Problems
(1905). Contains several refreshing chapters on labor
organizations.

F. T. Cartoon, The History and Problem of Organized
Labor (1911). A succinct discussion of union problems.

R. T. Ely, The Labor Movement in America (1886).
Though one of the earliest American works on the
subject, it remains indispensable.

ft. G. Groat, An Introduction to the Study of Organ-
ized Labor in America (1916) . A useful and up-to-date
compendium.

261

262 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

R. F. Hoxie, Trade Unionism in the United State
(1917). A suggestive study of the philosophy of
unionism.

J. R. Commons (Ed.)? Trade Unionism and Labor
Problems (1905).

J. H. Hollander and G. E. Barnett (Eds.), Studies in
American Trade Unionism (1905). These two volumes
are collections of contemporary studies of many phases
of organized labor by numerous scholars. They are
not historical.

The Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xvn
(1901) provides the most complete analysis of trade-
onion policies and also contains valuable historical
summaries of many unions.

G. E. McNeill (Ed.), The Labor Movement: the Prob-
lem of Today (189$). This collection contains histori-
cal sketches of the organizations of the greater labor
groups and of the development of the more important
issues espoused by them. For many years it was the
most comprehensive historical work on American union-
ism, and it remains a necessary source of information
to the student of trades union history.

J. G. Brissenden, The Launching of the Industrial
Workers of the World (1913). An account of the origin
of the I. W. W.

J. G. Brooks, American Syndicalism; the /. W. W.
(1913).

John Mitchell, Organized Labor (1903). A sugges-
tive exposition of the principles of Unionism by a dis-
tinguished labor leader. It contains only a limited
amount of historical matter.

T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor (1889.) A his-
tory of the Knights of Labor from a personal viewpoint.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 263

E. L. Bogart, The Economic History of the United
States (rev. ed., 1918). A concise and clear account
of our economic development.

R. T. Ely, Evolution of Industrial Society (1903).

Carroll D. Wright, The Industrial Evolution of the
United States (1895).

G. S. Callender, Selections from the Economic History
of the United States (1909). A collection of readings.
The brief introductory essays to each chapter give a
succinct account of American Industrial development
to 1860.

INDEX

Aberdeen (S. D.), I. W. W. in,
21 si

Adamson Law (eight-hour
railroad law), 133 (note),
100, 164-6(1,247

Agrarian party, 224

Akron (0.), strike in rubber
works, 206-07

Albany, trade unions in, 34

Albany Mechanical Society
(1801), 22

Allegheny City, ten-hour con-
troversy in cotton mills, 54

Amalgamated Association of
Iron and Steel Workers, 120

Amalgamated Labor Union, 88

Amalgamated Wood Workers'
Association, 109

A in boy (111,), Conductors'
Union organized (1868), 150

American Alliance for Labor
and Democracy, 101-02

American Association for
Labor Legislation, 51

"American Cossacks," 254

American Federation of Labor,
suggested at Tcrre Haute
(1881), 88; established
(188<)) t 80; growth, 89-00;
organization, 00-93, 112;
Gompcrs and, J)4 ct scq.;
financial policy, 1)7; and
Great War, 100 ct sty.; and
labor readjustment, 107; at-
lil udc toward Socialism, 108,
111, 245, 56; tendency to-
ward amalgamating allied
trades, 1C9-10; and un-

skilled labor, 100; impor-
tance, 110-11; Mitchell and,
128; and Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers, 133
(note); and Buck's Stove
and Range Company boy-
cott, 181; and Danbury
Hatters' case, 184; and
I. W. W., 194; and Lawrence
mill workers, 03; and poli-
tics, 242, 245-46, 25G; in-
fluences legislation, 46-52;
and American Labor party
movement, 255-56

American Fcderationisf t organ
of American Federation of
Labor, 92, 181, 195

American Labor party, move-
ment for forming, 255

American Newspaper Pub-
lishers Association, 169

American Railway Union, and
strikes, 158, 159; Debs presi-
dent of, 43

Anthracite Coal Strike (1902),
113, 129-30, 174; Commis-
sion cross-examines Mitchell,
130 (note)

Anti-Boycott Association, 180

Anti-Monopolist party, 233

Arbitration, 85-86 ; law provid-
ing for settlement of railway
disputes (1888), 85; in An-
thracite Coal Strike, 129-30;
Board to deal with railway
problems (1912), 146-50;
Erdman Act (1898), 146,
162; Federal legislation

266

INDEX

Arbitration Continued
(1883), 161-62; Newlands
Law (1913), 162; Brother-
hoods refuse (1916), 163-64

Arizona, "hobo" labor in, 100

Arkwright, Sir Richard, in-
vents roller spinning
machine, 7

Arnold, F. W., 154

Arthur, P. M., 141-43

Association of Longshoremen,
117

Aurora, Philadelphia news-
paper, 23

Baltimore., guilds before
Revolution in, 21; tailors'
strike ^(1705), 22; early
unions in, 34; Baltimore and
Ohio strikes, 57, 67; Labor
Congress (I860), 73

