THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF 
 
 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR 
 
 RELATIONS 
 
 AT 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002356172 
 
THE 
 
 LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 IN AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., 
 
 Associate in Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University; Author 
 
 OF "French and German Socialism," "The Past and 
 
 THE Present of Political Economy," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO., 
 
 No. 13 AsTOR Place. 
 
Copyright^ 
 Bv Thomas Y. Ckowbll & Co. 
 
 i836. 
 
TO 
 
 Jlr, antr jlrs. lEugene %. Housfj, 
 
 IN GRATEF0L RECOGNITION OF THEIR SELF-SACRIFICING 
 
 ENDEAVORS IN YEARS GONE BY TO AID ME 
 
 IN THE SOLUTION OF THE TRYING 
 
 ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF 
 
 MY OWN LIFE, 
 
 THIS BOOK, 
 
 WRITTEN WITH THE EARNEST DESIRE THAT IT MAY 
 SERVE OTHERS LESS FAVORABLY SITUATED, 
 
 IS ATFECTIGNATELY DEDICATED. 
 
 
 PROPERTY OF LIBRARY 
 
 NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL ^457 
 INDUSTRIAL A?-0 LABOR RELATIONS 
 
 CORNELL UNT/ERSITY 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 WITH FINAL WORD TO WORKINGMEN. 
 
 THE importance of those phases of American life with which 
 the present work deals, is no longer likely to be called 
 in question. The labor movement treats of the struggle of the 
 masses for existence, and this phrase is acquiring new meaning 
 in our own times. A marvellous war is now being waged in the 
 heart of modern civilization. Millions are engaged in it. The 
 welfare of humanity depends on its issue. 
 
 I do not claim to have written a history of the labor move- 
 ment in America. I offer this book merely as a sketch, which 
 will, I trust, some day be followed by a work worthy of the title, 
 " History of Labor in the New World." In the meantime, I 
 shall be abundantly satisfied if this more modest effort accom- 
 plishes two chief purposes which I have set before me as a goal. 
 The one is to show that the material furnished to the historian 
 by the movements of the laboring classes in America is interest- 
 ing, instructive, and withal not devoid of the pathetic and pic- 
 turesque. The other is to convince my readers of the vastness 
 of our present opportunities. While America is young and our 
 institutions and even our habits of thought are as yet plastic to 
 an unusual degree, we have advantages which are not likely to 
 recur in a near future. It is still in our power permanently 
 td avoid many of the evils under which older countries suffer, 
 if we will but take to heart the lessons of past experience, and 
 seriously endeavor to profit by the mistakes of others ; and 
 surely this is wiser than to repeat their folly. The present 
 crisis in our history is a time when either optimism or pessi- 
 mism is easy; but both are dangerous. The potentialities for 
 good or for evil are grand beyond precedent, and it rests with 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 the living to say what the future shall be. There is enough that 
 is alarming to excite us to vigorous action ; there is enough that 
 is promising to encourage our best efforts with the brightest 
 hopes. 
 
 I have endeavored in this book to present an accurate record 
 of facts, to ascertain which I have spared no trouble. Books, 
 pamphlets, and newspapers have been carefully collected for 
 years, and several thousand miles have been travelled with this 
 in view. Nevertheless, in a field so new and so immense, it is 
 but natural to suppose that I must occasionally have fallen into 
 errors both of omission and commission, and I shall regard it as 
 a favor if any friendly reader will point these out to me. I shall 
 also be under obligations to any one who — for possible use in a 
 fiiture edition — will send me any labor literature, such as con- 
 stitutions, by-laws, and annual proceedings of labor organiza- 
 tions, newspapers, pamphlets, etc. The first phases of the 
 labor movement in this country are obscure, and I should be 
 particularly obliged for any of the earlier publications relating 
 to it, as well as for any oral or written communications bear- 
 ing thereon. 
 
 The aim of the present work is chiefly presentation rather than 
 refutation, although it will be noticed that I do not entirely ab- 
 stain from criticism. I do, however, presuppose that my reader 
 is gifted with ordinary common sense, and will not be pleased 
 by childish criticism such as must occur to every schoolboy. 
 Criticism of this kind, thrust into the midst of the presentation 
 of some theoretical system or historical narrative, has often an- 
 noyed me in works on social topics, and I have purposely 
 avoided it. I further assume that the readers of the following 
 pages are of moral natures sufficiently elevated to understand 
 that we ought not to lie, murder, and blow up cities with dyna- 
 mite, to accomplish our ends. I do not think it necessary to 
 tell them this. I do not think it incumbent upon me to say on 
 every page, that I am so far from sympathizing with schemes for 
 destruction, that I regard them as damnable. 
 
 While I have endeavored first to understand the American 
 labor movement, and then to present a description of it in such 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 manner that others may likewise understand it, letting the parties 
 concerned speak for themselves as far as possible, it must be re- 
 membered that I have concerned myself chiefly with the main 
 current of a great stream, and have not been able to find room 
 for a treatment of many separate lesser currents of social life ; 
 consequently when I express approval of the labor movement, I 
 do not approve everything connected with it. 
 
 Much that is done in the name of labor, I regard with abhor- 
 rence. In the same way should the reader understand my ad- 
 miration for the Knights of Labor. I believe it is a grand so- 
 ciety, but I dissent from some of its principles, and from its 
 course in some localities. Individual knights and individual as- 
 semblies, have been guilty of outrageous conduct with reference 
 to their employers, the general public, and their fellow-working- 
 men. Their deeds have sadly injured the cause of labor. Fi- 
 nally, while I believe that the Knights of Labor represent an 
 organization of a higher type than the trades-union, I do not 
 believe that the latter can yet be dispensed with. The two 
 forms of organization should co-operate ; but co-operation ought 
 to be sought by lawful and kindly measures, and not by such 
 abominable methods as I fear have been adopted in a few 
 cases. 
 
 " I presume you have felt, as have I, the sting of criticism and 
 censure — of "misrepresentation because discussing this topic of 
 socialism at all." These are words written to me in a letter re- 
 cently received, by a friend who is professor of political economy 
 in a Western university. They indicate at once a difficulty in the 
 way of the economist. The topics he discusses are so vital, that 
 any presentation of them is bound to be misconstrued in some 
 quarter. Nevertheless, there seems to be only one course for an 
 honest man, which is to say his word and patiently endure mis- 
 understanding and even malicious abuse. Yet the wilful false- ■ 
 hood with which one's character and motives are assailed, when 
 one attempts to treat social topics truthfully, are sometimes hard 
 to bear, and at times one feels inclined to reply to some malig- 
 naitit critic, as Charles Kingsley did once when his honest soul 
 was vexed beyond measure : — 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 " If you say these things, — mentiris impudentissime.'" On the 
 other hand, frank and honest discussion of diiferences of opinion 
 can only benefit all parties concerned. 
 
 I regard this as a most conservative work, for I believe that 
 error in our social life derives its chief strength from its ad- 
 mixture with truth, and that the larger the proportion of truth, 
 the greater the danger of the error. The thought which has ani- 
 mated me, has been to separate the two, and to encourage people 
 to render error comparatively harmless by a full and complete 
 recognition of truth. 
 
 My thanks are due to many people for kind assistance in the 
 preparation of this work. Professor A. S. BoUes, Mr. Joseph 
 Labadie, and Mr. E. S. Mcintosh kindly lent me valuable pam- 
 phlets. OiKcers of nearly all of the organizations of which I treat 
 in this book have been most courteous in their endeavors to aid me 
 in the presentation of an accurate and impartial account of their 
 respective societies. My thanks are also due many business men, 
 including some of the leading manufacturers of the United States, 
 for information readily imparted, and for their generous encour- 
 agement, which has been a valuable stimulus to me in my task. 
 One of the pleasantest features connected with the preparation of 
 this work is the personal kindness received from so many men of 
 all occupations, and of the most widely separated social positions, 
 in various parts of the country ; and without any mention of names, 
 for which space is too limited, I beg them each and all to receive 
 this expression of my gratitude. 
 
 Several chapters of this work first appeared in a series of arti- 
 cles in the Christian Union two years ago. These articles have 
 been used freely both by pulpit and press, sometimes with gener- 
 ous recognition of the source of information, perhaps oftener 
 without mention either of their author or the Christian Union. 
 A year later they were revised, enlarged, and published, under 
 the title, " Recent American Socialism," in the Johns Hopkins 
 University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Chapter I., 
 "Survey of the Field," and Chapter VII., "Co-operation in 
 America," appeared first in the Congregationalist, of Boston. \ A 
 few paragraphs appeared first in the Andover Review, and one 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 or two sentences are quoted — with acknowledgment — from an 
 article of mine which recently appeared in the North American 
 Review. 
 
 TO WORKINGMEN. 
 
 I wish the last word that I pen in the preparation of this book 
 to be addressed to you, for it has been prepared in the hope that 
 it may benefit you. I bring together in this place, even at the 
 risk of repetition, a few words of caution and counsel ; and I beg 
 you to receive these as the sincere conviction of one who would 
 be your friend. If I assume the imperative form of address, 
 please understand that I do this simply for the sake of brevity, 
 and not in any spirit of dictation. I do not wish you to accept 
 what I say, unless it commends itself to your judgment and con- 
 science. " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." 
 
 I. Let every workingman try to make himself more indispen- 
 sable in his place, a better workman and a better man. If every 
 member of society is ever to receive a sufficient quantity of eco- 
 nomic goods to satisfy all rational wants, products must be in- 
 creased in quantity and improved in quality. If we ever expect 
 to use our opportunities to the best advantage, we must improve 
 our characters. Banding together will be of little avail to worth- 
 less men or a worthless cause. 
 
 2. There is no atom of help to you or to any in drink, — the 
 poor man's curse so often, and so often the rich man's shame. 
 Every eflFort making to promote temperance among you should 
 receive the warmest encouragement. 
 
 3. Beware of demagoguery, especially political partyism, which 
 will give illusory triumphs, but leave to you only wretched failure. 
 Be not stepping-stones for others to vault into place. Cast off 
 the slavery of party politics, and with faith in the triumph of 
 righteousness, ally yourselves to every endeavor to elevate and 
 purify public life. You have far more than others at stake in 
 this. While the majority of you reject socialism, I am certain 
 that most of you agree with me that along certain lines the func- 
 tions of the State should be increased. Government cannot do 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 everything, but it can do much. Yet when this is suggested, 
 corruption in the sphere of public life is urged as an obstruction 
 to the performance by the constituted authorities of the land of 
 their legitimate duties. Help all those who are trying to remedy 
 this unfortunate state of affairs. 
 
 4. It cuts me to the heart when laboring men are shot down 
 in the street. All the wars have been at the expense of your 
 blood. Imitate no violence. Destruction of the property or 
 lives of others cannot help you or enrich you. Your triumph can 
 come only by peace. 
 
 5. There is much that is bad in existing social arrangements, 
 but there is also much that is good ; and this good has been 
 procured by the struggles of centuries. With a full appreciation 
 of all that is sad and disheartening in the condition of the masses, 
 I believe that, on the whole, the lot of mankind was never a 
 happier one than to-day. The preparation of this book has given 
 me a stronger conviction than ever before that the past century 
 has witnessed an improvement in the position of the laboring 
 classes in the United States. Rights which the humblest of us 
 Americans take as so much a matter of course that we do not 
 reflect upon the possession of them as a source of pleasure, 
 although to be deprived of them would inflict the keenest pain, 
 were in a past age scarcely within the dreamland region of the 
 masses. This is not said to suggest to you that you fold your 
 hands, and lazily take things as they are, but to encourage the 
 use of conservative means for the attainment of your ends. There 
 are vast treasures in our civilization which it is in the interest of 
 all to preserve. Resist wrong more strenuously than heretofore; 
 strive for all that is good more earnestly than you have ever 
 done ; but let all your endeavors be within the law. The rich 
 and powerful will always find protection ; and if the dream of the 
 Anarchists were realized, there would be no check to the despot- 
 ism of the strong and cunning. The law is often not what it 
 should be ; but the law itself points out peaceful methods by 
 which it may be changed. Law is often perverted, and fails to 
 fulfil its function; but even when it is worst administered, it 
 affords some protection. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 6. Cast aside envy, one of your most treacherous foes. Reject 
 every thought of levelling down. Cultivate an admiration for all 
 genuine superiority. While all the monstrous inequalities of our 
 times can by no means be upheld by good men, while many of 
 those inequalities, the fruit of evil, can beget only evil, remember 
 that nothing more disastrous to you could happen than to live in 
 a society in which all should be equals. It is a grand thing for 
 us that there are men with higher natures than ours, and with 
 every advantage for the development of their faculties, that they 
 may lead in the v/orld's progress, and serve us as examples of 
 what we should strive to become. It will not take you long, if 
 you think earnestly about it, to become convinced of this. It is 
 well for the small farmer to have a rich neighbor to take the lead 
 in the use of expensive machinery, the introduction of blooded 
 stock, and in other experiments, which, if disastrous, would ruin 
 a poor man ; it is well for common schools to be under the influ- 
 ence of the best universities, without which their work is likely to 
 be indifferent. Why, it is often held to be a misfortune for a 
 boy to belong to a class in school or college which he can lead. 
 It is, as a rule, much better that there should be those associated 
 with him who are abler than he, that they may serve as a constant 
 .stimulus to him. 
 
 7. If your demands are right, if they are reasonable, then you 
 will win and hold your gain. The world will listen even to 
 socialism, if properly presented. If you keep to the right, the 
 world will come to you. The right is bound to win. Educate, 
 organize, wait. 
 
 8. Christ and all Christly people are with you for the right. 
 Never let go that confidence. This is a sure guarantee of the 
 successful issue of every good cause, the righting of every wrong. 
 Christ forever elevated labor and exalted the laborer. He 
 worked himself and he sought his associates and the first mem- 
 bers of his church among workingmen, men rude and ignorant, 
 and certainly no better than the workingmen of to-day. As 
 Charles Kingsley has said, " The Bible is the rich man's warning 
 and the poor man's comfort." 
 
 You cannot proclaim the wrongs under which you suffer with 
 
Xii PREFACE. 
 
 half the force with which they are condemned in the Bible. All 
 the social arrangement of the Hebrews were contrived with a 
 view to the protection of the weaker industrial elements, and 
 where will you find a stronger condemnation of monopoly than 
 this : " Wo unto them that join house to house, that lay field to 
 field, till there be no place that they may be placed alone in the 
 midst of the earth " ? And where will you find a more terrible 
 indictment of the rich oppressor than in these verses from the 
 Epistle of James ? 
 
 " Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries 
 that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your 
 garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and 
 the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your 
 flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the 
 last days. Behold, the hire of your laborers who have reaped 
 down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and 
 the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of 
 the Lord of Sabaoth." 
 
 But while the Bible is a good armory from which you may 
 draw weapons of attack, it at the same time points out the right 
 course for you to take, and furnishes you with that comfort and 
 hope which will enable you to continue your efforts for righteous- 
 ness, without the dangers of hate and bitterness. It discourages 
 no good eifort ; but even James follows his awful condemnation 
 of the oppressor with these wise words, "Be ye also patient ; 
 stablish your hearts ; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." 
 No political economist can give you better advice. So when you 
 are exhorted to faithful service, you are exhorted to a line of 
 conduct quite in keeping with the teachings of science. And the 
 peace and contentment which are promised good Christians have 
 a high economic v^ue, and in the brotherly love of those who 
 have a common Father will you alone find that bond of union 
 which can render your joint efforts completely successful. 
 
 " The church is unfaithful and is now an ally of Mammon." 
 These are words frequently spoken by workingmen, and they are 
 too true of individual church organizations. But the false coin 
 does not detract from the worth of the genuine. Among the 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 twelve Apostles there was a Judas. Churches often are devoted 
 to fashion, and are become " of the world," yet the faith they 
 profess and the Bible which they receive is a constant warning 
 to them against their departure from the true faith. But even 
 to-day enumerate the men outside of the laboring class who are 
 prominent for their advocacy of the cause of labor. Write all 
 the names on a slip of paper and cross out the names of clergy- 
 men, and you will find three-fourths of them gone. No other 
 large and influential class in the United States is so devoted to 
 your welfare, and I know how to give you no better advice than 
 to urge you to seek counsel and friendly aid in all your en- 
 deavors from Christian ministers and search in the religion of 
 the Master whom they worship, for that strength, bravery, conse- 
 cration, which will render you invincible in your endeavors to 
 serve humanity. 
 
 Richard T. Ely. 
 
 Johns Hopkins University, 
 
 Baltimore, Md., August, x886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Survey of the Field i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Early American Communism 7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Growth and Present Condition of Labor Organi- 
 zations IN America 34 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Economic Value of Labor Organizations 92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Educational Value of Labor Organizations . . . 120 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Other Aspects of Labor Organizations 141 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Co-operation in America 167 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Beginnings of Modern Socialism in America . . . 209 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Internationalists ^3' 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Propaganda of Deed and the Educational Campaign, 254 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Socialistic Labor Party 269 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Strength of Revolutionary Socialism — Its Signifi- 
 cance 277 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Remedies 295 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. Platform of Principles of the National Labor Union, 333 
 II. Pledge and Preamble of the Journeymen Brick- 
 layers' Association of Philadelphia 341 
 
 III. Declaration of Principles and Objects of the Cigar 
 
 Maker's' Progressive Union of America .... 342 
 IV. Extracts from the Constitution of the National 
 Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel 
 Workers of the United States 345 
 
 V. Manifesto of the International Working Peoples' 
 
 Association 358 
 
 VI. Letter to Tramps, reprinted from the "Alarm" of 
 
 Chicago 364 
 
 VII. Platform and Present Demands of the Socialistic 
 
 Labor Party 366 
 
 VIII. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1886, by an 
 
 American Socialist 3^0 
 
THE 
 
 LABOR ,MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 
 
 THE great forces of nature are invisible and work below 
 the surface of things, and that which is most real is 
 the unseen. He who would understand nature must go 
 behind the veil of illusions, under which she conceals 
 herself from the unwelcome gaze of the careless and 
 indifferent. 
 
 The student of social science finds himself at the outset 
 in a similar position. He also speedily discovers "that 
 things which are seen were not made of things which do 
 appear," and no better illustration of this can be afforded 
 than that offered us by the history of the labor movement in 
 America. Investigation soon reveals in this movement one 
 of the chief social forces working among us, yet it is quite 
 unknown in its operations to the ordinary man or woman 
 outside of the laboring classes, while the vast majority of 
 those who in their own persons bear forward the movement 
 have but a glimmering apprehension of its true import. 
 
 We read of the marvels of past eras, but the number is 
 small indeed who realize that no previous age was more 
 eventful in the life of economic and industrial society than 
 that in which we are now living. ' To-day we are the specta- 
 
2 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 tors of a most marvellous act in the great world-drama. Yet 
 it is necessary to add at once that we are in the position of 
 those who seeing see not, or see but dimly. On the one 
 hand, attention has not been sufficiently directed to the 
 phenomena of the unparalleled social movement in which we 
 live ; on the other, it is difficult for us who are in it and of 
 it to secure a vantage-ground from which to get large views. 
 In his hfe of Cobden, Morley says : " Great economic and 
 social forces flow with a tidal sweep over communities that 
 are only half conscious of that which is befalling them." 
 Such is the epoch in which we find ourselves. 
 
 Great as are the difficulties in the way, it is nevertheless 
 possible to ascertain something of the social movement 
 of which we form a part. Last summer I spent some time 
 with the Shakers, and when with them, separated as I was 
 from the ordinary life of mankind and talking with my good 
 friends about the worid movements of this century, the feel- 
 ing grew upon me that I was in a social observatory, viewing 
 as from another planet the buying and seUing, the hurrying 
 to and fro, the marrying and the giving in marriage, the toil, 
 the pleasure, the vanity, the oppression, the good and the 
 evil among men on earth ; and I noticed afterward in a letteii 
 from one of the Shakers the expression, " Our social watch-' 
 tower." But even without such a social observatory, one 
 may step aside and note what the other actors are doing on 
 the great stage of social life ; and records — obscure and 
 imperfect, to be sure, still valuable records — of the past have 
 been preserved. It is not then a fruitless task to endeavor 
 to mark off the distance travelled, to ascertain the direction 
 of present motion, and to get an approximate idea of the 
 speed with which we are moving./ 
 
 I^hat is the labor movement? This question brings us to 
 the heart of things. We do not concern ourselves now with 
 
SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 3 
 
 accessories, important as they may be ; but we desire to 
 know the ultimate significance of the mighty social forces 
 which are beginning to shake the earth. The labor move- 
 ment, then, in its broadest terms, is the effort of men to live 
 the life of men. It is the systematic, organized struggle of 
 the masses to attain primarily more leisure and larger econo- 
 mic resources ; but that is not by any means all, because the 
 end and purpose of it all is a richer existence for the toilers, 
 and that with respect to mind, soul, and body. Half con- 
 scious though it may be, the labor movement is a force 
 pushing on towards the attainment of the purpose of hu- 
 manity ; in other words, the end of the true growth of man- 
 kind ; namely, the full and harmonious development in each 
 individual of all human faculties — the faculties of working, 
 perceiving, knowing, loving — the development, in short, of 
 whatever capabilities of good there may be in us. And this 
 development of human powers in the individual is not to be 
 entirely for self, but it is to be for the sake of their 'benefi- 
 cent use iruthe service of one's fellows in a Christian civiliza- 
 tion. It is for self and for others ; it is the realization of 
 the ethical aim expressed in that command which contains 
 the secret of all true progress, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 as thyself." It is directed against oppression in every form, 
 because oppression carries \Yith it the idea that persons or 
 classes -live not to fulfil a destiny of their own, but primarily 
 and chiefly for the sake of the welfare of other persons or 
 classes. The true significance of the labor movement, on 
 the contrary, lies in this : it is an attempt to bring to pass 
 the idea of human development which has animated sages, 
 prophets, and poets of all ages ; the idea that a time must 
 come when warfare of all kinds shall cease, and when a 
 peaceful organization of society shall find a place within its 
 framework for the best growth of each personality, and shall 
 
4 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 abolish all servitude, in which one " but subserves another's 
 gain." 
 
 The labor movement represents mankind as it is repre- 
 sented by no other manifestation of the life of the nations of 
 the earth, because the vast majority of the race are laborers?} 
 
 Embracing, then, all modern lands, and in our own country 
 extending from the shores of the Atlantic to the waters of 
 the Pacific, and from the sources of the Mississippi to the 
 Gulf of Mexico, it is but natural that it should assume a 
 great variety of forms ; nor should it excite surprise to 
 discover attempts to divert the movement from its true path 
 into destructive byways. False guides are ever found com- 
 bating the true leaders, and there is backward motion as 
 well as advance. But frequent whirlpools and innumerable 
 eddies do not prevent the onward flow of the mighty stream ! 
 (^Socialism, communism, co-operation, trades-unions and 
 labor societies, mutual benefit organizations of one kind 
 and another, also, alas ! anarchy and nihilism, are .different 
 lines along which are directed the efforts of the masses 
 to attain improved conditions and relations in industrial 
 society./ 
 
 A radical difference separates these schemes into two 
 general classes. Some of them accept the fundamental 
 positions of our existing order. They ask no thorough- 
 going reconstruction of our economic institutions, but con- 
 template the continuance of such far-reaching existing facts 
 as private property in land with its rent, private property 
 in capital with its profits, the system of freedom of contract 
 and the division of men into two classes in economic 
 society ; namely, employers and employees. Schemes of this 
 first order imply, even when they do not explicitly avow, 
 that without considerable change in fundamental principles 
 it is possible for the laboring masses to abolish the mosT 
 
SURVEY OF THE FIELD. S 
 
 grievous evils under which they suffer, and to effect such 
 ameUoration in their condition as may be rationally contem- 
 plated either in the present or in any near future. This is 
 essentially the position of the trades-unions and of the 
 ordinary labor organizations ; yet there is a difference. 
 
 A conservative trades-unionist of the old school would 
 very likely affirm that natural laws set fixed bounds to 
 improvement which rendered illusory all hopes of anything 
 beyond what efforts directed along this line could accom- 
 plish. The more modern and more radical trades-unionist, 
 like the members of the Cigar Makers' Progressive Union 
 of America, of the Journeymen Bakers' National Union, and 
 of the International Furniture Workers' Union, holds to old 
 methods, it is true, but only for the present, and in the pres- 
 ent largely as a means of education, rather than for what 
 can be directly attained by them.j This idea is forcibly 
 expressed in the following quotation from the Declaration 
 of Principles of the Federative Union of Metal Workers 
 of America : " The entire abolition of the present system of 
 society can alone emancipate the workers, being replaced 
 by a new system based upon co-operative organization of 
 production in a free society. . . . Our organization should 
 be a school to educate its members for the new conditions 
 of society when the workers will regulate their own affairs." 
 ^IChfi_jaoore modern trades-unionist, while working along., 
 old lines, is then~Tooking forwarcTlo something far more 
 radical7^^oroetliiiig~which', as regards ultimate aims, places 
 him among those who hold to social schemes of the second 
 class. 
 
 The practical plans and speculations of this class are built 
 up on the hypothesis that existing social, economic, and 
 legal institutions do not admit the possibility of satisfactory 
 living, but render the robbery of the many by the few 
 
6 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 something so inevitable that the few themselves could 
 scarcely prevent it, even if they all, without dissenting voice, 
 wished to do so. But this is not all, for this is only the 
 dark side of the picture. Pessimists as to the present, the 
 adherents of these views are optimists as to the future, for it 
 is assumed that it is possible for men to introduce new 
 foundation principles into society which will remedy this 
 unhappy condition of things ; which will indeed banish it 
 forever from the earth. This is the position of socialism, 
 which holds that justice in the distribution of the good 
 things of life is to be attained in common and systematic 
 production in a re-created state, where men shall receive 
 the means of enjoyment in proportion to the service they 
 have rendered to society .j Communism presupposes a like 
 transformation, but seeks justice in equality ; while anarch- 
 ism would abolish all existing compulsory institutions, and 
 would let men freely build such social structures as inclina- 
 tion and uncontrolled desire might prompt. 
 
 Co-operation occupies a place midway between these two 
 positions taken by the old trades-unions and sociahsm 
 respectively. It begins within the framework of present 
 industrial society, but proposes to transform it gradually and 
 peacefully, but completely, by aboHshing a distinct capitalist 
 class of employers, the leading class at present in that 
 society, comprising those who are not inappropriately called 
 ^captains of industry. Co-operation does not desire funda- 
 mental change of law, for it hopes by means of voluntary 
 associations to unite labor and capital in the same hands — 
 the hands of the actual workers. Repudiating State help, it 
 proudly adopts as its device, self-help. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 
 
 THE practical character of the American is a matter of 
 common report and a cause of national pride. The 
 citizen of the New World is not content with mere specula- 
 tion ; his nature craves action, and nowhere else does practice 
 follow so closely upon theory. This trait shows itself in social 
 movements as well as elsewhere. Young as is America, she 
 has already furnished a field for the trial of a large number 
 of romantic ideals of a socialistic nature, and promises ere 
 long to outstrip all that has been accomplished by all other 
 nations in all past time in the way of social experimentation. 
 Confining ourselves for the present to attempts to realize 
 various forms of socialism and communism, the mind natur- 
 ally reverts to the " oldest American charter," under which 
 the first English settlement was made on American soil. One 
 condition stipulated by King James was a common storehouse 
 into which products were to be poured, and from which they 
 were to be distributed according to the needs of the colo- 
 nists, and this was the industrial Constitution under which 
 the first inhabitants of Jamestown lived for five years,' dur- 
 ing which the idlers gave so much trouble that the old 
 soldier. Captain John Smith, was forced to declare in vigor- 
 ous language, and with threats not to be misunderstood, that 
 " he that will not work shall not eat." " Dream no longer," 
 continued Smith, " of this vain hope from Powhatan, or that 
 
 J Cooke's "Virginia," Chap. III. The date of the charter is 1606. 
 
8 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 I will longer forbear to force you from your idleness 
 or punish you if you rail. I protest by that God that 
 made me, since necessity hath no power to force you to 
 gather for yourselves, you shall not only gather for your- 
 selves, but for those that are sick. They shall not starve."^ 
 
 The first Pilgrims who emigrated to New England were 
 bound by a somewhat similar arrangement which they had 
 entered into with London merchants, but the issue of 
 the experiment was not more successful, and it was partially 
 abandoned ; not wholly, for a great deal of land was long 
 after held in common, and, indeed, to-day, there are small 
 parcels of this land still common property.^ As is well 
 known, the Boston common is but a survival of early com- 
 munism, as in fact its very name indicates. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that comparatively little impor- 
 tance attaches to either of these experiments. The James- 
 town communism seems never to have been regarded as 
 anytEmg inore than a temporary makeshift, and the similar 
 arrangement in New England was of a like nature. There 
 exist to-day in America far larger and more important 
 communistic societies living in peace and "great comfort, 
 even in wealth. As far as the common lands are concerned, 
 they are part of a large system of early landholding which 
 still survives to greater or less extent both in America and 
 Europe. It is further worthy of notice in this connection 
 that before the white man invaded America only common 
 property in land prevailed. The American Indians held 
 their hunting-grounds in common ; at most, there was a tribal 
 right of usufruct, founded on possession and maintained 
 by arms. Even at the present day it is seriously doubted 
 
 1 Cooke, I.e., p. 54. 
 
 2 H. B. Adams, " Germanic Origin of New England Towns," Studies 
 I. No. 2, p. 33. 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 9 
 
 whether surviving Indians are ripe for the institution of pri- 
 vate property in land, as it is understood by us ; and some 
 such restriction as that of inalienability is urged in case land 
 is given to them in severalty. 
 
 A more serious endeavor to introduce what may be called 
 village communison, was made in the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century. " Mother " Ann Lee, with a few 
 followers, came to this country from England, in 1774, in 
 obedience to heavenly visions, in order that they might lead 
 a life in accordance with their convictions. They were 
 originally Quakers, but were called " Shaking Quakers " on 
 account of their movements of the body in their religious 
 exercises ; finally they dropped the designation Quaker, as 
 the difference between them and the society of Friends 
 became more marked, and took the name which had been 
 conferred in ridicule. 
 
 The Shakers settled at Watervliet, near Albany, in 1776, 
 and taught celibacy and the doctrine of non-resistance. 
 Their idea of the sinfulness of war brought them into trouble, 
 as our War of the Revolution was then in progress. " Some 
 designing men," says one of their number, "accused them of 
 being unfriendly to the patriotic cause, from the fact of their 
 bearing a testimony against war in general." They were 
 brought before the Commissioners of Albany, and ordered to 
 take the oath of allegiance, but this they could not do, for 
 swearing was contrary to their faith. Several of them, among 
 whom was Ann Lee, were cast into prison. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that the charge was quite 
 groundless. Mother Ann had prophesied before her emi- 
 gration that the American colonies would become free 
 and independent, and to this day the Shakers retain 
 a peculiar affection for America, holding that intKisTepublic 
 alone can their experiments succeed at present. 
 
10 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Mother Ann Lee taught the duties of love and universal 
 beneficence, as well as the obligation to abstain from oaths, 
 war, and marriage, but did not establish the communistic 
 order. Her temporal economy was summed up in these 
 words : " You must be prudent and saving of every good 
 thing that God blesses you with, that you may have to give 
 to the needy. You could not make either a kernel of grain 
 or a spear of grass grow, if you knew you must die for the 
 want of it. 
 
 " The Gospel is the greatest treasure that souls can possess. 
 Be faithful ; put your hands to work and your hearts to 
 God. Beware of covetousness, which is as the sin of witch- 
 craft. If you have anything to spare, give it to the poor." ' 
 
 Mother Ann, however, foretold that her successor, Joseph 
 Meacham, once a Baptist minister, would establish the com- 
 munity of goods after her death. She died in 1784, and 
 three years later the order of communism was established 
 among this people and has been retained ever since. The 
 year 1787 is then the time when communism of this kind 
 was first established in America, and the first community 
 was located at Mt. Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, 
 which is still the home of the strongest Shaker settlement. 
 
 The Shakers live in groups or families with common 
 production and equal enjoyment of whatever is produced, 
 and their order of life might be called group communism as 
 well as village communism, to distinguish it from the 
 larger national organization of communistic life which is the 
 ideal of the more modern communists. This communism 
 is a part of their religious life, and flows naturally from it. 
 It must be regarded as a kind of Christian communism, and 
 is stated by them in these words : 
 
 iSee "Ann Lee, the Founder of the Shakers," etc., by F. W. 
 Evans, p. 146. 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 11 
 
 " The bond of union which unites all Shakers is spiritual 
 and religious, hence unselfish. All are equal before God 
 and one another ; and, as in the institution of the primitive 
 Christian Church, all share one interest in spiritual and 
 temporal blessings, according to individual needs ; no rich, 
 no poor. The strong bear the infirmities of the weak, and 
 all are sustained, promoting each other in Christian fellow- 
 ship, as one family of brethren and sisters in Christ." ' 
 
 These simple people fail to see how those who profess to 
 be followers of Christ can tolerate luxury and poverty side 
 by side among brothers and sisters, for this does not seem 
 to them compatible with Christian love. 
 
 Perhaps their ideas on this point cannot be better pre- 
 sented than bya quotation from an article written by one of 
 the elders of the society at Watervhet, New York, and pub- 
 lished in the " Shaker and Shakeress " in November, 1874. 
 The article is entitled " Serious Questions of the Hour," 
 and in the form of a catechism gives the views of the 
 Shakers on war, property, and marriage. The part about 
 property and communism is headed "Selfishness," and 
 reads as follows : " Does Christianity admit of private prop- 
 erty? It does not; never did. Do Christian churches 
 permit distinctions of dress, diet, or other comforts, among 
 the members ? Never. Are there any rich or poor Chris- 
 tians ? None whatever. Why are there so many rich, and 
 particularly why are there so many poor, in the so-called 
 Christian churches of to-day? Because such churches are 
 not Christian. Can these be brethren and sisters of Christ 
 while faring so unequally? Never. Why are there no rich 
 nor poor in Christ's church ? The formerly rich ' lay down ' 
 their plenty ; the formerly poor do likewise with their pov- 
 
 1 Quoted from " American Communities," by Wm. Alfred Hinds, 
 Oneida, N. Y., 1878. 
 
12 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 erty, and hence share equally. Who, then, are the rich and 
 poor? The children of z.(«resurrection, who will give up 
 neither their riches nor poverty for the Gospel's sake. Who 
 amass fortunes and hve in palatial residences? Unfeeling 
 men and women, erroneously termed Christians, who are 
 careless of how many are made correspondingly poor. 
 . . . What wonderful phenomena accompany conver- 
 sions to Christianity ? Mine becomes Ours / Riches and 
 poverty, with their miseries, disappear." 
 
 The number of the Shakers soon began to increase, and 
 large accessions were " gathered in " during revivals in the 
 East, West, and South, and before the close of the century 
 societies were established in New York, Massachusetts, 
 Ohio, Kentucky, and elsewhere. They have now seventeen 
 societies and about seventy communities," as a society may 
 include several " families," or communities. The largest 
 society, at Mt. Lebanon, comprises nearly four hundred 
 souls, and it is there that Elder Frederick W. Evans, the 
 best known of the Shakers, resides. Their numbers have 
 dechned in recent years, but they claim, all told, still some 
 four thousand members, while their property is of great 
 value. They hke to say little about property and numbers, 
 as they have small respect for the " statistical fiend " so 
 common among us, and feel that a numerical table cannot 
 properly measure either their success or their influence. 
 One who has been some time with them, estimates their 
 property at twelve millions of dollars at least. 
 
 Economically, the Shakers have been a complete success, 
 and it is said that there has never been a failure among 
 them. They look forward to the future with hope, believing 
 that their history has just begun. Some of them lament 
 
 1 The number exceeded seventy at one time. It is probably con- 
 siderably below that now. 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 13 
 
 their large possessions as contrary to their principles ; for 
 they believe in land-reform, or the doctrine that man has the 
 right of usufruct in land only, the right of possession but 
 not the right of property ; in the second place, they abhor 
 the whole hireling system which their great property forces 
 upon them. But they expect large accessions in the future. 
 They hold their gates open to the elect from all parts of 
 the world, and they keep their property in trust for future 
 Shakers. 
 
 This order of communism is, then, thoroughly alive a'nd is 
 seekiHg"converts. lit sends out tracts an3'~newspapefS'Ttnd 
 scatters abroad its invitations to the sons and daughters 
 of men to retire from the world and to lead a higher, 
 celibate or virgin life, free from all worldly anxieties. At 
 the same time, it must always be borne in mind that the 
 Shakers do not expect ever to draw the entire world into their 
 communities, nor do they regard the communistic order as 
 suitable for the " generative " outside world. It is the life 
 for the choice spirits among men, who have outgrown the 
 natural tendencies of their animal nature and desire, an 
 existence in which angelic possibilities are materialized on 
 earth. Communism is the order for those who neither 
 marry nor are given in marriage. To such the Shaker 
 family is the single centre of all interests and affections, 
 while the introduction of the ordinary family would bring 
 in, so they think, separate centres of force and action, which 
 would destroy the unity of their life. They hold, however, 
 that socialism may be adapte d to the worl3~anarge. '" 
 
 The^SKaEers are The"rh6St successful, and it may at the 
 same time be said the most promising, example of commu- 
 nism in the United States, and as such deserve special con- 
 sideration. It is certain that the outside world has much 
 to learn from those pure, simple people, whose self-sacrificing 
 
14 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 life exercises such a charm over the thoughtful who come in 
 contact with them. 
 
 One of the first things to attract attention is the jpeaceful- 
 ness of Jthfiil countenance, which reminds one of Christ's 
 words, " Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you." 
 Howells, who has passed some time with them, describes 
 them in his "Undiscovered Country," and speaks of their 
 "placidity" as well as "their truth, charity, and purity of 
 life, and that scarcely less lovable quaintness to which no 
 realism could do perfect justice " ; and there seems to be no 
 reason to doubt the assertion of one of Howell's characters, 
 "They're what they seem ; that's their great ambition." ^ 
 
 The writer observed this same peace at the village of 
 Economy, which will be mentioned presently. Why, it may 
 be asked, is this peace, which ought to characterize all 
 Christians, found among these communists and not gener- 
 ally among church-members? It is possible that freedom 
 from all worldly care and from the anxieties of riches and 
 poverty has something to do with this. It is possible that 
 it is because these people have found in Christianity not 
 merely a creed but an order of life. They take up their 
 cross and endeavor to apply their Christian principles to 
 all relations of life. But it is well to say something about 
 the other communistic settlements in America before at- 
 tempting to characterize the Shakers more accurately, as 
 some things are common to them and other commvmists. 
 
 Early in this century another body of communists came 
 to the United States from Germany to escape rehgious per- 
 secution. They are called Harmonists, and after a period 
 of migration, settled at Economy, near Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- 
 vania, where they now reside. Their first leader, George 
 
 ^ See also his sketch of Shirley in his " Three Villages." Boston. 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. IS 
 
 Rapp, a man of great ability and extraordinary force of 
 character, commanded their confidence, and governed the 
 community with such prudence and foresight as to lay the 
 foundations of their present wealth, which is estimated at 
 various sums, ranging from ten to forty millions of dollars. 
 The former figure appears to be a rational estimate. They 
 have, then, undoubtedly been successful in the accumulation 
 of property, but their numbers have declined. At one time 
 Economy was inhabited by a thousand Harmonists ; but at 
 present their membership does not exceed forty. They re- 
 ceived their last accessions seven years ago, and nearly all of 
 them are now old men and women. It is evident that the 
 order will soon cease to exist, unless they decide to add to 
 their roll of members. Originally they married, but, becom- 
 ing convinced many years ago that celibacy was a higher form 
 of life, they have since then lived together as brothers and 
 sisters. Their communism is a part of their religion, and to 
 them, indeed, it appears like^an'essential part of Christianity. 
 The Germans Rave also established other communities, as 
 at Zoar, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and at Amana, in Iowa, 
 in both of which marriage is allowed. With the exceptions 
 of the Shaker communities these are the two strongest com- 
 munistic societies in the United States. 
 
 Zoar was founded in 1817 by Separatists, a religious sect 
 of Wiirtemberg, who rebelled against the formalities of the 
 established religion because they did not seem to them to 
 make people better. They also objected to war, and con- 
 sequently could not serve in the army. Persecuted on 
 account of their peculiarities, they fled to America, and, with 
 the assistance of Quakers of Philadelphia, who were doubt- 
 less drawn to them by similarity of belief, they acquired the 
 large tract of land, on which they now live. The commu- 
 nistic order was an afterthought, and was established in 
 
16 THE LABOR MOVEMEtfT. 
 
 1 819 in order to save the property of all, as the members 
 did not seem able to stand alone, many of them not being 
 able to pay for their separate holdings. They continued to 
 thrive many years under the leadership of Joseph Baumeler, 
 who died in 1853, and their prosperity has continued 
 unabated since his day, though no one has ever attained the 
 same esteem and the same position in leadership. They 
 now own several thousand acres of land, besides manufac- 
 turing establishments, and all their property is valued at about 
 a million and a half of dollars. They number some three 
 hundred and ninety souls at present, so that tlie per capita 
 wealth is about ^5,000, while in the whole United States it is 
 estimated to be under ;?i,ooo. They live in families, labor 
 diligently, but do not overwork, have one common fund, 
 and get whatever they need without money and without 
 price. They are religious, but do not appear to be so 
 devout as the Harmonists or Shakers, the latter of whom, 
 indeed, believe in a life of total exemption from sin. 
 
 The membership of the Amana community, or communi- 
 ties, for there are seven of them, is much larger. This 
 society embraces about eighteen hundred members, and 
 owns upwards of twenty-five thousand acres of land. The 
 Amana community originated in Germany sixty-six years 
 ago, and established the order of communism near Buffalo in 
 1842, whence they emigrated to Iowa in 1855. They 
 furnish the most remarkable example of communism in 
 conjunction with the institution of marriage and the family 
 to be found in this country, but the religious life with them 
 is also primary, and money-making only a secondary object. 
 
 The French have established a remarkable community, 
 called Icaria, in which they have attempted to realize the 
 pure non-religious communism of Cabet, the author of 
 the charming communistic romance, "Voyage en Icarie." 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 17 
 
 The Icarians came to America in 1848, and were under the 
 personal direction of Cabet for several years, during which 
 they achieved a remarkable degree of prosperity. Their 
 eventful and picturesque history, perhaps the most interest- 
 ing and instructive chapter in the annals of this early Ameri- 
 can communism, is narrated in Dr. Shaw's admirable book, 
 " Icaria." ' The work "■ Icaria," at once pathetic and 
 romantic, gives us such an insight into the nature of the 
 earlier phases of communism in America, as is afforded by 
 no other publication, and to it the reader is referred for 
 further information in regard to this subject. 
 
 Not one of these communities was established by Ameri- 
 cans. "~~THe~~Siakers^ are now composed, it is probable, 
 chiefly'of Americans, but the others are still perhaps foreign 
 in character. But native-born citizens have also founded 
 communities, and of them the most prosperous was that of 
 the Perfectionists, at Oneida, New York, whose builder was 
 John Humphrey Noyes, son of a member of Congress. 
 The family of Mr. Noyes is one of the best in the country. 
 The former minister to France, who bore the same name, 
 was a distant relative. His mother was a Miss Hayes, and 
 he himself was first cousin to ex-President Hayes. Mr. 
 Noyes was a well-educated man, having studied at Dart- 
 mouth and Yale Colleges and at Andover Theological 
 Seminary. He was a man of fine natural ability, with great 
 powers as a leader. This community was remarkable for 
 the number of college-bred men it contained. There were 
 several graduates from Yale among them, and at least one 
 graduate from Columbia College of New York. 
 
 Several pecuUarities of the Oneida Perfectionists are cal- 
 culated to attract attention. They believed in freedom from 
 sin, though in this they did not differ from members of 
 1 New York, 1884. 
 
18 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 other communities, in particular the Shakers. One of their 
 most remarkable institutions was called " Mutual Criticism," 
 which proved so useful to them that they declared it im- 
 possible to establish successful communism without it. With- 
 out entering into a lengthy description of its details, it may 
 be said that the members met together at regular intervals 
 for criticism of members to theii* face. This was designed 
 to take the place of gossip and backbiting in ordinary 
 society and to utiUze the force which was thus wasted. It 
 is said that it was sufficient for disciplinary purposes, that it 
 led the members to improve themselves in mind, soul, and 
 body, and rendered every member more agreeable to every 
 other member. It was even introduced in their school, and 
 worked successfully, as I was told, by their schoolmaster. 
 If Master Johnny made some cruel remark, the teacher 
 would perhaps ask one of his mates what he thought. " I 
 don't think it was very kind of Johnny to say that." Then 
 as the young man was under criticism, another would be 
 asked, "What do you think of Johnny? " when a reply like 
 this might be received : " I don't think he is very polite to 
 the girls. He teases them too much." And as one after 
 another of his little mates expresses an opinion. Master 
 Johnny blushes and hangs his head in shame and mortifica- 
 tion, but for many days thereafter he is a model boy. The 
 powers attributed to mutual criticism were marvellous, and 
 included even the ability to heal disease when administered 
 to the sick. 
 
 But another pecuHarity of the Perfectionists was their free- 
 love practices within the community itself. They regarded 
 the community as one great family, and attempted to repress 
 any exclusive affections within their order. They held that 
 a person can love many persons at the same time as well as 
 at different times, and regarded exclusiveness in person as 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 19 
 
 sinful for them as in property. Diligent students of Darwin, 
 Huxley, and other scientists, they attempted to apply their 
 principles in raising men.^ All this was so repugnant to the 
 moral sense of the people of New York State that it brought 
 upon them the constant ill will of the public, and finally 
 threats of legislative interference and suppression by law. 
 Mr. Noyes found it expedient to fly to Canada, where he 
 died, April 13, 1886. These loose practices were abandoned 
 in 1879 ; ^' ^^y '^^'•^j ''^ ^'^^ y^^"^ ^ those who chose were 
 allowed to marry, and in 1881 the society became an ordi- 
 nary joint-stock concern, and so terminated this communistic 
 experiment ; though many of the old members still remain 
 attached to their former principles and beheve in their ulti- 
 mate triumph. Economically, the Perfectionists also suc- 
 ceeded. At the time the joint-stock corporation was formed 
 they were over two hundred strong, and their property was 
 valued at ^600,000. Their credit has been, and as a corpo- 
 ration is still, the best. They pursued a diversified industry, 
 and have been successful as agriculturists, manufacturers, and 
 packers of fruit, meats, etc. They attribute their financial 
 prosperity largely to the^ jact_p.f_J;he variety of their enter- 
 prises, becausFlf one did not prosper, another would. Their 
 old establishrh'ent — a Beautiful place, with handsome grounds 
 and fine buildings — is still maintained, as well as a large 
 silver-plating establishment and other smaller concerns at 
 Niagara. They claim that they were not sensual, but exer- 
 cised self-control, and point to their success in business as 
 a proof of their assertions. Odious as their practices must 
 
 ' It is impossible to go into this unpleasant subject further in a work 
 of this kind. It has been treated from a medical standpoint by Dr. 
 Ely Van De Waiker under the title of " A Gynecological Study of the 
 Oneida Community," in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Dis- 
 eases of Women and Children, lor August, 1884. 
 
20 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 appear to one who believes in the divinity of the monogamic 
 family, it seems necessary to admit that they Hved quietly 
 and peacefully, and conscientiously discharged all financial 
 engagements, so as to win the good-will of many of their im- 
 mediate neighbors. They did not design, any more than do 
 the Shakers, to take the whole world into their community 
 life ; but evidently intended that as a basis for literary and 
 other propaganda. Mr. Noyes desired ultimately to estab- 
 lish a daily newspaper to convert the world to his views. 
 
 Space is too limited to permit the enumeration of the 
 many other communities estabhshed in America. The two 
 great periods of a revival of interest in communism, and the 
 foundation of village communities based on that principle, 
 are, 1826, when Rolaert Owen visited this country and 
 received distinguished attention from the American people, 
 and 1842-46, when, under the lead of Horace Greeley, 
 Albert Brisbane, Charles A. Dana, and others, Fourierism 
 extended itself rapidly over the country. Mr. Noyes in his 
 work, " History of American Socialisms," mentions eleven 
 communities founded during the first period, and thirty-four 
 which owed their origin to the second revival of communism. 
 It is safe to say that considerably over one hundred, possibly 
 two hundred, communistic villages have been founded in the 
 United States, although comparatively few yet live. There 
 are perhaps from seventy to eighty communities at present 
 in the United States, with a membership of from six to seven 
 thousand, and property the value of which may be roughly 
 estimated at twenty-five or thirty milhons of dollars. 
 
 The history of the Fourieristic phalanxes founded in 
 America is pecuHarly interesting and instructive. They 
 represent a compromise between communism and our 
 present industrial system, which in the day of Fourierism was 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 21 
 
 peculiarly attractive to the intellect and heart of our Ameri- 
 can people, and it may be safely said that no radical social 
 movement among us ever received such generous and wide- 
 spread support. This is not the place to go into an account 
 of Fourier's teachings,^ but it may be said that the central 
 idea was to effect a satisfactory union between capital, skill, 
 and labor by awarding a definite fixed share to each. Albert 
 Brisbane, the most ardent disciple of Fourierism in the 
 United States, wrote an exposition of the doctrine entitled 
 " Social Destiny of Man, or Association and Reorganization 
 of Industry." The work was pubhshed in Philadelphia in 
 1840 and attracted wide attention in its day. The chief 
 organ of Fourier's doctrine, although not officially called such, 
 was the New York Tribkne, then edited by Horace Greeley, 
 whose warm heart responded eagerly to any apparently 
 rational plan for the amelioration of the lot of man. The 
 three most celebrated Fourieristic phalanxes were the 
 famous Brook Farm, the North American Phalanx, and the 
 Wisconsin Phalanx, called Ceresco. Although these event- 
 ually died like all other attempts to realize the Fourieristic 
 ideal in the United States,^ they were not devoid of a certain 
 success. Brook Farm lived six years and was a source of 
 gratification and perhaps spiritual and moral profit to its 
 members. Although in many respects poorly managed, it 
 struggled along until a disastrous fire placed too heavy a 
 load upon its members, and it wound up its affairs. ■ TTie 
 Harbinger, the official organ of Fourierism, was published 
 at Brook Farm. / 
 
 The North American Phalanx, in Monmouth County, 
 
 ^ A brief resum^ may be found in Ely's "French and German 
 Socialism," Chap. V. 
 
 ^ M. Godin's successful experiment at Guise, France, is a modifica- 
 tion of Fourierism. 
 
22 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 New Jersey, near Red Bank, was established in 1843, and 
 was wrecked by a fire in 1854, although it lingered until 
 1856 before it drew its last breath. It furnished a pleasant 
 home to many, and descriptions of numerous enjoyable 
 occasions at the North American may still be read. Not- 
 withstanding its losses, it was able to pay sixty-six cents on 
 a dollar when its affairs were closed. 
 
 The Wisconsin Phalanx was founded in 1844, and finally 
 became Ripon of the present day. It prospered greatly, and 
 finally fell apart of its own weight, because there was no vital 
 coherent principle to hold its members together. It paid 
 one hundred and eight cents on the dollar in 1850. The 
 work began with "unwonted enthusiasm"; the life was 
 agreeable ; but the gold fever drew off some of the young 
 men in 1848, and in two years it was decided to return to 
 ordinary industrial life. 
 
 What appeared to be the strength of Fourierism was, 
 doubtless, its weakness. It was a compromise ; an attempt, 
 as it were, to s^rye two masters. The Fourierites always kept 
 back'soiSething, and never gave their entire heart to this 
 cause. It was an attempt to, modify^essentially the principle 
 of private property, and to change human feeling with refer- 
 ence to it while still retaining it. This could not work well ; 
 at any rate, did not work well. In. the North American 
 Phalanx the members invested savings outside of the com- 
 munity because they could obtain larger returns on their 
 capital, and the capital of the Phalanx was largely the prop- 
 erty of non-residents who became tired of the experiment, 
 and preferred to sell the property rather than erect new 
 buildings in the place of those destroyed by fire, although 
 there is reason to believe that the communists might have 
 prospered for some years to come, and perchance might 
 indeed have become the one successful phalanx in America. 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 23 
 
 Again, Fourierism retained sweeping inequalities, while it 
 condemrred" tTieT[riequa3rties onEe~6irfsi3e"'w6rld." The only 
 succes§'fuT"Sxafhples of communism in America have been 
 forms of pure communism in which all the interests of the 
 members of the body have been permanently united to the 
 body. 
 
 Forty years ago men of high education and large abihty 
 thought that communistic villages would revolutionize the 
 economic life of the world. The process, a speedy but 
 peaceful one, was viewed in this way : The community where 
 all live together harmoniously as brothers with no meum et 
 tuum, but with all things in common, affords the only escape 
 from the warring, competitive world of the present, where 
 some die of excessive indulgence in luxuries, and others of 
 starvation, and where the future of no one is secure. When 
 a few communities have been established, the happy Chris- 
 tian life which men there lead will attract the attention of 
 outsiders and win them to join the brptheiliood of commun- 
 ism. Thus community will follow community with ever- 
 adtJelerating ratio until the entire earth is redeemed. Cabet, 
 for example, " allowed fifty years for a peaceful transition from 
 our present economic life to communism. In the interval, 
 various measures were to be introduced by legislation to pave 
 the way to the new system. Among these may be men- 
 tioned communistic training for children, a minimum of 
 wages, exemption of the poor from all taxes, and progressive 
 taxation for the rich. But 'the system of absolute equality, 
 of community of goods and of labor, will not be obliged to 
 be applied completely, perfectly, universally, and definitely, 
 until the expiration of fifty years.' "^ 
 
 All these hopes have been generally abandoned as idle 
 dreams, and it is due largely to experiments made in 
 1 Ely's " French and German Socialism," p. 50. 
 
24 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 America that the enthusiasts of fifty and sixty years ago 
 have been disillusionized. It is not that the communistic 
 life itself has in every case proved a disappointment. On 
 the contraiy, thousands have clung to it with affection 
 through trial, adversity, and evil report, and have felt them- 
 selves amply repaid for every sacrifice in their new life, while 
 others who have abandoned it, have looked back upon their 
 experience with fond regret. Thus one member of the 
 celebrated Brook Farm community uses these words with 
 reference to their feelings in regard to that experiment : 
 "The life which we now lead, though to a superficial 
 observer surrounded with so many imperfections and em- 
 barrassments, is far superior to what we were ever able to 
 attain in common society. There is a freedom from the 
 frivolities of fashion, from arbitrary restrictions, and from the 
 frenzy of competition. . . . There is a greater variety of 
 employments, a more constant demand for the exertion of 
 all the faculties, and a more exquisite pleasure in effort, 
 from the consciousness that we are laboring, not for personal 
 ends, but for a holy principle ; and even the external sacri- 
 fices which the pioneers in every enterprise are obliged to 
 make, are not without a certain romantic charm." 
 
 But the communities feiLed to win adherents, often failed 
 to continue their own existence. .Unthought-of obstacles 
 were encountered in human nature. Idleness was an evil 
 occasionally contended" with, though this seems rarely to 
 have been a cause of any serious trouble. Petty jealousies 
 have proved more serious, and personal differences, such as 
 are bound to spring up between unregenerate men living in 
 any close connection, have been rocks upon which many a 
 community has made shipwreck. During a period of 
 poverty the struggle for existence has often knit the mem- 
 bers of communities firmly together into a compact whole, 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 25 
 
 which has become disorganized by the inability to endure 
 the severer trials of a period of prosperity when factions 
 arise and party bickerings become intolerable. Then the 
 life is too small and commonplace to satisfy the cravings 
 of many of larger natures. There is little scope for ambi- 
 tion, and ambition is one of the chief traits of mankind. 
 Zoar furnishes illustration. The young men of ability often 
 long for a wider sphere and leave' oh that account. One 
 of these seceders was recently mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Cleverly contrived and fantastic arrangements like those 
 of Fourieristic phalanxes have never been found to exercise 
 any magic qualities either on converts or the sinful world. 
 Men have not been attracted sufficiently to join the com- 
 munities in large numbers, because, either for good or for 
 ill, the spirit of the selfish world has been too strong to be 
 deeply touched by the spectacle of generous self-renouncing 
 communism. The flesh-pots of the Egypt of competition 
 have proved stronger than the Canaan of communism, 
 though the latter even now often flows with abundance of 
 milk and honey. Yet this early American communism has 
 rich lessons to teach men if we will but take the trouble 
 to. gather them, and we have reason to be grateful to two 
 classes of men on this account. 
 
 John Stuart Mill, whose writings are a constant rebuke to 
 narrow and petty fears entertained by those who dread any 
 innovation, urged long ago that the utmost freedom ought 
 to be given to those who desire to conduct social experi- 
 ments, and that they should indeed be encouraged in every 
 way. We have reason to be grateful that America has been 
 large enough and brave enough to afford a home to those 
 who desired to establish communistic settlements. We 
 have reason to be grateful to those men who have encount- 
 ered the prejudice of small souls and have shown what their 
 
26 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 settlements can do and also what they cannot do. It is 
 much to be desired that Americans should take this lesson 
 to heart ; for there seems to be at present among us an un- 
 American fear of new social ideas, whereas, our only danger 
 consists in a dearth of them. While all violence either of 
 workingman or capitalist, should be put down with an iron 
 hand, we should keep our minds open for new truth and 
 afford every opportunity for social experiments. We can 
 well begin our consideration of the lessons we have to learn 
 from our communistic settlements by a long quotation from 
 an able thinker who saw much of them. Horace Greeley 
 commenting on early American communism in his " Auto- 
 biography," says : " We stand, then, in the presence of this 
 state of facts : On the one hand, it is proved difficult to 
 create and maintain a more trustful and harmonious social' 
 structure out of such materials as the old social machinery 
 has formed, — or rather, we may say practically, out of such 
 materials as the old machinery has expelled and rejected ; 
 yet we know, on the other hand, that a more — yes, I will 
 say it — Christian Social Order is not impossible. For it is 
 more than half a century since the first associations of the 
 gentle ascetics contemptuously termed Shakers, were formed ; 
 and no one will pretend that they have failed. No ; they 
 have steadily and eminently expanded and increased in 
 wealth and every element of material prosperity, until they 
 are at this day just objects of envy to their neighbors. They 
 produce no paupers ; they excrete no beggars ; they 
 have no idlers, rich or poor; no purse-proud nabobs, 
 no cringing slaves. So far are they from pecuniary 
 failure, that they alone have known no such word as fail, 
 since, amid poverty and odium, they laid the foundations 
 of their social edifice, and inscribed ' Holiness to the 
 Lord' above their gates. They may not have attempted 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 27 
 
 the highest nor the wisest achievement ; but what tliey 
 attempted they have accomplished, and, if there were no 
 other success akin to theirs, — but there is, — it would 
 still be a demonstrated truth that men and women can 
 live and labor for general, not selfish, good, — can banish 
 pauperism, servitude, and idleness, and secure general thrift 
 and plenty, by moderate co-operative labor and a complete 
 identity of interests. Of this truth, each year offers added 
 demonstrations ; but if they were all to cease to-morrow, the 
 fact that it had been proved, would remain. Perhaps no 
 Plato, no Scipio, no Columbus, no Milton, now exists ; but 
 the capacity of the race is still measured and assured by the 
 great men and great deeds that have been. Man can work 
 for his brother's good as well as his own ; an unbroken, 
 triumphant experience of half a century has estabhshed the 
 fact, so that fifty centuries of contrary experience would not/ 
 disprove it." 
 
 One point which deserves consideration in a treatment 
 of American communities is the diversity of employment 
 which is allowable in them. This gives opportunity for a 
 fuller development of all faculties than falls to the lot of the 
 ordinary laborer, and also gives an economic security to 
 persons who follow this life, which is something unusual in 
 these days. There have been many failures among com- 
 munities and perhaps more relatively than in ordinary 
 business enterprises, but it is difficult to conceive of any- 
 thing which could cause the failure of the Shakers at Mt. 
 Lebanon, and very likely the same may be said of Zoar and 
 Amana. 
 
 The pleasure of co-operative labor is a noticeable feature 
 of community life when seen-at^ts'"Vest. It may not be 
 greater than that taken by the artist or literary man in his 
 work, but it far surpasses the satisfaction with which the 
 
28 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ordinary isolated laborer performs his task. It is work of 
 brothers and sisters together for common ends, and testi- 
 mony in favor of this is very general. A former member of 
 the Icarian community uses these words in describing his 
 toil while a resident of Icaria : " We all worked together in 
 groups as much as practicable, first at one thing, then at 
 another, thus with many hands making our work light and 
 more profitable and pleasarft at the same time. We had 
 neither employer or employee, but we were all equal 
 partners, and by thus working together with a united 
 interest our labor was more like a game of pleasure than 
 the tedious and tiresome way of either working alone or 
 with superiors or inferiors in the shape of bosses or servants." 
 The communists enjoy good health and live to great age, 
 and I think it is true of them generally that they give 
 much attention to the rules of health. This is certainly the 
 case with the Shakers, with whom hygiene is a matter of religion. 
 "The two bases of morality," says Daniel Fraser, a Shaker 
 with whom I have held many delightful conversations, " are 
 access to the land and hygiene." The Shakers expect in 
 the future to abolish disease and ill-health from among them. 
 Even now they live to be very old. There had been three 
 deaths at Mt. Lebanon during the year previous to my visit. 
 Two of them were brothers aged eighty-seven and ninety- 
 one respectively. The third was a sister aged one hundred 
 and eight. One of the sisters told me that the brother aged 
 eighty-seven could in his last year " run a race with any of 
 the boys." She said further : " His vitality was great and 
 his mental vigor was remarkable to the last. His intellect 
 was wonderful. He could hold his own in debate with any 
 man I ever saw." Daniel Fraser is between eighty and 
 ninety, and his intellectual powers seem entirely unimpaired, 
 while his bodily powers are still good, though he does not 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 29 
 
 work so long and so steadily as the younger members. He 
 showed me, however, with justifiable pride, a bed of onions 
 which had been his special care. He had gone over the 
 rows several times, so that his work was equivalent to hoeing 
 one row twenty-seven miles long once. Elder Frederick 
 Evans is seventy-eight, but does not look old. Even animals 
 seem to live long among them. When I went with Elder 
 Frederick to gather apples, he asked me how old I took the 
 black horse before the wagon to be. "Twelve," I replied. 
 "He is thirty," said Elder Frederick; "but that is Shaker 
 treatment, not the world's." Among the Economites one 
 may see men and women of seventy and eighty who are still 
 hale and hearty. This is notably the case with their leader, 
 Jacob" Henrici, who, I believe, is over eighty. 
 
 The moral is obvious. It teaches the importance of 
 regular habits, simple, wholesome food, attention to ventila- 
 tion and temperature in living rooms, and the benefits of 
 continued labor. 
 
 The intelligence of the communists impressed me very 
 favorably. I suppose they must be compared with people 
 in the ordinary walks of life ; for example, with the average 
 farmer's family, and they shine by comparison. Among the 
 Economites music is cultivated, and they all read more or 
 less. There is also a largeness and breadth of view among 
 them which is sometimes surprising. With one of the aged 
 Shakers I discussed European and Oriental politics in a 
 most interesting manner ; indeed, I do not know that I ever 
 listened to a more interesting conversationalist. The dis- 
 cussion embraced the Egyptian poHcy of England and a 
 comparison of the moral altitudes of Gladstone, Pamell, and 
 Joseph Chamberlam, — much to the favor of the latter, it 
 may be added. 
 
 Reference was made to Robert Ingersoll, who, it seems 
 
30 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 to me, was answered effectively. R^nan was quoted, arid 
 new thoughts were given me about personality in general, 
 and the personality of God in particular. The conversa- 
 tion was full of quaint, curious, and indeed startling ex- 
 pression. A locomotive was described as "materialized 
 invisibility." In speaking of English politics, in which he 
 took part in about 1830, he described the manner in which 
 concessions were made to the people by politicians, who 
 really cared nothing for them, in order to further party 
 interests, and then added thoughtfully, " It is rather singular 
 that the antagonisms of hell promote progress." 
 
 At another time, the conversation turned to the Intema- 
 tionaUsts, when he spoke about as follows : " The Interna- 
 tionahsts and those who oppose them, and those who create 
 the conditions which make them possible, — they are all of 
 them in hell. Hell is harsh unreasonableness, sour unrea- 
 sonableness. Reasonableness is justice — the recognition of 
 the same right to life and its comforts in others which we 
 have." In a letter since received, this good friend writes : 
 "I worship God through, the manifestations of intelligent 
 beneficence and wise adaptations. Were all equally par- 
 takers, effusions of gratitude would arise of themselves. 
 Friend Hughes 1 is right that the confusions of our time are 
 due because society is at strife with the will of God and his 
 Christ. To destroy Internationalism, first do justice to 
 them ; then add beneficence, and they will disappear like 
 snow before a warm sunshine. In love . . ." 
 
 There is a lesson taught by these communists in regard to 
 human nature, I think. Indolence gives them little trouble ; 
 among the Shakers, I have not heard that it has given any 
 whatever. Alcander Longley, a member of various societies 
 
 1 Reference is to Thomas Hughes, author of "Tom Brown at 
 Rugby." 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 31 
 
 for the past forty years, says in his Communist} under date of 
 July I, 1878 : "The testimony of all communities is that the 
 lazy are easily induced to work by a little friendly criticism 
 and kind persuasion." It appears that at Oneida it was 
 oftener necessary in mutual criticism to blame members -for 
 overwork than for indolence. In letters on the Shakers to 
 the New York Tribune, Mr. E. V. Smalley said : "The lack 
 of the stimulus of individual gain seems to be no drawback. 
 In its place there is the public spirit of the community, 
 which spurs up all laggards, and a strong religious conviction 
 of duty that makes all the members work together 
 harmoniously." 
 
 To one who knows this, the air of thrift and the scrupulous 
 cleanliness which characterizes many communities cannot be 
 a matter of surprise. Zoar is, however, said to be an excep- 
 tion. A friend writes that it presents an untidy appearance. 
 I am unable to explain what is the cause of this difference. 
 
 Over many other interesting points it is necessary to pass 
 with haste ; for early American communism, after all, plays 
 a subordinate part in the American labor movement. 
 
 The spiritualism of the Shakers, so well described by 
 Howells in the " Undiscovered Country," will attract the 
 careful student, as well as the fact that a strong religious 
 element has been present in nearly all those communities 
 which have succeeded, f believe this goes to show the 
 necessity of an ethical tie to bind together not merely com- 
 munistic communities but any social organization whatever. 
 Without it I believe every society, republican or monarchical, 
 must ultimately perish. 
 
 1 Published in St. Louis. He has published it as he has had means 
 for tnirty years and more. Perhaps it is the only existing English 
 organ of the older type of communism. It now bears the name 
 Altruist. 
 
32 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Remarkable is the strength of character which community 
 life has developed"; also the force of joint enthusiasm is 
 noteworthy. This has been observed frequently at Oneida. 
 One winter all were ardently pursuing the study of Greek, 
 and nearly all learned the language. Mrs. Noyes, then over 
 sixty years of age, became so proficient that she and her hus- 
 band afterwards were accustomed to read the Greek and not 
 the English New Testament together. During another winter 
 the study of mathtematic^ absorbed the energies of all, young 
 and old, men and women. It was decided on one occasion 
 that the use of tobacco was inexpedient ; whereupon all 
 addicted to it at once abandoned the habit, and no one ever 
 returned to it. At Economy the married resolved to lead a 
 celibate life, and have ever since lived together as brothers 
 and sisters. These instances perhaps show a power in con- 
 centrated public opinion which has never yet been fully 
 utihzed. 
 
 It is a matter of course that communists are temperate. 
 They, like nearly all social reformers, place woman on an 
 equal footing with man in every relation of life. 
 
 An exquisite consideration for others is often shown. At 
 Mt. Lebanon I was taught how to shut a door so as not to 
 give the slightest disturbance to any one. I was told that 
 that was a lesson in Shakerism. " It is Shakerism," said 
 Daniel Eraser, "reduced to the point of a pin." 
 
 The Shakers, it may here be added, expect a great future. 
 They look forward to six cycles and beheve that they have 
 just emerged from the first.* One of them writes : " We 
 have but begun a great work. It works against no reforms, 
 but co-operates with and embraces them all." 
 
 1 At any rate, this is the opinion one of them, Elder Frederick, 
 expressed. I believe, however, that they allow great latitude of opinion 
 on matters which they do not regard as essentials. 
 
