of the General Executive Board to decide how much, and to whom, aid should be granted. Naturally, with co-operative projects planned throughout the country in time of depression, the appeals for help were overwhelmingly heavy. Although the requests were numerous, the Order granted aid in but a few instances, and only in cases where locked-out and victimised members were involved. How insistent these demands became is clearly seen from the following characteristic notice issued by the secretary of the General Co-operative Board: "The Co-operative Board would require the resources of some of our millionaires to be sufficient for the demands upon them; and the calls for a visit to see and examine this and that, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would take the time of several Secretaries. Kind friends and dear brethren, this thing of expecting help in starting a carp pond, a dairy, or a machine shop, is a great mistake. The Cooperative Fund would soon become a nuisance as well as a nonentity. Halt! Give us a rest, in the name of Brotherhood and humane charity. If you have printed plans of co-operative stores or shops, or other enterprises, send me a copy; if you have ideas of value, please forward them; or if you think the present co-operative law, as found in the Constitution, can be amended, send us your propositions. But do not look for aid such long way from home. If your plans are feasible, the best place to look for help must be near home. Selfhelp is the surest as well as the best help. . . . I must respectfully give notice that I am utterly unable to grant help in any way to parties wishing loans from the Co-operative Fund." 17 The co-operative movement reached such large proportions in 1886 and the demand for aid was so insistent that, in the session of 1886, $10,000 quarterly was set aside for the use of the General Co-operative Board.18 This fund was never actually created or used, as the demands upon the Order for other purposes were too large. Another attempt to establish a fund was made in 1887, but by this time the general funds of the Order were so depleted that the proposition was rejected. 19 The Order also provided rules for the governing of co-operative enterprises, such as the safekeeping of funds, giving preference to members for employment, and division of profits.20 17 Philadelphia Journal of United Labor, Apr. 25, 1886. 18 General Assembly, Proceedings, 1886, p. 292. 19 Ibid., 1887, pp. 1750, 1758. 20 Constitution of the General Assembly, 1886, Art. VIII, p. 16. As a scheme of industrial regeneration, co-operation, as we know, never materialised. As a means of enabling some enterprising and ambitious wage-earners to become independent or self-employed, co-operation proved fairly successful. The form which the success took, however, proved detrimental to the very purpose for which co-operation was intended. It seems that the successful co-operative establishments sooner or later became joint stock companies.21 The causes which brought on the failure of most of the cooperative enterprises were many. Hasty action, the selection of inefficient managers, internal dissensions, lack of capital, injudicious borrowing of money at high rates of interest upon the mortgage of the plant, and finally discriminations instigated by competitors. Railroads were heavy offenders, by delaying side tracks, on some pretence or other, refusing to furnish cars, or refusing to haul them.22 The Union Mining Company of Cannelburg, Indiana, owned and operated by the Order, as its sole experiment of the centralised kind, met this fate. After expending $20,000 in equipping the mines, purchasing land, laying tracks, cutting and sawing timber on the land, and mining $1,000 worth of coal, they were compelled to lie idle for nine months before the railroad company saw fit to connect their switch with the main track. When they were ready to ship their product, it was learned that their coal could be util-. ised for the manufacture of gas only, and that contracts for supply of such coal were let in July, nine months from the time of connecting the switch with the main track. In addition, the company was informed that it must supply itself with a switchengine to do the switching of the cars from its mine to the main track, at an additional cost of $4,000. When this was accomplished they had to enter "the market in competition with a bitter opponent who has been fighting [them] since the opening of the mine." Having exhausted their funds and not seeing their way clear to secure additional funds for the purchase of a locomotive and to tide over the nine months before any contracts for coal could be entered into, they sold out.23 21 The famous co-operative coopers' shops in Minneapolis finally ended in this manner. 22 Journal of United Labor, Nov. 12. 1887. 23 General Assembly, Proceedings, 1885, Another form of opposition to which manufacturers resorted was that of pressure upon machinery manufacturers and wholesalers of raw material to prevent sales to the co-operators.24 Thus three or four years after it had first begun, the cooperative movement had passed the full cycle of life, and both the centralised and decentralised forms had succumbed. The fact that it was the Knights of Labor that fathered the movement, while the trade unions practically kept aloof from it, shows both the weaker bargaining power of their membership and the middle-class psychology of their leaders. The failure was definite and final. Not since this time has the American labour 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 failure was not due to external causes only. Indeed, it was foredoomed, thanks to the form which it assumed. In England, where the great co-operative movement, started by the Rochdale pioneers, was of the distributive kind, it remained independent of the wage question or trade unionism. There the co-operative and the trade union organisations grew side by side and, although they drew recruits from the same constituency, never came seriously into collision. In the United States, however, the co-operative attempts were not distributive but, for the most part, productive. When the cooperators lowered the price of their product in order to build up a market, the wages of the workers who continued to work for private employers were immediately affected for the worse. Hence the Order, when it endeavoured to practise both co-operation and trade unionism, was driving its teams in opposite directions. The difficulties were further enhanced by the fact that its financial means were limited so that any diversion of funds for co-operative ends weakened its trade union action, and vice versa. After 1888 the Order never obtained another opportunity to choose between the two, but the trade unions were in a position to benefit by the lesson and, as a result, eschewed co-operation. 