A History of Trade Unionism in the United States Part 6

The agitation a.s.sumed large proportions in March. The main argument for the shorter day was work for the unemployed. With the exception of the cigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organizations.

The Knights of Labor as an organization figured far less prominently than the trade unions, and among the latter the building trades and the German-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front of the movement. Early in the strike the workingmen's cause was gravely injured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributed to anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen.

The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which had heretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity. For what many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval in a less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoretical justification, the contemporary Chicago "anarchists,"[19] the largest branch of the "Black International," had elevated into a well rounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Labor upheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of the eighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalism was characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with which minor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades and large territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, to enter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by a ready resort to violence. In 1886 the membership of the Black International probably was about 5000 or 6000 and of this number about 1000 were English speaking.

The circ.u.mstances of the bomb explosion were the following. A strikers'

meeting was held near the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago, late on the third of May. About this time strike-breakers employed in these works began to leave for home and were attacked by strikers. The police arrived in large numbers and upon being received with stones, fired and killed four and wounded many. The same evening the International issued a call in which appeared the word _"Revenge"_ with the appeal: "Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force." A protest ma.s.s meeting met the next day on Haymarket Square and was addressed by Internationalists. The police were present in numbers and, as they formed in line and advanced on the crowd, some unknown hand hurled a bomb into their midst killing and wounding many.

It is unnecessary to describe here the period of police terror in Chicago, the hysterical att.i.tude of the press, or the state of panic that came over the inhabitants of the city. Nor is it necessary to deal in detail with the trial and sentence of the accused. Suffice it to say that the Haymarket bomb showed to the labor movement what it might expect from the public and the government if it combined violence with a revolutionary purpose.

Although the bomb outrage was attributed to the anarchists and not generally to the strikers for the eight-hour day, it did materially reduce the sympathy of the public as well as intimidate many strikers.

Nevertheless, _Bradstreet's_ estimated that no fewer than 340,000 men took part in the movement; 190,000 actually struck, only 42,000 of this number with success, and 150,000 secured shorter hours without a strike.

Thus the total number of those who secured with or without strikes the eight-hour day was something less than 200,000. But even those who for the present succeeded, whether with or without striking, soon lost the concession, and _Bradstreet's_ estimated in January, 1887, that, so far as the payment of former wages for a shorter day's work is concerned, the grand total of those retaining the concession did not exceed, if it equalled, 15,000.

American labor movements have never experienced such a rush to organize as the one in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. During 1886 the combined membership of labor organizations was exceptionally large and for the first time came near the million mark. The Knights of Labor had a membership of 700,000 and the trade unions at least 250,000, the former composed largely of unskilled and the latter of skilled. The Knights of Labor gained in a remarkably short time--in a few months--over 600,000 new members and grew from 1610 local a.s.semblies with 104,066 members in good standing in July 1885, to 5892 a.s.semblies with 702,924 members in July 1886. The greatest portion of this growth occurred after January 1, 1886. In the state of New York there were in July 1886, about 110,000 members (60,809 in District a.s.sembly 49 of New York City alone); in Pennsylvania, 95,000 (51,557 in District a.s.sembly 1, Philadelphia, alone); in Ma.s.sachusetts, 90,000 (81,191 in District a.s.sembly 30 of Boston); and in Illinois, 32,000.

In the state of Illinois, for which detailed information for that year is available, there were 204 local a.s.semblies with 34,974 members, of which 65 percent were found in Cook County (Chicago) alone. One hundred and forty-nine a.s.semblies were mixed, that is comprised members of different trades including unskilled and only 55 were trade a.s.semblies.

Reckoned according to country of birth the membership was 45 percent American, 16 percent German, 13 percent Irish, 10 percent British, 5 percent Scandinavian, and the remaining 2 percent scattered. The trade unions also gained many members but in a considerably lesser proportion.