EARLY AMERICAN COMMUNISM. 33 
 
 When my friend, Professor Knight, visited Zoar, he 
 endeavored to get a brief resum^ of the benefits of com- 
 munism as they presented themselves to a communist, by 
 asking one of the trustees to state the superiorities of their 
 life over " the industrial and social system of the outside 
 world," and he replied without hesitation about as follows : 
 "We all live comfortably, we don't have to worry about 
 money matters, we are all on an equality, and we are sure 
 of being taken care of when we are too old to work. Can 
 you say the same for everybody where you live ? " "^ 
 
 Early American communism is not adapted to modern 
 economic Ufe, and as an attempt to estalplish a world system 
 may be regarded as antiquated, though it may not be exact 
 to say, as I once did, that " it exists only as a curious and 
 interesting survival." I like to think that it has still a 
 mission to perform, though not that which its early advocates 
 hoped. In particular is it earnestly to be desired that such 
 vast possessions as those of the Harmonists may be pre- 
 served for social experimentation in the future. If wisely 
 conducted, their wealth would then forever be a blessing to 
 mankind. 
 
 Early American communism has accompHshed much; 
 good and littlTlharm. Its leaders have been actuated byj 
 noble motives, have many times been men far above theirj 
 fellows in moral stature, even in intellectual stature, and. 
 have desired only to benefit their kind. Its aim has been 
 to elevate man, and its ways have been ways of peace. 
 
 1 Quoted by kind permission from Professor Knight's manuscript on 
 Zoar. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GROWTH AND PRESENT CONDITION OF 
 LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 
 
 I. First Period, 1800-1861. 
 
 ORGANIZED labor is labor in its normal condition. 
 Unions of laborers may be traced back in European 
 history for at least six hundred years ; and it is probable that 
 in whatever period and in whatever country we are able to 
 find large masses of free laborers thrown together, careful 
 research will reveal to us at least the germs of labor organ- 
 izations. Association is so natural to man, and its benefits 
 so great, that it is ever sought, and, indeed, more and more 
 sought with the progress of civilization. Isolation is weak- 
 ness, but union is strength. 
 
 Nevertheless, Httle or "nothing was heard of labor organ- 
 izations in America one hundred years ago, and even in 
 Europe their older forms were passing away, and the more 
 modern trades-unions had not been developed. It was a 
 transition period between old and new institutions, and was 
 a point of rest like that between the outgoing and the 
 incoming tide. Doubtless Adam Smith described correctly 
 the causes which then led to the appearances of labor in 
 pubHc discussion, when he said, " In the public deliberations, 
 therefore, his (the laborer's) voice is little heard and less 
 regarded, except upon some particular occasions, when his 
 clamor is set on and supported by his employers, not for 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 3S 
 
 his own, but their own particular purposes." In another 
 place Adam Smith explains the appearance of the workmen 
 before the public in the assertion that manufacturers "in- 
 fluence their workmen to attack with violence and outrage '' 
 those who propose the abolition of restrictions on the 
 freedom of trade. 
 
 While it is evident that the times have changed radically 
 since Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations " appeared in 
 1776, his explanation of the appearance of the working 
 classes in public discussions and his view of the cause of 
 violence on their part, still hold true with regard to a 
 minority, though doubtless a very small minority, of the 
 occasions when laborers figure in riots and in legislative 
 deliberations. Thus in the history of the Camden and 
 Amboy Transportation Company we read of a disturbance 
 instigated by the officers of that company and directed 
 against an obnoxious rival to ruin his business. A riot 
 ensued, and one man was killed. Mr. Hudson, in his able 
 work "The Railways and the Republic," tells us that work- 
 men of the Standard Oil Company packed a public meeting 
 in Pittsburgh and " howled down every speaker advocating 
 commercial freedom in the oil trade." A suit is now 
 pending against the Western Union Telegraph Company on 
 account of violence perpetrated by its agents in cutting the 
 wires of a rival line. Within a day's ride from the city in 
 which I live, workingmen in a certain branch of industry are 
 occasionally surprised to see in their morning's paper that 
 they are on a strike, and to discover that one has been 
 inaugurated by the manufacturers to convey the impression 
 that their goods will be scarce, and thus work off a stock on 
 hand.^ 
 
 1 For an example of a manufacturer's incitement to riot in ancient 
 times, see Acts XIX, w. 24-41 
 
36 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 It is necessary to mention these cases to call attention to 
 the fact that sometimes what appears to be a movement of 
 labor is in reality a movement of capital, which, like labor, 
 is at times unscrupulous. Instances of the kind described 
 are undoubtedly far more numerous than is ordinarily 
 supposed ; still they are the exception. When we hear of 
 the laborer in these days, it is as a rule — provided we 
 except discussions on the tariff — because he himself has 
 made some move which has called attention to him. 
 
 I find no traces of anything like a modem trades-union 
 in the colonial period of American history, and it is evident 
 on reflection that there was little need, if any, of organiza- 
 tion on the part of labor at that time. Unions of working- 
 men always arise where there is a large and distinct laboring 
 class gathered together in industrial centres ; but then there 
 was scarcely such a class, and there was then no great city 
 in the country ; for even in 1 790, when the first census was 
 taken, there was but one city in the United States with a 
 population between forty thousand and seventy-five thou- 
 sand inhabitants, and it was not until 1840 that we could 
 claim a city of half a million souls. The population was 
 chiefly agricultural, and the labor of the farm was for the 
 most part performed by independent farmers who tilled 
 their own soil. Doubtless the " hired man " could always 
 be found in the North, but no thought of organization 
 occurred to him, and if there had been any reason for 
 organization, his isolation, and the unsteady character of his 
 employment, would have rendered it well-nigh impossible. 
 But as an individual he could treat with his individual 
 employer, and abundance of unoccupied land furnished 
 him a frequent escape from a subordinate position. There 
 were comparatively few slaves in the North, and these were 
 employed in households or in separate occupations, and did 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 37 
 
 not affect greatly the general condition of labor. The labor 
 of the South, on the other hand, was performed chiefly by 
 slaves until our late Civil War, and this fact rendered organ- 
 ization impossible in that section. 
 
 Such manufacturing, as was found, consisted largely in the 
 production of values-in-use. Clothing, for example, was 
 spun and woven, and then converted into garments in the 
 household for its various members. The artisans comprised 
 chiefly the carpenter, the blacksmith, and the shoemaker ; 
 many of whom worked in their own little shops with no 
 employees, while the number of subordinates in any one 
 shop was almost invariably small, and it would probably 
 have been difficult to find a journeyman who did not expect, 
 in a few years, to become an independent producer. 
 
 What might be expected actually happened. Artisans and 
 mechanics were a bold and spirited body of men who exerted 
 an influence in affairs, though they do not appear in history 
 as organizations pitted against their employers. "Below 
 the merchants," says Professor Hosmer in his description of 
 the people of Boston,' " the class of workmen formed a body 
 most energetic. . . . The caulkers were bold politicians. 
 The rope-walk hands were energetic to turbulence, courting 
 the brawls with the soldiers which led to the ' Boston Mas- 
 sacre.' " The "Caulkers' Club" was a body formed for 
 political purposes, designed, in fact, " to lay plans for intro- 
 ducing certain persons into places of trust and power." ^ 
 The father of Samuel Adams was prominent in it in 1724, 
 and it is not improbable that the term caucus was derived 
 from these workmen. 
 
 The first years of the nineteenth century, however, wit- 
 ness the beginning of a change, although the urban popula- 
 
 1 See his " Samuel Adams " in the American Statesmen series. 
 ' See "Samuel Adams," p. 15. 
 
38 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 tion of the country scarcely exceeded four per cent of the 
 entire population. Something very like a modern strike 
 occurred in the year 1802. The sailors in New York re- 
 ceived ten dollars a month, but wished an increase of four 
 dollars a month, and endeavored to enforce their demands 
 by quitting work. It is said that they marched about the 
 city, accompanied by a band, and compelled seamen, 
 employed at the old wages, to leave their ships and join 
 them. But the iniquitous combination and conspiracy laws, 
 which viewed concerted action of laborers as a crime, were 
 then in force in all modern lands, and " the constables were 
 soon in pursuit, arrested the leader, lodged him in jail, and 
 so ended the earUest of labor strikes." * 
 
 The most primitive form of labor organizations is the 
 union of one class of employees in a single place with no 
 connection with laborers working in other localities or at 
 other callings. Such unions are found here and there in 
 the United States from 1800 to 1825, though they do not 
 appear to have gained any considerable influence before the 
 latter year. The " New York Society of Journeymen Ship- 
 wrights " was incorporated April 3, 1803, and a union of 
 the " House Carpenters of the City of New York " was in- 
 corporated in 1806. 
 
 The compositors of New York must have been organized 
 early in the century, for they seem to have had a strong 
 society in 181 7, when Thurlow Weed was elected a member. 
 It was called the " New York Typographical Society," and 
 Peter Force was its President. In the following year the 
 
 1 See McMaster's " History of the People of the United States, Vol. 
 II., p. 618. 
 
 Police interference is still everywhere lawful and, of course, proper, 
 in case of recourse to violence, but then the combination of laborers 
 in itself was generally regarded as illegal. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 39 
 
 society took advantage of Mr. Weed's residence in Albany 
 to secure its incorporation. " I remember," writes Mr. 
 Weed, in his Autobiography,' " with what deference I then 
 ventured into the presence of distinguished members of the 
 legislature, and how sharply I was rebuked by two gentlemen 
 who were quite shocked at the idea of incorporating jour- 
 neymen mechanics. The application, however, was success- 
 ful." There was also a typographical society in Albany in 
 182 1 ; for in that year a strike was ordered in the office in 
 which Mr. Weed was employed, because one of the compos- 
 itors was a " rat," as those printers are called who do not 
 belong to a union. This shows the growth of a strong union 
 feeling, and may be taken as evidence of some age on the 
 part of the "Typographical Society " in that city. 
 
 All these unions, it will be noticed, were located in New 
 York State, and I find no record of a trades-union elsewhere 
 until the " Columbian Charitable Society of Shipwrights and 
 Caulkers of Boston and Charlestown " was formed in 1822. 
 The following year they were granted a charter by the legis- 
 lature of Massachusetts. Their charter empowered them 
 " to have and use a common seal, and to make by-laws for 
 the governing of the affairs of said association, and the 
 management and application of its funds ; and also for pro- 
 moting inventions and improvements in their art; by grant- 
 ing premiums, to assist mechanics with loans of money, and 
 to relieve the distresses of unfortunate mechanics and their 
 families." 
 
 Though the first quarter of this century may perhaps be 
 considered as a germinal period, preceding the modern 
 labor movement, and preparing the way for it, that move- 
 ment itself, so far as it is represented by organizations of 
 laborers designed to improve their condition as laborers, 
 1 Page 69. 
 
40 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 may be regarded as beginning with the year 1825 ; not that 
 any important event divided the history of labor before that 
 period from its subsequent history, but that, roughly speak- 
 ing, at about that time, a new spirit and a new purpose be- 
 gan to animate the laboring classes. They became more 
 conscious of their existence as a distinct part of the commu- 
 nity, and with interests to a certain extent not identical with 
 those of other social classes, and very naturally the idea of 
 class action on a larger scale than hitherto became more 
 familiar to workmen ; and from that time forward this idea 
 has been cherished among them. It is easy then to charac- 
 terize the movement of labor organizations during the first 
 period of their history, in the United States, which may be 
 said to terminate with the beginning of the Civil War be- 
 tween North and South. 
 
 An'increasing number of local unions is formed ; at times 
 unions of artisans of various trades in a certain section join 
 hands for common action ; gradually the skilled laborers, 
 pursuing the same trade, fqrm the idea of national unions, 
 urged on doubtless by the increased facilities of transporta- 
 tion and communication which rendered national trade soci- 
 eties at once possible and desirable, since the competition 
 of artisans and mechanics with one another ceased to be 
 local, and transcended the boundaries of several states. 
 Early in our history, when travel was difficult and the post- 
 office still in a primitive condition, it would have been well- 
 nigh impossible to form any national union of laborers ; and 
 the advantages of such association would have been less 
 obvious at a time when each region of country was for most 
 purposes a little world in itself. During this first period 
 political action as an instramept of social amelioration is 
 frequently urged, and we begin to hear of workingmen's 
 parties. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 41 
 
 The two cities most prominent in the straggle of organ- 
 ized labor from 1825 to 1861 are Boston and New York, 
 as they were the chief cities to attract our attention in the 
 earlier history of labor just considered. In the year 1820 
 two Englishmen, George Henry Evans and Frederick W. 
 Evans, landed in New York, and very soon began to exercise 
 a perceptible influence upon American thought, an influence 
 which the careful student of our history may still discover 
 working among us. George Henry, the elder, was a land- 
 reformer, much in the line of Henry George's theory, 
 holding that man had a right to the usufruct of land only ; 
 and the present agitators for the abolition of rent may owe 
 perhaps more than they suppose to their predecessors, who 
 appeared in the field fifty years and more ago.' The two 
 brothers published the " Workingman's Advocate " during 
 a part of the five years between 1825 and 1830 in New 
 York City, and it is possible that this was the first appear- 
 ance of a representative of the labor press in the United 
 States. The "Workingman's Advocate" was succeeded 
 by the "Daily Sentinel," and finally by "Young America." 
 Their demands, printed at the head of " Young America," 
 although then radical in the extreme, were endorsed by six 
 hundred papers, and have in some instances been granted. 
 An enumeration of them will show, on the one hand, how 
 advanced was the economic thought of the laborers at that 
 time ; on the other, how great an influence these brothers, 
 and the small band of workers gathered about them, have 
 exerted upon our national life. The twelve demands were 
 as follows : — 
 1/ " First. The right of man to the soil, ' Vote yourself a farm.' 
 
 1 Authority is the "Autobiography of a Shaker," by Elder Frederick 
 W. Evans. It is now published in book form, but it appeared first in 
 the "Atlantic Monthly." 
 
42 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 •/" Second. Down with monopolies, especially the United 
 States Bank. 
 
 ^" Third. Freedom of public lands. 
 >/" Fourth. Homesteads made inalienable. 
 ''^" Fifth. Abolition of all laws for the collection of debts. 
 ^ " Sixth. A general bankrupt law. 
 
 ' " Seventh. A lien of the laborer upon his own work for 
 his wages. 
 ' " Eighth. Abolition of imprisonment for debt. 
 y" " Ninth. Equal rights for women with men in all respects, 
 v/ " Tenth. Abolition of chattel slavery, and of wages slavery. 
 y " Eleventh. Land limitation to one hundred and sixty 
 acres ; no person after the passage of this law to become 
 possessed of more than that amount of land. But when a 
 land monopolist died, his heirs were to take each his legal 
 number of acres, and be compelled to sell the overplus, 
 using the proceeds as they pleased. 
 
 / "Twelfth. Mails in the United States to run on the 
 Sabbath." 
 
 A " Workingman's Convention " met at Syracuse, New 
 York, in 1830, and nominated Ezekiel Williams for governor, 
 who received, however, less than three thousand votes. 
 Greater success attended their efforts in New York City in 
 the same year, for the " Workingmen's party " joined forces 
 with the Whigs and elected three or four members of the 
 legislature.^ 
 
 These men finally formed what became known in our his- 
 tory as the Loco-Foco party, and cast their influence on the 
 side of the Democratic party, as that promised a larger 
 number of concessions to them. They believed that it was 
 their influence which made the election of Andrew Jackson 
 a possibility ; and there can scarcely be a doubt that the 
 ^ See Thurlow Weed's Autobiography, pp. 367 and 404. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 43 
 
 Democratic party from 1829 to 1841 was more truly a work- 
 ingman's party than has been the case with any other great 
 political party in our country, or with that party either 
 before or since. 
 
 George Henry Evans became a friend of Horace Greeley, 
 and followed with active interest the political movements of 
 the country up to the time of his decease, which occurred 
 about 1870. The younger brother, Frederick W. Evans, 
 joined the Shakers at Mount Lebanon in 1831, and now one 
 of their leading men is famiharly known among them as 
 Elder Frederick, tie still maintains his radical social views, 
 and they form part of his religion. One of the three days I 
 passed with the Shakers at Mount Lebanon, in the summer 
 of 1885, was fortunately a Sunday, and I had the pleasure 
 of listening to an address from Elder Frederick. I must 
 confess that it sounded strange to me to hear the views I 
 had associated with Henry George preached as part of a 
 religious system ; and it was a surprise to me to learn that 
 the Elder had been preaching them for fifty years and more. 
 
 The next event to attract our attention in New York 
 is an address delivered before " The General Trades-Unions 
 of the City of New York," at Chatham Street Chapel, on 
 Dec. 2, 1833, by Ely Moore, President of the Union. 
 This General Trades-Union, as its name indicates, was a 
 combination of subordinate unions " of the various trades 
 and arts " in New York City and its vicinity, and is the 
 earliest example in the United States, so far as I know, of 
 those Central Labor Unions which attempt to unite all the 
 workingmen in one locality in one body, and which have 
 now become so common among us.^ The address of Mr. 
 Moore is characterized by a more modern tone than is 
 
 ' They are also called Trades and Labor Assemblies, Trades and 
 Labor Councils, and Federations of Labor in various places. 
 
44 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 found in most productions of the labor leaders of that 
 period. The object of these unions is stated to be " to 
 guard against the encroachments of aristocracy, to pre- 
 serve our natural and political rights, to elevate our moral 
 and intellectual condition, to promote our pecuniary inter- 
 ests, to narrow the line of distinction between the journey- 
 man and employer, to establish the honor and safety of 
 our respective vocations upon a more secure and permanent 
 basis, and to alleviate the distresses of those suffering from 
 want of employment." 
 
 The right of laborers to combine for the protection of 
 their interests is vigorously maintained, and the position is 
 taken that their General Trades-Union will diminish the 
 number of strikes and lock-outs, and not increase them, as 
 their opponents had claimed. Two extracts, quoted from 
 their Constitution to show this, are as follows : " Each trade 
 or art may represent to the Convention, through their dele- 
 gate, their grievances, who shall take cognizance thereof, 
 and decide upon the same." 
 
 " No trade or art shall strike for higher wages than they 
 at present receive without the sanction of the Convention." 
 
 Two or three years later there was sufficient class feeling 
 in New York to enable Mr. Moore to secure an election to 
 Congress as a representative of the workingmen. 
 
 " The Workingman's Manual : a New Theory of Political 
 Economy, on the Principle of Production the Source of 
 Wealth, including an Enquiry into the Principles of Public 
 Currency, the Wages of Labor, the Production of Wealth, 
 the Distribution of Wealth, Consumption of Wealth, Popular 
 Education, and the Elements of Social Government in Gen- 
 eral, as they appear open to the Scrutiny of Common Sense 
 and Philosophy of the Age j " — all this is the long and am- 
 bitious title of a noteworthy book written by Stepheij Simp- 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 4S 
 
 son, of Philadelphia, and published in that city in the year 
 1 83 1. It bears the motto "Governments were instituted 
 for the happiness of the many, not the benefit of the few," 
 and is dedicated " to the shade of Jefferson." 
 
 Like the address of Ely Moore in New York, this work 
 gives evidence of a good deal of previous agitation of the 
 labor problem. The working classes are told that the old. 
 political parties offer them no hope of satisfactory reforms, 
 and they are urged to support the " Party of the Working- 
 men," which, "resisting the seductions of fanatics on the 
 one hand and demagogues on the other," presses forward 
 in "the path of science and justice, under the banner of 
 labor the source of wealth, and industry the arbiter of its 
 distribution." 
 
 The economic evils of the country are explained, and 
 remedies for them are pointed out. 
 
 Jefferson is lauded by Simpson for " the Declaration of 
 our Independence ; for the abolishment of the laws of en- 
 tail and primogeniture, and other sanative and benevolent 
 schemes, having for their object, the equalization of fortunes, 
 the just distribution of property, and the diffusil^e happi- 
 ness of the whole people." But objection is raised to the 
 alleged fact that the " Declaration of Independence" is still 
 only a body of theoretical principles, because feudal laws 
 and customs, as well as European fashions, sentiments, and 
 literature, have maintained old-world abuses among us ; never- 
 theless, forcible equalization of fortunes is repudiated as a worse 
 injustice, if possible, than the present system. Measures are 
 urged, designed to prevent monopoly, and to apportion the 
 product of industry among the members of the community, 
 more nearly in proportion to services rendered to society. It 
 is urged, that although labor is the source of wealth, — ^ since 
 "natural agents are but the basis of human industry," — 
 
46 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 those who toil not live in luxury, while the honest laborer 
 suffers the pangs of hunger. Nature has furnished sufficient 
 means for the comfort of all, but unjust arrangements have 
 brought such a state of things to pass, that the lord of ten 
 thousand acres is " tortured on his sick couch by the agonies 
 of repletion, whilst the laborer famishes at his gate.'' 
 
 The chief sources of unjust inequality in the distribution 
 of wealth are found in the " funding system," which led to 
 the monopoly of stock, and those royal grants which led to 
 the monopoly of land, and regret is expressed that royal 
 titles to land were not forever abolished when the Federal 
 Constitution was adopted. 
 
 A third source of injustice is found in the Common Law 
 of England, which grew up in an aristocratical and monarchi- 
 cal country, and as not suitable for a repubhc, ought not to 
 have been adopted in this country. 
 
 The remedies proposed are simple. Violence and blood- 
 shed are condemned, and the intelligent use of the ballot is 
 commended. Public opinion ought to be educated so that 
 labor may become respectable ; for now, the writer com- 
 plains, " the children of toil are as much shunned in society 
 as if they were leprous convicts just emerged from loath- 
 some cells." 
 
 Corporations and monopolies, continues our author, ought 
 to be discouraged, for " capital, banks, and monopolies," as 
 oppressors of the people, have taken the place of the barons, 
 lords, and bishops of Old England. The condemnation of 
 the old combination laws is rather bitter, though certainly 
 just. " If mechanics combine to raise their wages," says 
 Simpson, " the laws punish them as conspirators against the 
 good of society, and the dungeon awaits them as it does the 
 robber. But the laws have made it a just and meritorious 
 act that capitalists shall combine to strip the man of labor 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 47 
 
 of his earnings, and reduce him to a dry crust and a gourd 
 of water." 
 
 Imprisonment for debt is condemned as another grave 
 abuse, and its abolition is urged on economic as well as on 
 humanitarian grounds, since the removal of power to im- 
 prison the debtor would lead to the curtailment of dis- 
 astrous grants of credit. Remarks on paper money and in- 
 flation, as evils which have brought severe suffering to the 
 working classes, deserve the attention of our " Greenbackers " 
 at the present 'time. 
 
 The chief remedy, however, is that which we find recom- 
 mended by all agitators in the early days of the labor move- 
 ment ; namely, universal education. Public instruction was 
 claimed by the party of the workingmen, but their demand 
 was met " by the sneer of derision on the one hand, and the 
 cry of revolution on the other." 
 
 There are abundant evidences of widespread discussion 
 of labor-problems ' in New England, and particularly in 
 Massachusetts, at this time. One of these is a pamphlet 
 which lies before me, entitled "An Address before the 
 Workingmen's Society," of Dedham (Mass.), delivered on 
 the evening of Sept. 7, 1831, by Samuel Whitcomb, Jr. 
 Whitcomb takes the same view of the injustice of the pres- 
 ent distribution of the product of industry, which we have 
 found presented in Simpson's Manual, and he rejoices in 
 the organization of workingmen's associations, as institutions 
 designed to correct abuses, and resist the " encroachment of 
 foreign influence and evil example on our moral and political 
 welfare." Chiefly noteworthy is the allusion to workingmen's 
 associations as something comparatively new, yet becoming 
 common. 
 
 More remarkable is " an Address to the Workingmen of 
 New England, on the State of Education, and on the Con- 
 
48 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 dition of the Producing Classes in Europe and America," 
 which was delivered by Seth Luther in Boston, Charlestown, 
 Cambridgeport, Waltham, Dorchester, Mass. ; Portland, Saco, 
 Me. ; and Dover, N.H. The copyright is dated 1832, and 
 the third edition was printed in Philadelphia in 1836. 
 
 The protectionists were then lauding the " splendid exam- 
 ple " of England, and endeavoring to persuade the American 
 people that manufactures ought to be developed even at the 
 expense of public aid. An assemblage of manufacturers at 
 Concord, Mass., had gone still further, and adopted a reso- 
 lution " that they had rather have this union dissolved than 
 to have the protecting policy given up," and John Quincy 
 Adams had declared in a report on manufactures, that the 
 cotton-mills were "the principalities of the destitute, the 
 palaces of the poor.'' This naturally led Mr. Luther, a me- 
 chanic, to investigate the condition of the manufacturing 
 population of England and the United States, in order to 
 determine whether manufactures were after all so desirable 
 when viewed from the standpoint of the laboring classes. ' 
 
 His pamphlet is valuable for the light it throws on the 
 hours of labor, the wages of employees in manufactories, 
 and the abuses of power on the part of some unscrupulous 
 manufacturers. I know of no stronger proof of an improve- 
 ment in the condition of the manufacturing population of 
 New England than that which is found in Seth Luther's 
 address and in the " appendix," which is possibly still more 
 important on account of the reprint it contains of original 
 documents, like the " General Rules of the Lowell Manufac- 
 turing Company " and " The Conditions on which Help is 
 hired by the Cocheo Manufacturing Company, Dover, N.H." 
 
 Distressing cases of cruelty to children are described in 
 detail by Seth lAither, and the amount of child labor in cer- 
 tain districts must have been relatively almost as great as at 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 49 
 
 present, though it does not seem to have prevailed so gen- 
 erally throughout the country. 
 
 The length of a day's, labor varied from twelve to fifteen 
 hours. The New England Mills generally ran thirteen hours 
 a day the year round, but one mill in Connecticut ran four- 
 teen hours, while the length of actual labor in another mill 
 in the same State, the Eagle Mill at Griswold, was fifteen 
 hours and ten minutes. The regulations at Paterson, New 
 Jersey, required women and children to be at work at half- 
 past four in the morning. 
 
 The regulations of the factory were cruel and oppressive 
 to a degree, I think, scarcely known among us at present. 
 Operatives were taxed by the companies for the support of 
 religion ; habitual absence from church w«,s punished by the 
 Lowell Manufacturing Company with dismissal from employ- 
 ment, and in other respects the life of the employees out- 
 side of the factories was regulated as well as their life within 
 them. Windows were nailed down and the operatives de- 
 prived of fresh air, and a case of rebellion on the part of 
 one thousand females on account of tyrannical and oppressive 
 treatment is mentioned. Women and children were urged 
 on by the use of a cowhide, and an instance is given of a 
 little girl, eleven years of age, whose leg was broken with a 
 "billet of wood." Still more harrowing is the description of 
 the merciless whipping of a deaf-and-dumb boy by an over- 
 seer named Bryant. An "eye-witness" said "when he came 
 in (at home), he lay down on the bed like one without life. 
 ... He was mangled in a shocking manner, from his neck 
 to his feet. He received, I should think, one hundred 
 blows." At Mendon, Mass., a boy of twelve drowned him- 
 self in a pond to escape factory labor. 
 
 The wages were small. The " United Hand-Loom Weav- 
 ers' Trade Association of Baltimore," reported in 1835, that 
 
so THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 they could earn in twelve hours from sixty-five cents to sev- 
 enty-one cents a day, which, they said, did not enable them 
 to defray the expenses " of the schooling " of their children. 
 
 Mr. Luther enlarges on the evils of the manufacturing 
 population, but says httle about remedies. He recommends, 
 however, general education and the abolition of the oppres- 
 sive combination laws, so that laborers might unite their- 
 forces like their employers. The hostile attitude of the press 
 is classed as one of their difficulties, but it is stated that a 
 remedy will be found in workingmen's papers, which " are 
 multiplying." Finally, the bitter denunciation which trades- 
 unions and combinations of laborers received at this time 
 from the employing class is worthy of attention. A combi- 
 nation of merchants in Boston pledged themselves to drive 
 the shipwrights, caulkers, and gravers of that city to sub- 
 mission or starvation, and subscribed ^20,000 for that 
 purpose. 
 
 An important meeting of the laboring classes was held 
 in Boston in February, 1831. Of this no record appears 
 to have been preserved, but the first report of the Massa- 
 chusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, issued in 1870, 
 contains an account of the second meeting of the same 
 body, held in Boston, Sept. 6, 1832. The organization 
 was known as the " New England Association of Farmers, 
 Mechanics, and other Workingmen." Boston was rep- 
 resented by thirty delegates, and among them were men 
 who afterward achieved at least a local celebrity. Ten 
 points for consideration were reported, among which were 
 these : the ten-hour working day ; the effect of banking 
 institutions and other monopolies on the condition of 
 the laboring classes ; the improvement of the educational 
 system ; imprisonment for debt ; a national bankrupt law ; 
 the extension of the right of suffrage in States where it 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 51 
 
 was restricted ; a lien law in favor of journeyman mechanics. 
 Resolutions were adopted in favor of annual meetings, in 
 favor of a lien law, against imprisonment for debt, and 
 against the militia system. A journal called the " New Eng- 
 land Artisan" was recognized as the official organ of the as- 
 sociation. From the report of the committee on an address 
 to the workingmen, the following statement of grievances and 
 remedies is taken : " These evils . . . arise from the moral 
 obliquity of the fastidious and the cupidity of the avaricious. 
 They consist in an illiberal opinion of the worth and rights 
 of the laboring classes ; an unjust estimation of their moral, 
 intellectual, and physical powers ; an unwise misapprehen- 
 sion of the effects which would result from the cultivation of 
 their minds and the improvement of their condition ; and an 
 avaricious propensity to avail of their laborious services at 
 the lowest possible rate of wages for which they can be 
 induced to work. The remedies which are relied on to cor- 
 rect these misapprehensions and reform these abuses are 
 the organization of the whole laboring population of this 
 United Republic into an association for this purpose ; the 
 separation of questions of poHtical morality and economy 
 from the mere personal and party contests of the day; a 
 general diffusion of light by the presentation of facts to the 
 consideration of all good men and faithful citizens; the 
 selection from among the politicians of the respective 
 parties to which workingmen may happen to belong, of those 
 as the objects of our preference whose moral character, per- 
 sonal habits, relations, and employments, as well as profes- 
 sions, afford us the best guarantee of their disposition to 
 revise our social and political system, and to introduce those 
 improvements called for by us and demanded by the spirit 
 of the age. 
 
 " To this we shall add our fixed determination to persevere 
 
52 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 till our wrongs are redressed, and to imbue the minds of 
 our offspring with a spirit of abhorrence for the usurpations 
 of aristocracy, and of resistance to their oppressions, so 
 invincible, that they shall dedicate their lives to a comple- 
 tion of the work which their ancestors commenced in their 
 struggle for national, and their sires have continued in their 
 contest for personal, independence." During this meeting — 
 held, as has been stated, in 1832 — a letter was received from 
 the workingmen of New York City, addressed to the working- 
 men of the United States, which, hke much that has been 
 already said, shows general agitation and a certain concert of 
 action in what are now called labor circles. 
 
 This earUer stage of the labor movement has been de- 
 scribed with so much fulness because it is peculiarly instruc- 
 tive on several accounts. It shows, first, that grievances of the 
 laboring classes in the United States are no new thing ; second, 
 that the pretensions of the wealthy irritated the masses in 
 America fifty years ago ; third, that progress has been made, 
 many of the demands of the laboring classes at that time 
 having been already granted ; fourth, that what one gener- 
 ation considered dangerous and possibly even revolutionary 
 claims, a later has learned to look upon as just and natural. 
 As has often happened, concessions on the part of those in 
 whose hands the powers of government and society reside, 
 have resulted in benefit to all classes. Perhaps one may be 
 tempted to conclude that the social salvation of society, like 
 the religious salvation of the world, comes from below. The \ 
 masses move forward ; their onward motion is resisted by the 
 so-called better classes — and it is possible one ought to say, 
 rightly called better classes ; but the advance-march con- 
 tinues, and what was thought an ominous signal of danger 
 proves to be but an olive-branch of peace. The truths of 
 economic and social science have frequently been among 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. S3 
 
 those things which are hid from the wise and prudent and 
 revealed unto babes. 
 
 It is, however, more correct to compare the legitimate 
 functions of the upper classes of society to those of an upper 
 house of a legislature. It is, indeed, very necessary that 
 measures initiated by the masses should be examined and 
 discussed by the more learned, prudent, and cautious among 
 the upper ten thousand, who should- at times exercise a 
 controlling and restraining power over popular movements 
 in the interest of society as a whole. It is further desirable 
 that representatives of wealth and culture should always be 
 found in the lower house ; in other words, thoroughly iden- 
 tified with the masses, yet bringing into their movements an 
 elevated and refined tone. The misfortune is that those who 
 ought to play the part of prudent advisers are too often in- 
 clined to stop the march of progress altogether. The con- 
 servative becomes an obstructionist, and arouses an angry 
 cry for the abolition of every influence which tends to retard 
 a too rapid social reconstruction. Thus do revolutions 
 come ! 
 
 The laboring classes we're not without powerful friends 
 in those early days, for among those whose hearts were 
 with the masses are found the names of William EUery 
 Channing, James G. Carter, Robert Rantoul, and Horace 
 Mann. Greatest stress was at this time laid upon the 
 diffusion of education and the improvement of educational 
 methods and systems. That is the burden of Channing's 
 message to the workingmen in his celebrated lectures on 
 "Self-Culture" and on the "Laboring Classes." Channing 
 was not merely full of sympathy with the masses who bear 
 the burden and heat of the day. What is still more, he had 
 faith in their integrity, in their wisdom, and in their capabil- 
 ities for improvement. To those who saw danger in the 
 
54 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 extension of power and freedom to the laboring classes, and 
 feared a conspiracy of the needy against the rich, he uttered 
 these vigorous words of remonstrance : " It ought to be 
 understood that the great enemies to society are not found 
 in its poorer ranks. The mass may indeed be used as tools ; 
 but the stirring and guiding powers of insurrection are found 
 above. Communities fall by the vices of the prosperous 
 ranks. . . . The French Revolution is perpetually sounded 
 in our ears as a warning. . . . But whence came this rev- 
 olution ? Who were the regicides ? . . . They were Louis 
 the Fourteenth and the Regent who followed him, and Louis 
 the Fifteenth. These brought their descendants to the guil- 
 lotine. The priesthood -yvho revoked the Edict of Nantes, 
 and drove from France the skill and industry and virtue and 
 piety which were the sinews of her strength ; the statesmen 
 who intoxicated Louis the Fourteenth with the scheme of 
 universal empire ; the profligate, prodigal, shameless Orleans ; 
 and the still more brutalized Louis the Fifteenth, with his 
 court of panders and prostitutes, — they made the nation 
 bankrupt, broke asunder the bond of loyalty, and over- 
 whelmed the throne and altars in ruins." 
 
 Horace Mann, while laying the foundations of the best 
 educational system in the United States, attempted at the 
 same time to secure its advantages for the humblest mem- 
 bers of the community, and with this in view he strove to 
 introduce measures which would effectually protect children 
 when their right to an opportunity to acquire at least the 
 elements of learning should be attacked either by cruel 
 master or heartless parent. Carter and Rantoul were 
 active in < the same field, while the latter vindicated the 
 right of laborers to combine, in the well-known " Journeyman 
 Bootmakers' Case." Their combination had been attacked 
 under the old conspiracy laws of odious memory, which the 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 55 
 
 Common Law had brought to America ; but the case was 
 decided for tlie journeymen in 1842, and this decision was 
 final, as the legality of labor organizations has since then not 
 been contested in Massachusetts. 
 
 The topic of liveliest interest among the working classes 
 in the United States from the earUest time up to the present 
 day has been what is called the normal working day ; that 
 is, the number of hours which should constitute the regular 
 day's labor. When our ancestors came to this country, their 
 poverty and the abundant opportunity for the acquisition of 
 wealth spurred them to over-exertion, often short-sighted ; 
 for while it brought the eagerly coveted riches, it ruined 
 health, dwarfed the mind, and stunted the development of 
 all higher faculties. When the means of enjoyment were 
 acquired, all power of enjoyment was gone. In gaining 
 Ufe, they had lost those things which made life worth living ; 
 or, as the Bible has it, they had lost their own souls, their 
 true selves. This is familiar, but the fact has not received 
 equal attention that they were likewise hard task-masters. 
 Not content with overworking themselves, they drove wife, 
 children, and employees from sunrise to sunset, for the " sun 
 to sun " system prevailed generally in our early history. 
 This involved at times a normal working day of sixteen 
 hours. The laborers early protested against this, and the 
 agitation for ten hours is as old as the labor movement in 
 this country, and it is still continued in some parts of the 
 United States, though in most places it ceased long ago, 
 because it had accomplished its purpose. Just at the right 
 time, when the conflict of the laborers for shorter hours had 
 already made considerable headway, one whom the working- 
 men considered a friend, Martin Van Buren, the President, 
 threw the weight of government into the trembhng balance 
 and decided the issue. On the loth of April, 1840, Mr. 
 
56 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Van Buren signed a general order introducing the ten-hour 
 system thereafter into the navy-yard at Washington, D.C., 
 and in "all public estabUshments." This example was fol- 
 lowed in private ship-yards, and very soon became general, 
 though by no means universal. At the time Gen. Oliver 
 made his first report, to which I have already referred, 
 and to which I am indebted for many data- concerning 
 the early labor movement, the time of labor in factories 
 where women and children were employed in New England 
 was sixty-six to seventy-two hours a week. Within this year 
 seventeen and eighteen hours have been a common length of 
 a day's labor on the street railways of the United States ; and 
 though the laborers have been able to shorten it by organi- 
 zations and strikes in many cities, it doubtless still continues 
 in places. Employees of steam railways are often worked 
 as long, and even longer, to the danger of the life and limb 
 of the general public as well as their own. But the most 
 overworked men in the country in recent times have beeo 
 the bakers. Once a week in Baltimore they have worked 
 steadily for twenty-five hours, and in New York for twenty- 
 six — a normal working day considerably longer it is seen 
 than the solar day ! 
 
 -The ten-hour day was established in Baltimore a few years 
 before President Van Buren's general order. The laborers 
 of that city stopped work and paraded the streets with 
 drum and fife, proclaiming to the world that ten hours 
 should constitute a day's labor thereafter. The conflict was 
 decided in a week in favor of the workingmen, and for fifty 
 years men have as a rule worked but ten hours a day in 
 Baltimore. 
 
 The first widespread labor agitation in the United States 
 seems to have reached a climax about 1835, i'^ which year I 
 see mention made of a National Trades-Union, although I 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 57 
 
 have been able to find nothing further about it than that 
 Seth Luther was one of its delegates.^ 
 
 Organized movement of the masses continued, but in a 
 rather feeble way, until towards the close of the late war. 
 In 1845 an agitation for the reduction of the hours of labor 
 in the factories of Massachusetts was begun, and was carried 
 on with some vigor until 1852, when the employers effected 
 a compromise by a reduction of two hours a week ; namely, 
 from sixty-eight to sixty-six hours, which then became the 
 rule.^ Among those who broke a lance for the laborers at 
 this time was William Claflin, later governor of the State, 
 who came out openly in favor of the ten-hour day. 
 
 The decade preceding the Civil War is remarkable in the 
 American labor movement, for the number of trades-unions 
 which were then organized on a national basis. First among 
 these to attract our attention is the International Typo- 
 graphical Union, which may be traced back to 1850, when a 
 "National Convention of Journeymen Printers" met in 
 New York. The year following, a meeting was held in 
 Baltimore ; but the formal permanent organization was not 
 effected until 1852, when the printers met in Cincinnati. 
 The name then adopted was National Typographical Union, 
 which was changed to International Typographical Union 
 
 1 In 1835 several members of the New York City delegation to the 
 State Legislature were elected on the " Workingmen's Ticket." Among 
 these were Thomas Hertell and Job Haskell, a carman. See Thurlow 
 Weed's Autobiography, p. 406. ' 
 
 '•' Petitions were sent to the Massachusetts Legislature in favor of 
 the ten-hour day, and a special legislative committee made a report on 
 this subject in 1845. One of the petitioners, John Quincy Adams 
 Thayer, published a pamphlet on the subject, entitled " Review of the 
 Report of the Special Committee of the Legislature," etc., in which he 
 controverted the objection that " ten hours a day would be impracti- 
 cable." 
 
58 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 at the annual meeting in Albany, N.Y., in 1869, so as to 
 include printers worliing in Canada. And it may be said in 
 this connection that this is the usual meaning of international 
 as a part of the title of American trades-unions. International 
 unions include Americans outside of the United States, chiefly 
 Canadians, and very few of them include Europeans. The 
 International Typographical Union is the oldest existing 
 American trades-union ; and this is an interesting fact, since 
 the American labor movement in this respect resembles the 
 labor movement elsewhere. Very generally we find the 
 printers among the pioneers in the organization of labor, for 
 which, I suppose, no other reason can be given than their 
 superior intelligence. In Italy, France, and Germany we 
 find the printers' unions among the oldest and strongest of 
 existing labor organizations. 
 
 The beginnings of the International T5rpographical Union 
 were humble, and, when compared with its present position, 
 insignificant. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary- 
 land, and Kentucky were the only States represented at the 
 convention in 1850.^ Now, nearly, if not quite, every State 
 in the Union, and several of the Territories, are represented 
 at the annual sessions. When the Typographical Union 
 assumed the prefix " International," the total membership 
 was 7,563 ; at the close of the year 1884-85 it was 18,000, 
 and is said to have increased 10,000 since the Report of 
 July, 1885. Atone time the hostility of employers against 
 the union was very general ; now it is recognized, with few 
 exceptions, in all great printing-offices of the country, and 
 many employers support and assist it as a beneficial organi- 
 zation. This is notably the case with Mr. Childs, of the 
 " Public Ledger," who ranks among the great employers of 
 
 1 The oldest local union represented was the Baltimore Typograph- 
 ical Society, established in November, 1831. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 59 
 
 labor in the country. In addition to previous gifts, Mr. Childs, 
 with Mr. Drexel, a banker, sent the union a check for 
 ^10,000, at their meeting in 1886, — an example well worthy 
 of imitation on the part of other employers. The printers 
 have a creditable organ in the Craftsman, a weekly news- 
 paper published in Washington, D.C. 
 
 The hatters followed the printers in this country in 1854, 
 and again the resemblance to the labor movement elsewhere 
 is maintained ; and this not merely with respect to date of 
 organization, but with respect to general characteristics. 
 Probably no unions preserve so many of the characteristics 
 of the associations of journeymen in the old guilds. This 
 similarity is doubtless partly cause, partly effect, of the 
 active correspondence and general connection maintained 
 by the unions in Europe and America, although they are not 
 organized on an international basis. 
 
 The National Trade Association of Hat Finishers of the 
 United States of America was organized in 1854, but in 
 1868 was divided into two organizations; the one keeping 
 the old name, and the other changing it by the insertion of 
 " Silk and Fur," and becoming the Silk and Fur Hat Finishers' 
 Trade Association of the United States of America. The 
 general purpose is the protection of mutual interests of jour- 
 neymen; but special attention is given to the subject of 
 apprenticeship, in order that the supply of journeymen may 
 not become excessive. The number of members of the 
 National Trade Association of Hat Finishers reported in 1885 
 was 3,015 journeymen and 377 apprentices — a total of 
 3,392, This shows growth, for the census report has only 
 2,077 in 1879, and 2,361 in 1880. 
 
 The Silk and Fur Hat Finishers are a smaller body, num- 
 bering at the close of the year 1883, 584 journeymen and 
 59 apprentices — a total of 643. 
 
60 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 The union called the "Sons of Vulcan," one of three 
 unions which, consolidated, became the Amalgamated Associ- 
 ation of Iron and Steel Workers, in 1876, was established 
 on April 17, 1858. More will be said about the Amalga- 
 mated Association presently. 
 
 A more remarkable trades-union, the " Iron Moulders' 
 Union of North America" was founded on July 5, 1859, by 
 William H. Sylvis, a labor leader who has left a deep impress 
 on the labor movement in the United States. The story 
 of his life, interesting and instructive, and withal not devoid 
 of a certain pathos, is told in the " Life, Speeches, Labors, 
 and Essays of William H. Sylvis," by his brother James G. 
 Sylvis, and is well worthy perusal ; ' for it shows in the con- 
 crete the struggles, the aspirations, the mode of life, and 
 manner of thought of one who attained an elevated position 
 as a workingman among workingmen. 
 
 A once strong union, the Machinists' and Blacksmiths' 
 Union of North America was founded in 1859, and was incor- 
 porated by Congress in 1859 ; the only union which, so far 
 as I know, ever received a charter from the United States 
 Government. This body was composed of smiths and 
 machine-makers at first, but afterwards, boiler-makers and 
 pattern-makers were added, and in 1877 it took the name of 
 Mechanical Engineers of the United States of America. Its 
 membership amounted to 18,000 in 1872, but had fallen to 
 5,000 in 1878;'' and if it still exists, it must lead a very 
 quiet life. 
 
 It is stated that twenty-six trades had national organiza- 
 tions in i860. 
 
 ^ Published in Philadelphia in 1872, by Claxton, Remsen, & Haf- 
 felfinger. 
 
 2 See Farnam's brochure, " Die Amerikanischen Gewerkvereine.'' 
 Leipzig, 1879, Seite 18. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 61 
 
 Second Period. 1861-1886. 
 
 The era of the Civil War brought men together, opened 
 new avenues of communication between various parts of the 
 country, stirred the minds of men mightily, setting them to 
 think deeply on social and economic topics, and finally 
 brought into prominence a vast number of labor problems, 
 due to fluctuations of the currency, to rapid changes from 
 prosperity to adversity, and also to the sudden and marvellous 
 accumulation of wealth in hands of successful business men 
 and lucky adventurers. Never before were there such sharp 
 contrasts in the country between riches and poverty. If this 
 was a misfortune in itself, a still greater evil was found in 
 the fact that no inconsiderable part of this wealth was 
 acquired by devices which could not be made to square with 
 the morality of the decalogue, to say nothing about the 
 higher ethical code which Christianity has brought us. 
 Another cause of the growth of trades-unions was the aboli- 
 tion of slavery, which had operated in two different ways 
 favorably to the progress of the labor movement. The discus- 
 sion concerning slave labor naturally led to reflection on the 
 condition of free laborers and their rights, and some of those 
 who had taken an active part in abolitionism passed over 
 into the ranks of those who were endeavoring to elevate the 
 laboring classes. Again the universal freedom of the laboring 
 classes from the yoke of slavery could not fail to have an 
 elevating influence on those engaged in manual toil. Yet 
 more important in its ultimate effect was the fact that this 
 vast country now opened an unobstructed field for the labor 
 movement. Two other especially weighty circumstances 
 must not fail to be mentioned. First, the concentration of 
 the laboring classes in large establishments in great industrial 
 centres had continued without interruption ; second, during 
 
62 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 the war native labor had in many quarters been replaced by 
 foreign labor, and race antagonism added intensity to the 
 natural struggle between employer and employed. It is not 
 then surprising that during the closing years of the war, and 
 during the five succeeding years, a vast number of labor or- 
 ganizations were founded. Before enumerating some of the 
 more important of them, it is well to call attention to the 
 enlarged horizon of labor leaders during this period of the 
 movement now under consideration. New unions were 
 called International ; old unions took that name, and under 
 an impulse received from the International Working Peo- 
 ple's Association, founded by Carl Marx, there began to be a 
 reaching out on the part of the laboring classes for closer 
 old-world connections. As improvements in the means of 
 communication and transportation had aided the transforma- 
 tion of local unions into national unions ; so still further 
 improvements in this direction promoted the growth of In- 
 ternationalism. These facilities of communication and trans- 
 portation were in each case both cause and effect. 
 
 One of the most successful labor organizations is the first 
 one of the great trades-unions, founded during the war 
 period, and is composed of locomotive engineers, or engine- 
 drivers, as our English cousins would say. It was insti- 
 tuted at Detroit, Aug. 17, 1863, and was then called, the 
 " Brotherhood of the Foot-board." It was reorganized at 
 Indianapolis, Aug. 17, 1864, under the name and title of 
 the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- 
 neers. 
 
 , The year 1864 witnessed the birth of a powerful body in 
 the Cigar Makers' National Union, which in 1867 was ex- 
 tended to Canada, and became international in name as well 
 as in fact. There had been a previous attempt to form an 
 organization, and the cigar-makers of New York called a 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 63 
 
 convention in 1856, in which employers took part. The aim 
 was to equalize prices for labor throughout the State. The 
 first local union of cigar-makers appears to have been formed 
 in Baltimore, in 1 85 1 . 
 
 •The Bricklayers' and Masons' International Union of 
 America was formed on the 17th of October, 1865, and it 
 may be well to interrupt this enumeration by the quotation 
 of the " Preamble " found in the printed copy of the con- 
 stitution. It may be regarded as typical, though many of 
 the " preambles " to the constitutions of labor organizations 
 breathe a more conservative tone, while few are more radi- 
 cal. Others will be found reprinted in the Appendix. 
 
 The Preamble reads as follows : " At no period of the 
 world's history has the necessity of combination on the part 
 of labor become so apparent to any thinking mind as at the 
 present time ; and perhaps in no country have the working 
 classes been so forgetful of their own interests as in this great 
 republic. 
 
 " All other questions seem to attract the attention of the 
 workingman more than that which is most vital to his exist- 
 ence. 
 
 " Whereas, Capital has assumed to itself the right to own 
 and control labor for the accomplishment of its own greedy 
 and selfish ends, regardless of the laws of Nature and 
 Nature's God; and whereas, experience has demonstrated 
 the utiHty of concentrated efforts in arriving at specific ends, 
 and it is an evident fact that if the dignity of labor is to be 
 preserved, it must be done by our united action ; and 
 whereas. Believing the truth of the following maxims, that 
 they who would be free themselves must strike the blow, 
 that in union there is strength, and self-preservation is the 
 first law of nature, we hold the justice and truth of the prin- 
 ciple that merit makes the man ; and we firmly believe that 
 
64 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 industry, sobriety, and a proper regard for the welfare of our 
 fellow-men form the basis upon which the principle rests ; we 
 therefore recognize no rule of action or principle that would 
 elevate wealth above industry, or the professional man above 
 the workingman. We recognize no distinction in society 
 except those based upon worth, usefulness, and good order ; 
 and no superiority except that granted by the Great Archi- 
 tect of our existence ; and calling upon God to witness the 
 rectitude of our intentions, we, the delegates, here assem- 
 bled, ordain and establish the following Constitution." 
 
 The Conductors' Brotherhood was organized in 1868, at 
 Mendota, 111. ; but it changed its name at its eleventh annual 
 meeting, and has since been known as the Order of Railway 
 Conductors. 
 
 The United States Wool Hat Finishers' Association was 
 organized in 1869, and four years later the furniture-workers 
 joined hands under the name "Trades-Union of Furniture 
 Workers" (Gewerkschaftsunion von Mobelarbeiter) , which 
 was subsequently changed to International Furniture Work- 
 ers' Union of America. Though this is one of the smaller 
 societies of the United States, it is influential by reason of its 
 vigor and activity. It is composed chiefly of Germans, and 
 is one of the more radical unions.^ The Brotherhood of 
 Locomotive Firemen was formed in the same year, and was 
 followed in 1875 by the organization of the horseshoers in 
 Philadelphia. This association is called the National Union 
 of Horseshoers of the United States. It is composed chiefly 
 of Irishmen. 
 
 The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, 
 
 1 At the present time it may be well to state that I do not mean by 
 radical, violent and revolutionary, or anarchistic. No national labor 
 organization supports the theory of anarchy, but several, as we shall 
 see, favor far-reaching but peaceful social and industrial changes. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. _ 65 
 
 the strongest trades-union^ in the country, was formed in 
 1876 by the consoUdation of three unions : namely, the Sons 
 of Vulcan, already mentioned, the Associated Brotherhood 
 of Iron and Steel Heaters, and the Iron- and Steel Roll 
 Hands' Union, of which the two latter were organized in 
 
 1873- 
 
 The Granite Cutters' National Union of the United States 
 of America was organized in 1877 ; the Brotherhood of Car- 
 penters and Joiners of America, in 1881 ; the Cigar Makers' 
 Progressive Union of America, in 1882 ; the National Hat 
 Makers', in 1883 ; the Railroad Brakemen, in 1884. The 
 coal-miners formed a National Federation in 1885, and illus- 
 trated a natural order of growth. Local societies formed 
 first State organizations, but improved facilities of communi- 
 cation and transportation have brought the various parts of 
 the country so near together that the necessity of national 
 organization has been keenly felt for some time. 
 
 The Journeymen Bakers' National Union of the United 
 States was organized in Pittsburg in January, 1886, and has 
 probably done as much to improve the condition of its 
 members, a most unfortunate class heretofore, as has ever 
 been accomplished by any American trades-union in the 
 same time ; though the good done has unfortunately been 
 attended with considerable friction between employers and 
 employees, for which the blame must undoubtedly be shared 
 by both sides. 
 
 Other trades-unions which must be mentioned are the 
 following : The Chicago Seamen's Union, the United Order 
 of Carpenters and Joiners, the Plasterers' National Union, 
 the Journeymen Tailors' National Union of the United 
 
 1 Several other stronger organizations which will be menlioned 
 are not trades-unions, but associations of laborers of various occupa- 
 tions, or combinations of different unions, or both. 
 
66 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 States, Deutsch-Amerikanische Typographia (composed of 
 those setting type for German books or periodicals), Ameri- 
 can Flint Glass Workers, and the Universal Federation of 
 Window Glass Workers. Workingmen who have national 
 or international organizations of which I am not acquainted 
 with the precise names are the boiler-makers, book-keepers 
 (clerks included), bottie-blowers, stationary engineers, metal- 
 workers, piano-makers, plumbers, railroad switchmen, shoe- 
 lasters, spinners, stereotypers, telegraphers, silk-weavers, 
 wood-carvers. 
 
 Although there are omissions in this enumeration, it con- 
 tains a complete list, I believe, of the more important 
 national and international American trades-unions. It must 
 be remembered, however, in any estimate of the strength of 
 American trades-unions, that there are still a vast number of 
 independent local organizations. _ It is not at all improbable 
 that there may be as many as one hundred such in the city 
 of New York, and they will be found in every large Ameri- 
 can city. The strongest of these local unions, so far as I 
 know, is the Journeymen Bricklayers' Protective Association 
 of Philadelphia, which was organized in 1880, and now 
 embraces nearly two thousand members. On the 19th of 
 October this association dedicated the Bricklayers' Hall. 
 The building situated at the comer of Broad Street and Fair- 
 mount Avenue in Philadelphia, was constructed at a cost of 
 ;Jl5 2,000, and is probably the finest building owned by an 
 American trades-union. The national trades-unions may, 
 roughly speaking, be said to vary in strength from two to 
 twenty-five thousand members to each. The latter number _ 
 is about the strength of the Amalgamated Association of 
 Iron and Steel Workers and the International Typographical 
 Union. Several unions have from ten to fifteen or sixteen 
 thousand members, while five, six, and seven thousand 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 67 
 
 members is a common number. A few foreign trade socie- 
 ties have members in America. The two most prominent 
 • of these are the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Ma- 
 chinists, Millwrights, Smiths, and Pattern Makers, founded 
 in 1 85 1, in England, and the Amalgamated Society of Car- 
 penters and Joiners, established in i860, which is likewise a 
 British Association. These two unions together have several 
 thousand American members. 
 
 Nearly all the more prominent organizations have monthly 
 or weekly organs ; as, for example. The Carpenter, The 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers' Monthly journal, 
 Iron Moulders' Monthly 'journal, Firemen's Magazine, 
 Progress, issued by the Cigar Makers' Progressive Union, 
 Cigar Makers' Official j^ournal, issued by the Cigar 
 Makers' International Union, The Granite Cutters' 'jour- 
 nal. The American Glass Worker, Furniture Workers' 
 yoiirnal, etc. These are fairly well edited ; some of them, 
 it must be said, excellently, when one considers that their 
 editors are workingmen whose educational opportunities 
 have been comparatively slight. The fact that many of 
 these journals are printed in several languages is significant, 
 and is characteristic of the labor press. It is an indication 
 of the internationalism of the labor movement in the United 
 States. The greater part of the papers is generally in Eng- 
 lish, but next to English the German is the language most 
 used. French and Bohemian articles are occasionally found. 
 Many trades-unions, and other labor organizations, estab- 
 lished during various periods in our history, have perished ; 
 but it is not necessary to mention more than one or two of 
 these in this place. Probably the strongest of all the defunct 
 organizations was the order called the " Knights of St. Crispin," 
 which was established on an international basis in 1869, and 
 included at one time nearly a hundred thousand members. 
 
68 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 The local unions were called lodges, and these were joined 
 together in State or Provincial grand lodges, which, in turn, 
 were represented in the International Grand Lodge, the 
 supreme power of the order. There were State or Provin- 
 cial grand lodges in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
 Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Kentucky, California, Ontario, New 
 Brunswick, and elsewhere. A separate branch, composed of 
 women, was called the " Daughters of St. Crispin." 
 
 The Knights of St. Crispin obtained great influence in the 
 boot and shoe manufacturing establishments of the country, 
 and used it to advance their interest. The order was 
 recognized by a large number of well-disposed manufacturers 
 for a time, and many disputes were settled amicably by arbi- 
 tration. 
 
 Their efforts were also directed to legislative reforms, and 
 the ten-hour law passed in Massachusetts in 1874 was due 
 largely to their agitation. But they looked beyond trades- 
 unions to the ultimate establishment of co-operative produc- 
 tion. As it is often, though erroneously, supposed that the 
 working classes of America have not given much attention to 
 co-operation, a quotation from the report of the Knights of 
 St. Crispin on co-operation in 1871, may well be inserted at 
 this place ; especially as it is merely typical. It is as follows : 
 " We regard the trades-unions simply as an agent, a means 
 to an end, that should be to secure to the laborer a just 
 reward for his toil ; and, in so far as they afford the means 
 of resistance to encroaching capital and in their acknowl- 
 edged educational influence over the members, they are 
 indispensable, but we cannot help thinking if they stop with 
 simply preserving their numerical strength, they are in the 
 long run apt to fail and become extinct ; so, then, your com- 
 mittee while urging the use of every honorable means to 
 preserve the integrity of the order, and extend its influence 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 69 
 
 and usefulness, would just as earnestly urge our brothers to 
 use their utmost endeavors to build up in the order a system 
 of co-operation in both trade and manufactures ; for in so 
 doing they would not only improve their own condition, but 
 lift the order into a position of the highest respectability 
 and influence." 
 
 The last meeting of the International Grand Lodge was 
 held in 1873; and though a partially successful effort was 
 made to revive the order in 1876, and it received sufficient 
 strength to take part in the strikes of 1877 and 1878, it 
 never again regained a firm foothold. The causes of the 
 decay of the order were internal dissensions, and attacks 
 from employers, who were placed in a trying position by the 
 crisis of 1873, and the " hard times " in the following years ; 
 for there were always employers who did not accept the scale 
 of prices offered by the Crispins, and these soon began to 
 place goods on the market at lower figures than was possi- 
 ble for their competitors working in harmony with the Knights. 
 One source of great weakness which more than anything else 
 rendered it impossible for them to force all employers to 
 recognize them, was due to the wonderful division of labor 
 in the boot and shoe industry, in which there are sixty-four 
 distinct branches.^ Most of the operations of the em- 
 ployees, it is manifest, must be simple in the extreme, and 
 on this account it was easy to supply the place of strikers 
 from the ranks of unskilled labor. 
 
 In 1866 the delegates of the various labor organizations 
 met in Baltimore, and formed what was called the National 
 Labor Union, which rapidly attained great strength, number- 
 ing, it is said, six hundred and forty thousand members in 
 1868. But its growth proved to be but of a mushroom 
 character, for it expired in a few years of the disease known 
 1 See Farnam, I.e., p. 20. 
 
70 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 as politics. Fatal malady ! how often has it destroyed bud- 
 ding but promising life ! However, the National Labor 
 Union accomplished two things : it gave an impulse to the 
 agitation for an eight-hour day, which is still felt ; and it 
 issued a demand for a national bureau of labor statistics, 
 which was granted after a constant reiteration of the demand 
 during the succeeding twenty years. Earlier apparent suc- 
 cess attended the efforts of the National Labor Union to 
 establish an eight-hour day for the employees of government. 
 On the 24th of June, 1869, a bill for an eight-hour day was 
 introduced into Congress by General Banks, whose wife, 
 by the way, was once a factory girl in Lowell. This passed 
 the House and Senate, promptly received the signature of 
 the President of the United States, General Grant, and was 
 enforced in the Navy Yard at Charlestown, Mass., July 6 
 of the same year. But the politicians, who at the time of 
 elections are so fond of the laborers, usually care little for 
 the enforcement of laws in behalf of labor, and in violation 
 of the spirit of the law, the employees of the United States 
 were notified that our wealthy and powerful government 
 would reduce wages one-fifth ; but that those who so desired 
 could work ten hours at the old rates. The workingraen 
 showed their indignation in such manner as apparently to 
 make the politicians think of votes at future elections, or to 
 fear trouble, and the order was reversed by the President. 
 But success was again illusory. The eight-hour law is still 
 on our statute books, and a like law exists in several States, 
 but it is a dead letter.^ Can any one doubt if it were a law 
 
 1 It should be distinctly understood that all these eight-hour laws 
 relate chiefly to public employees; that is, to the civil servants of fed- 
 eral government, of State, or of municipality. They are not mandatory 
 for private employers of labor, though some of the State laws declare 
 that eight hours shall be a day's labor when nothing to the contrary is 
 stipulated. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 71 
 
 in favor of great railway corporations or banking institutions, 
 it would be enforced ? Yet the political newspapers, who in 
 discussions of free trade and protection are often so solici- 
 tous about the welfare of the laborer, and are so sensitively 
 alive to his true interests that one would imagine that their 
 editors scarcely thought even of the existence of the remain- 
 ing classes of society, — these newspapers preserve a most 
 singular silence on the subject of our eight-hour laws. But 
 the agitation still goes on, and the laborers propose to settle 
 the matter sooner or later, without help of government, by 
 a general refusal to work longer than eight hours. 
 
 An effort was made to introduce the eight-hour day by 
 strikes in 1872 and 1873, when eight-hour leagues were 
 formed in some of the States and cities ; but only a small 
 measure of success attended this endeavor. A still greater 
 effort to introduce the eight-hour day was made on the ist of 
 May, 1886 ; but the most powerful labor organization, the 
 Knights of Labor, did not heartily indorse the movement, 
 as their chief, Mr. Powderly, and others did not think the 
 time ripe for it. Nevertheless, several hundred thousand 
 men struck ; but they again failed to accomplish their end, 
 although the failure in this case, as before, was not complete. 
 Many thousand laborers have attained an eight-hour day, 
 and a still larger number have received a reduction from ten 
 hours. Nine^.,Ji8Qf FTs common sin the building trades, and 
 in some cases a workday of nine hours five days in the 
 week, and eight hours on Saturday, has been secured."- 
 
 1 Bradstreets estimated the number of strikers for shorter hours at 
 200,600, of whom 50,000 were granted their demands, while 150,000 
 secured shorter hours, generally with full pay, without a striUe. But 
 on June 12, the same paper estimated that one-third of these had lost 
 what had been conceded to them, and predicted that a still larger 
 number would lose the advantage gained. There can be no doubt of 
 
72 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 While the eight-hour movement has received a set-back 
 for the present, it is certain to come into prominence again, 
 and there is reason to think that it will be ultimately suc- 
 cessful.' The most intelligent men among the laboring 
 classes seem to be unanimously in favor of it, and some of 
 the best thinkers on social topics, outside of the laboring 
 classes, favor the establishment of an eight-hour day. 
 
 The Muses are frequently invoked by those who believe 
 in eight hours as the normal working-day, and the laborers 
 are inspired by song. The following poem, written some 
 time ago, is one of the many on this subject, and may be 
 taken as a specimen of the poetry which appears in the labor 
 press.^ 
 
 EIGHT HOURS. 
 
 BY J. G. BLANCHARD. 
 
 We mean to make things over; we're tired of toil for nought 
 But bare enough to live on ; never an hour for thought. 
 
 this ; but the 200,000 included only those who secured a reduction of 
 hours by the movement of May I, and not those, perhaps as many, 
 who were already working less than ten hours a day, as, for example, 
 the window-glass workers. 
 
 ' Manufacturers express themselves as well pleased with the eight- 
 hour day in Australia, and it seems to give general satisfaction. Its 
 establishment is annually celebrated, and the most influential people on 
 the island participate in the festivities. While this in itself is not suffi- 
 cient to prove the desirability of the eight-hour day in the United States, 
 the Australian experiment deserves attention. The question is too large 
 for exhaustive treatment in this place, and I will only call attention to 
 this fact : investigations show that laborers as a rule make a good use 
 of the leisure afforded by shorter hours. At first, they are inclined to 
 spend the time foolishly, or worse than foolishly, but soon this changes. 
 The reports of English parliamentary commissions are instructive on 
 this topic. 
 
 2 This quotation is taken from Die Amefikanischen Arbeiterver- 
 hallnisse, by Dr. von Studnitz, 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 73 
 
 We want to feel the sunshine, we want to smell the flowers; 
 
 We're sure that God has willed it, and we mean to have eight hours. 
 
 We're summoning our forces from the shipyard, shop, and mill. 
 
 Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will. 
 
 The beasts that graze the hillside, the birds that wander free 
 
 In the life that God has meted, have a better lot than we. 
 
 Oh ! hands and hearts are weary, and homes are heavy with dole; 
 
 If life's to be filled with drudgery, what need of a human soul ! 
 
 Shout, shout the lusty rally from shipyard, shop, and mill. 
 
 The very stones would cry out if labor's tongue were still ! 
 
 The voice of God within us is calling us to stand 
 
 Erect, as is becoming the work of His right hand. 
 
 Should he to whom the Maker His glorious image gave. 
 
 Cower, the meanest of His creatures, a bread-and-butter slave ! 
 
 Let the shout ring down the valleys, and echo from every hill, 
 
 Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will. 
 
 The Patrons of Husbandry, or Grangers, as they are more 
 usually called, must receive notice in any account of the 
 labor movement in America, even if it be merely a 
 sketch like the present work. This order, founded in 1866, 
 although composed of independent farmers and not of em- 
 ployees, has not been without influence on labor movements 
 in the United States, and one of its chief officers writes me 
 that the Patrons of Industry desire their association to be 
 called a labor organization. The Patrons of Husbandry 
 grew rapidly during the first decade of their existence, and 
 in November, 1875, their membership was reported at 
 763,263 ; but a decline began soon after this which con- 
 tinued until two or three years ago, since which time there 
 has been a revival of interest and an increase of strength in 
 the Grange. It is a good sign that a connection has recently 
 been formed in several States between the Patrons of Hus- 
 bandry and the Knights of Labor, chiefly urban mechanics 
 and laborers ; for common action between city and country 
 cannot fail to -furnish both a healthy stimulus and a sound 
 
74 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 conservatism to the entire labor movement. On this same 
 account it is to be greeted as a welcome omen that the 
 Farmers' Alliance of Illinois has become " part and parcel " 
 of the Knights of Labor, and that plans for common action 
 between the Knights and the farmers of Texas have been 
 formed, while rural assembhes of the Knights of Labor are 
 being organized in Ohio and Indiana. 
 
 The general aims of the Grangers are well set forth in 
 their " Declaration of Purposes," from which the following 
 quotation is an extract : — 
 
 " We shall endeavor to advance our cause by laboring to 
 accomplishing the following objects : To develop a better 
 and higher manhood and womanhood among ourselves. 
 To enhance the comforts and attractions of our homes, and 
 strengthen our attachments to our pursuits. To foster 
 mutual understanding and co-operation. ... To discounte- 
 nance the credit system, the mortgage system, the fashion 
 system, and every other system tending to prodigality and 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 " We propose meeting together, talking together, working 
 together, buying together, selling together, and in general 
 acting together for our mutual protection and advancement, 
 as occasion may require. We shall avoid litigation as much 
 as possible by arbitration in the Grange. ... 
 
 " We are not enemies to capital, but we oppose the tyranny 
 of monopolies. We long to see the antagonism between 
 labor and capital removed by common consent and by an 
 enlightened statesmanship worthy of the nineteenth century. 
 It shall be an abiding principle with us to relieve any of our 
 oppressed and suffering brotherhood by any means at our 
 command. 
 
 " Last, but not least, we proclaim it among our purposes to 
 inculcate a proper appreciation of the abihties and sphere of 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 75 
 
 woman, as is indicated by admitting her to membership 
 and position in our order." 
 
 The local units called Granges are united in State Granges, 
 and over the State Granges is the highest authority among 
 the Patrons of Husbandry, the National Grange. The 
 Grangers were perhaps the first power in this country to 
 curb our railways, and in this way they have accomplished 
 much good, though part of the legislation which they favored 
 and actually secured, particularly in the West and Northwest, 
 was unfortunately based on wrong principles, and could not 
 be permanent. 
 
 The achievements of the Patrons in co-operation, and the 
 educa:tional value of their order, will receive attention in later 
 chapters of this book. 
 
 Uriah S. Stevens, a tailor of Philadelphia, called together 
 eight friends on Thanksgiving Day, in 1869, and organized a 
 society which in nineteen years has grown to be the most 
 powerful and the most remarkable labor organization of 
 modem times. Although the origin of the Knights of 
 Labor, for to this society reference is made, was thus hum- 
 ble, it was established on truly scientific principles, which 
 involved either an intuitive perception of the nature of indus- 
 trial progress, or a wonderful acquaintance with the laws 
 of economic society. It has thus happened that a new 
 phase of the labor movement has been inaugurated on 
 American soil and the general course of its future develop- 
 ment indicated. 
 
