the South. He took advantage of every opportunity to bring the principles of the National Labor Union before the people. He addressed meetings, wrote letters to and obtained numerous interviews with public men, and printed articles in the Workingman's Advocate, of which he had several years previously become joint proprietor. THE INTERNATIONAL Sylvis was the first American labour leader to endeavour actively to establish relations with the European labour movement; namely, with the International Workingmen's Association, the European contemporary of the National Labor Union. During the first three or four years of its existence, from the date of its establishment by Marx and the British trade unionists in 1864, the International had been primarily an economic organisation. Its main function was to assist trade unions in the various countries during strikes, either by preventing the importation of strike-breakers from abroad, or by collecting strike funds. This suggested the value of this organisation as a regulator of European migration to the United States and led to a series of attempts on the part of each, the National Labor Union and the International, to establish a permanent mutual relationship. However, little was accomplished prior to Sylvis' election to the presidency. The Baltimore convention had adopted a resolution inviting the International to send a delegate to the next convention in Chicago, since it was too late to send a delegate to the congress of the International at Geneva. At the Chicago convention, the question of immigration was discussed. Trevellick had been named as a delegate, but it was too late for him to attend. In 1868 Eccarius, general secretary of the International at London, again invited the National Labor Union to send a delegate to the congress at Brussels, but this could not be done on account of lack of funds. In 1869 the general council of the International addressed a memorial to the National Labor Union regarding 94 He had a rather interesting encounter with Attorney-General Hoar, to whom he wrote a letter severely censuring him for his opinion upholding the reduction of 25 per cent in wages on public work, following the introduction of the eight-hour system. Hoar replied by a brief, haughty A note, and Sylvis in turn retorted by a second letter written in a similar vein. letter from Sylvis to Grant, while acknowledging the merits of the President's proclamation of May 21 re-establishing the old rate of wages, was framed in a similar independent style. 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 desperate cases." 95 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. 98 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. 96 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 maladminis tration of the spirit of our institutions 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 28.9 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 unpublished 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 no less strong.3 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 should go to erect a monument to Sylvia and one-half to his family; defending the locked-out miners of Pennsylvania and charging the mining monopolies, transportation monopolies, and city speculators with responsibility for the high price of coal; advocating thorough organisation of female labour, "the same pay for work equally well done," equal opportunities and rights in every field of enterprise and labour"; demanding eight hours for convicts and the system of prison labour now known as "public account" instead of the contract system; condemning the "alliance of the Associated Press and the Western Union Telegraph Company"; and demanding a government telegraph. Richard Trevellick was elected president for the next year, H: J. Walls, secretary; and A. W. Phelps, treasurer. Advocate, 1 Chicago Workingman's 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. |