the impending war between England and the United States. The International advised the simultaneous agitation by the working people of both countries in the interests of peace. Sylvis replied by a forcible letter: "Our cause is a common one. It is war between poverty and wealth. . . . This monied power is fast eating up the substance of the people. We have made war upon it, and we mean to win it. If we can, we will win through the ballot box: if not, then we shall resort to sterner means. A little blood-letting is sometimes necessary in desper Sylvis died suddenly on July 27 following. Had it not been for this loss of its leader the alliance of the National Labor Union with the International, judging from Sylvis' correspondence, would have been speedily brought about. A letter from Eccarius was read at the convention of 1869, again extending an invitation to send a delegate and proposing the establishment of an international bureau of immigration. This time A. C. Cameron, editor of the Workingman's Advocate, and an ardent greenbacker, was sent as a delegate to the congress of the International at Basle, his expenses being paid by Horace H. Day. Cameron took small part in the work of the congress. 96 On his way home, he attended a meeting of the General Council of the International in London and discussed the establishment of an international bureau of immigration. Nothing practical, however, resulted from Cameron's mission, except that the National Labor Union at its next annual convention in Cincinnati, in 1870, adopted a resolution in favour of affiliating with the International. But this belated affiliation had no practical significance. 95 Both the call and Sylvis' letter, dated May 26, were printed in the Vorbote, organ of the I. W. A., published at Geneva, Switzerland, September, 1869. See also Doc. Hist., IX, 333-350. 96 However, some of the observations he made in his letters from Europe to the Workingman's Advocate on the nature of the European labour movement merit attention. In the issue of Nov. 6, 1869, he said: "One important fact, however, must not be overlooked that while the institutions and state of society prevailing in Europe are a legitimate offspring - the inevitable offshoot of despotism in the other it is a perversion - a maladministration of the spirit of our institutions which has created the evils of which the American workman complains. In the one case a thorough reconstruction is imperatively demanded; in the other a just administration of the fundamental principles upon which the government is founded alone is required." He went on to apologise for the extreme radicalism of the International. "Land monopoly in Europe," he said, is as money monopoly in the United States, the matrix of all evil; the demand, therefore, of the International to abolish private property in land is just as legitimate as the demand of the National Labor Union to abolish monopoly of money." Doc. Hist., IX, 341-350. LABOR CONGRESS OF 1869 Sylvis did not live to see the large representation at the convention of 1869 from the numerous labour organisations which his efforts had brought within the fold of the National Labor Union. This convention met in Philadelphia, August 16, 1869. The representation numbered 142 and included delegates from 3 international trade unions the moulders, printers, machinists and blacksmiths, and from the national carpenters' and joiners' union; from 2 state trade organisations — the Pennsylvania Grand Lodge of the Knights of St. Crispin and the United Hod Carriers' and Labourers' Association of Pennsylvania; from 3 state federations Pennsylvania, Kansas, and California; from 6 trades' assemblies - New York, Bridgeport, Camden, Springfield, Washington, D. C., Monroe County (Rochester), New York; from 53 local trade unions; from 10 labour unions (directly chartered by the National Labor Union); and from a few miscellaneous benefit and reform associations. Significant was the appearance for the first time of Negro delegates. All of the prominent leaders, Jessup, Troup, Trevellick, Cameron, and Campbell, were present. Objection was made by Walsh of the typographical union to the admission of Susan B. Anthony on the ground that the Workingwomen's Protective Association, of which she was president, was not a bona fide labour organisation; and that she had striven to procure situations for girls in printing offices at lower wages than those received by men who had been discharged. Trevellick, Cameron, and several others favoured her admission, but after a prolonged debate her credentials were rejected on a vote of 63 to 28.97 President Lucker of the tailors' national union, who had taken Sylvis' place, spoke in his report of the revival of the conspiracy laws; the imprisonment of two men in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, "simply because they were members of a workingmen's union"; the progress of eight-hour legisla 97 The convention was not opposed to the admission of women, as there was a woman delegate from a Crispin lodge. Even the typographical union had at this time opened its doors to women, reluc tantly to be sure, and had established a woman's local in New York City. See Andrews and Bliss, History of Women in Trade Unions, Sen. Doc., 61 Cong., 2 sess., No. 645, vol. X, 87, 103. tion; the revival of the coolie trade; the failure of co-operative enterprises to take that "hold among the producers that their importance entitles them to." He endorsed the formation of a national labour party " to capture Washington, not with bullets, but with ballots, in 1872"; recommended the appointment of a delegate to the international congress in Basle; and reported the formation of twenty-six labour unions located mostly in the western and southern States and "in the main composed of those who are not directly connected with any trade union." The nature of the work of the convention bears ample testimony to the loss that the labour movement had sustained through the death of Sylvis. No longer guided by his systematic constructive mind, the convention added practically nothing new to the work of the previous