The Armies of Labor: A Chronicle of the Organized Wage-Earners

seemed to be among the American people no disinterested group to balance accounts between the competing elements-no leisure class, living on secured incomes, mellowed by generati

f what happened in this season of exuberance and intense materialism, the American people were hastil

l 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 corporations into trusts, ever reaching out for the greater markets. Meanwhile

stomers, taking his risks in distant markets. Where formerly the banker had lent money on local security, now he gave credit to vast enterprises far away. New inventions or industrial processes brought on new specula

ed. 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 busin

ubterranean passages-some, indeed, scarcely under the surface-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 credit

tens of thousands. In Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Ohio, and New York strikes occurred in all sorts of industries. There were the usual parades and banners, some appealing, some insulting, and 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 Baltimore the resentment spread to Pennsylvania and culminated with riots in Pittsburgh.

, the cotton weavers of New England and New York, the stockyard employees of Chicago and Omaha, the potters of Green Point, Long Island, the puddlers of Johnstown and Columbia, Pennsylvania, the machinists of Buffalo, the tailors of New York, and the shoemakers of Indiana. The year 1882

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 individualistic tendencies which resulted in trade anarchy, so labor had yet to learn through discipline the lessons of self-restraint. Moreover, in the sudden expansion and great enterprises of the

three-quarters million; and in 1890 over four and a quarter million. The city sucked them in from the country; but by far the larger augmentation came from Europe; and the immigrant, normally

e degree to external conditions. But the tendency has always been toward a shorter day. In a previous chapter, 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 ma

city he pointed out to the laboring man that the shorter period of labor would not mean 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 we

Ward Beecher, and Horace 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 bat

and numerous local amalgamations took place. Most of the organizations now took the form of secret societies whose initiations were marked with na?ve formalism and whose routines were directed by a group of officers with royal titles and fortified by signs, passwords, an

ive and constructive. This Congress believed that, "all reforms 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 discountenance them except a

luential 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 lab

t 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 thousands of workmen who subscribed to its rules and ritual, partly because of the jealousy and treachery which is the fruitage of sudden prosperity, partly because of failure to fulfill the fervent 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

oblem of Today, edited by Ge

ter, 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

age-earners eighteen years of age. Moreover, "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, banker, professional gambler, or stock broker can be admitted." They

ied the members, they aroused a corresponding antagonism, even fear, among the public, 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 hundre

to the rights of tradesmen," that the labor movement needed "something that will develop more of charity, less of selfishness, more of generosity, less of stinginess and nearness, than the average society has yet disclosed to its members." Nor were these ideas and principles betrayed by Stephens's successor, Terence V. Powderly, who became Grand Master in 1879 and served during the years when the order attained its greatest power. Powderly, also, was a conservative idealist. His career may be regarded as a good example of the rise of many an American labor leader. He had been a poor

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) and the justice of its receiving a full, just share of the values or capital it has created. We shall, with all our strength, suppo

overing almost every trade, had been organized in Philadelphia alone. By 1875 there were eighty assemblies in the city and its vicinity. As the number of lodges multiplied, it became necessary to establish a common agency or authority, and a Committee on the Good of the Order was constituted to represent all the local units, but this committee was soon superseded by a delegate body known as the District Assembly. As

the prudent and sincere. But a resolution of the executive board to stop the initiation of new members came too late. The undesirable and radical element in many communities gained control

In the preceding year, the Knights had increased their lodges in St. Louis from five to thirty, and these were under the domination of a coarse and ruthless district leader. When in February, 1886, a mechanic, working in the shops of the Texas and Pacific Railroad at Marshall, Texas, was discharged for cause and the road refused to reinstate him, a strike ensued which spread over the entire six thousan

t 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, Chicago, 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 was hurled into their throng, killing seven and wounding sixty. For this crime seven anarchists were ind

c, and its strength now rapidly declined. A loss of 300,000 members for the year 1888 was reported. Early in the nineties, financial troubles compelled the sale of the Philadelphia headquarters of the Knights of Labor and the removal to more modest quarters in Washington. A remnant of members still retain an organization, but it is barely a shadow of t

g committee on labor. In 1884 a national Bureau of Labor was created to gather statistical information. In 1886 President Cleveland sent to Congress a message which has become historic as the first presidential message devoted to labor. In this he proposed the creation of a board

ns. Arbitral tribunals are created to decide points in dispute, not philosophies of human action. The businesslike organization of the new trade union could as readily a