A History of Trade Unionism in the United States Part 5

"_Q._ You are seeking to improve home matters first?

"_A._ Yes, sir, I look first to the trade I represent; I look first to cigars, to the interests of men who employ me to represent their interest.

"_Chairman_: I was only asking you in regard to your ultimate ends.

"_Witness_: We have no ultimate ends. We are going on from day to day. We are fighting only for immediate objects--objects that can be realized in a few years.

"By Mr. Call: _Q._ You want something better to eat and to wear, and better houses to live in?

"_A._ Yes, we want to dress better and to live better, and become better citizens generally.

"_The Chairman_: I see that you are a little sensitive lest it should be thought that you are a mere theoriser, I do not look upon you in that light at all.

"_The Witness_: Well, we say in our const.i.tution that we are opposed to theorists, and I have to represent the organization here. We are all practical men."

Another offshoot of the same Marxian _Internationale_ were the "Chicago Anarchists."[17] The _Internationale_, as we saw, emphasized trade unionism as the first step in the direction of socialism, in opposition to the political socialism of La.s.salle, which ignored the trade union and would start with a political party outright. Shorn of its socialistic futurity this philosophy became non-political "business"

unionism; but, when combined with a strong revolutionary spirit, it became a non-political revolutionary unionism, or syndicalism.

The organization of those industrial revolutionaries was called the International Working People's a.s.sociation, also known as the "Black"

or anarchist International, which was formed at Pittsburgh in 1883. Like the old _Internationale_ it busied itself with forming trade unions, but insisted that they conform to a revolutionary model. Such a "model"

trade union was the Federation of Metal Workers of America, which was organized in 1885. It said in its Declaration of Principles that the entire abolition of the present system of society can alone emanc.i.p.ate the workers, but under no consideration should they resort to politics; "our organization should be a school to educate its members for the new condition of society, when the workers will regulate their own affairs without any interference by the few. Since the emanc.i.p.ation of the productive cla.s.ses must come by their own efforts, it is unwise to meddle in present politics.... All _direct_ struggles of the laboring ma.s.ses have our fullest sympathy." Alongside the revolutionary trade unions were workers' armed organizations ready to usher in the new order by force. "By force," recited the Pittsburgh Manifesto of the Black International, "our ancestors liberated themselves from political oppression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves from economic bondage. It is, therefore, your right, it is your duty, says Jefferson,--to arms!"

The following ten years were to decide whether the leadership of the American labor movement was to be with the "practical men of the trade unions" or with the cooperative idealists of the Knights of Labor.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] After the defeat of a strong anthracite miners' union in 1869, which was an open organization, the fight against the employers was carried on by a secret organization known as the Molly Maguires, which used the method of terrorism and a.s.sa.s.sination. It was later exposed and many were sentenced and executed.

[14] The Preamble further provides that the Order will stand for the reservation of all lands for actual settlers; the "abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor, the removal of unjust technicalities, delays, and discriminations in the administration of justice, and the adopting of measures providing for the health and safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, or building pursuits"; the enactment of a weekly pay law, a mechanics' lien law, and a law prohibiting child labor under fourteen years of age; the abolition of the contract system on national, state, and munic.i.p.al work, and of the system of leasing out convicts; equal pay for equal work for both s.e.xes; reduction of hours of labor to eight per day; "the subst.i.tution of arbitration for strikes, whenever and wherever employers and employees are willing to meet on equitable grounds"; the establishment of "a purely national circulating medium based upon the faith and resources of the nation, issued directly to the people, without the intervention of any system of banking corporations, which money shall be a legal tender in payment of all debts, public or private".

[15] Dr. Ely in his pioneer work, _The Labor Movement in America_, published in 1886, showed a most genuine sympathy for the idealistic strivings and gropings of labor for a better social order. He even advised some of his pupils at the Johns Hopkins University to join the Knights of Labor in order to gain a better understanding of the labor movement.

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

[17] The Anarchists who were tried and executed after the Haymarket Square bomb in Chicago in May, 1886. See below, 91-93.

CHAPTER 4

REVIVAL AND UPHEAVAL, 1879-1887

With the return of business prosperity in 1879, the labor movement revived. The first symptom of the upward trend was a rapid multiplication of city federations of organized trades, variously known as trade councils, amalgamated trade and labor unions, trades a.s.semblies, and the like. Practically all of these came into existence after 1879, since hardly any of the "trades' a.s.semblies" of the sixties had survived the depression.

