ing of delegates from different countries at Geneva. In 1867 the American organisation met at Chicago, the European at Lausanne; in 1868 the one met at New York, the other, at Brussels. In 1869 the one that met at Philadelphia was represented by a delegate to the other at Basle. In 1870 the FrancoPrussian War interrupted the European congress, and the next two years witnessed the dissolution of both organisations through similar internal dissensions—the American organisation through the antagonism of "political actionists" and trade unionists, the European through the antagonism of socialists and anarchists.

The first great object of the International was the support of strikes and trade unions through the control of migration across the frontiers of European nations, and its later shift, in 1867, to socialism and anarchism coincides with the shift of the National Labor Union to greenbackism. It was the national and international competition of labour, the weakness of trade unionism and the depression of industry following a period of expansion, that furnished the economic conditions underlying both movements. That the one in America should have dissolved in greenbackism, the other in socialism and anarchism, was due to political and economic conditions peculiar to each. Modified in this way, the attempted nationalisation of American labour movements, regardless of State lines, was the reflection of conditions that in Europe led to the attempted internationalisation of movements regardless of national lines. The two lines of agitation that dominated the National Labor Union were eight hours for work, and greenbackism. The first prevailed in 1866, the second took possession in 1867. The first authentic instance of the actual adoption of the eight-hour day was that of the ship carpenters and caulkers in the Charlestown, Massachusetts, navyyard in 1842. The joiners, in the same navyyard, secured the adoption of the same system in 1853.1 But it was not until Ira Steward, the Boston machinist, brought forward his "philosophy" of the eight-hour day that the impulse toward a national movement was given. Steward converted it from the isolated efforts of local unions to a

1 Autobiography of Edward H. Rogers, MS. in possession of the American Bureau of Industrial Research, Madison, Wis.

general demand for State and national legislation. Steward was born in 1831, and at nineteen years of age, while learning his trade as a machinist's apprentice and working twelve hours a day, he began his agitation for shorter hours.2 From the begining of widespread agitation for the eight-hour day in the early sixties until his death in 1883, he was so much a part of that agitation that the man and the movement are inseparable. He was essentially a man of one idea, and, in fact, was sometimes called the "eight-hour monomaniac." 3 For this one idea he lived, worked, and fought with almost fanatical zeal. After 1863, Steward was a contributor to nearly every reform paper then published. Each article emphasised his one thought, and many were his public lectures on the subject. "Meet him any day, as he steams along the street (like most enthusiasts, he is always in a hurry)," said a writer in the American Workman,1 "and, although he will apologise and excuse himself if you talk to him of other affairs, and say that he is sorry, that he must rush back to his shop, if you only introduce the pet topic of hours of labor,' and show a little willingness to listen, he will stop and plead with you till night-fall."

5

Private letters tell us something of the discouraging struggles of that time. Like every other reform that is hampered by lack of funds, the eight-hour movement lacked workers. In a letter to F. A. Sorge, on March 1, 1877, Steward says: "Years ago Mr. McNeill and I used to pray for the third helper. Finally he came in Mr. George Gunton. Since then we have been dreaming and longing and praying for the fourth one. Perhaps you are the one."

Steward, although self-educated and influenced in his philosophy by what he saw among his fellow-workmen rather than by what he read, was familiar with the works of John Stuart Mill. He was successful in attracting to his educational campaign such men as Wendell Phillips.

2 Chicago Tribune, July 5, 1879.

3 Chicago Workingman's Advocate, Mar. 30, 1872.

4 June 19, 1869.

5 Letter in Sorge Collection, University of Wisconsin Library.

6 See below, II, 92.

7 Wendell Phillips, prominent abolitionist, orator, and champion of labour re

In 1876 he joined the Work

form, was born in Boston of wealthy par ents in 1811. He was educated at Har vard, and admitted to the bar in 1834.⋅ Three years later he joined the abolitionists and devoted much of his time during the next twenty-five years to the antislavery propaganda. With the emancipation of the Negroes he turned his attention to the relations of capital and labour, and

ingmen's party in Massachusetts and the following year helped to form the International Labor Union.

It was at the first convention of Steward's union, the machinists' and blacksmiths', in 1859, that a resolution had been adopted recommending the discussion and agitation of a change of hours of labour. This was reaffirmed by the succeeding convention. The argument at that time had been the wage-fund doctrine of “making work" by reducing the supply of labour. But in 1863 Steward's ideas were enthusiastically adopted. A committee was elected with him as chairman to confer with a similar committee appointed by the Boston Trades' Assembly and to arrange jointly for an agitational campaign for the eight-hour law. Each of the two organisations appropriated $400 to cover expenses. The resolution, evidently drafted by Steward, read as follows:

"Resolved, That from East to West, from North to South, the most important change to us as workingmen, to which all else is subordinate, is a permanent reduction to Eight of the hours exacted for each day's work.