Bancroft, II. II., quoted, 241-
242

Bank, United States, as politi-
cal issue, 27

Beecher, II. W., and eight-
hour day, 71

Belgium, syndicalism in, 189;
general strikes, 200

Bell, A. G. and the telephone,
64

Benson, A. L., presidential
candidate (1916), 243-44

Bentharn, Jeremy, Place arid,
17

Berger, Victor, 244, 245

Berne (Switzerland), labor
conference at, 105-06

Billings (Mont.), treatment of
I. W. W. leaders in, 216

Bisbee (Am.), I. W. W.
strikers in, 216

Bolshevists, Compere's atti-
tude toward, 108; and I.
W. W., 218

Boston, early trade unions in,
34; strike benefits in, 3<);
cooperative movement, 46-
47; strikes because of cost of

living (1853), 57; eight-hour
societies, 70; workingman's
party, 227

Boston Labor Reform Asso-
ciation circulates Steward's
pamphlet, 71

Boston Trades Union, 33

Bowerman, Charles, jJ57

Boycott, Captain, 177 (note)

Boycott, 177 ct .SVY/.; used
against convict labor, 37;
union label as weapon, 184-
180; court injunction to pre-
vent, 252

Braidwood (111.), Mitchell at,
127-28

Brewer, Justice 1). J., on strike
violence, 174

Brewery workers and control
of coopers, 118

Brisbane, Albert, 47

Brissenden, J. G., The Launch-
ing of the Industrial, Workers
of the World, cited, !<)(>
(note)

Brook Farm experiment, 41

Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers, origin, 133; and
American Federation of La-
bor, 133 (note); character,
134; supervision of members,
135-3(>; excludes firemen,
130; altitude toward non-
members, 13(5-37; business
policy, 137-38; activities,
138-40; organisation, 140;
and Firemen's Brotherhood,
154

Brotherhood ofthe Footboard,

133
Brotherhood of Trainmen, 15(f

Brush, (1. F., and electric

lighting, 04

Buck's Stove and Kange (loin-
puny of St. Louis, boycott
case, 180-82, 254
Buffalo, machinists' strike
(1880), 07-08; annual con-
vention of Federation of

INDEX

267

Buffalo Continued

Labor (1917), 101; railway
strike (1877), 174; I. W. W.
disclosures, 17

Burns, John, 123

Butler, General B. P., 232-33

Butte (Mont.), Western Fed-
eration of Miners organized
at, 192

California, effect of discovery
of gold on cost of living, 57;
"hobo "labor in, 190; politi-
cal labor movement, 238-
242; Workingman's party,
239; new constitution, 241

Cannon, J. G., 248

Carlyle, Thomas, 18; and
British industrial conditions,
9; Emerson writes to, 41

Carter, W. S., 154-56

Cedar Rapids (la.), head-
quarters of Order of Railway
Conductors, 150

Charleston Navy Yard, eight-
hour day in (1842), 70

Chevalier, Michel, quoted, 37

Chicago, stockyards' strike
(1880), C7; Haymarket riots,
68, 83-84; Railway strike
(1877), 174; "floaters"
winter in, 190; conferences
organize I. W. W., 193-94;
revolutionary branch of I.
W. W. in, 196; I. W. W.
offices raided, 217; Labor
party conference, 235; move-
ment to form American
Labor party, 255

Child labor, 28; in England, 9;
Greeley and, 52-53; Paris
peace treaty and, 107; State
regulation, 250

Chinese denounced in Cali-
fornia, 238, 239

Cigar-makers' International
Union, Gompers and, 94

Cincinnati, becomes manu-
facturing town (1820), 26;

early unions in, 34 ; coopera-
tive movement in, 45, 40;
Railway strike (1377), 174;
National Union party or-
ganised (1887), 233

Civil "War, condition of United
States after, 63-04

Clark, E. E., 151

Clayton Act, 100, 184, 247

Cleveland, Grover, Message
(1886), 85; and Pullman
strike, 174

Cleveland, Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers own
building in, 140; Firemen s
Magazine published in, 156;
I. W. W. disclosures, 217

Clinton, De Witt, 23

Collective bargaining, trade
unions and, 168-71

Colorado, miners' strikes, 174,
193; "hobo" labor in, 190;
labor ticket (1888), 237

Columbia, puddlers' strike
(1880), 67

Columbus, American Federa-
tion of Labor established
(1886), 89; Order of Railway
Conductorsorganized (1868),
150

Combinations in restraint of
trade, origin of doctrine, 16;
in England, 17

Coming Nation, A. H. Simons
editor of, 195

Commerce of Great Britain, 6

Commons, J. R., 29-30

Communistic colonies, Owen's
attempts, 40-41; Brook
Farm, 41

Comstock, Russell, 223

Confederation General du Tra-
vail, 189

Congress, Homestead Act
(1862), 50; establishes eight-
hour day for public work,
71; Clayton bill (1914), 100,
184, 247; eight-hour railroad
law, 133 (note), 160, 164-65,

268

INDEX

Congress Continued

1(JO, 247; Wilson and, 104;
and I. W. W., 216; and
American Federation of
Labor, 247

Connecticut, delegates to na-
tional cordwainers' conven-
tion (183(}),i35 ; labor politics,
227 -Jabor ticket (1872), 237

