CHAPTER LXVI FORWARD-LOOKING MOVEMENTS 803. The new moral earnestness of 1890, we have said (§ 776), wandered blindly for a while in politics. But about 1900 it began to see that the first step toward industrial freedom was to restore self-government to the people and to enlarge it by the enfranchisement of woman and through new political machinery—the referendum, the initiative, the recall, the direct nomination of all elected officials, and the more direct control of the Federal courts. The forward-looking movements treated in this chapter have all placed these matters foremost in their immediate programs. I. THE LABOR MOVEMENT 804. The ten years preceding the Civil War, with the new conveniences for communication and combination (§ 705), saw a few trades organize on a national scale (instead of for localities only); but these first national "unions" were confined to trades whose total membership was small. The sixties witnessed a remarkable spread of the movement. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers organized in 1863, the cigar makers in '64, the brickmakers in '65, railway conductors in '68, railway firemen in '69 — all strong unions. By 1870 forty trades had achieved national organization, and the movement continued until all skilled trades became so organized. Nearly every union has its weekly or monthly organ, The Carpenter, The Fireman's Magazine, etc.; and, apart from industrial matters, these organizations have exerted a notable influence and training. Many a local" Assembly " conducts its business and debates with a promptitude and skill that would be highly instructive to college faculty or State legislature. 805. But organization of single trades, even on a national scale, was not enough. In 1869 a few workingmen in Phila delphia founded The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor,—to include all workers, skilled or unskilled, with the motto, "The injury of one is the concern of all." The strike year of '77 (§ 807) popularized the movement; and in '78 it held its first National Assembly, made up of delegates from local and district assemblies. For years this Order exercised vast influence for good, and was the fount of much wholesome legislation in State and Nation (§ 813). Especial gratitude is due it for its early recognition of the right of women to equal pay with men for equal service, and for its hearty welcome to world-peace movements. It joined the Populists in the Free Silver campaigns (§ 755), and virtually fell with the failure of that movement. 806. The American Federation of Labor rose, phoenixlike, from the ashes of the Knights. Its units are the national unions of single trades; it does not recognize unskilled labor in its organization. It counts some two million men, besides three quarters of a million more organized in railway unions. It has encouraged the formation of Trades' Assemblies (the "Tradesunion" of the thirties) in all large places, composed of delegates from the local unions and standing to them somewhat as the National Federation stands to the national unions. The annual convention and the executive council of the American Federation exercise tremendous influence over the separate unions, but have no binding power over them, except authority to levy assessments to sustain a strike approved by the central council.1 Samuel Gompers has been annually reëlected president for some twenty-five years (1917), and has proven himself a notable leader. 807. As with the earlier organizations of the thirties, so too the modern unions at once asserted hostility between labor and capital. Said the brickmakers, in the preamble to their constitution, in '65: "Capital has assumed the right to own and control labor for its own selfish ends." The first violent clash 1 Contrast this organization with the labor organizations of 1830 THE STRIKE OF 1877 669 § 809] came, naturally, in the railway world, because organization on both sides was first complete there. The railway panic of '73 led many roads to cut wages. The powerful organizations of "skilled" engineers and conductors proved able to ward off such reductions, or at least to secure fair hearing, in most cases, by mere threats of a strike; but the places of firemen and switchmen could be filled more easily, and on these classes fell the most serious reductions of pay. In '77 the fourth cut within five years drove these employees on the Baltimore and Ohio to a strike which spread like a prairie blaze to many other roads. The strikers sought to prevent the running of freight trains. Riot and bloodshed were widespread, from Baltimore to San Francisco. Pittsburg was in the hands of a mob for days. The crowds of idle and desperate men in the cities, and the thousands of "tramps" in the country (both new features in American life with the '73 panic) added to the violence and disorder. Millions on millions of dollars of railway property were destroyed, and the injury to private business was much more disastrous. Violence was finally repressed, and peaceful strikers sometimes intimidated, by Federal troops. On the whole, however, the strikers won important concessions. 