 The older trades-unions were perhaps the only form of 
 organization which could be usefully employed in an earlier 
 period ; but, although still useful, they are not large enough 
 to carry forward the labor movement of to-day, and the 
 reason for this becomes obvious with a little reflection on the 
 nature of modem production. The invention of new ma- 
 
76 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 chinery and the improvement in technical processes have 
 weakened the position of unions composed exclusively of 
 mechanics of a single trade. The division of labor, which 
 is one of the most marked features of industrial progress, 
 renders each particular step in manufacture comparatively 
 simple, and the relative number of workingmen requiring 
 special skill diminishes. It becomes easy to fill places of 
 union men who will not accept conditions satisfactory to 
 their employers from the ranks of unskilled labor. This, as 
 has already been remarked, was one cause of the fall of the 
 Knights of St. Crispin. But this is not all ; changes in manu- 
 factures are rendering entire classes of skilled mechanics quite 
 useless, and these fall into the class of unskilled labor, which 
 is thus constantly filled to repletion. Take the case of printers ; 
 men are now endeavoring to invent a type-setting machine, 
 which will place this skill among other useless acquirements. 
 Should they succeed, it is not easy to see of what use the 
 International Typographical Union could be to its members, 
 unless it should indeed change its character, enlarge its 
 scope, and enter into closer connection with other labor 
 organizations. Now the order of the Knights of Labor was 
 founded with a perception of these facts, and those who 
 originated it, and have given to it its animus, have sought to 
 organize a society which should embrace all branches of 
 skilled and unskilled labor, for mutual protection, for the 
 promotion of industrial and social education among the 
 masses, and for the attainment of beneficent public and pri- 
 vate reforms. There is provided room within the order for 
 separate trades-unions, with their own rules and regulations, 
 united by a federal tie, as well as for those outside of any 
 unions. 
 
 Long before the Knights of Labor became known to the 
 world, John Stuart Mill, with that marvellous insight into 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 77 
 
 economic and social relations which at times characterized 
 him, described one of the fundamental principles of the 
 Knights of Labor as that which should characterize future 
 labor organizations. " If," said he, " no improvement were 
 to be hoped for in the general circumstances of the working 
 classes, the success of a portion of them, however small, in 
 keeping their wages, by combination, above the market-rate, 
 would be wholly a matter of satisfaction.' But when the 
 elevation of the character and condition of the entire body 
 has at last become a thing not beyond the reach of rational 
 effort, it is time that the better-paid classes of skilled artisans 
 should seek their own advantage in common with, and not 
 by exclusion of, their fellow-laborers. While they continue 
 to fix their hopes on hedging themselves in against competi- 
 tion, and protecting their own wages by shutting out others 
 from access to their employment, nothing better can be 
 expected from them than total absence of any large and 
 generous aims. . . . Success, even if attainable in raising up 
 a protected class of working people, would now be a hin- 
 drance instead of a help to the emancipation of the working 
 classes at large." 
 
 The reason for this judgment is, that improvements in 
 means of production have now rendered the elevation of the 
 entire body an object of rational effort. Consequently, did 
 we succeed in the attempt to elevate skilled artisans and 
 mechanics, and solve the labor question in so far as they are 
 concerned, there would remain still a great mass at the 
 bottom of society with pressing and unsatisfied needs. A 
 "Fifth Estate" would arise and clamor for emancipation. 
 The problem of production is well on the way to solution. 
 What now agitates the public is the problem of distribution, 
 and the Knights of Labor propose to assist in its solution for 
 the entire race. They reason correctly that if they can 
 
78 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 elevate the lowest social stratum, they will raise all other 
 strata. It is thus that they put themselves in line with the 
 precepts of Christianity. The strong help to bear the in- 
 firmities of the weak, and no grander conception of human 
 brotherhood than that which they profess, characterizes any 
 movement of our times.' 
 
 The local societies are called local assembhes, generally 
 indicated by the letters L. A., and these may be composed 
 entirely of men of one trade, or of men of Various pursuits. 
 In the latter case it is called mixed. Three-fourths of the 
 members of new " locals " must be wage-workers ; but men 
 of all classes are admitted, with the exception of bankers, 
 stock-brokers, professional gamblers, lawyers, and those who 
 in any way derive their living from the manufacture or sale 
 of intoxicating liquors. Above the local assemblies are the 
 district assemblies, which are sometimes geographical and 
 sometimes trade distinctions. Richmond and Manchester, 
 Virginia, constitute one district. Locals and districts are 
 distinguished by numbers. "District Assembly" 41, for 
 example, includes the local assemblies of Baltimore and 
 vicinity, while " Local Assembly " 300 is composed of glass- 
 
 1 Mr. Powderly explains well the present situation in these words, 
 taken from the New York Sun of March 29, 1886: "With the intro- 
 duction of labor-saving machinery the trade (of machinists and black- 
 smiths) was all cut up, so that a man who had served an apprenticeship 
 of five years might be brought in competition with a machine run 
 by a boy, and the boy would do the most and the best. I saw that 
 labor-saving machinery was bringing the machinist down to the level 
 of a day laborer, and soon they would be on a level. My aim was to 
 dignify the laborer." In the same article he mentions the fact that his 
 greatest difficulty in inducing the machinists and blacksmiths to join 
 the Knights of Labor lay in the contempt with which they looked 
 upon other workers. This is characteristic of the narrow spirit which 
 formerly separated the various trades. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 79 
 
 * 
 
 workers. Some of the locals are not included in any district, 
 but are directly subordinate to the highest authority in the 
 order, the " General Assembly," a delegate body or congress 
 representing the entire order. This is the case with L. A. 
 300, which is larger than some district assemblies ; about 
 twice as large, for example, as D. A. 59, which embraces 
 locals in Chicago and vicinity .'^ Some of the assemblies 
 have adopted special names, as the " Henry George Assem- 
 bly" \ while the locals composed exclusively of women occa- 
 sionally prefer some more poetical or mysterious designation ; 
 one in Baltimore, for example, bears the name, " The Un- 
 known " ; while another, in Texas, is called " The Guid- 
 ing Star Assembly." 
 
 The " Noble Order of the Knights of Labor " was at first 
 an organization the very existence of which was kept a 
 secret. Its name was never mentioned, but it was indicated 
 by five stars, thus *****, and for several years it grew rapidly 
 in this profound secrecy. Finally, however, rumors became 
 rife about " The Five Stars," as it was called, and Philadel- 
 phians noticed with trepidation that a few cabalistic chalk- 
 marks in firont of " Independence Hall " could bring several 
 thousand men together. Alarm spread, newspapers circu- 
 lated absurd fictions in regard to its designs, in which accu- 
 sations of communism and incendiarism were prominent, 
 and Catholic and Protestant clergymen hastened to de- 
 nounce the unknown monster. Finally it was decided to 
 abandon the policy of extreme secrecy^ which had character- 
 ized the infancy of the order, and it came before the world 
 with a statement of principles and repudiated all con- 
 
 1 This statement is based on the statistics in the Report of the Gen- 
 eral Secretary at the last General Assembly, which was held at Hamil- 
 ton, Ontario, October, 1885. 
 
 * A special meeting was held to consider this matter in June, 1878, 
 
80 ^ THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 nection with violent and revolutionary associations. The 
 pledge^ binding members not to divulge the affairs of the 
 Knights was declared not binding with reference to the con- 
 fessional, and thus the hostility of the Roman Catholic clergy 
 was generally overcome, and many priests of this church have 
 since then become warm friends of the order, although it has 
 met with denunciation on the part of one or two of its higher 
 authorities, particularly in Canada. The first general assem- 
 bly was held in Reading, Pa., in 1878, when its membership 
 is said to have amounted to eighty thousand. A meeting of 
 the General Assembly has been held annually since then, 
 and of late years each annual report shows growth. In 1883 
 the number of members in round figures was 52,000; in 
 1884, 71,000 ; 1885, 111,000. The reports are dated July i 
 
 in the city of Philadelphia. The call, signed by the founder, Uriah S. 
 Stevens, then Grand Master Workman, was headed : — 
 
 " N. AND H. 0. 
 OF THE 
 
 *j(, Jb Jc. ^ 
 ■Jr ■St ^ Tp 
 
 Of North America. 
 
 peace and prosperity to the faithful! 
 
 To the Fraternity wherever found. Greeting: — 
 
 SPECIAL CALL." 
 
 The reason for this special call is stated to be " on account of what 
 is believed by many of our most influential members to be an 
 emergency of vast and vital importance to the stability, usefulness, and 
 influence of our order." The business to come before the meeting, as 
 further stated, "is to consider the expediency of making the name of 
 the Order public for the purpose of defending it from the fierce assaults 
 and defamation made upon it by press, clergy, and corporate capital, 
 and to take such further action as shall effectually meet the GRAVE 
 EMERGENCY." 
 
 1 It is now simply one's word of honor. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 81 
 
 in each case. The growth during the past year has been 
 entirely without precedent ; and though no one knows the 
 present membership/ estimates range from three to five 
 hundred thousand. Occasionally one hears rumors of one 
 million, a million and a half, and even two million members ; 
 but there appears to be no ground whatever for such esti- 
 mates. It is, however, doubtless true that over one million 
 persons have at one time or another been members of the 
 order, possibly even two millions, and it is not at all improb- 
 able that a million Americans sympathize with its general 
 aims and endeavor to act in harmony with its movements. 
 Under pressure of hard times members will drop out of work- 
 ingmen's societies, and it is difficult to keep alive an interest 
 in an organization among the less intelligent laborers, who are 
 apt to join to accomplish some temporary purpose, or out of 
 love of novelty. But these same men who have dropped 
 out will, under favorable circumstances, again pour into the 
 organizations. The consequence is, that the number of 
 members actually on the rolls of labor organizations is apt to 
 give but an imperfect idea of their strength. It must further 
 be remembered, that as the better workmen are, as a rule, 
 members of trades-unions and the other associations, these 
 various societies often lead even those who have always been 
 non-union men. The growth of the Knights of Labor durmg 
 the past two years has been more remarkable in the South 
 and East of the United States than elsewhere. The report 
 for July, 1884, shows sixty- four members in Richmond ; now 
 one hears rumors, apparently well founded, of six and seven 
 thousand, even of eight thousand, and it is certain that the 
 Knights were able to elect a municipal ticket in the spring 
 of 1886 by a large majority. They swept the city, as the 
 
 1 This was written in July, 1886, and the annual reports are not pub- 
 lished until later in the year. 
 
82 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 saying is. Four years ago there was not a local assembly 
 south of Baltimore ; now local assemblies are springing 
 up in all parts of the South, which some think is the 
 most favorable soil for the order, as it is not occupied 
 to any great extent by trades-unions, and thus offers a 
 free field. There were four local assemblies in Massa- 
 chusetts in 1882; in October, 1885, 125. Of the 261 
 "locals" organized in December, 1885, 30 were in Massa- 
 chusetts. There were seven locals in the single city of 
 Haverhill in 1885, and of these one, numbering nearly eight 
 hundred, was composed exclusively of women, and another 
 consisted of French Canadians. Among the Knights in 
 this place are eight or ten shoe-manufacturers, and several 
 men of prominence in the town. 
 
 Two facts which must be mentioned here are among 
 the peculiarities of the present phase of the labor move- 
 ment. The first is the position taken with reference to 
 women on the one hand, on the other the attitude of women 
 towards the ELnights of Labor. It is clearly recognized that 
 women have been, and are still, more oppressed than men, 
 and the truth has been fully perceived that it is impossible 
 to better the condition of the masses permanently unless the 
 lot of workingwomen is ameliorated. As a consequence, 
 the Knights are everywhere endeavoring to help women to 
 secure higher wages and more favorable conditions of service. 
 This effort has been manifested in a thousand different ways. 
 When girls have struck on account of indecent treatment in 
 factories, they have found the Knights their most ardent 
 champions, and large contributions have been made by them 
 and other organized workingmen to support their sisters. 
 Another manifestation of a somewhat different character, and 
 also typical, was recently observed when an American, who 
 had abused his wife, was expelled from the order and word 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 83 
 
 was sent to Canada, whither he had emigrated, to have 
 nothing to do with the unworthy scoundrel. A third illus- 
 tration of this praiseworthy endeavor is seen in the co- 
 operative shirt factory in Baltimore, lately started by the 
 workingmen of that city to help the poor sewing women. 
 A new regard for women is thus being cultivated among the 
 masses, and the full significance of this can only be appre- 
 ciated by him who takes large views of the movements of 
 the day, for the full fruition of seed now sown will not be 
 perceived for many years to come. The workingwomen of 
 the country are, as would naturally be expected, learning to 
 value the "noble order" highly, and many of them are 
 becoming members. Women are among the most ardent, 
 self-sacrificing supporters of this labor movement. 
 
 The second fact to which attention must be directed is 
 the membership among the negroes in the South, who are 
 so much inclined to societies of various kinds that one can 
 scarcely find a colored person, male or female, who does 
 not belong to at least one. They are now everywhere join- 
 ing the Knights of Labor, who do not discriminate against 
 them, and are considered among their most faithful mem- 
 bers. The following item in the news sent from Richmond 
 to the Associated Labor Press in April, 1885, is only one of 
 many indications of the attitude of the colored people which 
 might be cited : " The negroes are with us heart and soul, 
 and have organized seven assemblies in this city and one 
 in Manchester with a large membership." 
 
 It is said that the largest accessions have come of late 
 from the farmers, and the following States are reported as 
 those in which farmers have either joined the Knights in 
 large numbers, or have entered into friendly relations with 
 them through their own organizations : Virginia, Texas, 
 Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. One begins to 
 
84 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 hear of the Knights of Labor in England and Belgium, and 
 if the order survives internal dissensions,^ it will soon attain 
 a position of influence in Europe. The order can scarcely 
 be called secret now, as it conceals none of its plans. It is 
 found useful to exclude non-members from its meetings for 
 several obvious reasons. One is the bitter hostility of certain 
 employers who have " victimized " members of the organi- 
 zation. It was largely on this account that its profound 
 secrecy was first maintained; for the determination seems 
 to have been early reached to pursue a more open course as 
 soon as it could protect its members. For the same reason 
 it is deemed desirable in a few places to pursue the early 
 policy, and not to mention the existence of assemblies 
 in these localities. Another reason for closing meetings to 
 the public is, the greater freedom in debate and discussion. 
 The members are for the most part men whose educational 
 advantages have been slight, and in feeling about for 
 theoretical truth, or a correct course of action, they very 
 properly do not desire to incur the ridicule of the press, 
 which could do little good, and would certainly do much 
 harm. 
 
 One of the best achievements of the Knights of Labor is 
 the good opinion they have won of many inteUigent employ- 
 ers who really wish their laborers well. A forcible example 
 of this was exhibited in Baltimore not long since. The 
 employees of one of the most prominent manufacturers in 
 the city joined the order on his advice to them to do so, 
 and his testimony in a meeting of the Board of Trade, 
 together with arguments of other members, sufficed to 
 induce that body to pass resolutions which were favorable to 
 
 1 Those who imagine attacks from without can destroy it are greatly 
 mistaken. At the present juncture nothing could be so useful to the 
 order of the Knights of Labor as a little persecution. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 85 
 
 labor organizations, and highly creditable to the broad intel- 
 ligence and generous feeling of its members. 
 
 The change of feelings in regard to the Knights of Labor 
 is well brought out in the following quotation from the New 
 York Sun : — 
 
 " Manufacturers who a few years ago would have had 
 nothing to do with the Executive Board/ and would have 
 resented any interference in their affairs by it, now send for 
 it to arbitrate between thsir help and themselves. For 
 instance, in a potters' strike, in 1882, the employers in 
 Trenton refused to resume work until their men quitted the 
 Knights of Labor. This year, in the face of another diffi- 
 culty between their men and themselves, they agreed to 
 submit their difficulty to the Executive Board. The men 
 we're out on strike, and the Board declined to do anything 
 until the men were taken back at the old prices. In three 
 days they submitted a new scale to the employees and 
 strikers, and, as Secretary Turner says, ' succeeded in pleas- 
 ing both sides for the first time in our history.' The Pot- 
 ters' Association passed a vote of thanks to the Board." 
 
 " The capitalists used to think we were demons, or men 
 with horns on our foreheads," said Mr. Turner ; " but they 
 find, instead, a little party of plain men who have only one 
 aim — that of making peace and bringing about justice." 
 
 The Preamble of the Knights of Labor contains their 
 declaration of purposes, and reads as follows : — 
 
 Preamble of the Knights of Labor. 
 
 The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capital- 
 ists and corporations, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the 
 pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses. 
 
 1 Officers of the General Assembly, whose functions are indicated 
 by their name. 
 
86 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full blessings of life, 
 that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation and the power 
 for evil of aggregated wealth. 
 
 This much-desired object can be accomplished only by the 
 united efforts of those who obey the divine injunction, " In the 
 sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread." 
 
 Therefore we have formed the Order of Knights of Labor, for 
 the purpose of organizing and directing the power of the indus- 
 trial masses, not as a political party, for it is more : in it are 
 crystalized sentiments and measures for the benefit of the whole 
 people ; but it should be borne in mind, when exercising the 
 right of suffrage, that most of the objects herein set forth can 
 only be obtained through legislation, and that it is the duly of 
 all to assist in nominating and supporting with their votes only 
 such candidates as will pledge their support to these measures, 
 regardless of party. But no one shall, however, be compelled 
 to vote with the majority, and calling upon all who believe in 
 securing " the greatest good to the greatest number" to join and 
 assist us, we declare to the world that our aims are : — 
 
 I. To make industrial and moral worth, not wealth, the true 
 standard of individual and national greatness. 
 
 II. To secure for the wprkers the full enjoyment of the wealth 
 they create ; sufficient leisure in which to develop their intel- 
 lectual, moral, and social faculties ; all of the benefits, recreation, 
 and pleasure of association ; in a word, to enable them to share 
 in the gains and honors of advancing civilization. 
 
 In order to secure these results, we demand at the hands of 
 the State : — 
 
 III. The establishment of Bureaus of Labor Statistics, that, 
 we may arrive at a correct knowledge of the educational, moral, 
 and financial condition of the laboring masses. 
 
 IV. That the public lands, the heritage of the people, be 
 reserved for actual settlers ; not another acre for railroads or 
 speculators ; and that all lands now held for speculative purposes 
 be taxed to their full value. 
 
 V. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon 
 capital and labor, and the removal of unjust technicalities, delays, 
 and discriminations in the administration of justice. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 87 
 
 VI. The adoption of measures providing for the health and 
 safety of those engaged in mining, manufacturing, and building 
 industries, and for indemnification to those engaged therein for 
 injuries received through lack of necessary safeguards. 
 
 VII. The recognition, by incorporation, of trades-unions, 
 orders, and such other associations as may be organized by the 
 working masses to improve their condition and protect their 
 rights. 
 
 VIII. The enactment of laws to compel corporations to pay 
 their employees weekly, in lawful money, for the labor of the 
 preceding week, and giving mechanics and laborers a first lien 
 upon the product of their labor to the extent of their full 
 wages. 
 
 IX. The abolition of the contract system on national, State, 
 and municipal works. 
 
 X. The enactment of laws providing for arbitration between 
 employers and employed, and to enforce the decision of the 
 arbitrators. 
 
 XI. The prohibition by law of the employment of children 
 under fifteen years of age in workshops, mines, and factories. 
 
 XII. To prohibit the hiring out of convict labor. 
 
 XIII. That a graduated income tax be levied. 
 And we demand at the hands of Congress : — 
 
 XIV. The establishment of a national monetary system, in 
 which a circulating medium in necessary quantity shall issue 
 direct to the people, without the intervention of banks ; that all 
 the national issue shall be full legal tender in payment of all 
 debts, public and private ; and that the government shall not 
 guarantee or recognize any private banks, or create any banking 
 corporations. 
 
 XV. That interest-bearing bonds, bills of credit, or notes, 
 shall never be issued by the government ; but that, when need 
 arises, the emergency shall be met by issue of legal tender, non- 
 interest-bearing money. 
 
 XVI. That the importation of foreign labor under contract be 
 prohibited. 
 
 XVII. That, in connection with the post-office, the govern- 
 
88 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ment shall organize financial exchanges, safe deposits, and facil- 
 ities for deposit of the savings of the people in small sums. 
 
 XVIII. That the government shall obtain possession, by pur- 
 chase, under the right of eminent domain, of all telegraphs, tele- 
 phones, and railroads ; and that hereafter no charter or license 
 be issued to any corporation for construction or operation of any 
 means of transporting intelligence, passengers, or freight. 
 
 And while making the foregoing demands upon the State and 
 national government, we will endeavor to associate our own 
 labors : — 
 
 XIX. To establish co-operative institutions such as will tend 
 to supercede the wage system, by the introduction of a co-opera- 
 tive industrial system. 
 
 XX. To secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work. 
 
 XXI. To shorten the hours of labor by a general refusal to 
 work for more than eight hours. 
 
 XXII. To persuade employers to arbitrate all differences 
 which may arise between them and their employees, in order that 
 the bonds of sympathy between them may be strengthened, and 
 that strikes may be rendered unnecessary. 
 
 This sketch of labor organizations cannot be complete 
 without a word about "The Federation of Organized Trades 
 and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada,'' and 
 about our Central Labor Unions, or Trades Assemblies, or 
 Federations of Labor, as they are variously called. 
 
 The first of these central labor unions has been already 
 mentioned as having existed in New York in 1833, under 
 the name of the General Trades Union of the City of New 
 York. Another was formed in Cincinnati in 1864. Now 
 they exist in New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, New Haven, 
 Boston, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Baltimore, Wash- 
 ington, and probably in every one of the chief cities of the 
 United States. They are delegate bodies, to which each 
 local union sends representatives, so that the laborers of a 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 89 
 
 vicinity may act solidly together. Recently a movement has 
 been set on foot to call a convention of representatives of all 
 central labor unions, to solidify still further the interests 
 of labor in all great American cities, and to secure harmo- 
 nious action for common ends. 
 
 The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, 
 organized in Pittsburg in 1881, is for the labor organizations 
 of the United States and Canada what the central labor 
 unions are to the local organizations in the cities, and is 
 founded on the model of the Trades Union Congress of 
 England. It aims to promote the common interest of all 
 trades-unions and labor organizations, and to watch the 
 course of legislation in order to promote that which is con- 
 sidered beneficial, and to repress that which is regarded as 
 injurious. Its last annual meeting was held in Washington 
 in December, 1885, when it claimed to represent two hun- 
 dred and eighty thousand workingmen. 
 
 What is the total number of organized laborers at the 
 present time in the United States? This is something 
 which no human being knows or can know with any statis- 
 tics at command. There are, however, data which enable 
 one to form a rational opinion ; and although space will not 
 permit an enumeration of such facts as are known, I do not 
 hesitate to say that I consider a million a conservative esti- 
 mate ; while it is quite possible that the number may be far 
 longer. It is not improbable that one-fourth of our indus- 
 trial wage-workers belong to some kind of organization.* 
 
 ^ My estimate is far more conservative than that of others. Mr. 
 Henry Semler, of San Francisco, is quoted as saying that in his 
 opinion ninety-nine out of every hundred Americans belonged to some 
 kind of an organization, and that ninety-five out of a hundred belonged 
 to a mutual aid society of one description or another. I regard this 
 as true only of our colored population. 
 
90 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Nearly all the laborers engaged in certain branches of pro- 
 duction in industrial centres are organized, and in other 
 employments a very considerable majority. It is said, for 
 example, that four-fifths of the locomotive engineers, and an 
 equal proportion of locomotive firemen, belong to their 
 respective unions. The president of the Lake Seamen's 
 Union testified before the Blair Committee on Labor three 
 years since, that his organization embraced about seventy- 
 five per cent " of the persons engaged as sailors on the 
 lakes." 
 
 A reaction appears to have set in,^ and it is probable that 
 for some time to come the power of organized labor will 
 decrease ; but a change will again come, and the unions 
 and various associations will once more report an increasing 
 membership. The progress of the labor movement may be 
 compared to the incoming tide. Each wave advances a 
 little further than the previous one ; and he is the merest 
 tyro in social science, and an ignoramus in the history of his 
 country, who imagines that a permanent decline has over- 
 taken organized labor,^ whatever his talents or acquisitions 
 may be in other respects. It is to be noticed that before 
 this reaction set in, the organization of labor progressed with 
 such gigantic strides that it was almost impossible to keep 
 pace with it. The gain of the Knights of Labor, over 
 seventy-five per cent from 1884 to 1885, was characteristic 
 of the growth of the entire labor movement. 
 
 Another measure of growth is the progress of the press, 
 
 » Written in July, 1886. 
 
 ^ A writer for one of the leading journals in the country 
 headed an editorial in 1 877, " The Overthrow of Trades Unionism." 
 It was directed specially against the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- 
 neers and its chief, Mr. Arthur. That brotherhood is novir stronger 
 than ever before, and Mr. Arthur stands high in public opinion in 1886. 
 
LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN AMERICA. 91 
 
 which represents a given cause. A German student who 
 wrote a book on American labor in 1876, remarked it as a 
 characteristic of the movement in this country that the labor 
 press was small and insignificant. To-day there may be five 
 hundred labor newspapers in the United States, and among 
 them are nine or ten dailies. It is doubtfiil if there was a 
 single labor paper in the South three years ago, unless possi- 
 bly in New Orleans. In 1885 there were three in Rich- 
 mond, a city of less than one hundred thousand inhabitants. 
 The number of the labor papers is increasing every week. 
 Some of them are edited with considerable ability; many 
 are enlarging their size, using better type than hitherto, and 
 are giving other signs of a secure footing.' In short, the evi- 
 dences of astounding rapidity in the progress of the organi- 
 zation of labor are so overwhelming that they appear on 
 every hand, and fairly force themselves upon us. It is 
 further to be noticed, that these organizations have taken 
 deeper root than ever before ; one striking proof of which 
 is that they have continued to grow in power during the last 
 few years of stagnation in business, while the hard years 
 following the panic of 1873 so nearly ruined them that 
 many drew the over-hasty conclusion that they were alto- 
 gether devoid of strong vitality. 
 
 Now comes the question, — the momentous question, — 
 What does all this mean? What is its significance? An 
 attempt will be made to give a satisfactory reply in the fol- 
 lowing chapters. 
 
 1 Written before the reaction. 
 
CHAPTER IV.i 
 
 THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 TRADES-UNIONS and other associations of laborers 
 are designed to protect and advance the interest of 
 the great mass of the working classes. They are intended 
 primarily for the average man, and not for those with extra- 
 ordinary economic capacities. The latter class may occa- 
 sionally find them useful, but usually men possessed of 
 economic gifts of a higher order wish no help from labor 
 organizations. They desire a free course, and ask to be let 
 alone. There can be no more useful person in the com- 
 munity than the talented man, provided he is at the same 
 time a man obedient to the dictates of practical ethics ; and 
 it is desirable that his freedom of movement should not be 
 restrained, so long as he does not intrench upon the liberties 
 of his neighbor, or does not otherwise injure his fellow-men. 
 It will at times happen that the cheapest man in a town is 
 the " captain of industry," whose unusual abilities yield him 
 an annual income of twenty, thirty, or forty thousand dollars 
 per annum ; and by saying that he is the cheapest man in 
 the town, I mean that he renders greater service to the 
 community for every dollar received than any one else. 
 
 ^ Credit for much that is in this chapter must be given to Professor 
 Bruntano, whose treatment of this subject in his " Gewerbliche Arbei- 
 terfrage" is the best that I have seen. This monograph is published 
 in the first volume of Schonberg's " Handbuch der politischen Oekon- 
 omie." Passages enclosed in quotation marks are from Professor 
 Brentano where nothing to the contrary is stated. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 93 
 
 Though it is often necessary to put a check on greed, and 
 to restrain the activity of the unscrupulous, the true policy 
 for all social classes, and therefore for society as a whole, is 
 to encourage the development of talent. 
 
 But one of the elementary truths which we in this country 
 specially need to grasp is that the average man is not a 
 peculiarly gifted man. What do we mean by able, talented, 
 and such expressions? By them we call attention to the 
 fact that a man is superior to the vast majority. The 
 terms are relative, and as ordinarily used they can no more 
 apply to all men than two and two can make five. This is 
 simple ; but nothing is more fraught with weighty conse- 
 quences, and nothing is oftener overlooked in discussions 
 of social problems. How common is the saying, "There is 
 always plenty of room on the top shelf," or " in the upper 
 story." What of it? All men can no more get there than 
 every tree in the forest can be taller than all the other trees. 
 Yet people talk as if this were possible. The extreme of this 
 absurdity is seen in the traditional elderly gentleman who 
 tells all the boys in the village school that they may one day 
 become President of the United States. Though doubtless 
 spoken in ignorance, it is, in the nature of things, a false- 
 hood. Let us, then, begin any treatment of the labor ques- 
 tion, or any other social problem, with a frank recognition 
 of the fact that we have to deal with the ninety-nine out of 
 a hundred who by no human possibility can ascend to the 
 " upper story." One hundred men may struggle never so 
 hard ; but if they are to have only one leader, only one can 
 rise to that position of eminence. You may urge them on 
 and render the struggle severer, but the ultimate result is 
 the same. Take the case of independent producers. The 
 relative number of those who belong to that class has been 
 sti'adily diminishing for years, as production on a large scale 
 
94 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 has taken the place of the small shop. It lies, then, in the 
 nature of things, that under our present industrial system the 
 relative portion of wage-receivers in manufactories must in- 
 crease. It is not the fault of the laborer ; it is not the fault 
 of their employers. When one begins to discuss the labor 
 question, one often hears the remark, " The majority of rich 
 manufacturers began themselves as poor boys. They were 
 once employees." The statement itself will not bear such 
 close scrutiny as some might think, for it is not so true of an 
 old country as of a new ; not so true of the manufacturers 
 of forty years of age as of those of seventy. But if we 
 accept the statement, what of it? What bearing has that 
 on the condition of those who remain journeymen all their 
 lives? Is not your self-made man — who, as Horace 
 Greeley said, is sometimes too inclined to worship his own 
 creator — often the most haughty, overbearing, and tyran- 
 nical?^ Not always ; for nobler men do not live than some 
 of these: But too often it is true, and the laborer whose 
 master was once aworkingman himself has then cause to regret 
 it. It ought at the same time to be remarked, that where 
 one laborer rises to the position of a wealthy man, ten small 
 producers have lost their independent positions and fallen 
 into the rank of wage-receivers. The gradual disappearance 
 of the village carpenter, the village shoemaker, and others 
 of that class, is a fact well known in our own East ; and in 
 older countries, the distress of the once large and flourishing 
 class of small masters working with two or three journeymen 
 has given rise to a social problem. 
 
 Let us allude to another allied fallacy. The news- 
 papers tell us that the sons of rich men squander their, 
 property and fall into the ranks of poor people ; and 
 
 1 See Dickens' " Hard Times " for a description of the worst class 
 of self-made men. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 95 
 
 this is repeated again and again as if it ought to allay 
 anxiety about the future. Most happily the statement 
 is only exceptionally true ; but if it were the unfortu- 
 nate state of affairs, how could it solve any social prob- 
 lem? 
 
 Let us put away all these shallow sophistries. What we 
 want in this country is to know how to improve the laboring 
 man as a laboring man — for such the great mass must 
 remain for many years to come, and it may be safe to say 
 for generations to come, whatever unknown conditions a 
 future social development may bring us. To elevate the 
 farmer as a farmer, the mechanic as a mechanic, the artisan 
 as an artisan, in short, to lift the entire " Fourth Estate," as 
 it is called, should be the effort of public reform and private 
 philanthropy. It is not our public schools in themselves 
 which turn our youth away from manual occupations, but 
 the cry " rise in life " which fills the air and which leads to 
 false estimates of human worthiness. Truly, every one 
 should attempt to " rise in life " in the correct meaning of 
 those words, but our schoolbooks, our periodicals for the 
 young, and, one might almost say, our entire literature, all 
 are carrying to our young people throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land the conception that to rise in life means 
 to become a great manufacturer, a railway president, or a 
 merchant prince. No wonder that humble toil is scorned. 
 Wise words uttered by Charles Kingsley, a man who has 
 done great things to elevate the masses, deserve to be 
 emphasized among us precisely at the present time, even 
 though they may contain a slight exaggeration of the truth 
 which I would convey. " I do not think," says Kingsley, 
 "the cry 'get on' to be anything but a devil's cry. The 
 moral of my book [Alton LocK'q] is that the workingman 
 who tries to get on, to desert his class and rise above it, 
 
96 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 enters into a lie, and leaves God's path for his own — with 
 consequences.-' 
 
 " Second, I believe that a man might be, as a tailor or a 
 costermonger, every inch of him a saint and scholar and a 
 gentleman, for I have seen some few such already. I 
 believe hundreds of thousands more would be so if their 
 businesses were put on a Christian footing and themselves 
 given by education, sanitary reforms, etc., the means of 
 developing their own latent capabilities. I think the cry 
 ' rise in hfe ' has been excited by the very increasing im- 
 possibility of being anything but brutes while they struggle 
 below. ... I believe from experience that when you put 
 workmen into human dwellings and give them a Christian 
 education, so far from wishing discontentedly to rise out of 
 their class or to level others to it, exactly the opposite takes 
 place. They become sensible of the dignity of work, and 
 they begin to see their labor as a true calling in God's 
 ■ church now that it is cleared from the accidentia which 
 made it look in their eyes only a soulless drudgery in a 
 devil's workshop of a world." 
 
 Trades-unions and labor organizations are, then, designed 
 to remove disadvantages under which the great mass of 
 workingmen suffer, and must continue to suffer unless they 
 get relief either by voluntary combination or by combined 
 political action. What are these disadvantages ? Adam 
 Smith and his French predecessors, the Physiocrats, desired 
 to remove from the laborer all legal restrictions which im- 
 peded his freedom of movement, and to give him the right 
 to enter into such agreements with those who might desire 
 
 ^ The hero of this wondeiful novel expresses the complaint in one 
 place — and that with a tinge of bitterness — that the workingman who 
 remains true to his class and tries to help it, is called a demagogue. Is 
 this true only of England? 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 97 
 
 his service as he could effect. The reforms which they 
 proposed, and which subsequent legislation in the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century and the earlier part of the 
 nineteenth introduced, were chiefly -^ negative in their char- 
 acter. The watchword was, " Remove the shackles." The 
 economic philosophers of the time believed that legal 
 equality and freedom of contract were the sole conditions 
 needed to enable the working classes to secure a share of 
 the product of national industry, a share sufficient to serve 
 as a basis for their physical, ethical, and spiritual develop- 
 ment. This theory was based on two fallacies, — the first was 
 the assumption of the natural equality of men, " The differ- 
 ences found among men in their opinion were not due to 
 original, native qualities, but were the result of education,^ 
 legislation, and government. Could the restrictions of the 
 State be removed they believed that each member of society 
 would be able to promote his own interests most efficiently 
 without aid from others, and would be able to guard his 
 own interests in the economic struggle for existence. But 
 the equality of men is a chimera, and only those of extraor- 
 dinary capacities have the ability so to utiUze the resources 
 at their command as to obtain the highest possible return 
 ■ from them." The inequality of men in economic affairs, and 
 the inability of those who occupy a lower grade in economic 
 
 ^ The word chiefly is used advisedly. Important exceptions can be 
 found in Adam Smith; for example, he says, that whenever any legisla- 
 tion favors the workingman, it is always just. 
 
 == Adam Smith dwells at length on the idea that the difference be- 
 tween a superior member of the upper classes and a very ordinary 
 man, is due chiefly, if not wholly, to education and early surroundings. 
 Had their places been changed in infancy, the change would have con- 
 tinued, so he argues, throughout life. There is doubtless a large kernel 
 of truth in this, but its import is exaggerated. Exaggerated still further, 
 it became the doctrine of circumstances advocated by Robert Owen. 
 
98 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 development to obtain a satisfactory share of the products 
 of industrial activity, is seen most vividly in the case of 
 our native Indians. It has taken us hundreds and perhaps 
 thousands of years to arrive at our present economic stage 
 of growth since we left the " hunting and fishing stage," and 
 when the Indians are immediately transferred to the con- 
 ditions of our industrial civilization, they are apt to be 
 economically ruined. This was demonstrated in the case of 
 the Chippewa Indians in Michigan. When their reserva- 
 tion was divided and given to them in severalty, white 
 scoundrels soon got it away from them, and it is said that 
 designing men who have covetous eyes fastened on the 
 Indian reservations are at the bottom of the present agita- 
 tion to have land granted to the Indians in severalty.' Now 
 our laboring classes are happily not in the condition of the 
 Indians. The average man has advanced beyond that stage, 
 but it is true that " those whose economic qualifications are 
 only average will never attain even a moderate development 
 of their natural capacities without organization." 
 
 The second fallacy was the assumption that labor is a 
 commodity just like other commodities, and the laborer a 
 man with a commodity for sale just like other men who 
 offer their wares to the public. It is true that labor is a 
 commodity, for it is bought and sold, but there are peculi- 
 arities about it which distinguish it from other commodities, 
 and that most radically. 
 
 While labor is a commodity, it is an expenditure of human 
 force which involves the welfare of a personality. It is a 
 commodity which is inseparably bound up with the laborer, 
 
 1 Of course some sincere men who desire only the true good of the 
 Indian favor this proposition. It is possible it might be desirable, if 
 absolute inalienability were a condition. At any rate the friends of the 
 Indian should proceed carefully in this matter. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 99 
 
 and in this it differs from other commodities. The one who 
 offers other commodities for sale reserves his own person. 
 The farmer who parts with a thousand bushels of wheat for 
 money reserves control of his own actions. They are not 
 brought in question at all. Again, the man of property who 
 sells other commodities has an option. He may part with 
 his wares and maintain his life from other goods received in 
 exchange, or he can have recourse to his labor-power. The 
 laborer, however, has, as a rule, only the service residing in 
 his own person with which to sustain himself and his family. 
 Again, a machine, a locomotive, for example, and a 
 workingman resemble each other in this : they both ren- 
 der services, and the fate of both depends upon the manner 
 in which these services are extracted. But there is this 
 radical difference : the machine which yields its service to 
 man is itself a commodity, and is only a means to an end, 
 while the laborer who parts with labor is no longer a com- 
 modity in civilized lands, but is an end in himself, for man 
 is the beginning and termination of all economic life. The 
 consequence for the great mass of laborers possessed of 
 only average qualities are as follows, provided there is no 
 intervention of legislation, and provided the working classes 
 are not organized. While those who sell other commodities 
 are able to influence the price by a suitable regulation of 
 production, so as to bring about a satisfactory relation 
 between supply and demand, the purchaser of labor has 
 it in his own power to determine the price of this commod- 
 ity and the other conditions of sale. There may be excep- 
 tions for a tipie in a new country, but these are temporary 
 and often more apparent than real. Even now in the 
 United States the right of capital to rule is generally 
 assumed as a matter of course, and when labor would de- 
 termine price and conditions of service, it is called dicta- 
 
100 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 tion. The reason is that man comes to this world without 
 reference ^ to supply and demand, and the poverty of the 
 laborer compels him to offer the use of his labor-power 
 unreservedly and continuously. The purchase of labor 
 gives control over the laborer and a far-reaching influence 
 over his physical, intellectual, social, and ethical existence. 
 The conditions of the labor-contract determine the amount 
 of this rulership. Again, while illness, inabihty to labor, by 
 reason of accident or old age and death, do not destroy 
 other commodities or their power to support life, when these 
 misfortunes overtake the person of the laborer, he loses his 
 power to sell his only property, the commodity labor, and 
 he can no longer support himself and those dependent on 
 him. These consequences of the pecuUarity of labor may 
 be summed up as follows : — 
 
 1. The absence of actual equality between the two parties 
 to the labor-contract, and the one-sided determination of 
 the price and other conditions of labor. 
 
 2. The almost unlimited control of the employer over 
 the social and political life, the physical and spiritual exist- 
 ence, and the expenditures of his employees. 
 
 3. The uncertainty of existence which, more than actual 
 difference in jxjssessions, distinguishes the well-to-do from 
 the poor. 
 
 These consequences of the peculiarities of labor must be 
 examined somewhat more at length, and this will be done 
 under three different headings, it being understood that the 
 
 1 There are certain qualifications to what is here said, which the 
 limits of this book will not allow me to enumerate. It would be far 
 too large a work for present purposes, were every topic to be treated 
 exhaustively. I always take it for granted that my reader is possessed 
 of common sense, and will not raise trivial objections^ also that he is 
 to do some thinking himself. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 101 
 
 argument is based on the supposition that labor is unorgan- 
 ized and devoid of legal protection. 
 
 I. The laborer considered as a seller of a commodity. 
 The laborer must offer labor in the labor-market in which 
 he resides, and cannot seek the best market, or even a 
 better market, like others who sell commodities. He is 
 often too uneducated to know the conditions of the labor- 
 market in other localities, and too ignorant to be able to 
 pass judgment on such data as are at his command. When 
 he does know, his poverty frequently prevents his removal ; 
 for he cannot sell his commodity in a remote place unless 
 he removes his own person thither, nor can he ship, as 
 others do, a sample of his commodity. 
 
 If the demand falls, labor cannot be withdrawn from the 
 market like other wares. On the contrary, as the demand 
 decreases, the supply must increase by reason of competi- 
 tion of a greater number of laborers. There are several 
 causes for this. Members of the family who before did not 
 work outside the home, chiefly children and women, will 
 seek labor to eke out the father's income. A decreased 
 demand usually occurs at time of a general depression, and 
 the ranks of the workingmen are enlarged by accessions 
 from other social classes. Competition may thus increase 
 in severity almost to an unlimited extent between laborers, 
 to secure what little work there is. Thus it happens that 
 when demand for labor diminishes, the fall in wages is 
 apt to be more than in proportion to this diminution in 
 demand. 
 
 The cost of production is the limit below which the 
 price of other commodities cannot permanently fall, for the 
 production is diminished as the price falls, and at times 
 ceases almost altogether. But the individual laborer can- 
 not diminish his supply of labor so long as he lives, and 
 
102 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 misery and death i are the factors which must bring about a 
 decrease in the supply of this commodity, and raise its 
 price to the cost of production ; in other words, to what it 
 costs the laborer and his family to live, and to maintain the 
 customary standard of life among the members of his class. 
 
 Closely connected with the foregoing is the fact that the 
 price of labor does not at once rise when the demand in- 
 creases, as is usually the case with other commodities, for the 
 first effect is that the unemployed receive work ; and after 
 the " reserve-army " finds employment, competition among 
 purchasers of labor raises its price. 
 
 Finally, the only, way to diminish the supply of the com- 
 
 1 The way these operate is so simple that it ought to be better 
 understood. Few now starve outright; but a large number, especially 
 of the young, starve gradually, as has been abundantly shown by recent 
 investigations; but many more deaths are occasioned in other ways. 
 A carpenter is ill, and previous hard times have exhausted his re- 
 sources. He dies; whereas a more generous supply of delicacies, better 
 nursing, and more skilful medical attendance would have saved his 
 life. A second mechanic is so poor that he feels that he cannot afford 
 an umbrella. In a severe rain-storm to which he is exposed, the seeds 
 of consumption are laid. A third is unable to afford new shoes, and 
 wet feet at a time of feebleness, and insufficient nourishment, cause his 
 death. These examples may be multiplied arf/zi5zV«w. Thus it is that 
 every pressure of hard times kills thousands upon thousands even in 
 America. The most distinguished statistician of our day. Dr. Engel, 
 calls the causes of most deaths "social." The difficulty is not to 
 prescribe <i remedy, but to apply it. A physician cannot tell a man, 
 working for a dollar a day, to take a trip to Egypt for weak lungs ! 
 No current fiction is more widely removed from the truth than the 
 common assertion that workingmen and their families enjoy exception- 
 ally good health. The exact opposite is the truth, and statistics have 
 established the fact beyond controversy, that laborers are shorter-lived 
 by many years than those who belong to the wealthier social classes. 
 Dr. Lyman Abbott quotes some interesting statistics on this subject in 
 a recent article in the Century Magazine, 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 103 
 
 modity labor in the market in the future, is, by prudence 
 in marriage, to diminish the birth-rate. But to accomplish 
 this, will and intelligence are necessary, and some probabil- 
 ity that the laborer would reap the fruits of his self-denial. 
 No such guarantee exists because the folly of his fellows will 
 render his prudence of no avail. In addition to this, the 
 laborer in America can hope to influence the supply of 
 labor offered in the market of the future, only when he 
 gains some control over immigration. 
 
 II. Consequences affecting the personal life of the laborer. 
 — The employer is able to determine the conditions of the 
 labor-contract in such manner that he may exercise ruler- 
 ship over the laborer in four ways : — 
 
 I. He can influence the expenditures of the laborer in 
 such manner as to render him nearly as dependent as a 
 serf. One method is to pay the laborer only at long inter- 
 vals, which leads almost inevitably to the use of credit and 
 this means debt. Those who are unable to pay current 
 expenses at the time when incurred are apt to lead a less 
 economical life, and thus debt becomes chronic and the 
 prospect of escape well-nigh hopeless.' Sometimes the 
 employer lends money — already earned — to his employees, 
 and thus keeps them always in debt to him. A more com- 
 mon method used in America to establish the dependence 
 of the employee and to keep back part of his wages, is the 
 
 1 One of the largest employers of labor in this country, who prac- 
 tices what he preaches, tells me that in his opinion, one of the first 
 steps in the improvement in the condition of the laborer is weekly pay- 
 ments. He has given me many facts which have come under his 
 observation to show the importance of this measure. If I understand 
 him, he is so thoroughly persuaded that weekly payments are an indis- 
 pensable condition of reform that he would interpose no objection to 
 legal compulsion. 
 
104 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 truck system, which is perhaps more widely prevalent in 
 this country than elsewhere. It may be well to explain for the 
 benefit of some readers less familiar with practical life, that 
 the truck system means the establishment of stores by em- 
 ployers, in which their employees are practically compelled to 
 trade. Generally there is nominal, but only nominal, liberty 
 granted the employees to buy where they choose. These are 
 often paid in orders on stores in which the employer or his 
 agent has an interest, and these orders are accepted else- 
 where only at a discount. Sometimes wages are paid in a 
 shop or saloon late at night, so as to encourage expenditure 
 in the same place ; occasionally there is an understanding 
 with a shopkeeper, who gives the employer a percentage on 
 all purchases of employees. An employer has been known 
 to redeem his own orders at a discount of ten per cent 
 when handed in by the local dealers. Notice is taken of 
 those who do not purchase at the company store, and they 
 stand in danger of discharge. Another form of payment in 
 kind, consists in the occupation of houses owned by the 
 employer. Those who live elsewhere are usually the first 
 discharged. 
 
 So great is the injury to the working classes that in several 
 States these practices are forbidden by law ; but there are 
 always unscrupulous employers who do not hesitate to dis- 
 obey laws in favor of labor, and so great is their influence 
 that the law is not generally enforced. 
 
 The laborer is frequently cheated in weight, quality, and 
 price. A journal in Pittsburg recently sent an agent to a well- 
 known industrial region to investigate the charge preferred 
 by workingmen against their employers that they, the em- 
 ployees, were compelled to purchase goods at the company 
 stores at exorbitant prices. The employers denied the 
 truth of this, and maintained that no one was compelled to 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 105 
 
 buy at "our store." The workingmen replied in sub- 
 stance, so the newspaper stated, " You lie." The reporter 
 of the journal found the charge substantiated, and by in- 
 quiring at various stores ascertained that the average excess 
 of charges on a number of specified articles was sixty 
 per cent. The overcharge on othfer articles was smaller, 
 but he credited the statement of a laborer that he was com- 
 pelled to pay fully twenty to twenty-five per cent more for 
 his goods than the prices elsewhere. " If we don't deal 
 with the company," continued he, " we are quickly told to 
 go and get work from the men we buy our goods of." 
 Reports of the bureaus of labor statistics abound with com- 
 plaints of this character, and I myself have seen a miner's 
 book in which receipts and charges exactly balanced at the 
 close of the month, leaving the poor fellow without one 
 cent in cash ; I noticed, too, that the company store did not 
 furnish details. The charge was not so many pounds of 
 sugar, so much; but, sugar, 56 cents; pork, 70 cents, etc.^ 
 
 1 An Ohio commission, consisting of Professor Orton, of the State 
 University, and one employer and one miner, investigated this subject 
 in the mining district of Ohio two years ago. From their report I 
 quote these words : — 
 
 " Throughout the counties of Perry, Hoclting, Athens, Vinton, Jack- 
 son, and Lawrence, stores are connected with most of the principal 
 coal mines, at which, as a rule, the miners are expected, and thus 
 indirectly obliged, to purchase their supplies in whole or in part. . . . 
 If their cash balances are too large, they are sometimes reminded of 
 their duty to spend more at the stores. 
 
 "Throughout this same territory, checks, scrip, and orders are 
 largely used, in open disregard of the laws passed to prevent their use. 
 
 "The truck system has a depressing and demoralizing influence 
 upon the laborer. . . . This system, however designed and however 
 guarded, inflicts upon the communities where it is in force the evils of 
 a depreciated currency, in addition to the extravagance and over-trading 
 which it everywhere encourages." 
 
106 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Another form of oppression better known in Europe than 
 in this country, in which, if it exists at all, it is rare, is foiand 
 in the compulsory insurance connected with certain lines 
 of employment. Those who accept labor in some estab- 
 lishments, particularly in Germany, are compelled to take 
 out insurance to provide for cases of accident, for disease, 
 old age, etc. Dismissal renders it impossible to continue 
 payments, and the employees will often submit to much 
 hardship sooner than lose the provision against misfortune, 
 and incur risk for themselves and for their families. 
 
 2. The employer exercises an influence over the health 
 of his employees as well as over life and limb. Where the 
 commodity labor is desired, there the laborer must abide. 
 .He is thus compelled to risk health in ill- ventilated rooms, 
 or rooms over-heated or under-heated, and his life is need- 
 lessly jeopardized by failure to fence in dangerous machin- 
 ery, or to employ other well-known life-saving devices. It 
 is reported that there are yearly fifteen thousand accidents 
 to railway employees in the United States, and it is not 
 improbable that two-thirds of these are needless. Again, 
 when an employer directs labor, he chooses the place where 
 the laborer must pass the greater part of the time not con- 
 sumed in sleep, and in this manner selects the laborer's 
 companions for more than half his life. The order is, You 
 must work here in this place by the side of this man, 
 whether he is a responsible man or a scoundrel ; whether a 
 skilful artisan or a careless and inexperienced mechanic, 
 who exposes your life to constant danger.^ Finally, when 
 
 ^ This is an especially important consideration in mines and on 
 railways, considering the interpretation the courts of many States are 
 putting upon the doctrine of " fellow-servant." There is now practically 
 no redress when an employee is maimed or killed. Vide Christian 
 Union, July 22, 1886, for a resume of the law. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 107 
 
 the length of time of each day's labor is fixed by the em- 
 ployer, he determines the physical exhaustion of the laborer ; 
 he also decides whether the pregnant woman in his service 
 shall give birth to a sound, healthy child, or one weak and 
 feeble ; also whether the children who toil for him shall 
 become strong men and women, or old before their 
 time.' 
 
 3. The influence of the employer over the mental and 
 moral development of the laboring, classes is not less power- 
 ful ; and when this has been said, it is seen to how large an 
 extent the future of the nation depends upon the large em- 
 ployers of labor, whether private individuals or corporations. 
 This influence is exerted through selection of companions 
 and the decision in regard to the length of the working day ; 
 further by action with reference to night-work, work beneath 
 the surface of the earth, to regulations concerning the labor 
 of women and children, etc. All this is of importance for 
 the family life and for the education of the laboring classes. 
 Overwork, and work under unfavorable conditions in regard 
 to temperature and the like, are responsible for much 
 intemperance among the working classes, as every com- 
 petent physician who has had experience among them well 
 knows. 
 
 4. Employers are able to influence the political and 
 religious hfe of their employees. ReUgious opinions in the 
 United States are generally left to the laborers without inter- 
 ference, though not always ; but it may be doubted if inter- 
 ference with poKtical rights is anywhere carried further. I 
 know a whole town, for example, whose inhabitants while 
 free in certain elections, in others are marched like sheep to 
 
 1 In the first half of the century English laborers not infrequently 
 became old at thirty, and physicians began to express the fear that the 
 English race was about to enter a period of physical degeneration. 
 
108 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 the polls, and ordered to vote in a manner well pleasing to 
 a great corporation.' 
 
 III. The character of modem industry rendered it difiR- 
 cult, and, until organization or government came to his assist- 
 ance, impossible for the average laborer to provide proper 
 economic security for himself and his family by means of 
 insurance. Every loss of work involved a loss of power to 
 contribute to relief funds of any description. 
 
 It is on account of these peculiarities of the commodity 
 labor, together with changes in industrial processes due to 
 inventions and discoveries, that the hopes of Adam Smith 
 and his friends have not been realized. Not many, only a 
 few, have become independent producers. The vast majority 
 of the industrial classes have remained employees, and most 
 of their employers have in older countries, probably to a less 
 extent in America, used their power unscrupulously; and 
 even those who have no wish to do so, have often been forced 
 by competition to estaljlish harder and harder conditions of 
 toil for the laborer. Formerly the number of apprentices 
 was regulated by law, or by custom having the force of law. 
 When this restriction was removed, experienced journeymen 
 were dismissed in large masses, and their places supplied by 
 apprentices. When machinery became more perfect, women 
 and children replaced men ; and it has happened in Massa- 
 chusetts, as well as in England, that the father has remained 
 at home and cared for the house and the babies while his 
 wife and children have worked in th^ factory for the support 
 of the family. Unnatural competitors ! Unnatural relation ! 
 
 ^ Once it was impossible to hire a man to distriliute ballots for the 
 party not in favor with this corporation. A man was found with 
 difficulty who promised to render the service for five dollars, but before 
 the time came, he begged to be released from his promise because he 
 would otherwise lose his employment. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 109 
 
 And as machinery became more general and more costly, 
 the length of the working day was lengthened until it 
 became, even for women and children, sixteen and eighteen 
 hours in cases not rare. Indeed, it has been generally 
 longer where women and children have been the predomi- 
 nating labor force, because they are less powerful to resist 
 oppression. Then, as production on a larger and ever 
 larger scale took the place of the small shops, crises became 
 more common and more disastrous. Men were no longer 
 hired for a long period, but from day to day, and that un- 
 certainty and irregularity of income which is so disastrous 
 to society became general. High wages were followed by a 
 total absence of work. Thousands of laborers became 
 tramps, their daughters prostitutes, and their sons criminals. 
 Reduction after reduction of wages followed. When the 
 laborers combined to withdraw a quantity of their property, 
 the commodity labor, from the market, so as to raise its 
 price just as sellers of other commodities do, they were 
 thrown into prison ; for the old conspiracy and combination 
 laws continued long after the legal protection afforded labor 
 by a previous generation had been abolished.' Even after 
 the abolition of these laws, the opposition of employers and 
 the excessive control they had acquired over the working 
 classes long interposed almost insuperable obstacles in the 
 way of trades-unions. In the north of England in 1844, 
 forty thousand miners were discharged to force them to 
 
 1 The laws against combinations were abolished in England in 1824, 
 but the courts continued to oppose trades-unions until 1869 as being 
 "in restraint of trade," and the courts did not protect them until 
 authorized by the legislation of 1871. The laws against combinations, 
 or "coalitions," continued in force in France until 1864. In Austria 
 they were abolished about the same time; but not in all parts of Ger- 
 many until 1 87 1. They were not abolished in Maryland until 1884. 
 
110 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 abandon their combination, and in July, 1881, a large em- 
 ployer in the Rhine Province in Germany threatened to 
 dismiss every laborer who belonged to a trades-union, 
 or who read certain books, or who frequented certain 
 restaurants, or who bought goods of certain merchants 
 mentioned by name, who were supposed to favor trades- 
 unions. 
 
 In this country we have added two refinements of cruelty, 
 called the black list and the iron-clad oath, which are 
 found in all parts of our land, although strongly con- 
 demned by the best public sentiment. The black list is 
 a "boycott" against labor. A man who for any reason, 
 be it even whim, caprice, or personal spite, falls into dis- 
 favor with one employer, is placed on the black list, and 
 his name, at times accompanied by a personal description, 
 is sent to allied employers all over the country. Thirty- 
 three men were black-listed in Fall River a few years ago 
 because they had asked for an increase of wages, and they 
 were compelled to seek work under assumed names. It is 
 reported, on apparently good authority, that one railway cor- 
 poration has a book containing names of a thousand black- 
 listed persons, with a full description of each. The black 
 list will pursue a man for years, will drive him out of an 
 honest trade to rum-selhng, and will follow him across the 
 continent, and everywhere defeat his efforts to gain a liveli- 
 hood. Two quotations from persons who have had oppor- 
 tunity to see the workings of the black list will help my 
 readers to understand its terrible atrocity. The first is from 
 Fred Woodrow's contribution to the " Labor Problem." "^ 
 " Black-listing . . . has the merit of being very effective ; its 
 edict is final ; it troubles no jury and sends for no sheriff; 
 ... it has its watch- dog by every door, and woe to the man 
 ~l Hatper & Brothers, New York, 1886, pp. 288-9. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. Ill 
 
 who, with its brand on his brow, seeks for work. . . . He is 
 proclaimed by a corporation Czar. ... I well remember a 
 workmate of my own being put under this ban of ostracism. 
 He was discharged without notice, and the reason refused 
 him. I did my best for his re-engagement ; previous suc- 
 cesses made me confident, but this case baffled me. I 
 suggested application to another department, under the 
 management of a humane and kindly man. He refused. 
 Another was tried — the same result. I completed the 
 circle, and in every case blank but unwilling refusal — my 
 unfortunate comrade sent adrift, with the onus of some un- 
 known disgrace staining his name, for more than six hundred 
 miles. It came to my knowledge subsequently that he was 
 blacklisted at the request of one man, whose personal ill- 
 will was gratified in his discharge. Such cases are not few, 
 ... as many a hungry man and shoeless child can testify." 
 The second quotation is from the Cleveland Workman, and 
 is taken by that paper from one of its " exchanges." " There 
 are men in this region who are now being compelled to leave 
 their homes, their families, and their friends, and seek em- 
 ployment elsewhere, — men who have given their time and 
 influence for the benefit of the community in which they 
 reside. . . . They have been exiled from their pleasant 
 associations here by the infamous black list." A peculiarly 
 cruel case is told in the same paper. A man of seventy had 
 left his old wife in Sedalia, Mo. (where he had been working 
 for many years) , because he was discharged, and walked five 
 hundred miles to a place in Illinois where a new railway was 
 building, but the black list followed him and at last accounts 
 he was penniless and without work. 
 
 The iron-clad oath is an agreement to do or not to do 
 certain things as a condition of employment ; generally not 
 to join a labor organization. The following is the form of 
 
112 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 one of these oaths.' " I, A. B., hereby agree to work for 
 C. D. at my trade at the regular established prices . . . 
 withdrawing from the Knights of Labor, and ignoring all 
 outside parties, committees, and trade or labor associations, 
 and also agree not to connect myself with the Knights of 
 Labor or any similar organization, or to join in any meeting 
 or procession of any such organizations while in the employ 
 of said C. D." 
 
 The President of the Congregational Club of New York, 
 himself a man of wealth and a large employer of labor, pub- 
 licly characterized the iron-clad oath not long ago as the 
 sure and certain beginning of a system of white slavery. 
 
 " The lack of any education of those children employed 
 in the factories in tender years, the destruction of family 
 life caused by the employment of women, and the social 
 separation of the laborers from other classes destroyed civil- 
 ized habits of life and thought among the laborers. A 
 strange and special range of ideas sprang up among work- 
 ing men thrown together in great masses in industrial cen- 
 tres and in a state of subjection to their employers. There 
 arose two nations within the same nation, the one the ruling 
 nation, the other the ruled; the one possessing a high 
 culture in which the other did not participate; the one, 
 the ruling, fearing the ruled, while the ruled hated the rul- 
 ing nation ; two nations whose interests and ideas were so 
 different that in spite of the common language they no 
 longer understood each other." 
 
 It may be that this separation has not gone so far with 
 
 ' I wish to avoid useless personalities, and do not mention any 
 names. In other places I pursue the same course; but I think that 
 there is abundance of testimony to establish all that is said in this 
 book, and that it is not inaccessible to those who desire to know the 
 truth. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 113 
 
 US as it went at one time in England and Germany and 
 France ; but now it is proceeding more rapidly here than 
 elsewhere. In England, and to a less degree in Germany, 
 brave men of exalted natures have thrown themselves into 
 the breach, and in spite of slander, obloquy, and social per- 
 secution, have persisted in their efforts until they have 
 brought the two nations nearer together, and have helped 
 to maintain the unity of civilization ; with us, comparatively 
 few have realized their duty in this matter, and it is doubt- 
 ful if history records any more rapid social movement than 
 this ominous separation of the American people into two 
 nations. Already they scarcely understand each other even 
 when they speak the same language ; already there are two 
 public opinions supported respectively by a partisan capital- 
 istic press and a partisan labor press ; already there begins 
 a class struggle for political supremacy; already religious 
 lines are becoming, have become to an alarming extent in 
 our great cities, social lines, and there is a wide-spread feel- 
 ing among the working classes that the church of their em- 
 ployers cannot be the church for them, that the God of the 
 rich is no God whom they can worship. 
 
 Nothing of graver import has ever befallen this people of 
 the United States. Unless powerful forces calculated to 
 keep alive the unity of civilization among us can be 
 brought into action, our future downfall will be inevitable. 
 The poUceman's club, the prowling detective's doubtful 
 services, the soldier's rifle, the careless bullet of hired mer- 
 cenaries, exceptional laws, novel judicial procedure, and 
 new and strained interpretations of the law, — all these are 
 not the unifying, life-giving forces which this land of ours 
 needs. Our country's best, the purest and noblest and 
 grandest men and women of our time, must avert the dan- 
 ger ; and if it requires a sacrifice of themselves, a Christian 
 
114 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 people can find an historical example in the person of their 
 Lord who left the society, not of the rich and cultured of 
 earth, but of the angels in heaven, to hve the life of a 
 humble mechanic at a time when that life was despised 
 with a scorn strange and unknown in our day, that he might 
 supply a bond of union not merely between God and man, 
 but between man and man ; for did not he pray for all his 
 followers in all time " that they all may be one, as thou 
 Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one 
 in us . . . that they may be made perfect in one." 
 
 The disadvantages under which those are placed who live 
 by the sale of the commodity labor have been briefly ex- 
 amined. It remains to show the manner in which trades- 
 unions and labor organizations may operate to counteract 
 these economic evils. 
 
 The labor organizations enable the laborer to withhold 
 his commodity temporarily from the market, and to wait for 
 more satisfactory conditions of service than it is possible for 
 him to secure when he is obliged to offer it unconditionally. 
 They further enable him to gain the advantages of an in- 
 creased demand for his commodity, to bring about a more 
 satisfactory relation than would otherwise be possible be- 
 tween the supply and the demand for labor, and also to 
 exercise an influence upon the supply in the future market. 
 These organizations are calculated to do away with the inju- 
 rious consequences of the peculiarities of labor as a com- 
 modity to be sold, and " through them labor for the first 
 time becomes really a commodity, and the laborer a man." 
 
 The trades-unions, and other agencies of the labor move- 
 ment, such as the labor press, assist the laborer to find the 
 best market for his commodity ; and as the best market 
 usually means the most productive market considered from 
 a politico-economic standpoint, this is of benefit to society 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. US 
 
 as a whole. There are several ways in which this is done. 
 The organs of the trades-unions and other labor newspapers, 
 publish statistics concerning the state of trade in various 
 localities. Laborers are informed, for example, that there is 
 plenty of work for printers in Boston, but little in New York ; 
 that the building trades are rather active in Baltimore, but 
 dull in Richmond. The Workman'^ of Cleveland, Ohio, 
 formerly published a " Cleveland Labor Market Report," 
 giving the hours of work, the pay, the state of the market, 
 whether active or dull, etc., for the various trades in the 
 city. It seems to have abandoned this excellent plan, but 
 some twenty labor papers have formed an associated labor 
 press, and each paper furnishes all the others with labor 
 items gathered in its own locality. This idea of labor-mar- 
 ket reports is certain to have a further and a beneficial 
 development in the future. Employers also engage em- 
 ployees through the various labor organizations. When a 
 " boss " in Baltimore desires bricklayers, he sends a notice 
 to the hall of the Bricklayers' Union, and it is written on the 
 blackboard where it can be seen by those who want work. 
 In the same way employers engage men through the Granite 
 Cutters' National Union. Before me lies an advertisement 
 which I found posted up in the headquarters of that union 
 in Philadelphia. It reads as follows : — 
 
 " WANTED. 
 
 Fifty Good Granite Cutters wanted immediately at Granite- 
 
 viLLE, Mo. Apply to the Graniteville Granite Co., 
 
 Graniteville, Iron County, Missouri." 
 
 1 This newspaper, by the way, is one of the best representatives of 
 the labor press. It is edited by a graduate of Amherst College, who 
 originally intended to go to China as a missionary, but was prevented 
 by a physical infirmity. He evidently believes that he has found a 
 good missionary field in this country. I understand he derives his 
 livelihood from the practice of medicine. 
 
116 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 The labor organizations further render it easy for the artisan 
 or mechanic in a new city to form useful connections with 
 those pursuing the same trade. But these associations of 
 laborers aid them in finding a market for their commodity in 
 a still more direct manner. They assist laborers to go in 
 search of work with gifts and loans of money. Members of 
 the Cigar Makers' International Union, for example, received 
 t\i),']27..bQ during the fiscal year ending November, 1882, 
 for this purpose. This benefit paid, consisted of railway fare 
 from town to town, and of fifty cents for meals in each place. 
 When the demand for labor falls, it is the practice of the 
 older, stronger unions not to allow their members to work 
 below the usual rate of wages, and this is one of the chief 
 means to maintain the standard of life among laborers — a 
 matter of vital importance in the opinion of political econ- 
 omists. If there is a decreased demand, all would not find 
 employment at reduced wages; but, as has already been 
 seen, one reduction would simply give rise to another. The 
 labor organizations prefer, therefore, to support their mem- 
 bers until the labor market improves, or to work fewer 
 hours each day rather than to work at reduced wages.' 
 When the labor market improves, it is not necessary to 
 struggle for the old rates, but those who were out of work 
 step into their former places. On the other hand, there is a 
 tendency — and a wise one — in the older regions of trades- 
 unions where they have fought their preliminary battles, have 
 secured recognition, and thus opportunity for a normal 
 development, not to ask for an increase of wages with every 
 temporary improvement in business, but rather to use it to 
 
 1 This applies more particularly to English trades-unions. Ours are 
 not yet so strong in financial resources, nor have they so fixed a policy, 
 but the tendency is the same. All over the world — the modem civil- 
 ized world — labor organizations move in the same general direction. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 117 
 
 secure other concessions, and to ask for higher wages only 
 at comparatively rare intervals. Their aim is to secure the 
 conditions of a slow, sure, and steady growth. 
 
 If there is a permanent decrease in demand for labor, the 
 tactics of the trades-unions must be changed. Laborers are 
 assisted to move to new regions ; in Europe they are helped 
 to emigrate. The future market is further influenced by the 
 regulation of apprenticeship. " The first object of the lim- 
 itation of the number of apprentices is to prevent the dis- 
 placement of journeymen by apprentices who in turn would 
 be discharged as soon as they had learned the trade, to 
 make way for a new army of apprentices.'^ But the limita- 
 tion of the labor supply in the future is necessarily con- 
 nected with this, and that is a conscious aim of the unions. 
 There can be no objection to this limitation from the 
 standpoint of right and law so long as the laborers use no 
 other means to enforce their regulations than the refusal to 
 work with more than a certain number of apprentices. But 
 from the standpoint of political economy, which demands 
 that a man should proportion the supply of his commodity 
 to the demand, and holds him responsible for an excess of 
 supply, the laborers not only have the right to do this, but 
 they are even under moral obligations to do it." 
 
 Finally, the trades-unions educate the laborers to pru- 
 dence in marriage. They accustom their members to over- 
 
 1 As early as 1350 the guild masters attempted to injure the journey- 
 men by the employment of an undue number of apprentices; and this 
 has ever since been a device of unscrupulous employers who desire 
 unemployed men about them so as to get a tighter grip on their em- 
 ployees. While it is doubtless true that the majority of employers 
 have ever repudiated such methods, there have always been so many 
 employers who have not scorned such unworthy practices, that the 
 trades-unions have in self-defence been forced to take an attitude 
 which is frequently misunderstood. 
 