Conspiracy, legal doctrine in
England, 15~-1(5; strikers
tried for, 23; trials in New
York City, 23-24, 32; acting
in unison considered, 28

Convict labor, 30; boycott used
against, 37

Cooper, Peter, 231

Cooperative movement, 45-48,
58

Corn laws, G

Cost of living, bread riots
caused by high, 39; Mooney
on (1850), 43-44; in 1853,
57; Stone's attempt to ad-
just wages to meet, 144

Council of National Defense,
102-03

Crompton, Samuel, and spin-
ning machine, 7

Daily Advertiser, New York,

on strikes (1834), 172
Daily Pc-oph\ DeLeon editor

of, 195
Danbury Hatters' Boycott,

180, 182-8 1
Daniels, Newell, 74
Davis, Judge David, 230
Debs, E. V., 15 K 195, 243, 253
Debt, imprisonment for, 3(>
Declaration of Independence, 1
Defoe, Daniel, on domestic
system of manufacture, 4-5
Delaware, delegates to national
cord \vjiincp.s' convention
(183(j), 35

DeLeon, Daniel, 195
Democratic party and (en-
hour duy, 5;}

Detroit t headquarters for So-
cialist factions of L W. W.,
190; I. W. W. offices raided,

217

Direct action. 200-01
Dover (N. 11.), mill girls*

strike (1829), 55
Duncan, James, 124

Edison, T. A., <!4

Education, condition before

1840, 28; issue with labor,

36; public school improve-

ment, 42; Paris peace treaty

and, 107
Edward 111, proclamation of

1349, 12

Eidlitz, O. M., 340
Eight- Hour League, 70; MC

also Hours of labor
Elevator Constructors' Ihiion,

118

Eliot, (-. \V., and (iompers, 98
Ely, 11. T., quoted, 21
Emerson, II. \V., on commun-

istic experiments, 41
Employers' organizations, 2-19
Erdman Act, 14(1, HJ2
Erie Railroad, firemen organize

Brotherhood, 152
Erne, Lord, Irish landlord, 177

(note)

El tor, J. J., 204
Evans, G. II. , 48-49
Evans, Samuel, '233
Kvctutuj /'av/, account of muss

meeting in New York, 32;

quoted, 33
Everett, Edward, 53
Everett (Wash.), and L W. W.,

Factory (iirl,s* Association

(Lowell), 55
Factory inspection, Paris peace

treaty and, 107; as political

issue, 231; provided by law,

2M) 50

INDEX

Farmers' Alliance, 233 ; and

Knights of Labor at St.
Louis, 235

Federation of Organized
Trades and Labor Unions of
the United States and Can-
ada, 89

Female Industry Association,
56

Female Labor Reform Asso-
ciation, 55

Field, J. G., 230

Finance, demand for capital
after Civil War, 64-65; re-
form as political issue, 231;
People's party platform, 236;
see also Panics, Taxation

Firemen's Magazine., 165, 156

"Five Stars/' see Knights of
Labor

Flynn, E. G. p 08

Force, Peter, 24

Foster, F. K. a The Labor Move-
ment, the Problem of Today,
quoted, 75-70

Fox, Martin, 116

France, syndicalism in, 188;
general strikes, 200

Free Enquirer, 222

Friendly Societies, 168

Furuseth, Andrew, 247

GarrcLson, A. B., 151, 152

General Trades' Union of New
York (lily, 31

George, Henry, 234; Evans
precursor of, 48

Glassblowcrs* Union, 124

Goldfield (Nov.), I. W. W. at,
202

Goldman, Emma, on syndical-
ism, 108; on general strikes,
199

Gompcrs, Samuel. President of
American Federation ^ of
Labor, 94 ct seq.\ early life.
94; national lobbyist for
Federation, 99, 247; organ-
izes American Alliance for

Labor and Democracy, 101;
on Council of Defense, 102;
heads American labor mis-
sion to Europe (1917), 104-
105; and Berne Jabor con-
ference, 105-06; contribu-
tion to Paris treaty of peace,
106-07; and Socialism, 107-
108 ; personal characteristics,,
108; sentenced to imprison-
ment, 182, 254; birthday
occasion of gift to Danbury
union, 184; on American
Labor party p 255; experience
at London Conference
(1918), 256-58

Government control of public
utilities, People's party de-
mands, 236

Government operation of rail-
roads, Brotherhoods' plan
for (1919), 167

Government ownership, Na-
tional Labor party on, 230
(note)

Government Printing Office,
Roosevelt espouses openshop
in, 248

Grangers, help organize Na-
tional Union party, 233;
join Workingman's party in
California, 240

Granite City (111.), early
morning strikes in steel mills,
210-11

Granite Cutters' National
Union, 124

Gray's Harbor (Wash.), I. W.
W. in, 212

Great Britain, American insti-
tutions modeled after those
of, 1-2; survey of industrial
system, 2 et seq.; ten-hour
law in, 53; British Trades
Union as model for Ameri-
can Federation, 88; labor
leaders in, 123; labor com-
pared with that of America-
124