As was said above, the national trade unions existed during the sixties and seventies in only about thirty trades. Eighteen of these had either retained a nucleus during the seventies or were first formed during that decade. The following is a list of the national unions in existence in 1880 with the year of formation: Typographical (1850), Hat Finishers (1854), Iron Molders (1859), Locomotive Engineers (1863), Cigar Makers (1864), Bricklayers and Masons (1865), Silk and Fur Hat Finishers (1866), Railway Conductors (1868), Coopers (1870), German-American Typographia (1873), Locomotive Firemen (1873), Horsesh.o.e.rs (1874), Furniture Workers (1873), Iron and Steel Workers (1876), Granite Cutters (1877), Lake Seamen (1878), Cotton Mill Spinners (1878), New England Boot and Shoe Lasters (1879).

In 1880 the Western greenbottle blowers' national union was established; in 1881 the national unions of boiler makers and carpenters; in 1882, plasterers and metal workers; in 1883, tailors, lithographers, wood carvers, railroad brakemen, and silk workers.

An ill.u.s.tration of the rapid growth in trade union membership during this period is given in the following figures: the bricklayers' union had 303 in 1880; 1558 in 1881; 6848 in 1882; 9193 in 1883. The typographical union had 5968 members in 1879; 6520 in 1880; 7931 in 1881; 10,439 in 1882; 12,273 in 1883. The total trade union membership in the country, counting the three railway organizations and those organized only locally, amounted to between 200,000 and 225,000 in 1883 and probably was not below 300,000 in the beginning of 1885.

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

The Order of the Knights of Labor, despite its "First Principles" based on the cooperative ideal, was soon forced to make concessions to a large element of its membership which was pressing for strikes. With the advent of prosperity, the Order expanded, although the Knights of Labor played but a subordinate part in the labor movement of the early eighties. The membership was 20,151 in 1879; 28,136 in 1880; 19,422 in 1881; 42,517 in 1882; 51,914 in 1883; showing a steady and rapid growth, with the exception of the year 1881. But these figures are decidedly deceptive as a means of measuring the strength of the Order, for the membership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached 50,000 no less than one-half of this number pa.s.sed in and out of the organization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducing the economic strength of the Order, brought large ma.s.ses of people under its influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle of the eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention of the public press. The labor press gave the Order great publicity, but the Knights did not rely on gratuitous newspaper publicity. They set to work a host of lecturers, who held public meetings throughout the country adding recruits and advertising the Order.

The most important Knights of Labor strike of this period was the telegraphers' strike in 1883. The telegraphers had a national organization in 1870, which soon collapsed. In 1882 they again organized on a national basis and affiliated with the Order as District a.s.sembly 45.[18] The strike was declared on June 19, 1883, against all commercial telegraph companies in the country, among which the Western Union, with about 4000 operators, was by far the largest. The demands were one day's rest in seven, an eight-hour day shift and a seven-hour night shift, and a general increase of 15 percent in wages. The public and a large portion of the press gave their sympathy to the strikers, not so much on account of the oppressed condition of the telegraphers as of the general hatred that prevailed against Jay Gould, who then controlled the Western Union Company. This strike was the first in the eighties to call the attention of the general American public to the existence of a labor question, and received considerable attention at the hands of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor. By the end of July, over a month after the beginning of the strike, the men who escaped the blacklist went back to work on the old terms.

From 1879 till 1882 the labor movement was typical of a period of rising prices. It was practically restricted to skilled workmen, who organized to wrest from employers still better conditions than those which prosperity would have given under individual bargaining. The movement was essentially opportunistic and displayed no particular cla.s.s feeling and no revolutionary tendencies. The solidarity of labor was not denied by the trade unions, but they did not try to reduce the idea to practice: each trade coped more or less successfully with its own employers. Even the Knights of Labor, the organization _par excellence_ of the solidarity of labor, was at this time, in so far as practical efforts went, merely a faint echo of the trade unions.

But the situation radically changed during the depression of 1884-1885.

