This period since 1876 witnessed also a noteworthy growth of socialism in America, a cause which had been favored earlier by many of the German immigrants in 1848. The International Working Men's Association was the form taken by the socialist propaganda after 1876. Most of the leading advocates of this movement, though not all, were foreigners of a radical type. Most of the strength acquired by the movement was among non-English speaking wage-earners. An attempt to combine the greenback and the labor movement characterized the years between 1876 and 1880. These were years of turmoil in politics. More and more, leaders of extreme views began to gain ground in labor organization. More and more the control of this movement in its more aggressive expressions passed over to foreigners. Thus the Illinois Labor Bureau in 1886 stated that of the members of the trade unions of that State only 21 per cent were American, 33 per cent German, 19 per cent Irish, 10 per cent British other than Irish, and 12 per cent Scandinavian, with Poles, Bohemians and Italians constituting the remainder. This was not at all surprising, for the old apprentice system had been well-nigh abandoned, and, therefore, necessarily the United States had been drawing most of its supply of skilled labor from abroad. The great activity of the Knights of Labor as a national organization began in 1880, by which time the order had acquired a formidable strength and numbers in the industrial communities. Terence V. Powderly, an active member of the Machinists' and Blacksmiths' Union, who had been elected Mayor of Scranton, Pa., on a labor ticket in 1878, became the head of the Knights of Labor. The general assembly of this order favored persistent strikes as the best method of advancing the interests of the wage-earners-the most notable strike of the period being that of the telegraphers in 1883. This, like most other of the Knights of Labor strikes, was a failure, for these reasons, as the author describes them-"First, the order operated mainly among the unorganized and the unskilled, an element which had no previous experience in the management of strikes and could easily be replaced by strike-breakers; second, the form of organization of the Knights, well adapted as it was to strikes on a large scale and to extensive boycotts, displayed an inherent weakness when it came to a strike of the members of a single trade against their employers. Such a strike soon became a test of organization and discipline, qualities which a mixed organization like the district assembly of the Knights could not hope to possess in the same degree as a national trade union." Between 1880 and 1890, a huge immigration was filling up the labor market. On the other hand, "settlers were moving into the last unoccupied portion of the public domain." Strikes were failing more and more. This period witnessed the development of the boycott as "a new force in hand." Under Powderly as Grand Master Workman, the Knights of Labor grew rapidly in membership. There was something in the order with its far-reaching organization which seemed to dazzle the minds of men. Powderly himself became such a national figure as had no labor leader before him. He drew immense audiences wherever he spoke. Newspapers gave wide currency to all his words. In the State of Arkansas the legislature gave him the privilege of the House of Representatives to deliver a labor speech. The Knights of Labor took up a strong cause when they led the agitation for prohibiting the immigration of alien contract labor, and one additional prestige was the defeat of Jay Gould in the Wabash strike of 1885. In 1886 the Knights of Labor numbered 5,892 assemblies of a total membership of 702,924. Meanwhile the black international or anarchistic movement in the Middle West had been preparing trouble for the more conservative labor movement in America. On May 3, 1886, in Chicago, the international movement culminated in the bomb massacre of Haymarket Square. Samuel Gompers testified that "The effect of that bomb was that it not only killed a policeman, but it killed our eight-hour movement for that year and for a few years afterward, notwithstanding we had absolutely no connection with these people." The Knights of Labor themselves in turn were now disintegrating, the membership of the order falling from over 700,000 members in 1886 to 510,000 in 1887. The growth of the Knights of Labor had aroused employers to form strong organizations of their own. Many strikes now followed, and in the words of the author, "After 1887. the Knights of Labor lost their 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, an element more or less purely American and decidedly middle-class in its philosophy. This change serves more than anything else to account for the subsequent close affiliation between the order and the ''Farmers' Alliance,' as well as for the whole-hearted support which it gave to the people's party." The policy of the Knights of Labor had favored co-operation, and co-operation wherever attempted has usually proved disappointing. Labor men themselves were not successful in these business undertakings. They seemed to lack not merely capital, but practical business sense, as well in merchandising as in manufacture. "The failure was definite and final," the author says. "Not since this time has the American labor movement ventured upon co-operation. The year 