The high water mark was reached in the autumn of 1886. But in the early months of 1887 a reaction became visible. By July 1, the membership of the Order had diminished to 510,351. While a share of this retrogression may have been due to the natural reaction of large ma.s.ses of people who had been suddenly set in motion without experience, a more immediate cause came from the employers. Profiting by past lessons, they organized strong a.s.sociations. The main object of these employers' a.s.sociations was the defeat of the Knights. They were organized sectionally and nationally. In small localities, where the power of the Knights was especially great, all employers regardless of industry joined in a single a.s.sociation. But in large manufacturing centers, where the rich corporation prevailed, they included the employers of only one industry.

To attain their end these a.s.sociations made liberal use of the lockout, the blacklist, and armed guards and detectives. Often they treated agreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress.

The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearly foreshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gould railways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886.

As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould system in March 1885, the employes were a.s.sured that the road would inst.i.tute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortly before pa.s.sed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over the entire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that the Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two months before the strike. District a.s.sembly 101, the organization embracing the employes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and authorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might find opportune to enforce the two following demands: first, the formal "recognition" of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the unskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights of Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in the movement. But evidently the organization preferred to make the issue turn on discrimination against members. Another peculiarity which marked off this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility with which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and all leased and operated lines. This strike broke out simultaneously over the entire system on March 6. It affected more than 5000 miles of railway situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska.

The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic "killing" of engines, that is removing some indispensable part, effectively stopped all the freight traffic. The number of men actively on strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all of the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to leave their posts under threats from the strikers.

The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the strikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his att.i.tude was overbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, a strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labor contract, but necessarily a.s.sumed the aspect of a crusade against capital. Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take were excluded.

Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the dispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months of sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left, however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the impression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and a Congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.

The disputes during the second half of 1886 ended, for the most part, disastrously to labor. The number of men involved in six months, was estimated at 97,300. Of these, about 75,300 were in nine great lockouts, of whom 54,000 suffered defeat at the hands of a.s.sociated employers. The most important lockouts were against 15,000 laundry workers at Troy, New York, in June; against 20,000 Chicago packing house workers; and against 20,000 knitters at Cohoes, New York, both in October.

The lockout of the Chicago butcher workmen attracted the most attention.

These men had obtained the eight-hour day without a strike during May. A short time thereafter, upon the initiative of Armour & Company, the employers formed a packers' a.s.sociation and, in the beginning of October, notified the men of a return to the ten-hour day on October 11.

They justified this action on the ground that they could not compete with Cincinnati and Kansas City, which operated on the ten-hour system.

On October 8, the men, who were organized in District a.s.semblies 27 and 54, suspended work, and the memorable lockout began. The packers'

a.s.sociation rejected all offers of compromise and on October 18 the men were ordered to work on the ten-hour basis. But the dispute in October, which was marked by a complete lack of ill-feeling on the part of the men and was one of the most peaceable labor disputes of the year, was in reality a mere prelude to a second disturbance which broke out in the plant of Swift & Company on November 2 and became general throughout the stockyards on November 6. The men demanded a return to the eight-hour day, but the packers' a.s.sociation, which was now joined by Swift & Company, who formerly had kept aloof, not only refused to give up the ten-hour day, but declared that they would employ no Knights of Labor in the future. The Knights retaliated by declaring a boycott on the meat of Armour & Company. The behavior of the men was now no longer peaceable as before, and the employers took extra precautions by prevailing upon the governor to send two regiments of militia in addition to the several hundred Pinkerton detectives employed by the a.s.sociation. To all appearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for on November 10 the packers' a.s.sociation rescinded its decision not to employ Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderly ordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider the reports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on the ground, but, as was charged by them, was guided instead by the advice of a priest who had appealed to him to call off the strike and thus put an end to the suffering of the men and their families.

New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strike and on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separate strikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New York with coal and the other by longsh.o.r.emen on the New York water front; both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed by the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of Labor, struck against a reduction of 2-1/2 cents an hour in the wages of the "top-men" and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances of their own. Soon the strike spread to the other roads and the number of striking coal-handlers reached 3000. The longsh.o.r.emen's strike was begun by 200 men, employed by the Old Dominion Steamship Company, against a reduction in wages and the hiring of cheap men by the week. The strikers were not organized, but the Ocean a.s.sociation, a part of the Knights of Labor, took up their cause and was a.s.sisted by the longsh.o.r.emen's union.