The unskilled and the semi-skilled, affected as they were by wage reductions and unemployment even in a larger measure than the skilled, were drawn into the movement. Labor organizations a.s.sumed the nature of a real cla.s.s movement. The idea of the solidarity of labor ceased to be merely verbal and took on life! General strikes, sympathetic strikes, nationwide boycotts and nation-wide political movements became the order of the day. The effects of an unusually large immigration joined hands with the depression. The eighties were the banner decade of the entire century for immigration. The aggregate number of immigrants arriving was 5,246,613--two and a half millions larger than during the seventies and one million and a half larger than during the nineties. The eighties witnessed the highest tide of immigration from Great Britain and the North of Europe and the beginning of the tide of South and East European immigration.

However, the depression of 1883-1885 had one redeeming feature by which it was distinguished from other depressions. With falling prices, diminishing margins of profit, and decreasing wages, the amount of employment was not materially diminished. Times continued hard during 1885, a slight improvement showing itself only during the last months of the year. The years 1886 and 1887 were a period of gradual recovery, and normal conditions may be said to have returned about the middle of 1887.

Except in New England, the old wages, which had been reduced during the bad years, were won again by the spring of 1887.

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

The failure of strikes brought into use the other weapon of labor--the boycott. But not until the latter part of 1884, when the failure of the strike as a weapon became apparent, did the boycott a.s.sume the nature of an epidemic. The boycott movement was a truly national one, affecting the South and the Far West as well as the East and Middle West. The number of boycotts during 1885 was nearly seven times as large as during 1884. Nearly all of the boycotts either originated with, or were taken up by, the Knights of Labor.

The strike again came into prominence in the latter half of 1885. This coincided with the beginning of an upward trend in general business conditions. The strikes of 1885, even more than those of the preceding year, were spontaneous outbreaks of unorganized ma.s.ses.

The frequent railway strikes were a characteristic feature of the labor movement in 1885. Most notable was the Gould railway strike in March, 1885. On February 26, a cut of 10 percent was ordered in the wages of the shopmen of the Wabash road. A similar reduction had been made in October, 1884, on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. Strikes occurred on the two roads, one on February 27 and the other March 9, and the strikers were joined by the men on the third Gould road, the Missouri Pacific, at all points where the two lines touched, making altogether over 4500 men on strike. The train service personnel, that is, the locomotive engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors, supported the strikers and to this fact more than to any other was due their speedy victory. The wages were restored and the strikers reemployed. But six months later this was followed by a second strike. The road, now in the hands of a receiver, reduced the force of shopmen at Moberly, Missouri, to the lowest possible limit, which virtually meant a lockout of the members of the Knights of Labor in direct violation of the conditions of settlement of the preceding strike. The General Executive Board of the Knights, after a futile attempt to have a conference with the receiver, declared a boycott on Wabash rolling stock. This order, had it been carried out, would have affected over 20,000 miles of railway and would have equalled the dimensions of the great railway strike of 1877. But Jay Gould would not risk a general strike on his lines at this time. According to an appointment made between him and the executive board of the Knights of Labor, a conference was held between that board and the managers of the Missouri Pacific and the Wabash railroads, at which he threw his influence in favor of making concessions to the men. He a.s.sured the Knights that in all troubles he wanted the men to come directly to him, that he believed in labor organizations and in the arbitration of all difficulties and that he "would always endeavor to do what was right."

The Knights demanded the discharge of all new men hired in the Wabash shops since the beginning of the lockout, the reinstatement of all discharged men, the leaders being given priority, and an a.s.surance that no discrimination against the members of the Order would be made in the future. A settlement was finally made at another conference, and the receiver of the Wabash road agreed, under pressure by Jay Gould, to issue an order conceding the demands of the Knights of Labor.

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

But far more important was the effect of the strike upon the general labor movement. Here a labor organization for the first time dealt on an equal footing with probably the most powerful capitalist in the country.

It forced Jay Gould to recognize it as a power equal to himself, a fact which he conceded when he declared his readiness to arbitrate all labor difficulties that might arise. The oppressed laboring ma.s.ses finally discovered a powerful champion. All the pent-up feeling of bitterness and resentment which had acc.u.mulated during the two years of depression, in consequence of the repeated cuts in wages and the intensified domination by employers, now found vent in a rush to organize under the banner of the powerful Knights of Labor. To the natural tendency on the part of the oppressed to exaggerate the power of a mysterious emanc.i.p.ator whom they suddenly found coming to their aid, there was added the influence of sensational reports in the public press. The newspapers especially took delight in exaggerating the powers and strength of the Order.

