the organiser that they would receive unstinted aid in case of a strike, and that they were on strike even before they received their charter.70 The trouble with the organisers in St. Louis was no doubt aggravated by the fact that District Assembly 17 of St. Louis provided in its by-laws for the election of organisers at a rate of pay different from that provided for in the constitution of the General Assembly. It paid its organisers $6 for each new local organised, and $5 for every local reorganised.71 This provision was virtually an encouragement to an unscrupulous organiser to violate the provision of the General Assembly constitution which said that an organiser must not offer special inducements to former members to rejoin the Order.72 Still, as far as the Knights of Labor were concerned, the eight-hour issue was merely a slogan that the new and rapidly multiplying membership chanced to seize upon. It was not itself the impetus. That had been given by the industrial depression of 1884-1885. American labour movements have never experienced such a rush of organisation as the one in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. In a remarkably short time in a few months over 600,000 people living practically in every State in the Union united in one organisation. The Knights grew from 989 local assemblies with 104,066 members in good standing in July, 1885,73 to 5,892 assemblies with 702,924 members in July, 1886. The greatest portion of this growth occurred after January 1, 1886. In the state of New York there were, in July, 1886, about 110,000 members (60,809 in District Assembly 49 of New York City alone), in Pennsylvania, 95,000 (51,557 in District Assembly 1, Philadelphia alone), in Massachusetts, 90,000 (81,191 in District Assembly 30, Boston), and in Illinois, 32,000.74 In the state of Illinois, for which detailed information for that year is available, there were 204 local assemblies with 34,974 members,75 of which 65 per cent were found in Cook County alone. One hundred and forty-nine assemblies were 70 General Assembly, Proceedings, 1886, p. 38. 71 District Assembly 17, St. Louis, Constitution and By-laws, Art. VII. 72 General Assembly, (1881), Art. IX, Sec. 13. Constitution 73 The membership in 1884 was 60,811. 74 General Assembly, Proceedings, 1886, pp. 326-328. 75 Illinois Bureau of Labor, Report, 231-243. Only 4 per cent of the total number were non-wage-earners. mixed, that is, comprised members of different trades and of the unskilled, and only 55 were trade assemblies. Reckoned according to country of birth the membership was 45 per cent American, 16 per cent German, 13 per cent Irish, 10 per cent British, and 5 per cent Scandinavian. The largest occupational groups in Illinois were the following: day labourers, 7,498; coal miners, 3,557; garment workers, 1,987; packinghouse men, 1,780; brickmakers, 1,394; machinists, 1,222; iron moulders, (machine moulders), 1,203; coopers, 930; painters and paper hangers, 816; box factory men, 506; shoemakers, 934; rolling-mill labourers, 404; watch factory workers, 394; the remainder being distributed among more than 100 occupations. Evidently those who were lacking in bargaining strength, whether for the reason that they were unskilled or little skilled or because they were menaced by machinery, looked to the Knights of Labor as their deliverers. The history of the years immediately preceding throws light upon the forces impelling them to organise. Half of the assemblies in Illinois and three-fourths of the membership were organised after January 1, 1885 - 50 assemblies during the year 1885, and 94 from January to July, 1886. The progress during 1886 by months was as follows: 11 assemblies were organised in January; 19 in February; 14 in March; 29 in April; 23 in May; and 3 in June. Yet high figures for April and May do not necessarily prove that the eight-hour agitation and strike had been the paramount factor, for, although this agitation did not spread outside of Chicago, the number organised after January 1 in that city was only 37, while for the rest of the State it was 57. Moreover, in the autumn of 1886, the number of Knights in Cook County (Chicago) was double that in July; in other words, in Chicago the growth had been most rapid after the May strike.76 Nevertheless, the Knights throughout the country furnished a large proportion of the strikers for the eight-hour day. Shortly, however, before this strike broke out, the country's attention was for a time monopolised in another direction by the Southwest strike. At the settlement of the first strike on the Gould system in March, 1885, the employés were assured that the road would 76 Ibid., 221. institute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas and Pacific road, which had shortly before passed into the hands of a receiver. The strike broke out over the entire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that the Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action ten months before the strike. District Assembly 101, the organisation embracing the employés on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and authorised the officers to call a strike at any time they might find opportunity to enforce the two following demands: first, the recognition of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the unskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights of Labor and of the feeling of labour solidarity that prevailed in the movement. But evidently the organisation preferred to make the issue turn on discrimination against the