CHAPTER XIII REORGANISATION, 1888-1896 The Perfection of the Class Alignment. Decreased influence of industrial fluctuations, 472. The trade agreement idea, 472. The huge corporation, 473. The courts, 473. The Progress of the Trade Unions. New unions, 473. Increase in membership, 474. Strikes during 1888, 474. The Burlington strike, 474. Resumption of the eight-hour struggle, 475. Action of the convention of the Federation in 1888, 475. The agitational campaign, 475. Selection of the carpenters as the entering wedge, 476. Their success, 477. Unwise selection of the miners to follow the carpenters, 477. End of the eighthour movement, 478. General appraisal of the movement, 478. Backwardness of the bricklayers on the shorter hours question, 478. The tradeagreement idea in the building trades, 479. The closed shop, 479. The stove moulders' agreement, 480. Peculiarity of the industry from the marketing standpoint, 480. The Stove Founders' National Defense Association, 480. The St. Louis strike, 481. Further strikes, 481. The national trade agreement of 1890, 481. The Liquidation of the Knights of Labor. Decrease in membership, 18861890, 482. Relative increase in importance of the rural membership, 482. Increasing aversion to strikes, 483. Relations to the Federation, 483. Grievances of the trade unions, 483. Rival local trade organisations, 483. Mutual "scabbing," 484. Refusal of the Order to participate in the eighthour movement of 1890, 484. Final efforts for a reconciliation, 485. Their failure, 485. Withdrawal from the Order of the national trade asemblies, 486. Shoemakers, 486. Machinists, 486. Spinners, 486. Situation in the coal mining industry, 487. The United Mine Workers of America, 487. Situation in the beer-brewing industry, 488. Increasing predominance of politics and of the farmer element in the Order, 488. The Southern Farmers' Alliance, 488. Pivotal role of the merchant in the Southern economy, 488. Northern Farmers' Alliance, 489. The Shreveport session of the Southern Alliance, 1887, 490. The Agricultural Wheel, 490. Session of the Southern Alliance in 1889, and the abandonment of co-operation for legislative reform, 490. Alliance with the Knights of Labor, 491. The common programme, 491. Middle-class character of the Knights, 492. Political successes in 1890, 492. The Knights and an independent reform party, 493. Cincinnati convention in 1891 and the People's party, 493. Omaha convention in 1892, 494. Election of J. R. Sovereign as Grand Master Workman of the Knights, 494. His farmer philosophy, 494. The Reverses of the Trade Unions. Neglect of legislation by the Federation, 495. The Homestead strike, 495. Negotiations for a new scale of wages, 496. Battle with the Pinkertons, 497. Defeat of the union and the elimination of unionism, 497. The miners' strike at Cœur d'Alène, 497. Quelling the strike, 498. The switchmen's strike in Buffalo, 498. Its fail ure, 498. Coal miners' strike in Tennessee, 498. Its failure, 499. The lesson, 499. Gompers' view, 499. The stimulus to industrial unionism, 500. Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union, 500. The panic of 1893, 501. Gompers' hopeful view, 501. Trade Unions and the Courts. The miners' strike, 501. The Pullman strike, 502. Court injunctions, 502. Violence, 502. Arrests for contempt of court, 502. The Pullman boycott, 503. The general managers' association, 503. Attitude of the Federation, 503. End of the strike, 503. The court record of the labour unions during the eighties, 504. The evolution of the doctrines of conspiracy as applied to labour disputes, 504. Real significance of Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), 504. The first injunctions, 505. Legal justifications, 505. The Sherman law and the Interstate Commerce Act, 505. Stages in the evolution of the doctrine that the right to do business is property, 505. The part of the doctrine of conspiracy in the theory of the injunction, 507. Injunctions during the eighties, 507. The "blanket injunction," 507. The Ann Arbor injunction, 507. The Debs case, 508. Statutes against "labour conspiracies," 508. The Latest Attempt towards a Labour Party. The causes of the change on the question of politics, 509. Convention of the Federation in 1892, 509. "Political programme," 509. Gompers' attitude in 1893, 511. The disputed plank 10, 511. Referendum vote, 511. Sporadic political efforts in 1894, 511. Their failure, 512. Gompers' attack on the "political programme," 512. The "legislative programme at the convention in 1894, 512. Attitude of the convention in 1895, 513. The Federation and the campaign of 1896, 514. The Socialists and Labour Organisations. The factional struggle, 18871889, 514. Final victory of the trade union faction, 515. Its hope of winning the Federation over to socialism, 516. Relation to the New York Central labour bodies, 516. Central Labor Federation, 518 The socialist question at the convention of the Federation in 1890, 517 Daniel De Leon and the new tactics, 517 The United Hebrew Trades, 518. Socialists and the Knights of Labor, 518. Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, 519. Concluding summary, 519. By the end of the eighties the labour movement had attained such a degree of class organisation that, compared with former years, a transition from prosperity to depression no longer led to appreciable change in its character. Formerly it had centred on economic or trade union action during prosperity and then abruptly changed to panaceas and politics with the descent of depression. Now the movement, notwithstanding changes in membership, became stable in the alignment of classes. Industrial development ceased to be completely overshadowed by periodic fluctuations of markets. The new factors of a more permanent nature, which revealed themselves after the year 1888, were the national trade agreement, beginning with the stove-moulding industry; the large manufacturing corporation with its enormous fighting capacity, which came to light in the Homestead strike against the Carnegie Steel Company; the restraining power of the courts against labour, which found expression in injunctions; and the application of the Federal commerce and anti-trust laws to labour organisations. The moulders' trade agreement, after 1891, furnished the labour movement with a concrete ideal and showed what a well organised national union is capable of attaining in a standardised competitive industry. The Homestead strike of 1892 gave a glimpse of the crushing power of the coming trust. The railway strikes of 1893-1894 demonstrated that the employers had obtained a powerful ally in the courts. Each of these new factors, both favourable and unfavourable, served to draw more clearly and more permanently the line of class division. THE PROGRESS OF TRADE UNIONS The Great Upheaval of 1886 had suddenly swelled the membership of trade unions, and consequently, during several years following, notwithstanding the prosperity in industry, further growth was bound to proceed at a slower rate.1 In his presidential address at the convention of the American Federation of Labor held in December, 1888, at St. Louis, Gompers said: 2 In the past year, when the tendency in all other directions of the labour movement to disintegration of membership has been going on and interest in their organisation laxing, we may justly pride ourselves when we know that the trade union movement has not only maintained but actually increased its numerical strength." 