70

INDEX

Great War, American Federa-
tion of Labor and, 100 ct scq. ;
and railroads, 16G-67; I. W.
W. and, 215; and Socialist
party, 244-45

Greeley, Horace, and ten-hour
bill, 52; on child labor law,
53; and eight-hour day, 71

Green Point (L. I.), potters'
strike (1880), 07

Greenback party, 08, 31, 37

Guild system, 3-4, 13

Hamond, Edward, on I. W.
W., 198

Hardie, Keir, 123

Hargreaves, James, invents
spinning- jenny, 7

Harriman, Job, 243

Hayes, Dennis, 124-25

Hayes, R. B., proclamation, 07

Haywood, W. I)., 105, 197,
202; quoted, 199

Henderson, Arthur, 257

Henderson, John, 123

Herald, New York, quoted, 5G

Hewitt, A.. S., 234

Highland Park (III), Home for
Disabled Railroad Men, 139

Hines, W, D., Director-Gen-
eral of Railroads, 167

Homestead Act (1802), 50

Homestead strike (1892), 12(5,
174

Homesteaders, 233

Hoquiam (Wash.), sabotage in,
212

Hours of labor, long hours, 28,
44; ten-hour day, 30-31, 32,
84, 35, 44, 50-54, 100; first
ten-hour law (1847), 52;
as issue, 69-70; eight-hour
day, 70-72, 74, 129, 152;
Paris peace treaty and eight-
hour day, 106; eight-hour
railroad law, 133 (note),
160, 104-6(1, 247; eight-hour
]aw as political issue, 231;
State regulation, 250

Housing conditions about 1840

27
Hume, Joseph, 17-18

I. W. W., ,-cv Industrial
Workers of the World

Idaho, miners' strike, 174;
"hobo" labor in, 190; vio-
lence in, 193; and I. W. W. B
216

Illinois, strikes, (>(>, 67; eight-
hour law (1S67), 71; J. W. W.
and draft in, 210; United
Labor party in, 235; labor
code. 249

Illinois Central Railroad, con-
doctors organize union, 150

Immigration, character of im-
migrants, 26; adds to armies
of labor, 69; J. W. W. and,
101; People's party on, 236

Indiana, strikes, 66, 67; shoe-
makers 1 strike (1880), 68;
labor ticket (1888), 237

Indianapolis, McNamara trial
at, 175

Industrial Commission, United
States, 152; report quoted,
168; on union restriction of
output, 186

Industrial Revolution, 26

Industrial Workers of the
World American Alliance
For Labor and Democracy
as antidote for, 101; and
American Federation of La-
bor, 109; history of move-
ment, 188 c/ .w/.; factions,
196; and direct action,
200-01; and Socialist party,
245

Industry, centralization of,
87-88

"Infidel" party, 223, 224

Inspection, see Factory in-
spection

Insurance, Locomotive En-
gineers' Mutual Life and
Accident. Insurance Associa*

INDEX

Insurance Continued

tion, 138-39; Order of Rail-
way Conductors, 150;
Brotherhood of Trainmen,
160-01

Inter- Allied Labor Conference,
London '-(1918), 250-58

International Association of
Machinists, 125

International Association of
Steam, Hot Water and
Power Pipe Fitters and
Helpers, 119

International Firemen's Union,
152-53

International Typographical
Union of North America,
60, 126, 169

Interstate commerce, regula-
tion as political issue, 231

Interstate Commerce Com-
mission, and wage increases,
145; Clark on, 151; Wilson
asks for reorganization of , 1 64

Ipswich (Mass.), meeting
against I. W. W., 211

Iron Holders' Union of North
America, 60, 169

Italy, syndicalism in, 189;
general strikes, 200

Jackson, Andrew, and mechan-
ics, 27

Jay, John, on wages (1784), 21

Jenkins, Judge J. G., of United
Stales Circuit Court, on
strike violence, 174

Johnstown, puddlers' strike
(1880), 67

Journeymen Stone Cutters'
Association of North
America, 60

Judson, F. K., 146

Kansas, I. W. W. and draft,
216; labor ticket (1868), 237

Kay, John, invents flying
shuttle, 7

Kearney, Dennis, 238

Keefe, D. J., 126-27

Kidd, Thomas, 125

Knapp, Judge, of United
States Commerce Court, 146

Knights of Industry, 88

Knights of Labor, 72; history
of, 76-85; contrasted to
American Federation of La-
bor, 90; Mitchell and, 127,
128; and Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers, 133
(note); help organize Na-
tional Union party, 233; and
Farmers' Alliance at St.
Louis, 235; and Socialist
party, 245

"Knights of St. Crispin," 72,
74-76

Labor, organizations in eight-
eenth century, 14-15; or-
ganizations in America
before Revolution, 21; and
politics, 68, 74, 220 et seq.\
relations with capital, 69;
number of wage-earners in
United States (1860-90),
69; Congress at Baltimore
(1866), 73; Bureau of, es-
tablished (1884), 85; and
corporations, 87; and Paris
peace treaty, 106-07;
leaders, 121-23; Department
of, and Brotherhoods, 163;
"floaters," 189-90; special
report of United States
Commissioners of (1905),
193; contract labor as politi-
cal issue, 2S1; legislation,
247-52; see also Hours of
labor; and the courts, 252-
254; bibliography, 261; see
also Child labor, Convict
labor, Hours of labor, Strikes,
Trade unions, Wages