66 808. The Bureau of Labor computes 34,657 strikes for the following twenty-five-year period, 1881-1905. Over eight million men were directly involved; and the direct cost-apart from the greater indirect cost to the public was half a billion of dollars. More than one third of these strikes are classed as "successful"; one sixth more as partially successful"; and nearly half, "unsuccessful." More than a third of them all took place in the last fifth of the period, and some of the most significant ones in our history have come in even more recent years. Only two or three more can be mentioned here. 809. In 1894 the employees of the Pullman Car Company struck to avoid reduction of wages. The American Railway Union, sympathizing with the strikers, demanded that the quarrel be submitted to arbitration. The Company refused, and the Twenty Union refused to handle Pullman cars on any road. three leading roads were involved. The companies had contracts, in most cases at least, making them liable for damages if they did not use these cars; and, apart from this fact, they were bitterly resolved to crush the "sympathetic strike" idea. The disorders extended from Cincinnati to San Francisco; but Chicago was the storm center. Hundreds of freight cars were looted and burned by the city mob, which found its opportunity for plunder in the situation; and the loss and crime were charged upon the strikers by many respectable elements of society. The governor of Illinois (Altgeld) sympathized with the strike, and declared that the railway companies were paralyzed, not by strike violence, but by a legitimate situation, since they could not secure men to run their cars without Federal assistance. President Cleveland, however, broke the strike by sending Federal troops to Chicago to insure the running of trains on the ground of preventing interference with the United States mails, and of putting down "conspiracies" which interfered with interstate commerce. The business interests of the country heartily indorsed the President's action, but that action was one of the chief reasons why the more radical wing of Democrats were driven into opposition (§ 757, note). 810. In May, 1902, the coal miners of Pennsylvania struck for an increase of wages and the recognition of their union. The strike lasted five months and caused a general coal famine. John Mitchell, the head of the miners' union, by his admirable handling of the situation, won recognition as one of the ablest men America has produced. The operators, consisting of a few railway presidents who enjoyed a complete monopoly of the anthracite coal trade, lost public sympathy by an insane "divine right" claim from Mr. Baer, one of the presidents, that the public ought to be content to leave the matter to "the Christian men to whom God, in his infinite wisdom, has given the control of the property interests of the country.” Finally President Roosevelt brought the operators and John § 811] THE PULLMAN STRIKE 671 Mitchell into a conference (October 3). Mitchell offered to submit his case to a board of arbitrators to be appointed by the President, and promised that the miners would return to work at once, without waiting for the investigation, if such a course should be agreed to; but the operators refused arbitration, and called loudly on the President for troops. Privately, Roosevelt determined instead, he has said, "to send in the United States army to take possession of the coal fields" for the nation, if necessary; but, two weeks later, he succeeded in bringing the companies to time through pressure from J. Pierpont Morgan, the financial backer and real master of the coal trust. Five months later (March, 1903), the board of arbitrators made its report, sustaining the demands of the miners in almost every point. The action of President Roosevelt was acclaimed by the sympathizers of labor everywhere as a happy contrast to the action of Cleveland nine years before at Chicago. Incidentally it is well to note that the mining companies simply added to the price of coal much more than the arbitration had cost them. 811. During the Pullman strike (July 2, 1894), a Federal District Court issued a "blanket injunction," ordering all members of the American Railway Union to cease interfering with the business of the twenty-three roads (§ 809). Eugene V. Debs, president of the Union, continued to manage the strike, and, two weeks later, was arrested for contempt of court. Investigation of the charge did not take place for several months during which Debs remained in jail rather than ask for bail on such a charge — and then he was condemned to six months' imprisonment. In effect Debs was punished by a year's imprisonment for an act which no legislature or jury had ever declared a crime, and he was deprived of his constitutional privilege of a jury trial. The principle was not new; but this sort of "court government by injunction" came into new prominence by this incident.1 Organized labor at once made resist 1 Debs was already under charge of violating the laws regulating interstate commerce; but on a trial for this offense he would have had a jury. |