3 However, this increase had not been large and, in some instances, there had been an actual loss. The Cigar Makers' 1 The following new unions were organised: in 1888 the Machinists' International Association, the United Brotherhood of Paper Makers of America, the International Association of Sheet Metal Workers, the Steam and Hot Water Fitters' and Helpers' National Association; and in 1889 the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, the Atlantic Coast Seamen's Union, the National Letter Carriers' Association, the International Printing Pressmen's and Assistants' Union, the Wire Weavers' Protective Association of America, the Varnishers' Hard Wood and Piano Makers' International Union, the United Association of Plumbers, Gas Fitters, Steam Fitters and Steam Fitters' Helpers of the United States and Canada, the Coal Miners' and Coal Laborers' National Progressive Union, the Boot and Shoe Workers' International Union. the Tin and Sheet Iron Workers' International Association, and the Sailors' and Firemen's International Amalgamated Society. 2 American Federation of Labor, Proceedings, 1888, p. 10. 3 Referring to the Knights of Labor. International Union had 20,566 members in 1887, 17,199 in 1888, 17,555 in 1889, but increased in 1890 to 24,624. The typographical union had 19,190 members in 1887, 17,491 in 1888, and regained its former strength in 1889, when the figure reached 21,120. The bricklayers' union (unaffiliated with the Federation) had a more regular growth; 16,489 members in 1887, 20,110 in 1888, 21,348 in 1889, and 24,022 in 1890. But the most rapidly growing union was the Brotherhood of Carpenters' and Joiners'; its membership was 5,789 in 1885, 21,423 in 1886, and 53,769 in 1890.7 The statistics of strikes during the latter eighties, like the figures of membership, show that after the strenuous years from 1885 to 1887 the labour movement had entered a more or less quiet stage in its history. Bradstreet's places the number of strikers during 1888 at 211,016, as against 345,073 in 1887, but while only 37.9 per cent of all strikers succeeded in 1887, 50.2 per cent succeeded in 1888.8 Most prominent among the strikes was the one of 60,000 iron and steel workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the West, which was carried to a successful conclusion against a strong combination of employers. The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers stood at the zenith of its power about this time, and was able, in 1889, with the mere threat of a strike, to dictate terms to the Carnegie Steel companies. The most noted and the last great strike of a railway brotherhood was the one of the locomotive engineers on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. The strike was begun jointly on February 27, 1888, by the brotherhoods of locomotive engineers and locomotive firemen. The main demands were made by the engineers, who asked for the abandonment of the system of classification and for a new wage scale. Two months previously, the Knights of Labor had declared a miners' strike against the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, employing 80,000 anthracite miners, and the strike had been accompanied by a sympathetic strike of engineers and firemen 4 Industrial Commission, Report, 1901, XVII, 280. 5 Barnett, The Printers, 876. 6 These figures are taken from an unpublished history of the union. 7 Industrial Commission, Report, 1901, XVII, 128. 8 Bradstreet's, Jan. 26, 1889. The fig. ures given by the United States Bureau of Labor, Report, are 379,676 for 1887, and 147,704 for 1888. belonging to the Order. The members of the brotherhoods had filled their places and in retaliation the former Reading engineers and firemen now came and took the places of the Burlington strikers, so that on March 15 the company claimed to have a full contingent of employés. The brotherhoods ordered a boycott upon the Burlington cars, which was partly enforced, but they were finally compelled to submit. The strike was not officially called off until January 3, 1889. Notwithstanding the defeat of the strike, the damage to the railway was enormous, and neither the railways of the country nor the brotherhoods since that date have permitted a serious strike of their members to occur. The lull in the trade union movement was broken at the convention of the Federation in December, 1888, which de clared that a general demand should be made for the eighthour day on May 1, 1890.9 The vote upon this resolution stood 38 to 8. The chief advocates of the resolution were the delegates of the carpenters, who announced that they were instructed to work for a general adoption of the eight-hour day in 1890.10 The boiler makers, the typographical union, the furniture workers, and the granite cutters cast their votes against the resolution. To carry through the programme, the convention once more referred to the affiliated unions the question of making the American Federation of Labor a strike benefit organisation. The co-operation of all labour organisations in the eight-hour movement was also requested. The executive council was instructed to issue pamphlets giving arguments for the establishment of the eight-hour day and to arrange for mass meetings throughout the country in the interest of the movement. 11 Another resolution declared in favour of establishing eight-hour leagues composed of non-wage-earners in all localities.12 In pursuance of these instructions the Executive Council of the Federation at once inaugurated an aggressive campaign. For the first time in its history it employed special salaried or 9 American Federation of Labor, Proceedings, 1888, p. 28. In the following account of the eight-hour movement in 1890 the author drew largely from an un published monograph by E. E. Witte, The American Federation of Labor and the 10 Ibid., 22. |