In 1885 the New York _Sun_ detailed one of its reporters to "get up a story of the strength and purposes of the Knights of Labor." This story was copied by newspapers and magazines throughout the country and aided considerably in bringing the Knights of Labor into prominence. The following extract ill.u.s.trates the exaggerated notion of the power of the Knights of Labor.

"Five men in this country control the chief interests of five hundred thousand workingmen, and can at any moment take the means of livelihood from two and a half millions of souls. These men compose the executive board of the n.o.ble Order of the Knights of Labor of America. The ability of the president and cabinet to turn out all the men in the civil service, and to shift from one post to another the duties of the men in the army and navy, is a petty authority compared with that of these five Knights. The authority of the late Cardinal was, and that of the bishops of the Methodist Church is, narrow and prescribed, so far as material affairs are concerned, in comparison with that of these five rulers.

"They can stay the nimble touch of almost every telegraph operator; can shut up most of the mills and factories, and can disable the railroads.

They can issue an edict against any manufactured goods so as to make their subjects cease buying them, and the tradesmen stop selling them.

"They can array labor against capital, putting labor on the offensive or the defensive, for quiet and stubborn self-protection, or for angry, organized a.s.sault, as they will."

Before long the Order was able to benefit by this publicity in quarters where the tale of its great power could only attract unqualified attention, namely, in Congress. The Knights of Labor led in the agitation for prohibiting the immigration of alien contract laborers.

The problem of contract immigrant labor rapidly came to the front in 1884, when such labor began frequently to be used to defeat strikes.

Twenty persons appeared to testify before the committee in favor of the bill, of whom all but two or three belonged to the Knights of Labor. The anti-contract labor law which was pa.s.sed by Congress on February 2, 1885, therefore, was due almost entirely to the efforts of the Knights of Labor. The trade unions gave little active support, for to the skilled workingmen the importation of contract Italian and Hungarian laborers was a matter of small importance. On the other hand, to the Knights of Labor with their vast contingent of unskilled it was a strong menace. Although the law could not be enforced and had to be amended in 1887 in order to render it effective, its pa.s.sage nevertheless attests the political influence already exercised by the Order in 1885.

The outcome of the Gould strike of 1885 and the dramatic exaggeration of the prowess of the Order by press and even by pulpit were largely responsible for the psychological setting that called forth and surrounded the great upheaval of 1886. This upheaval meant more than the mere quickening of the pace of the movement begun in preceding years and decades. It signalled the appearance on the scene of a new cla.s.s which had not hitherto found a place in the labor movement, namely the unskilled. All the peculiar characteristics of the dramatic events in 1886 and 1887, the highly feverish pace at which organizations grew, the nation-wide wave of strikes, particularly sympathetic strikes, the wide use of the boycott, the obliteration, apparently complete, of all lines that divided the laboring cla.s.s, whether geographic or trade, the violence and turbulence which accompanied the movement--all of these were the signs of a great movement by the cla.s.s of the unskilled, which had finally risen in rebellion. This movement, rising as an elemental protest against oppression and degradation, could be but feebly restrained by any considerations of expediency and prudence; nor, of course, could it be restrained by any lessons from experience. But, if the origin and powerful sweep of this movement were largely spontaneous and elemental, the issues which it took up were supplied by the existing organizations, namely the trade unions and the Knights of Labor. These served also as the d.y.k.es between which the rapid streams were gathered and, if at times it seemed that they must burst under the pressure, still they gave form and direction to the movement and partly succeeded in introducing order where chaos had reigned. The issue which first brought unity in this great ma.s.s movement was a nation-wide strike for the eight-hour day declared for May 1, 1886.

The initiative in this strike was taken not by the Order but by the trade unionists and on the eve of the strike the general officers of the Knights adopted an att.i.tude of hostility. But if the slogan failed to arouse the enthusiasm of the national leaders of the Knights, it nevertheless found ready response in the ranks of labor. The great cla.s.s of the unskilled and unorganized, which had come to look upon the Knights of Labor as the all-powerful liberator of the laboring ma.s.ses from oppression, now eagerly seized upon this demand as the issue upon which the first battle with capital should be fought.