Labor Reform League, 51

Labor Reform party, 74. 229-
230

Labour Party in England, 18

272

INDEX

Land, Evans and, 48-50;
Homestead Act (1862), 50;
forfeiture of grants as po-
litical issue, 231

Lawrence (Mass.), unemploy-
ment (1857), 62; strike
(1912), 202-06

Lee, W. G., 160

Lima (N. Y.), Clark at, 151

Little Falls (N. Y.), strike in
textile mills (1912), 206

Littleficld, Congressman from
Maine, 247-48

Locomotive Engineers' 1 Journal,
136, 139

Locomotive Engineers' Mutual
Life and Accident Insurance
Association, 138-39

Loeb, Daniel, alias Daniel De-
Leon, 195

London, Inter-Allied Labor
Conference (1918), _ 256-58

London Corresponding So-
ciety, 17

Los Angeles, dynamiting of
Times building, 175

Lowell (Mass.), condition of
women factory workers
(1846), 44-45; women strike
in (1836), 55

Lowell Female Industrial Re-
form and Mutual Aid So-
ciety, 55

Lynch, J M., 126

McAdoo, W. G., 166
McCulloch, J. R., 18
MacDonald, Ramsey, 123
Machinists' Union, 118
McKee, National Conventions

arid Platforms, cited, 233

(note), 244 (note)
McKees Rocks (Perm.), I. W.

W. at, 202

McMaster, J. B., quoted, 26
McNamara, James, 175
McNamara, J. J., 175
Maine, labor politics, 227;

labor party (1878), 232

Mann, Horace, 42

Manufacturers' Association*
249

Manufacturing, guild system
replaced by domestic, 4;
introduction of machinery,,
7-10; in United States, 24-
26

Martineau, Harriet, cited, 35-
36

Marx, Karl, 9; follower ad-
dresses meeting in New
York, 47

Maryland, class distinctions,
20; strikes, 66

Massachusetts, factories in
1820, 25; first labor investi-
gation, 51; women factory
workers, 56; Bureau of La-
borandcollective bargaining,
169-70; labor politics, 227;
labor party (1878), 232;
labor code, 249

Mechanics' Union of Trade
Associations, 29

Menlo Park (N. J.), electric
car in, 64

Mercantile system, 5-6

Metal Polishers' Union and
Buck's Stove and Range
case, 180

Metal Trades Association, 249

Mexican Central Railway,
Garrctson on, 152

Michigan, "hobo" labor in,
190; labor ticket (1888), 237

Militia, use during strikes, 37,
254-55

Mill, James, Place and, 17

Milwaukee, Knights of St.
Crispin in, 74; and Socialism,
244, 245

Minnesota, "hobo" labor in,
190; labor ticket (1888), 237

Missouri, strikes, 66; eight-
hour law (1867), 71; labor
ticket (1888), 237

Mitchell, John, president, of
United Mine Workers, 113

INDEX

73

Mitchell, John Continued
114, 128-29; life and char-
acter, 127-28; and Anthra-
cite Coal Strike, 120-30;
quoted, 131-32; on compul-
sory membership in unions,
170; on collective bargain-
ing, 170; sentenced to im-
prisonment, 182, 254

Montana, "hobo" labor in,
100; violence in, 193; and
I. W. W., 216

Mooney, Thomas, Nine Years
iti America (1850), quoted,
43-44

Moore, Ely, 31

Morrison, Frank, 182, 254

Morrissey, P. H., 146, 148,
158-60

National Civic Federation, 152
National Convention of Jour-
neymen Printers (1850), 60
National Erectors' Association,

249

National Labor party, con-
vention, 230 (note); see also
Labor Reform party
National Labor Union, 73-74,

229

National Metal Trade Asso-
ciation, 125

National Protective Associa-
tion, 133
National Trade Association of

Hat Finishers, 60
National Trades Union, 34^
National TypographicalUnion,

60

National Union party, 2S3
Navigation Laws, 6, 10
Nebraska, labor ticket (1888),

237

Nevada, and I. W. W., 16
New Brunswick, union in, 34
New England, class distinc-
tions, 20; manufacture in,
25; women in textile mills,
55; cotton weavers' strike

(1880), 67; labor politics.
225-27

New England Association of
Farmers, Mechanics, and
Workingmen, 225

New England Protective
Union, 48

New England Workingmen's
Association, 46, 51

New Hampshire, first ten-hour
law, 52

New Jersey, manufacturing in 9
25; delegates to national
cordwainers' convention
(1836), 35; ten-hour law
(1851), 54; stablemen's
strike (1880), 67; labor
party (1878), 232

New York (State), delegates
to national cordwainers*
convention (1836), 35; com-
munistic colonies, 41; cotton
weavers' strike (1880), 67;
eight-hour law (1867), 71;
boycotts, 178; labor party
(1878), 232: United Labor
party in, 235; labor code, 249