24 Such was the case of the Co-operative Furniture Company of Baltimore. Ran dall, Co-operation in Maryland and the South," in Johns Hopkins University CHAPTER XII THE POLITICAL UPHEAVAL, 1886-1887 The Greenback Labor party, 440. The Butler campaign, 440. New political outlook, 441. New York Central Labor Union, 441. Its radical declaration of principles, 442. Early activities, 442. The conspiracy law, 443 Campaign of 1882, 444. The Theiss boycott case, 444. Decision to go into politics, 445. Henry George's life and philosophy, 446. Comparison with John Swinton, 447. California experiences, 447. The " new agrarianism,” 448. Availability as a candidate, 448. The platform, 449. Attitude of the socialists, 449. Democratic nomination, 450. The GeorgeHewitt campaign, 450. The Leader, 451. The general press, 451. Hewitt's view of the struggle, 452. George's view of the struggle, 452. Reverend Dr. McGlynn, 453. Attitude of the Catholic Church, 453. Powderly's attitude, 453 The vote, 453. Effect on the old parties, 454. Beginning of friction with the socialists, 454. The choice of a name for the party, 455. "Land and labor" clubs, 455. The county convention and the party constitution, 455. Call for a state convention, 456. Opposition of the socialists, 456. Their capture of the Leader, 456. The Standard and the attack upon the Catholic hierarchy, 456. The Anti-poverty Society, 456. George's attitude towards the purely labour demands, 457. McMackin's ruling on the eligibility of socialists to membership, 457. Struggle in the assembly districts, 458. Attitude of the trade unions, 458. Gompers' attitude, 458. Unseating of the socialist delegates at the state convention, 459. The new platform, 460. Revolt of the socialists, 460. Progressive Labor party, 460. Swinton's nomination, 461. The vote, 461. Causes of the failure of the movement, 461. Political movement outside of New York, 461. Labour tickets, 462. Labour platforms, 462. Success in the elections, 462. Attitude of the Federation, 463. Powderly's attitude, 464. Efforts for national organisations, 464. The national convention in Cincinnati, 465. National Union Labor party, 465. Labour's attitude towards the new party, 465. Spring elections of 1887, 466. Autumn election of 1887, 466. Spring elections of 1888, 467. The Chicago Socialists, 467. The Union Labor party presidential nomination, 468. The United Labor party, 468. Predominance of the farmers in the Union Labor party, 468. Apostasy of many labour leaders, 468. Powderly's secret circular, 469. The vote, 469. The order of the Videttes, 469. THE indifference of the wage-earners to independent politics, displayed by the greenback vote of 1880,1 continued until 1886. In 1882 an attempt was made in Pennsylvania, where labour was still taking a part in the management of the Greenback 1 See above, II, 251. Labour party, to resuscitate the movement by nominating Thomas J. Armstrong, the editor of the National Labour Tribune, for governor on the greenback ticket. But the result was most disappointing. In so far as the greenback movement was still in existence, it was a movement of farmers, not of wage-earners. Gradually the greenback issues were losing their last grip and were being supplanted by the issue of anti-monopoly. By the middle of 1883 the anti-monopoly movement had become general enough to warrant the calling of a national conference. Joseph R. Buchanan enthusiastically supported the idea, although the greenbackers were generally opposed. He attended such a conference on July 4, 1883, as a representative of the Anti-Monopoly or People's party of Colorado and found that the delegates "were nearly all farmers." 2 As a result of the conference, a nominating convention met at Chicago on May 19, 1884, and nominated Benjamin F. Butler for president. The remnants of the Greenback party met a fortnight later and, after much discussion, indorsed him. The campaign was conducted with still less energy than that of 1880. Butler, who was then governor of Massachusetts, having been elected in 1882 by a combination of Democrats and greenbackers, was looking for the Democratic nomination. He remained undecided for a time as to whether he should openly accept the nomination of the greenbackers, and did so only after the Democrats had nominated Cleveland. Moreover, his choice of campaign managers was displeasing to the rank and file of the party, and it served to enhance the doubt which had been excited by his conduct in accepting the nomination, of the genuineness of his canvass. The vote polled was almost negligible 135,000, or about 1.33 per cent of the total, as against 350,000 polled in 1880, and some 15,000 less than that polled by the prohibition candidate. A very large percentage of the Butler vote was drawn from the wage-workers, owing to his popularity among the labouring people, and as a result of the distinct bid for the labour vote made in the platform. Obviously, however, only a por 2 Chicago Labor Enquirer, July 11, 1883. 3 Not including the 42,000 polled by the Butler electors at large in Michigan, where the rest of the electoral ticket was 1 |