members. Another peculiarity which marked off this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility with which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri-Pacific and all leased and operated lines, which broke out simultaneously over the entire system, March 6. This strike affected more than 5,000 miles of railway situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska. The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic "killing" of engines, that is, removing some indispensable part, effectively stopped all the freight traffic. The number of men actively on strike was in the neighbourhood of 9,000, including practically all of the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to leave their posts under threats from the strikers. The leader, District Master Workman Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the strikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his attitude was overbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, a strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labour contract, but necessarily assumed the aspect of a crusade against capital. Hence all compromise, and any policy of give and take, were absolutely excluded. Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the dispute to arbitration, but they failed, and after two months of sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left, however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the impression made by the great railway strike of 1877, and a congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.77 The Southwest strike terminated on May 3. On May 1, preceding, the general eight-hour strike began. The preparatory agitation assumed large proportions in March. The main argument for the shorter day was work for the unemployed. With the exception of the cigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organisations. The Knights of Labor figured far less prominently than the trade unions, and, among the latter, the building trades and the Ger man-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front ranks of the movement. Evidently Powderly's secret circular did not fail to exercise a strong restraining effect. Nevertheless, Bradstreet's 78 estimated that no fewer than 340,000 men took part in the movement: 190,000 actually struck, only 42,000 of this number with success, and 150,000 secured shorter hours without a strike. Thus the total number of those who succeeded with or without strikes was something less than 200,000. It should be noted, however, that the eight-hour movement very early changed, for the most part, into a shorter-hour movement, only the cigar makers and a majority in the building trades having consistently adhered to the demand for eight hours. Of those to whom shorter hours were granted without a strike, 35,000 were Chicago packing-house employés (Knights of Labor), 19,500 were cigar makers (15,000 in New York), 22,000 were in the building trades (Washington, New York, Chicago, and Baltimore accounting for 18,000), 8,200 were to bacco factory workers (5,000 at Baltimore), 3,300 were furniture workers (3,000 at Grand Rapids), 3,300 were machinists 77"Investigation of Labor Troubles in Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Illinois," in House of Representatives Report, 49 Cong., 2 sess., No. 4174. 78 May 15, 1886. (2,000 at Chicago).79 The centre of the strike was in Chicago with 80,000 80 participants. New York followed with 45,000 strikers, Cincinnati with 32,000, Baltimore with 9,000, Milwaukee with 7,000, Boston with 4,700, Pittsburgh with 4,250, Detroit with 3,000, St. Louis with 2,000, Washington with 1,500, and from all other cities, 13,000, making a total of 198,450.81 Of the total number of those who, after a strike, succeeded in getting a shorter day, 10,000 were in Cincinnati (out of 32,000 who struck), and, distinguished by trades, 5,000 were in the building trades (1,000 in New York and 1,000 in Newark), 1,000 were piano makers (New York), 3,200 were machinists (3,000 in New York), 1,900 were agricultural implement makers, and the remainder came from miscellaneous trades.82 Even those who for the present succeeded, whether with or without strikes, soon lost the concession. Bradstreet's stated in January, 1887, that "the best available information respecting the outcome of the wide-spread short-hour strikes of May and of October, 1886,83 points to a conspicuous failure. Those who gained and have retained the rule permitting shorter hours of labour daily, have in many instances sacrificed a corresponding portion of wages, or have consented to piece work or to work by the hour. It may be fairly assumed . . . that so far as the payment of former wages for a shorter day's work is concerned the grand total of those retaining the concession will not exceed, if it equals, 15,000." 84 Bradstreet's had reported a loss of nearly one-third of the concessions one month after the strike, and a prediction that "the aggregates will probably fall away still further as competition presses on the short-hour employers." 85 The Knights of Labor and the trade unions emerged from the strike with unequal prestige. Powderly's circular, while it did not stop the Knights from participating, tended to place the Order in an unfavourable light before the working class. It is 79 Bradstreet's, May 8, 1886. 80 Ibid., June 12, 1886. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid., May 8, 1886. 83 This latter was the Chicago packers' lockout against the retention of the eight- 84 Bradstreet's, Jan. 8, 1887. |