New York Boycotter quoted,
179

New York Bureau of Statistics
and Labor, on boycotts, 178

New York Central Railroad,
Arthur as engineer on, 141

New York City, early labor
organizations, 21, 22; cord-
wainers' strike (1809), 23-
24; growth, 25; strikes
(1833), 31; General Trades*
Union organized, 31; tailors*
strike (1836), 32; union in,
34; boycott of convict labor,
37; sabotage in (1835), 38;
strike benefits, 39; coopera-
tive movement, 47-48;
women's organizations
(1825), 55; Female Industry
Association organized (1845),
56; strikes (1853), 57; na-
tional meeting of carpet-

274

INDEX

New York City Continued
weavers (1846), 60; demon-
stration in 1857, 61-62; un-
employment, 62; ribbon
weavers' strike (1880), 67;
stablemen's strike (1880),
67; tailors' strike (1880), 8;
Third Avenue Railway
strike (1880), 83; Brother-
tood of Locomotive Engi-
neers expels members (1905),
138 (note) ; garment makers 1
strike (1015), 1C9; bakers'
strike (1741), 172; Mrs.
Grey boycotted, 178-79;
"floaters" winter in, 100;
"army of the unemployed"
(1913-14), 209; labor poli-
tics, 222; election (1886),
234; Socialist-Labor con-
vention (1892), 242; move-
ment to form American
Labor party, 255

New York Masons Society
(1807), 22

New York Protective Union,

48

New York Society of Journey-
men Shipwrights (1807), 22

New York Typographical So-
ciety, 24

Newark (N. J.)> union in, 34

Newlands Law, 102

Noble Order of the Knights of
Labor, see Knights of Labor

Northern Pacific Railroad,
Clark on, 151

Norway, syndicalism in, 180

O'Connell, James, 125

0' Conor, Charles, of New

York, 230
Ohio, communistic colonies in,

41; ten-hour law (1852), 54;

strikes, CO, 07; in election of

1916, 166; labor ticket

(1888), 237
Oklahoma, I. W. W. and draft,

216

Omaha, stockyards strike
(1880), 67; People's party
convention (1892), 236

Oneonta (N. Y.), ^ Brother-
hood of the Trainmen or-
ganized at (1883), 156

Orange (N. J.), Hatters' Union
victory in, 182

Order of Railway Conductors,
150-52

Oregon, "hobo" labor in, 190;
arid I. W. W., 216

Original Working Man's party,
224

Osceola (la.), (Jarretson born
in, 151

Oshkosh (Wis.) Kidd arrested
in, 25

Owen, Robert, Place and, 17;
in America, 40-41, 58

Owen, R. D., 222, 225

Panics (1837), 34, 35, 40, 50-
51 ; (1857), 61-62; (1873-74),
66; (1893), 158

Paris Peace Conference, Com-
mission on International
Labor Legislation, 105; Gom-
pers and the treaty, 100-07

Parker, Joel, Governor of New
Jersey, 230

Paterson (N. J.), ribbon
weavers' strike (1880), 67;
silk mills strike (1913), 207-
209

Pennsylvania, communistic
colonies in, 41 ; ten-hour law,
53; child labor law, 53; coal
miners (1873), 66; strikes,
67; labor party (1878), 232;
labor ticket (18714), 237;
labor code, 49; mounted
constabulary, 254

Pennsylvania Railroad, Broth-
erhood and, 141

People's Council, 101

People's party, 235, 2($(>; ace
also Populist, party

Philadelphia, early labor or-

INDEX

275

Philadelphia Continued

ganizations, 21, 22; weaving
center, 26; first Trades'
Union in, 29; Trades' Union
of the City arid County of,
30; number of union mem-
bers (1834), 34; strike (1835),
37; sabotage in, 38; strike
benefits, 39; cooperative
movement, 45-46, 47;
strikes, 57; unemployment
(1857), 6; ribbon weavers'
strike (1880), G7; Knights
of Labor in, 81; cordwainers
(1806), 171; cordwainers'
strike (1702), 172; hatters'
union victory, 182; Law-
rence strikers start for, 204;
Workingman's party, 220-
221; workingmen's political
clubs, 221-22

Phillips, Wendell, and ten-
hour movement, 53; and
eight-hour day, 71; nomi-
nated Governor of Massa-
chusetts, 237

Pinkerton detectives opposed
by People's party, 236

Pittsburgh, becomes manu-
facturing town, 26; union in,
34; strikes, 57; riots, 67;
Federation of Organized
Trades established (1881),
89; railway strikes (1877),
174

Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and
Chicago Railroad, Brother-
hood and, 136

Place, Francis, 17, 18

Plumb plan of railroad opera-
tion, see Government opera-
tion of railroads

Poindexter, Miles, Senator,
and I. W. W., 216

Politics, Labor and, 68, 74,
220 et seq.