Both strikes soon widened out through a series of sympathetic strikes of related trades and finally became united into one. The Ocean a.s.sociation declared a boycott on the freight of the Old Dominion Company and this was strictly obeyed by all of the longsh.o.r.emen's unions. The International Boatmen's Union refused to allow their boats to be used for "scab coal" or to permit their members to steer the companies'

boats. The longsh.o.r.emen joined the boatmen in refusing to handle coal, and the shovelers followed. Then the grain handlers on both floating and stationary elevators refused to load ships with grain on which there was scab coal, and the bag-sewers stood with them. The longsh.o.r.emen now resolved to go out and refused to work on ships which received scab coal, and finally they decided to stop work altogether on all kinds of craft in the harbor until the trouble should be settled. The strike spirit spread to a large number of freight handlers working for railroads along the river front, so that in the last week of January the number of strikers in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, reached approximately 28,000; 13,000 longsh.o.r.emen, 1000 boatmen, 6000 grain handlers, 7500 coal-handlers, and 400 bag-sewers.

On February 11, August Corbin, president and receiver of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, fearing a strike by the miners working in the coal mines operated by that road, settled the strike by restoring to the eighty-five coal-handlers, the original strikers, their former rate of wages. The Knights of Labor felt impelled to accept such a trivial settlement for two reasons. The coal-handlers' strike, which drove up the price of coal to the consumer, was very unpopular, and the strike itself had begun to weaken when the brewers and stationary engineers, who for some obscure reason had been ordered to strike in sympathy, refused to come out. The situation was left unchanged, as far as the coal-handlers employed by the other companies, the longsh.o.r.emen, and the many thousands of men who went out on sympathetic strike were concerned. The men began to return to work by the thousands and the entire strike collapsed.

The determined attack and stubborn resistance of the employers'

a.s.sociations after the strikes of May 1886, coupled with the obvious incompetence displayed by the leaders, caused the turn of the tide in the labor movement in the first half of 1887. This, however, manifested itself during 1887 exclusively in the large cities, where the movement had borne in the purest form the character of an uprising by the cla.s.s of the unskilled and where the hardest battles were fought with the employers. District a.s.sembly 49, New York, fell from its membership of 60,809 in June 1886, to 32,826 in July 1887. During the same interval, District a.s.sembly 1, Philadelphia, decreased from 51,557 to 11,294, and District a.s.sembly 30, Boston, from 81,197 to 31,644. In Chicago there were about 40,000 Knights immediately before the packers' strike in October 1886, and only about 17,000 on July 1, 1887. The falling off of the largest district a.s.semblies in 10 large cities practically equalled the total loss of the Order, which amounted approximately to 191,000. At the same time the membership of the smallest district a.s.semblies, which were for the most part located in small cities, remained stationary and, outside of the national and district trade a.s.semblies which were formed by separation from mixed district a.s.semblies, thirty-seven new district a.s.semblies were formed, also mostly in rural localities. In addition, state a.s.semblies were added in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, with an average membership of about 2000 each.

It thus becomes clear that by the middle of 1887, the Great Upheaval of the unskilled and semi-skilled portions of the working cla.s.s had already subsided beneath the strength of the combined employers and the unwieldiness of their own organization. After 1887 the Knights of Labor lost its hold upon the large cities with their wage-conscious and largely foreign population, and became an organization predominantly of country people, of mechanics, small merchants, and farmers,--a cla.s.s of people which was more or less purely American and decidedly middle cla.s.s in its philosophy.

The industrial upheaval in the middle of the eighties had, like the great strike of 1877, a political reverberation. Although the latter was heard throughout the entire country, it centered in the city of New York, where the situation was complicated by court interference in the labor struggle.

A local a.s.sembly of the Knights of Labor had declared a boycott against one George Theiss, a proprietor of a music and beer garden. The latter at first submitted and paid a fine of $1000 to the labor organization, but later brought action in court against the officers charging them with intimidation and extortion.