conventions. The platform was rewritten, but not with intention "to change or modify the existing declaration of principles, but to reaffirm the same, and for practical use enunciate the substance thereof in a more convenient and concise form, with some additional resolutions." THE NEGROES 98 The questions of co-operation, trade unionism, and politics received but scant attention. Some consideration was given to the eight-hour question. The president and the executive committee were instructed to draft a plan for state centralisation of trade unions for the purpose of enforcing by a general strike the eight-hour law in States where such a law had been passed. A committee on the constitution submitted a plan of organisation with the state labour union as the unit, but the whole matter was ignored by the convention. Only the problem of the Negro fared somewhat better; a permanent committee was appointed to organise the Negroes in Pennsylvania and coloured delegates from every State in the union were invited to come to the next convention. This was doubtless due to the presence of four Negro delegates, which indicated plainly that the Negro could no longer be ignored.99 98 In the preparation of this section the author has drawn largely from an unpub. lished monograph by H. G. Lee, Labor Organizations Among Negroes. 99 The other acts of the convention in the main consisted in the passage of a resolution condemning anti-conspiracy laws; urging affiliated labour organisations to report labour statistics to the executive committee, appointing a committee Notwithstanding the efforts of the National Labor Union, the Negroes chose to organise separately from the whites. The reasons for this discontent were several, but the chief one was the "exclusion of coloured men and apprentices from the right to labour in any department of industry or workshops by what is known as 'trade unions.""1 Clashes between black and white labourers were not infrequent during the period of the sixties. When, during the same decade, the Negro began to invade the trades and superior positions, the opposition to him was 3 no less strong. Numerous instances might be brought in illustration. The bricklayers' union in Washington, D. C., forbade their men to work alongside coloured men. Four white union men were found to be working with some Negroes on government work, and the union decided unanimously to expel them from the union. A Negro printer, Louis H. Douglass, in 1869 was refused admission to the local union in Washington, D. C., in spite of the fact that the constitution made no discrimination against coloured men. This case attracted great attention, since an appeal taken to the convention of the National Typographical Union had been unsuccessful and consequently offered the Negro workmen an unmistakable gauge of the sentiment of organised skilled mechanics in the country.5 Another cause of the separate organisation of the Negroes was their divergence in interests from the white wage-earners. Greenbackism and the taxation of government bonds presented very little interest to them. Instead, they laid emphasis upon to appeal for funds, one-half of which for the next year, H. J. Walls, secretary; and A. W. Phelps, treasurer. 1 Chicago Workingman's Advocate, Jan. 1, 1870; Doc. Hist., IX, 250. 2 Fincher's, for July 11, 1863, gives an account of a bloody fight between white and black stevedores in Buffalo. The employers attempted to supply the places of the whites by Negro workmen. The fight resulted in the drowning of two black men, the killing of another, and the serious beating of twelve more. 3 Fincher's for Nov. 6, 1865, tells of a strike of caulkers in Canton, Ohio, against a Negro foreman. 4 Washington Daily Chronicle, June 19, 1869. 5 Ibid., May 21, 1869. The coloured convention of the National Labor Union especially commented upon this case. education, and their chief legislative demand was for a liberal homestead policy in the South for freedmen. To cap it all, the platform of the National Labor Union was absolute in the condemnation of the Republican party and advocated independent political action. Such a policy not only ran counter to the sentiment of loyalty felt by the rank and file of the Negroes for the Republican party, but was extremely unsuited to the ambitious aspirations of the coloured leaders, who, like their ablest representative, J. M. Langston, a lawyer from Ohio, staked their future upon the destinies of that party. The first attempt of the Negroes to organise on a national scale was at the national coloured convention held in Washington in January, 1869. It had a large attendance of about 130 delegates, including a large number of politicians and preachers, nearly all from the northern and border States, and was purely political in its nature. Full confidence was declared in the Republican party, but provision was made for a national committee to be composed of one from each State and territory and for subordinate state committees to "take general charge of the interests of the coloured people." Equal political rights, education, and free land for freedmen were the only topics discussed. No mention was made of the relation to white labour." The first coloured state labour convention was held in Baltimore in July, 1869. It appointed a committee to report at another state convention to be held two weeks thereafter. The report set forth that in many instances white men refused to work with Negroes and recommended thorough organisation of Negro labour throughout the country. The convention appointed five delegates to the Philadelphia convention of the National Labor Union and issued a call for a national coloured labour convention to be held in Washington in December, 1869. The union of the employés of the Chesapeake Marine Railway Company in Baltimore, all coloured men, held a meeting in November, endorsed the call for the national convention, and appointed its secretary as delegate.7 The national convention met December 6, attended by 156 delegates from every section of the country. Richard Trevel 6 Ibid., Jan. 12-16, 1869. 7 Ibid., Nov. 9, 1869. |