Populist party, 235, 242; see
also People's party

Port Jervis (N. Y.), Firemen's

Brotherhood organized at,
152

Portland (Ore.), I. W. W. at,
202

Postal savings banks advo-
cated by People's party, 236

Powderly, T. V., Grand Mas-
ter of Knights of Labor,
79-80, 84

Prison reform, 42

Progressive party, 232

Progressive Labor party, 233

Pullman strike, 172, 174, 195,
243, 253

Quinlan, Patrick, 208
Railway Brotherhoods, 133

Railway Conductor, The, 150-
151

Reading, railway strike (1877),
174

Red Bank (N. J.), communistic
experiment at, 41

Referendum, National Labor
party on, 230 (note)

Revolutionary War, new epoch
for labor begins with, 21

Rhode Island, ten-hour law
(1853). 54; labor politics, 227

Ripley, George, and Brook
Farm experiment, 41

Rock Island Railroad, Stone
on, 143-44

Roosevelt, Theodore, and
Gompers, 98, 99; interven-
tion in coal miners' strike,
129, 130; and Clark, 151;
and Sargent, 154; defeated
as mayor of New York City,
234; Federation of Labor
opposes, 248

Ruskin, John, and labor condi-
tions, 9

Russia, general strikes, 200

Sabotage, 38, 201 et seq., 211
Sacramento (CaL), I. W. W.

76

INDEX

Sacramento (Cal.) Continued
trials (1919), 217; Working-
man's party convention
(1878), 240

St. Louis, union in, 34; Knights
of Labor in, 82, 83; meeting
of Knights of Labor and
Farmers 1 Alliance, 235

St. Louis Central Trades and
Labor Union, 181

San Diego, I. W. W. in, 213-15

San Francisco, stablemen's
strike (1880), 67; "floaters"
winter in, 100; labor situa-
tion (1877), 238; Workman's
Trade and Labor Union of,
39

Sargent, F. P., 154

Scandinavia, general strikes
in, 200

Schaffcr, Theodore, 126

Schenectady, union in, 34

Scranton (Penn.), Powdcrly at,
79

Seaman's Act (1915), 247
(note)

Seamen's Union, 117

Sexton, James, 257

Shaw, Albert, 140

Shaw, Chief Justice of Massa-
chusetts, opinion in Com-
monwealth vs. Hunt, CO-61

Sherman Anti-Trust Law,
Gompcrs and, 99; and boy-
cotts, 183

Silver, free coinage, 230

Simons, A. M., 1!)5

Skidmorc, Thomas, 224; The.
Rights of Man lo Property
. . . , 222

Smith, Adam, 10, 18; The
Wealth of Nations, I

Smith, Sidney, quoted, 24-25

Snowdcn, Philip, 123

Social Democratic party, 243

Socialism, synonym of destruc-
tion, 62; organized labor arid,
245, 258

Socialist Labor party, 196, 243

Socialist party, 196, Social
Democratic party becomes
known its, 243; in Milwaukee.
244; progress (1912), 244;
and Great War, 241-45

Socialistic American Labor
Union, 194

Sore!, Georges, The Socialist
Future of Trade Unions,
188-89; ' lieflt'ctions upon
rfalenrt'i 189"

Spain, syndicalism in, 18!)

Spargo, John, 21-5; tii/nd'ical~
if.v/w, Induct rid! Unionism.'

(Dili Nocilllittin, 201

Spokane, 1. W. \V. in, 212

tiprini/jield Republican, on
labor parly, 22(5-27

Stamvood, History of the Presi-
dency, cited, 214 (note)

Slate Guardianship Plan, 225

Statute of Laborers (1502), 12

Stephens, U. S., founder of
Knights of Labor, 70-77, 78 ?
79

Sleuncnbcrg, Frank, Governor
of Idaho, murdered, 193

Steward, Ira, and eight-hour
day, 70-71; A Reduction, of
Hours and Inereaxc of Wages,
71

Stone, W. S., 143-45, 149-50

Strasser, Adolph, testimony
before Senate Comuntl.ee
(1883), 120-21

Straus, (). S., 14(1

Streeter, A. J., 23:5

Strikes, weapon of self-de-
fense, 14; tailors' strike in
Baltimore (1795), 22; cord-
waincrs in Philadelphia
(1805), 22-23; cordwainers
in New York (lily (ISO})),
23; fir.sl. general building
strike (1827), 30; first gen-
eral slrikoin America (1835),
30-31; (1834-37), 32; issues
not to be settled by, 3(>;
use of militia,, 37, 251-55'

INDEX

277

Strikes Con tinned

sabotage, 38, 201 et seq., 211;
benefits, 39; Boston tailors
(1850), 46-47; New York
tailors, 47-48; Dover mill
girls (1829), 55; Lowell
women factory workers
(183(5), 55; in 1853, 57;
Baltimore and Ohio, 57, 07,
133; become part of eco-
nomic routine, 6(1; increase in
number and importance, 66-
68; in 1880, 67-68; of 1886,
68, 82-84; Anthracite Coal
.Strike, 113, 129-30, 174;
O'Conncll leads, 125; New
York City railway (1905),
138 (nolc); railroad, 141, 142,
145, 153, 158, 174; Brother-
hoods threaten (1916), 163,
165; New York City gar-
ment makers, 169; history
in United States, 171-73;
strike statistics of United
States Bureau of Labor, 172,
173; violence, 174-76; Law-
rence mill strike (1912),
02-06; Little Falls textile
strike, 20(5; Akron rubber
works, 206-07; Granite City
(01.), steel mills, 210-211;
court prevention, 252-53