118 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 look the field of labor, to pass judgment on the prospect of 
 satisfactory remuneration for their commodity in the future ; 
 they help them to secure higher wages than would otherwise 
 be possible, so that they have something to lose; they 
 awaken in them a regard for the welfare of others, and culti- 
 vate a feeHng of duty with respect to their conduct toward 
 others ; finally, the Hmitation of the number of apprentices 
 is a guarantee — imperfect, to be sure, still a guarantee of 
 some value — that those who are prudent and restrain their 
 desires will reap the benefit of their sacrifices. "Experi- 
 ence teaches that the trades-unionists of England are more 
 prudent in regard to marriage than the unskilled laborers 
 who belong to no organizations." 
 
 Topics which will find treatment in the two following 
 chapters have an important bearing on the economic value 
 of labor organizations. This is the case in particular with 
 arbitration and the character of these various societies as 
 mutual aid associations. The educational value of labor 
 organization is an allied topic ; and indeed there is nothing 
 which affects them in any way which might not be con- 
 sidered in the present chapter, so closely connected with 
 one another are all the various phases of our social and 
 industrial life. The fact has been frequently remarked, that 
 the entire life of man in society is one ; yet for the sake of 
 convenience we divide and subdivide it by more or less 
 arbitrary lines. 
 
 John Stuart Mill recognized the economic value of labor 
 organizations at an early date, and assigned them an impor- 
 tant place in our industrial organism. This is the more 
 surprising as the now antiquated theory of the wages-fund, 
 in which he himself believed when he wrote the words I am 
 about to quote, blinded most political economists to the 
 true functions of labor organizations,, and even led him to 
 underrate their power for good. 
 
ECONOMIC VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 119 
 
 "I do not hesitate," writes Mill in his 'Political Econ- 
 omy,' ^ " to say that associations of laborers, of a nature 
 similar to trades-unions, far from being a hindrance to a free 
 market for labor, are the necessary instrumentality of that 
 free market, the indispensable means of making the sellers 
 of labor to take due care of their own interests under a 
 system of competition. There is an ulterior consideration 
 of much importance, to which attention was for the first 
 time drawn by Professor Fawcett in an article in the West- 
 minster Review. Experience has at length enabled the 
 more intelligent trades to take a tolerably correct measure 
 of the circumstances on which the success of a strike for an 
 advance of wages depends. The workmen are now nearly 
 as well informed as the master, of the state of the market 
 for his commodities ; they can calculate his gains and his 
 expenses ; they know when his trade is or is not prosperous, 
 and only when it is, are they ever again likely to strike for 
 higher wages ; which wages their known readiness to strike 
 makes their employers for the most part willing to concede. 
 The tendency, therefore, of this state of things is to make a 
 rise of wages in any particular trade, usually consequent 
 upon a rise of profits, which, as Mr. Fawcett observes, is a 
 commencement of that regular participation of the laborers 
 in the profits derived from their labor, every tendency to 
 which, for the reasons stated in a previous chapter, it is so 
 important to encourage, since to it we have chiefly to look 
 for any radical improvement in the social and economical 
 relations between labor and capital. Strikes, therefore, and 
 the trade societies which render strikes possible, are for 
 these various reasons not a mischievous, but, on the con- 
 trary, a valuable part of the existing machinery of society." 
 
 1 Book v., chapter X., section 5. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THK EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZA- 
 TIONS. 
 
 THE propositions which I wish to prove and to illustrate, 
 in so far as this can be done in a single chapter, may 
 be expressed somewhat as follows : To-day the labor organ- 
 izations of America are playing a rdle in the history of civiliza- 
 tion, the importance of which can be scarcely overestimated ; 
 for they are among the foremost of our educational agencies, 
 ranking next to our churches and public schools in their in- 
 fluence upon the culture of the masses. They counteract to a 
 large extent the evil and stupefying influences of the division 
 of labor in our modern system of production ; finally they 
 reach and elevate large classes mentally, morally, and spirit- 
 ually, who can be moved in no other manner. It is first 
 necessary for me to state what I understand by education. 
 I do not mean simply what can be learned out of books ; 
 still less what is acquired at schools. I mean something far 
 larger, which includes both books and schools, and much 
 besides ; I mean what the Germans might perhaps express 
 by Bildung, — the entire development of a man in all his 
 relations, social, individual, religious, ethical, and political. 
 Whatever in trades-unions or labor organizations in any way 
 makes men larger men, educates them in the truest sense, 
 and comes within the scope of this chapter on the educa- 
 tional value of trades-unions and labor organizations. It is 
 certain that laborers have been strongly impressed with the 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 121 
 
 educational value of organization, and have united with that 
 aim directly in view from the earliest period of their existence. 
 The ancient guilds show strongly marked educational char- 
 acteristics, as do the friendly societies of one kind and an- 
 other which prepared the way for the trades-unions. The 
 Workingmen's Institute of Brighton, England, formed in 
 1848, serves as an illustration of the general truth. It was 
 intended to provide the workingmen of that town with the 
 means of mental and of moral improvement. Mental im- 
 provement was, in the publications of the Institute, sepa- 
 rated into two divisions, — the information of the intellect 
 and the elevation of the taste. It was, therefore, very 
 appropriate for Rev. Frederick W. Robertson to choose 
 " Education " as the subject of the opening address which 
 he was invited to deliver before the Institute. 
 
 At a still earlier date, education was valued by the work- 
 ing classes in the United States, and they repudiated with 
 some bitterjiess the idea that mental cultivation would injure 
 those in their walk of life. The New England Association 
 of Farmers, Mechanics, and other Workingmen, in their 
 address to workingmen, issued in 1832, briefly recapitulated 
 the evils for which a remedy was sought ; and among these 
 evils, as will be remembered from a previous chapter, were 
 the following : " An illiberal opinion of the worth and rights 
 of the laboring classes ; an unjust estimation of their moral, 
 intellectual, and physical powers ; an unwise misapprehen- 
 sion of the effects which would result from the cultivation of 
 their minds and the improvement of their condition." 
 
 It should further be borne in mind that those in this coun- 
 try who were known as friends of the workingmen were at 
 the same time active in educational movements. Mention 
 has already been made of Horace Mann, William Ellery 
 Channing, and Robert Rantoul, and it is worthy of notice 
 
122 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 that the Swiss educational reformer, Pestalozzi, is esteemed 
 highly, even by the radicals, among organized laborers.' It 
 is instructive to look through Mr. Channing's writings on the 
 labor problem, as they indicate the drift of reform and of 
 constructive effort at this early period, — and we may well 
 say early period, for fifty years ago is a very early period in 
 the labor movement, and so rapid is the progress of events, 
 that even twenty years ago might be called an early period. 
 Mr. Channing's most celebrated addresses on social topics 
 were entitled, " Self-Culture," and " On the Elevation of the 
 Laboring Classes," — self-culture, education, you observe. 
 And now let us see what Mr. Channing had to say under the 
 more general head of elevation of the laboring classes. The 
 positive part of his argument is summed up by himself in 
 these words, " I was obliged by my narrow limits to confine 
 myself chiefly to the consideration of the intellectual eleva- 
 tion which the laborer is to propose ; though in treating this 
 topic, I showed the moral, religious, social improvements 
 which enter into his true dignity. I observed that the 
 laborer was to be a student, a thinker, an intellectual man 
 as well as a laborer." 
 
 The efforts of the early friends of labor were largely, 
 perhaps chiefly, directed to public schools as an educa- 
 tional agency, and there can be no doubt that our public- 
 school system is in part the result of labor agitation. Our 
 whole educational system in the United States is more 
 largely due to the desire to benefit the masses than to any 
 other single cause. At every period in our history, public 
 school questions have been labor questions or labor meas- 
 ures. And when I say this, I do not exclude our universi- 
 ties. What, then, has the labor movement brought us? I 
 
 1 The New Yorker Volksgeilung calls liim "the first social demo- 
 crat." See Wochenblatt, 7th November, 1885. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 123 
 
 reply first of all : it has been one of the chief causes which 
 have brought us a public-school system, — a public-school 
 system which has already accomplished incalculable good, 
 and promises greater benefits in the future, as it is further 
 developed. But our public-school system is attacked by 
 men whose political wisdom and sense of social justice I 
 prefer not to characterize in terms which would seem to 
 me fitting. Where shall we find guardians against assaults 
 on our public schools ? Where shall we find those who will 
 not only protect what we have, but help us forward in new 
 achievements in education, particularly by means of public 
 schools. To both questions I reply, in our labor organi- 
 zations. All over the world labor organizations are sup- 
 porting and bearing forward every popular educational 
 movement. Let me take an illustration from our own South, 
 where such a force as I have been describing is precisely 
 what is needed. There is in Tennessee a State organization 
 of trades-unions and labor societies, called the State Labor 
 Union, which adopted the following resolutions at its annual 
 meeting, held in the fall of .1885. "Resolved, That, as 
 the question of education is of vital importance to us and 
 the whole people, we request our representatives in Con- 
 gress to use their influence in securing national aid to 
 education. 
 
 " Resolved, That we demand such revision of the public- 
 school system of the Stat^ as will make possible the build- 
 ing of comfortable schoolhouses and the maintenance of 
 schools in each district at least seven months in the year. 
 That none but competent teachers be employed, and that 
 they be paid a salary equal to the im.portance of their work 
 as public educators." It is my opinion that those in Con- 
 gress and out of Congress who have favored the Blair Bill 
 would have been more likely to succeed in their endeavor if 
 
124 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 they had ere this sought the co-operation of the masses as 
 represented in our labor organizations.^ 
 
 We have heard much of the educational value of our free 
 political institutions, for it is a favorite theme with writers on 
 political science, and it has been said that therein lay their 
 chief value rather than in the establishment of a better gov- 
 ernment. Labor organizations are beneficial in the same 
 way, and I am much inclined to think to a higher degree 
 among those who belong to them. They are schools of 
 political science. Men meet in them and discuss questions 
 of politics and economics in order to ascertain their bearing 
 on the interests of the masses. They feel that their posi- 
 
 1 Even those who oppose the Blair Bill — and there are sincere 
 friends of public schools among them — may rejoice in the sentiments 
 which this reveals. I know that one occasionally hears sneering re- 
 marks about 6igh schools and colleges, uttered by workingmen and 
 their leaders. This found illustration recently when an editor of a 
 labor paper condemned the authorities of a Western city because they 
 paid the teachers in the high school fifty dollars a month, which, it was 
 urged, was more than an honest mechanic could earn ; such utterances, 
 however, are rarely heard, and I am inclined to think less frequently 
 heard than formerly. It is not often that those who speak thus, 
 voice the real sentiments of the men who bear forward the labor 
 movement, and give direction and tone to it. One hears such remarks 
 from demagogues, but they appeal chiefly, so far as my observation 
 goes, to those who are above the laboring class in economic rank, to 
 the little bourgeoisie, as the French would say, the class of small 
 traders and producers. Take my own city as an illustration : I believe 
 those most inclined to disparage the Johns, Hopkins University are 
 found among the employers on a small scale, the men with corner 
 groceries, the prosperous retail liquor-dealers, the owners of two or 
 three little houses acquired by toil so unremitting that no time has 
 been left for the cultivation of the higher faculties; also among others 
 possessed of still larger fortunes who have recently acquired them, 
 and with them that love of money whjch renders them impenetrable to 
 all ideas not in some way connected with the " almighty dollar." 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 125 
 
 tion in life is not what they would have it, and desiring to 
 improve themselves they seek to ascertain what course they 
 can take as citizens of a free republic to advance the wel- 
 fare of the people. This involves a wide range of topics, 
 and leads the more active spirits among them to increase 
 their fund of information and sharpen their intellects by the 
 study of the works of economists and publicists. I know a 
 poor mechanic in Detroit who, unable to buy new books, has, 
 as he expresses it, " nosed around old book-stores " and col- 
 lected a library of three hundred volumes. "Yet," writes he, 
 " I had to take the money from bodily comforts and put it 
 into books." The Journeymen Bricklayers' Union of Balti- 
 more has expended one thousand dollars on a library which 
 includes such books as "Shakespeare," "Chambers' Ency- 
 clopaedia," "Dickens" and "Bulwer" complete, the Waver- 
 ley novels, ScharPs "History of Maryland," and "Webster's 
 Unabridged Dictionary." In fact, I can say that I was 
 astonished on inspection to find the excellent selection 
 which these artisans had made, for they had bought all the 
 books themselves, having persistently refused to receive 
 presents. I could wish that the young ladies in our best 
 society were always as judicious in the choice of books. 
 With annual dues of four dollars, these bricklayers impose a 
 yearly tax of one dollar on each member for the support of 
 the library. The desire to do something to ameliorate the 
 condition of the masses, and the belief that a way has been 
 found to accomplish this, is a source of new vigor and life to 
 many who are weary and heavy-laden. A Baltimore physi- 
 cian was in my office a short time ago, who told me that 
 a few years before he scarcely felt that life was worth living ; 
 but when he was in the depths he chanced to read Henry 
 George's " Progress and Poverty," which filled him with new 
 hope, and had proved a source of satisfaction ever since. 
 
126 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 He now felt there was work in the world worthy of a man 
 because it might result in material improvement in the lot of 
 mankind. Now, one may object to Henry George's teach- 
 ings, — as I do most decidedly, — and yet rejoice at the good 
 which his works are doing in stimulating the thoughts and 
 promoting the generous aspirations of the people. It would, 
 indeed, not be an easy matter to over-estimate the educa- 
 tional value of that one work " Progress and Poverty."' A 
 not inconsiderable part of the wholesome growth of interest 
 in economics is due to its publication. 
 
 Let me give you another illustration of what the labor 
 agitation is doing for the intellectual training of many work- 
 
 ingmen. When in C , in December last, it suddenly 
 
 entered my mind that I had received a letter of inquiry 
 about my " Recent American Socialism " — from a barber of 
 
 that city, and as I crossed S Street it came to me that 
 
 his place of business was No. — S Street, and his name 
 
 Joseph . So I sought out the socialistic or rather 
 
 anarchistic barber. If this were a story, it would be ne- 
 cessary to describe the shop as low and dingy, and full of the 
 smoke of vile tobacco. I should further be obliged to com- 
 ment on a general air of unthrift emphasized by the indo- 
 lent appearance and untidy clothing of the laborer who 
 indulged in speculations of an anarchist's paradise. Truth, 
 however, compels me to state that the general appearance 
 of the shop impressed me with a sense of such prosperity as 
 is represented by a snug little balance at a banker's, while 
 I could find no fault with the manner in which the barber 
 kept either himself or his shop. The man is a German, 
 but speaks English pretty well, and has translated from 
 the German into the English, and publishes translations. in 
 the papers occasionally. I have received two or three arti- 
 cles translated by him from Lassalle. I learned from him — 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 127 
 
 it was told in . an apologetic kind of manner — that he 
 was able to do better "in this line some time ago," but 
 that of late his skill in translation into English is not what 
 it was, because he has been giving so much attention to the 
 Spanish language. 
 
 In addition to questions of public policy, the laborers in 
 their organizations are bound to consider what they can do 
 collectively and individually as laborers apart from govern- 
 ment, to improve their situation. All this keeps a whole 
 multitude of questions before every labor society, and as 
 many minds involve many opinions, there is abundant oppor- 
 tunity for vigorous debate. It ought not to be necessary to 
 add that this is excellent training in a practical school of 
 politics. Again, the trades-unions and labor organizations 
 are popular schools of oratory in which workingmen learn to 
 express their thoughts and to address a public audience, and 
 that often with dignity and composure, while their press fur- 
 nishes opportunity for the development of any latent hterary 
 talent among them. I will quote the testimony of several 
 trades-unionists on this point, the educational value of 
 their societies, that it may be seen how different laborers 
 replied to the question, "Has your membership in any 
 trades-union, or workingmen's or workingwomen's society, 
 made you more skilful and useful in your work or profited 
 you educationally, morally, or socially, and how has it af- 
 fected the habits of members in regard to temperance?" 
 and I may say here that I am glad to give the exact words 
 of the workingmen, and thus let them tell their own story.' 
 
 ' The testimony is taken from the first Report of the Massachusetts 
 Bureau of Statistics of Labor. The replies are given by numbers, as 
 many laborers who appeared before the bureau or sent answers to 
 questions, feared that Ihey would lose their positions if. their names 
 should become known. 
 
128 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 No. 38 : "The association with which I am connected has 
 not been in existence long, but for tlie time there has been 
 a marked change made in the condition of the members 
 who attend regularly, both mentally and socially." 
 
 No. 33 : "I am a member of a Labor Reform Club . . . 
 Connection with such societies tends to elevate the mind 
 in every particular." 
 
 No. 20, — a bootmaker : " The influence of the Crispin 
 order has had the effect to benefit the morals, health, 
 wealth, and happiness of its members." 
 
 No. 18 : "The trade-union has profited me educationally 
 ■and socially;" 
 
 No. 72, — sub-overseer of weaving: "I belong to the 
 Ten-Hour League. It has been useful to me only in a gen- 
 eral way thus far, as aiding my general culture." 
 
 These replies are typical. The Knights of Labor and 
 other labor organizations are beginning to turn their atten- 
 tion more than heretofore to the formation of libraries for 
 their members. Something has been done in this direction, 
 and more will be done in the future. The following quota- 
 tion from the Labor Record'^ of Williamsport, Pa., is an 
 indication of the spirit at work among the Knights of Labor. 
 "At the present time, when workingmen are taking a more 
 active part in public affairs than ever before in the his- 
 tory of the nation, it is necessary to the proper exercise of 
 the organized power they possess that they become ac- 
 quainted with the fundamental principles upon which all 
 legislation should be based. Realizing this, and with a view 
 of supplying such information, the Knights of Labor of this 
 city have started a library of works on economical subjects, 
 and for which they respectfully solicit contributions of all 
 suitable works. Contributions will be received at this office." 
 1 Issue of April 17, 1886. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 129 
 
 The strongest of the organizations which have come under 
 our notice, the Patrons of Husbandry, has done perhaps as 
 much as any other to advance the cause of education among 
 its members. 
 
 A few quotations will show how largely educational in its 
 character has been the work of the Patrons of Husbandry, 
 and the first of them will be taken from an address by Hon. 
 D. Wyatt, of Aiken, South Carolina, on " The Grange, its 
 Origin, Progress, and Educational Purposes." " Postmasters 
 from all the States informed us that the Order had greatly 
 increased the bulk of their mails. And one said that ' there 
 are now thirty newspapers taken at this office, whilst there 
 was but one taken before the establishment of the Grange in 
 this vicinity.' And one clergyman wrote that, ' Since the 
 introduction of the Grange I have seen a remarkable change 
 in the walk and conversation of my flock ; they are more 
 careful in their dress and gsneral appearance, and are read- 
 ing more.' From every quarter came the Grange call for 
 books, and much money was invested for select libraries for 
 Granges in many of the States." 
 
 The following quotations are from the "Journal of Pro- 
 ceedings " for 1882 : "We aim to make the daily lives of 
 men and women better and nobler and truer and holier and 
 happier ; to encourage education, social and moral culture." 
 
 " All Grange meetings should be enlivened with singing 
 and music, and time given for social recreation. . . . The 
 greetings of brothers and sisters should be so cordial that 
 the humblest members, though poor, and burdened with 
 cares, should be made to feel and know that they are not 
 doomed to toil, through weary life, isolated and alone, 
 without friends, sympathy, society, or hope of advancement, 
 but that they are members of a great brotherhood." 
 
 The following are from the "Journal" for 1885. The 
 
130 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 " Master " from Pennsylvania reports : " In many of the 
 older Granges libraries have been started." From Wisconsin 
 comes the similar report, " A majority (of the granges) own 
 halls, and several have fine libraries." 
 
 These quotations might be multiplied ad libitum. In the 
 next place, labor organizations are perhaps the chief power, 
 in this country, making for temperance. While not pro- 
 hibitionist organizations,' — this indeed could hardly be 
 expected, — they are scarcely with exception temperance 
 societies, nor is it difficult to see how this has come about. 
 Meeting together, they naturally discuss their sources of 
 weakness and strength. They inquire how it is that brother 
 A. has a cottage all paid for, while brother B. is always out 
 at the heels ; how it is that C.'s wife has a deposit at the 
 savings bank, and a beaming countenance, while D.'s wife, 
 poor thing, is sad, dejected, and always in want; how it is 
 that a certain society is composed of manly, independent 
 fellows, capable of holding their own in every conflict with 
 their employer, while another local union is composed of 
 weak and submissive cravens. It is not surprising that the 
 evils of intemperance should thus be frequently brought to 
 their notice; and, as the labor unions are a vast army 
 under the restraints of discipline, a great force is brought to 
 bear on them to urge them to temperance in all things, and 
 this is likely to have greater weight because it comes, not 
 from professional temperance advocates, but has sprung up 
 
 1 Yet the number of teetotalers among them is surprising when one 
 remembers that our laboring classes are chiefly foreigners, or born of 
 foreign parents, and that total abstinence is scarcely known outside of 
 America. It is not a very safe thing for a man to draw a conclusion 
 in a matter like this from his own limited observations; but I am 
 inclined to think that there are quite as many total abstainers among 
 the laborers as among our higher social classes. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 131 
 
 spontaneously in their own ranks. I will give a few illustra- 
 tions. No one may be a member of the Knights of Labor 
 who is in any way connected with the sale of intoxicating 
 liquors. Section I. of Article XXIII. of the Constitution of 
 the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen of North America 
 reads as follows : " Any member dealing in, or in any way 
 connected with, the sale of intoxicating liquors, shall, unless 
 he withdraws, be expelled. Any member found guilty of 
 drunkenness shall be suspended for the first offence. A 
 repetition shall be punished by expulsion; and under no 
 circumstances shall 4 member so expelled be re-instated 
 before the lapse of one year." 
 
 Window Glass Workers' Assembly, No. 300, has adopted 
 this rule : " Any member causing this place to stand idle on 
 account of drink shall be fined as follows. First offence, 
 ^5. Each subsequent offence, ^10. . . . Any member 
 losing work through drink shall for the first offence be fined 
 ti, and reprimanded in open meeting of the Preceptory; 
 for the second offence, ;?2.5o; and for each subsequent 
 offence shall be fined ^5." 
 
 Among the fines imposed by the Journeymen Bricklayers' 
 Protective Association of Philadelphia are the following: 
 "For attending a meeting in an intoxicated condition, $\ ; 
 and for attending a funeral in such a condition, t^." A 
 first floor in their hall on Market Street was vacant when I 
 visited the place. A liquor dealer had offered them a large 
 rental for it, but they declared that they would under no 
 circumstances allow intoxicating drinks to be sold in the 
 building. 
 
 It is noteworthy that the fine is higher when the works 
 are stopped and the employer injured than when a man 
 simply injures himself. The numerous speakers before labor 
 audiences frequently emphasize the advantages of temper- 
 
132 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ance, and strong language is used by those who are called 
 in disparagenaent " proifessional agitators." At the last 
 annual convention of the Knights of Labor, the General 
 Assembly, as they call it, Mr. Powderly, the general master- 
 workman, or head of the order, said, " If a man given to the 
 use of strong drink and a serpent applied for admission to 
 the order, I would vote for the serpent in preference to 
 the drunkard." And Mr. TreveUick, or Dick Trevellick, as 
 he is popularly called, in an address to the laborers, shouts, 
 " Stop your cursed drinking ! " In a " Notice," calling a 
 meeting of the " mule-spinners of New Bedford," occurs 
 this sentence : " We are pleased to see a large number of 
 our trade embracing sobriety ; it is very inconsistent for us 
 to complain about the tyranny of corporations and the hard- 
 ships we have to endure while we submit to be slaves to a 
 bad and injurious habit." " But," a sincere reader may inter- 
 pose, " the practice of the working classes does not seem 
 to harmonize with their principles, for I have always sup- 
 posed intemperance to be their peculiar curse. They do 
 not seem to have made much progress in temperance." 
 
 Many think this, but only those who are not acquainted 
 with the facts of the case ; for when these are borne in mind, 
 the relatively small amount of intemperance among American 
 workingmen becomes a source of astonishment. 
 
 First, we should never forget the temptation to intemper- 
 ance which lies in the character of the toil of many laborers. 
 Long hours are regarded by competent anthorities as a 
 cause which predisposes to the use of intoxicants. Another 
 equally strong provocation may be found in exposure to the 
 sudden and severe variations of our climate. Take the 
 case of street-car drivers, exposed one season to a tempera- 
 ture loo degrees above zero, and in another to one, ten, 
 fifteen, and even twenty degrees below zero. 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 133 
 
 The strain of work by the side of rapidly moving machines 
 on the nervous system is another predisposing cause to intem- 
 perance which has attracted serious attention. Mr. Robert 
 Howard, the secretary of the Mule Spinners' Organization, and 
 senator in the Legislature of Massachusetts, gave this testi- 
 mony about the spinners in Fall River before the Blair Com- 
 mittee of the United States Senate : ^ "It is dreadful to see 
 those girls, stripped almost to the skin, wearing only a kind 
 of loose wrapper, and running like a race-horse from the be- 
 ginning to the end of the day ; and I can perceive that it is 
 bringing about both a moral and physical decay in them. . . . 
 I must say that I have noticed that the hard, slavish, over- 
 work is driving these girls into the saloons after they leave 
 the mills in the evenings ; and you might as well try to 
 deprive them of their suppers j after they leave the mills, 
 you will see them going into the saloons, looking scared and 
 ashamed, and trying to go in without any one seeing them, 
 — good respectable girls, too; but they come out so tired 
 and so thirsty and so exhausted, especially in the summer 
 months, from working along steadily from hour to hour, and 
 breathing the noxious effluvia from the grease, and other 
 ingredients that are used in the mills; and they are so 
 exhausted when the time comes to quit, that you will find 
 all their thoughts are concentrated on something to drink to- 
 allay their thirst. . . . You may know, as well as I can tell 
 you, how a man must feel in this hot weather, following such 
 an occupation as that. He just feels no manhood about 
 him. He can only take a glass of beer to stimulate him, to 
 give him a little appetite so that he may eat, in order to be 
 able to go through his daily drudgery. . . . Drinking is 
 most prevalent among the working people where the hours 
 of labor are long." 
 
 1 See Report, Vol. I. pp. 647-649. 
 
134 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Once more it must be remembered that many of our 
 working people have been brought up in Europe to look 
 upon the use of stimulants as much a matter of course as 
 tea or coffee in this country ; and they do not realize that 
 what is comparatively harmless in the climate of Europe 
 may be ruinous in ours. 
 
 The low and degraded character of the worst class of 
 emigrants should not be forgotten. If Europe sends us 
 splendid men and women, she also sends us her scum to 
 degrade our working people. Take, for example, a large 
 proportion of those laborers brought into our country under 
 contract contrary to the law, but with the full knowledge of 
 those authorities whose duty it is to enforce the law. 
 
 When I consider all these circumstances, the temperance 
 of the masses in America is a marvel to me. Much, too 
 much, remains to be done in the field of temperance 
 reform, but let us not fail to give credit to those who have 
 already accomplished great things. Have not newspapers, 
 by no means too friendly to laborers, again and again had 
 occasion to remark the almost uniform temperance of labor- 
 ers in their parades, demonstrations, and appearances before 
 the public in strikes ? There can be no doubt about this ; 
 it has occurred in all parts of the country. 
 
 The locomotive engineers furnish another illustration. 
 Formerly they were so much given to intoxication, that it 
 was not unusual to see in their cab a kind of iron contriv- 
 ance to help them to hold on when " tipsy." Now that has 
 disappeared ; they are a temperate body of men, and to-day 
 travel in the United States is safer than it would be had not 
 the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers been formed. 
 This is one example of many which I could give. I will 
 close this topic with a characteristic quotation from The 
 Trades Union, of Atchison, Kansas. "The most deadly 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 135 
 
 blow ever given to King Alcohol is in that declaration of 
 the Knights of Labor which proscribes any liquor dealer for 
 membership in the Order. It is doing more to put an end 
 to drunkenness, and to bring the rum traffic under the ban, 
 than all the laws of Kansas or speeches of St. John ever 
 did." 
 
 There are many remaining points of importance, but I 
 shall be obliged to pass over them hastily ; while it will be 
 necessary to omit altogether some noteworthy aspects of our 
 topic. 
 
 The social culture which laborers derive from their orderly 
 gathering together is an excellent feature of the labor move- 
 ment. From this point of view the trades societies appear 
 as schools, in which true politeness and even grace of man- 
 ner are taught ; and on an extended tour in the summer of 
 1885, I must confess that I was much impressed with the 
 courtesy and good manners of the many labor leaders I met ; 
 and it may be well to state that these labor leaders, ordina- 
 rily considered idle demagogues, were all mechanics, — 
 mechanics chosen by other mechanics to represent them. 
 A personal experience is of some importance in this con- 
 nection. Last summer I visited the Central Labor Union 
 of New York, and was pleased to observe that when one 
 member allowed himself the use of the word " damned," 
 to express his indignation, there instantly arose from various 
 parts of the hall, cries of " I object to that language ! " The 
 speaker was called to order by the Chairman, and told that 
 profanity was against their rules. The bricklayers of Phila- 
 delphia impose a fine of fifty cents for using profane lan- 
 guage.^ Great advance will still be made along this line 
 of polite manners in the future. 
 
 1 How many rich men's clubs exclude the use of intoxicants, and 
 impose fines for profanity? 
 
136 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Social gatherings bring laborers and their families out of 
 their isolation, and furnish them with agreeable and con- 
 genial companionship. One of the laborers in the Mil- 
 waukee Trades Assembly used these words in describing the 
 social advantages which that union had brought him : 
 "After working more than twelve years in this city, five 
 years ago I hardly knew any craftsmen except those work- 
 ing with me in the same shop. To-day I am personally 
 acquainted with four-fifths of all the men engaged at my 
 trade, and everybody seems to know me. This fact I 
 appreciate more than almost anything connected with ray 
 ' social position." 
 
 The laboring classes, through their unions, are learning 
 disciphne, self-restraint, and the methods of united action, 
 and are also discovering whom they can trust, finding out 
 the necessity of uniting great confidence in leaders with 
 strict control of them, and with the aid of their press are 
 building up a great market for the products of co-operative 
 enterprise. 
 
 Thus the labor movement is preparing the way for that 
 goal which has for many years been the ideal of the best 
 thinkers on labor problems, ^— the union of capital and labor 
 in the same hands, in grand, wide-reaching, co-operative 
 enterprises, which shall embrace the masses. Formerly it 
 was an argument in favor of slavery that in that way only 
 could labor and capital be united in the same hands and 
 disastrous conflicts be prevented ; but up from the people 
 there comes a voice, crying, "We will show you a more 
 excellent way." The movement has already begun, — co- 
 operative enterprises, productive and distributive, are spring- 
 ing up in every part of the land. Co-operation is urged by 
 a united labor press, and labor societies set it before the 
 masses as an ultimate goal. One of the objects of the 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 137 
 
 Knights of Labor is stated thus in their official declaration : 
 " To establish co-operative institutions, such as will tend to 
 supersede the wage system by the introduction of a co-oper- 
 ative industrial system." One of the organs of the artisan 
 class, The American Glass Worker, states one of its objects 
 as follows : " The establishment of co-operative funds, with 
 a view of each union finally engaging in co-operative enter- 
 prises, productive and distributive, disposing of the products, 
 and supplying, at first cost, every article consumed by its 
 members." In another issue of the same paper, I find these 
 words, at the head of an article on co-operation : " Co- 
 operation must be the result of our labor organizations." 
 
 The disastrous termination of most co-operative enter- 
 prises in the past in the United States is a well-known 
 fact, but the failure has not been by any means universal, 
 and a state of things is being built up, where the causes of 
 failure will disappear after a time ; also, alas, after many 
 more failures. 
 
 But our picture will not be complete until we have shown 
 the still wider ethical significance of the labor-movement. 
 First, there is rational ground to hope that it will in the end 
 introduce a higher tone into our political life, though it has 
 scarcely done so up to the present time. The labor 
 organizations have certain practical aims in politics, often 
 very definite, and they will hereafter attempt to gain these 
 by sending honest men to our legislatures to represent them. 
 Year by year they are becoming increasingly restive under 
 the attempted control of the professional politician ; in many 
 cases they have entirely emancipated themselves from party 
 prejudice, and have already learned that only sharp, vigor- 
 ous, honest, and independent political action can ever bring 
 them as a class anything worth having. There is said to be 
 quite a strong feeling among the Knights of Labor in favor 
 
138 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 of civil service reform ; and it can never gain a firm foothold 
 in this country until it is supported by a strong popular sen- 
 timent. Second, it is worthy of notice that those in the 
 organizations call one another brother and sister, and that 
 many of the unions are called brotherhoods ; as, for exam- 
 ple. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen of North 
 America, The Grand International Brotherhood of Loco- 
 motive Engineers, The Brotherhood of Carpenters and 
 Joiners of America. 
 
 The labor movement, as the facts would indicate, is the 
 strongest force outside the Christian Church making for the 
 practical recognition of human brotherhood ; and it is note- 
 worthy that, at a time when the churches have generally dis- 
 carded brother and sister as a customary form of address, 
 the trades-unions and labor organizations have adopted the 
 habit. And it is not a mere form. " It is shown in good 
 offices and sacrifices for one another in a thousand ways 
 every day, and it is not confined to those of one nation. It 
 reaches over the civilized world ; and the word international 
 as a part of the title of many unions, and the fact that their 
 membership is international, are quite as significant as they 
 appear to be at first sight. Since the labor movement be- 
 came powerful, the laborers of Germany, France, America, 
 and England, and of other countries, too, feel that they are 
 members of one great family, and that they must work 
 together for their complete emancipation. The most re- 
 markable illustration of the internationalism of the labor 
 movement was the meeting of representatives of the glass- 
 workers of six nations, in Pittsburgh, in July, 1885, to form 
 the Universal Federation of Glass Workers. In the pream- 
 ble, it is stated to be their purpose " To extend their Feder- 
 ation to all sections of the globe, until its membership shall 
 embrace every man engaged in our trades." 
 
EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 139 
 
 The laborers are the most thorough-going peace-men to 
 be found, and I am often inclined to think that they are the 
 only large class who really and truly desire peace between 
 nations, the abandonment of armies, the conversion of spears 
 into pruning-hooks, and swords into ploughshares. At the 
 time of the Franco-German war, German laborers alone pro- 
 tested against the slaughter of their French brothers ; at the 
 beginning of our late war, American laborers met in conven- 
 tion, to protest against hostilities between the sections ; and 
 in the fall of 1885 the veterans of the Union and Confederate 
 armies among the Knights of Labor formed an organization 
 called The Gray and the Blue of the Knights of Labor, 
 and took the motto, " Capital divided, labor unites us." Its 
 object, says John Swinton's Paper, " is to teach the toilers 
 who make up the armies of the world, that in peace, not 
 in war, is the worker's emancipation." I sincerely believe 
 that the time is not so far distant as one might think, when 
 organized labor will force the governments of earth to sub- 
 stitute arbitration for war, will compel them to live peaceably, 
 each with the other, to devote their forces to the fruitful 
 pursuit of art, industry, and science, and in a vast interna- 
 tional parliament to lay the foundations of a federated world 
 state. But even this is not the whole of their high mission 
 of peace ; for they are, in our South, bringing about an am- 
 icable understanding between black and white, since it is 
 necessary that they should unite and act in harmony to 
 accomplish their common ends. Thus they bring an elevat- 
 ing influence to bear upon the more ignorant blacks, and 
 help to solve the vexed problem of race in the United States. 
 Strange, is it not? that the despised trades-union and labor 
 organizations should have been chosen to perform this high 
 duty of conciliation ! But hath not God ever called the 
 lowly to the most exalted missions, and hath he not ever 
 called the foolish to confound the wise ? 
 
140 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 When we consider, then, the educational value of trades- 
 unions and labor organizations, and remember that this does 
 not exhaust the whole of their benefit, we cannot be greatly- 
 surprised that Thorold Rogers, the most careful student of 
 English labor, should even exaggerate their importance and 
 wish to restrict the right of suffrage so as to include only 
 those who belong to some organization. His words are as 
 follows : — 
 
 "Three processes have been adopted by the working 
 classes, each of which has had a vast, and should have an 
 increasing, influence in bettering the condition of labor and 
 making the problem of dealing with individual distress, how- 
 ever caused, easier and readier. They should be viewed by 
 statesmen with unqualified favor, and be treated by working- 
 men as the instruments by which they can regain and consol- 
 idate the best interests of labor. They are trades-unionism, 
 or, as I prefer to call it, labor partnership ; co-operation, or the 
 combination in the same individuals of the function of labor 
 and capital ; and benefit associations, or the machinery of a 
 mutual insurance society. So important do I conceive 
 these aids to the material, intellectual, and moral elevation 
 of the working classes to be, that I would, even at the risk 
 of being thought reactionary, lirriit the privileges of citizen- 
 ship, the franchise, parliameiitary and local, to those, and 
 those only, who entered into these three guilds — the guild 
 of labor, the guild of production and trade, and the guild of 
 mutual help. Nor do I think it extravagant to believe that 
 were those associations rendered general, and finally uni- 
 versal, the social problems which distress all and alarm 
 many would ultimately arrive at a happy solution." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 . OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 THERE are several topics, as yet not treated, which 
 could well fill several chapters, but it is possible to 
 take only a glance at them, if this book is to be kept within 
 that limit of size desirable for present purposes. 
 
 The first of these subjects which must receive at least a 
 brief treatment, if we are to take anything like a complete 
 survey of the field, is the weighty one of insurance. It is 
 evident that insurance of various kinds is an indispensable 
 condition of that economic security for the laboring classes 
 which is so desirable for their own happiness and for 
 the welfare of society, and which must form part of the 
 solution of the labor problem. Savings banks, useful as 
 they are in their own sphere, cannot provide the security 
 which the laboring classes need ; for accidents or death may 
 befall the workingman in the beginning of his career before 
 he has had opportunity to save a large sum, or he may die 
 after long illness has exhausted his resources. So with other 
 cases which might be enumerated ; and it is certain that the 
 possibilities of the savings bank, great as they are, have been 
 exaggerated. Insurance is still more important, and when 
 sufficiently developed may provide for nearly every contin- 
 gency in the life of the laborer. The kinds of insurance 
 needed are enumerated as follows by Professor Brentano : * 
 
 ' This enumeration is quoted from my article on the Baltimore and 
 Ohio Employees' Relief Association in Harper's Weekly for July 4, 
 1885. 
 
142 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 I. insurance to defray expenses of education of children 
 in case of death ; 2. insurance to defray expenses of sup- 
 port during old age ; 3. insurance to provide for burial j 4. 
 for a period of inability to labor on account of accident or 
 injury; 5. for a time of illness; and 6. for periods of en- 
 forced idleness, due to lack of demand for labor. Some of 
 these can be provided satisfactorily only through labor 
 organizations ; notably is this the case with the last three 
 kinds, for laborers alone are able to exercise the requisite 
 control and prevent deception and fraud. 
 
 English trades-unions have done most in the direction of 
 insurance for laborers, but American labor organizations are 
 improving in this respect, and are already accomplishing an 
 amount of good thereby, of which the general public knows 
 almost nothing. The reason why the relief and benefit 
 features of our labor organizations have not been still fur- 
 ther developed is due to the character of our economic life. 
 First, the migration of population has prevented their 
 growth, for they flourish best where people are well ac- 
 quainted with one another, have acquired mutual confi- 
 dence, and have a strong feeling of " solidarity " ; second, 
 the rapid change in economic rank and in occupation have 
 worked adversely. Few have been willing to look forward 
 to the position of laborer as permanent, and the general 
 desire has been rather to escape from it than to improve 
 that position. People have been willing to provide for 
 immediate want, for prcjent contingencies, but not for more 
 remote ones like disability due to old age. Trades-unions 
 have not been old and stable enough to give the laborer 
 a feeling of reasonable probabiHty that he would receive 
 return in a distant period for present contributions. Again, 
 the trades-Union has not been sufficiently extended so that 
 a laborer could always continue his connection in every part 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 143 
 
 of the country. Finally, trades-unions are becoming less 
 suitable insurance societies than formerly. With the con- 
 tinual danger facing artisans of degradation to the ranks of 
 unskilled labor or a change of occupation, the need of the 
 times is for something larger which will provide for all these 
 contingencies ; also for a great society which can transact 
 business on a larger scale and thus at a smaller cost. Here 
 as elsewhere the Knights of Labor, or if that should fail, 
 some similar organization which would inevitably take its 
 place, can well supplement the work of the trades-unions. 
 
 While we have not yet reached the point of annual con- 
 gresses of all trades-unions and complete statistics which 
 would enable us in America as in England to tell exactly 
 what our labor organizations are doing for insurance, there 
 are many data at hand which are valuable, and it can safely 
 be said that the expenditures for the relief of suffering 
 amount to millions of dollars annually, preventing thou- 
 sands from the degradation which attends the recejpt of 
 pubUc charity, and lightening effectually the burdens of the 
 tax-payer. The Grand International Brotherhood of Loco- 
 motive Engineers provides for the permanent disability or 
 death of members by a Locomotive Engineers' Mutual Life 
 Insurance Association. This, a special department of the 
 Brotherhood and membership, is voluntary. The total mem- 
 bership on Sept. 30, 1885, was 4,252, and some time since, 
 the sum paid out was nearly ;?i2,ooo,ooo. The amount paid 
 on one claim is now limited to 1^3,000. In addition to this, 
 subordinate divisions extend relief to members and their 
 families. When any brother dies, a committee is appointed 
 " to inquire as to the pecuniary situation of the deceased," 
 and ip case of want it is the duty of the division to assist 
 the family " by all honorable and reasonable means," and in 
 particular the children must not be allowed to suffer or be 
 
144 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 neglected. The care and protection are to be extended so 
 long as needed. " Widows are to be assisted in like man- 
 ner, also a sick or disabled brother." 
 
 Every one of the fifteen thousand members of the Brother- 
 hood of Locomotive Firemen is insured for ^1,500, paid to 
 his heirs in case of death, to himself in case of permanent 
 disability. Since the organization of the order in Decem- 
 ber, 1873, it had in October, 1885, paid out 1315,764. 
 This sum is far from presenting an adequate idea of what 
 the Brotherhood is doing now, for its membership was small 
 and the relief afforded comparatively insignificant in its early 
 years. During the month of August, 1885, it paid claims to 
 the amount of ;? 18,000, and in the following month to the 
 amount of ;?22,5oo. 
 
 Since Jan. i, 1883, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and 
 Joiners of America has paid benefits. These are now 
 $250 in case of death or disability, and $^0 in case of the 
 death ^of a wife. The benefits paid during the year ending 
 Aug. I, 1885, amounted to ^7,500. The assistance given 
 by local unions must be added, to get a complete idea 
 of the aid rendered, and this holds true with regard to 
 other organizations. It is not improbable that local and 
 voluntary assistance in the case of all the unions amounts to 
 a greater sum than that which appears in the annual reports 
 of the national bodies. The Philadelphia Journeymen Brick- 
 layers' Protective Association pays a benefit of ^125 on the 
 death of a member, and ^75 on the death of a wife. The 
 accident benefit is $2<^. This does not seem like much, to 
 a person of means, but it saves many from a potter's grave. 
 
 The Deutsch Amerikanische Typographia pays a weekly 
 sick-benefit of ^5, which is reduced to tz after the receipt 
 of ^300, and ceases after the receipt of te^oo. The death- 
 benefit is ?20o for a member, II25 for a wife ; for enforced 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 14S 
 
 idleness the benefit is ;?s a week, but it must not exceed 
 ^60 a year. Members receive railway fare when in search 
 of work. 
 
 The Cigar Makers' International Union pays a sick benefit 
 of ;?5 a week, provided such sickness is not caused by " in- 
 temperance, debauchery, or other immoral conduct " — a 
 condition common to nearly all the unions. The amount in 
 sick benefits for the fiscal year ending in November, 1882, 
 was ;?i6,643.73. It P^ys a death benefit of ^40, and as 
 already stated, pays from ^15,000 to 5820,000 a year to aid 
 members to secure work. 
 
 The Knights of Labor have an insurance department, and 
 the heirs of a member of this department receive from ^500 
 to ;?i,ooo, according to contribution. This feature of the 
 order is new and the membership is comparatively small at 
 present. The local assemblies aid needy members and dis- 
 burse in this way from 1 100,000 to ^200,000 annually. 
 
 The International Furniture Workers' Union insures 
 tools, and has, besides, the usual relief and benefit features. 
 These are typical facts, and it is needless to continue their 
 enumeration in this place. There ought to be in every 
 State a properly qualified official to examine accounts of all 
 insurance associations of every kind or description, because 
 only in this way can the insured be protected, and also 
 because the officers themselves are rarely able to make the 
 complicated calculations necessary to enable them to ascer- 
 tain the real standing of an insurance society. A great deal 
 has been done in England to extend the usefulness of such 
 associations by the appointment of a Registrar of Friendly 
 Societies to give them aid of this kind.^ 
 
 1 "These orders, to their great credit . . . have submitted the 
 whoie of their rates of contributions — their incomings and outgoings 
 — to actuaries named or approved by t^g Registrar, and have adopted 
 
146 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Arbitration and strikes are important topics in any treat- 
 ment of labor organizations. First, it should be known, 
 that arbitration is impossible without labor organizations. 
 Capital is combined and is managed by a few persons even 
 in the largest establishments. Take the case of a railway 
 corporation. The capital may be owned by one thousand 
 different persons, but it is massed together and all its owners, 
 as a rule, treat with the railway employers through a single 
 person. Capital is one of the factors of production ; labor 
 is another, and^it also must be massed together to stand on 
 an equal footing, and this can be effected only by organiza- 
 tion. As the thousand capitalists choose one representative, 
 the ten thousand laborers must choose a representative of 
 labor. To ask a single laborer, representing a ten thou- 
 sandth part of the labor factor, to place himself against a 
 man who represents all the combined capital, is as absurd 
 as to place a boy before an express train, and expect him 
 to stop its progress. As Hon. Abram S. Hewett, as every 
 one knows, a wealthy employer, has so well said, it is only 
 after labor is organized that the contending parties are in 
 a condition to treat. " The great result is, that capital is 
 ready to discuss. It is not to be disguised, that, until labor 
 presented itself in such an attitude as to compel a hearing, 
 capital was not willing to listen, but now it does listen. 
 The results already attained are full of encouragement."^ 
 
 The difficulties in the way of arbitration have come chiefly 
 from the side of employers, for it is a rare thing when 
 laborers refuse to arbitrate their difficulties with their em- 
 ployers. Few cases of such refusal have ever come under 
 
 the table thus certified as sufficient to secure the payment of all sums 
 insured." Trades-Unionism in England, by Thomas Hughes, Century 
 Magazine, May, 1884. 
 
 ^ Paper read before the Church Congress in Cincinnati, Oct. 18, 1878. 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 147 
 
 my notice. The pride and arrogance of men who do not 
 like to meet their employees on an equal footing have been 
 the chief obstacles to peaceful settlement of disputes be- 
 tween capital and labor. But when this is said, two things 
 must be borne in mind. There have always been excep- 
 tions to the rule. Laborers have had no more sincere, de- 
 voted, self-sacrificing friends than some of their employers, 
 and they frequently make a serious mistake in under-estimat- 
 ing the number of their industrial masters, who really wish 
 them well. There are surprisingly many who are able even 
 to perceive that labor, as connected with a human person- 
 ality, is superior to capital, that all laws and courts must 
 ultimately recognize this, and that labor ought to be given 
 an ever larger and larger measure of rulership, as it shows 
 a fitness for it, until it attains its goal, — complete sover- 
 eignty.^ 
 
 On the other hand, it should never be supposed, that by 
 nature employers represent a morally inferior type of men. 
 They simply exhibit the traits of our common human nature, 
 and the employee who is most bitter against his employer 
 might be still worse in the same place. The lesson of this 
 is the lesson of all history ; human nature is too weak to be 
 entrusted with despotic power in an industrial system or 
 anywhere else. Laborers will be ground into the dust if 
 they cannot protect themselves by combination. The fol- 
 lowing quotations show the spirit of the American labor 
 organizations with respect to arbitration. 
 
 " Whenever a dispute arises between an employer, or em- 
 
 ^ " I affirm it as my conviction that class laws, placing capital above 
 labor, are more dangerous to the Republic at this hour than chattel 
 slavery in the days of its haughtiest supremacy. Labor is prior to and 
 above capital, and deserves a much higher consideration. 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln," 
 
148 . THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ployers and members of this brotherhood, the members 
 shall lay the matter before the local union, which shall 
 appoint an arbitration committee to adjust the difficulty; 
 then, if said committee cannot settle the dispute, the mat- 
 ter shall be referred to the union." Constitution of the 
 Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, Article IX., Sec- 
 tion I. 
 
 "The International Typographical Union recommends 
 that when disputes arise between subordinate unions and 
 employers which cannot be adjusted after conference between 
 the parties at issue, the matter be then settled by arbitra- 
 tion." And in another place the constitution of this body 
 contains these words : " Recognizing strikes as detrimental 
 to the best interests of the craft, it directs subordinate 
 unions not to order a strike until every possible effort has 
 been made to settle the difficulty by arbitration." 
 
 Among the standing Resolutions of the Iron Moulders' 
 Union is this : " Resolved, That strikes are not beneficial 
 to our organization, and that it would be to our interest to 
 evade as much as possible all strikes, and not to resort to 
 them until all other means at our disposal are exhausted." 
 
 One of the aims of the Knights of Labor, as found in 
 their Declaration of Principles, is : " To persuade all em- 
 ployers to agree to arbitrate all differences which may arise 
 between them and their employees, in order that the bonds 
 of sympathy between them may be strengthened, and that 
 strikes may be rendered unnecessary." 
 
 It cannot be difficult to explain the different attitudes of 
 labor leaders and capital leaders in the matter of arbitration. 
 InteUigent laborers all dread a strike, as they know well what 
 intense suffering- it is likely to produce in their own ranks, 
 but rich capitalists have no dread of actual want. Apart 
 from this the position of laborers is not such as to cultivate 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 149 
 
 the vices of pride and arrogance. They feel that a conces- 
 sion is made to them when employers consent to arbitrate. 
 To the one it is often a gratification of pride, to the other 
 it is a humiliation of false pride. An , illustration may be 
 found in the New Testament. I suppose Christ did not 
 mean to imply that by nature the rich were worse than the 
 poot, when he said that it was harder for a camel to pass 
 through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to be 
 saved, but that their position made it so, and that it was 
 difficult for them to learn of social inferiors, like a carpen- 
 ter's son and fishermen. 
 
 The question may then be asked, if labor organizations 
 are so much in favor of arbitration and so much opposed 
 to strikes. Why do strikes occur so often? First of all, it 
 should be known that all strikes are not foolish. As Mill 
 says, they are a necessary part of our industrial system. 
 Laborers are forced at times to hold their commodity, labor, 
 back from the market in order to receive for it the price 
 which the state of the labor market justifies. Employers 
 rarely offer an advance voluntarily, for they are like pur- 
 chasers of other commodities. Does my reader offer seven- 
 teen dollars for a garment when the price asked is only 
 sixteen dollars? There are capitalists who recognize the 
 peculiarities of the commodity labor, and voluntarily offer 
 more than the laborers force from them. Several cases like 
 this have occurred recently, and the labor press, it should 
 be acknowledged, has been very frank in the recognition of 
 this generous treatment. Still they are the exception, and 
 as a rule the laborers are bound to hold themselves in readi- 
 ness to strike and withdraw their labor from the market, if 
 they are to play their part in the regulation of supply and 
 demand. 
 
 Now, two things are to be noticed : First, the very 
 
150 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 readiness to strike, and the ability to strike, secure more 
 favorable terms than would otherwise be possible, and also 
 more respectful treatment ; second, the common assertion 
 that strikes are always failures is by no means true. When 
 laborers are told this, they know from experience that it is 
 false, and turn away in impatience even from the really good 
 advice which may accompany the assertion. In 1883, 
 Mr. Adolph Strasser, the President of the Cigar Makers' 
 International Union, testified before the United States Sen- 
 ate committee on labor and capital,^ that there had then 
 been^ 362 strikes among the cigar-makers, recognized by 
 his organization, of which 204 were successful, 137 lost, 12 
 compromised, and 10 then in progress. The expenditures for 
 the strikes amounted to ^286,444.67, while the gain to the 
 members of the union amounted to ^1,800,000 per annum, 
 and the reductions prevented to at least ^5 00,000 per annum. 
 Prof. Sartorius von Waltershausen has made a study of the 
 strikes in the United States from Nov. i, 1879, to Oct. i, 
 1880. Of the 121 for an increase of wages, 80 were won 
 and 19 compromised; of the 26 against a reduction of 
 wages, 21 were lost, 3 compromised, and 2 won.' It is 
 seen that strikes fail sometimes, and are sometimes won; 
 but in both cases there is serious loss to somebody, and it 
 would be a gain to everybody if the result of the strike, 
 whatever it may be, could be reached without the strike. 
 To arrive at this conclusion by peaceful methods is the office 
 
 1 The testimony before this committee, known as the Blair Com- 
 mittee, has been issued in four volumes, and contains much matter 
 valuable for any student of the labor problem. 
 
 2 August, 1883. 
 
 ' See Jahrbiicher fur National Okonomie und Statistik, Siebenter 
 Band, Viertes und funftes Hept. (10 Nov., 1883.) 
 
 Compare also an article on "The Statistics of Strikes," published 
 in Bradstreefs, April 25, 1885. 
 
■ OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 151 
 
 of arbitration, and wherever honestly tried, it has proved 
 eminently successful.^ But arbitration cannot be satisfac- 
 torily conducted without labor organizations, as has been 
 seen, and these are also required to educate the laborers for 
 arbitration. The labor leaders are more intelligent than 
 the mass of laborers, and their position often enables them 
 to see when a strike must prove a failure, and to prevent it. 
 The workings of labor organizations do still more to prevent 
 foolish strikes.^ Take the Cigar Makers' International Union 
 as typical. It requires the votes of two-thirds of all the 
 local unions to authorize a strike. Everywhere there is at 
 least some formality required to obtain the approval and 
 support of an entire organization. The matter is referred 
 first to some one not present on the ground, and who can 
 look at the trouble in a calmer, more impartial manner. 
 While this is going on, the passions of the discontented and 
 angry have an opportunity to subside, and when the un- 
 favorable decision arrives, they continue work or resume 
 work, and the difficulty is past. 
 
 Often it will happen that the officers of the organization 
 will be able to adjust the difficulty with employers to the 
 satisfaction of all parties, and that with the exchange of a 
 few words. This is especially apt to be the case whenever 
 or wherever, as in England, for example, the unions are so 
 strong that the employers do not dare to refuse to treat with 
 the officials of the orders. One reason why so many strikes 
 do occur in America is because the unions are not so strong 
 with us as in England, and on the one hand are unable to force 
 recognition from the employers, on the other, to control their 
 
 1 Permanent and fairly conducted boards of arbitration have, in 
 places, nearly abolished strikes. 
 
 ^ And, as John Stuart Mill says, a strike is wrong whenever it is 
 foolish. 
 
152 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 members. The trouble comes chiefly from unorganized or 
 imperfectly organized laborers. 
 
 Two things receive no public attention : the great num- 
 ber of employers who never have any difficulty with their 
 employees/ and contemplated strikes which never occur. 
 When one considers the peculiar circumstances which 
 surround the American laboring class, the heterogeneous 
 elements which enter into its composition, and the bad 
 influence of its baser and more ignorant members, its com- 
 paratively peaceful career is a just cause of surprise and 
 gratification. The records of our labor organizations show 
 the suppression of a vast number of strikes ; it is safe to 
 say of the great majority contemplated. Mr. Strasser, in 
 the testimony to which reference has already been made, 
 stated that the Cigar Makers' International Union had pre- 
 vented over two hundred strikes in the preceding three years. 
 The whole machinery of the Knights of Labor is designed to 
 prevent strikes. The EJiights made a mistake in their ex- 
 cessive zeal to prevent strikes, for no authority was given 
 the main body to support and encourage strikes ; conse- 
 quently no authority to control and prevent them. 
 
 The despised leaders of trades-unions are, as a rule, far 
 more conservative than the mass of their followers. They 
 do not urge organized labor on, as is erroneously supposed, 
 but are always trying to hold it back ; and many of the fool- 
 ish strikes occur, not at their instigation, but in spite of 
 their best efforts. The disastrous Hocking Valley strike 
 happened against the advice of the leaders." Time and 
 
 ^ It would be well that they should receive attention. Of late too 
 much notice has been directed to employers in a chronic state of diffi- 
 culty with their laborers. 
 
 ^ A gentleman in a position to know, and whose name, could it be 
 mentioned, would at once command the confidence of my readers, writes 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 153 
 
 time again does it happen that the rank and file refuse to 
 accept settlements effected with their employers by their 
 leaders. If the general public only knew the anarchy which 
 would follow the suppression of the labor organization, they 
 would thank God for their existence. The wild incendiar- 
 ism of roving bands of discontented laborers in Belgium 
 this last spring, and the excesses of unorganized labor dur- 
 ing the first half of this century in England, may give one 
 some faint idea of our fate were the labor organizations to 
 disappear. 
 
 " But," insists the reader, " you have given a bright 
 picture of labor organizations. I have always been taught 
 to consider them creations of hell-inspired men. Is there 
 no dark side to the picture? " 
 
 Yes, there is a dark side ; but the good that these associ- 
 ations do so far outweighs the evil, that it is only just to call 
 attention first and chiefly to their beneficial character, espe- 
 cially so long as their real nature is not understood. 
 
 There are three causes of opposition to labor organiza- 
 tions. One is ancient prejudice. Some men are so consti- 
 tuted that, they cannot shake off a prejudice of years' 
 standing, no matter what the evidence of their error. An- 
 other is the violent partisanship of some who have been 
 brought into conflict with them. The third, and most com- 
 mon, is ignorance ; and this will be removed by information. 
 The experience of Thorold Rogers is a common one. In 
 his "Work and Wages," he says of trades-unions : "I con- 
 fess to having at one time viewed them suspiciously ; but a 
 long study of the history of labor has convinced me that 
 
 me : " The strike was forced by the ignorant mob of miners against the 
 strenuous opposition of their own leaders. When it was once begun, 
 it was a hard and bitter fight, and some cruel and unjustifiable things 
 were done on both sides." 
 
154 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 they are not only the best friends of the workmen, but the 
 best agency for the employer and the public ; and that to 
 the extension of these associations political economists and 
 statesmen must look for the solution of some of the most 
 pressing and the most dififtcult problems of our own time." 
 This has been my experience, and Rev. Dr. T. Edwin 
 Brown, who has written an excellent work on the labor 
 problem, confesses that it has been his. Their cause is so 
 strong, that for a man in a non-partisan position to oppose 
 them is prima facie evidence of ignorance. Among politi- 
 cal economists it is no longer necessary to vindicate their 
 usefulness, for they almost unanimously favor them. 
 
 It is true that workingmen have been guilty of violence, 
 but it seems to be an established fact that the most of those 
 who transgress the laws are outside of the organizations. 
 The Commissioner of Labor of the New York Bureau of 
 Statistics of Labor says, iivthe Third Annual Report of the 
 Bureau, " Most of the mobs which have created trouble in 
 this State in former years were composed of disorganized 
 or newly organized laborers. The lawless classes are rarely 
 union men, and often not workingmen at all." The men- 
 tion of " newly organized laborers," suggests the explanation 
 that there are evils incident to the infancy of organizations 
 which they soon outgrow. New unions are inexperienced, 
 and apt to overrate their own strength ; also to betray that 
 same insolence which so often accompanies newly acquired 
 power, whether due to wealth, combination, or office.^ It is 
 a standing rule among old trades-unionists for a union man 
 
 1 The latest troubles in New York with the organization of street- 
 car conductors and drivers would not have occurred in the case 
 of an old union. The trouble in Chicago with the switchmen, it is 
 said, was against the advice of their organization, which is also a new 
 and imperfect union. 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 155 
 
 never to boast of the strength back of him, or to presume 
 upon it ; but new men too often forget this injunction, and 
 give their employers just cause for indignation. In a few 
 places labor organizations have indeed become possessed of 
 despotic power, and they are no more fit than others to 
 exercise unlimited government.' 
 
 Once more : trades-unions have, as a rule, grown up out 
 of coalitions during a strike, and these first days have been 
 abnormal ; yet it is only during the abnormal period of a 
 struggle that public attention is called to them. " The gen- 
 eral pubhc knows little and seems to care less for the quiet, 
 steady, beneficent influences which these unions are exerting 
 upon workingmen." ^ So strongly do the Knights of Labor 
 feel on this subject, that it is one of their rules not to take 
 in men who are on strike, although against the will of the 
 leaders, it has at times been violated.' Bad men get into 
 labor organizations and struggle for the ascendency. Some- 
 times, though rarely, they gain it, and do sad havoc, 
 injuring the cause of labor for years. Union men make 
 mistakes, and even very intelligent men are not infallible as 
 guides. Men, too, have often committed crimes and been 
 guilty of folly for which they alone, as individuals, were to 
 blame, yet which have been attributed to them as union men. 
 
 On this general subject I will quote the testimony of four 
 clergymen of standing, who have given more or less thought 
 to the labor problems, and have examined the character of 
 labor organizations. Rev. Dr. John Hall says, " There is a 
 
 1 Did I not have in mind the government of the czar, I should 
 say less fit than those who have been taught, by education and social 
 position, to exercise a higher degree of self-restraint. 
 
 ^ Quoted from Rev. T. Edwin Brown, D.D. 
 
 ' A charter was recently revoked because the local assembly con- 
 sisted of men who were organized during a strike. 
 
156 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 wide-spread suspicion of trades-unions as being selfishly 
 managed by paid agents for fomenting discord between the 
 employer and the employed. When a continued strike 
 embarrasses a contractor and throws the workers and their 
 families on the benevolence of their fellows, it is natural to 
 look to the evil on the surface and forget the underlying 
 good which is contemplated. In the nature of the case, 
 union effort by working people admits of easy vindication." 
 The following quotation is from Rev. Dr. T. Edwin Brown, 
 of Providence : — 
 
 " When we remember the history of the Christian Church, the 
 history of humanity, and by what terrific throes good evolves 
 itself out of and through evil, we must not be too hard upon 
 workingmen. Are we perfect.'' Do we commit no blunders? 
 Are we never carried away by passion ? Are we always able to 
 balance with perfect accuracy the conflicting interests of our- 
 selves and our fellows? . . . Remember how labor has been 
 oppressed. Remember that in the early days of the modern indus- 
 trial revolution, labor was being reduced to slavery. Remember 
 that these modern labor organizations, made necessary by bad 
 conditions, and made possible by the very causes which, unhin- 
 dered, made the conditions bad, were repressed with passionate 
 violence and obstructed by malignant watchfulness, so long as 
 repression and obstruction were possible. Remember that a 
 thousand evil prophecies have been uttered against them which 
 have never been fulfilled. Remember that not until 1824 could 
 these unions exist openly, and that not until 1871 did they have 
 a fully legalized and corporate existence in England, while in 
 this country they have never been adequately organized and 
 protected, and regulated by law. Remember that the majority of 
 those who composed these unions were men ignorant by neces- 
 sity, suspicious, as hunted animals are suspicious ; distrustful of 
 advice, because so often deceived by advice, with many violent 
 and vicious men among them. And then, with all the facts in 
 mind, ask yourselves whether it is wonderful that there have been 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 157 
 
 mistakes, mischiefs, crimes, much folly in principle, and much 
 wrong in fact. Is not the wonder rather that there have not 
 been many more of these characteristics which arouse our com- 
 plaints? There have been unwise restrictions, tyrannical regula- 
 tions, vast aggressions, and hindrances to intelligent labor and to 
 best productions. Yes! But these are incidental. Many of the 
 petty tyrannies, which are quoted even now as characteristic of 
 trades-unionism, belong to the past. They have been outgrown. 
 Many others will be outgrown. The workingmen, in spite of all 
 the blunders that have been made, ought to be proud of their 
 organized history. I, as a man, sharing their common humanity, 
 am proud of their history on their behalf." 
 
 The third quotation consists of the conclusion of a sermon 
 by Rev. Thos. K. Beecher, D.D., of Elmira, and is so admir- 
 able and so much to the point that room must be made for 
 it, despite its length : — 
 
 " The Knights of Labor, having gathered, if you please, one 
 hundred or five thousand names on their lists, must of necessity 
 have gathered in ignorance, passion, lawlessness, and insubordi- 
 nation. Members of that church have misbehaved and will mis- 
 behave. I doubt not that there is great mortification and travail 
 of spirit over these disgraceful infidelities to the principles of the 
 Order. Now, as a ' peacemaker,' I affirm that if any man is a 
 good Mason he will never be a drunkard or a fornicator. Yet I 
 have known Masons of high degree who were infamous because 
 of those vices. Nevertheless, I still speak of a good Mason. I 
 know that if a man is a good Methodist he will be a man of 
 prayer, enthusiasm, generosity, and hope, of sanctification ; yet 
 I have known Methodists of high degree that were none of those 
 things. I know that a minister of the gospel, if he fulfil his 
 ordination vows, will be truly a reverend man ; trustworthy by 
 day or by night, bearing about him the dying of the Lord Jesus, 
 that the life also of Christ, filling and overflowing, may give life to 
 an unbelieving world. Yet I have known ministers first and last 
 that have fallen into every vice of the criminal calendar. Never- 
 theless, I believe in ministers. 
 
158 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 "Brethren, I appeal to you to make yourselves habitually ac- 
 quainted with the best in every church, sect, party, or order. 
 Cultivate in yourselves large-mindedness, fair-mindedness, and a 
 charity that believeth in all things, endureth all things, hopeth 
 all things. Why, brethren ! there is not upon earth so holy a 
 society founded by the Creator himself as the family. And there 
 is not a society upon earth in which I have found infamies more 
 noisome, and agonies more poignant, than have come to my 
 knowledge in the relation of husband and wife, parent and 
 child. 
 
 " We must not denounce the Masons, nor the Methodists, nor 
 the Presbyterians, nor the Democrats, nor the Republicans, nor 
 the Communists, nor any other aggregation of our fellow-men in 
 the lump. There is evil in them all, there is good in them 
 all, and always will be, until the harvest, which is the end 
 of the world. Then shall God send forth his reapers, which 
 are the angels, and gather the bad Masons, and bad Methodists, 
 and bad Presbyterians, and bad Democrats, and bad Republicans, 
 and bad Knights of Labor, and bad Socialists, and bind them 
 into bundles to burn them, that the heavenly city be no more 
 plagued by their vices nor scared by their threats ; ^nd gather 
 the good Masons, and good Presbyterians, and good Democrats, 
 and good Knights of Labor, and good Communists, and good 
 Socialists, and good capitalists, to enjoy together, for the first 
 time since the stars began their watch, the counsels of an un- 
 broken unity, and the growth and glories of an eternal co-opera- 
 tion. 
 
 " Judge nothing before the time. There is one thatjudgeth 
 all, even God. Let us be careful what we feel, and more care- 
 ful still as to what we say, as regards our fellow-citizens, in 
 these restless days. Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to 
 wrath. The wrath of men will never work out the righteousness 
 of God nor the salvation of society. Let us study to be quiet, to 
 mind our own business, and work with our own hands the thing 
 that is good, that we may have to give to them who suffer much ; 
 thus shall we earn the benediction : Blessed are the peacemakers, 
 for they shall be called the sons of God." 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 159 
 
 A clergyman of New England, and a Ph.D. of a Massa- 
 chusetts college, accompanies a description of the Knights 
 of Labor with these words : "The -actual is doubtless below 
 the ideal. The two differ, however, not so much as the 
 ideal church of Christ, and the church as actually realized 
 among men." One precaution which should not be for- 
 gotten by those who would judge the laborers honestly 
 is this : you get only one side of the case in press de- 
 spatches. Could you know both sides, your opinion would 
 frequently be quite different about alleged misdoings of 
 laborers. He who would know both sides must take a 
 labor paper. 
 
 One undoubted error of most of the labor leaders, in 
 my opinion, consists in their adhesion to the doctrine 
 that an inflation of the currency, by the issue of larger 
 quantities of paper money, is a good thing, but as one of 
 them said, they "are not pushing that now.'' Their 
 acceptance of this doctrine is easily explained by an 
 examination of the financial history of the United States 
 during the past twenty-five years. Contraction of the cur- 
 rency doubtless caused some suffering ; but fifty years ago 
 laborers complained bitterly on account of the over issue of 
 paper money. It is in such matters they need the aid of 
 scholarship, for the ordinary man errs in his generalizations 
 because he bases them on too narrow a range of observa- 
 tion. This is also an illustration of the fact that no one 
 class is large enough for exclusive rulership. The welfare of 
 society requires the active co-operation of all the members 
 of the social organism. 
 