1888 marks the closing of the age of middle-class 'panaceas' and consequently the beginning of the wage-conscious period." The work describes further the struggles of the socialists in the United States to become a political force, and Henry George's dramatic political movement in New York City and State. Through this time the American Federation of Labor was gaining in force and the Knights of Labor were declining. The general officers of the pattern-makers, foundrymen, blacksmiths, machinists and boiler-makers in leaving the Knights of Labor declared in May, 1888, that "The odium which the order has gained is damaging to us. We will have to cut loose from the Knights of Labor before the employers will meet us or respect us in any way." Thus gradually year after year the unions of the skilled and semi-skilled trades which had their origin in the Knights of Labor went over to the Federation, "converting the latter from an organization primarily of skilled men into one more representative in the entire labor movement." Between 1899 and 1904, the membership of the American Federation of Labor increased from 350,000 to 1,676,000. During 1912 and 1913 much prominence was acquired by the Industrial Workers of the World, which had been originally organized by socialists in 1905 as a rival of the American Federation of Labor. It is pointed out by the author of this portion of the work that a great deal has been gained in our own time by the labor movement. "A clear gauge of the growth of popular education on the labor question is given by the McNamara dynamite case. What a difference between the attitude of the public toward this case of extreme and premeditated violence and its attitude towards the suspected Chicago anarchists! In 1886, bloody revenge and suppression were violently demanded. In 1912 nothing more drastic was heard than a demand for an impartial investigation of the causes of the labor unrest, with a view to the prevention of future conflicts, and scarcely any call for revenge or any disaster to the labor movement as a whole." And again: "The aroused sympathetic interest of the public in the labor question is beginning to produce results also in the field of labor legislation. During the last half dozen years, two-thirds of the states have adopted the principle of workmen's compensation for all industrial accidents, preparing in this manner a fertile ground for the important movement for industrial safety. Other protective regulations have been the prohibition by the federal taxing power of the use of an industrial poison, the provision in several states of one day's rest in seven, the beginning of effective prohibition of night work, of maximum limits upon the length of the working day, and of minimum wage laws for women. This legislation differs from the class legislation demanded by workingmen during preceding periods in that it bases itself entirely upon police power, a power which, as a result of the spreading understanding of the labor problem, and the persistent demand coming from the public as well as from organized labor, has become so broadened in scope that much which, a decade or two ago, would have been ruled out of court as class legislation, has recently been held to be warranted under the federal and state constitutions." But it is admitted that: "Since 1900 socialism has been making rapid progress in the labor ranks. In the last four years it has succeeded in gaining the support of the important unions of the miners and the machinists. It now commands about one-third of the votes at the annual conventions of the Federation, coming, to a large extent, from the 'industrial unions;' and it has reached a million votes at national elections. The old-time struggle between the rival ideas of political and economic socialism, which dates back to the time of the Lassallean movement and the International, in some measure finds a modern counterpart in the rivalry between the political socialists and the syndicalist movement. "Socialism has acquired a considerable following also among the native-born educated classes, and has gained some noted converts among the rising class of American 'publicists,' which, in certain respects, enables it to exercise an influence in the community, which is not to be measured only by its polling strength. The notable though brief socialist administrations in Milwaukee and Schenectady have demonstrated that, at last, after nearly sixty years of effort to become acclimatized, there is such a thing as an 'American' socialism." On the other hand, since America herself entered the great war, perhaps since this work was written, political socialism in this country has suffered a tremendous setback through the suspected and acknowledged hostility of a large part of the socialist element to the government and to the national cause in the struggle against autocratic Germany. It was only the other day that the newspapers chronicled the withdrawal from the socialist party of the man who had recently been its candidate for President of the United States. Mr. Benson, a native American and, therefore, conspicuous among the socialist leaders, declared that he could no longer maintain fellowship with elements that were so violently anti-American. PART VI Strikes. Report of the Investigation of the Board of Mediation God give us men! A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; -J. G. Holland. |