internal fights of the labour movement, he summarised the outcome of this strike as follows: 75 "We do most sincerely regret the unfortunate collapse of the great strikes along shore. . . . We are not surprised to hear of the deep and wide dissatisfaction with those braggarts and bunglers who so often forced themselves to the front as strike managers' for District Assembly 49, and whose final subterfuges were the laughing stock of the satanic press; but it is to be regretted that the powerful District must be made to suffer through such obtrusive incompetency as we have seen. We trust that the organised labor of New York will never again be damaged as it has been by such displays. Tens of thousands of poor men made sacrifices during the strike, without either whining or boasting."

The determined attack and stubborn resistance of the employers' associations after the strikes of May, 1886, coupled with the incompetence displayed by the leaders, caused the turn of the tide in the labour movement in the first half of 1887. This, however, manifested itself during 1887 exclusively in the large cities, where the movement had borne in the purest form the character of an uprising of the class of the unskilled and where the hardest battles were fought with the employers. District Assembly 49, New York, fell from its membership of 60,809, in June, 1886, to 32,826 in July, 1887. During the same interval, District Assembly 1, Philadelphia, decreased from 51,557 to 11,294 and District Assembly 30 Boston, from 81,197 to 31,644. In Chicago there were about 40,000 Knights immediately before the packers' strike in October, 1886, and only about 17,000 on July 1, 1887. The falling off of the largest district assemblies in 10 large cities practically equalled the total loss of the Order, which amounted approximately to 191,000, of whom not more than 20,000 76 can be accounted for as having withdrawn to trade assemblies, national or district. At the same time the membership of the smallest district assemblies, which were for the most part located in small cities, remained stationary and, outside of the national and district trade assemblies which were formed by separation from mixed district assemblies, thirty-seven new district assemblies were formed,

75 John Swinton's Paper, Feb. 20, 1887. 76 The total membership of the national

and the district trade assemblies in July, 1887, reached over 50,000.

also mostly in small localities. In addition, state assemblies were added in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, with an average membership of about 2,000 each. Balancing these new extensions, however, was a decrease from 122,027 to 61,936 in the total membership of the local assemblies directly affiliated with the General Assembly."

It thus becomes clear that, by the middle of 1887, the Great Upheaval of the unskilled and semi-skilled portions of the working class had already subsided beneath the strength of the combined employers and the centralisation and unwieldiness of their own organisation. After 1887 the Knights of Labor lost their hold upon the large cities with their wage-conscious and largely foreign population, and became an organisation 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.

In contrast to the Knights of Labor, the trade unions met with some success in strikes and lockouts. The great lockout of the building trades in Chicago, May, 1887, although it ended in defeat, nevertheless showed the superiority of the trade union form of organisation. It came about when the bricklayers' union, without consulting the employers, adopted a resolution providing for the payment of wages at the end of each week and

77 The following shows the decrease in membership in good standing of ten district assemblies from July, 1886, to July, 1887:

Proceedings, 1886, pp. 326-328, and Proceedings, 1887, pp. 1847-1850.

on Saturday. This trivial demand, coming as one among many manifestations of the tyrannical policy pursued by the union, served to unite all associations of employers in the city and they ordered a general lockout of all the building trades, affecting 30,000 men.78 The bricklayers' union had considered itself so strongly entrenched that it not only had refused to affiliate with the building trades' council of the city, but also had regarded its affiliation with the Bricklayers' International Union as an "entangling alliance." It was obliged to go into the struggle practically single-handed. On the other hand there was perfect unanimity among the employers. The Illinois Association of Architects and the material-men's association acted together with the other masters' associations in support of the master masons' association. The lockout lasted from May 10 to June 11, and ended in the defeat of the union, which was obliged to give up the closed shop. But the most important outcome was a written trade agreement providing for the regular annual election of a standing committee of arbitration with full power to "hear all evidence in complaint and grievand which shall finally decide all questions submitted, and shall certify by the umpire such decisions to the respective organisations "; and, further, "work shall go on continuously, and all parties interested shall be governed by the award made or decisions rendered." 79 This system remained in vogue until 1897.

ances

The Chicago lockout was materially helped by the national association of builders, a federation of builders' exchanges embracing general contractors, sub-contractors, and material-men, which had been established through the efforts of William H. Sayward of Boston, in January, 1887, avowedly as a result of the aggressive movement of the unions in the building trades during 1886. The strongest evidence of the progress made by these unions may be found in the attitude of the National Association of Builders. While it expressly declared in the preamble against the closed shop, it urged at the same time the policy of recognising the unions.80

78 The carpenters had shortly before gained the eight-hour day with reduced wages and 3,000 hod-carriers were still on strike for higher wages.