 The dictation of trades-unions is a favorite theme. It is 
 oftenest brought forward as an offence by those who are 
 unwilling to recognize the right of the laborer to a voice in 
 the management of the commodity which he supplies, labor, 
 
160 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 and in the management of which he is so vitally interested. 
 The non-partisan fails to see any reason why the laborer has 
 not the right to say, Under such and such conditions I will 
 offer my commodity ; under others I will withhold it ; even 
 should those conditions include the right to select his com- 
 panions. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the 
 laborer may make a foolish use of his rights, and it is cer- 
 tain that he too often does make such a use. Some of the 
 most intelligent trades-unionists think the refusal to work 
 with a non-union man is indefensible and injurious to the 
 cause of labor. It is the office of arbitration to help deter- 
 mine what are wise and beneficial, and what are foolish and 
 injurious conditions both for the buyer and seller of labor. 
 
 The surrender of personal Uberty is often regarded as a 
 condition of membership in a trades-union, but this is little 
 more than a fiction in the case of any well-managed labor 
 organization. Those who furnish capital place its manage- 
 ment in the hands of a few, those who furnish labor do so, 
 though to far less extent. If an indiscreet choice is made 
 by either party the result may prove disastrous, and a change 
 should be made as soon as possible. What Mr. Trant says 
 of a strike^ is true of most affairs of trades-unions. "The 
 idea that a strike depends upon the ipse dixit of a paid 
 agitator, and that if the men were to vote by ballot on the 
 question, they would never consent to a strike, is conceived 
 by those only who do not know what a trade-union is. In 
 most cases a strike is the result of action taken by the men 
 themselves in each district, the executive having more power 
 to prevent a strike than to initiate one." ^ And what the 
 Rev. Mr. Kaufmann says is as true of this country as Eng- 
 
 1 In his excellent little work, "Trade-Unions.'' Kegan, Paul, 
 French & Co., London, 1884. 
 
 2 Members of unions often vote by a show of hands. It would be 
 better to introduce the secret ballot universally. 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 161 
 
 land : " I have given the subject a great deal of attention, 
 and feel convinced that where the employers have right on 
 their side, in the large majority of cases, the so-called dema- 
 gogues or professional agitators have little power in provok- 
 ing a quarrel about the raising or reduction of wages." ^ 
 
 Some people seem to believe that laborers work peace- 
 fully and contentedly until a mischievous agitator comes 
 along and stirs them up, and creates unreasonable dissatis- 
 faction. All this is pure fiction. 
 
 There are demagogues, it is true, and these are danger- 
 ous ; but they are not the men who are usually mentioned 
 as such in the newspapers. They are generally politicians 
 who mislead the masses with lying lips which utter flatteries 
 and vain promises. Men may be divided into three classes, 
 with respect to their attitude toward the masses. The 
 lowest class is composed of dishonest men who delude them 
 for their own devilish ends. That class constitutes a goodly 
 element among our politicians, and has as large a member- 
 ship in America as in any other country. The second class 
 ranks a little above this. It is composed of men who scorn 
 the arts of the vulgar politician, and will not degrade them- 
 selves by courting men whom they inwardly despise. Corio- 
 lanus, as portrayed by Shakespeare, was a high type of this 
 class, which is, in America, a large and influential one. The 
 third and highest class is composed of the noblest speci- 
 mens of the human race. Men of this class seek the masses 
 for no ignoble ends, but that they may do good to those who 
 need their help. They are Christ-like men who are drawn 
 to those beneath them in their intellectual, ethical, and 
 social natures by an all-embracing love for humanity. These 
 men are a nation's salvation. This third class is small, as 
 yet, in our land, but happily it is a growing one. 
 
 1 See his " Sermons and Lectures to Theological Students.'' 
 
162 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 One danger is, clearly, that the demagogue may get con- 
 trol of the labor movement with all its vast potentialities 
 for good or evil ; but this will be averted if those Americans 
 who profess to be guided by principles of Christian ethics 
 do their duty in the present crisis in our history. It can- 
 not be averted by any attempt to suppress trades-unions; 
 on the contrary, an endeavor to crush them is the greatest 
 danger of all which we have to face. As Thomas Hughes 
 has said, " Whatever danger the advancing wave may seem 
 to threaten existing institutions, arises from attempts to block 
 the channel."' There is no power in America at the disposal 
 of the employing class which can crush labor organizations. 
 Their opponents may double the police, strengthen the 
 militia, secure control of the legislative authority, put the 
 judges under their thumbs, and buy up every paper in 
 the United States, and their efforts will still be in vain. 
 Kings and emperors and parliaments have been trying just 
 SQch experiments at intervals for six hundred years, and have 
 not succeeded. The first fundamental fact to be grasped is 
 that the labor organizations are with us, and will remain 
 with us. There never will be peace until they receive full 
 recognition. Employers who really mean well should seek, 
 as many of them are doing, to work through them and to 
 develop everything that is good in them. 
 
 ^ Trade- Unionism in England. — Century Magazine, ')A^-j,\%%i,, 
 In the same article occurs this passage, which ought to be reassuring 
 to Americans at the present time. In spealcing about trades-unions in 
 England in 185 1, he says: " The press echoed the alarm of the em- 
 ployers, and denounced these combinations in unmeasured terms. The 
 trade of the country would be ruined by those great unions of the 
 working classes, controlled by irresponsible councils, whose authority 
 was blindly obeyed, and which were composed of men whose profession 
 was agitation, and whose living depended upon fostering disputes." 
 Talk of that kind is now a thing of the past in England. 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 163 
 
 Still another danger has been brought to public attention 
 recently, and it seems to me one well calculated to excite 
 alarm. It is, that unscrupulous speculators may attempt to 
 use our labor organizations to raise and depress railway 
 stocks and other property for their own ends. It will 
 require vigilance to avert such a calamity. 
 
 There is a great deal of talk about the expenses of the 
 unions, and there seems to be an impression that they are 
 devouring the earnings of our artisans and mechanics. The 
 truth is, the expenses of the organizations are light during 
 the time of peace, and contest is only an exception in the 
 history of the most beligerent.^ Take salaries, for example. 
 From 1867 to 1885 the highest annual cost per man for 
 salaries of officers of the International T5fpographical Union 
 was only eighteen cents, while the lowest was but seven 
 cents. Take, for another example, the contributions of the 
 Knights of Labor to their central- body. They amount to 
 six cents a quarter for each member. Of course contribu- 
 tions for relief and benefit features, and other forms of 
 mutual aid, and for strikes, when they occur, are much 
 larger, though far smaller than most people imagine. When 
 a labor organization is well managed, it yields a large return 
 for all that it costs. One other fiction only must receive 
 attention now, and that is the " fat places " in the organiza- 
 tions. There are none ; no men work harder, perform 
 more arduous duties, or duties requiring a higher order of 
 Intellect, for the same salaries, than the officers of the great 
 labor organizations. Mr. Powderly receives ^1,500 per 
 annum ; Mr. Turner, the general secretary of the Knights 
 of Labor, ;?i,20o; the president of the Flint Glass- Workers 
 is paid $1,100 a year. These are among the higher salaries. 
 
 ^ The Amalgamated Carpenters reported that during the year 
 1883-84 not one trade dispute occurred. 
 
164 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Some serve in union capacities without pay ; others receive 
 I25 and ^50 a year. 
 
 One obstacle in the way of the growth of trades-unions in 
 America has been that tlie abilities of their officers have so 
 often attracted the attention of capitalists who could pay 
 higher salaries. Many of their best men have been lost to 
 them in this manner. 
 
 The great mass of men follow leaders. They may pro- 
 test against the fact, but they do it all the same, for they 
 cannot help it. Now who are the natural leaders of the 
 laboring classes ? Their industrial superiors ; and when we 
 pass judgment on the employee, we are obliged to inquire 
 what kind of an example has been set him by his employer. 
 An examina.tion of our social history reveals the fact that 
 the laborers have been guilty of no offence for which they 
 could not find a precedent in the conduct of unscrupulous 
 employers.* The subject of violence to non-union men 
 affords an example, and on this Professor Thorold Rogers 
 comments as follows : " The violence which has character- 
 ized the action of workingmen against those who abstain 
 from their policy, compete against them for employment in 
 a crisis, and, as they believe, selfishly profit by a process 
 which they are too mean to assist, but from which they reap 
 no small advantage, is indefensible and suicidal. But it has 
 its parallel in the attitude of joint stock companies to inter- 
 lopers, and in the devices by which traders have over and 
 over again striven to ruin rivals who will not abide by trade 
 customs, or even seek to be independent competitors against 
 powerful agencies. I see no difference beyond the fact 
 that law allows them, between the rattening of a Sheffield 
 saw grinder, and the expedients by which in the committee 
 
 ^ For instance, the cutting of wires of telegraph and tearing up the 
 track of railways by opposing companies. 
 
OTHER ASPECTS OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. 16S 
 
 rooms of the House of Commons, railway directors seek to 
 extinguish competition schemes. Men who have not had 
 the refinements of education, and who are not practised in 
 the arts of polite malignity, may be coarse and rude in the 
 expedients which they adopt, but when the process is essen- 
 tially the same, when the motive is practically identical, and 
 the result is precisely equal, the manner is of no importance 
 to the analyst of motives and conduct." ^ 
 
 American railway history has furnished employees with 
 many examples of violence perpetrated by vast corporations ; 
 and it can scarcely surprise the thoughtful man that the 
 underling should take the lesson to heart and occasionally 
 attempt violence on his own account. I myself have seen 
 the property of one railway corporation seized by another 
 without the slightest ground in right or justice, and it was so 
 common and every day an occurrence that it attracted little 
 attention. I am not aware that in all the United States a 
 single editor thought it worth while to pubUsh an editorial 
 about it. Let me give another illustration in the concrete 
 of the parallel between the conduct of the poorer and 
 wealthier classes. We often hear it spoken of as something 
 monstrous that trades-unions should establish rates of wages, 
 and force their members to abide by them.^ This is noth- 
 ing peculiar to labor organizations. In a recent description 
 of the New York Stock Exchange, we are told that even the 
 offering to do business at less than the established rates " is 
 
 1 Page 403-4 of " Work and Wages." 
 
 2 It is commonly said that trades-unions establish a uniform rate for 
 all. I think this rarely happens. They establish a minimum rate. The 
 bricklayers of Philadelphia have a minimum rate of S3.50, but only the 
 poorer bricklayers receive so httle. Some receive S3.75, others ^4.00, 
 $4.25, and even M-SO- They also grant special permission to old or 
 infirm bricklayers to take less than tl-^o. This is merely an example. 
 
166 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 punishable by expulsion from the exchange, and sale forth- 
 with by the committee on admissions of the membership of 
 the offender." If the reader wishes other parallels, let him 
 go to the physicians among whom I have known one to be 
 ostracised for cutting below the estabHshed rates. 
 
 Finally, that terrible weapon of labor, the "boycott" 
 found a precedent in the far more cruel black list which 
 preceded it, in most cases caused it, and still continues its 
 atrocities unrebuked.^ Now the parallels are not in them- 
 selves justification, but if the practice is wrong, they do prove 
 that our entire industrial society needs reformation, and that 
 it is cruelly unjust to saddle all the blame on those who 
 follow their natural leaders. 
 
 Is the conclusion of all this that injustice must be met by 
 injustice ? that the laborer should retaUate upon others the 
 wrong he has suffered ? No, a thousand times no ! It 
 would be madness. Love, not vengeance, is the law of the 
 highest civihzation for which we must strive, and in which 
 alone it can ever be well with men. Violence never settles 
 any question, and no question is ever settled until it reaches 
 a righteous solution.^ The conclusion of all that has been 
 said is, then, this : We must never cease to strive to place 
 our social and industrial institutions on the rock foundation 
 of righteousness ; for until we can find such a basis for 
 them, we have reason to fear something terrible indeed, and 
 that is the wrath of God. 
 
 1 Harper's Weekly has denounced it in as strong terms as the boy- 
 cott, and it has been condemned by other journals, but it has generally 
 been passed over in silence by the newspapers. 
 
 ^ So well established is this as an historical fact, that " The blood of 
 the martyrs is the seed of the church " has passed into a proverb. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 
 
 I. Distributive Co-operation. 
 
 THE phrase, " competence to the purchaser," has been 
 used as the rallying cry of distributive co-operation. 
 As generally practised, it is simply the union of consumers 
 in order to obtain commodities of various kinds at reduced 
 rates, and also to secure satisfactory guarantees of quality of 
 goods and of honest dealing in general. Such a combina- 
 tion of purchasers is in Germany appropriately called a 
 Consumers' Union. Distributive co-operation assumes a 
 multitude of forms. In some instances it means nothing 
 more than a club, whose members obtain reduced rates by 
 special agreement with certain regular dealers. This is the 
 case with the Rochdale Co-operative Society of Washington, 
 composed largely of clerks and government employees at 
 the national capital. The dealers' hope to indemnify them- 
 selves by a larger trade and by the cash payments, which 
 are a feature of the agreement between them and the Roch- 
 dale Society. A more frequent form of distributive co-oper- 
 ation is seen in the co-operative store, managed entirely by 
 the co-operative society at its own risk, and sharing profit 
 or loss according to some equitable rule. One of the most 
 brilliant examples of success achieved by co-operation of 
 this kind is that of the Philadelphia Industrial Co-operative 
 Society, of which more will be said presently. 
 
168 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 It may well be asked. Why should so much importance be 
 attached to this simple business contrivance, by which men 
 hope to effect small savings in their purchases ? Nor is a 
 satisfactory answer always an easy matter. When there is 
 nothing more to co-operation in distribution than that which 
 appears at first sight, or when it is not undertaken with a 
 view to subsequent industrial development, it merits less 
 attention than it has received. Apart from its educational 
 value, which is considerable, it is then at best simply an im- 
 provement of not large proportions in the conduct of busi- 
 ness. When not at its best, it is frequently a disastrous 
 failure in an attempt to improve trade relations, and entails 
 serious loss upon poor men, ill able to bear the burden. An 
 example of the power which resides in a name is seen in the 
 history of the Co-operative Dress Association, which failed 
 in New York some three years ago. What was this Dress 
 Association ? It consisted of a number of people of consid- 
 erable means, many of them even wealthy, who hoped by 
 combination to save a small sum in their bills for clothing. 
 There was no special grievance of which they had to com- 
 plain, for the retail merchants of New York were then, as 
 now, alert and enterprising, willing to sell goods at a small 
 advance above cost, and were not remiss in that polite con- 
 sideration which customers may reasonably demand from 
 those with whom they deal. Here the whole experiment 
 began and ended. There was no reason why its existence 
 should have attracted wide attention ; no reason why there 
 should have been regret when, in spite of all the gratuitous 
 advertising it received, it failed. 
 
 It is important that one should enter upon the study of 
 co-operation with clear ideas as to its true significance and 
 its real worth, or intrinsic worthlessness, as the case may be. 
 We have to do, it is generally supposed, with a radical re- 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 169 
 
 form, whose aim is to elevate the masses, both in mind and 
 body. Now, it is evident that an agreement of A, B, C, and 
 D, all to trade with one man, in case he will sell them com- 
 modities at ten per cent below the regular prices, is not an 
 event of such significance as to justify the waste of any con- 
 siderable emotional energy. Nor is there cause for excite- 
 ment when X, Y, and Z determine to open a small retail store 
 for their own benefit, with the desire to add the retailers' 
 profit to the income they may derive from other sources. 
 A recent writer proclaimed boastfully that co-operation 
 meant business, and nothing more. If that is all, let us at 
 once turn our attention to some more profitable and inter- 
 esting topic. 
 
 But that is not all. The aims of co-operation are as far- 
 reaching as those of the social union. It contemplates, as 
 has already been said, a complete, though peaceful, transfor- 
 mation of society.^ Co-operators, when worthy of the name, 
 are firm in the conviction expressed for them by John Stuart 
 Mill : — 
 
 " That the industrial economy which divides society abso- 
 lutely into two portions, the payers of wages and the re- 
 ceivers of them, the first counted by thousands and the last 
 by millions, is neither fit for nor capable of indefinite dura- 
 tion ; and the possibility of changing this system for one of 
 combination without dependence, and unity of interest in- 
 stead of organized hostility, depends altogether upon the 
 future developments of the partnership principle." 
 
 It is, then, from the standpoint of those who desire a 
 transformation and an elevation of the masses, that we must 
 pass judgment on co-operative enterprises. The argument, 
 formerly much in vogue as a defence of slavery, that the 
 
 1 This has always been the animating idea of the leaders of the co- 
 operative movement in England. 
 
170 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 institution united hannoniously the interests of capital and 
 labor, was of greater force than the friends of free labor 
 were then willing to admit, as is proved by the chronic state 
 of disturbed relations between employer and employed 
 which has come upon us, and promises to remain with us 
 for years to come. Co-operation admits the desirability 
 of a union between capital and labor, but maintains that 
 such a union can be accomplished by voluntary associa- 
 tions among men, both for the purpose of production and 
 distribution. 
 
 Distributive co-operation is, then, but a small part of the 
 problem whose solution presses upon us. Frequently it 
 means no direct union of capital and labor, but carries with 
 it a division of profits only between capital and the patrons 
 of capital, in other words, the consumers. This is the rule 
 in England, where the annual sales of the co-operative stores 
 exceed in value one hundred millions of dollars. It happens 
 rarely that the employees participate in the profits of trade, 
 though it is now clearly seen that capital, labor, and custom 
 should all share in the products of enterprises in proportion 
 to the services they render ; and in isolated instances, as in 
 the case of the great Scotch co-operative wholesale store, 
 this principle prevails; while the best leaders, those who 
 have furnished the life-giving spirit, are endeavoring to ex- 
 tend the application of co-operation until, in all its ramifica- 
 tions, it reaches its logical outcome. 
 
 Distributive co-operation is a school. It is a training 
 which, it is hoped, will lead to better things. More than this 
 is true. Distributive co-operation is a beginning. Ifitisever 
 completely successful, it will only be as part of a co-operative 
 system which embraces the industrial life of the people. The 
 story of the origin, the progress, and the achievements of 
 distributive co-operation in Great Britain has often been 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 171 
 
 told ; ^ but the history of the checkered career of distributive 
 co-operation in America has never been penned. Much of 
 it is aheady lost, and much survives only in the memory of 
 the aged, who once, full of youth and generous enthusiasm, 
 devoted themselves to the spread of co-operation. As Rev. 
 Dr. Heber Newton has well said, " Co-operation awaits 
 its Old Mortahty, piously bent on rescuing from oblivion the 
 fading characters of these living epitaphs." This is not the 
 place for a statistical paper, giving a catalogue of failures 
 and successes. We are now concerned only with a general 
 view, which must, however, be sufficiently accurate to enable 
 us to form in our own minds some kind of a picture of the 
 actual condition of things in the past and in the present. 
 
 The history of distributive co-operation in the United 
 States may be divided into two periods, each of nearly equal 
 duration. The first begins about 1835 ^"^^ extends to the 
 time of the Civil War ; the second continues from the begin- 
 ning of that event to the present. I have been able to dis- 
 cover only two or three existing co-operative enterprises 
 which may be traced back to the first period, — the Central 
 Union of New Bedford, the Natick Protective Union, and a 
 large store at Worcester are mentioned by Mr. George E. 
 McNeill, of Boston. 
 
 Mr. McNeill, a veteran in the labor-movement, has pre- 
 pared a history of co-operation in Massachusetts, which was 
 published in the Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of 
 Statistics of Labor for 1877, and this is my chief source of 
 information for co-operation in New England before that 
 year. From this report we learn that co-operation was dis-' 
 cussed in Boston, in 1831, by the New England Association 
 of Farmers and Mechanics ; but the members of the com- 
 
 ' A sketch of it, by the writer, may be found in the Congregation- 
 alist, of Boston, March 12, 1885. 
 
172 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 mittee appointed to consider the subject were able to agree 
 upon no report, and no definite action was taken at that 
 time. Several germs of co-operative efifort are found be- 
 tween 1 83 1 and 1845, but no accurate account of them was 
 found by Mr. McNeill, nor have I been able to discover 
 anything further than what is stated by that gentleman; 
 viz., that it was attempted to effect a saving by the pur- 
 chase of goods in large quantities, to be broken up and dis- 
 tributed at a slight advance above original cost, to meet 
 expenses. The managers were unpaid, the interest was not 
 maintained, and the stores soon failed, suspended operations, 
 or passed into the possession of private parties. 
 
 Whenever co-operation has in this country assumed large 
 proportions, it has been connected with some trades-union 
 or labor organization, and those societies which are to be 
 specially borne in mind in this connection are the four fol- 
 lowing; namely, the New England Protective Union, the 
 Patrons of Husbandry, the Sovereigns of Industry, and the 
 Knights of Labor. The New England Protective Union was 
 formed in 1845, but then bore the name, Workingmen's 
 Protective Union, which it retained until 1849. ^ schism 
 took place in the body in 1853, because one party in the 
 Union thought that the purchasing agent for the co-operative 
 stores had been unfairly deprived of his position, and they 
 were unwilling either to await a peaceful and constitutional 
 settlement of the difficulty, or to waive a personal question 
 for the sake of the inestimable benefits of unity. The 
 seceders formed an organization, called the American Pro- 
 tective Union. 
 
 A correct view of co-operation seems to have been general 
 among the laborers at that time, for the following preamble 
 and resolution were adopted at the convention of the New 
 England Workingmen's Union, held in Fall River, in Sep- 
 tember, 1845 : — 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 173 
 
 " Whereas, All means of reform heretofore offered by the 
 friends of social reform have failed to unite the producing 
 classes, much less attract their attention, therefore, 
 
 "Resolved, That protective charity and concert of action in 
 the purchase of the necessaries of life are the only means to 
 the end to obtain that union which will end in their ameliora- 
 tion." 
 
 The sentiments of the Workingmen's Protective Union 
 were reported to agree in the main with those found at that 
 same time in the constitution adopted at New York by the 
 National Industrial Convention. The important thought that 
 an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase of com- 
 modities was no way out of the difficulties of the laborers, 
 but was valuable only as a preparation for something better, 
 is brought out still more clearly in the following extract from 
 a report by the committee on organization of industry, issued 
 in 1849 : — 
 
 " Brothers, shall we content ourselves with the miserable 
 idea of merely saving a few dollars, and say we have found 
 enough? Future generations, ay, the uprising generation is 
 looking to us for nobler deeds. Shall we disappoint them ? 
 No ! by all that is great and good, let us trust in the truth 
 of organized industry. Time, undoubtedly, must intervene 
 before great results can be expected to accrue from a work 
 of this character. We must proceed from combined stores 
 to combined shops, from combined shops to combined 
 houses, to joint ownership in God's earth, the foundation that 
 our edifice must stand upon." 
 
 The resources of these laborers were small, but they began 
 their work " with faith in God and the right," to use their 
 words, and " the purchase of a box of soap and one-half 
 box of tea." This humble beginning rapidly assumed larger 
 and increasing proportions, until, in October, 1852, the 
 
174 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Union embraced 403 divisions, of which 167 reported a 
 capital of ^241,712, and 165 of these announced annual 
 sales amounting to ;?i,696,825. The schism in 1853 
 weakened the body, but the agent of the American Protec- 
 tive Union claimed for the divisions comprising it, sales 
 aggregating in value over nine and one-quarter millions of 
 dollars in the seven years ending in 1859. 
 
 It is not possible to tell what might have been the out- 
 come of this co-operative movement had peace continued. 
 As it was, the disturbed era of the Civil War nearly anni- 
 hilated it. Nor can it be difficult to see the causes which 
 led to the destruction of the still tender plant. Men left 
 their homes for the battlefield ; foreigners poured into 
 New England towns and replaced the Americans in the 
 shops ; while shareholders frequently became frightened at 
 the state of trade, and gladly saw the entire enterprise pass 
 into the hands of the storekeeper. 
 
 Various minor efforts at co-operation during the following 
 years must be passed over with a simple allusion to the fact 
 of their existence. Such are the co-operative experiments 
 connected with the Boston Labor Reform Association, which 
 aimed at the " discharge of all useless middle-men ; " of the 
 same character are the co-operative associations, productive 
 and distributive, which were inaugurated by that once pow- 
 erful, but short-lived, union of shoemakers called the 
 Knights of Saint Crispin. 
 
 The two co-operative movements of large proportions, 
 next in order of time, are those set in motion by the Patrons 
 of Husbandry, or Grangers, and the Sovereigns of Industry. 
 sj The Sovereigns of Industry were a secret order, founded 
 in Worcester, Mass., in the month of January, 1874, by 
 William H. Earle. The first paragraph of the Declaration 
 of Purposes reads as follows : 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 175 
 
 " The order of the Sovereigns of Industry is an associa- 
 tion of the industrial or laboring classes, without regard to 
 race, sex, color, nationality, or occupation ; not founded for 
 the purpose of waging any war of aggression upon any other 
 class, or for fostering any antagonism of labor against capi- 
 tal, or of arraying the poor against the rich ; but for mutual 
 assistance in self-improvement and self-protection." 
 
 The entire declaration breathes forth the same pacific 
 intent which is likewise seen in the motto adopted for the 
 official journal of the Sovereigns, the Sovereign Bulletin, 
 namely, " Capital and Labor, Friends, not Enemies." In- 
 deed it may be said that the extreme of good nature has 
 been reached when this order promises to resist the organ- 
 ized encroachments of monopolists only by such " wise and 
 kindly measures " as it can command. While an entire 
 re-organization of society seems to have been contemplated 
 in a vague and general kind of way, the Declaration of 
 Purposes directs attention chiefly to the advantages of co- 
 operation in distribution, that is, in making purchases. The 
 aim was to secure economy by the abolition of the middle- 
 men, consisting of " speculator, broker, commission agent, 
 wholesale dealer, jobber, and retailer," and also to teach the 
 members of the order to avoid the disastrous and extrava- 
 gant system of credit. 
 
 The members in a town or district constituted a local 
 council ; the local councils in a State formed a State coun- 
 cil ; while the national council consisted of representatives 
 of all the States. The president of the national council was 
 the founder of the order, William H. Earle. 
 
 Brilliant success accompanied the efforts of the promot- 
 ers of the Sovereigns of Industry for a few years. Within 
 four months there were thirty-three councils in Massachu- 
 setts. One year later, the old Bay State claimed fifty-seven 
 
176 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 councils, with 3,564 members, and in 1877 ninety-eight 
 councils, with an estimated membership of 10,000. The 
 order extended into other states, and even reached the ter- 
 ritories. Its chief strength, however, always remained in 
 New England and the Middle States. The Sovereigns were 
 well represented at Washington, where the national organ 
 was published during the last period of its existence, but 
 the order does notra.ppear to have obtained a foot-hold in 
 any more southern section of the country. 
 
 The largest store belonged to the council at Springfield, 
 Mass., which in 1875 built the "Sovereigns' Block," at a 
 cost of ^35,500. The hall was dedicated amid that jubila- 
 tion which always marks an event thought to be the fore- 
 runner of a new era. There is now a certain pathos in the 
 high hopes expressed in the Address of Dedication, by 
 President Earle. So much labor, such bright anticipations, 
 such lofty aims ! Are they but a light to reveal the com- 
 pleteness of the wreck? Let us not say this; the end is 
 not yet ! 
 
 The order continued to thrive until 1878, shortly after 
 which a decUne began, and dissolution was the fate of the 
 Sovereigns in 1880. We may take the business of the former 
 year as an indication of the field in trade once won by co- 
 operation — then lost to the good cause. President Earle, 
 in his address at the fourth annual session in Washington, 
 stated that the store at Springfield led all the others with 
 sales amounting to ^119,000 for the preceding year, while 
 the forty-five councils which sent in statements reported a 
 trade of ^750,000 during the last twelve months. About 
 one-half failed to report. The profits were in many in- 
 stances large, notably so in Worcester, where the returns on 
 the capital invested in the Sovereigns' Co-operative. Asso- 
 ciation averaged sixty-five per cent per annum from April 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 177 
 
 20, 1875, to JS'ii- i> 1878. Many councils pursued co-opera- 
 tion no further than it is to be found in the club-order sys- 
 tem, and others entered into special agreements with regular 
 dealers, whereby considerable discounts were received. 
 Although the order failed in 1880, and co-operative enter- 
 prises connected with an organization generally rise and fall 
 with the particular society through which they came into 
 existence, the careful student will doubtless still discover 
 traces here and there, scattered throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land, of what once bid fair to be a powerful 
 movement. An occasional survivor, like the Rochdale 
 Society of Washington, still continues its existence, alone 
 and isolated, hke a stranded mariner. 
 
 The well-known organization of farmers, called the Pa- 
 trons of Husbandry, or, more commonly. Grangers, achieved 
 grand results in co-operation, chiefly distributive. It has 
 been claimed that co-operation saved its members twelve 
 millions of dollars in one year. The high-water mark seems 
 to have been reached about 1876, when the Patrons had 
 five " steamboat or packet lines, thirty-two grain elevators 
 and twenty-two warehouses for storing goods." The mem- 
 bership of the order rapidly increased to a million, or there- 
 abouts, in the first ten years of its existence, but then de- 
 clined. Of late, new life and vigor have evidently been 
 infused into the Patrons of Husbandry, and it is not im- 
 probable that their numbers exceed half a million, while 
 there are over a million who have been members of the 
 Grange, and to-day stand to a greater or less extent under 
 the influence of its ideas. 
 
 The secretary of the National Grange, Mr. John Trimble, 
 kindly sends me these lines in reply to my request for exact 
 statistics : 
 
 "This office has no record of the strength of the order, 
 
178 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 each State grange keeping its own record. I have no record 
 of co-operative movements, as they are not part of the 
 National Grange. We give them all possible moral encour- 
 agement and support, but they are not legally component 
 parts of the national organization." 
 
 By this it will be understood that co-operation is left to 
 the local and State granges, and in looking through the re- 
 ports of the State organizations, one may get an idea of the 
 dimensions of the co-operative movement among the Pa- 
 trons of Husbandry. 
 
 It is evident that co-operation is still a power among the 
 farmers, and it is not improbable that one may say, at pres- 
 ent, an increasing power. The Texas Co-operative Associa- 
 tion of the Patrons of Husbandry reported seventy-five 
 co-operative granges in 1881, the number soon increased to 
 one hundred, while in the present year one hundred and 
 fifty stores are claimed in addition to one central agency or 
 wholesale house. 
 
 Other States cannot show so favorable a record, but sev- 
 eral of them send encouraging reports. A large store is the 
 co-operative commission house in Baltimore, called the 
 Maryland Grange Agency, Patrons of Husbandry, the suc- 
 cess of which may fairly be called brilliant. It operates on 
 the favorite Rochdale plan, dividing profits on sales, after 
 paying expenses and a moderate interest on capital. This, 
 it may be remarked, is the most common practice in the 
 case of distributive co-operation. During the last two 
 years the Baltimore agency at 83^ S. Charles Street has 
 divided iJig.ooo in profits. It started with a capital of $12 
 in 1876, and sold two million dollars worth of goods during 
 the first four years, and that without the loss of a dollar. Its 
 transactions now range from three to five hundred thousand 
 dollars per annum. CaUfomia has a successful co-operative 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 179 
 
 enterprise to show in the Grange Bank, with a paid-in capi- 
 tal of ;?5 ,000,000. This, however, comes more properly 
 under the head of co-operative credit, which is, after all, a 
 different thing from co-operative distribution. The Knights ^ 
 of Labor are beginning to establish stores, many of them 
 as yet quite humble, in every part of the United States ; and 
 all over the country one finds scattered, unconnected co- ' 
 operative stores. The largest enterprise of this character, 
 so far as I have been able to ascertain, is the Philadelphia 
 Industrial Co-operative Society, founded in 1874. Starting 
 with one store, the forty-third quarterly report gives the 
 addresses of four main stores and four branches. The sales 
 for this quarter, ending May 16, 1885, amounted to Is7,- 
 649.87. Dividends have been regularly paid on purchases, 
 and the society has been prosperous from the start. Apart 
 from the direct benefit, there has been indirect gain from a 
 lower range of prices in other stores in the vicinity. The 
 society acts as a savings bank, as it receives money from the 
 poor for investment in shares and allows interest and profits 
 to accumulate. This money saved may be withdrawn, and 
 the president of the society told me that in this way the 
 organization had kept many a family from distress during 
 the recent hard times. 
 
 I might fill several pages of manuscript with an imperfect 
 list of co-operative stores and agencies of one kind and 
 another, but the scope of this work does not admit it. 
 Does the reader wish an estimate of the total business trans- 
 acted by co-operative distribution in the Unitnd States? 
 An estimate is scarcely possible, but I will give a rash guess, 
 and say, twenty millions of dollars per annum. 
 
180 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 II. Productive Co-operation. 
 
 While co-operative distribution adopts as its maxim, 
 " Competence to the purchaser," productive co-operation 
 finds a watchword in, " Competence to the workman." The 
 first benefits the laborer indirectly. It helps him as a con- 
 sumer, but not as a workingman. It teaches him thrift and 
 frugality, and affords him an opportunity to invest his sav- 
 ings. It does not enter into the sphere of his activities as a 
 producer. Co-operation in production, however, takes hold 
 at once of the more vital problem of the relations between 
 capital and labor. 
 
 It might be thought that production ought to come first, 
 then consumption, then a combination of both in integral 
 co-operation, embracing the entire range of industrial life. 
 Such has not, however, been the view of co-operators, for it 
 has been held that the simpler process, distribution or ex- 
 change, ought to precede the more complex process, pro- 
 duction. Undoubtedly the organization of industry for pro- 
 ductive purposes is more difficult than the purchase and sale 
 of commodities in the store, and it is equally certain that the 
 preliminary training obtained by the management of distrib- 
 uting agencies may be helpful in productive co-operation. 
 
 There are various forms of productive enterprise which 
 may be classed together under the general head of co- 
 operative production. One form is called industrial part- 
 nership, or profit sharing, which contemplates a voluntary 
 division of profits by the employer of labor. The remuner- 
 ation of the employees is made to depend in part upon the 
 success of the enterprise, and they are occasionally encour- 
 aged to purchase an interest in the businefss. Pure co- 
 operation in production is an association of laborers to 
 conduct a productive undertaking on their own account. 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 181 
 
 They abolish the employer, or captain, of industry and 
 employ themselves. Co-operation is also used to denote a 
 union of producers for production, even when these pro- 
 ducers do not belong to the class of employees. Thus we 
 hear about the co-operation of farmers in cheese factories 
 and creameries. Profits are divided according to various 
 principles, but the commonest method is to conduct a 
 co-operative estabKshment like an ordinary joint stock con- 
 cern, paying wages and dividing profits on stocks in propor- 
 tion to investment. In other words, as a rule, co-operative 
 manufacturing establishments are joint stock corporations in 
 which the actual workers are at the same time the stock- 
 holders and managers. There may be other peculiar features 
 connected with the co-operative enterprise. A portion of 
 the earnings may be set aside for common purposes, as 
 amusement and education; and it is the practice to give 
 each shareholder only one vote, to prevent combinations 
 and that robbery of a minority which is unhappily so famil- 
 iar to us in corporate management. Occasionally interest is 
 paid on capital, and the surplus profit is distributed among 
 the laborers. It rarely happens that any portion of the 
 profits of a productive and co-operative concern is divided 
 among purchasers. I cannot now recollect a single instance 
 of the kind in America. 
 
 Productive co-operation before our late war may be dis- 
 missed with few words. The object of this co-operation, as 
 seen, is to establish the industrial independence of the 
 laborer and to enable him to divert profits into his own 
 pockets. It is only recently that there has been an immense 
 field for this sort of association ; for production in manufac- 
 tures was at an earlier period carried on in small shops whose 
 proprietors were likewise manual laborers. There were com- 
 paratively few employees, and these could always hope soon 
 
182 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 to enter into direct relations with the consumer of their 
 products. Agriculturists did not feel the need of co-opera- 
 tion. There were always " hired men " in the North, but 
 these were easily able to become independent farmers, 
 working for no master ; and the agricultural laborer of the 
 South was a slave. The farmer, the carpenter, the black- 
 smith, and the shoemaker, comprised a large portion of the 
 producers in the United States one hundred years ago, and 
 none of these then desired co-operative industry. 
 
 The cod and mackerel fisheries, however, are an excep- 
 tion. These required larger forces and greater capital, and 
 profit-sharing was introduced in this branch of production 
 one hundred and fifty years ago, and is still continued.^ 
 Those who went on whaling voyages from New England also 
 were remunerated in part in the profits of the voyage. The 
 merchants in the China trade are generally Inentioned in this 
 connection because they allowed their men a percentage on 
 the profits of each voyage ; and this practice seems to have 
 been not uncommon among ship owners fifty years ago. At 
 any rate, the chief ofificer, the captain, appears to have been 
 very often, perhaps as a rule, a participant in profits. 
 
 The first large co-operative movement in the field of pro- 
 duction was, so far as I discover, among the workers in 
 iron, and it was undoubtedly due largely to the indefati- 
 gable efforts of William H. Sylvis, the founder of the Iron 
 Moulders' International Union. 
 
 Mr. Sylvis made a report to the Iron Moulders' Union in 
 1864, in which he dwelt upon the advantages of co-operative 
 foundries. A committee was appointed to take this subject 
 into consideration, and in the words of Mr. Sylvis's biographer, 
 
 1 For an account of profit-sharing in the New England fisheries, see 
 the " Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor," for 
 1886. 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 183 
 
 this committee " gave birth to the agitation which has since 
 made the moulders so greatly successful in their application 
 of the principle of co-operation to production, as is evidenced 
 in the existence of several co-operative foundries in Troy, 
 Albany, Cincinnati, and other places which are now making 
 a great deal of money by assuring to themselves, not only 
 the wages made by ordinary workers, but the profits earned 
 or secured by capitalists in foundries conducted on the 
 wages system." That Mr. Sylvis laid sufficient stress on 
 co-operation is proved by the following extract from an arti- 
 cle on that topic in the Iron Moulders' International Jour- 
 nal : — 
 
 " Of all the questions now before us, not one is of so great 
 importance, or should command so large a portion of our 
 consideration, as co-operation. . . . Co-operation is the only 
 true remedy for low wages, strikes, lock-outs, and a thousand 
 other impositions and annoyances to which workingmen are 
 subjected." 
 
 At the close of 1869, members of the Iron Moulders' 
 International Union owned and operated fourteen co-opera- 
 tive foundries chiefly in New York and Pennsylvania.^ 
 
 How many foundries were established, there is no means 
 of discovering. Most of them have failed, but there have 
 been some examples of success, and the iron-workers still 
 show sufficient faith in co-operation to continue an unin- 
 terrupted series of experiments in associated effort. 
 
 The Co-operative Foundry Company of Rochester has 
 been a financial success, though, a partial failure as a co- 
 operative enterprise. When it was established, nineteen 
 years ago, all employees were stockholders, and profits 
 were divided as follows : twelve per cent on capital, and the 
 balance in proportion to the earnings of the men. But 
 
 1 Autliority is an article in the New York Times of Jan. 18, 1870. 
 
184 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 the capitalist was stronger than the co-operative brother. 
 Dividends on capital were advanced in a few years to seven- 
 teen and one-half per cent on capital, then to twenty- 
 five, and finally the distribution of any part of the profits in 
 proportion to wages was discontinued. Money has been 
 made, and dividends have been paid every year. Two 
 years ago they amounted to forty per cent on capital. 
 About one-fifth of the employees are now stockholders. 
 Co-operation has not in this case prevented a conflict be- 
 tween employer and employee, as is shown in a recent strike 
 of three months and a half duration. It is interesting to 
 notice that one of the strikers, a member of the Moulders' 
 Union, owned stock to the amount of $7,000. 
 
 The Buffalo Co-operative Stove Company is still in opera- 
 tion, and its prospects are reported as good. I am unable 
 to learn how much of the stock is owned by workmen. 
 
 The iron moulders established a co-operative foundry in 
 Nashua, N. H., in 1881, with a capital of ;?4,ooo which has 
 been increased to ;? 16,000. Customary wages are paid in 
 addition to ten per cent on stock. The effect on character 
 is indicated by the fact that there is only one intemperate 
 man among the workmen, and it is said that he is reform- 
 ing. 
 
 Another successful co-operative foundry company is de- 
 scribed in the Massachusetts Report on Labor for 1877. It 
 was established in 1868 in Somerset, Mass., and is still in 
 "successful operation in that place. A foundry, under the 
 auspices of the Knights of Labor, has been recently started, 
 or is about to start, at Spring City, Pa. A new co-operative 
 stove foundry in Atchison, Kan., has also been reported 
 recently. It is evident, then, that there has been more or 
 less co-operation, and a great deal of co-operative feeling 
 among the iron-moulders during the last twenty years. 
 
CO-OPERATION IM AMERICA. 185 
 
 The Sovereigns of Industry did but little in the way of 
 productive co-operation, and the Patrons of Husbandry 
 have accomplished comparatively little in this direction, 
 although their achievements have not been unworthy of 
 notice. Indeed, it is certain that our farmers do not desire 
 any all-embracing system of co-operation, for that would 
 include agriculture which most of them wish to pursue 
 individually. Their co-operation has ever looked chiefly, 
 though not exclusively, to the abolition of an expensive sur- 
 plus of middlemen, in order to save the gains of this class 
 for themselves. 
 
 The only large and powerful organization which has 
 earnestly taken hold of the entire industrial problem, with a 
 view to the final introduction of co-operation into all spheres 
 of production, and the complete overthrow of the present 
 industrial and competitive economic order, is the Knights of 
 Labor. Their public Declaration of Principles contains this 
 statement with reference to co-operation : — 
 
 " We will endeavor to associate our own labors, to estab- 
 lish co-operative institutions, such as will supersede the wage 
 system by the introduction of a co-operative industrial sys- 
 tem." 
 
 While the Knights of Labor have not entirely neglected 
 distributive co-operation, their achievements in productive 
 co-operation are far more remarkable, and are now to be 
 seen in all parts of the land. I suppose that I might, with- 
 out great difficulty, enumerate one hundred co-operative 
 undertakings at present in progress under the auspices of 
 the Knights. 
 
 One of the branches of production in which co-operation, 
 both among the Knights of Labor, and among other work- 
 ing-men, has noticeable results to exhibit, is journalism and 
 publication. The following periodicals are published by 
 
186 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 co-operative societies : the Labor Si/tings of Fort Worth, 
 Tex. ; the Trades Union of Atchison, Kan. ; the Fuget 
 Sound Weekly Co-operator, W. T. ; the People, Providence, 
 R. I. ; the Daily Evening Star of Bay City, Mich. ; the 
 daily and weekly Laborer of Haverhill, Mass. ; and the New 
 Yorker Volkszeitung. The success of the two last named 
 is considerable. With the exception of the Staatszeitung 
 of New York, the New Yorker Volkszeitung, a moderate 
 socialistic journal, claims the largest circulation among the 
 German papers of the country. It is a daily, with a weekly 
 and a special Sunday edition. The Boston Herald, it is 
 interesting to note, may be traced back to a co-operative 
 enterprise among a number of printers in 1846. 
 
 The Kentucky Railroad Tobacco Company of Covington 
 is endeavoring to introduce equitable relations between 
 labor and capital in this novel manner : The employees are 
 paid " weekly their wages in cash and in full, ar^ these 
 wages to be fully up to the prices paid for corresponding 
 labor in any factory in the vicinity." Now these wages are 
 regarded as a dividend of six per cent on the labor cap- 
 ital represented by the workman. If an employee averages 
 $\2 a week, his labor stock is estimated at ^10,000; for at 
 six per cent interest that would yield ^600. In other 
 words, wages are capitalized and added to money capital. 
 As labor has already received six per cent in wages, cap- 
 ital must first receive six per cent out of any profits. 
 The surplus is a dividend on labor stock and on cash 
 capital. Thus, if eight per cent on the entire capital is 
 realized, the laborer whose earnings are J600 per annum 
 will receive an additional ;^200, or two per cent on his 
 labor stock of ^10,000. The following lines are under- 
 scored in the circular of the company : — 
 
 " Every stockholder in this concern must be a worker. 
 
CO-OPERA TION IN AMERICA. 187 
 
 No one is allowed to hold any of the stock who does not 
 work in the factory. Every worker in the factory must be a 
 Knight of Labor. 
 
 " The only factory in the United States that recognizes 
 the equality of labor and capital." 
 
 The president of the company, J. R. Ledyard, pub- 
 lished some time ago the following testimony as to the 
 advantages of co-operation as exhibited by their ex- 
 perience : — 
 
 " The marked effect of co-operation, as is shown amongst 
 the workers in this factory, would convince any one that 
 it works good results in the whole morale of the man. 
 So much does every one in the factory feel interested 
 that it requires no watching, no ordering, no admoni- 
 tions, but all are on the alert to do and keep everything 
 the best." 
 
 It is not necessary to consider at length all the individual 
 cases of co-operation in production in the United States. 
 Indeed, to do so would require a work of several volumes. 
 A few concerns are mentioned, however, merely to show the 
 diversity of pursuits to which it is attempted to apply co- 
 operation, and also to bring out clearly the fact that the 
 movement is national in extent. Many, in fact nearly all, 
 the enterprises are humble from the point of view of busi- 
 ness, but their significance lies in their germinal character. 
 Carpenters' Co-operative Association, Decatur, 111. ; Co-oper- 
 ative Manufacturing Company (boots and shoes), Easton, 
 Pa.; Concord Co-operative Printing Company (hmited), 
 47 and 49 Center Street, New York; Co-operative Flint 
 Works, Beaver Falls, Pa.; Richmond (Va.) Co-operative 
 Commercial and Manufacturing Company (soap) ; Union 
 Co-operative Granite Works, South Ryegate, Vt. ; Quincy 
 Co-operative Granite Works, West Quincy, Mass. ; two co- 
 
188 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 operative hat companies, in South Norwalk, Ct. ; Union 
 Co-operative Building Association, Denver, Col.' 
 
 The most remarkable success of co-operative production 
 is found among the coopers of Minneapolis. Their first 
 co-operative barrel factory was started in 1874, and there 
 are now seven of them, doing a business of one million dol- 
 lars yearly. Interest is paid on money invested, and surplus 
 profits are divided among the coopers in proportion to earn- 
 ings. 
 
 Nearly all the mills of Minneapolis are supplied by them, 
 and are well satisiied with the quahty of their work. It is 
 prophesied by Mr. J. S. Rankin that soon there will not be 
 a "boss" cooper shop in the town. This Mr. Rankin, 
 whose name is important in the history of co-operation in 
 Minneapolis, is thus described by a common acquaintance : — 
 
 " There is an old printer, named Rankin, here, who is a 
 moderate socialist and well read in political economy. He 
 is a charming old man, and comes into my oflfice for a talk 
 occasionally. He is reading Sidgwick just now. . . . He is 
 an ardent believer in co-operation, and has been a sort of 
 father to the movement among our coopers." 
 
 As I was not able to visit Minneapolis in my tour of in- 
 vestigation, I will quote the interesting testimony of an eye- 
 witness, my friend, Dr. Albert Shaw of the Minneapolis Tri- 
 bune, who has had opportunity to see the practical workings 
 of co-operation in MinneapoUs, and who kindly writes me 
 the following statement : — 
 
 " I have found a remarkable instance of productive co- 
 operation. I have already begun to collect the data for an 
 
 1 Twelve co-operative manufacturing enterprises in Massachusetts 
 are mentioned in the report of Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1886. 
 The article on Profit Sharing in that Report should be read by those 
 who desire further information on this subject. 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 189 
 
 economic essay, to be entitled, ' Tlie Co-operative Coopers 
 of Minneapolis.' So far as I am aware, these cooper-shops 
 form the most successful examples of productive co-opera- 
 tion in the world ; and yet, if anybody has ever alluded to 
 them in a scientific way, I have never found it out. When 
 I state that the flour mills of this city far surpass those of 
 any other milling point in the world, and that they have a 
 daily capacity of thirty thousand barrels of floor, you will 
 perceive the necessity for coopers. Not far from half the 
 flour is shipped in barrels (the other half in sacks). There 
 are some seven hundred coopers at work on flour barrels. 
 About two hundred and fifty of these are 'journey- men' 
 working for ' boss ' coopers in three different shops. The 
 remaining four hundred and fifty (more or less) are grouped 
 in seven co-operative shops, which they own and manage 
 themselves. The system is indigenous. It has been devel- 
 oped by laboring men without any patronage, or preaching, 
 or persuasive literature. It began a dozen years ago in the 
 feeblest way, without friends or capital, and in the face of 
 suspicion and distrust. It has won its way until two-thirds 
 of the coopers have gone into co-operative movements. It 
 has secured such State laws as it required, and it has credit 
 and standing. Its moral effects are more marked and grati- 
 fying than its financial and industrial success. It develops 
 manhood, responsibility, self-direction, and independence. 
 Co-operative building associations have had some 
 degree of success here, and still greater in St. Paul. A 
 good many of the co-operative coopers own houses, which 
 they were able to build by virtue of membership in co-oper- 
 ative building associations." 
 
190 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 III. Other Co-operative Forms. 
 
 The various forms of co-operative union between em- 
 ployer and employee are deservedly attracting attention at 
 present. It is impossible to give statistics showing the 
 extent to which such union prevails, but a few prominent 
 and typical instances may properly be mentioned by way of 
 illustration. 
 
 The employees of the publishers of the New Yorker 
 Staatszeitung, and of the Century magazine have for some 
 time shared in the profits of these remunerative enterprises, 
 and the results are pronounced most satisfactory to all par- 
 ties concerned. The proprietor of a third leading periodi- 
 cal, Mr. George W. Childs of the Public Ledger, shares 
 profits with his men, but I am not aware that he has 
 adopted any definite rule as to the proportion he gives them. 
 He states plainly, however, that if he has any money to give 
 away, he thinks those first to be remembered are the men 
 who helped him to earn it. The compositors in the Ledger 
 office receive considerably higher wages than the Union to 
 which they belong demands. This Union, the International 
 Typographical Union, is encouraged by Mr. Childs in various 
 ways, as he sees no reason why his employees should not 
 combine for their mutual benefit. The organized composi- 
 tors of Philadelphia having received a plot of ground from 
 him for use as a cemetery, now call it the Printers' Cemetery. 
 In the summer of 1885 Mr. Childs invited the delegates to the 
 annual convention of the International Typographical Union 
 to pay him a visit in Philadelphia, where he entertained 
 them handsomely. Mr. Childs has consequently been made 
 a member of the local unions in Washington and Baltimore, 
 as well as elsewhere, and in more than one lodge-room of 
 the order his photograph is a highly prized ornament. It is 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 191 
 
 doubtful whether any other large employer of labor is so 
 reverenced by his men as Mr. Childs by the printers. 
 
 Mr. Walter A. Wood of Hoosac Falls, N. Y., the presi- 
 dent of the Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machine 
 Company, has made it very easy for his employees to 
 acquire stock in the company, and has in various other ways 
 practically co-operated with his men, and is well pleased 
 with the successful experiment. A few years ago it was 
 stated in the Massachusetts Report on Labor that the Wal- 
 tham Watch Company had likewise assisted its employees 
 to acquire stock, and that with the most happy results. 
 
 A careful plan of profit sharing has been developed by 
 Messrs. Charles A. Pillsbury & Co., merchant millers of 
 Minneapolis, who poKtely write me as follows concerning 
 their methods : — 
 
 " Three years since, we started the co-operative system in 
 our mills by setting aside a percentage of our profits, which 
 we divide among certain of our men. First, we include in 
 the division every man who occupies an especially important 
 position and trustworthy place in any of our mills or our 
 office; and, secondly, every man who has been in our 
 employ for five years or over, no matter how menial his 
 position. . . . We certainly have the most loyal set of 
 employees in the world, and we think the money which we 
 have thus set aside and paid out has been the best invest- 
 ment we ever made. We never have the least trouble on 
 the question of labor. . . . We think the .great success of 
 our flour has been not so much that it is better than any 
 other flour that can be found in the market, but from its 
 great uniformity ; and this result it would be impossible to 
 obtain without the most conscientious co-operation of our 
 employees." 
 
 The Messrs. Pillsbury modestly refrain from offering for 
 
192 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 publication any statement of the amount of profits dis- 
 tributed by them to their employees, but elsewhere it has 
 been asserted that it was in the neighborhood of one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars. 
 
 Co-operative insurance demands a few words in a survey 
 of the field of co-operation, although it is not specifically a 
 labor affair. All insurance is, in a certain sense, co-opera- 
 tion, for men practically agree to help one another in case 
 of loss. It often happens that there is a go-between in the 
 shape of a joint-stock corporation, which may raise the cost 
 by extra charges, to cover the expense of dividends and sal- 
 aries which are sometimes exorbitant. The mutual compa- 
 nies are a nearer approach to pure co-Operation, inasmuch 
 as any surplus, after expenses are defrayed, professes to be 
 distributed among the insured. A reserve of large propor- 
 tions is often accumulated, but if this is honest it is simply a 
 guarantee, and is held in trust for the policy-holders, that is 
 to say, those who are insured. The so-called co-operative 
 insurance companies are generally, if not always, assessment 
 companies. Definite payments are not required, but in case 
 of death or loss, an assessment is levied on each member. 
 It is well known that insurance is one of the chief lines of 
 business to-day in all civilized communities. The number 
 of companies which are called co-operative is also large, 
 and a considerable part of their membership consists of 
 working people. In the year 1883, one hundred and twenty 
 co-operative companies reported to the insurance depart- 
 ment of New York State. Their total assets were nearly 
 two and a half miUions of dollars, and their receipts from 
 members, during the year, nearly eleven and a half millions. 
 Many labor societies have insurance features connected with 
 them, as, for example, the Knights of Labor. The insur- 
 ance department of this organization has not long been 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 193 
 
 thoroughly organized, but it includes some six thousand 
 members. There are also innumerable friendly societies in 
 the United States which have insurance features on the 
 mutual plan. Nearly all the negroes in Southern cities 
 belong to one or more of these. 
 
 Another kind of insurance, and one which takes directly 
 hold of the labor problem, is that occasionally provided 
 through the medium of employers. The most remarkable 
 instance is the Baltimore and Ohio Employees' Relief Asso- 
 ciation, which provides for accident, disability, death, and, 
 in fact, nearly every contingency except lack of work. Its 
 membership is between sixteen and seventeen thousand, and 
 during the last fiscal year it distributed over two hundred 
 and sixty thousand dollars in benefits. The Baltimore and 
 Ohio Company contributes some thirty thousand dollars a 
 year to the association. The work of this association is 
 little appreciated among the employees who belong to it. 
 For this there are several reasons. One is, that membership 
 is compulsory on all who have entered the service of the 
 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company since the compulsory 
 feature was announced, some three or four years ago. Sec- 
 ond, the members renounce in advance all claims against the 
 company in case of injury. Third, although the insurance 
 is cheap, unsound associations offer insurances at such low 
 rates that the men think it high. The men get back all they 
 put in, and more too. Fourth, the company has, unhappily, 
 a name as a hard master ; and whatever it does is viewed 
 with suspicion by its employees, even when, as in this case, 
 there is little ground for anything but satisfaction. Fifth, a 
 just cause for complaint is one which it is difficult to see a 
 way to avoid altogether. The dependence of the men is 
 increased ; and, in case pf (iischarge, much that has been 
 paid is lost. 
 
194 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Railroad Company has introduced a 
 similar plan of insurance, though the pronounced opposition 
 of its employees has induced it to abandon the compulsory 
 feature. 
 
 Careful thought and an examination of the subject -in the 
 light of European experience has at length convinced that 
 it is doubtful whether it is desirable to encourage the insur- 
 ance of laborers by their employers ; and I say this with a 
 full appreciation of the great good which the Baltimore and 
 Ohio Association has accomplished. It can be too easily 
 abused to enslave the employees of vast corporations, upon 
 which there is already so large a measure of dependence 
 as to endanger the free development of 'those who desire 
 a livelihood in their service. It is better that insurance 
 should be effected through the agency of independent 
 associations which do not impede freedom of movement.' 
 
 It is an unfortunate feature of co-operative or assessment 
 life and accident insurance, that most people do not under- 
 stand that the average man cannot take out more than he 
 puts in. Insurance is simply a plan whereby men help one 
 another ; and all the benefits one member of the association 
 receives must be paid by the insured. The superintendent 
 of the insurance department of New York says truly, that it 
 is impossible to understand how intelligent people can be 
 duped by many of these co-operative insurance schemes 
 which one meets on every hand. The superintendent has 
 heard from men of good business reputation their statement 
 
 1 It should be distinctly understood that this opinion is not based on 
 my observation of the workings of the Baltimore and Ohio Relief 
 Association ; for I believe the employees of the Baltimore and Ohio 
 Railway have been better treated since its existence than formerly; 
 but permanent institutions must be judged apart from their present 
 managers. 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 193 
 
 of " an implicit belief in a representation that, on the pay- 
 ment of a maximum amount of ^250, they will receive 
 shortly ^2,500." 
 
 The result of this faihire of the ordinary mind to under- 
 stand the Hmitations of insurance is sad disappointment and 
 vast loss. Misrepresentations are found in co-operative 
 schemes, even in places where it would be little expected. 
 A carpenter told me not long since that he insured in a co- 
 operative and benevolent society connected with one of the 
 largest sects in America. Though over thirty, he was told 
 that he could be insured for ;?2,ooo on payment of ^7 per 
 annum. There was an initiation fee, and assessment of ^i 
 in case of d^ath whenever the money was needed ; but he 
 was assured that there would not be over seven assessments 
 annually. At the present time there are two and three a 
 month. How serious and important a subject this is will be 
 seen by the statement that a newspaper not long ago pub- 
 lished a list of nearly five hundred failures among co-opera- 
 tive companies. There is doubtless a field for co-operation 
 in insurance of every kind ; but this entire business must be 
 regulated by law, and in each State placed under the strict- 
 est control of an insurance department officered by skilled 
 and experienced men. This is one of the cases where men 
 can protect themselves only through the agency of that great 
 co-operative institution we call the State. 
 
 Co-operative Credit. 
 
 There are few, if any, co-operative banks doing an ordi- 
 nary banking business, but designed particularly for the 
 working people of the United States. The large bank of 
 the Grangers in California has been mentioned, and several 
 other banks have at various times been established under 
 
196 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 the auspices of the same order. Why banking institutions 
 for working people should meet with remarkable success in 
 Germany, doing an annual business which is estimated in 
 hundreds of millions, while they have elsewhere attained no 
 considerable proportions, is not quite clear; and such 
 explanation as can be given would require more space than 
 ought to be allowed therefor in this book. It is, however, 
 noteworthy that each of the four countries where co-opera- 
 tion has attained immense proportions should be specially 
 distinguished for success along one particular line, — namely, 
 England for vast achievements in distributive co-operation, 
 France for productive co-operation, Germany for banking 
 through the co-operative credit unions, and the United 
 States for the building associations, which will be described 
 directly. , Before leaving this topic, it is worth while to say, 
 that there have been those who have strongly advocated the 
 belief that the German co-operative union might be made a 
 success among us. The late Josiah Quincy labored to estab- 
 lish them in Massachusetts, but did not succeed in inducing 
 the State Legislature to pass a suitable law. I trust I may 
 be pardoned for the personal allusion, if I state that after 
 the publication of an article on co-operative credit unions 
 five years ago, in the Atlantic Monthly, Mr. Quincy wrote to 
 me, urging me to take up the work where advancing years 
 compelled hini to drop it. 
 
 The Building Association, it has been said, is the most 
 successful form of co-operation in the United States. The 
 institution is also known by other names, having formerly 
 been called the Co-operative Saving Fund and Loan Associ- 
 ation in Massachusetts. This name was changed to Co- 
 operative Bank three years ago, simply for the sake of con- 
 venience. Both names are apt to mislead the uninitiated. 
 The institution never constructs a building, nor does it con- 
 
CO-OPERATION m AMERICA. 197 
 
 duct an ordinary banking business. It is an association of 
 men designed primarily to aid one another in securing 
 homes. The prospectus of the Co-operative Bank of 
 Haverhill lies before me and gives a good idea of its scope 
 in these lines, printed on one side as an advertisement ; — 
 
 " Do you wish to purchase a house ? Do you wish to pay 
 oif an existing mortgage ? Do you wish to build a house ? 
 Do you wish to become your own landlord? Do you wish 
 to save money? The Co-operative Bank will assist you in 
 either case." 
 
 Below are two effective pictures. The first presents to 
 the view a beautiful cottage, neat, well kept, surrounded by 
 fine grounds. Beneath is the information, "The occupant 
 of this house is paying for it through the Co-operative Bank." 
 The second gives a view of a city tenement, blinds off the 
 hinges, clothes flying on the housetop, and on the adjoining 
 building the sign, " Wines and Liquors." Words printed 
 below tell you that, "The occupant of this house has not 
 yet heard of the Co-operative Bank." The first of these 
 Building Associations was established at Frankford, a suburb 
 of Philadelphia; in 1831, and bore the name of the Oxford 
 Provident Building Association. The institution gradually 
 became common in Philadelphia, and extended thence to 
 the other States, but its greatest success outside of Penn- 
 sylvania appears to have been attained in Ohio, New Jersey, 
 and Massachusetts. 
 
 The plan is a simple one in its outlines. A number of 
 people associate themselves to form such a society, let us 
 say two hundred. They meet monthly, and pay into the 
 bank $\ each, or, all together, J200. Now this money is 
 put up at auction, and lent to the one who pays the highest 
 premium for it. Interest must be paid in addition at the 
 legal rate ; and security is exacted. This goes on month 
 
198 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 after month, all the moneys available being auctioned off 
 every month. Every one is a depositor or lender, and some 
 are borrowers. The deposits are to pay for shares, usually 
 ^200 each. Now it is manifest that one dollar must be 
 deposited once a month for two hundred months to pay for 
 a share, if no account is taken of profits and interest, which, 
 however, often reduce the time to ten years, and sometimes 
 to eight or nine. The deposits must be made regularly 
 until the shares taken are paid for. Let us suppose you 
 take five shares, or ;?iooo. You also borrow ^1000 to 
 enable you to build a house. By the time you have bought 
 the shares, your credit equals your debt, and that is paid. 
 The shares are said to have " matured." If you have 
 borrowed no money, you receive J 1000 in cash. Premiums, 
 fines for dilatory payment, and interest all go to swell profits 
 and to shorten the time during which the shares mature. 
 
 The career of these useful associations has been some- 
 what marred by many failures, owing to dishonesty and mis- 
 management ; but in Pennsylvania experience has taught the 
 people how to manage them with a fair degree of safety ; 
 and in Massachusetts good laws and the watchfulness and 
 supervision of the bank commissioners have placed them on 
 a secure footing. The large achievements of the Building 
 Associations are indicated by this " fact about co-operation," 
 taken from the Haverhill Prospectus, already mentioned ; — 
 
 " Philadelphia has 600 Building Associations, with a capi- 
 tal of ^80,000,000, and a membership of 75,000. The 
 entire State of Pennsylvania has about 1,800 associations." 
 
 The bank commissioners of Massachusetts enumerate 
 twenty-six co-operative banks in that State, with 10,294 
 members, 2,018 borrowers, ^1,971,923.20 in assets, an in- 
 crease of ;?50o,66o.77 from the preceding year. The reports 
 for several years indicate a healthy condition of the banks, 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 199 
 
 and in the report for 1884 the commissioners say, "These 
 banks have generally enjoyed a prosperous year." 
 
 Six years ago it was officially stated that 60,000 comfort- 
 able houses had been constructed in Philadelphia alone 
 through the aid derived from the Building Associations, and 
 it is certain that Mr. Barnard did not exaggerate when 
 he entitled the chapter describing them', in his book 
 on Co-operation as a Business, " One hundred thousand 
 homes." 
 
 IV. Past Failures and Future Possibilities. 
 
 Before we pass over to the subject of failures in co- 
 operation, it is important to emphasize a fact which the 
 preceding pages in this chapter have already made apparent ; 
 namely, that a large measure of success has attended co- 
 operation in the United States. When we sweep over the 
 entire field with any care, we find various kinds of co- 
 operation representing in the aggregate annual transac- 
 tions which may safely be estimated at over two hundred 
 millions of dollars. Part of this co-operative effort has but 
 an indirect bearing on the labor problem, but it all indicates 
 and measures a general movement, and is undoubtedly of 
 vast significance. We may then draw this general conclu- 
 sion : co-operation has by no means been a total failure in 
 the United States ; on the contrary a large measure of 
 success has been attained ; and the co-operative movement 
 in America was never so truly a live, vigorous force, full of 
 promise, as it is to-day. 
 
 Yet the ground is strewn with the fragments of wrecks. 
 Large loss, pinching poverty, the disappointment of ardent 
 hope and joyous enthusiasm, the frequent abandonment of 
 all efforts to obtain improved industrial methods, and a 
 sullen acceptance of old conditions as unalterable — all 
 
200 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 these have, from the start, attended the course of co-opera- 
 tion in the United States. Even when co-operative enter- 
 prises have succeeded, there has, as a rule, not been that 
 large outpouring of good things as a result, which people 
 anticipated. 
 
 What have been the causes of failure ? They have been 
 partly within the control of the laborer, partly beyond his 
 control. 
 
 First, the fact is to be noticed that co-operation generally 
 accompanies the progress of some labor organization. Now, 
 those with us who ought to have assisted the general labor- 
 movement, to have brought to it intelligence and business 
 skill, and infused it with high Christian purpose, have too 
 often stood aloof from it, even when they have not been 
 positively hostile to it. I must repeat here what I have said 
 elsewhere : it is my deliberate opinion that in no country 
 in the civilized world have the laborers, as such, been so 
 isolated as in the large industrial centres of the United 
 States. Both in Germany and in England, many of the 
 most brilliant and renowned and highest-minded men of 
 our times have been heart and soul with the laborers in all 
 their aspirations and struggles. Such has not been the case 
 in the United States. 
 
 Several consequences have followed the isolation of the 
 laboring classes. Legislators have given so little intelligent 
 attention to their needs, that it is only rarely that suitable 
 laws are found in our States, under which co-operative insti- 
 tutions can organize and conduct business. This has been 
 a frequent cause of complaint. Thus the commissioner of 
 the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Ohio says, on page 9 of 
 his Report for 1879 : — 
 
 " Unfortunately there is no law under which such associa- 
 tions can organize with the distinctive idea of co-operation, 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 201 
 
 which is, that each member of such association shall have 
 one vote and no more without reference to the number of 
 shares held." 
 
 A member of the Co-operative Board of the Knights of 
 Labor told me recently that a difficulty encountered in 
 Maryland was the absence of suitable laws, while General 
 Mussey, who took an honorable part in the co-operative 
 movement inaugurated by the Sovereigns of Industry, entered 
 a like complaint with respect to the laws of the District of 
 Columbia. 
 
 As important as this is, it is nevertheless a minor matter. 
 The absence of the participation of truly great minds in the 
 American labor movement has kept it on a lower ethical 
 plane with us than in England. The life of any industrial 
 body or any movement comes from its indwelling spirit, and 
 the chief element in successful co-operation must be invisi- 
 ble, intangible qualities, such as devotion, self-sacrifice, 
 patience in the pursuit of good ends, high purpose, a noble 
 esprit de corps such as shall make the maxim, " one for all, 
 all for one," a living reahty. In short, if co-operation is to 
 succeed as a practical application of Christianity to business, 
 there must be breathed into it a spirit of Christian consecra- 
 tion. A Congregational clergyman, not unknown in Western 
 Massachusetts, recently wrote me as follows concerning his 
 intention to join the Knights of Labor : — 
 
 " I am convinced that it is a duty as well as a privilege 
 to join the order. . . . The problem, as doctors of divinity 
 tell us, is, how to get the masses into the Church. I think a 
 better statement of the problem is, how to get the Church 
 into the masses. The Church is the leaven, the masses are 
 the meal. You cannot put a barrel of flour into a bottle of 
 yeast. You can put a bottle of yeast into a barrel of flour, 
 and with some result too." 
 
202 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Such a spirit as this has, unfortunately, not been so gen- 
 eral in the past as might be desired. Other obstacles in the 
 way of the success of co-operation are these : unsteady 
 employment, roving habits, the heterogeneous character of 
 our population — all preventing that consolidation and amal- 
 gamation of the masses which co-operation requires. As it 
 is, men do not sufficiently know one another, and are not 
 sufficiently attached to one another. 
 
 The multiphcity of openings for the gifted and fortunate 
 has been a further difficulty with which co-operation has had 
 to contend. In older countries a great deal of talent has 
 been found among the laboring classes ready to assist in co- 
 operative enterprises. Those members of the working 
 class in America, whose help is most needed among those 
 with whom their early associations have been cast, have 
 often, perhaps generally, left their early position for a higher 
 one — at any rate, for one which they thought higher and 
 more attractive ; and too often they have been willing to 
 ignore their old friends and neighbors. Our current forms 
 of philanthropy have had a similar effect. Their general 
 aim is too often to raise some one from a class into which 
 he has been bom, into a higher one, and that, of course, to 
 the injury of the masses. The result is that innumerable 
 doctors and lawyers are struggling for a practice, and many 
 clergymen are preaching to indifferent congregations, who 
 might have promoted the welfare of the masses as shoe- 
 makers, carpenters, and masons. The fact has been over- 
 looked that you injure the mechanics of a town when by 
 artificial means you encourage the ten best men among 
 them to leave their old occupations."^ What is needed is 
 
 1 It is hoped that this will not be misunderstood. Those of unusual 
 talents ought to be assisted. A Grand Duke of Germany observed artistic 
 genius in a kitchen boy in his palace and educated him. He is now 
 one of the foremost sculptors of Germany. Cases like this are rare. 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 203 
 
 philanthropic effort designed to benefit the laborer as a 
 laborer, the farmer as a farmer, the mechanic as a mechanic. 
 