"Resolved, That since this cannot be accomplished until a public sentiment has been educated, both among the employers and the employés, we will use the machinery of agitation, whether it be among those of the religious, political, reformatory or moneyed enterprises of the day, and to secure such reduction we pledge our money and our courage.

"Resolved, That such reduction will never be made until overwork, as a system, is prohibited, nor until it is universally recognised that an increase of hours is a reduction of wages. . . .

"Resolved, That a Reduction of Hours is an increase of Wages.

8

The essence of Steward's theory was the principle that wages do not depend upon the amount of capital or the supply of labour, but upon the habits, customs, and wants of the working classes. The productiveness of capital, he held, was increasing at an enormous rate through invention. By encourag

as early as 1863 advised the formation of a separate labour party. In 1869 he encouraged both the establishment of the Boston Eight Hour League and the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics. Lib. eral financial contributions were made by him to funds for the publication of eighthour literature and frequently he ad

dressed legislative committees in support of labour legislation when no other man of note could be found to do so. In 1870 he was the candidate of the Labor Reform

party for governor of Massachusetts. Later he worked for the Greenback party. He died in 1884.

8 Doc. Hist., IX, 24-33, 284-329.

ing machinery, the labourer could increase this surplus, and then could get such share of it as was required to support his standard of living. The standard of living could be raised by increasing his wants and necessities, and these have an expansive and indefinite limit, provided the labourer has the leisure that awakens desires, broadens opinions, improves habits, and multiplies wants. But such an increase of wants would not be possible if the competition of low-standard labour was permitted to drive out the labour of higher standards. It was not necessary to prohibit immigration, and it was inadequate to depend on trade unions. It was necessary only to adopt a universal eight-hour law which would compel the low-standard labourer, who already could barely live on his ten- and twelvehour wages, to demand the same daily pay for eight hours. Soon this compulsory reduction of his hours would increase his wants and compel him to demand still higher pay, which, again, the growing surplus of machine production would permit the employer to pay. As a concession to the prevailing labour theories of the injustice and needlessness of interest and profits, he predicted that ultimately the labourer's rising standards of living would take both interest and profit away from the capitalists and thus gradually introduce the co-operative commonwealth.9

Such a philosophy was somewhat less revolutionary and utopian than the theories of socialism, but, like socialism, it was a clear-cut and unmixed doctrine of wage-consciousness and wage-solidarity. As such it is distinctly the American counterpart of Lassalle's "iron law of wages," differing radically from the latter in its emphasis on the psychological wants that elevate labour above the animal, instead of the merely physiological wants that maintain only life and the species not an iron law, but a golden law of wages. It was this very optimism of the doctrine that gave it enthusiastic acceptance and made it henceforth a true watchword and rallying cry for labor.10 Its revolutionary character consisted in its disregard

9 Steward's philosophy was afterwards taken up by George Gunton and made the basis of his book, Wealth and Progress the Economic Philosophy of the Eight Hour Movement.

...

10 It was Steward's wife who framed up the jingle:

"Whether you work by the piece or work
by the day,

Decreasing the hours increases the pay."
Spencer, Address Before Prospect Union.

of trade union action and its reliance on universal state and Federal eight-hour laws enacted and enforced by the labour vote. When later its impracticability became evident, and labour began to fall back on the strike and trade unions for securing the eight-hour day, the less ambitious and more spurious argument of "making work" for the unemployed was found to be more in harmony with the other restrictive arguments of trade unionism.

Since Steward's scheme was legislative, it required a plan to secure legislative influence. As outlined by him, it was similar to the one adopted by George Henry Evans in promoting his land reform schemes:

"The basis of operation for the reformer," said Steward, "is a certain amount of PUBLIC OPINION. With this he bids for the aid and power of those who will do nothing without it. The Labor Reform enterprise makes this bid. It expects to be served by men who at heart want nothing but position, power, pay and honour; for it cannot succeed without them. . . . The men to take council together, are those who have created a public opinion powerful enough to attract politicians. Politicians are wanted, not in council but in action! In council a 'yes' or 'no' programme should be written, adopted, and submitted to them in the briefest possible terms. . . . Present this to all candidates for official position, from Governor down to city and town officials. .. 'Will you, if elected to the office for which you have been nominated, vote for this bill?" " 11

In 1864 the first independent eight-hour organisation had been created by Steward and his associates in Boston. Its first name was the Workingmen's Convention, which was soon changed to Labor Reform Association. It was composed of members of trade unions in the city, and a writer in Fincher's openly accused it of being "the result of a clique, who, finding that in the Workingmen's Assembly they could not rule that body to their thoughts, nor had patience enough to 'work and wait' for fair results, resolved they would' withdraw,' in other words' secede ' ... and endeavour to carry out their view of the idea." 12 The association was composed largely of machinists and blacksmiths who had always been the most ardent advocates of the eight-hour system. In its general policy, the

11 Fincher's, May 13, 1865.

12 Ibid., July 16, 1864.