Supreme Court, Danbury Hat-
ters' case, 183; open shop
decision, 252

"Supreme Mechanical Order
of I he Sun," 72

Syndicalism, in Europe, 188;
1. W. W. and, 198

Taft, W. JI., vetoes exemption
bill for Anti-Trust Law, 99

Tammany Hall, 32

Tanneribaum, Frank, 209-10

Tariff, demand for protective,
27

Tax Reformers, 233

Taxation, single lax, 234, 235;
income tax, 231, 236

Terre Haute (Ind.), conven-
tion (1881), 88-89

Texas, I. W. W. and draft, 216

Thomas, C. S., Senator, report
on I. W. W., 216

Times, Los Angeles, dynamit-
ing of building, 175

Toledo (0.), conference of
Labor Reform and Green-
back parties, 231

Trade unions, beginnings, 29-
39; temporary eclipse, 40;
new species in early fifties,
58-59; organization of
special trades, 60; organiza-
tion, 112; conventions, 112-
113; local unions, 114-16;
characterization of different
trades, 116-17; disputes as
to authority, 117-18; ad-
justment to changing condi-
tions, 117-18; advantages of
amalgamation, 119; and
labor leaders, 121 et seq.;
purpose, 168; and collective
bargaining, 168-71; ques-
tion of monopoly, 170-71;
and strikes, 173-77; local
autonomy, 177; union label,
184-86; restriction of out-
put, 186-87; oppose use of
military, 254; bibliography,
262

Trades' Union of the City and
County of Philadelphia, 30

Transportation, demand for
better, 27

Trautmann, W. E., 195;
quoted, 198

Troy (N. Y.), union in, 34

Tulsa (Okla.), treatment of
I. W. W. in, 216

Unemployment, in 1857,61-62;

in 1873-74, 66; "floaters,"

190 ; among immigrants, 191 ;

in San Francisco (1877),

238
Union Labor party, 233, 237;

278

INDEX

Union Labor party Continued
see also National Union
Labor party

Union of Longshoremen, Ma-
rine and Transport Workers,
126

United Association of Journey-
men Plumbers, Gas Fitters,
Steam Fitters and Steam Fit-
ters' Helpers, 119

United Brotherhood of Car-
penters, 109

United Brotherhood of Car-
penters and Joiners of
America, 110

United Hatters of North
America, 60

United Labor party, 233, 234

United Mine Workers, 112,
117, 128-29, 177, 181

Van Buren, Martin, executive

order for ten-hour day, 51
Van Hise, C. R., 146
Vermont, labor politics, 227
Virginia, class distinction in, 20

Wages, beginning of contro-
versy, 11-12; in 1784, 1;
result of tailors' strike, 22;
rise of, 22; in 1840, 28; car-
penters', 31; strikes to raise,
36; Mooney on (1850), 43;
issue, 69-70; Paris peace
treaty and, 100; United
Mine Workers and, 129;
Arthur and engineers', 142;
Stone and, 144; Eastern en-
gineers demand standardiza-
tion of, 145; Garretson and,
152; brakemen's, 157; Wil-
kins and, 158; Adamson Law
and, 166; further increase
for railroad employees, 167;
Trade unions and, 168-
169; State regulation, 250

Walling, W. E., 245
ashington (State), "hobo"

labor in, 190; and I. W. W.
216

Washington (D. C.), union in s
34; Knights of Labor, 84;
headquarters of American
Federation of Labor in, 97

Weaver, General J. B., 232,
236

Webb, Sidney and rseaince,
History of Trade Unionism,,
14

Weed, Thurlow, 24

West Iloxbury (Mass.), Brook
Farm experiment al, 41

Western Federation of Miners,
174, 189, 192, 104

Whig party and ten-hour day.
53

Wilkinson, S. E., 157

Wjllard, Daniel, 14(5, 149

Wilson, Woodrow, quoted, 72;
and Clayton Act, 100; and
Garretson, 152; and threat-
ened strike of Brotherhoods
(1916), 163-04-, and eight-
hour railroad law, 104-66

Wisconsin, communistic ex-
periment in. 41; eight-hour
law for women and children
(1867), 71; labor ticket
(1888), 237; Socialist party
(1918), 245

Women, wages in 1840, 28;
"new woman" movement,
43; conditions of labor, 44-
45; in factories, 54-55; or-
ganizations, 55 -5(5; Paris
peace treaty and equal pay
for, 107; State regulation of
labor, 250

Wood Workers in shipbuilding
industry, 110

Wood- Workers* International
Union, 125

Wooden Box Makers, 1 10

"Woodstock meetings," 226

Working Man's Advocate, The v
223, 225

Working Man'x (iazrttr, 226

INDEX

>rkingman's party, 220-

;21

>rkingman's party of Cali-

ornia, 239, 240

>rkman's Trade and Labor

Jnion of San Francisco, 239

>rkmen's compensation, 250

Wright, C. D., report quoted,,

187
Wright, Frances, 222, 225

Yonngson, A. B., 143
Youngstown (0.), I. W. W. at,
02