 These many openings for men of abihty, and the large 
 returns on capital, have rendered men indifferent to the 
 small savings which co-operators in old countries consider 
 ample reward for their labor and sacrifices. Americans 
 have been too indifferent to small economies. This is seen 
 everywhere, and a striking example is the administration of 
 cities. Men of large property have deliberately declared 
 that they could better afford to bear the burden of munici- 
 pal corruption in New York than to give their time to the 
 duties of citizenship. 
 
 The masses generally are poor financiers, and especially 
 poor bookkeepers. This is a frequent cause of ruin which 
 gifted and devoted men might avert. Frequently all that a 
 co-operative concern needs to make it a complete success, 
 is merely a little friendly counsel by the right man at the 
 right time. The counsel has not been forthcoming, owing 
 to the already mentioned isolation of the laborers. A lack 
 of sufficient capital often ruins a promising co-operative 
 business. Here the remedy is obvious. Capital is abun- 
 dant, in the eastern part of the United States, at least, and 
 well-disposed men of means can, if they will, find opportu- 
 nities to help laboring men to help themselves, while at the 
 same time receiving a return on their investments. 
 
 Venality and corruption among the masses have often 
 ruined co-operative enterprises. The remedy suggests itself, 
 namely, a higher ethical development of the masses ; and 
 those labor-leaders who are hostile to the Christian religion 
 would do well to ask themselves whether any other force 
 than Christianity can supply the training in practical ethics 
 which is to-day the greatest need of the labor movement. 
 Co-operation must become a religion before it can succeed 
 
204 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 in its aim, which is the reconstruction of society. The chief 
 cause of success in Great Britain is due to the nearness with 
 which it has there approached the character of a true 
 religion. 
 
 The need of superior character on the part of co-opera- 
 tors is even more indispensable as a condition of success, 
 than on the part of those who participate in other forms of, 
 the labor movement ; for, as Brentano has so well pointed 
 out, co-operation is adapted to those who intellectually 
 belong to the great average mass, but who, in their moral 
 natures, are far above the average. 
 
 Another obstacle to the success of co-operation has been 
 the want of a tie to connect various co-operative enterprises. 
 In England, co-operation did not become a decided success 
 until a central board was formed, and men like Thomas 
 Hughes and E. Vansittart Neale were given positions of 
 influence in it. The co-operative credit-banks in Germany 
 have become a great power because they always acted 
 unitedly under their able founder, Schultze Delitzsch, a man 
 of university training and of experience both in the law and 
 in legislation. Through these central agencies, past experi- 
 ence has been utilized ; and an occasional hint or warning 
 from the central office, and consultation at annual con- 
 gresses have enabled the local societies to avoid the rock on 
 which others have made shipwreck. There has been httle 
 utilization of previous experience in the United States, for 
 co-operative enterprises have been too scattered and irregu- 
 lar, and one after another they have continued to repeat 
 the same mistakes, though three-fourths of them have prob- 
 ably been avoidable.'' 
 
 1 Recent publications of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of 
 Labor, have in view the utilization of past experience. The Sociologic 
 Society of America, whose President is Mrs. Imogene C. Fales, has 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 205 
 
 One large field for co-operation in the United States is to 
 be found in the coal regions. Here we find a comparatively 
 homogeneous population, and the inhabitants living in close 
 proximity to one another. We also find high prices paid for 
 poor goods, and a general deficiency in the supply of means 
 of distribution. Yet there is little co-operation among the 
 miners. What is the reason? The oppressive and generally 
 illegal truck system is the answer. Corporations force their 
 men to buy at the "company stores." Here is a place 
 where the strong arm of the law ought to be exercised with 
 vigor. 
 
 As a rule, however, outside of the regions of monopoly, 
 profits are not large, either in production or in distribution. 
 This is a point in regard to which people deceive them- 
 selves. If the laboring men could put the entire profits of 
 their grocer into their own pockets, they would, in many 
 towns, be greatly disappointed in the smallness of the addi- 
 tion to their resources. Sometimes there is no profit at all. 
 When the profits are great, it is probable that they are the 
 results of large transactions. If a co-operative store is estab- 
 lished, it will frequently be discovered that it is not possible 
 to distribute goods without profits so cheaply as some old- 
 established dealer after his profits have been added, since 
 the latter gains only the savings due to extraordinary skill, 
 diligence, and long experience. I do not mean that this is 
 always the case, but it is a description of what often happens. 
 
 Let us turn our attention to an illustration taken from a 
 productive establishment. It is said that sixty thousand 
 dollars invested in a shoe factory will employ two hundred 
 men. If profits are ten per cent, the owner obtains six 
 
 established a Co-operative Board which offers information to those who, 
 desire to start co-operative enterprises. The Chairman of the Board is 
 Samuel Whittles, Jr., Ii Ferry Street, Fall River, Mass. 
 
206 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 thousand dollars a year from the business. If the employer 
 labors for nothing, and distributes the entire proceeds among 
 the men, it will amount to only thirty dollars per annum for 
 each. If for each man in a foundry a capital of one thou- 
 sand dollars is required, and proiits are still ten per cent, that 
 would be one hundred dollars for each employee. These 
 profits are by no means to be despised, but they are not so 
 large for each laborer as is often imagined. The large 
 accumulations of employers, and their handsome incomes, 
 are frequently derived from small profits on the work of 
 each employee. The aggregate is large, because production 
 is carried on on a vast scale. The income of a man who 
 derives five cents a day from two thousand men is one hun- 
 dred dollars a day. It must likewise be remembered that it 
 is nothing uncommon to find manufacturers who have for 
 some time derived no profits from their enterprise, or who 
 have even worked at a loss. When laborers start co-opera- 
 tive concerns, there is danger that neglect of small econo- 
 mies will dissipate all gains. On the other hand, there are 
 superior advantages in well-conducted, well-disciplined co- 
 operative enterprises, such as greater energy, watchfulness, 
 thought, prudence, on the part of the workingmen. 
 
 Are the advocates of co-operation wrong when they point 
 to the enormous expenditures and terrible wastefulness of 
 our present economic system? The commissioner of the 
 Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics, in his report for 1878, esti- 
 mated the annual cost of distributing the products of indus- 
 try within the State at fifty miUions of dollars. Was it an 
 error on his part to imply that a large portion of this 
 expenditure was waste ? By no means ; nor are co-oper- 
 ators in error when they claim that co-operation might save 
 enough to bring comfort to all people in the United States. 
 But how can this be effected ? We must inquire into the 
 
CO-OPERATION IN AMERICA. 207 
 
 nature of the waste before we can return a satisfactory 
 answer. 
 
 This needless expenditure of economic resources, or labor- 
 force and capital-force, is the result of competition. Three 
 men are engaged in the distribution of groceries and dry- 
 goods where one might answer all needs. Twice as many 
 men, horses, and wagons are engaged in the distribution of 
 milk in a city as would be required if the business of supply- 
 ing milk were organized, and different routes assigned to 
 each man, so that four or five milkmen would not supply 
 customers on each block, which must occasion a vast amount 
 of travel to no purpose. The postoffice is a familiar illustra- 
 tion. Let one think of the great additional cost if each 
 letter-carrier picked up indiscriminately an armful of unas- 
 sorted letters and delivered them. Yet this is much like 
 the methods of competition. In all this the advocates of_ 
 co-operation are quite right. But how can this waste of 
 competition be avoided ? Only by a vast national organiza- 
 tion of co-operative industry, both in production and in dis- 
 tribution. This organization must be vast and powerful 
 enough to exercise a controlling influence in industry, and 
 repress competition and its wastes, or, at any rate, competi- 
 tion wherever and whenever it is excessively wasteful. In no 
 other possible way can co-operation accomplish those ends 
 which its adherents have prophesied it would bring to pass. 
 But this is not all. There are certain fundamental and pri- 
 mary conditions of economic activity. Why grow corn if 
 you cannot get it to market ? Why manufacture steel plows 
 if you cannot ship them to the consumer? Why engage 
 in business if your rival receives transportation at lower 
 rates than you? Your failure is only a matter of time, 
 struggle as hard as you may. Away back of ordinary busi- 
 ness enterprises, behind the energy and skill of the industri- 
 
208 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ous, there are governing, indispensable forces, whose control 
 is not and never can be in the hands of the private indi- 
 vidual. Suitable harbors, highways, bridges, the proper reg- 
 ulation and improvement of rivers, the establishment of the 
 conditions of public health by quarantine and other sanitary 
 arrangements, — all fall within this category. But the most 
 important of them all for our present purposes is the rail- 
 way. Herein lies the essence of the railway problem. 
 Men are working with a halter about their necks, and the 
 railway power holds the end of the rope. If it tightens its 
 hold, the victim dies. I know to-day -a co-operative coal 
 mine which is on this account gasping for breath. 
 
 Professor E. J. James is, then, quite right in his utterance : 
 " No system of co-operation or profit-sharing can succeed 
 until it is possible to make some estimate of the railroad 
 tax, which is in many cases destructive, no less by its 
 amount than by its uncertainty." The Knights of Labor are 
 also proceeding with a clear perception of the nature of the 
 conditions which surround them when, with the proclama- 
 tion of their desire to organize co-operative production on a 
 vast scale, they couple the demand for a reconstruction of 
 our railway system. 
 
 In the meantime, while waiting for a more fortunate basis 
 on which to operate, it is well to encourage every attempt of 
 working people and of others to co-operate. It is a train- 
 ing, a sowing of seed ; and even now, under favorable cir- 
 cumstances, co-operation can accomplish much good. We 
 must not turn aside from small economies, nor must we be 
 so ready, as heretofore, to despise the day of small things. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN 
 AMERICA. 
 
 THERE are in the United States three distinct parties 
 of socialists, which may be called revolutionary, since 
 they each aim at an overthrow of existing economic and 
 social institutions, and the substitution therefor of radically 
 different forms. These three parties are known as the 
 Socialistic Labor Party, the International Working People's 
 Association, and the International Workmen's Association, 
 and are usually designated by their respective initials, S. L. P., 
 I. W. P. A., and I. W. A. One sees these initials continually 
 in their pubKcations, and upon them incessant repetition 
 seems to have conferred in the minds of socialists a peculiar 
 cabalistic quality. Each of the International parties has 
 chosen a color, by which it is sometimes called. The color 
 of the International Working People's Association is black, 
 and one hears occasionally of the " Black International," ^ 
 while the International Workmen's Association prefers red, 
 and those belonging to it like to be known as the " Reds." 
 
 The effort was once made by John Most, to bring into 
 use the term the " Blues," as the designation of the mem- 
 bers of the Socialistic Labor Party. This was intended as a 
 reproach to them on account of their conservatism, but the 
 name has never been generally received. 
 
 1 This expression was used originally by Bismarclc, as a name for the 
 Roman Catholic Party of Germany. 
 
210 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 It may be well to devote a few words to the general char- 
 acteristics of these parties, and to a short account of their 
 origin, before passing over to a more detailed description of 
 each. These parties differ in most important particulars, 
 although they agree upon certain fundamental propositions. 
 Their divergence is, first and foremost, one of method. 
 Both the " Black " and the " Red " Internationalists are 
 men of violence, believing in the use of dynamite and like 
 weapons of warfare, as means of attaining their purposes ; 
 while the adherents of the Socialistic Labor Party condemn 
 these tactics, and some of them have not renounced all 
 hope of a peaceful revolution of society. The next diifer- 
 ence which attracts attention is one of character. The 
 Socialistic Labor Party is composed of men of better bal- 
 anced minds, and, it has always seemed to me, of better 
 training than those who comprise the other parties.* The 
 Internationalists cannot be denied a certain keenness of per- 
 ception, but they are narrow and fanatical. They see 
 clearly within a certain range of ideas, but the moment they 
 are drawn without the limited circle with which they are 
 familiar, they are like men blind from birth. The zeal and 
 devotion with which they pursue their ends are remarkable, 
 and may be explained by their very narrowness. All their 
 intellect and all the force of their moral natures are concen- 
 trated on their cause. If the members of the more moder- 
 ate Socialistic Labor Party are somewhat less earnest, they 
 are broader in their conceptions and more capable of under- 
 standing the opinions of those with whom they differ. For 
 
 1 The Intevnationalists deny strenuously that the moderate socialists 
 are better educated, and one who ought to know better than I told me 
 once that the Internationalists had all the brains. They have able 
 adherents in Europe, like Elis^e Reclus and Prince Krapotkine, but I 
 still think that my original judgment is correct for our country. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 211 
 
 this reason among others, they adopt a more refined tone 
 and have less sympathy with indiscriminate abuse of all who 
 uphold existing institutions. It is largely due to this diver- 
 sity of method and of personal qualities that the members 
 of the three parties have found it impossible to act harmo- 
 niously together, and that the Socialistic Labor Party is at 
 present at sword's points with the Internationalists. There 
 are also important differences of doctrine ; but these, as 
 more complicated, will be described in the detailed treat- 
 ment of the parties. 
 
 The points of agreement are, as has been said, funda- 
 mental, and it is well at the start to clear away a misappre- 
 hension which exists in the minds of many by mentioning 
 a negative particular, in which all socialists agree. It seems, 
 indeed, to be necessary to begin every article, monograph 
 or book, on the theory of socialism, by the statement that no 
 one advocates or even desires an equal division of produc- 
 tive property. What they wish is a concentration of all the 
 means of production in the property of the people as a 
 whole, and the distribution of the income, that is, of the 
 products only, either equally or unequally, according to the 
 views entertained of what is just and expedient. It is pro- 
 posed to abolish private property in the instruments of pro- 
 duction, not, however, in income so far as this consists 
 simply of, articles of use and enjoyment which cannot serve 
 as a basis of further production. 
 
 Another negative in which all socialists agree is this : 
 None of them wish to abolish capital, and he who tries to con- 
 vince them of the utility of capital, renders himself ridiculous 
 to them. What they desire is to do away with a distinct 
 class of capitalists, and in this they agree with co-operators, 
 although they propose to obtain their end by a very different 
 course. Positive points of agreement are these, — all social- 
 
212 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ists advocate the use of the best machinery, all favor the 
 most improved methods of production, and all desire to 
 organize production on a vast international basis. The pro- 
 gramme of American sociahsm, then, includes primarily 
 the substitution of some form of exclusive co-operation in 
 production and exchange, for the present leadership of 
 " Captains of industry " in production and exchange, or 
 capitalistic system, as it is termed, and the abolition of pri- 
 vate property in land and capital, to make room for common 
 property in the instruments of production. In other words, 
 all our socialistic parties regarding the wage-receiver as 
 practically a slave, desire the advent of a time when co- 
 operators shall take the place both of industrial master and 
 industrial subordinate. All wish to abolish the possibility of 
 idleness, and to make of universal application the maxim : 
 " He that will not work, neither shall he eat." The leaders 
 of these parties are materialists, though the materialism of 
 the Socialistic Labor Party' is less gross than that of die 
 Internationalists. Haviqg abandoned hope of a happy 
 hereafter in which the poor, but honest and God-fearing, 
 laborer shall find rich reward for all toil and suffering 
 patiently borne, they have determined to enjoy this life, 
 and, as it is not an easy thing to believe that there is 
 no blessedness in the universe, they imagine this earth 
 designed to be a paradise. They talk of its beauties and of 
 the soul-satisfying delights of life, from all of which they are 
 needlessly debarred, not so much, say the moderates, by any 
 wilful conspiracy of the rich, as by the failiure of man to 
 
 ^ A member of this party — the Socialistic Labor Party — com 
 ments as follows on their materialism : " Not to be understood in the 
 pure sense of the word, better monism as taught by Darwin, HteckeL 
 Kant, and Spinoza, the world being a whole, and all forces being in 
 contact." 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 213 
 
 perceive that the time has come for a complete reconstruc- 
 tion of industrial society. 
 
 It is interesting to notice the general view all modern 
 sociaUsts take of society as a growth. Each social form is 
 regarded as an era in the development of society ; useful in 
 its time, but after awhile becoming antiquated, it must give 
 way to an advanced organism. Slavery, serfdom, and wages 
 were not unjustifiable, they hold; but the Internationalists 
 and moderates think that these institutions have all had their 
 day, have fulfilled their purpose, and are no longer needed 
 among the nations of civilization, though there may still be 
 regions where they are not yet antiquated.'' " We do not 
 deny," says one of these socialists, "that there are countries 
 that have not yet outlived the wage-system ; but we have 
 certainly outlived it in the United States, and cannot safely 
 continue it." ^ Socialism is, then, coming just as the leaves 
 are coming in spring, and just as these will be followed by 
 bloom and fruitage. It is not of human willing, but as 
 inevitable and necessary as the law of gravitation. All that 
 the more sensible among them profess to be able to do, is to 
 guide and direct the mighty forces of nature, which manifest 
 themselves in social revolutions and convulsions. Thus it 
 was natural that the resolutions presented to the meeting of 
 Anarchists held in Chicago, on Thanksgiving day of 1884, 
 should begin, " Whereas, we have outlived the usefulness of 
 the wage and property system, that it now and must here- 
 after cramp, Hmit, and punish' all increase of production, and 
 
 1 This is the explanation of one of the socialists : " Socialists at 
 large consider capitalism a necessary means for reaching a higher level 
 of civilization. Socialism cannot be established without developed 
 capitalism, the value of which consists in introducing and perfecting 
 the ' Great-Production.' " 
 
 ''■ V. The Alarm, Dec. 6, 1884. Article, Co-operation. 
 
 ° The author gives his quotations verbatim et literatim, making no 
 attempt to improve style or grammar. 
 
214 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 can no longer gratify the necessities, rights, and ambitions 
 of man," etc. 
 
 It may be stated that in general the teachings of Carl 
 Marx are accepted by both parties, and his work on capital 
 ("Das Kapital ") is still the Bible of the socialists.* This 
 work has not as yet been translated into English, although a 
 translation is announced for the near future; but extracts 
 from it have been turned into our tongue and published; 
 and brochures, pamphlets, newspapers, and verbal expositions 
 have extended his doctrines, while H. M. Hyndman has 
 expounded the views of the ^reat teacher in his " Historical 
 Basis of Socialism " in England. 
 
 In this country a young enthusiast, Laurence Gronlund, 
 a lawyer of Philadelphia, has written a recently published 
 work, entitled " The Co-operative Commonwealth," designed 
 to present the socialism of Marxj as it appears after it has 
 been digested, to use the author's words, " by a mind Anglo- 
 Saxon in its dislike of all extravagances, and in its freedom 
 from any vindictive feeling against persons who are from 
 circumstances what they are." 
 
 The use of the red flag, and also of the color red in 
 other forms, as an emblem of their faith, is common to 
 socialists the world over. What does it mean? The reply 
 can be best given in the following quotations, which have 
 been gathered together from various sources. 
 
 The red flag. — " The emblem of the universal brother- 
 hood of man." 
 
 1 Recently one of their papers, the New Yorker Volkssseitung, pro- 
 tested against this epithet as applied to the work of Marx, as it was not 
 desired that any book should be regarded in the light of an infallible 
 guide. It was feared that this would hinder progress. Yet the term 
 describes better than anything else the actual feeling towards "Das 
 Kapital," and among the more ignorant socialists reverence for a great 
 leader has ere this approached idolatry. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 21S 
 
 It is " the symbol of the frequently shed blood of the 
 proletariat, and at the same time the sign of the salvation 
 of the suffering and starving people." — Vorbote of Chicago, 
 Sept. 9, 1885. 
 
 "The red flag signifies the gospel Paul preached on Mars 
 Hill, that God had made of one blood all nations, and that 
 it is the banner of one blood, the emblem of fraternity." — 
 First Report of the Kansas Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 
 p. 100. 
 
 " It may be said that the color red, which for decorative 
 purposes is capable of magnificent effects, represents to 
 French workmen not, as some have absurdly said, violence 
 in any way, but the peaceful republic of industry." — Fred- 
 eric Harrison in the Fortnightly Review, vol. 23, New Series 
 (1878). 
 
 " The red flag is the symbol of blood shed by the people 
 for liberty. Adopted by socialists of all countries, it repre- 
 sents the unity and fraternity of the races of men, while 
 the national banners represent hostility and war between the 
 different States." — In the Preamble adopted by the English 
 Internationalists in 1873. Quoted from Professor de Lave- 
 leye's " Socialism of To-day," p. 210. 
 
 It is thus seen that the red flag in itself is innocent. It 
 may be in the minds of some as devoid of any intent to do 
 wrong as a Sunday-school banner. On the other hand, if 
 used as a flag of actual rebels, it may be terrible indeed. 
 There is no reason why it should alarm people in time of 
 peace. It is with the red flag as it is with the English flag. 
 It would to-day give no anxiety to see a man unfurl a British 
 flag in New York ; possibly one year from to-day it would 
 cost him his life. 
 
 It is difficult and perhaps impossible to trace out the first 
 germs of Revolutionary Socialism in America, although it is 
 
216 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 certain that it is not descended from early American com- 
 munism, to which it has httle resemblance. The influence 
 of the later movement on the earlier, has, however, been 
 more perceptible, but even that has been comparatively 
 slight. The first cause of the recent acceptance of socialism 
 by parties of workingmen in America must be sought in the 
 economic conditions of the country, for no theory of society 
 ever found adherents enough to attract the general notice of 
 the public, which did not have some close connection with the 
 historical facts of the period. The phenomena must have 
 existed to give rise to those generalizations, which, taken 
 together, constituted the theory of society in question. 
 True, these phenomena may have been unnaturally separated 
 from other unseen phenomena, and their true import may 
 have been sadly misunderstood; some faulty classification 
 and over-hasty and otherwise imperfect generalizations may 
 have led to erroneous conclusions, and mistaken or even 
 criminal actions ; nevertheless, it holds true, that no philo- 
 sophical or social system can be understood without an 
 examination of the life of the people among whom it arose, 
 and of the times when it gained adherents. 
 
 Socialism has begun to excite alarm in America, and its 
 advocates are found in all parts of the country ; but it is a 
 gross mistake to treat it as a purely artificial or imported 
 product. It could make no headway until the march of 
 industrial forces had opened the . way for the operation of 
 ideas, new and strange to the great masses. ^Vhat the 
 nature of the progress of these forces was, is well known. 
 A wonderful epoch of discovery and invention had brought 
 to the service of man the mighty powers of nature in such 
 manner as to accomplish results surpassing the dreams of 
 enthusiasts and the operations of the magician's wand in the 
 fairy tale. This_ushered in a period of unparalleledjnciease- 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 217 
 
 of w ealth which was sufficient to transform the face of the 
 earth in a single generation, and its magnmcent t'ruits made" 
 optimists of men. 
 
 But all the products of the age were not beneficent. The 
 new ways required a displacement an d readjustment of labor 
 and capital, under which many sufferedgr eviously. Doubt- 
 less progress led to the common good "in the end," as 
 people say, but many perished in the way before the end was 
 reached. Much capital which could not be withdrawn from 
 its old use, was lost, to the im poverishment_ o£jts_owners. 
 To take a single concrete example, let one think of the inns 
 which fifty years ago flourished along the great mail and 
 stage routes. How many were ruined in the improvements 
 which George Stephenson and his locomotive have finally 
 made a daily necessity ? Again, .advajiced-.process^__aji^ 
 labor-saving machinery frequently throw men entirely out of 
 emglfljanent, though after a time the demand for laborers 
 may increase immensely, as has occurred in the case of spin- 
 ning and weaving. Quite as serious in its ultimate conse- 
 quences is the fact that_acq4*ired- skill-was so^£i£ten_ rendered 
 superfluous. A few rose to great wealth, but the masses 
 knew what the newspapers did not chronicle, namely, the fall 
 of ma musmatl-^reducers an d Q n r . e --s k illed-aEtisajis_lQ-ihe 
 condition _Df -laborers.^ Great good comes to many as the 
 result of progress, for if the picture is not so bright as some 
 imagine, it is not so dark as others are often inclined 
 
 ' I have seen it stated that the number of servants and other em- 
 ployees in the United States has increased three times as rapidly as the 
 population. There are no statistics which could be relied upon to give 
 us the exact data, and I have not at hand those which would enable 
 me to form even an approximate estimate. The subject deserves atten- 
 tion, and I simply give the statement .for what it is worth without my 
 indorsement. 
 
218 THE LAB OF MOVEMENT. 
 
 to think; but even those who gained, frequently suffered 
 temporarily. 
 
 For the time being men suffer, and the time being is an 
 important factor to men who live from hand to mouth, as is 
 the case with a great part of mankind. Those who suffered, 
 often complained bitterly, and at times uttered dire threats 
 which were occasionally executed in part at least. All this 
 has long been a familiar fact in Europe. From the termina- 
 tion of the Napoleonic wars till the discovery of gold in 
 California and Australia, was a period of distress in England, 
 and what Sismondi saw in the crisis of 1819, when on a visit 
 to that country, produced such an effect upon him that he 
 felt compelled to throw overboard the poUtical economy of 
 Adam Smith, to which he had previously adhered, and to 
 write his " Nouveaux Principes d'Economie Politique." The 
 example of England is not an isolated one. 
 
 In the United States, however, there was abundance of 
 fertile, unoccupied land on every side, and the undeveloped 
 resources of the country were boundles s, botijuCLgx tent and 
 in their potentialities for the^ prpduction-ot^ealth. While 
 '^omg suff"e re'3""aoubtI ess. they were jximparatively-few, and 
 "the tremendous strides with which America was advancing in 
 power and prosperity, caused them generally to be over- 
 looked. The bloom and fruitage of the age regarded from 
 a materialistic, economic standpoint seemed almost wholly 
 beneficent, and Americans, as a rule, were optimists. But a 
 change was impending. A severe crisis in 187^ , with all its 
 train of varied disasters, checked economic progress, and 
 brought the crushing weight of poverty upon tens of thou- 
 sands. This was not the first industrial crash in America, to 
 be sure, but it is doubtful whether any other followed on an 
 era of such prosperity. 
 
 Then the wealth of a few had increased enormously dur- 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 219 
 
 ing the Civil War, while luxury, such as had scarce entered 
 the day-dreams of our fathers, extended itself over the land. 
 Never before had there been seen in America such contrasts 
 between fabulous wealthj-Sd absolute penury. Population 
 was denser, and there was not exactly the same freedom, the 
 same ease of movement. In short, from one cause and 
 another, in many quarters bright visions gave place to gloomy 
 forebodings, and thus Americans were better prepared than 
 ever before to listen to those who advocated the most radical 
 social reconstruction, and repudiated the reforms of trades- 
 unionists and others who desired only an improvement of 
 existing institutions. It is now left to inquire who sowed the 
 seeds of socialism, which have sprung up, or are even now 
 sprouting and sending forth shoots below the surface. 
 
 The socialism of to-day may be said to date from the 
 European revolutions of 1848,^ all of which soon terminated 
 disastrously for the people as opposed to their rulers. Many 
 German refugees sought our shores, and some of them were 
 ardent socialists and communists, who endeavored to propa- 
 gate their ideas. Wilhelm Weitling, a tailor, born in Magde- 
 burg in 1808, was prominent among these. Weitling visited 
 France and Switzerland as a journeyman, during his " Wan- 
 derjahre," and became acquainted with the doctrines of the 
 French communists. German as he was, it was natural that 
 he should revise the work of his predecessors, arid strip 
 French communism of its fantastic garb before presenting it, 
 as he soon did, to his countrymen in various works.^ It was 
 
 1 My book, " French and German Socialism in Modern Times," 
 carries socialism back to the French Revolution of the last century, but 
 the earlier socialistic movements therein described are already regarded 
 as defunct. 
 
 ^ "Das Evangelium des armen Siinders." Bern, 1841 ; "Garantien 
 der Harmonie und Freiheit." Vivis, 1842; "Die Menscheit, wie sie 
 ist und wie sie sein soUte." Bern, 1843. 
 
220 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 thus that Weitling, who is occasionally called the " Father of 
 German Communism," became one of the first to scatter 
 those seeds of economic radicalism which have brought 
 forth such large increase in the social democracy of our own 
 times. The Swiss and German authorities could not forego 
 the temptation to make a martjnr of Weitling, and he was 
 thrown into prison in both countries. His last imprison- 
 ment was in Germany, and he was given his freedom on 
 condition that he should emigrate to America,^ which he 
 accordingly did. Weitling founded a workingman's society 
 in New York not long after his arrival, which was called the 
 Arbeiterbund, with headquarters in Beekman Street. A 
 newspaper was published by these men for three or four 
 years, called Die ■ Republik der Arbeiter. Associated with 
 Weitling at this time was Dr. Edmund Ignatz Kock, a man 
 who was active in the European revolutionary days just 
 passed, and who had brought with him to the United States, 
 if my memory serves me correctly, a thousand copies of one 
 of the works of the French communist, Blanqui. It was 
 the intention of the Arbeiterbund to establish a communistic 
 settlement in Wisconsin, but internal dissensions prevented 
 the execution of this plan. Weitling, however, was for a 
 short time connected with a colony of communists in Clayton 
 County, Iowa, which had been formed by Henry Koch, an 
 ardent disciple of Fourier, and an admirer of Albert Bris- 
 bane and Horace Greeley.^ Weitling finally abandoned his 
 
 1 The date of his liberation on this condition is given as 1845 in a 
 newspaper article which lies before me. Elsewhere it is stated that he 
 was among those who left Germany after the events of 1848. How- 
 ever this may be, the emigrants who tied after the latter year first gave 
 him a favorable opportunity to continue his propaganda in America. 
 
 ^ Henry Koch's career is one common among German Americans. 
 Born in Baireuth in 1800, he learned the trade of watchmaker, and 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 221 
 
 communistic ideas, and devoted himself to his trade, to 
 inventions designed to improve the sewing-machine, and to 
 astronomical studies as a recreation. 
 
 It is said that he invented several valuable contrivances, 
 especially one for making button-holes, which were, however, 
 all stolen from him. His efforts to protect his rights involved 
 him in lawsuits which consumed what little property he had. 
 His death took place in 1871. 
 
 Another one of these refugees was Weydemeyer, a friend 
 and disciple of Carl Marx, in the dissemination of whose 
 views he was aided by H. Meyer, a German merchant."^ 
 Weydemeyer served with distinction in the Union Army 
 during the late war, and after its close was elected auditor 
 of St. Louis, where he died. 
 
 The first large society to adopt and propagate socialism in 
 America was composed of the German Gymnastic Unions 
 (Turnvereine) . The Socialistic Turnverein of New York 
 drew up a constitution for an association, to be composed of 
 the various local gymnastic unions, and published it in 1850. 
 A preliminary gathering of a few delegates was held in New 
 York in the Shakespeare Hotel, then the headquarters of 
 " progressive " elements among the Germans.^ It was 
 finally decided to call a meeting of delegates, to be held in 
 Philadelphia, on Oct. 5 of the same year, to effect a perma- 
 
 followed it in his native town until participation in politics of too radi- 
 cal a character brought him to prison. After bis release he came to 
 America, landing in Baltimore in 1832. He spent most of his life in 
 Dubuque, where he was much liked, especially among the children, 
 who called him " Papa Koch." He served as captain in the Mexican 
 War. His death occurred in 1879. 
 
 ' For several of these data I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. 
 F. A.'Sorge of Hoboken, N.J. 
 
 ^ It was kept by Joseph Fickler, a refugee from Baden, who was 
 prominent in 1848. 
 
222 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 nent organization. Several Turnvereine acted on the sug- 
 gestion, and among others, delegates were present from New 
 York, Boston, and Baltimore. The first name adopted 
 was " Associated Gymnastic Unions of North America " 
 (Vereinegte Turnvereine Nordamerikas) , which was, how- 
 ever, changed the following year to " Socialistic Gymnas- 
 tic Union" (Socialistischer Turnerbund). The platform 
 adopted proclaimed the promotion of socialism and the 
 support of the social democratic party to be its chief pur- 
 pose. The education of the mind was to accompany the 
 training of the body, that the whole man might be developed 
 in accordance with the maxim, mens sana in corpoie sano ; 
 and this idea has always bebn prominent among the mem- 
 bers of this society in America. The intention at first seems 
 to have been to prepare men to return to Germany, and 
 take part in the struggles for liberty which they thought 
 would ere long begin again. The number of local gymnastic 
 unions in America, in 185 1, so far as known, was seventeen; 
 of which the three largest were the Baltimore Social Demo- 
 cratic Turnverein with 278 members, the Cincinnati Turnge- 
 meinde with 222 members, and the New York Socialistic 
 Turnverein with 128. A monthly organ was published, 
 called the Turnzeitung. The Turnerbund continued to 
 grow slowly in strength until the Civil War, although internal 
 dissensions divided it for a few years into two sections. As 
 might be expected, it supported, first, the free soil move- 
 ment, then the Republican party, for it was always found on 
 the side of freedom. As a consequence its members were 
 obliged to contend with the opposition to abohtionism added 
 to a wide-spread hatred of foreigners. They were time and 
 time again attacked by rowdies who, in Philadelphia, were 
 even assisted by the police. However, they generally pro- 
 tected themselves vigorously against assault, and on several 
 occasions used their arms. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 223 
 
 A number of the Turners were indicted in Philadelphia, 
 but were not brought to trial, as the authorities concluded 
 that it was best to let the matter drop. In 1855, the 
 Turners were again attacked by the rowdies and loafers of 
 Columbus, and several were wounded ; but they turned their 
 firearms against their enemies, and one of them paid the 
 penalty for his rashness with his life. Nineteen Turners 
 were tried for assault with intent to kill, but were found 
 not guilty. The Cincinnati Turngemeinde and the unions 
 in Newport and Covington, Ky., held a celebration in 
 May, 1856, in Covington, and were attacked by a mob 
 armed with clubs, stones, and slungshots ; and among the 
 assailants were a police marshal and deputy marshal, both 
 of whom were wounded, together with others on both sides. 
 One hundred and seven Turners were arrested, and thirty- 
 five indicted by the grand jury and tried; but again all 
 were pronounced innocent. 
 
 The beginning of the Civil War offered the Tumerbund 
 the opportunity they desired, to earn a good name for 
 themselves and for their fellow-countrymen. The Turners 
 from every quarter responded to Lincoln's call for troops, 
 some of the unions sending more than half their mem- 
 bers. In New York they organized a complete regiment 
 in a few days, and in many places they sent one or 
 more companies. There were three companies in the First 
 Missouri Regiment, while the Seventeenth consisted almost 
 altogether of Turners. The Turners of Leavenworth 
 and Cincinnati also deserve honorable mention. It is 
 estimated that from forty to fifty per cent of all Turners 
 capable of bearing arms took part in the war. Prominent 
 among them was General Franz Sigel. This depletion of 
 the local unions suspended all activities on the part of the 
 socialistic Tumerbund, until the close of the war, when it 
 
224 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 was reorganized under the name of the North American 
 Gymnastic Union (Nordamerikanischer Turnerbund). It 
 now numbers about 22,000 members, owns property valued 
 at ^2,409,375,' including 140 gymnasiums (Turnhallen), and 
 instructs over 16,000 boys and girls in schools, and supports 
 in Milwaukee the best school for training teachers of gym- 
 nastics in the United States. The Turnerbund is no longer 
 nominally socialistic ; but it recommends the careful study 
 of social questions, and has adopted resolutions in favor of 
 radical reforms. In its platform the aims of the Board are 
 stated to be these : the development of men strong in mind 
 and body, and the development of a true democracy. In 
 accordance with its general conservative character'' it de- 
 clares that social, religious, and political reforms can only 
 be secured by the spread of education and morality. 
 
 The sovereignty of the people is declared to be inalien- 
 able, and reforms are recommended which aim to realize 
 this doctrine, "As everything is for the people, everything 
 should happen through the people." Many of the polit- 
 ical changes recommended, aim at the introduction of Swiss 
 democratic institutions among us ; in particular, the replace- 
 ment of Senate and President by a Federal council. The 
 recall of legislators by the people is further recommended, 
 and also the abolition of all complicated modes of repre- 
 sentation and artificial delegation of power. 
 
 The general convention likewise recommends, "the pro- 
 tection of labor against spoliation, and the adoption of 
 means to secure to it its real product ; the sanitary protec- 
 tion of citizens by control over factories, by protection 
 against adulteration of food, and sanitary inspection of 
 
 1 These statistics are all taken from the report of 1885. 
 
 2 I mean, that it advocates the attainment of radical reforms only by 
 conservative methods. 
 
BEGINNINCS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 225 
 
 houses." Further, " the right of the several States to adopt 
 laws or to take measures which conflict with the spirit of 
 the Constitution of the United States, especially such as 
 relate to the liberty of the press, to religious affairs, or to 
 the right of assembly, should be abolished." Child labor is 
 condemned. Debates and lectures are held to improve the 
 mind, and to educate the people to a comprehension of the 
 true nature of the topics of the day. One question recom- 
 mended for discussion is, " whether or not a shortening of 
 the hours of labor, and the establishment by law of a 
 normal working day, are effective means of ameliorating social 
 disorders." 
 
 A Club of Communists was founded in New York in 1857, 
 by Germans, mostly refugees ; and in June of the following 
 year its members instituted a celebration to commemorate 
 the insurrection in Paris, in June, 1848. Several thousand 
 men and women of various nationalities participated in the 
 ceremonies. Their club came near suspension during the 
 Civil War, but in 1866 and 1867 a union was effected with 
 followers of Lassalle, a small band of whom had effected an 
 organization in New York in 1867 ; for a ripple on the sur- 
 face of the waters which Ferdinand Lassalle had troubled 
 reached even our shores. The "Social Party" was thus 
 started in 1868, and in 1869 it became affiliated with the 
 International Workingmen's Association through the General 
 Council of London. This was the old International founded 
 by Carl Marx,' many " sections " of which sprang up in 
 different parts of the United States, between 1870 and 1873, 
 and connections were sought with the trades-unions of the 
 country, and indeed actually formed. As early as 1869 a 
 
 1 It is necessary, for brevity's sake, to assume that the reader is 
 already familiar with the history of the old International. A descrip- 
 tion of it is given in Ely's " French and German Socialism,'' chap. x. 
 
226 THE LABOR MOVEMENT, 
 
 delegate of the North American Central Committee of the 
 International attended regularly the New York City Work- 
 ingmen's Union, composed of delegates from trades-unions 
 aggregating a membership of thirty or forty thousand. A 
 German daily newspaper, Die Arbeiter Union, was pub- 
 lished in New York, from 1868 to 1871, but I do not know 
 whether it was an outspoken advocate of socialism or not. 
 German weeklies were established in New York and Chi- 
 cago in 1873. The Chicago weekly, Der Vorbote, is still 
 alive, and, although originally socialistic, has become in 
 recent years a pronounced advocate of anarchy. The Inter- 
 national of Marx charged several secretaries with the work 
 of forming connections with American labor organizations, 
 and J. George Eccarius, the General Secretary of the Central 
 Council, wrote a letter to the National Labor Union, when 
 in session in Philadelphia in 1869, inviting that body to send 
 a delegate to the congress of the International Working- 
 men's Association to be held in Basle, Switzerland, in Sep- 
 tember of the same year. The invitation was accepted, a 
 delegate, Cameron by name, was sent ; and thus an apparent 
 union was effected between European Socialism and an Amer- 
 ican labor organization, representing half a million laborers." ' 
 But this union was more apparent than real, and implied 
 anything rather than the conversion of American laborers to 
 sociahsm. It must be remembered that the old Interna- 
 tional sought a federation of labor and actually secured 
 the co-operation for a time of the English trades-unions as 
 well as many American societies ; but it insisted on the 
 acceptance of no social philosophy on the part of these 
 various bodies.^ The letter of Eccarius, for example, based 
 
 1 The number represented by the delegates to the anuual meeting 
 of the National Labor Union in New York in 1868 is said to have 
 been 640,000. 
 
 ^ Professor de Laveleye calls these adhesions " purely Platonic.'' 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 227 
 
 the arguments in favor of the representation of the National 
 Labor Union at the congress of the International on the 
 desirability of a co-operation between the workingmen of 
 Europe and America to help regulate emigration. " There 
 is a particular reason," wrote Eccarius, "why you should 
 strain a point to send a delegate, — the emigration mania. 
 Once a year during our congress week all the scribes of 
 Europe are busy with our doings. A sketch of what things 
 are in the New World, given by an American, would not only 
 find its way into all the papers, but would greatly tend to dis- 
 abuse many of their illusions of the happiness in store for 
 them if they could only manage to cross the big lake. It is 
 the policy of those who have an interest in keeping things as 
 they are, to induce as many as possible to leave, since their 
 very presence endangers the continuance of the existing vil- 
 lainy, and in the New World they are used to perpetuate the 
 existing villainy, and their presence tends to hamper, if not 
 to frustrate, the onward march of the labor movement." 
 
 In 187 1 a new impulse was received from the French ref- 
 ugees who came to America after the suppression of the 
 uprising of the commune of Paris, and brought with them a 
 spirit of violence, but a more important event in this early 
 period was the order of the congress of the International 
 held in the Hague in 1872, which transferred to New York 
 the " General Council " of the Association. Modern social- 
 ism had then undoubtedly begun to exist in America. The 
 first proclamation of the council from their new headquar- 
 ters was an appeal to workingmen " to emancipate labor and 
 eradicate all international and national strife." ^ 
 
 1 The authority for this statement may be found in an interview 
 which a New York Herald reporter held with Mr. Leopold Jonas, a 
 leading New York member of the Socialistic Labor Party. See " Our 
 American Socialists," New York Herald, May 19, 1884. 
 
228 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 In the spring of 1872 "an imposing demonstration" in 
 favor of eight hours took place in New York City. The 
 paper before me estimates the number of those taking part 
 in the procession through the principal streets at twenty 
 thousand, and among the other societies were the various 
 New York sections of the International Workingmen's 
 Association bearing a banner with their motto " Working- 
 men of all Countries, Unite ! " Thp following year wit- 
 nessed the disasters in the industrial and commercial world, 
 to which reference has already been made ; and the dis- 
 tress consequent thereupon was an important aid to the 
 socialists in their propaganda. The " Exceptional Law " 
 passed against socialists, by the German Parliament in 1878, 
 drove many socialists from Germany to this country, and 
 these have strengthened the cause of American socialism 
 through membership in trades-unions and in the Socialistic 
 Labor Party. 
 
 There have been several changes among the socialists in 
 party organization and name since 1873, and national con- 
 ventions or congresses have met from time to time. Their 
 dates and places of meeting have been Philadelphia, 1874, 
 Pittsburg, 1876,1 Newark, 1877, Allegheny City, 1880, Balti- 
 more and Pittsburg, 1883, and Cincinnati, 1885. The name 
 Sociahstic Labor Party was adopted in 1877 at the Newark 
 Convention. In 1883 the split between the moderates and 
 extremists had become definite, and the latter held their 
 congress in Pittsburg, and the former in Baltimore. 
 
 The separation between the two bodies of socialists is a 
 matter of interest. A similar separation took place in the 
 congress of the International at the Hague in 1872, between 
 
 ^ In July of the same year an international meeting of labor organi- 
 zations was held in Philadelphia on occasion of the Centennial Expo- 
 sition. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA. 229 
 
 the followers of Marx, who represented in many respects the 
 spirit and methods of the present Socialistic Labor Party, 
 and those of Bakounine, who were anarchists hke the mem- 
 bers of the existing International in the United States. It is 
 altogether probable that the feeling of animosity between 
 the adherents of the two directions was present in New 
 York from the beginning of the operations of the " Council " 
 transferred in the same year to that city. But for some time 
 they succeeded in working together, and hopes of a perma- 
 nent union were certainly not abandoned until after the 
 advent of John Most on our shores in December, 1882. 
 Most has proved a firebrand among American socialists, and 
 was early denounced by those who felt repelled by his mad 
 expressions of violence, and saw that he was doing their 
 cause much harm; but it was still impossible to pass a 
 formal vote repudiating him in the congress of the Social- 
 istic Labor Party in Baltimore in 1883. During the follow- 
 ing year the San Francisco Truth still thought it worth while 
 to advocate a union of all discontented proletarians, but 
 acrimony and bitterness between representatives of opposing 
 views continued to increase ; and when the terrible outrages 
 in London, in January of 1885, were condemned in terms 
 of severity by the Socialistic Labor Party and applauded by 
 the Internationalists, all hopes of united action vanished, and 
 the animosity between the two became so intense that they 
 came to blows in a meeting called in New York by the mod- 
 erates to protest against the recent use of dynamite. Shortly 
 after that there was a disturbance between the International- 
 ists and the members of the Socialistic Labor Party in a 
 public meeting in Baltimore ; and the terrible affair of May 
 4, 1886, when the Chicago Internationalists endeavored to 
 resist the police by the use of dynamite, terminated all pos- 
 sibility of joint action — even if there could previously have 
 
230 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 been any remote hope of it ; for that was denounced as crim- 
 inal folly by the Socialistic Labor Party. The warfare be- 
 tween the two factions has now become quite as bitter as 
 between them and the competitive society they seek to over- 
 throw. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 
 
 1. The International Working People's Association. 
 
 THE Internationalists, at their congress in Pittsburg, 
 adopted unanimously a manifesto or declaration of 
 motives and principles, often called the Pittsburg Procla- 
 mation, in which they describe their ultimate goal in these 
 words : — 
 
 "What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly and 
 simply, — 
 
 "First, Destruction of the existing class rule, by all 
 means, /. e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and inter- 
 national action. 
 
 " Second, Establishment of a free society based upon 
 co-operative organization of production. 
 
 "Third, Free exchange of equivalent products by and 
 between the productive organizations without commerce 
 aud profit-mongery. 
 
 "Fourth, Organization of education on a secular, scien- 
 tific and equal basis for both sexes. 
 
 " Fifth, Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race. 
 
 " Sixth, Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts 
 between the autonomous (independent) communes and 
 associations, resting on a federalistic basis." * 
 
 1 Free contract, it is to be observed, in the language of the Inter- 
 nationalists, means not freedom of contract in the present sense, but a 
 contract which may be fulfilled or not, according to the good pleasure 
 of the parties concerned. The one who breaks it, suiifers no legal 
 penalty. 
 
232 THE LABOR MWEMENT. 
 
 Here we have in a few words the dream of the Anar- 
 chists, as these Internationalists call themselves, and it has 
 been well characterized by Mr. Hyndman, as " individu- 
 alism gone mad." It may be well to explain the ideas con- 
 tained in this programme under the two heads, political and 
 economic. 
 
 First, Their political philosophy is pure negation or 
 nihilism in the strict sense of the word. It is the doctrine 
 of laissezfaire carried to its logical outcome. What say our 
 advocates of the " let-alone " poUcy about government and 
 the state? They assure us that the less government the 
 better, and that the state is but a necessary evil at best. To 
 this the Anarchists reply : Very true, but why should we tol- 
 erate the least needless evil ? We hold that government of 
 any kind is worse than useless, and that the state is but 
 another name for oppression. " One of Jefferson's maxims 
 was ' the best government is that which governs least.' If 
 this be true, then 
 
 ' The very best government of all 
 Is that which governs not at all.' " ^ 
 
 We recognize no right of any individual or of any body of 
 men to interfere with us, and we will have neither state nor 
 laws. We are prepared to fight for liberty without restraint 
 or control. Our ideal is anarchy. It is a holy cause, and 
 to it we have devoted our lives. 
 
 Each member of society is, in this new world, to be abso- 
 lutely free. As gregarious animals, and for the sake of vol- 
 untary co-operation, men will naturally form themselves into 
 independent " self-governing communes or townships, into 
 which the whole of mankind will be ultimately resolved. 
 
 ^ Quoted with approval by the London Anarchist, under the head- 
 ing, " Sound Sense," from the American newspaper Lucifer. 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 233 
 
 These communes will for the sake of convenience be 
 grouped loosely into federations, which, however, will have 
 no authority whatever. While each commune is at liberty 
 to sever its connection with the common body at pleasure, 
 it is thought that the social nature gf man will be a sufficient 
 adhesive force to hold them together. All regulation and 
 control centre in free and voluntary and self-enforced contract. 
 Second, The economic ideas of the Internationalists as 
 expressed in their resume of their aims, are " co-operative 
 organization of production," and " free exchange of equiv- 
 alent products by and between the productive organizations 
 without commerce and profit-mongery." But when devel- 
 oped, these brief propositions imply several radical de- 
 mands, viz., "free lands," "free tools" and "free money." 
 Rent falls away, as there is no authority to enforce its pay- 
 ment, and laborers lay hold of and use freely the means of 
 production (capital), as anarchism recognizes no power to 
 prevent this. Possession takes the place of property, and 
 possession lasts only so long as means of production pos- 
 sessed are actually used by their possessor. This ends at 
 once " capitalism " and " landlordism," and leaves room 
 only for united labor. Workingmen, it is supposed, will 
 naturally group themselves into " productive organizations," 
 where each one will work as long as he pleases and receive 
 "labor-money," or credits indicating the length of labor- 
 time. If our present terms should be retained, a dollar 
 might represent the toil of one hundred minutes, and one 
 dollar would always equal another. "Socialism advocates 
 that the time and service of one man is equal ultimately to 
 the time and service of any other man ; hence, the nearest 
 approach to exact justice is equal pay for equal time and 
 expenditure of equal energy." * 
 
 ^ From " Socialism " by Starkweather and Wilson in Lovell's Li- 
 brary, No. 461, p. 29, cf. also pp. 78-80. This doctrine of equality 
 
234 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Commerce is replaced by a common store-house to which 
 all social products are carried, and where their value is 
 determined by labor-time. A bushel of potatoes might be 
 quoted at twenty-five minutes, for example, in which case 
 any purchaser presenting a note for one hundred minutes 
 would receive his potatoes, and seventy-five minutes in 
 change. 
 
 Thus the laborer receives the full value of all he produces, 
 and profits, called legalized robbery or unpaid labor, are 
 abolished. It is supposed that a few hours a day — one 
 writer mentions three ^ — would suffice to produce all the 
 goods needed by society. In the words of the Pittsburg 
 Proclamation : " This order of things allows production to 
 regulate itself according to the demands of the whole people, 
 so that nobody need work more than a few hours a day, and 
 that all nevertheless can satisfy their needs. Hereby time 
 and opportunity are given for opening to the people the way 
 to the highest civiUzation ; the privileges of higher intelligence 
 fall with the privileges of wealth and birth." 
 
 Another point which deserves attention is the preponderat- 
 ing influence the Internationalists, even more than other 
 socialists, give to external circumstances in the formation of 
 character. If their attention is called to the crime and 
 wrong-doing in present society as a proof of the need of a 
 repressive authority, they reply that it will be quite different 
 in a condition of anarchy, because our existing institutions 
 are the cause of the evil which afflicts us now ; in particular 
 do they necessitate the poverty of the many, and poverty 
 is the chief source of what we call sin. " Socialism,'' say 
 
 seems to be unanimously accepted by the Anarchists, though it is not 
 maintained by all socialists, and it must in fairness be acknowledged 
 that it forms no necessary part of socialism. 
 
 ^ Benjamin Franklin, I believe, said four hours. 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 23S 
 
 Starkweather and Wilson, in their pamphlet/ " would abolish 
 poverty by preventing it, by removing its causes. As poverty 
 is the cause directly or indirectly of all crime, therefore, by 
 the abolition of poverty, crime would become almost un- 
 known, and with the crime would disappear all the lice, 
 leeches, vampires, and vermin that fatten on its filth ; such 
 as the entire legal fraternity, soldiers, police, spies, judges, 
 sheriffs, priests, preachers, quack doctors, etc., etc." Never- 
 theless, even an Anarchist is forced to admit the possibility 
 of an occasional crime against individual or society, and in 
 such case has nothing better to offer than the unrestrained 
 exercise of brute force. As they now advocate the extermi- 
 nation of opponents and admire mob law, there is nothing left 
 for them save the destruction of those whom they consider 
 their enemies in any and every form of society. 
 
 The truth is, however, that most Anarchists object in 
 reality only to present state-forms and wish to replace them 
 with new institutions of equal authority. Some of them ap- 
 parently picture the future to themselves as the exclusive 
 domination of labor organizations, and overlook two facts : 
 first, if all should not be embraced in these associations, 
 those outside of them would be in subjection to a power in 
 the creation of which they would have no voice, and over 
 which they could exercise no control ; second, the state 
 would by no means be abolished, even if all were included 
 in some labor organization, for then labor organizations 
 would themselves constitute the state.^ It is thus not 
 
 1 L. i;., p. 30. 
 
 ^ I think the English co-operators fall into a similar error. They 
 protest strenuously that they repudiate state socialism, and yet they 
 expect co-operation to absorb all the industry of the country. In 
 this event co-operative societies would practically constitute the state, 
 and the result would be socialism, though the goal would be reached 
 by a different route from that proposed by others. 
 
236 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 the state in itself to which they object, but our present 
 state.-^ 
 
 Yet tnere is a difference among the Anarchists with 
 respect to authority. Some perceive the weakness of the 
 Anarchistic Communists and repudiate all authority for the 
 future as well as for the present. These believe in 
 " Individual Sovereignty," and call themselves Individual 
 Anarchists. Their general principle is that each person 
 is to do, without let or hindrance, absolutely what seems 
 good to him, and no public authority is ever on any 
 account to interfere. There shall, for example, be no 
 pubUc banks, or bank regulations, nc public mint, no 
 public post-office ; but whosoever pleases may carry let- 
 ters, issue paper money, or coin silver and gold. These 
 Individual Anarchists or " Boston " Anarchists, as they are 
 also called, from their strongest centre, have formed no 
 party, and could consistently form no party in the ordi- 
 nary sense. As tolerance, however, it is frequently said, 
 can tolerate everything save intolerance, so liberty, in their 
 opinion, can tolerate everything save an invasion of liberty, 
 and that, they hold, may be repelled by voluntary organ- 
 ization in any practicable way, even by the use of dynamite, 
 if it be necessary. Voluntary associations are contemplated 
 by the Boston Anarchists for the defence of person and of 
 property of individuals, but common property is condemned 
 as communism. Those who belong to these associations 
 will submit voluntarily to their rules, and disobedience will 
 constitute a withdrawal. Absolutely free competition is the 
 ideal of Individual Anarchy, but the present competition is 
 rejected as unfair. " Competition under liberty is beneficent 
 
 1 One Anarchist writes me that the first chapter of Stepniak's 
 " Russia Under the Tzars " contains a description of what he considers 
 an ideal society. This chapter treats of the " Mir." 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 237 
 
 co-operation. It makes cost the limit of price.^ It opens 
 the way for every man to prove his fitness and survive on his 
 merits. The present order of competition under the state 
 permits the unfittest to survive on his demerits." 
 
 " The all important principle at this juncture," writes one 
 of this school, " is Liberty, which as soon as sufficient co- 
 operation offers, the Anarchists propose to make a reality by 
 passive resistance to its violation through suffrage, taxation, 
 and monopoly." What is our present government which 
 must be overthrown ? It is " a compulsory association prin- 
 cipally for invasion of person and property, dependent for 
 its very existence upon the bottom invasion, compulsory 
 taxation." ^ 
 
 A Boston Anarchist writes me this : " The disciples of 
 Josiah Warren and Proudhon are the only real Anarchists, 
 and the only men in the labor movement who start with 
 certain fundamentals, and test every question by them, — in 
 other words, who act in accordance with a definite philosophy." 
 
 The present chief representative of the Individual Anar- 
 chists, is Benjamin R. Tucker, the editor of Liberty. Tucker 
 is a devoted disciple of Proudhon, and proposes to translate 
 his complete works. He has already published volume I., 
 a translation of the celebrated treatise "What is Property? " 
 
 In response to a letter of inquiry, a friend writes me as 
 follows : — ' 
 
 ^ By means of " free banking," as advocated by Proudhon. See 
 "Mutual Banking," by William B. Greene, for sale at the office of 
 Liberty, Boston. 
 
 2 Liberty of Boston, Jan. 3, 1885. 
 
 ' This extreme courtesy on the part of a busy man is only one of 
 the many instances of kindness with which I have met in the prepara- 
 tion of this book. My experience in authorship as well as in the dis- 
 charge of the other duties of life, has borne out anything rather than 
 the hypothesis that men are actuated only by motives of selfishness. 
 
238 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 " Warren was a descendant of General Warren of Bunker 
 Hill fame. He was bom in either Brookline or Brighton 
 (near Boston), and at the time of his death in 1874 he was 
 nearly seventy-five years old. He developed an unusual 
 musical genius at an early age, and was a skilful player on 
 several instruments. 
 
 " The first event of importance in his life, according to 
 Tucker, was when Robert Owen, the sociahst and manufac- 
 turer, came to this country and founded a communistic 
 colony at New Harmony, Ind. Owen was backed by his 
 own millions and by a fine tlass of supporters, and among 
 others Warren was carried away by his scheme, and joined 
 the community. In a year or two the famous experiment 
 failed, because the projectors spent their time in making and 
 re-making constitutions instead of planting potatoes. 
 
 " Warren was discouraged and went into the woods, sat 
 on a log, and thought the matter over. He came to the 
 conclusion that the scheme failed because the individual had 
 been sunk in the community, because there were no in- 
 dividual interests, rights, and responsibility. It occurred to 
 him that the real social reform lay in viore individuahzation 
 than is found in the existing social system, in a separation 
 of individual interests. The sovereignty of the individual 
 was the first fundamental principle of his social philosophy. 
 John Stuart Mill in his autobiography acknowledges his in- 
 debtedness to Warren and to Wilhelm von Humboldt for the 
 basic idea of his own work on liberty. Warren's second 
 fundamental principle was an economic one, — that cost is 
 the true basis of price, or ' cost the limit of price.' 
 
 "This was about 1827. Warren then determined to test 
 the cost theory, and he started a store in Cincinnati (at tlie 
 comer of Fourth and Elm Streets?), which he conducted for 
 two years, doing business to the amount of one hundred and 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 239 
 
 fifty thousand dollars. The plan and history of the store are 
 found detailed in Warren's work on ' Practical Details of 
 Equitable Commerce ' (now out of print) . The store was 
 open during 1828-29. I' '^^^ '^^ ^ ^^^^ country when busi- 
 ness was not centralized as now, and the retailer realized 
 large profits. Warren marked his goods with the cost and 
 added seven per cent for rent, fuel, etc., exclusive of the 
 labor of himself and the employees. This seven per cent 
 was carefully computed, and was invariable, but it allowed 
 no profit. A clock was kept in the store, and every cus- 
 tomer was timed and charged so much an hour for the time 
 of the salesman. The charge for time was reduced with the 
 increase of business. Finally Warren issued his own money 
 in the shape of labor notes (described in his works), which 
 he exchanged for the laboi: notes of his customers. His 
 notes became a popular circulating medium. 
 
 "The experiment satisfied him, and he closed his store, 
 and later published his principal work, ' True Civilization,' 
 in which he announced and developed these principles. 
 The book was published somewhere .in the '30s, and War- 
 ren set the type for it himself. It is now in print."^ He was 
 the inventor of the present system of stereotyping for book 
 work. He also invented a system of musical notation which 
 was pronounced by Lowell Mason superior to that now in 
 use. 
 
 "Warren then went to a place in Ohio, and started a com- 
 munity on his peculiar principles. In 1850 or thereabouts, 
 he converted Stephen Pearl Andrews, who wrote 'The 
 Science of Society,' which Warren called a better statement 
 of his principles than his own. Later he founded ' Modern 
 Times,' a community on Long Island, but neither community 
 amounted to much. His followers thought the community 
 '' Part I. only; for sale at office of Liberty. 
 
240 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 idea a mistake. After i860 he published Part II. of ' True 
 Civilization,' which is out of print, the plates having been 
 destroyed in the great Boston fire in 1372. Part III. was 
 published later, and is also out of print. Part I., which is 
 now on the market, is, however, the most important and 
 valuable. 
 
 " Warren in his later years lived a sort of hermit life, but 
 spent his time in the propagandism of his ideas. He died 
 in Charlestown, now a part of Boston, at the house of E. D. 
 Linton, one of his disciples. Some years previously he had 
 lived at Princeton, Mass. 
 
 "Out of his teachings has grown the school of social 
 reformers in this country known as the Individualistic Anar- 
 chists, who consider him as the thinker in this country corre- 
 sponding with Proudhon. The two were almost identical in 
 their fundamental ideas. Warren's greatest strength as an 
 agitator lay in his conversation with individuals, and most 
 of his converts were made in the parlor, where he displayed 
 the greatest keenness in explanations and answering objec- 
 tions." 
 
 To return from the digression concerning the Boston 
 Anarchists, it may be noticed, as an external peculiarity of 
 the International Working People's Association, that they 
 occasionally use the black flag as an emblem of their cause. 
 When it was unfurled on Thanksgiving day in 1884 in Chi- 
 cago, August Spies, one of the anarchists now on trial for 
 the murder of policemen on May 4, addressed the assembled 
 people in these words, — 
 
 " It is the first time that emblem of hunger and starvation 
 has been unfurled on American soil. It represents that 
 these people have begun to reach the condition of the older 
 countries. We have got to strike down these robbers that 
 are robbing the working people." 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 241 
 
 While the economic ideas of the Anarchists are so vague 
 that it is difficult to describe them more precisely than has 
 been, done already, it is the less necessary to do so from the 
 fact that the chief part of their programme is a plea for 
 action, for revolution ; for destruction, rather than construc- 
 tion, as they hold that the former must precede the latter. 
 
 It is to be noticed that they attempt to realize their politi- 
 cal ideal as far as possible in their own plan of organization. 
 The International is composed of independent " groups," 
 with no central authority or executive, both of which expres- 
 sions many of them detest. The only bond of union between 
 them is found in their common ideas, in their press, their 
 congresses and local organizations, and a Bureau of Informa- 
 tion, formed by the Chicago Groups, which appears to be 
 the nearest approach to a centre of life and activity. 
 
 The manifesto of the Internationalists has been mentioned, 
 and quotations from it given. It is, however, necessary to 
 consult their press to obtain a more complete survey of their 
 views. They have several newspapers, of which the follow- 
 ing are the most prominent : Die Freiheit, Most's New York 
 weekly, now in its eighth year ; Der Vorbote, a weekly, Die 
 Fackel, a Sunday paper, and Die Chicagoer Arbeiterzeitung, 
 a daily, all three published by the Socialistic Publishing Com- 
 pany of Chicago. The Vorbote, in its thirteenth year, is the 
 oldest of their organs. The Alarm, a weekly, in its second 
 year, is published at the same place, and is edited by A. R. 
 Parsons.^ Its purpose is to disseminate the most extreme 
 revolutionary teachings among English-speaking laborers. 
 Kansas sends us Lucifer, the Light-Bearer, a journal of like 
 tendencies. Truth, " a Journal of the Poor," was published 
 
 1 Perhaps it ought now to be said was edited. I have not seen a 
 copy since May 4, and Parsons is now on trial with the other Chicago 
 leaders. 
 
242 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 in San Francisco for three years, wlien it was changed in 
 form, and became a monthly magazine, of which six issues 
 appeared, the last in July, 1884. The " good will " of Truth 
 was finally made over to the Enquirer, of Denver, Col., which 
 now takes its place, although more conservative in tone, and 
 not, as was Truth, the acknowledged organ of the " Red 
 International." These journals supply abundant evidence 
 touching the doctrines of the anarchist in respect to the 
 family and religion, and it is these doctrines which are now 
 to engage our attention. 
 
 The Internationalists attack both religion and the family, 
 and that with what may be considered practical unanimity. 
 While it is not right to connect this attitude with socialism 
 per se, the fairest minded person cannot blame a writer for 
 holding up to condemnation any concrete, actually existing 
 party which wages war against all tlut we consider most 
 sacred, and which seeks to abolish those institutions which 
 we hold to be of inestimable value, both to the individual 
 and to society. 
 
 Religion and the family are not only attacked by the 
 extremists, but the onslaught on them is made in. language of 
 unparalleled coarseness and shocking impiety. Here are 
 two quotations from Truth^ which are indicative of the gen- 
 eral tone of the paper : " Heaven is a dream invented by 
 robbers to distract the attention of the victims of their brig- 
 andage ; " " When the laboring men understand that the 
 heaven which they are promised hereafter is but a mirage, 
 they will knock at the door of the wealthy robber with a 
 musket in hand, and demand their share of the goods of this 
 life now.'' Freiheit, the most blasphemous of all socialistic 
 papers, concludes an article on the " Fruits of the Belief in 
 
 1 Although Truth was the organ of the " Red International," these 
 quotations characterize the " Black International " equally well. 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 243 
 
 God " with the exclamation, " Religion, authority, and state 
 are all carved out of the same piece of wood : to the devil 
 with them all ! " The Vorbote speaks of religion as de- 
 structive poison. The Pittsburg manifesto — unanimously 
 adopted, be it remembered — contains this sentence, " The 
 church finally seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass, 
 and to make them forego the paradise on earth by promising 
 a fictitious heaven." 
 
 There appears to be scarcely the same unanimity concern- 
 ing the family. It was not directly condemned in the Pitts- 
 burg manifesto, nor does Truth say much about it. But 
 there is no doubt about the general policy of their journals. 
 They sneer incessantly at the "sacredness of the family," and 
 dwell with pleasure on every vile scandal which is noticed 
 by the " capitalistic press." Especial attention is given to 
 divorces, to show that the family institution is already under- 
 mined ; and they are thorough-going sceptics regarding the 
 morality of the relations between the sexes in bourgeois soci- 
 ety. The Vorbote for May 12, 1883, contains an article on 
 the "Sacredness of the Family," from which these sentences 
 are extracted : — 
 
 " In capitalistic society, marriage has long become a pure 
 financial operation, and the possessing classes long ago estab- 
 lished community of wives, and, indeed, the nastiest which is 
 conceivable. . . . They take a special pleasure in seducing 
 one another's wives. ... A marriage is only so long moral 
 as it rests upon the free inclination of man and wife." A 
 poem which appeared in Truth, Jan. 26, 1884, is in the 
 same spirit. It is entitled, 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 Under the Competitive System. 
 " Oh, wilt thou take this form so spare. 
 This powdered face and frizzled hair, 
 
244 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 To be thy wedded wife; 
 And keep her free from labor vile, — 
 Lest she her dainty fingers soil, — 
 And dress her up in gayest style, 
 
 As long as thou hast life? " 
 " I will." 
 
 " And wilt thou take these stocks and bonds. 
 This brown-stone front, these diamonds. 
 
 To be thy husband, dear? 
 And wilt thou in this carriage ride. 
 And o'er his lordly home preside. 
 And be divorced while yet a bride. 
 Or ere a single year? " 
 " I will." 
 
 "Then I pronounce you man and wife; 
 And with what I've together joined 
 The next best man may run away. 
 Whenever he a chance can find." 
 
 Most's Freiheit habitually attains the superlative of coarse- 
 ness and vileness in its attacks on the family. It objects to 
 the family on principle, because it is the State in miniature, 
 because it existed before the State, and furnished a model for 
 it with all its evils and perversities. Freiheit advocates a 
 new genealogy traced from mothers, whose names, and not 
 that of the fathers, descend to the children, since it is never 
 certain who the father is. State up-bringing of children is 
 likewise favored in the Freiheit, in order that the old family 
 may completely abandon the field to free love. 
 
 We have now a complete picture of their ideals, — com- 
 mon property, sociaKstic production and distribution, the 
 grossest materiahsm, free love, in all social arrangements 
 perfect individualism, or, in other words, anarchy j negatively 
 expressed, — away with private property, away with all author- 
 
 1 .1 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 245 
 
 ity, away with the State, away with tlie family, away with 
 religion ! " 
 
 The question, Who have been the teachers of the Inter- 
 nationalists ? opens upon an interesting and instructive field 
 of research. Nevertheless, the inquiry is a delicate one, for 
 it involves names highly honored. While I cannot go into 
 this subject at length, I will throw out a few remarks merely 
 of a suggestive nature, but I must protest that I intend to 
 cast no personal reproach on names I mention, even should 
 it seem to me that the Anarchists had in some instances only 
 drawn the logical conclusion of the teachings of their masters. 
 A man is bound to speak what he regards as the truth, and it 
 is a generally accepted maxim thai a public teacher cannot 
 be held responsible for " inferences." ' 
 
 First, in political science they have drawn inspiration from 
 the teachings of the old school political scientists who 
 preached laissez /aire and taught the inherent badness of 
 all government. Not to go outside of England, Buckle and 
 Herbert Spencer may be the two thinkers on social topics 
 whose writings are most familiar to them. Both of these 
 men are studied and quoted by them with approval. 
 " Herbert Spencer," says the Alarm? " has done much to 
 break attachment to the principle of authority in attempting 
 to specify the limits of the state." An Anarchist of Michigan 
 writes as follows : " The opinions that I form from reading 
 Anarchistic hterature — notably the writings of Herbert 
 Spencer, Josiah Warren, Proudhon, Reclus, etc. — are that 
 the kind of destruction they intend will not be destruction 
 
 ' Manifestly it would stop all speaking and writing on scientific 
 topics, if every one were first to inquire what inferences various mem- 
 bers of the community would draw from doctrines put forth, and should 
 keep silence until convinced that no misconstruction was possible. 
 