The judge, George C. Barrett, in his charge to the jury, conceded that striking, picketing, and boycotting as such were not prohibited by law, if not accompanied by force, threats, or intimidation. But in the case under consideration the action of the pickets in advising pa.s.sers-by not to patronize the establishment and in distributing boycott circulars const.i.tuted intimidation. Also, since the $1000 fine was obtained by fear induced by a threat to continue the unlawful injury to Theiss inflicted by the "boycott," the case was one of extortion covered by the penal code. It made no difference whether the money was appropriated by the defendants for personal use or whether it was turned over to their organization. The jury, which reflected the current public opinion against boycotts, found all of the five defendants guilty of extortion, and Judge Barrett sentenced them to prison for terms ranging from one year and six months to three years and eight months.

The Theiss case, coming as it did at a time of general restlessness of labor and closely after the defeat of the eight-hour movement, greatly hastened the growth of the sentiment for an independent labor party. The New York Central Labor Union, the most famous and most influential organization of its kind in the country at the time, with a membership estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000, placed itself at the head of the movement in which both socialists and non-socialists joined. Henry George, the originator of the single tax movement, was nominated by the labor party for Mayor of New York and was allowed to draw up his own platform, which he made of course a simon-pure single tax platform. The labor demands were compressed into one plank. They were as follows: The reform of court procedure so that "the practice of drawing grand jurors from one cla.s.s should cease, and the requirements of a property qualification for trial jurors should be abolished"; the stopping of the "officious intermeddling of the police with peaceful a.s.semblages"; the enforcement of the laws for safety and the sanitary inspection of buildings; the abolition of contract labor on public work; and equal pay for equal work without distinction of s.e.x on such work.

The George campaign was more in the nature of a religious revival than of a political election campaign. It was also a culminating point in the great labor upheaval. The enthusiasm of the laboring people reached its highest pitch. They felt that, baffled and defeated as they were in their economic struggle, they were now nearing victory in the struggle for the control of government. Ma.s.s meetings were numerous and large.

Most of them were held in the open air, usually on the street corners.

From the system by which one speaker followed another, speaking at several meeting places in a night, the labor campaign got its nickname of the "tailboard campaign." The common people, women and men, gathered in hundreds and often thousands around trucks from which the shifting speakers addressed the crowd. The speakers were volunteers, including representatives of the liberal professions, lawyers, physicians, teachers, ministers, and labor leaders. At such ma.s.s meetings George did most of his campaigning, making several speeches a night, once as many as eleven. The single tax and the prevailing political corruption were favorite topics. Against George and his adherents were pitted the powerful press of the city of New York, all the political power of the old parties, and all the influence of the business cla.s.s. George's opponents were Abram S. Hewitt, an anti-Tammany Democrat whom Tammany had picked for its candidate in this emergency, and Theodore Roosevelt, then as yet known only as a courageous young politician.

The vote cast was 90,000 for Hewitt, 68,000 for George, and 60,000 for Roosevelt. There is possible ground for the belief that George was counted out of thousands of votes. The nature of the George vote can be sufficiently gathered from an a.n.a.lysis of the pledges to vote for him.

An apparently trustworthy investigation was made by a representative of the New York Sun. He drew the conclusion that the vast majority were not simply wage earners, but also naturalized immigrants, mainly Irish, Germans, and Bohemians, the native element being in the minority. While the Irish were divided between George and Hewitt, the majority of the German element had gone over to Henry George. The outcome was hailed as a victory by George and his supporters and this view was also taken by the general press.

In spite of this propitious beginning the political labor movement soon suffered the fate of all reform political movements. The strength of the new party was frittered away in doctrinaire factional strife between the single taxers and the socialists. The trade union element became discouraged and lost interest. So that at the next State election, in which George ran for Secretary of State, presumably because that office came nearest to meeting the requirement for a single taxer seeking a practical scope of action, the vote in the city fell to 37,000 and in the whole State amounted only to 72,000. This ended the political labor movement in New York.