Contrast with this the ir

79 Second Annual Convention of National Association of Builders of America, Proceedings, 1888, p. 21.

80 Ibid., 1887, p. 110.

reconcilable attitude of the employers who formed associations in the industries organised by the Knights of Labor. While the superiority of the position of the building trades' union was largely due to the intrinsic advantages of the industry, such as the absence of national competition between employers and the high skill demanded from the employés, still the trade union form of organisation could but gain in the esteem of the labouring masses.

Another instance of the rather tentative success of trade unionism in achieving a trade agreement system occurred in the bituminous mining industry.81 During the early eighties the miners in what is known as the central competitive field 82 were organised either as assemblies of the Knights of Labor or as state unions, but all of these were of short duration and succumbed after strikes. The miners in this region were still in the main English-speaking or had come from North European countries. The leaders of the miners' unions thoroughly understood the necessity for organisation upon a national scale. In the general assemblies of the Knights of Labor in 1880 and 1881 an unsuccessful effort was made to secure the appointment of a special salaried organiser for the coal miners of the country. In 1883 the General Assembly made provision for such an organiser. Finally, in 1885, the National Federation of Miners and Mine Laborers of the United States was formed at a convention attended by delegates from local unions in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas. It was an organisation independent of the Knights of Labor and was brought into existence through the refusal by the General Executive Board to allow the coal miners to form a national trade assembly.83 Within a year after the organisation of this federation, the Knights of Labor chartered a national trade assembly of the coal miners, known as National Trade Assembly 135.84 The miners had desired the establish

81 In the following account of the early trade agreement system in the bituminous mining industry the author drew largely from an unpublished monograph by E. E. Witte, Unionism Among Coal Miners in the United States, 1880-1910.

82 Includes western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and, in a less recognised degree, also Michigan, southeast Kentucky, and Iowa. During

the eighties, Pennsylvania produced onehalf of the total bituminous coal mined in the country, Ohio was second, and Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia, Iowa, Indiana, and Kentucky followed in the order named.

83 United Mine Workers, Proceedings, 1911, I, 581.

84 Roy, History of the Coal Miners, 263.

ment of a national union, because, as stated in the preamble to the constitution of the national federation, "neither district nor State unions can regulate the markets to which their coal is shipped." 85 In 1886, however, they had not one but two unions claiming national jurisdiction. In most mining districts both organisations were represented, yet, in spite of their intense rivalry, the two co-operated in a sufficient measure to become joint parties to an interstate trade agreement with the mine operators in a conference at Columbus, Ohio, January, 1886. This conference was attended by operators from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and perhaps, also from West Virginia.86 Representatives of the miners were present from all these States, and also from Maryland.

As a result of the deliberations of this conference an interstate agreement was drawn up between the miners and the operators, covering the wages which were to prevail throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30, 1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish to give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohio operators.87 That Ohio was favoured in the scale established by this first interstate conference can be explained by the fact that more than half of the operators present came from Ohio, and that the chief strength of the miners' union, also, lay in that State. To prevent friction over the interpretation of the interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and conciliation was established.88 This board consisted of 5 miners and 5 operators chosen at large, and 1 miner and 1 operator from each of the States of this field. Such a board of arbitration and conciliation was provided for in all of the interstate agreements of the period of the eighties. During the entire period of the existence of this board, its secretary was Chris Evans, who served, also, in the same capacity for the miners' union. This system of interstate trade agreement, in spite of the cutthroat competition raging between operators, was maintained for Pennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lost in 1887, and Indiana, in 1888. It formed