 2 Nov. 14, 1885. 
 
2'16 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 of justice and morality. No injustice has sprung from the 
 destruction of the institution of chattel slavery here. It 
 was the destruction of a bad system. Of course, the de- 
 struction of wealth in itself is an evil and I am in hopes 
 that a better social system will be established without the 
 destruction of life and wealth. ... Of course you are aware 
 that many Anarchists hope to reach the goal of their ideal 
 only through the slow process of evolution. ... I believe 
 we have too much respect for statute law. My expe- 
 rience last winter at Lansing, the capital, while the Legis- 
 lature was in session, has given me an utter contempt for 
 what is commonly called law. I am positive that not one 
 in ten of the one hundred and thirty members of the Legis- 
 lature ever in all his life read a book on political economy. 
 . . . What would we expect from one who claimed to be a 
 surgeon who never studied surgery ? " 
 
 Edmund Burke's "Vindication of Natural Society" has 
 attracted favorable notice on the part of Anarchists, and is 
 advertised in the London Anarchist in these words : " The 
 Inherent Evils of all State Governments Demonstrated. . . . 
 This work not only attacks the various forms of government, 
 but the principle of gavernment itself." The American 
 economist. Cooper, said early in this century that a nation 
 was nothing but a grammatical conception, — a convenience 
 of language to designate a collection of individuals. This 
 has been repeated in many forms. An Italian delegate to 
 the congress of the old International in Ghent, in 1867, 
 asked "Where, then, is the State?" and replied, "An ex- 
 crescence ^ which lives at the expense of the social body, and 
 which has no other object and no other effect than to organ- 
 ize and keep up the exploitation of the workers. . . . Our 
 single aim must be to destroy the state. It will then be for 
 
 ' Professor de Laveleye remarks, " The economists say a canker." 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 247 
 
 the free and fertile action of the natural laws of society to 
 accomplish the destinies of humanity.'' Professor de Lave- 
 leye adds : " The influence of positivism and Herbert Spen- 
 cer is manifest.'' 
 
 One of the chief heroes of the Internationalists is Darwin, 
 whose portrait is considered worthy to be associated with that 
 of their greatest leaders ; while all the more renowned natural 
 scientists are admired, and their writings studied with sur- 
 prising diligence. Whatever else may fail in the lists of 
 books recommended by the Anarchists for the education of 
 their followers, one may count for certainty on finding a 
 goodly number of works of Darwin and Huxley ; and no 
 newspapers in the United States have given so much space 
 to natural science and its great lights as those published by 
 the Chicago Internationalists. Nearly all social democrats 
 and anarchists are thorough-going Darwinians, and in this 
 they seem inconsistent, for as Professor de Laveleye remarks, 
 " It is impossible to understand by what strange blindness 
 socialists adopt Darwinian theories, which condemn their 
 claims of equality, while at the same time they reject Chris- 
 tianity, whence those claims have issued and whence their 
 justification may be found." 
 
 A partial explanation, however, is possible, though a little 
 complicated. It is connected on the one hand with hostility 
 to the church, on the other with the influence of European, 
 and in particular of Russian, leaders. Internationalism, which 
 is much' the same thing as the older Nihilism, sprang up 
 among educated Russians at about the time when Darwin 
 and his friends were beginning to be talked about ; and that 
 order of mind which rendered one accessible to new and 
 strange doctrines of one sort was not closed to those of a 
 different kind. At any rate Nihilism made converts among 
 scientists, and the influence of these leaders was felt on their 
 
248 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 more humble followers. Then Russian influence, which has 
 everywhere been perceptible, was felt in opposition to the 
 church, and the cultivation of natural science as taught by 
 Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel appeared to them like a force 
 which might be turned against supernatural religion. Now 
 the hostility to the church is something easily understood in a 
 country like Russia where it is used as the tool of despotism, 
 and as the sanctification of damnable oppression. Is not the 
 Czar the arch-enemy of freedom, and at the same time the 
 head of the church ? Is it, then, so strange as it would at 
 first appear, that educated Russians should renounce the only 
 form of Christianity which they know ? The hostility to the 
 church is largely due to foreign influence, I think, although 
 the attitude which some of the prominent representatives of 
 Christianity in this country assumed on the slavery question, 
 has weakened her materially among the masses in America ; 
 and nowhere has her voice been raised with sufficient clear- 
 ness against such barbarous atrocities as those perpetrated 
 in Russia and elsewhere in the name of religion.^ The oppo- 
 sition to the church can, then, be explained only on historical 
 grounds. Another reason for the cultivation of natural 
 science is the really strong desire for mental improvement. 
 
 A similar partial explanation of the hostility to the state 
 may be found. The only state known in Russia is bad; 
 hence the overhasty generalization — away with the state ! 
 This is the more easily understood when it is remembered 
 that abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison became Anar- 
 chists, — to be sure, peaceful Anarchists, and this with far less 
 
 1 No one is acquainted with American churches who would pretend 
 that these abuses were sanctioned by them. Many clergymen like Dr. 
 Rylance and Dr. Heber Newton have spoken in the plainest terms, but 
 too few have followed their example to make the real attitude of our 
 churches as plain as it ought to be. 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 249 
 
 cause. What were they fighting? Slavery. What upheld 
 slavery? The state — that is, government ; hence the con- 
 clusion, government is an evil ! Away with it ! ' 
 
 Anarchy has received some further support in America — 
 just about enough to be perceptible — from the general in- 
 clination to take the law in one's own hand, as seen in 
 examples of lynch law. The miscarriage of justice is so fre- 
 quent that men lose patience at times ; even e4ucated men 
 do this too often, and feel that redress of wrong can be 
 found only in violent self-defence. Lawlessness is prescribed 
 for lawlessness ! I have heard a gentleman of character and 
 standing say that he thought the people in a city, which I 
 shall not name, ought to have arisen in anger and lynched 
 a railway president, whom he personally liked, for a flagrant 
 case of corruption of public authorities. Even a conserva- 
 tive like Thurlow Weed could use these words : — 
 
 " In some emergencies vigilance committees have been 
 found' to be not only a necessity but a salutary remedy for 
 universal and overwhelming crimes and vices. The highest 
 and most beneficent expressions of justice have occasionally 
 been revealed by an unwritten code familiarly known as 
 lynch law. If the chief gamblers who occasioned the gold 
 panic of 1869 and the ' North- West' corner of i§72, together 
 with the usurers who brought about a state of things which 
 enabled them to loan money at one per cent a day, had 
 been suspended by the neck in the streets which they des- 
 ecrate, the city would now be exempt from present and 
 prospective sufferings." ^ 
 
 These extracts are by no means quoted with approval, 
 but simply as a partial explanation of current phenomena. 
 
 1 Any one who will read Stepinak's " Russia Under the Tzars " will 
 understand how modern Nihilism could originate in Russia. 
 ^ Memoir, p. 499. 
 
250 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 The error is that familiar one of generalization on the basis 
 of insufficient data. 
 
 The doctrine of revolution as held by good men, and as 
 justified by American history, might seem, at first thought, to 
 give some support to the teachings of the Internationalists. 
 Take this passage, for example, from Frederick Denison 
 Maurice's work " Social Morahty " : " There may be a civil- 
 ization whijh is destructive of social morality, of social 
 existence. War may l?e — so far as we know has been — 
 the only means of reforming it." Then take this extract 
 from the Constitution of Maryland : — 
 
 " Art. VI. That all persons invested with the legislative or 
 executive powers of government are the trustees of the public, 
 and, as such, accountable for their conduct; wherefore, 
 whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public 
 liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress 
 ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to, reform 
 the old and establish a new government ; the doctrine of 
 non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is 
 absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness 
 of mankind." 
 
 Yet when we come to look at the matter more carefully, 
 we find nothing in the world's history or in the doctrines of 
 her best teachers to substantiate the Anarchistic theory of revo- 
 lution, which contains but a mere kernel of truth. Revolu- 
 tion, indeed, under certain extreme circumstances, which 
 happily occur rarely in the history of a nation, may be both a 
 right and a duty, but its justification lies in this : That it is, 
 then, a revolution to restore the authority of law, not to over- 
 throw it, for the sad crisis comes only when right and justice 
 have been trampled under foot, and when brave and true 
 men, after patient waiting and long-continued remonstrance, 
 find that existing authorities can never be persuaded to yield 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 251 
 
 to the voice of reason by peaceful means. And if at times 
 revolution against human law is advocated, it is because men 
 have felt that only through the sacrifice of life could the 
 supremacy of a higher law be secured. The world's bene- 
 factors have never intended to violate law, but have simply 
 striven to act in accordance with the dictates of law ; 
 and the grandest men of history have been among those 
 who have been most conscious of the sublime authority of 
 that law to which they yielded obedience. It is, then, cor- 
 rectly, that Maurice explains Milton's approval of the execu- 
 tion of Charles I. in these words : " Milton, with his stern 
 conception of the awfulness of Law, of its celestial origin, 
 could rejoice in a death which seemed to liim the vindica- 
 tion of it," for he believed with all his soul " in the govern- 
 ment of a King of kings." ^ 
 
 II. The International Workmen's Association. 
 
 This association, designated by the initials, I. W. A., 
 differs in a few particulars only from the I. W. P. A., just 
 described. It lays greater stress on education and is some- 
 what less inchned to favor violence in the present, holding 
 that a revolution in the minds of men must precede the 
 political revolution. Many if not most of its members 
 are state sociaHsts, not Anarchists. A union between the 
 Black and Red has been urged, but has not as yet been 
 brought about. The following explanation of its principles 
 and methods is taken from the " First Report of the Kansas 
 Bureau of Labor Statistics.'' 
 
 " To print and publish and circulate labor literature ; to hold 
 mass meetings ; to systematize agitation ; to establish labor libra- 
 ries, labor halls, and lyceums for discussing social science ; to 
 
 ^ Maurice, 1. c, pp. 15, 16. 
 
252 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 maintain the labor press ; to protect members and all producers 
 from wrong ; to aid all labor organizations ; to aid the establish- 
 ment of unity and the maintenance of fraternity between all 
 labor organizations ; to bring about an alliance between the man- 
 ufacturing and agricultural producers ; to encourage the spirit of 
 brotherhood and inter-dependence among all producers of every 
 state and country ; to ascertain, segregate, classify, and study 
 the habits and acts of their enemies ; to secure information of 
 the wrongs perpetrated against them, and to record and circulate 
 the same ; to arouse a spirit of hostility against and ostracism of 
 the capitalistic press; to prepare the means for directing the 
 coming social revolution by enlightening public opinion on the 
 wrongs perpetrated against the producers of the world ; to oblit- 
 erate national boundary lines and sectional prejudices, with a 
 view to the international unification of the producers of all 
 lands ; and to eradicate the impression that redress can be 
 obtained by the ballot. 
 
 " The Internationalists believe that if universal suffrage had 
 been capable of emancipating the working people from the rule 
 of what they call the ' loafing classes,' that it would have been 
 taken away from them before now, and they therefore have no 
 faith in the. ballot as a means of righting the wrongs under which 
 the masses groan, because the ' district' system, the division of 
 the people into political parties, the manipulation of primaries, 
 caucuses, and elections, the use of money, and the influence of 
 bourgeoisie priests, press, and politician make it impossible for 
 real and honest representatives of the people to be elected; 
 because no means exist to punish or recall unfaithful public 
 servants ; because there are no means by which the people them- 
 selves can pass such laws as they may desire ; because participa- 
 tion in politics, as at present conducted, not only corrupt the 
 leaders, but the rank and file as well ; because, in order to accom- 
 plish their aims, it is necessary that in the hearts and minds of 
 the people, there shall be developed the greatest courage, the 
 loftiest unselfishness, and the most heroic devotion, and that the 
 ' dirty pool of politics ' does not elevate or refine. They believe 
 that the spoliation of the producing classes can only be termi- 
 
THE INTERNATIONALISTS. 2S3 
 
 nated by a bloody and universal revolution ; that this revolution 
 will be precipitated upon them by the ruling class, or monopo- 
 lists, as soon as they understand that the producers are being 
 educated to such a degree as to make their continued 'legal' 
 robbery dangerous to themselves and their institutions ; and 
 they hold that only by the education of the masses can they gain 
 their social and economic freedom. They therefore declare that 
 their first duty is to educate the masses ; to prepare for the 
 coming universal revolution, and to endeavor to so direct it that 
 there may be secured as its results a system of co-operative 
 society which will insure justice to all. The organization is 
 formed on the ' group ' system ; that is, any person who sub- 
 scribes to these principles may become an organizer. He organ- 
 izes a group of eight besides himself. When this group becomes 
 thoroughly conversant with the principles and methods of the 
 organization, each member becomes an organizer and forms 'a 
 group of his own ; and this goes on indefinitely. North America 
 is divided into ten divisions, the Canadian, the British Columbia, 
 the Eastern States, the Middle States, the Western States, the 
 Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Coast, the Southern States, the 
 Mexican, and the Missouri Valley. Each division is presided 
 over by a division executive of nine persons. The International 
 was organized on its present basis on July 15, 1881, with fifty- 
 four delegates, representing 320 ' divisions,' or groups, composed 
 of 600,000 members. The countries represented were France, 
 Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, 
 Russia, Siberia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Turkey, Egypt, England, 
 Mexico, and the United States." 
 
 This I. W. A. is composed chiefly of English-speaking 
 laborers, and its main strength is west of the Mississippi. 
 Its membership is probably small, and fifteen thousand is a 
 generous estimate. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED AND THE EDUCA- 
 TIONAL CAMPAIGN. 
 
 OUR attention must now be devoted to an inquiry into 
 the means by which the Internationalists propose to 
 attain their ends. Having abandoned all faith in the ballot, 
 their present method is to sow the seeds of discontent, bit- 
 terness and hate in the minds of the laborers as a preparation 
 for that violence and revolution which are to inaugurate a 
 new era of peace and good-will among men. The following 
 quotation from their manifesto makes this sufificiently plain. 
 
 " Agitation for the purpose of organization ; organization 
 for the purpose of rebellion. In these few words the ways 
 are marked which the workers must take if they want to be 
 rid of their chains, as the condition of things is the same in 
 all countries of so-called ' civilization.' . . . We could show 
 by scores of illustrations that all attempts in the past to 
 reform this monstrous system by -peaceable means, such as 
 the ballot, have been futile, and all such efforts in the future 
 must necessarily be so for the following reasons : — 
 
 " The political institutions of the time are the agency of 
 the property class; their mission is the upholding of the 
 privileges of their masters ; any reform in your own behalf 
 would curtail their privileges. To this they will not and ' 
 cannot consent, for it would be suicidal to themselves. . . . 
 
 " There remains but one recourse — force ! Our fore- 
 fathers have not only told us that against despots force is 
 
THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 2SS 
 
 justifiable, because it is the only means, but they themselves 
 have set the immemorial example." 
 
 In their resume, they express their purpose in these 
 words : " Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, 
 i.e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary and international 
 action." 
 
 The newspapers of the Internationalists proclaim a similar 
 doctrine, of which the following specimen quotation from 
 Truth may serve as an example : — 
 
 " It is beyond doubt that if universal suffrage had been a 
 weapon capable of emancipating people, our tyrants would 
 have suppressed it long ago. 
 
 " Here in America, it is proved to be but th^ instrument 
 used by our masters ,to prevent any reforms ever being 
 accomplished. The Republican party is run by robbers and 
 in the interest of robbery. The Democratic party is run by 
 thieves and in the interest of thievery. Therefore vote no 
 more." 
 
 Further, the International Labor Association which met 
 in London in July, 1881, declared its hostility to all political 
 action, and their resolution on this subject was printed in 
 Host's Freiheit with approval. It is also in keeping with 
 Host's recent advice to laborers in his speeches. 
 
 The fact is, the Internationalists put their faith in dynamite 
 and other explosives. Dynamite, a cheap product and the 
 poor man's natural weapon, is glorified, and songs are sung 
 in its praise. " Hurrah for science ! hurrah for dynamite, 
 the power which in our hands shall make an end of tyranny," 
 is the sentiment of a poem entitled " Nihilisten " published 
 in the Vorbote. It is explained that powder and musket 
 broke the back of feudalism and made way for the rule of 
 the bourgeoisie. Fire-arms are, however, too expensive for 
 the proletariat, but just as the proletariat was awaking to a 
 
256 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 consciousness of its position, in the very nick of time, dyna- 
 mite was discovered. Consequently sucli squibs as these 
 may be found in the San Francisco Truth : " Truth is five 
 cents a copy and dynamite forty cents a pound." " Every 
 trade-union and assembly ought to pick its best men and 
 form them into classes for the study of chemistry." 
 
 But we have not yet come to the worst ; for there is no 
 conceivable crime or form of violence against individuals or 
 masses which the Internationalists as a party do not indorse, 
 provided these crimes and acts of violence aid them to ac- 
 complish their ends. Hjqjocrisy, fraud, deceit, adultery, 
 robbery, and murder are held sacred, when beneficial to the 
 revolution. Not every individual member certainly main- 
 tains this view, but it is upheld unreservedly by the extremists 
 and more or less explicitly by their leaders and journals. 
 The following quotations from their newspapers supply 
 abundant proof. 
 
 From Truth : " War to the palace, peace to the cottage, 
 death to luxurious idleness ! " 
 
 " We have no moment to waste. Arm ! I say, to the 
 teeth ! for the Revolution is upon you ! " ^ 
 
 An attack on Mr. Abram S. Hewitt concludes with these 
 words : " Mr. Hewitt ought to be turned over to some re- 
 cruit, whose services will be paid for out of Patrick Ford's 
 emergency fund." 
 
 The following characteristic sentiments, a distinct revival 
 of Babouvism, the communistic chmax of the French Revo- 
 lution, are taken from one of their papers : " Plundered as 
 we are by the proprietor who limits our air and light, we 
 must come forth from the cellars and attics in which our 
 families struggle for existence and establish ourselves in 
 those splendid buildings which have been raised at the cost 
 i Tru^A, Nov. 17, 1883. 
 
THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 257 
 
 of SO much toil and suffering, and in those spacious apart- 
 ments in which there is an abundance of pure air, and where 
 the sunlight will throw its life-giving radiance upon our little 
 ones. We must take possession of the great warehouses and 
 stores in which the rich man now finds the means of gratify- 
 ing his caprices, and lay our hands for the common good 
 on the enormous quantity of products of all kinds necessary 
 for our nourishment and for our protection from the 
 weather." 
 
 Assassination of members of the ruKng classes is thus 
 spoken of in one of their journals. "It does not at all 
 appear so terrible to us when laborers occasionally raise their 
 arm and lay low one and another of this clique of robbers 
 and murderers." ' In another issue of the same paper a 
 writer describes the circumstances which would justify the 
 assassination of men like Gould or Vanderbilt : ^ "If at 
 present a man should kill Jay Gould or Vanderbilt without 
 special occasion, this would produce a very unfavorable im- 
 pression, and would be of no use and would not satisfy the 
 popular sense of justice.'' 
 
 " If, on the contrary, a railroad accident should again 
 happen in consequence of the clearly proved criminal greed 
 of these monopolists, and many men should be killed and 
 crippled thereby, and the jury should, as usual, pro- 
 nounce the real criminals, Vanderbilt or Gould, ' not guilty,' 
 and the husband or father of one of the killed or one of the 
 crippled should arise and obtain justice for himself in the 
 massacre of these monsters {diese Scheusale), a cry of joy 
 would resound through the whole land, and no jury would 
 sentence the righteous executioner ( Volhtrecker) .... 
 Whether one uses dynamite, a revolver, or a rope, is a matter 
 of indifference." 
 
 1 Vorbole, Jan. l6, 1881. 2 April 14. 
 
258 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 The Fackel, German for torch, is a most dangerous-ap- 
 pearing sheet, inciting by its very appearance to incendi- 
 arism. The letters of the title die Fackel are in flames, and 
 are printed in a background of fire and smoke. It does not 
 look like the torch which gives light, but the torch which 
 kindles a general conflagration.^ 
 
 Lynching is advocated by these journals, and admired as 
 a form of popular justice. One writer expresses ^ his opinion 
 in this manner : " Judge Lynch is the best and cheapest 
 court in the land ; and when the sense of justice in the peo- 
 ple once awakes, may the judge hold court in every place, 
 for nowhere is there a lack of unhanged honorables and 
 prominent sharps." 
 
 As one hundred years ago in France, so now, revolution 
 has become a religion. " Our religion, the grandest religion 
 that ever suffered for supporters and propagandists." There 
 are those ready to die for it, as there were in the great 
 French Revolution, — an eternal witness to the need of the 
 human mind for some form of religion, and a proof that if 
 a worthy one is not accepted, an unworthy one is sure, sooner 
 or later, to force its entrance into the longing heart, and find 
 there a capability of devotion often grand. The terrible 
 condition of a soul which has thus elevated the trinity — 
 envy, hatred, and destruction — to the position of a god to 
 be served, cannot better be brought home to the reader than 
 by means of a quotation from the Freiheit. The article from 
 
 1 I have been informed that this interpretation, which appeared in my 
 Recent American Socialism, and has since then been often repeated by 
 others, is an error on my part. The true interpretation I did not under- 
 stand, as it involved some old German symbolism, about which I knew 
 nothing. I believe, as a matter of fact, the drawing for the title was 
 made before the Fackel became an advocate of violence. 
 
 2 \a Die Freiheit. 
 
THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 259 
 
 which it is extracted is called " Revolutionary Principles," 
 and appeared in the issue for March i8, 1883 : ' — 
 
 "The revolutionist has no personal interest, concerns, 
 feelings, or inclinations, no property, not even a name. 
 Everything in him is swallowed up by the one exclusive 
 interest, by the one single thought, by the one single passion, 
 
 — the revolution. 
 
 " In the depths of his nature, not only in words, but also 
 in deeds, has he fully broken with the civil order, with the 
 laws currently recognized in this world, with customs, morals, 
 and usages. He is the irreeoncilable enemy of this world ; 
 and if he continues to hve in it, it only happens in order to 
 destroy it with the greater certainty. 
 
 " The revolutionist despises all dogmas, and renounces the 
 science of the present world, which he leaves for future 
 generations. He knows only one science, namely, destruc- 
 tion. For this purpose, and for this alone, he studies me- 
 chanics, physics, chemistry, and possibly also medicine. 
 For this purpose, he studies, day and night, living science, 
 
 — men, characters, relations, — as well as all conditions of 
 the present social order in all its ramifications. 
 
 " He despises public opinion. He. despises and hates the 
 present social morality in all its leadings and in all its mani- 
 festations ; for him, everything is moral which proves the 
 triumph of the revolution, everything immoral and criminal 
 which hinders it. Severe against himself, he must likewise 
 be severe against others. Every affection, the effeminating 
 sensations of relationship, friendship, love, gratitude, all 
 must be smothered in time by the one cold passion, the revo- 
 lutionary work. For him there is only one pleasure, one 
 
 1 It is evidently an interpretation, perhaps slightly changed, of 
 Bakounine's " Revolutionary Catechism." Cf. Laveleye's " Socialism 
 of To-day," pp. 204, 205, 
 
260 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 comfort, one recompense, — the success of the revolution. 
 Day and night may he cherish only one thought, only one 
 purpose, viz., inexorable destruction. While he pursues this 
 purpose, without rest and in cold blood, he must be ready to 
 die, and equally ready to kill every one with his own hands 
 who hinders him in the attainment of this purpose. , . . 
 
 " For the sake of unrelenting destruction, the revolutionist 
 can, and, indeed, often must, live in the midst of society, and 
 appear to be different from what he really is. The revolu- 
 tionist must gain access to the higher circles, the church, the 
 palace. . . . This entire lewd ofiScial society is divided into 
 several categories. The first consists of those who are forth- 
 with to be consecrated to Death" — and much more like 
 this. 
 
 The most violent society in America has recently been 
 fornied, and has issued a proclamation. It is called the 
 Black Hand, and its purpose is immediate violence. A few 
 sentences from the proclamation ^ will prove instructive : " — 
 
 "THE BLACK HAND. 
 
 "A Proclamation Issued by an American Branch. 
 "Be up and Doing. 
 
 " Fellow workmen : The social crisis is pointing in all coun- 
 tries of modern civilization towards a fast approaching crisis. . . . 
 Only through daring will we be victorious. . . . 
 
 1 Published in Truth, Jan. 26, 1884. 
 
 ^ This is the comment of a socialist on what I say about .he Black 
 Hand : " It should be omitted, as there did never exist in America such 
 a thing as a Black Hand. John Most, liking sensation, published only 
 an appeal for forming the Black Hand, and with exception of a few fur- 
 ther cranks, there was never an organization of such a kind." I leave 
 it, though the fact is, I believe, correctly stated by the socialist. It is 
 worth something, even as the expression of the ideas of a very few. 
 
THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 261 
 
 " The masses will only be with us when they trust us, and 
 they will trust us if they have proofs of our power and ability. 
 
 "We will give them. 
 
 " This involves the necessity of revolutionary skirmishes, of 
 daring deeds, of those acts which are the forerunners of every 
 great revolution. This is the name of our International Organi- 
 zation — the Black Hand. 
 
 " Proletarians ! . . . We appeal herewith to all our associates 
 in regard to the propaganda of deed in every form. . . . 
 
 " War to the Knife ! 
 
 " The Executive of the Black Hand." 
 
 The power of the revolutionary and violent socialists in 
 countries where they exist in numbers, is a kind of imperium 
 in imperio, whose leaders regard reverence for nationality as 
 worthy to rank with old wives' superstitions, and consider 
 patriotism a criminal' weakness unworthy of a free man. This 
 socialistic imperium is therefore thoroughly cosmopolitan 
 and one and indivisible in all parts of the world ; but two or 
 more of its chief seats are evidently in America, for New 
 York and still more Chicago seem entitled to such a j)osi- 
 tion. 
 
 The Internationalists look at their power as an imperium, 
 loyalty to which is worthy of the highest praise, and they 
 confer distinguished honor upon all those who suffer in their 
 cause. Terms are used whose aim is to pervert the mind 
 and blind the eyes of sympathizers to the true character of 
 their deeds. The leaders issue their decrees, couched in 
 language proper to the civil authorities of the State, and 
 pass " sentence of death " upon offenders. Assassination is 
 called " execution," while the death penalty, when inflicted 
 upon one of their members in due course of law, is called 
 judicial murder. Thus the fulfilment of the mandates of 
 
262 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Anarchistic committees appear as righteous to those intrusted 
 therewith, as it does to a federal marshal to assist in the 
 enforcement of the laws of the United States. The power 
 in New York, for example, sends instructions to the social- 
 ists of Vienna in 1883, admonishing them to pass over to 
 the propaganda of deed and exterminate the Royal House 
 of Austria and all who uphold them,i and when their " com- 
 rades," Stellmacher and others, murder officers of the 
 Viennese police, a grand demonstration is held in Irving 
 Hall in New York, to glorify these heroes of crime.' The 
 mind of man has conceived no out-pourings of cruel vin- 
 dictiveness and malignant hate which surpass the utter- 
 ance of these mad souls, which one is tempted to believe 
 are the spirits of the lost returned to torment the earth 
 for sin. Most tells the faithful followers that what has hap- 
 pened in Austria ought not be called murder, because 
 " murder is the killing of a human being, and I have never 
 heard that a policeman was a human being." Then he goes 
 on to say that spies and all members of the police ought to 
 be exterminated, one after another, they all long ago having 
 beea declared outlaws by every decent man. " With shouts 
 of joy," continues he, " does the proletariat learn of such 
 deeds of vengeance. The propaganda of deed excites in- 
 calculable enthusiasm. When Hodel and Nobiling shot at 
 the accursed Lehmann,' there were indeed those among the 
 laborers who did not then understand those brave deeds, 
 but to-day the German proletariat has only one objection to 
 raise to them : viz., that better aim was not taken. ... As 
 for America, the people of that land will learn one day that 
 an end is to' be made of the mockery of the ballot, and that 
 
 1 See Die Freiheit, Feb. 24, 1883. 
 
 2 See Vie Freiheit, Feb. 16, 1884. 
 ^ I.e., the Emperor William. 
 
THE P.ROPAGANDA OF DEED. 263 
 
 the best thing one can do with such fellows as Jay Gould 
 and Vanderbilt is to hang them on the nearest lamp-post." 
 Then a series of resolutions were unanimously adopted, 
 expressing sympathy with the aims of the Austrian revolu- 
 tionists, approving of their means, and urging them to spare 
 no life which stood in the way of the extinguishment of the 
 aristocracy and bourgeoisie, in particular to destroy the 
 emperor. The comrades were told that they must make 
 themselves more terrible than terror itself. The resolutions 
 closed with these words : " Brothers ! Your affair is that of 
 the oppressed against their tyrants. It is not the affair of 
 Austria. It is the most sacred affair of the people of all 
 lands. 
 
 " Comrades, we applaud most heartily your acts and your 
 tactics. . . . Kill, destroy, annihilate your aristocracy and 
 bourgeoisie to the last man. 
 
 " In dealing with this canaille, show neither love nor pity, 
 . . . Vive la revolution sociale." 
 
 At the door a collection was taken up to form a " revolu- 
 tionary action-fund." The proceeds were stated to be 
 thirty-six dollars. 
 
 When the wretched August Reinsdorf was executed for an 
 attempt on the life of the German emperor, Host's Freiheit 
 appeared with a heavy black border about the first page, on 
 which was an engraving of this "martyr,'' accompanied by 
 a biographical notice in which he was raised to the rank of 
 an immortal hero and a devoted saint. "One of our noblest 
 and best is no more. In the prison yard at Halle under the 
 murderous sword of the criminal Hohenzollern band, on the 
 7th of February, August Reinsdorf ended a life full of batUe 
 and of self-sacrificing courage, as a martyr to the great 
 revolution. All who knew the comrade personally, know 
 what this loss signifies. Every one who is able to value 
 
264 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 manly worth and self-sacrifice, needs only to know how 
 Reinsdorf conducted himself before the court, in order to 
 possess the highest regard for him beyond the grave. As 
 for us, we have taken Reinsdorf into our heart and there 
 he will remain for all time." Language of this kind is con- 
 tinued through three columns, and it is mentioned with 
 pride that Reinsdorf had been connected with the Freiheit 
 from the beginning of its existence.* 
 
 It might be supposed that these Anarchists would have 
 been stricken with remorse when they heard the news of the 
 horrible dynamite explosions in London in January, 1885, 
 but their consciences had already been seared as with 
 a hot iron, and the editor of Liberty had the audacity to 
 write such words as these : " It is glorious news that comes 
 to us from England ; sad enough if it were unnecessary, sad 
 enough that it should be necessary, but having been made 
 necessary by its victims, none the less joyful and glorious. 
 The dynamite pohcy is now definitely adopted in England, 
 and must be vigorously pushed until it has produced the 
 desired effect of abolishing all the repressive legislation that 
 denies the freedom of agitation and discussion, which alone 
 can result in the final settlement of social questions and 
 make the revolution a fixed fact. ... An explosion that 
 should blow every atom of the English Parliamentary Build- 
 ings into the Thames River ought to be as gratifying to 
 every lover of liberty as the fall of the Bastile in 1789. 
 
 . . Why, by endangering the lives of innocent people, 
 alienate the sympathy of many who would appreciate and 
 applaud a prompt visitation of death upon a Gladstone 
 immediately after the passage of a Coercion Act? . . . 
 How much better and wiser and more effective in this re- 
 spect the course of the Russian and German Terrorists? 
 1 Die Freiheit, Feb. 14, 1885. 
 
THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 26S 
 
 Witness, for instance, the telling promptness with which the 
 police commissioner Rumpff was found dead on his door- 
 step the other day, just after he had accomplished the death 
 sentence of the brave Reinsdorf and his anarchistic com- 
 rades? I commend this relentless directness to the Irish 
 dynamiters." ' 
 
 While the European practices of the revolutionists have 
 not as yet been adopted in America, they themselves claim 
 that our respite is a short one, since they are waiting for 
 an opportune moment to begin the tactics of violence, and 
 the favorable time is expected in a very near future.^ 
 
 While one method of preparing for the revolution is, as 
 is seen, the propaganda of deed, as the use of d)aiamite and 
 personal violence to individuals are euphemistically termed, 
 another is the " Educational Campaign " which accom- 
 panies it and which some even of the Anarchists think 
 ought to precede it, though the tendency now is strongly in 
 the direction of immediate action. 
 
 In the last days of the newspaper Tt:fith, its incessant cry 
 was the " Educational Campaign " which was considered 
 the pressing need of the moment. It was urged that tracts 
 be published, existing journals encouraged, new ones founded, 
 and teachers sent out into the four quarters of the earth to 
 spread the doctrines of socialism far and near. Instructions 
 to agitators were published, of which the following are sam- 
 ples : — 
 
 " Bring right home to him [the wage-worker] the ques- 
 tion of his servitude and poverty. . . . 
 
 " Create disgust with, and rebellion against, existing 
 usages, for success lies through general dissatisfaction. 
 
 " The masses must have something to hate. Direct their 
 hatred to their condition." 
 
 ' Liberty, Jan. 31, 1855. " See Die Freihcit, Feb. 18, 1884. 
 
266 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 These instructions and others like them are now being 
 carried out by the propagandists of anarchy. "Groups" 
 are formed to which text-books constituting a course of 
 study in socialism are recommended. It is urged that 
 members of existing groups continue the work by formation 
 of new groups of seven or eight or more, and that these 
 latter in similar manner carry forward the movement which 
 thus becomes self-propagating. 
 
 The ingenuity displayed in nourishing hate is remarkable. 
 A number of Truth published two years ago contained 
 the bill of fare of a rich man's dinner, which laborers are 
 advised to cut out and paste on their " old tin coffee-pot at 
 home." Long and apparently accurate lists of rich men in 
 the chief cities of the United States are published with 
 headings like this : — ^ 
 
 " DOLLARS. 
 "More men in the United States who have robbed us. 
 
 " The grand Larcenists of America. 
 " The People who have Legally Stolen the Unpaid 
 Wages of the Workers. 
 " {Official?^ 
 " Headquarters Division Executive, Pacific Coast Division, 
 International Workmen's Associationj San Francisco. [Supple- 
 ment to Circular No. lo, Series B., 1883]." 
 
 This also marks out the rich men for attention in the 
 upheaval for which they are preparing. Perhaps they will 
 be turned over to " recruits " to be paid out of emergency 
 funds now being collected, unless, indeed, these should in 
 the meanwhile mysteriously disappear; which fate, it is 
 said, has ere this overtaken certain Irish emergency funds. 
 
 While the labor leaders and the labor press generally con- 
 demn these sentiments of the Internationalists in terms of 
 
 1 Truth, Jan. 16, 1884. 
 
THE PROPAGANDA OF DEED. 267 
 
 merited severity, and while they are happily abhorrent to 
 the vast mass of our laboring population, a serious mistake 
 is sometimes made by writers who would only call attention 
 to existing wrongs and to the dangers of enormous fortunes, 
 and yet do so in language which is too likely to arouse 
 merely envy and hate. More care ought to be exercised in 
 this regard. If the cause of some of these most unfortunate 
 expressions, indeed, is to be found in the evil passions of the 
 human heart, which no one can deny to be at least occasion- 
 ally the case, those who utter them ought to begin a work of 
 reform at once within their own souls, for they can never 
 exert a thoroughly good influence until their own natures 
 are actuated by right feelings. 
 
 The writer of a poem on Vanderbilt's wealth which 
 appeared in John Swinton's paper of Oct. 28, 1883, may 
 himself perhaps have been animated only with the wish 
 to arouse the attention of the careless and indifferent to 
 what he believed to be evil in our social system ; yet there 
 is reason to fear that those who read such productions are 
 more harmed than benefited by them. The poem is enti- 
 tled " Wm. H. Vanderbillion, the song to be sung in the 
 Reign of the Billionaire. Song of the Billionaire." 
 
 The following are three stanzas : — 
 
 " I'm a bloater, I'm a bloater, 
 
 By my millions all are dazed; 
 I'm a bloater, I'm a bloater, 
 On the ' water ' I have raised ! 
 « ■ * * * * 
 
 " I'm a-drumming, I'm a-drumming 
 Up the millions, right or wrong; 
 I'm a-coming, yes, a-coming. 
 
 With a thousand millions strong ! 
 
268 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 " I'm a-nursing, fondly nursing 
 
 Well tay wealth in coffers crammed; 
 Public 's cursing, loudly cursing, 
 
 But ' the public may be damned ! ' " 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 
 
 THE " Manifesto of the Congress of the Socialistic 
 Labor Party," held at Baltimore in December, 1883,^ 
 contained these principles which had been unanimously 
 adopted as the result, both of their own researches and of 
 the studies of their brothers in Europe : 
 
 " Labor being the creator of all wealth and civilization, it 
 rightfully follows that those who labor and create all wealth 
 should enjoy the full result of their toil. Therefore we 
 declare : 
 
 " That a just and equitable distribution of the fruits of 
 labor is utterly impossible under the present system of soci- 
 ety. This fact is abundantly illustrated by the deplorable 
 condition of the working classes, which are in a state of des- 
 titution and degrading dependence in the midst of their 
 own productions. While the hardest and most disagreeable 
 work brings to the worker only the bare necessaries of life, 
 others who labor not riot in labor's production. We further- 
 more declare : 
 
 " That the present industrial system of competition, based 
 on rent, profit-taking, and interest, causes and intensifies 
 this inequality, concentrating into the hands of a few all 
 means of production, distribution, and the results of labor, 
 
 1 A platform somewhat different was adopted at the Fifth National 
 Convention held in Cincinnati in October (5-8), 1885. This will be 
 found in the Appendix. 
 
270 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 thus creating gigantic monopolies dangerous to the people's 
 liberties ; and we further declare : 
 
 " That these monster monopolies and these consequent 
 extremes of wealth and poverty supported by class legisla- 
 tion, are subversive of all democracy, injurious to the na- 
 tional interests, and destructive of truth and morality. This 
 state of affairs, continued and upheld by the ruling political 
 parties, is against the welfare of the people. 
 
 " To abolish this system, with a view to establish co-oper- 
 ative production, and to secure equitable distribution, we 
 demand that the resources of life, namely land, the means 
 of production, public transportation, and exchange become 
 as fast as practicable the property of the whole people." 
 
 The form of society which the members of the Socialistic 
 Labor Party desire is quite different from the voluntary asso- 
 ciation of the Anarchist, since they are unable to understand 
 how there can be social ownership of capital, rational pro- 
 duction in the interest of all, and an equitable distribution of 
 products without control or regulation. Consequently they 
 are not opposed to the state in itself (an sich) , but wish to 
 substitute the socialistic state, the people's state, for the 
 present state-form. Combatting anarchy and individualism, 
 they are, in the strict sense of the term, socialists. While 
 they believe in the state, they do not think that national 
 boundaries should constitute barriers to combined action, 
 either now or hereafter, but hold that the interests of the 
 mass of humanity are one in all lands of civilization. The 
 moderates are as strictly internationalists in theory and feel- 
 ing as the members of the party bearing that name, and, in 
 fact, more nearly resemble the old International of Marx 
 in their organization. 
 
 The Sociahstic Labor Party is composed of local sections, 
 of which there may be only one in any city, although this 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 271 
 
 one may be subdivided into "branches." The head of the 
 party is a " National Executive Committee," which is, how- 
 ever, in some respects, subject to a Board of Supervisors. 
 The final decision of conflicts, of course, rests with the 
 members of the party, who manifest their wishes by their 
 votes. A wide sphere of action is also reserved for their 
 conventions or congresses which meet every two or three 
 years. 
 
 In opposition to the "reds," the "blues" enforce the 
 necessity of unity in organization as the indispensable pre- 
 liminary of harmonious activity. The workmen isolated, it 
 is held, can accomplish nothing, but combined in a closely 
 united whole they can carry everything before them and re- 
 construct the world. " Fellow- workmen," thus the laborers 
 are addressed in their manifesto, " you must rally in one 
 great invincible phalanx, if you hope to gain a foot of 
 ground." 
 
 It is to be noticed that this party of socialists is also a 
 political party, which has in times past taken an active part 
 in politics, in a few cases electing their candidates, and 
 which hopes for greater success in the future, though only 
 a few of them indulge the hope that their reforms can be 
 accomplished peaceably by the ballot. But they advise 
 participation in politics because they regard it as an educa- 
 tional aid, bringing their principles before the people and 
 thus becoming a useful means of propagandism. It is also 
 considered helpful in securing an efficient organization of 
 their own party. " Universal suffrage must be regarded as 
 a weapon in battle, not as a means of salvation."^ Again, 
 the ballot is the best visible evidence of strength, and the 
 growth which it registers must encourage adherents to re- 
 newed efforts for an extension of their principles. They 
 "^ Der Sozia/isi, ]a.n. 24, 1885. 
 
272 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 appear to hope further that it may assist them in securing 
 certain reforms not incompatible with existing economic in- 
 stitutions. But this is not all. As the laborers gain political 
 power, they will attempt to use it in their own behalf; 
 and the ruling classes, it is thought, not being able to con- 
 sent to this, will rebel and bring on the revolution, which is 
 expected in the end. 
 
 The difference between the two parties in respect to revo- 
 lution, then, is this : the Internationalists desire to begin the 
 revolution and do not shrink from an active initiative in 
 deeds of violence. This the moderates regard as madness, 
 holding that a revolution comes in the natural course of evo- 
 lution and cannot be " made." The Socialistic Labor Party 
 believes in peaceful agitation and lawful means in behalf of 
 their principles until their enemies force the struggle upon 
 them ; as their manifesto puts it, — 
 
 " We must expect that our enemies — when they see bur 
 power increasing in a peaceful and legal way and approach- 
 ing victory — will on their part become rebels, just as once 
 did the slave-holders, and that then the time will come, for 
 the cause of labor, when that old prime lever of all revolu- 
 tions. Force . . . must be applied to, in order to place the 
 working masses in control of the state, which then for the 
 first time will be the representative, not of a few priv- 
 ileged classes, but of all society. . . . We surely do not 
 participate in the folly of those men who consider d)fnamite 
 bombs the best means of agitation to produce, the greatest 
 revolution that transpired in the social hfe of mankind. We 
 know very well that a revolution in the brains of men and 
 the economical conditions of society must precede, ere a 
 lasting success can be obtained in the interest of the working 
 classes." 
 
 The doctrine of the Sociahstic Labor Party is not that it 
 
THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 273 
 
 is necessary to secure unanimity of opinion, or even the ad- 
 herence of the majority before their principles can be estab- 
 lished, but they think it essential that a large leaven of 
 socialism and a very general understanding of their principles 
 should precede the successful revolution. It is believed that 
 uprisings will occur without their intervention, and these 
 they hope to be able to guide. They desire to raise up 
 leaders for the proletariat who may seize on the fruits of 
 upheavals in society ; for they argue that after the masses 
 have hitherto accomplished revolutions, the lack of intelli- 
 ligent, determined leaders with definite aims has enabled 
 others to step in and enjoy tlie advantages purchased by the 
 blood of the toiling many. Thus the bourgeoisie captured 
 the French Revolution. They do not mean that this shall 
 occur again. 
 
 The moderates expect the laborers, in the one way or the 
 other, to gain the political power of the state, which they will 
 then use to reconstruct the state, both politically and eco- 
 nomically, in the interest of the entire people. The state, 
 they hold, is now a capitalistic state, because the small but 
 well-organized class of capitalists virtually rule the large 
 but divided class of wage-workers, who constitute four-fifths 
 of the population, and because they do this in such manner 
 as to promote their own welfare at the expense of the masses. 
 The struggle for power hitherto, it is maintained, has been 
 a class-struggle, and the result has always been the 
 triumph of a class in a class-state. The conflict is still 
 between classes, the only two great remaining classes, namely, 
 between capitalists and laborers. This has been the 
 course of development up to the present time, and there is 
 no reason to quarrel with it.' It were as wise to get 
 
 1 1 trust it is sufficiently plain that I am simply endeavoring to pre- 
 sent the opinions of others, not my own. 
 
274 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 angry with the laws of motion. But the evolution of pre- 
 ceding ages is soon to terminate in a higher product than 
 the world has yet seen, for when the masses obtain power 
 there will be constituted for the first time not a class-state, 
 not a form of society designed to benefit any groups of indi- 
 viduals, but the true people's state, the folk-state, designed 
 to elevate all alike. 
 
 It is maintained that democracy, to be real, must be eco- 
 nomic as well as political, and it is this kind of democracy 
 which it is desired to establish. An inconsistency is discov- 
 ered in the democracies of the present age, which grant equal- 
 ity in poUtical affairs without any attempt to realize justice 
 in distribution of products. But this logical contradiction 
 is regarded as even worse than it appears at first sight, from 
 the fact that economic servitude renders pohtical equality a 
 deceit, a snare for the unwary, since those who control the 
 means of life control the votes. Thus, a disastrous climax 
 is reached, — the equality of all men is proclaimed, and then 
 the hopes raised are frustrated by the restriction of this 
 equahty to the political sphere of action; but it does not 
 rest with this curtailment, as indirect means are soon dis- 
 cerned for robbing the people of even political equality. 
 Democracy thus becomes a simulacrum. 
 
 It is not necessary to add much to what has already been 
 said in explanation of their economic ideas, which, indeed, 
 are not peculiar. These socialists believe in a universal 
 system of co-operation, extending itself over the entire 
 civilized world, and embracing, doubtless, in the end, those 
 countries which are not now so far advanced as to be 
 included within the regions of civilization. The means of 
 production, the basis of co-operative labor, are to be the 
 property of the people as a whole, — like the post-office in 
 the United States now, and railroads and telegraph lines in 
 
7'HE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 27S 
 
 Other lands, — and the products for consumption are to be 
 distributed " equitably," which can be differently interpreted 
 according to one's notions of justice. Some would doubtless 
 say " according to deeds," which is socialism ; others, " ac- 
 cording to needs," which might better be called com- 
 munism. 
 
 The Socialistic Labor Party, composed of abler and better- 
 educated men, is far more decent than the International. 
 Its adherents do not indulge to the same extent in the so- 
 called " strong phrases " of the Internationalists, which mean 
 vulgar blackguardism such as would cause a Billingsgate fish- 
 woman to hang her head in envious shame. Again, they do 
 not take such an extreme attitude in regard to religion and 
 the family, neither of which is mentioned in their manifesto, 
 though the Sozialist, their official organ, has rejected all 
 supernatural religion. The abandonment of all hope of a 
 union with the extremists has had a most salutary effect upon 
 the moderates. It is likely that before the separation became 
 final, the better men of the party tolerated much of which 
 they must inwardly have disapproved, in order not to estrange 
 their more violent brethren. 
 
 The adherents of the Socialistic Labor Party do not regard 
 the present state as so utterly bad that it is not worth while 
 to advocate specific reforms at once, among which their 
 manifesto of 1883 mentions the following: "Bureaus of 
 Labor Statistics, Reduction of the Hours of Labor, Abolition 
 of Contract Convict Labor, Employers' Liability Law, Pro- 
 hibition of Child Labor, Compulsory Education, Factory, 
 Mine, and Workshop Inspection, Sanitary Inspection of Food 
 and Dwellings, and Payment of Wages in Cash." They also 
 frequently demand the referendum, as in Switzerland, and 
 such arrangements as are calculated to give the people an 
 initiative in legislation. Such constitutional changes are ad- 
 
275 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 vocated as will abolish the Senate, and substitute a federal 
 council, as in Switzerland, for our presidency. 
 
 The three most prominent organs of the moderates are 
 Der Soziattst, the official weekly already mentioned, started 
 Jan. 3, 1885, the Philadelphia Tageblatt, and the New 
 Yorker Volkszeitung, a daily, which also issues a weekly and 
 a Sunday edition. The Volkszeitung is in its eighth year, and 
 is decidedly the cleanest and ablest socialistic sheet in the 
 United States. A similar newspaper in the English language, 
 called the Voice of the People, was started early in 1883. It 
 appeared as a weekly, but promised a daily edition, which 
 remained an unfulfilled hope, while even the weekly soon 
 died. 
 
 An attempt is being made to win EngUsh-speaking follow- 
 ers, and the National Executive Committee advertises six 
 pamphlets and a series of socialistic tracts in the English 
 language. An English organ is contemplated. Some prog- 
 ress has been made in winning English-speaking adherents 
 to the party, and large success has met their efforts to diffuse 
 their ideas among the laboring clsisses ; but, as the Sozialist 
 frankly acknowledges, they are still a " German colony, a 
 branch of the German social democracy." Indeed, one bond 
 of union holding them together is their interest and active 
 participation in the election of members to the Imperial 
 Parliament of Germany. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 
 ITS SIGNIFICANCE.! 
 
 THE character, aims, and methods of the parties rep- 
 resenting socialism in America have now been de- 
 scribed, but a yet unanswered question is, What have we to 
 fear from them? 
 
 The first step in the reply to this query is the ascertain- 
 ment of their strength. While it is extremely difficult to 
 make even an approximate estimate, and more than this is 
 impossible, there are several indications of the extent of 
 their power which must be noticed. 
 
 One of these signs is their press. The number of papers 
 already enumerated is considerable, and others might be 
 mentioned. Starkweather and Wilson, in their pamphlet, 
 give three lists of journals. The first includes those which 
 are " socialistic,'' and under this head sixteen journals are 
 mentioned, of which three are dailies. The second list is 
 composed of ten " semi-socialistic " newspapers, of which 
 two appear daily. " Socialistically inclined " periodicals to 
 the number of eight constitute the third class. While some 
 of the journals enumerated have ceased to appear, new ones 
 have sprung up to take their place. It is a point worthy of 
 note that a tireless, persistent effort is making to disseminate 
 the most radical views by means of a press which appears, 
 
 1 In the perusal of this chapter it should be remembered that there 
 are peaceful as well as violent revolutions. 
 
278 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 on the whole, to be increasing in power. The larger number 
 of pronounced socialistic papers belong to the extremists, 
 which may be considered as ominous an indication as the 
 fact that they appear in all sections of the country, not ex- 
 cluding those which are supposed to offer the most favorable 
 opportunities to the laborer. Denver, Col., sends us the 
 Labor Enquirer, with the motto, " He who would be free 
 himself must strike the blow '.' ; and not long ago the Tocsin, 
 a Herald of the Coming Revolution, rang out no uncertain 
 war-ciy in Dallas, Tex. The only one of the parties hav- 
 ing an English official organ is the International, with its 
 Alarm ; while the Voice, representing the Socialistic Labor 
 Party, a comparatively modest and decent newspaper, failed 
 for lack of support. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate the strength of the socialistic 
 newspapers. As already stated, the Vorbote, the oldest of 
 them, is in its twelfth year. Their advertising patronage is 
 often fair, which would seem to indicate a respectable circu- 
 lation. Truth claimed a circulation of six thousand, which 
 must be placed over against the fact that it finally ceased to 
 appear for lack of sufficient support and the proprietor's 
 statement that he sank twelve thousand dollars of his own 
 money in the concern. The Sozialist in its fourth number ' 
 claimed 3,389 subscribers, in addition to five hundred cop- 
 ies sent in response to inquiries and distributed to different 
 news companies. The strongest socialistic newspaper in 
 the country is the New Yorker Volkszeitung, which has been 
 already mentioned. It is claimed that the three editions of 
 this journal together have a circulation of over thirty thou- 
 sand, which is larger than that of any other German news- 
 paper in the country with the single exception of the 
 Staatszeitung of New York. 
 
 1 Jan. 24, 1S85. 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 279 
 
 But we must not confine ourselves to journals nominally 
 socialistic in our attempts to estimate the influence of the 
 press in the diffusion of socialism among American laborers. 
 
 There are several organs of trades-unions which advocate 
 the general principles of socialism, although they do not make 
 that their chief concern, for their aim is first of all to pro- 
 mote the interest of their particular trades. Among these 
 may be mentioned Der Hammer, the official organ of the 
 Metal Workers' Union of North America:; the Deutsch- 
 Amerikanische Baecker-Zeitung, the organ of the Journey- 
 man Bakers' Union ; the Furniture Workers^ journal, the 
 official organ of the International Furniture Union ; Prog- 
 ress, the official organ of the Cigar Makers' Progressive 
 Union. The Carpenter, the official organ of the Brother- 
 hood of Carpenters and Joiners, and some other papers, are 
 described by the Sozialist as " well on the road to social- 
 ism," but this is a doubtful expression. A person who 
 recognizes the full strength of socialism and acknowledges 
 the good there is in it, and yet sees clearly its weakness, 
 may be, and often is, further from an acceptance of that 
 economic system than its most pronounced but bigoted 
 opponent. Many of the labor papers, however, open their 
 columns for a free discussion of socialism as well as of other 
 questions of the day, and thus give an opportunity for the 
 presentation of socialistic opinions, while taking no definite 
 position either for or against them. A few are undoubtedly 
 socialistic, even when they do not take the position of 
 formal advocates. Such is the Workmen's Advocate of New 
 Haven. Tfie Irish World and Industrial Liberator, which 
 is said to have an immense circulation, has been claimed as 
 an exponent of socialism, but with how much truth I am 
 unable to say. Finally, it must be noticed that foreign 
 journals like Le Socialiste of Paris and Der Sozial-Demokrat, 
 
280 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 the official organ of the German social democracy, published 
 in Zurich, Switzerland, circulate to a limited extent among 
 our French and German laborers. Several organs of social- 
 ism have recently begun to appear in England, like the 
 Christian Socialist, the monthly To Day, and the weekly 
 Commonweal, to which the English poet, Morris, contrib- 
 utes regularly. These come to our country and are read by 
 a few. The English organ of the Anarchists, called the 
 Anarchist, also finds its way to our shores, but its circulation 
 in the United States is doubtless limited. 
 
 Nevertheless, it cannot be said that either socialism or an- 
 archism has a strong press in this country, and it is to be 
 noticed as a welcome sign that the moderate socialists con- 
 trol both the most influential organ and a larger number of 
 newspapers than the extremists. Indeed, it may be said 
 that outside of their own organs the Anarchists and Inter- 
 nationalists control at most the general policy of but two or 
 three labor newspapers. The Miners' jfournal, of Scam- 
 monville, Kan., was mentioned two years ago in Liberty as 
 the first instance, so far as the editor could call to mind, 
 of a newspaper " published in the interest of a special class 
 of workers and pointing them to complete liberty as their 
 only hope." 
 
 The socialists in Germany almost universally believe in 
 the ballot and participate in elections very generally, so that 
 the results of the elections for members of the Imperial 
 Parliament give one some notion of their strength and of 
 their progress. It was, for example, a reliable indication of 
 growth when the social-democrats sent twenty-four members 
 to the German ParUament in the fall of 1884, while up to that 
 time they had never elected more than thirteen representa- 
 tives. But in this country a large part of the socialists hav- 
 ing abandoned the use of the baUot as a means of agitation, 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 281 
 
 the fact that they have achieved Kttle success as poUticians 
 is not so significant, and the constantly recurring elections 
 give no gauge with which to measure their growth. 
 
 While there may have been those in Congress who sympa- 
 thized with many of their teachings, the sociahsts have never 
 had a representative in that body who was elected nominally 
 as their candidate. They have, however, elected municipal 
 councillors in Chicago, and have elsewhere gained a few 
 victories through the ballot-box. In 1879 four socialistic 
 aldermen were elected in that city, and the party's candidate 
 for mayor received twelve thousand votes. Three of their 
 candidates for the House of Representatives and State 
 Senate of Illinois were elected the same year. In 1878 
 they went into the field in Ohio with a State ticket, which 
 received over twelve thousand votes, and this seems to have 
 been their high-water mark in politics in that State. The 
 following year their State ticket in New York received ten 
 thousand votes, or less, and this discouraged them.' 
 
 At their last congress, in Baltimore, 1883, the Socialistic 
 Labor Party reported the existence of thirty-eight " sec- 
 tions" which were united in the central organization, in 
 addition to a few independent sections. Rapid progress 
 appears to have been made since then, however, as fifty- 
 eight " sections " publish notices of their places and days of 
 meeting, in Xhs. Sozialist for March 7, 1885, and seventy- 
 two in the issue for July 3, 1886. There is no means of 
 obtaining the exact number of members in each section. 
 The one in New York seems to be quite large, as it is com- 
 posed of four branches, and Branch One recently numbered 
 two hundred and seventy-five members, while there were 
 thirty appUcants for membership. But most of the sections 
 
 1 Report of the Proceedings of the National Convention, held in 
 Allegheny, Pa., 1879-80. 
 
282 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 are evidently small, and the total number of enrolled 
 names can be safely estimated as under ten thousand. 
 This is, however, comparatively a small matter. These 
 sections are simply gathering points for the more ardent 
 promoters of the cause. It has been recently stated that 
 there were twenty-five thousand adherents of the party in 
 New York, and if I wished to venture a guess, — a rash thing 
 to do, — I should say that there might be half a million 
 adherents of the general principles of moderate and peace- 
 ful socialism in the United States. 
 
 The several unions whose organs have already been men- 
 tioned in this chapter are composed largely of socialists, and 
 there are socialists in all the labor organizations. This could 
 not be otherwise, for it would be unreasonable to expect a 
 labor organization to refuse admission to a workman, otherwise 
 unexceptionable, because he held a certain theory of indus- 
 trial society which might not accord with the opinions of 
 the majority. It must also be remembered that socialists 
 who are fired with missionary zeal join the organization pur- 
 posely to make converts to their faith. Again, when various 
 theories of government are discussed earnestly by men whose 
 circumstances render them comparatively unprejudiced, it 
 is in the nature of things that some should adopt one set of 
 ideas, and some another, and there is no cause of alarm in 
 this. The intellectual stagnation which would follow the 
 cessation of debate and discussion is something far more to 
 be dreaded. 
 
 The Declaration of Principles of the Knights of Labor 
 means, undoubtedly, socialism, if one draws the logical con- 
 clusion of these statements, and one might be inclined to 
 class them all as socialists at once ; but this would be a serious 
 mistake. They do not bring their socialism forward promi- 
 nently; many do not even see that their principles imply 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 283 
 
 socialism ; some of them are violently opposed to the theory 
 itself, and many more to the name ; while some do not think 
 at all on the subject. I imagine the best thinkers among 
 them might object to a classification of the Knights as social- 
 ists somewhat in these words : " Yes, our Declaration of 
 Principles undoubtedly means socialism, but, after all, it is 
 not fair to call us socialists, in the ordinary sense of the 
 word. Like John Stuart Mill, we contemplate socialism only 
 as a dim and distant ideal, but not as anything capable of 
 realization in the present." 
 
 What is said of the Knights of Labor holds equally with 
 reference to the North American Gymnastic Union, although 
 it may be that the socialism of this body is more pronounced. 
 Some of the local unions are avowedly socialistic. 
 
 The theory of the inalienable right of the people to the 
 original properties of the soil, as advocated by Henry George 
 in his remarkable book, " Progress and Poverty,'' cannot be 
 omitted in an account of American socialism, although the 
 realization of the jrfans of George and his followers would 
 inaugurate only a partial socialism, not complete or pure 
 socialism. It is proposed that society should resume owner- 
 ship of the soil by a tax equal to the rental value of land. 
 The revenues obtained are to be used to benefit the people 
 as a whole, and this would involve an enormous increase of 
 State functions along certain lines. I believe the ownership 
 of the means of communication and transportation is 
 regarded by Henry George as an essential part of his theory. 
 It must be noticed that the intervention of government would 
 be decreased in many fields of industry, inasmuch as all taxa- 
 tion, except that on land, would be abolished. This feature 
 of the theory may, perhaps, commend it to manufacturers. 
 " Progress and Poverty " has not been published ten years, 
 yet it is now possible to affirm without hesitation that the ap- 
 
284 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 pearance of that one book formed a noteworthy epoch in the 
 history of economic thought both in England and America. 
 It is written in an easily understood and brilliant style, is 
 published in cheap editions both in England and America, 
 and in each country has attained a circulation which for an 
 economic work is without precedent. Tens of thousands of 
 laborers have read " Progress and Poverty " who never before 
 looked between the covers of an economic book, and its 
 conclusions are widely accepted articles in the workingman's 
 creed. But there is reason to think that the number of ad- 
 herents outside of the laboring classes is relatively, quite as 
 large. Men of all occupations are included, — manufac- 
 turers, lawyers, merchants, physicians, divines. An organ- 
 ization for the realization of the principles of " Progress 
 and Poverty" has been formed, called the "Tax Reform 
 League." Several newspapers, including at least one daily, 
 support the theory of " Tax Reform,'' as it is inadequately 
 but rather euphemistically called. 
 
 ; Mention must further be made of the fact that socialists 
 not connected with any party are found in all ranks of soci- 
 ety. One comes upon them everywhere, — in the theological 
 seminary, in the law school, in the merchant's counting- 
 room, in the manufacturer's office ; and, though all together 
 they constitute a small fraction of the people, one whose atti- 
 tude is not such as to repel all confidence will be surprised 
 to find so many. College graduates are included among 
 the socialists, and (I mention it for what it is worth) I am 
 inclined to think, judging from such observations as I have 
 been able to make, that those institutions of learning will 
 be found to turn out the most socialists where the students 
 are taught so to abhor it that any frank and full discussion 
 of its merits and its defects becomes impossible. 
 
 Socialism has made but slight progress among agricul- 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 285 
 
 turists ; yet the ground is ripe for it in parts of this country. 
 A gentleman of most careful habits of observation, and a 
 representative of the class of large landholders in Illinois, 
 assures the writer that although there is no organized social- 
 ism or understanding of any theoretical body of socialistic 
 doctrines among the agricultural laborers in his State, three- 
 fourths of them are in such a frame of mind as to be easy 
 converts even to quite radical socialism. Wherever there 
 are latifundia, agricultural laborers will be found accessible 
 to the arguments of socialists. It has been the case in 
 Spain and Italy, and there is reason to fear that it will prove 
 to be so in our own West to an even more alarming extent in 
 future years.^ 
 
 The reader now has the more important data used in my 
 estimate. 
 
 Passing on to the Internationalists, it may be safely 
 said that no one knows their precise strength. There 
 are groups in every part of the United States ; but the 
 ties connecting them are so loose that there is no reason 
 to think that even the " Bureau of Information " could have 
 ever given the location of all of them, much less the total 
 number of their adherents. It is possible that each of the 
 two parties of the Internationalists may have embraced ten 
 or fifteen thousand members, including all conected with 
 them by even a loose tie, and quite likely there are two or 
 three hundred thousand people among us who sympathize 
 with their general aims. 
 
 It is frequently stated that we have nothing to fear from 
 socialism, because most socialists in America are foreigners. 
 What is the significance of this fact? It means something, 
 but not so much as a superficial observer would suppose. 
 We did not have socialists of our present type in the earlier 
 1 See Laveleye's " Socialism of To-day," pp. 222, 232. 
 
286 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 period of our history, because the socialism of to-day is itself 
 something new. This theory of society, which is now a 
 subject of much grave anxiety to the civilized world, is 
 scarcely forty years old. The conditions were not ripe for it 
 in other countries in earlier ages, much less in the United 
 States. To-day one of the principal reasons why our social- 
 ists are for the most part foreigners is because our laboring 
 population consists chiefly of men and women of foreign 
 birth or foreign parentage, and the bulk of socialistic parties 
 is always composed of working people. Some lines of pro- 
 duction in industrial centres are almost entirely carried on 
 by laborers of European birth or parentage. Is there any- 
 thing in our institutions to change the sentiments of our 
 laboring classes, and to induce them to abandon socialism? 
 Let us indulge in no illusions. There is no valid reason to 
 suppose that a republican form of government is in itself less 
 congenial to socialism than a monarchical ; and if socialists 
 disappear in the United States, it will be something else than 
 our existing poUtical institutions which will bring about this 
 consummation. They are far more likely to increase than 
 decrease in number as population grows denser, and the try- 
 ing times prophesied by Macaulay and Huxley ■■ come upon 
 us. Nevertheless, there is ground for the hope that in time 
 the violent hostility of Anarchists to the most cherished pos- 
 sessions of our civihzation will become less pronounced in 
 America. American workmen will sooner or later perceive 
 that the Christian Church is not hostile to their just aspira- 
 tions, but rather their best friend. There is much that is 
 cheerful and promising in the present awakening of our 
 churches to their duty to those for whose benefit Christianity 
 was specially proclaimed in the first days of its history. 
 Europeans coming to our shores will yet learn that a state 
 1 In his opening address at the Jolins Hopkins University in 1876. 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 287 
 
 church, supported as the tool of despotism, is one thing, and 
 that the Gospel of Christ is quite another thing. Second, it 
 may be anticipated that republican institutions will teach 
 those who enjoy them that there are better methods than 
 violence of securing the reforms which the people really de- 
 sire. Third, the determined effort to reform our divorce laws, 
 and purify and elevate the family, which is now making, will 
 show that over-hasty conclusions drawn from corrupt and 
 rotten society are erroneous, — at any rate, if there are the 
 capabilities for good in the American character which we 
 all hope. 
 
 " From socialism, as such, the American people, in the 
 writer's opinion, have nothing to fear. So long as socialists 
 confine themselves to peaceful methods there is no reason 
 why their right of free speech should be abridged or even 
 feared. It were wiser to seek to learn anything from them 
 which they have to teach than to become alarmed. It is 
 the glory of America that she has faith to believe that only 
 such institutions as rest upon sound common sense and 
 approved experience will be supported by the people." ^ 
 
 There are several reasons for this opinion. Peaceful social- 
 ism can be introduced only by degrees in a slow and gradual 
 growth, and we are so far from it, that some advocates, like 
 Lassalle and Rodbertus, speak about a full realization of 
 their aims after the expiration of two, three, and even five 
 hundred years. Now, if our descendants, generations hence, 
 are convinced, as a result of successive experimental steps, 
 that pure socialism is the best industrial form, it certainly 
 need give us no concern, and it were foolish to pass a single 
 sleepless night in lamentations over the prospect. We all 
 hope that our children's children, — in short, all future genera- 
 
 1 Quoted from my article on " Socialism in America " in the North 
 American Review for June, 1886. 
 
2S8 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 tions, — will be even more capable than their ancestry to man- 
 age the affairs of their own age. Second, socialism, when 
 stripped of all accessories, is simply a theory of industrial 
 society, and if it could be shown that it is a better form, of 
 economic life than our present imperfect system, it ought to 
 be welcomed most heartily. I, for my part, do not believe 
 that this is true ; but I fail to see any valid reason why a man 
 who thinks so should be subject to reproach. On the con- 
 trary, I see great harm, possibilities of terrible disaster in 
 any serious attempt to suppress free and open inquiry, and 
 to drive error into those gloomy and subterranean channels, 
 where it grows and expands in a congenial atmosphere until 
 it breaks forth in volcanic eruptions. 
 
 Finally, the really dangerous forces at work a,mong us are 
 those of disintegration, — the centrifugal not the centripetal. 
 Now, the whole aim and purpose of socialism is a closer 
 union of social factors, and so thoroughly convinced am I 
 that the present need is growth in that direction, so 
 thoroughly persuaded am I that there is no present danger, 
 that we shall advance far enough towards the goal of socialism 
 to intrench on the sphere of the individual, or to commit 
 any irreparable injury, that I could almost say welcome the 
 work of the socialist as a necessary and beneficial bulwark 
 against the anarchy of individualism.^ 
 
 ^ The members of the Socialistic Labor Party realize full well that 
 they have little in common with the Anarchists. A pamphlet has 
 recently been published by the National Executive Committee of this 
 party, entitled " Socialism and Anarchism — Antagonistic Opposites." 
 In the first paragraph, the writer says: " Socialism and anarchism are 
 opposites. . . . Socialists and Anarchists, as such, are enemies. They 
 pursue contrary aims, and the success of the former will forever destroy 
 the fanatical hopes of the latter." The Socialists are weak in Chicago 
 because the Anarchists are strong. They claim that if they had had more 
 influence in that city, the horrible tragedy of May 4 would never 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 289 
 
 But if socialism in itself is not to be feared, quite the 
 opposite is the case with respect to the violence of the 
 Internationalists. 
 
 It is evident that there is no danger in any near future, — 
 probably not in the lifetime of any who read this, — of a total 
 overthrow of repubUcan institutions in this land. Giving 
 the men of violence credit for all the forces they can pos- 
 sibly claim, they could muster under their banners only a 
 comparatively small part of the population, and this com- 
 posed of men scattered from Maine to CaUfornia, and from 
 Michigan to Georgia, and chiefly raw, undrilled laborers, 
 without competent leaders, or the resources which are the 
 sinews of war. But does it consequently follow that they 
 could do no serious damage? Let him who thinks so 
 remember the loss of life and property in 1877, the latter 
 estimated at not less than one hundred millions of dollars. 
 Now that is exactly what we have to fear, another 1877 ; and 
 this is precisely that for which the Anarchists are preparing. 
 It is a refrain which one finds repeatedly in all their publi- 
 cations : " Get ready for another 1877 — buy a musket for a 
 repetition of 1877." "Buy dynamite for a second 1877." 
 " Organize companies and drill, to be ready for a recurrence 
 of the riots of 1877." 
 