Outside of New York the political labor movement was not a.s.sociated either with the single tax or any other "ism." As in New York it was a spontaneous expression of dissatisfaction brought on by failure in strikes. The movement scored a victory in Milwaukee, where it elected a mayor, and in Chicago where it polled 25,000 out of a total of 92,000.

But, as in New York, it fell to pieces without leaving a permanent trace.

FOOTNOTES:

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

[19] See above, 79-80.

CHAPTER 5

THE VICTORY OF CRAFT UNIONISM AND THE FINAL FAILURE OF PRODUCERS'

COOPERATION

We now come to the most significant aspect of the Great Upheaval: the life and death struggle between two opposed principles of labor organization and between two opposed labor programs. The Upheaval offered the practical test which the labor movement required for an intelligent decision between the rival claims of Knights and trade unionists. The test as well as the conflict turned princ.i.p.ally on "structure," that is on the difference between "craft autonomists" and those who would have labor organized "under one head," or what we would now call the "one big union" advocates.

As the issue of "structure" proved in the crucial eighties, and has remained ever since, the outstanding factional issue in the labor movement, it might be well at this point to pa.s.s in brief review the structural developments in labor organization from the beginning and try to correlate them with other important developments.

The early[20] societies of shoemakers and printers were purely local in scope and the relations between "locals" extended only to feeble attempts to deal with the compet.i.tion of traveling journeymen.

Occasionally, they corresponded on trade matters, notifying each other of their purposes and the nature of their demands, or expressing fraternal greetings; chiefly for the purpose of counteracting advertis.e.m.e.nts by employers for journeymen or keeping out dishonest members and so-called "scabs." This mostly relates to printers. The shoemakers, despite their bitter contests with their employers, did even less. The Philadelphia Mechanics' Trades a.s.sociation in 1827, which we noted as the first attempted federation of trades in the United States if not in the world, was organized as a move of sympathy for the carpenters striking for the ten-hour day. During the period of the "wild-cat" prosperity the local federation of trades, under the name of "Trades' Union,"[21] comes to occupy the center of the stage in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and appeared even as far "West" as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The const.i.tution of the New York "Trades' Union" provided, among other things, that each society should pay a monthly per capita tax of 6-1/4 cents to be used as a strike fund.

Later, when strikes multiplied, the Union limited the right to claim strike aid and appointed a standing committee on mediation. In 1835 it discussed a plan for an employment exchange or a "call room." The const.i.tution of the Philadelphia Union required that a strike be endorsed by a two-thirds majority before granting aid.

The National Trades' Union, the federation of city trades' unions, 1834-1836, was a further development of the same idea. Its first and second conventions went little beyond the theoretical. The latter, however, pa.s.sed a significant resolution urging the trade societies to observe a uniform wage policy throughout the country and, should the employers combine to resist it, the unions should make "one general strike."

The last convention in 1836 went far beyond preceding conventions in its plans for solidifying the workingmen of the country. First and foremost, a "national fund" was provided for, to be made up of a levy of two cents per month on each of the members of the trades' unions and local societies represented. The policies of the National Trades' Union instead of merely advisory were henceforth to be binding. But before the new policies could be tried, as we know, the entire trade union movement was wiped out by the panic.

The city "trades' union" of the thirties accorded with a situation where the effects of the extension of the market were noticeable in the labor market, and little as yet in the commodity market; when the compet.i.tive menace to labor was the low paid out-of-town mechanic coming to the city, not the out-of-town product made under lower labor costs selling in the same market as the products of unionized labor. Under these conditions the local trade society, reenforced by the city federation of trades, sufficed. The "trades' union," moreover, served also as a source of reserve strength.

Twenty years later the whole situation was changed. The fifties were a decade of extensive construction of railways. Before 1850 there was more traffic by water than by rail. After 1860 the relative importance of land and water transportation was reversed. Furthermore, the most important railway building during the ten years preceding 1860 was the construction of East and West trunk lines; and the sixties were marked by the establishment of through lines for freight and the consolidation of connecting lines. The through freight lines greatly hastened freight traffic and by the consolidations through transportation became doubly efficient.