 Truth, in its number for Dec. 15, 1883, published an 
 article entitled : " Street Fighting. — How to use the Military 
 Forces of Capital when it is Necessary ! — Military Tactics 
 for the Lower Classes." It purports to be written by an 
 officer in the United States army, and a raiHtary authority 
 informs the writer, that the substance of this article, although 
 possessing little merit, is not of such a character as to render 
 this impossible. It suggests new methods of building barri- 
 
 have occurred. It is true that they have condemned every proposal of 
 such acts as madness. 
 
290 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 cades, and improved methods of meeting attacking troops. 
 Numerous and apparently reasonable diagrams are given. 
 " Military knowledge," says the officer in the army of the 
 United States, " has become popularized a little even since 
 1877, and it would not be hard to find, in every large city of 
 the world to-day, upon the side of the people, some fair 
 leaders capable of meeting the enemy in some such way as 
 this." Then follows one of the diagrams. 
 
 The Vorbote has recently published a series of articles on 
 the arming of the people. One sentiment often repeated 
 is this : " We have shown too much mercy in the past. Our 
 generous pity has cost us our cause. Let us be relentless in 
 the coming struggle." 
 
 Truth, in its issue dated Nov. 3, 1883, quotes F61ix 
 Pyat to this effect : " We have the right, we have the power ; 
 defend it, employ it ! without reserve, without remorse, 
 without scruples, without mercy. . . . War to the extreme, 
 to the knife. A question of life or death, for one of the two 
 shall rest on the spot. . . . For the good of the people, iron 
 and fire. All arms are human, all forces legitimate, and all 
 means sacred. We desire peace; the enemy wants war. 
 He may have it absolutely. Killing, burnings- all means 
 are justifiable. Use them ; then will be peace ! " 
 
 The revolutionists claim that while the first 1877 took 
 them unawares, they will be armed to the teeth and ready 
 for the second, which will usher in the dawn of a new civili- 
 zation. It is surprising that many of them in their fury and 
 fanaticism, expect the present generation will not pass away 
 until all their dreams are fulfilled, and not one stone of our 
 old civilization is left on another. There is no doubt about 
 their terrible earnestness. One of them addressed recently 
 an epistle to the writer, demanding of him whether in the 
 coming conflict he would be found fighting on the side of 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 291 
 
 the oppressed or the oppressor, — " on the side of socialism 
 or capitalism." In fact, a very little association and famil- 
 iarity with the socialists is sufficient to convince one of their 
 earnestness, as well as of the fact that property does not, by 
 any means, invariably make conservatives of men. 
 
 Now can there be any doubt about the seriousness of the 
 situation ? If it were known that one thousand men, like the 
 notorious train robbers, the James' boys, were in small 
 groups scattered over the United States, would not every 
 conservative and peace-loving householder be filled with 
 alarm, and reasonably so ? Yet here we have more than ten 
 times that number educated to think robbery, arson, and 
 murder justifiable, nay, even righteous ; taught to believe the 
 slaughter of the ruling classes a holy work, and prepared to 
 follow it with all the fanaticism of religious devotion, ready 
 to die if need be, and prepared to stifle all feelings of grati- 
 tude and natural affection, and to kill with their own hands 
 every opponent of the grand cause. It is, indeed, as Presi- 
 dent White has pointed out, an anomaly in our legislation, 
 that it is lawful for a man like John Most to preach whole- 
 sale massacre, while it is criminal for A to incite B to slay C. 
 And this Most ' is the Hon among the extremists in the 
 United States ; this man who, on account of his excessive 
 violence, was repudiated by his own countrymen, and almost 
 unanimously expelled from the social democratic party of 
 Germany. There are those who, when extensive and riotous 
 strikes again occur, will remember the teachings which are 
 entering into their flesh and blood, yes, into their very soul, 
 and will take their muskets and their dynamite, and " descend 
 
 ' Most continued to sink in the estimation even of the Anarchists, — 
 even still more of the laboring classes, by whom he had always been 
 abhorred, — until his imprisonment which has done a little — not 
 much — to restore him to favor. 
 
292 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 into the streets," and, thinking the great day has arrived, 
 will cast about right and left, and seek to demolish, to anni- 
 hilate all the forces and resources of wealth and civilization.' 
 While the result will be their inevitable defeat, it will cause 
 sorrow and bloodshed to the defenders of our institutions, 
 as well as to the rebels, and will drive further apart than ever 
 before in this land, the two great classes of industrial society, 
 — employers and employees. " 
 
 What we have to fear then is large loss of life, estrange- 
 ment of classes, incalculable destruction of property, and a 
 shock to the social body, which will be a serious check to our 
 economic growth for years to come. 
 
 Something more serious still is among the possibilities, for 
 it should be understood that the civilization of modem times 
 will be subjected to severer tests than those which have 
 overthrown the glory of ancient states. It has been sup- 
 posed that the accumulations of knowledge, of culture, of 
 wealth could no longer be annihilated, because gunpowder 
 and the implements of modem warfare have rendered it im- 
 possible for savages and barbarians to vanquish advanced 
 nations. This is tme, but false is the not overwise conclu- 
 sion so often drawn from this fact, that uninterrupted prog- 
 ress of the race for all future time is a certainty. It is not 
 always easy to read aright the lessons of human history ; but 
 plain and clear, and unquestioned do the annals of the past 
 
 1 At such a time, even one man may do vast damage. 
 
 ^ This entire paragraph is re-printed, without the change of a word, 
 from my " Recent American Socialism," which was written early in 
 1885. I think there has already been a partial realization of the fears 
 there expressed. Of course, the Chicago massacre occurs to every 
 one; but those regions in America where there has been most violence 
 in connection with recent strikes, have been precisely those, so far as 
 I know, which have been most under the influences of the ideas of the 
 Internationalists. 
 
STRENGTH OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM. 293 
 
 reveal a power which " makes for righteousness," and which 
 — call it what we will — passes judgment on the nations of 
 the earth, and dooms those to decay and destruction which 
 have ceased to help onward the growth of mankind. The 
 moment advance stops, the seeds of final overthrow begin 
 to take root in the soil. Now, I apprehend that what has 
 been true of the past will hold good for the future. I 
 believe that Almighty God — for thus do most of us call the 
 supreme power revealed in history — still judges the nations 
 of earth, and exacts more from th-'.m than ever before, be- 
 cause of their grander opportunities. The dangers which 
 threaten civilization have not disappeared ; their nature has 
 changed. No longer do they proceed from without, but 
 from within. Our foes are those of our own household. 
 Threatening disasters are domestic, not foreign. 
 
 The beginning of the wonderful inventions of the past four 
 centuries was accompanied by equally marvellous discoveries 
 of new and comparatively unoccupied lands — notably the 
 entire Western Hemisphere. The march of civilization con- 
 tinued its westward course, and first, in our day, is it begin- 
 ning to double on itself. The Occident and the Orient now 
 touch ; growth has been extensive ; now that the room for 
 ■ expansion is disappearing, it must become intensive ! * Pop- 
 ulation becomes denser, and at the present rate of increase 
 will, in a few generations, present a crowded appearance all 
 the earth overj and, in the meantime, the power of one 
 man to do injury is increasing with alarming rapidity. 
 
 Again, the vicious character of certain elements which 
 congregate in cities, is proverbial, and their viciousness grows 
 with their opportunities. Did not Bismarck, indeed, long 
 ago express the wish that all great cities, because hot-beds of 
 revolution, should be swept off the surface of the earth ! 
 1 Africa, as a field for settlement, may delay or turn the tide a little. 
 
294 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 We have found security in this country in the large number of 
 rural homes but these diminish relatively with the growth of 
 great cities, and it is precisely this growth which has char- 
 acterized American progress. In 1790, 3.3 per cent of the 
 population of the United States hved in cities; in 1880, 
 22.5 ; in 1800, there were six American cities with a popula- 
 tion of 8,000, or more ; in 1880, 286. From 1790 to 1880, 
 our entire population increased twelve-fold, but our urban 
 population, eighty-six-fold. The growth of cities has not 
 been peculiar to the United States, but has been common to 
 the civilized world. It lies in the nature of our civilization, 
 and can be retarded by no weak and foolish outcries. It is 
 part and parcel of our economic development, and as such, 
 is certain to continue in the future. Every new railway, 
 every mechanical invention, every improved industrial pro- 
 cess, concentrates the population in cities. 
 
 This is not written to excite undue alarm, but to call 
 attention to the nature of forces now at work in the world. 
 There are many hopeful signs. The truth, in a single sen- 
 tence, is this : the potentialities in the civilized world, either 
 for good or for evil, are grand beyond historical precedent, 
 and the use made of them depends largely upon the intel- 
 lectual enlightenment and the ethical elevation of the pres- ■ 
 ent generation. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE REMEDIES. 
 
 NOW arises that old question, What shall we do about 
 it? Well, there is no simple, easily applied formula 
 which will cure social evils, and any one who pretends to 
 have at his command a panacea for the ailments of the 
 body politic, is a quack worthy of no respect. 
 
 Certainly it cannot be my purpose, in the few remaining 
 pages of the present book, to present an elaborate scheme 
 of social regeneration. My aim is a more modest one. It 
 is only to give a few suggestions, scarcely more than hints, 
 which may be useful to the reader, enabling him to contribute 
 to a better utilization of the world's experience, and of 
 established rules of moral conduct. 
 
 First of all, it is a time for those men to keep quiet, who, 
 little in heart and mind, have no better remedy for social 
 phenomena which do not please them, than physical force. 
 They fail absolutely to understand the age in which they 
 live, and will involve us all in ruin, if allowed to execute their 
 savage plans. This applies equally to men of all social 
 classes. Nevertheless, legal repression has its own place. 
 Outbreaks of violence must be repressed, and that even 
 more for the sake of the workingmen themselves than for 
 their employers ; for the preservation of law and order is an 
 indispensable condition of the maintenance of such blessings 
 as civilization has already brought us. If the law is some- 
 times hard and unjust, the laborer should remember that 
 
296 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 without law we can have no state, and that the state alone 
 can save us from that reign of anarchy, in which no bounds 
 could be set to the oppression of the strong and cunning. 
 There is, then, no doubt that punishment^ should be meted 
 out to those who violate the laws of the land, and exception- 
 ally severe punishment to those who aim, by means of vio- 
 lent action, at their total overthrow. But of more impor- 
 tance than severity in the administration of criminal law, is 
 certainty and celerity of punishment. This is not likely to 
 be disputed, but when we come to agitation and incitement 
 to revolution in a general way, there is more disagreement 
 in regard to the course to be pursued. However, it is safe 
 to say that the outcome of past experience is against legal 
 interference with theorists before they proceed to overt acts. 
 With ten times more favorable opportunities than exist in 
 the United States, Bismarck has tried the enactment of 
 severe laws against the socialists in Germany, but with 
 very unsatisfactory results; so unsatisfactory that it may 
 be questioned whether he has not strengthened the social 
 democrats. He has rendered several services to them ; ke 
 has united hostile factions into one compact party ; he has, 
 in his persecutions, enabled them to pose as martyrs, and 
 actually to feel themselves such, and that is a great source 
 of strength ; finally, he has made propaganda for them, and 
 drawn to them the sympathies of well-meaning people. 
 
 Every possible obstacle to their political action has had 
 this result. They have elected the largest number of mem- 
 bers of Parliament, since these laws against them were in 
 force. Russia, France, and Germany, all serve as warning 
 against restrictions upon the socialists in the United States. 
 
 This leads naturally to the recent endeavors to suppress 
 
 ' Yet mitigating circumstances may be considered. Justice, when 
 tempered with mercy, is strongest. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 297 
 
 the boycott, by the infliction of imprisonment upon those 
 guilty of the offence. What has it accomplished? First, it 
 is important to know the view which the laborers take of 
 the boycott, and the impression which the severe sentences 
 upon their companions has produced. I will state their 
 case in a few words. 
 
 The boycott has been employed against obnoxious indi- 
 viduals from time immemorial. In 1327 the citizens of 
 Canterbury, England, boycotted the monks of Christ's 
 church, meeting in an open field, and passing these resolu- 
 tions among others : " That no one, under penalties to be 
 imposed by the city, should inhabit the prior's houses ; that 
 no one should buy, sell, or exchange drinks or victuals with 
 the monastery, under similar penalties." The history of the 
 United States may almost be said to open with a boycott of 
 English tea and other wares, which, approved and supported 
 by our best and most patriotic citizens, has been repeated 
 several times.^ A systematic boycott of slave-made prod- 
 ucts was begun by the abolitionists fifty years ago.^ Temper- 
 ance people have used the boycott to repress the liquor nui- 
 sance time and time again, and men who have endeavored 
 to draw profit from the corruption of young people, have 
 been driven from their homes by this weapon. Clergymen 
 have employed the boycott repeatedly, and they have 
 recently recommended that it be directed against the Sun- 
 day newspaper. Railways have entered into combinations, 
 and have aided one another to bo5'cott innocent members of 
 the community and other companies. Associations of business 
 
 ' "Thus was the boycott born in the cradle of American liberty." 
 — Quoted from Workmen's Advocate. 
 
 2 See the " Sisters Grimk^," by Charlotte Birney, Boston, 1885, 
 and other works on the anti-slavery agitation. A store was established 
 in Baltimore to aid the boycott. 
 
298 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 men have often boycotted those who would not unite with 
 them in some money-making scheme.^ Above all, there is 
 the long-standing boycott of labor, known as the black-list, 
 which has ruined thousands of poor workingmen. Now, 
 none of these men who have taught us the use of the boy- 
 cott, say the laborers, have been punished, although their 
 conspiracies are well known; but as soon as we begin to 
 employ the weapon against our oppressors, there is a howl 
 from Maine to California, and our brave friends are sent 
 to the penitentiary, like common criminals. This is not 
 justice ; it is class hate. Before, the poor man's ox was 
 gored ; now, the rich man's. That is the sole and only dif- 
 ference. We have done no wrong. We have simply let 
 people alone who have injured us, and appealed to public 
 opinion to support us in resistance to tyranny and oppres- 
 sion. The charge of extortion is simply trumped up against 
 us. The money received was to defray the expenses of a 
 course of action forced upon us, and to mitigate the suffer- 
 ing caused thereby to workingmen. It was an amicable 
 adjustment of grievances, such as takes place every day. 
 As well imprison the employer who extorts money from his 
 employees for injuries caused by bad work or tardiness, or 
 for other causes often imaginary ! 
 
 Now, having presented the laborer's view, not my own, I 
 
 1 The labor papers cite as an example the " National Burial Case 
 Association," and one of them, the Labor Bulletin, reprints a circular 
 of this body in which it is resolved "That the members of this association 
 pledge themselves not to buy a coffin, hardware, dry goods, metallics, 
 glass, varnishes, or other supplies, of any firm or corporation who sells 
 to non-members of this association, who are selling goods at less 
 prices than the association list." Four boycotted firms are named in 
 the circular. A boycotted undertaker has recently brought his case 
 before the courts in New York. Innumerable examples of the boycott 
 of every kind may be found in the labor piess. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 299 
 
 will give a few quotations to show the impression made on 
 the laboring classes by the recent action of the courts : — 
 
 " The boycott will be continued, but with increased severity. 
 If an indemnification for the expenses of the boycott is regarded 
 as extortion, nothing will remain but to boycott until the of- 
 fender is completely ruined, in order that others may take warn- 
 ing therefrom." — Bakers' Journal. 
 
 "The sentences of the five boycotters of Theiss ... to unusu- 
 ally long terms of imprisonment, is seed sown by the party of 
 money-bags, which will not bring forth roses. The expectation 
 that this severe punishment would discourage th? laborers rests 
 upon a weak footing. . . . The laborers will become more than 
 ever convinced, that justice is meted out with one measure to 
 them, and with another to those who have money. Bitterness 
 will unite them more strongly than ever before. The idea that 
 they are citizens of a free republic, with equal rights, wUl vanish, 
 and the conviction will arise that here, also, the struggle of class 
 has begun. . . . Formerly, the laborers were not so united as 
 they should have been, but now they will become united. The 
 movement becomes serious. . . . Persecution has strengthened 
 the labor parties in Germany and France, and made them irre- 
 sistible. This will happen here, and it is good!" — Bakers' 
 Journal. 
 
 "The sentence passed on the boycotters has poured flaming 
 fire into the hearts of the workingmen in New York, and has 
 driven to the background all differences in labor's camp. It has 
 united the many-voiced choir of the organizations in a single 
 powerful cry of indignation." — The Socialist. 
 
 "Atrocious Judges. 
 
 " There was a book published before the war . . . under the 
 title of ' Atrocious Judges,' which described the judicial reptiles 
 of the pro-slavery bench, who were then foremost in hounding 
 slaves and persecuting their friends. It was a book of terrific 
 records, from those of the ever-infamous Jeffries down to those 
 
300 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 of Taney, who found that 'negroes had no rights which white men 
 were bound to respect.' 
 
 " It seems about time to get out a new edition of that book, 
 with the new names of the ATROCIOUS JUDGES who are 
 chronicling their own shame in the pro-capitalist decisions of 
 these times." — John Swinton's Paper, June 13, 1886. 
 
 "THE LEAP IN THE DARK. 
 
 "Barrett's War of Crushing the Boycotters. 
 
 "How A Trickster's Statute was used by a Vindictive Judge 
 "TO BRAND Five Honest Workingmen. 
 
 " The vindictiveness of the ruling classes has found expression 
 in the condemnation of five workingmen to various terms of im- 
 prisonment with hard labor at Sing Sing. It would be difficult 
 to imagine a more flagrant outrage of every sense of justice in 
 the name of ' law and order,' a more cruel exercise of power 
 upon a false pretence, or conduct more impolitic on the part of 
 officials charged with a delicate duty, and invested with wide dis- 
 cretion, in the case of these Theiss boycotters, whom class hate 
 has branded as felons. . . . ' Whom the gods would destroy, they 
 first make mad.'" — yohn Swinton's Paper. 
 
 This is sufficient to show the impression produced. " But 
 what is your opinion? " the reader asks. 
 
 It seems to me, first, that the boycott is wrong ; — at any 
 rate, as it has been conducted. It may be right for people 
 to appeal to public opinion, to put down a gross abuse in a 
 quiet and orderly manner. If clergymen think the Sunday 
 newspaper a sin, it is their duty to advise people not to pat- 
 ronize it ; but to distribute circulars, and fairly force the 
 customers of a man to leave him, is a different matter. It 
 condemns a man untried, and is liable to the grossest abuses, 
 calculated to injure employer and employed, and the general 
 
THE REMEDIES. 301 
 
 public in addition. At best, it is a doubtful remedy. It is 
 a movement in precisely the wrong direction. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is not so clear that a law should be passed 
 declaring boycotting, illegal. Professor von Waltershausen, 
 of the University of Zurich, a man of ability, who has given 
 the American labor movement more careful study, probably, 
 than any other man in Europe,' after a painstaking examina- 
 tion of the subject, pronounced against it, although recog- 
 nizing the gravity of the evil, because he thought it would 
 turn the laborers against the State ; and if poHtical science 
 teaches one lesson more clearly than another, it is the danger 
 of implanting hostiUty to government, as such, in the hearts 
 of the masses. 
 
 It seems to me that the whole subject should have been 
 carefully discussed in our legislatures, and laws enacted to 
 restrain the excesses of the boycott. As to the course 
 which has been taken, I would not be misunderstood, 
 when I express the opinion, that American history records 
 few more disastrous mistakes, and that I fear greatly we 
 shall see sad consequences of it within ten years, sadder 
 still within twenty years, unless more powerful conservative 
 forces are brought into action than are now manifest. I join 
 in no condemnation of a judge whose personal character or 
 official integrity may, for aught I know, be beyond question. 
 I can readily understand that he may have done with pain 
 what he thought his duty in a crisis in American history. I 
 simply say that I think he committed an error of judg- 
 ment. What is the result ? He has united, as never before 
 in America, the laborers in one solid mass, and he has given 
 the entire labor movement a most unfortunate impulse 
 towards radicalism. This may be seen in a thousand dif- 
 
 1 ?Ie has brought out a book entitled " Die Nord Am^rikanischen 
 Gewerltschaften," Berlin, i885. 
 
302 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ferent ways. One is the recent attendance- of thousands 
 at a mass- meeting, called by socialists in New York to 
 condemn the action of the courts in the case of the boy- 
 cotters, and the harmonious action of socialists and work- 
 ingmen in that city. Nothing else could have brought this 
 about. The conservative elements among the laborers, like 
 Powderly and many editors of labor papers, and their 
 friends, like Washington Gladden, Heber Newton, Howard 
 Crosby, Lyman Abbott, — all, by the way, clergymen, — 
 were earnesdy admonishing the laborers to pursue a legal and 
 even a conciliatory course. The boycott was condemned 
 again and again by laborers, as injurious even to those who 
 used it, and as unjust, and there was every prospect of a 
 restriction and regulation of the boycott all along the line. 
 Now, the conservatives find the work of years overthrown. 
 There is a howl among the Anarchists from Boston to Sari 
 Francisco : " Ho, ye fools ! ye men of law and order ! 
 What have we always told you ? Law is only for the poor ! 
 It is the rich man's instrument of oppression." And to-day 
 there is a sympathy among workingmen for the Chicago 
 Anarchists on trial for a brutal massacre of the authorities, 
 which would have seemed inconceivable six months since. 
 Never have I seen such indignation among the masses, 
 although I was in Germany when the anti-socialistic law of 
 1878 was passed. There the matter was fully discussed, 
 and a law, clear and precise in its terms, was passed, and 
 published in every nook and corner of the land. Cruel and 
 unjust, it doubtless was considered, but no one could dispute 
 that it was law. The judicial decisions in New York do not 
 appeal to the working classes as interpretations of actual 
 law, but as a perversion of law for class purposes. 
 
 From Truth of Jan. 26, 1884, and a recent number 
 of the Sozialist, we may gain a hint as to the true policy. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 303 
 
 In speaking of the indiscriminate use of dynamite as 
 a means of propaganda, Truth says : " Its effect would 
 be directly reactionary. Either it would induce repressive 
 laws, abrogating the rights we have now, which permit us to 
 spread our doctrines, or it would wring from the fears of the 
 bourgeoisie such ameliorative measures as might postpone for 
 centuries the final struggle for complete emancipation." The 
 Sozialist of Jan. 3, 1885, predicts that they, the social- 
 ists, will obtain assistance ii> their propaganda from their 
 enemies, who will increase discontent among the masses, 
 and thus prepare heart and mind for the seed they expect 
 to sow. 
 
 The two words used by Truth, " ameliorative measures," 
 indicate the correct method of dealing with social problems. 
 We must listen to complaints of those who feel that they 
 are oppressed, and not suppose that the demands of even 
 socialists are unjust, simply because they are made by 
 socialists. Who can object to them when they complain 
 because they are not allowed to rest one day out of seven ; 
 because child-labor is tolerated ; because families are scat- 
 tered in workshops, and family life in any true sense of the 
 word becomes an impossibility ? It would indeed be well 
 could every rich and well-to-do person be persuaded to 
 hsten to their complaints as they appear in their papers, in 
 order to know how they feel and what they suffer ' ; or if 
 the wealthy could more generally be induced to examine for 
 
 ^ If every man and woman of social standing superior to that of the 
 working classes, could 1)e persuaded to read a paper li]<e yoAn Swin- 
 don's Paper, the Haverhill (Mass.) Laborer, the Bnllimore Labor 
 Free Press, or others which I might name, and every intelligent 
 laborer could be induced to read the writings of men like Lyman 
 Abbott, Howard Crosby, Washington Gladden, T. Edwin Brown, and 
 Newman Smyth, true progress in the future would be assured. 
 
304 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 themselves the way poor and honest people are often 
 obliged to live. Let the careless and indifferent but read 
 the articles which lately appeared in the Christian Union, on 
 the condition of the poor in American cities, or a single 
 pamphlet like "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," de- 
 scribing the life of the London laborer from the observation 
 of city missionaries, and issued by the London Congrega- 
 tional Union ! "^ And if he thinks, as is too often said, that 
 the laborers become accustomed to their lot and contented, 
 let him but read their utterances in the labor press, or Usten 
 to them in their meetings ! There are certain things a man 
 can never get used to, as for example, an empty stomach 
 and a home without fire. When poverty is extreme, it often 
 sinks more and more deeply into the consciousness of the 
 sufferer, and the burden grows with the weight of years. 
 
 Then it must not be forgotten that this age is not as other 
 ages. There has been great progress in the inteUigence of 
 the laboring classes, and political equality has stimulated the 
 desires of the masses for a larger share of material riches. 
 The means of production have been improved in a marvel- 
 lous manner, and the increase of wealth has been enormous. 
 The question the laborer asks is not simply whether he 
 receives more absolutely, but whether he receives as much 
 in proportion to what the other classes of society enjoy. 
 His wants have grown, and he is inclined to doubt whether 
 he is as well able to gratify his legitimate needs as formeriy. 
 There may have been a time, for example, when he could 
 not read. Then it was no hardship to him that he was 
 unable to buy books. The case is different now. 
 
 We ought, then, to listen to the demands the socialists and 
 the laboring classes generally make of the present state, and 
 
 1 See also " The Bitter Cry of the Poor in New York," by Mrs. J. 
 R. Lowell, Christian Union, March 26, 1885. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 305 
 
 discuss them in a spirit of candor, and grant them in so far 
 as they may be just. It has aheady been seen what the 
 Sociahstic Labor Party desires of society in its present form, 
 and while it may be true that few political economists would 
 assent to the practicability of all the measures they advocate, 
 they are certainly worthy of discussion. Undoubtedly, one 
 often meets with radical and apparently absurd propositions 
 in the perusal of labor literature, but, on the other hand, one 
 discovers at times a surprising spirit of conservatism, and is 
 obliged to admit that many demands are perfectly legiti- 
 mate, as the following " Platform and Supplementary Reso- 
 lutions " of the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions 
 abundantly prove. 
 
 " Platform. 
 
 " I. The national eight-hour law is one intended to benefit 
 labor, and to relieve it partly of its heavy burdens, and the eva- 
 sion of its true spirit and intent is contrary to the best interests 
 of the nation. We therefore demand the enforcement of said 
 law in the spirit of its designers, and urge the enactment of 
 eight-hour laws by State Legislatures and municipal corporations. 
 
 " 2. We demand the passage of laws in State Le^slatures 
 and in Congress for the incorporation of trades and labor unions, 
 in order that the property of the laboring classes may have the 
 same protection as the property of other classes. 
 
 " 3. We demand the passage of such legislative enactments 
 as will enforce, by compulsion, the education of children, for if 
 the State has the right to exact certain compliance with its de- 
 mands, then it is also the duty of the State to educate its people 
 to the proper understanding of such demands. 
 
 "4. We demand the passage of laws in the several States 
 forbidding the employment of children under the age of four- 
 teen years, in any capacity, under penalty of fine and imprison- 
 ment. '""' 
 
 " 5. "We demand the enactment of uniform apprentice laws 
 
306 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 throughout the country; that the apprentice to a mechanical 
 trade may be made to serve a sufficient term of apprenticeship, 
 and be provided by his employer, in his progress to maturity, 
 with proper and sufficient facilities to finish him as a competent 
 workman. 
 
 " 6. It is hereby declared the sense of this congress that con- 
 vict or prison contract labor is a species of slavery in its worst 
 form ; it pauperizes labor, demoralizes the honest manufacturer, 
 and degrades the very criminal whom it employs ; and as many 
 articles of use and consumption made in our prisons under the 
 contract system, come directly and detrimentally in competition 
 with the products of honest labor, we demand that the laws 
 providing for labor under the contract systems herein com- 
 plained of be repealed. 
 
 " 7. What is known as the ' order ' or ' truck ' system of pay- 
 ment, instead of lawful currency as value for labor performed, is 
 one not only of gross imposition, but of downright swindle to 
 the honest laborer and mechanic, and we demand its entire 
 abolition. Active measures should be taken to eradicate the 
 evil, by the passage of laws imposing fine and imprisonment 
 upon all individuals, firms, or corporations who continue to 
 practice the same. 
 
 " 8. We demand the passage of such laws as will secure to the 
 mechanic and workingman the first lien upon property, the prod- 
 uct of his labor, sufficient in all cases to justify his legal and just 
 claims. 
 
 "9. We demand the repeal and erasure from the statute 
 books of all acts known as conspiracy laws, as applied to organ- 
 izations of labor in the regulation of wages. 
 
 " 10. We recognize the wholesome effects of a Bureau of 
 Labor Statistics, as created by the National Government and in 
 several States, and recommend for their management the 
 appointment of a proper person, identified with the laboring 
 classes of the country. 
 
 "II. We demand the passage of a law by the United States 
 Congress to prevent the importation of all foreign laborers under 
 contract. > , " 
 
THE REMEDIES. 307 
 
 " 12. We declare that the system of letting out national. 
 State, and municipal work by contract tends to intensify the 
 competition between workmen, and we demand the speedy 
 abolishment of the same. 
 
 " 13. We demand the passage by our various legislative 
 bodies of an employers' liability act, which shall give employees 
 the same right to damages for personal injuries that all other 
 persons have. 
 
 " 14. We recommend all trades and labor organizations to 
 secure proper representation in all law-making bodies, by means 
 of the ballot, and to use all honorable measures by which this 
 result can be accomplished. 
 
 " Supplementary Resolutions. 
 
 " I. That we urge upon the Legislatures of our several States 
 the passage of laws of license upon stationary engineers, and 
 the enforcement of proper restrictions, which will better preserve 
 and render protection to life and property. 
 
 "2. That we demand strict laws for the inspection and ven- 
 tilation of mines, factories and workshops, and sanitary supervi- 
 sion of all food and dwellings. 
 
 " 3. We demand of our representatives in the National Leg- 
 islature that they declare such land grants as are not earned by 
 railroads or corporations forfeited, and ,tq restore the same to fhe 
 public domain." 
 
 The complaints of the socialists are often but too well 
 grounded, when they criticise things as they are. Our 
 laws regulating joint-stock corporations, for example, sadly 
 need reforming, so as to prevent much dishonest manipula- 
 tion of joint-stock concerns which niight_easilyjDe avoided. 
 One ought to be indignant when one sees familiar opera- 
 tions like this : A company is established ; a few get con- 
 trol of the management; declare an unearned dividend; 
 pay it out of the capital ; then unload and acquire wealth at 
 
308 THE LABO-R MOVEMENT. 
 
 the expense of the widow, the orphan, and the toiler.^ It is 
 needless to multiply examples. If we turn to our govern- 
 ments, we shall find in Star Route contracts and Tweed 
 ring frauds, much to help us to understand why some 
 people have gradually come to desire the overthrow of all 
 -that exists of human contrivances, as preliminary to a new 
 era.^ 
 
 Happily, much is being done to remedy abuses, and in 
 many quarters a most hopeful desire is manifest to bring 
 wealthy criminals to justice and to strive for needed reforms; 
 and if the leaders of society evince an increasing willingness 
 to listen to grievances of labor, to discuss their propositions 
 and redress their wrongs, they will draw away from violent 
 agitators the strongest and best of the workingmen, and ren- 
 der the revolutionists comparatively harmless. To cite a-n ex- 
 ample, no one can withstand the devotion of a Hfe like 
 Peter Cooper's, and it was touching to read the evidences 
 of the appreciation of his deeds on the part of the laboring 
 classes. Even Truth contained an obituary notice of him, 
 in which the highest and most unreserved praise was 
 accorded to his deeds. 
 
 The same journal contained a long and appreciative re- 
 view of a book which had simply attempted to describe 
 socialism impartially, with these words : " We hope the book 
 
 1 I have spent part of several summers in a little village where pre- 
 cisely that thing was done a few years ago. It is a new experience to 
 the inhabitants to see men guilty of a penitentiary offence, respected 
 members of society. It may be doubted whether the town will in the 
 future be quite what it has been in the past. 
 
 2 These wrongs are directed against society as a whole, but there 
 are abuses as grievous directed against the laboring classes as such. 
 One of them recently occurred in Maryland, where the Miners' Venti- 
 lation Bill was stolen after it had passed the Legislature, but before it 
 received the governor's signature. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 309 
 
 will be extensively read by socialists, and that each reader 
 will profit by the unprejudiced manner in which the histori- 
 cal facts and doctrinal matters are set forth, and that we 
 shall learn to emulate the enemy in the coolness of our 
 judgment and the calmness of our criticism." On the other 
 hand, a socialistic journalist informs the writer, that only one 
 who has mingled, as he has, for years with the laboring 
 classes, can form any conception of the harm done by a 
 recent book, which treated social problems in quite a differ- 
 ent spirit, putting the whole question of reform on an unfair 
 basis, and treating the discontented with irritating impatience 
 and stinging harshness. In the words of this journalist : 
 
 " Mr. yl regard as a bad man, one of the most dan-* 
 
 gerous of/' the dangerous classes.' Unless you mingled, as 
 I have done, with the proletarians many years, and knew by 
 experience their feelings, you could not conceive the in- 
 finite injury such a man does to the cause he espouses. It 
 inflames them more than standing armies and Gatling 
 batteries." 
 
 It is true, a man was never won by cruel reproaches, and 
 a strong government has its roots in the hearts of the people. 
 It still holds that love is more powerful that hate. 
 
 The laboring classes are accessible to arguments by those 
 who understand them and really wish them well, and the 
 columns of their papers are open to those who would influ- 
 ence them for good. At present there is a grand opportu- 
 nity for men to do good, which may not occur again, for 
 the minds of the masses are still plastic, and their habits of 
 thought are being formed. As Frederic Harrison says, the 
 workingmen of our day are glad to listen to the word of one 
 who comes to them as a friend, provided his message be 
 not "the perpetual, monotonous lie, 'It is all very good 
 and right.' " 
 
310 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 They are ready to learn the truth, and are grateful to 
 those who try to help them.-' To Christian people in par- 
 ticular would I repeat words used on another occasion. When 
 these laborers, who reject Christianity as it is in our churches, 
 speak of Christ, it is often with touching reverence, as a 
 noble soul who sympathized with the trials of their class. 
 And when they denounce religion, they will affirm at times, 
 "We are the only true Christians''; and I do believe that 
 among the masses in America there never was such a hun- 
 ger and thirst for real Christianity as to-day. What they 
 complain of in substance is, not that there is too much 
 Christianity, but that there is too little ; not that people are 
 Christians, but that there is such a divergence between pro- 
 fession and practice, that the church has become " of the 
 world " ; that it has (so they think) been captured by the 
 
 1 Letters which I have received from workingmen in all parts of 
 the United States, would move even a hard heart. Here is one from 
 a-^oor mechanic, an adherent of Henry George, and save in the in- 
 closure of money, it is merely typical. The reference is to some article 
 on co-operation. " I am very much pleased with the articles, not only 
 for the information they give, but more especially because of the spirit 
 of sympathy they evince towards all lawful endeavors of the workers 
 to improve their condition. I am glad to see them in a religious paper 
 (the Congregationalisi), without any sickly apology from the editor. 
 1 thank you for them. Wish I could send them to every one of my 
 acquaintances. 
 
 " I expect to start to-morrow for southern Kansas, to take up a claim; 
 but I hope self-interest will never prevent me from doing all I can to 
 advance the principles of common property in land. . . . Enclosed find 
 S5.00, which you will please use for me in the cause of humanity, and 
 oblige, Yours truly, ." 
 
 Professor Brentano says that in spite of all that has been asserted to 
 the contrary, it still remains true that before the enactment of the laws 
 of 1878 German workingmen were always willing to listen to a manly, 
 sympathetic word from one of another social class. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 311 
 
 rich and made a part of the mechanism of fashion ; that 
 pews have doors and locks, and that the aisles are guarded 
 by ushers, not merely to show people in, but to keep them out ; 
 that church privileges are sold — at times even Hterally auc- 
 tioned off for money. 
 
 A wider diffusion of sound ethics is an economic require- 
 ment of the times. Christian morality is the only stable 
 basis for a State professedly Christian. An ethical demand 
 of the present age is a clearer perception of the duties of 
 property, intelligence, and social position. It must be 
 recognized that extreme individualism is immoral. Ex- 
 treme individualism is social anarchy, and — to cite a com- 
 parison recently made in Hopkins Hall — the first social 
 Anarchist was Cain, who asked indignantly if he were his 
 brother's keeper. Laissez-faire politics assure us we are 
 not keepers of our brothers, that each one best promotes 
 the general interest by best promoting his own. There are 
 those who tell us in the name of science, that there is no 
 duty which one class owes to another, and that the nations 
 of the earth are mere collections of individuals, with no re- 
 ciprocal rights and duties. It is time for right-thinking per- 
 sons, and particularly for those who profess Christianity, to 
 protest vigorously, in season and out of season, against such 
 doctrines wherever found. As a friend, a professor in one 
 of our leading colleges, forcibly puts it, the error of this 
 school of political economists is that fundamental one of 
 Herbert Spencer's ethical system, — "a determination to 
 ignore law and its sanctions." 
 
 A higher and more advanced poKtical economy proclaims 
 all this false, and asserts that within certain bounds we are 
 obliged to concern ourselves about the welfare of others. 
 Even less than law does pohtical economy recognize any 
 absolute proprietary rights, and in a higher ethical sense all 
 
312 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 our goods are but intrusted to us as stewards, to be adminis- 
 tered in promoting the welfare of our fellow-men, as well as 
 our own, and equally with our own. If the rulers of our 
 society remember this and act upon it, they surely never need 
 dread the laborer. 
 
 When we pass in review the several thousand years of 
 human history, we discover one feature of the progress of 
 the race to be a gradual extension of the range of ethical 
 ideas ; in other words, as the centuries have passed, man 
 has included an ever-increasing portion of his fellows within 
 the circle of those towards whom he feels bound to act in 
 accordance with the data of ethics. Once moral obligations 
 did not extend beyond the clan or tribe, and the same word 
 signified enemy and stranger, but the tribe has finally given 
 way to the nation, and those of the same nationality have 
 felt drawn together with an ethical tie ; and in this century 
 men feel, as never before, that all men of all kindreds and 
 tongues on the face of the earth, are embraced within the 
 sphere of reciprocal rights and duties. The word humanity 
 means more to-day than at any past period in the history of 
 the race. The extension of practical ethics has been ac- 
 companied by an intensive growth. The stream has deep- 
 ened. Yet the ethical ideas of most people move chiefly 
 along horizontal lines, and do not extend up and down to 
 those above and below them in rank or position. Social lines 
 are considered ethical lines. There is one code for those in 
 one class, and quite another one for those who are outside of 
 this class. We are apt to recognize a more stringent law as 
 binding upon us in our intercourse with One whom we regard 
 as a social equal, though he be a native of a distant land, 
 than with the resident of the same town, whom we consider 
 as an inferior. The absolute ideal was given two thousand 
 years ago by Christ, who established the most perfect 
 
THE REMEDIES. 313 
 
 system of ethics the world has ever known. This ideal 
 is the doctrine of human brotherhood, and its one 
 universal, all-inclusive rule is, "All things whatsoever 
 ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
 them." 
 
 We are far from this ideal, and yet progress has been 
 made. The condition of the laborer has gradually improved 
 on the whole. He has passed through slavery and serfdom, 
 and has in the civilized world become a free man. It is no 
 longer regarded as morally right to hold those who work for 
 us in the bonds of slavery. Yet we all transgress most 
 grievously the law of brotherhood. Take the case of us 
 who belong to social classes held to be superior to the work- 
 ing class, — the educated and well-to-do . We j udge our com- 
 panions with one rule, and workingmen with quite another. 
 Let us suppose there is a controversy between an employer 
 and his employees. Do we not at once accept the statement 
 of the employer, without any inquiry into the case as pre- 
 sented by the employees ; whereas, if the dispute is between 
 two employers, we suspend judgment until we hear bbth 
 sides? Yet there is no evidence that the employers as a 
 class are more truthful than their employees. The fact is, 
 we are not yet ethically developed up to that point where it 
 occurs to us that we are bound to hear the case of an inferior. 
 But this is not all. Many of us, if we will not knowingly 
 and maliciously lie about laborers, yet do not regard it as 
 necessary to inquire too carefully about the stories we repeat. 
 We take up our newspapers, which in controversies give the 
 ex parte statements of employers, and just such garbled re- 
 ports of the side of the employed as to present a specious 
 appearance of impartiality, and at once eagerly swallow every 
 hard and bitter word spoken in the heat of violent alterca- 
 tion; then we solemnly proceed to damn the laboring 
 
314 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 classes, and all their wicked organizations.* Take two 
 illustrations : The experiment of the mine-owners, Briggs 
 Brothers, in England, in profit-sharing, is told in Mill's 
 "PoKtical Economy,'' and has become known the worid 
 over. That experiment has been abandoned, and the blame, 
 almost as a matter of course, thrown on the workmen. 
 Messrs. Briggs Brothers have told their story, and every 
 newspaper has hastened to print it, and their interpretation 
 of the difficulties has passed into text-books. Yet this is 
 not wilfully malicious. It is due to imperfect ethical de- 
 velopment. But now comes along a well-known English 
 clergyman. Rev. Mr. Kaufmann, and tells us that it was not 
 the fault o/ the laborers at all, for their employers demanded 
 of them, as part of the agreement, conditions which they 
 ought not to have accepted. It practically amoimted to 
 this : yield to us your freedom or lose your share in the 
 profit ; and like true men they chose the latter alternative. 
 Another is the case of the Messrs. Brewster, carriage 
 
 ^ I do not by any means wish to say that all our daily newspapers 
 are wilfully partial. The journals in the town where I live, have, I 
 think, on the whole tried to present an impartial record of current 
 events, and to side with neither capitalist nor laborer, neither rich nor 
 poor. One of these papers, in particular, incurred some hostility on 
 account of its impartial attitude, as certain capitalists thought it ought 
 to take their side. The good effect has, however, been seen. They 
 have helped to maintain what I have called the unity of civilization, 
 a certain oneness of feeling in the community. The rich may have 
 become a little more radical, the poor a little more conservative; and 
 I believe to-day there is not another great city in the United States 
 where the feeling between classes is so near what it should be. I do 
 not believe there is another city where capital is safer. 
 
 Newspapers which appeal to the worst passions of the wealthy, 
 teaching them to despise, distrust, and resist the humble social classes, 
 are as dangerous as the incendiary sheets of the Anarchists, and 
 should be unhesitatingly condemned and discountenanced by all who 
 mean well. > 
 
THE REMEDIES. 3IS 
 
 manufacturers, of New York. They tried profit-sharing, and 
 their workmen have been denounced in unmeasured terms 
 for their stupidity and mahgnity in the adoption of such a 
 course as to lead to the abandonment of an arrangement 
 which yielded them so much. Now, I pass no judgment on 
 the case, for I do not know the facts, still less would I assail 
 the character of the Messrs. Brewster who are doubtless 
 most estimable gentlemen ; but this I do know, there are 
 two sides to this controversy of which only one is recorded ; 
 and it has come to my knowledge that a gentleman of New 
 York of wealth and standing, intimately acquainted with all 
 the facts, gives quite a different interpretation of them from 
 the one so eagerly accepted. These are simply illustrations. 
 If we exercised more charity in our judgments, it would be a 
 good example which would react on the working classes.^ 
 
 If we, too, could learn to take into account mitigating cir- 
 cumstances when we pass judgment on the acts of the 
 laborers, just as we do in other cases, our opinions might 
 be very different. Laborers are suspicious and distrust- 
 ful, it is said, and truly ; often they display bitterness against 
 people of wealth and standing. Is it surprising? Would 
 we, treated in the same manner, be different? Has not 
 every reform for which they have struggled been opposed 
 most strenuously by their industrial and social superiors, and 
 that by means dishonest and contemptible as well as hon- 
 orable? Yet when these reforms have come, they have 
 been found to be of benefit to the whole of society, in 
 cases even the salvation of society. Take child labor in 
 England in the first half of this century. It was little less 
 than murder. Nay, I go further : I believe-, in the sight of 
 
 ^ "The morals of a community work downward from the higher 
 classes." — Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., in his article on "The Danger- 
 ous Classes," in the North American Review, April, 1883. 
 
316 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 Almighty God, the cannibals of the Sandwich Islands were 
 less guilty than those who, appreciating its terrors, knowingly, 
 wilfully supported it ; for it, also, was a species of cannibal- 
 ism, slow but more cruel, for the flesh and blood of the little 
 ones were devoured piecemeal. Yet it required the strug- 
 gle of a generation to pass laws forbidding it, and nothing 
 is more disgusting than the evasive, shifting, lying course of 
 its chief opponents. Then there was too the old cry of 
 Mammon, — it would ruin trade and drive capital from Eng- 
 land.^ Well, the laborers and their friends gained that 
 point ; then came the protection of women and the preser- 
 vation of the homes ; again a long struggle, again a vic- 
 tory which proved good ; then laws to protect the life and 
 limb of employees in factories by regulations concerning the 
 fencing-in of dangerous machinery, the ventilation of work- 
 rooms, etc., were proposed, and a bill was introduced in 
 Parliament to appoint factory inspectors to enforce the fac- 
 tory legislation against the same miserable opposition, — 
 again a triumph of justice which has proved very good.^ 
 So it has continued through the entire list of reforms in 
 Great Britain ; and this is the judgment of one after the 
 lapse of some time since the introduction of most of them, 
 and at a sufificient distance to view English history with 
 judicial impartiality : " On the one side stood the laborers, 
 led by a few radical manufacturers and philanthropic Tories ; 
 on the other, the great mass of manufacturers and liberal 
 doctrinaires, especially the so-called Manchester School. On 
 
 1 This was seriously maintained by the elder Peel, early in this cen- 
 tury. 
 
 2 Even Carl Marx, who reluctantly acknowledged any possibility of 
 effectual reform during the continuance of our present industrial sys- 
 tem, was forced to speak of " the physical and moral regeneration " of 
 the laboring classes in England. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 317 
 
 the side of the laborers in this struggle, marvellous display 
 of heroism and joy in silent sacrifice, only brought into more 
 vivid light by the occasional outbreak of wild despair on the 
 part of a few ; on the side of the mass of iSanufacturers, 
 the expenditure of all means at their command to conceal 
 the truth and to silence the most imperative demands of 
 humanity ; on the side of the Manchester School, arguments 
 against state intervention drawn from Adam Smith, and 
 intended for entirely different circumstances, and coupled 
 with those gloomy prophecies for the economic future of 
 England in case of the passage and execution of factory 
 laws. Step by step the manufacturers defended English 
 industry against the legal regulation demanded by the labor- 
 ers ; step by step, and for each separate branch of produc- 
 tion were the laborers compelled to secure the protection of 
 their wives and children against conscienceless greed."'' 
 
 A specific vice of our time, and one which political econo- 
 mists of all schools condemn, is extravagance and luxury.'' 
 
 1 Brentano. 
 
 ^ That waste impoverishes, is a truth which, simple as it is, needs to 
 be impressed upon all social classes. A lady will spend $yx> for 
 a dress, and excuse her extravagance on the plea, that it furnishes 
 work to the poor. She overlooks the obvious fact that the same sum 
 spent in clothing the aged and infirm would furnish an equal amount 
 of employment. A report of doubtful origin tells us that Mr. Powderly 
 breaks his ginger-ale bottles in order to furnish labor to glass-workers. 
 If this be true, he should reflect that he could at least save the bottles 
 and use the money received for them in the purchase of glassware. 
 
 One of the fundamental propositions concerning capital, as stated 
 by John Stuart Mill, is that, though saved, it is consumed. This is the 
 regular course in a normal condition of things in modern industrial life, 
 and shows how misleading are declamations of some recent social- 
 ists against saving, which, in their opinion, diminishes employment for 
 labor. Another example will render this still clearer. Of two working- 
 men, one saves all that he can during a course of years, and deposits 
 
318 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 It is wast-- of economic powers, injuring those who indulge 
 in it, and exciting envy and bitterness in the minds of those 
 who are excluded.^ The New York Volkszeitung, April 7, 
 1883, a socialistic journal, printed not very long ago a bitter 
 description of a sinfully extravagant ball given by a wealthy 
 New Yorker. It was significantly entitled " Mene, Tekel, 
 Upharsin. Belshazzar in his glory." * 
 
 it with a building association; the other spends his surplus earnings in 
 fleeting pleasures. At the expiration of the period, during which both 
 have given the same employment to labor, the one has a house of his 
 own, the other, nothing; and the former is more likely than the latter 
 to raise the standard of life among the laboring classes. I am well 
 aware of the limitations to the utility of saving, and also of the excep- 
 tions to the general rule, that it is useful to a greater or less extent. 
 I do not by any means consider the miser as a desirable member of the 
 community. Yet I think this principle, in which all economists agree, 
 shows the advantages which might be expected to accrue from instruc- 
 tion in the elements of political economy in all public schools. A 
 general comprehension of the most elementary economic truths would 
 often induce different action from that which we commonly see. If 
 people could but grasp the full import of this one principle, that waste 
 impoverishes, it would prove of incalculable benefit, and foreigners 
 might soon cease to wonder at the wastefulness of American life. 
 There are, indeed, few among us who make the most of what we have. 
 Many who live in worry and discomfort have a sufficient income to 
 satisfy all rational wants, were it well expended. 
 
 ' For a just estimate of luxury, considered from the standpoint of 
 the economist and the Christian, see an admirable article by Emile de 
 Laveleye in The Popular Science Monthly for March, 1881. 
 
 ° " The great luxury that is displayed by certain people here acts 
 like a thorn in the flesh of the workingmen and others, and forces 
 them to consider these questions." — Charles Lenz, before the U. S. Sen- 
 ate, Committee on Education and Labor. 
 
 " Luxury has its decent limits, and we in this land are in danger in 
 many directions of overstepping those limits." — Bishop Henry C. 
 Potter, in his admirable letter of May 15, 1886, to the clergy of the 
 Diocese of New York. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 319 
 
 The social injury of vice is seen in the reproaches made 
 against existing society by the Anarchists. A sad condition 
 of family life is ridiculed and brought forward as proof of 
 the hopeless rottenness of capitalistic society. In the long 
 run, virtue is rewarded in states and in individuals, and that 
 social body is doomed which is essentially immoral. 
 
 The single individual cannot do all that is required to 
 bring to pass the golden age in the future for which we all 
 hope and pray. A wonderful law has bound us all so to- 
 gether that when one suffers others endure pain, when one 
 sins the penalty is visited on the innocent as well as on the 
 guilty.i When one looks the world over, one can feel little 
 doubt that, women and children included, even the greater 
 part of suffering is caused by acts for which no guilt 
 attaches to him who suffers. It was intended that it 
 should be so, for it was never meant that man should 
 be completely happy while his fellows are in pain. Other- 
 wise, the brotherhood of man were an unmeaning phrase. 
 The soUdarity of human interests is a terrible reality. 
 Nevertheless, individuals have to do a great deal in their 
 individual capacity to cure social evils, and first of all is 
 that ethical correction of evil tendencies which in theologi- 
 cal language is called regeneration. Every employer, every 
 employee, and every discontented human being should first 
 look within, and begin the work of reform in their own na- 
 tures. The workingmen in particular should cultivate tem- 
 perance, and continue the good work already begun. As the 
 
 ^ An example to the point is the case of the Chicago Anarchists, for 
 which organized labor is in no way responsible. Have not, indeed, 
 the trades-unions and other labor societies been at swords' points per- 
 petually with these Anarchists ? Yet innocent workingmen are made 
 to suffer grievously, and their cause injured, on account of acts which 
 they abhor. 
 
320 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 best of them see, they have no worse foe than liquor. Then, 
 personal purity ought to be encouraged among them, and to 
 this too little attention has been given. I am told by one 
 who ought to know, that unchastity is to-day a more crying 
 evil among them than intemperance. There ftan be no 
 healthy family life without chastity, and without a healthy 
 family life, there can be no sound social or even industrial 
 hfe. All this involves a multitude of problems, and chie'f 
 among them is the tenement-house question. Every effort 
 to surround the working people with wholesome home influ- 
 ences must be encouraged. In a city like New York, the 
 laborers as a rule have nothing which could be called a home. 
 In the factories and workshops, young people are subjected 
 to bad influences to a needless extent. Girls are often 
 obhged to submit to insults, to resent which involves dismis- 
 sal and loss of livelihood for self, often also for young 
 brothers and sisters or a widowed mother. Frequently, they 
 are started on the downward track by boss or employer, who 
 shows them favors in their work, for which they pay with 
 their virtue. When I made a tour of personal inspection of 
 industrial centres in 1885, preparatory to the preparation of 
 this book, I spent a few days in a city of less than thirty 
 thousand inhabitants in good old New England, where I was 
 told that as many as two hundred couples live together 
 outside the bonds of wedlock. It was something so com- 
 mon that it did not involve a loss of caste in the laboring 
 population. 
 
 Experience must bring the fact more and more home to 
 every thinking person that one indispensable condition of per- 
 manent improvement in the lot of laborers is their moral ele- 
 vation. The first conditions of success in their various efforts 
 are mutual confidence, incorruptible integrity, and unques- 
 tioned fidelity in positions of trust. Without these qualities, 
 
THE REMEDIES. 321 
 
 political action, co-operation, and organization can do but poor 
 and imperfect work, while they will frequently fail altogether. 
 Again and again have venality, faithlessness, corruption, 
 defeated the efforts of the toiling masses. Christian ethics 
 — by all acknowledged to be the most perfect system of 
 ethics, regardless of any divine origin — contain the princi- 
 ples which should animate the entire labor movement. But 
 how are men to learn these ? The masses can acquire such 
 an acquaintance with the data of ethics as to render them a 
 living reality only through some one who is a personal em- 
 bodiment of them. Abstract ethics have not and never will 
 become a mighty vital power in this world. It is the concrete 
 which moves men. Now, I know only one perfect concrete 
 embodiment of Christian ethics, and that is their Founder. 
 He it is who must become the personal Saviour of this labor 
 movement, if it is ever to accomplish its legitimate end.^ 
 
 Manufacturers should cultivate the true humility of great 
 souls, and adopt a more conciliatory attitude towards their 
 laborers, encouraging them in the settlement of difficulties 
 by arbitration, and receiving the committees and agents of 
 their employees just as they would those of any other com- 
 pany of men with whom they have dealings. They should 
 recognize the same rights in their workmen to combine for 
 mutual advancement which they claim for themselves. If 
 they are wealthy, they ought not to presume upon it, or 
 expect servility from their employees. Like other rich men, 
 they should take to heart the golden words of Bishop Potter : 
 " I do not know why poverty should cringe to wealth, which is 
 as often as otherwise an accidental distinction, and quite as 
 often a condition unadorned by any especial moral or intel- 
 lectual excellence. . . . No arrogance is more insufferable or 
 
 ^ All this is said entirely apart from my views as a church member. 
 I come to it by an independent route as a social scientist. 
 
322 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 unwarrantable than that of mere wealth." It is, further, the 
 duty of manufacturers and of all employers to assist their 
 workingmen in every laudable endeavor to resist conspir- 
 acies on the part of their business rivals for the oppres- 
 sion of the employed. They should be ready to speak 
 out in public, and expose and denounce wrong, — just as 
 many of them will do at their own tables, for example. 
 Even good men, who wish themselves to do right, often 
 take such an attitude in public, whenever they fancy vested 
 interests in danger, that one gets the impression of a will- 
 ingness to join hands with the very devil, if he will only 
 assure them the safety of their money-bags. Folly ! It 
 is this timidity on their part which has wrought half the 
 trouble ; for the really bad employers, who for gold would 
 worship Satan, and send all their employees to hell, are few. 
 But there are such in the United States, and upon their 
 heads rests the blood of unnumbered thousands. People of 
 all classes should combine to suppress the comparatively few 
 on both sides of the social struggle who cause that mischief 
 which endangers the safety of our republic.^ Employers 
 ought to have the confidence and friendship of those in 
 their employ. Many of them have it, and year after year 
 sustain the pleasantest relations with those about them. 
 With tact and perseverance, the good will of employees, even 
 of the worst class, can be won, as was demonstrated by the 
 experience of Robert Owen, whose autobiography ought to 
 be read by every manufacturer in the country. 
 
 It should be remembered that every employer and indeed 
 every man of wealth and position on the side of the 
 workingman is a conservative element in society. This 
 proved true, even of so extreme and radical a man as Robert 
 
 ' I fear employers are a little less ready to cast unworthy men out 
 of their combinations than the employees. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 323 
 
 Owen, who incurred the hostility of his fellow-manufactur- 
 ers, and yet on the whole strengthened the foundations on 
 which they were constructing their fortunes. England is 
 strong and free because it contains men like Mr. Forster, 
 Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Samuel Morley, Mr. Hughes, Mr. 
 Brassey. When Mr. Cross, a conservative minister of the 
 Interior, legalized trades-unions and codified the factory leg- 
 islation, he was building wisely for the future ; and when, as 
 always happens in these days in England, in the case of 
 proposed legislation for workingmen, members of the ruling 
 class, like a great land-owner or large manufacturer, rise in 
 Pariiament to plead the cause of their subordinates, they are 
 rendering a service to every employer of labor in Great 
 Britain. To a greater extent than elsewhere do the govern- 
 ing social elements in England sympathize with the labor 
 movement and concern themselves with great social prob- 
 lems, and on this account class antagonism is less sharp 
 than in other similarly situated countries, like France and 
 Germany. If we would live to be as old as England, it is 
 time to begin to imitate her example in this respect. 
 
 Workingmen must remember that they too often give just 
 cause for complaint to their employers by reason of careless- 
 ness, wastefulness, poor workmanship, neglect of trusts com- 
 mitted to them, bad faith, distrust, and downright insolence, 
 which is as unbecoming in them as in their industrial 
 captains. Workingmen ought to cultivate a more concili- 
 atory tone in all their relations, both in the shop and field 
 and in their various societies. The discords which too 
 often divide them are the triumph of their enemies, but a 
 shame to them and a mortification to their friends. The 
 organization of labor, as this tiook has shown, is an indis- 
 pensable condition of the improvement of the masses, and it 
 must be extended and also pursued on a more elevated 
 
324 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 ethical plane, if it is to accomplish its legitimate ends. 
 There must be displayed a greater willingness to yield per- 
 sonal advantage to the common good, and a stronger bond 
 of union than has heretofore existed must be sought in an 
 intensified feeling of brotherhood which will beget self- 
 sacrifice and mutual trust and confidence. 
 
 In conclusion, there are then four chief agencies through 
 which we must work for the amelioration of the laboring 
 class, as well as of all classes of society. These are 
 the labor organization, the school, the State, and the 
 Church. 
 
 One principal remedy against the evils of socialism, nihil- 
 ism, and anarchism is a better education in political, social, 
 and economic science. The dense ignorance on these 
 questions, even among the better classes, is something 
 astounding. People contend against an unknown enemy. 
 There are very few colleges where any adequate instruction 
 is given in the great social problems of the day. What is 
 the result? Their graduates, instead of converting others 
 from error, often yield to the foes of society, and when they 
 do seek to instruct, their ignorance of social movements is 
 so gross that they render themselves a laughing-stock to 
 workingmen. Perhaps they write an editorial to show 
 socialists that a division of property would not produce an 
 equality which would last twenty-four hours ! A graduate of 
 a well-known college in New England, a clergyman, wrote 
 not long ago that in his day they had in political economy 
 only what could be learned out of a couple of text-books, like 
 Mill and Fawcett, eminently respectable authorities, but 
 hardly containing all that is needed by the college graduate 
 of our day. It is not surprising, then, that two or three of 
 his class, and among them a professor in a theological 
 school, had become socialists. Education in political and 
 
THE REMEDIES. 325 
 
 social sciences ought to be given, not only in colleges, but 
 in every high school and academy in the land. 
 
 How is social power, the force which resides in society, to 
 be utilized? The answer is, largely through the State, 
 legally organized society. The individual has his province, 
 the State has its functions, which the individual either can- 
 not accomplish at all, or cannot accomplish so well.-' But an 
 obstacle to the proper economic activity of the State has 
 been found in the low view men have too frequently taken 
 of its nature. Calling it an atomistic collection of units, 
 some have even gone so far as to speak of taxation for the 
 support of pubhc schools as robbery of the propertied 
 classes. Now it may rationally be maintained that, if there 
 
 1 The most pressing need at present is the complete public control 
 of all railways. The postal savings banks, such as are now doing a 
 good work in England and several other European countries, are one 
 of the most important institutions which the general government could 
 give us as an aid in the work of the elevation of the masses. There is 
 absolutely no valid objection to be urged against their introduction in 
 this country, and no contrivance so simple could accomplish more. A 
 better regulation of corporate enterprises is a still more important but 
 a more difficult duty of the State. A classification of undertakings 
 suitable for the sphere of the individual and of those suitable -for some 
 public authority is another pressing need of our times. The super- 
 stitious adherence to laissez faire has prevented the proper activity of 
 the State, and this in turn has reacted upon the sphere of private entei-- 
 prise and has discouraged individual initiative and industry. The 
 reader would do well to consult upon this point a valuable pamphlet by 
 Professor Henry C. Adams, entitled " Principles that should control 
 the Interference of the States in Industries," published by the Constitu- 
 tion Club of the city of New York. Some valuable remarks on the 
 proper industrial functions of the State may be found in the " Relation 
 of the Modern Municipality to the Gas Supply," by Dr. E. J. James, 
 published in Baltimore by the Arnerican Economic Association. A 
 recent pamphlet published by Science in New York, 47 Lafayette 
 Place, on the fundamental principles of economics may also be read 
 with profit. It is entitled " Science Economic Discussion." 
 
326 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 is anything divine on this earth, it is the State, the product 
 of the same God-given instincts which led to the establish- 
 ment of the Church and the Family. It was once held that 
 kings ruled by right divine, and in any widely accepted 
 belief, though it be afterwards discredited, there is generally 
 found a kernel of truth. In this case it was the divine 
 right of the State. Socrates, who held the laws of the State 
 sacred and inviolable, even when they condemned him to 
 death, had a correcter view of its nature than our modem 
 individualists. The Christian ought not to view civil 
 authority in any other light than a delegated responsibility 
 from the Almighty. When men come to look upon their 
 duty to the State as something as holy to their duty to the 
 church, regarding the State as one of God's chief agencies 
 for good, it will be easy for government to perform all its 
 functions. Questions of civil service, as ordinarily pre- 
 sented, do not go deep enough. A higher conception of the 
 State is required. 
 
 One crying need of the times is equaKty in the adminis- 
 tration of the law. There is a good deal of talk about legal 
 equality and — with a few exceptions like the old conspiracy 
 laws — the laws themselves read so as to bear equally on all, 
 but when it comes to the execution it is quite a different 
 thing. There is one administration for the poor, another for 
 the rich, and still another, widely different, for vast corpora- 
 tions. It is idle to deny this. Everybody knows it, and the 
 laborers resent it bitterly.^ 
 
 One thing which should never be attempted is legal 
 
 ^ Inequality in the administration of law — and administration has 
 been said to be even more important than constitutions — is both pos- 
 itive and negative. The general laws are enforced more severely 
 against the poor; and the laws in favor of the workingmen are — one 
 may almost say, as a rule — not enforced at all. 
 
THE REMEDIES. 327 
 
 repression of the labor movement. If the history of social 
 movements in modern times teaches us anything at all, it 
 is the folly of this. It simply drives the activities out of 
 sight. It suppresses the symptoms, and aggravates the dis- 
 ease tenfold. When combinations in England were declared 
 not amenable to the law of conspiracy, outrages soon 
 began to diminish, and they continued to decrease pari 
 passu with the recognition and support which trades-unions 
 received from pubhc opinion and the established authorities 
 of the land. Withdraw the respect and esteem of the com- 
 munity and you take away one of the strongest supports of 
 character. The law of 1879 in Illinois which forbade unau- 
 thorized companies of armed men, was — it may as well be 
 acknowledged frankly — directed against workingmen. It 
 was class legislation. Has it done any good ? It has not 
 suppressed the Lehr- und Wehrverein^ of Chicago, and no 
 one knows how many more may be drilling in secret, though 
 the fact that it has produced bitterness and intensified dis- 
 content is undeniable. It is a bad law and a bad precedent. 
 Our police system needs reforming. What is wanted is 
 some kind of a control which shall prevent the continual 
 clubbing of poor people without cause. Some kind of an 
 administrative court might answer the purpose, and it would 
 render the police not less birt more efiScient. It is a bad sign 
 and shows something wrong when the great mass of honest 
 workingmen are bitterly hostile to the poHce ; but apart from 
 that, there are sufficient evidences of the frequent brutality of 
 
 1 An armed company of Anarchists. It is reported that there are several 
 secret companies of Anarchists in the United States, chiefly in Chicago, 
 and it is well known that they have for several years beetf distributing 
 arms and encouraging workingmen to buy them in all parts of the 
 country, with the avowed purpose of the destruction of existing institu-' 
 tions. 
 
328 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 policemen, and in this country they are beginning to assume 
 a tone which would better become the Czar of Russia than 
 humble guardians of the peace. Certainly the police presi- 
 dent of Berlin would not venture to assume the tone of 
 some petty New York police officials. People should re- 
 member, if they do not desire a police despotism in this 
 country, that " eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and 
 that it is precisely at such times as these in which we now 
 live that the rights of free men are lost. Let no one mis- 
 understand this. The office of a pohceman is an honorable 
 one and should be respected ; and there are many men both 
 brave and good in every police force who deserve only 
 praise. These are doubtless in the majority, but there are 
 too many, thoroughly depraved and corrupted, who are only 
 too glad to club workingmen and workingwomen to divert 
 attention from their other misdeeds. Who has not heard of 
 the bribed police of New York? Who does not know that 
 men on ^5,000 a year contrive to spend $25,000 annually? 
 Who does not know that police captains are in collusion with 
 houses of infamy and other illegal resorts, and accept " hush " 
 money ? Does it stand to reason to suppose that these dis- 
 reputable characters are always in the right in their contro- 
 versies with workingmen ? It is needless to argue the mat- 
 ter. Every one, who will, may gain access to the facts of 
 the case. 
 
 But even when they are not bad men, the pecuUar temp- 
 tation of those engaged in such offices should be borne in 
 mind. It is the same as that of the soldier, which is well 
 described by Maurice, in these words : " There is a brutal 
 appetite for slaughter, which is in the nature of every soldier 
 because of every man, which war would probably call forth 
 in each of us." ^ 
 
 ^ " Social Morality.'' 
 
THE REMEDIES. 329 
 
 Clubbing may be substituted for " slaughter " and police 
 service for " war " in the above. Let us by all means have 
 the very best and most efficient police force in every city, 
 but place it under proper administrative control, and confine 
 it within its own proper sphere. 
 
 Public authorities — and let us have a force sufficient to do 
 this in every emergency — should protect property and per- 
 son. The outrages of private bands of hirelings have con- 
 tinued too long. If property owners may employ a private 
 army to protect their things, surely workmen may employ 
 armed forces to protect their lives ; and we may as well give 
 up government and return to the barbarism of anarchy. The 
 Ohio law, which forbids the employment of deputy-sheriffs 
 not resident in the county, may be commended as worthy of 
 imitation. 
 
 Above all things, let not government appear to the work- 
 ingmen of the country as something merely harsh and re- 
 pressive, for then its overthrow is merely a question of time. 
 The beneficent nature of the State should be brought out 
 strongly.^ 
 
 Chief attention should be directed to the young, and with 
 a good will and energetic action they can be so influenced 
 as to change the character of the population materially in 
 one generation.^ They should, when necessary, be removed 
 from vicious surroundings, and universal and compulsory 
 
 ^ Again I must quote the admirable words of Bishop Potter's " Pas- 
 toral Letter " ■ " We may cover the pages of our statute books with 
 laws regulating strikes and inflicting severest penalties on those who 
 organize resistance to the individual liberty, whether of employer or 
 Vforkman; we may drill regiments and perfect our police : the safety and 
 welfare of a state are not in these things, they are in the contentment 
 and loyalty of its people, and they come by a different road." 
 
 ^ There are some good remarks on this subject in an article by David 
 Dudley Field, in the Forum, Vol. I. 
 
330 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 education ought to reach every child in the land. Schools 
 may be improved by the introduction of instruction in morals 
 and manners. Manual training for boys, sewing and cooking 
 for girls, gymnastic exercises in suitable structures for both 
 are all desirable, and would yield a large return for every 
 dollar invested. Play-grounds for children might well be 
 provided by every municipality, and if the cost should be 
 ' large in great cities, it would be amply repaid in the vigor 
 and health of their bodies. Public baths come under this 
 general head ; and more should be done for rational amuse- 
 ment in order that the masses may receive the culture of 
 wholesome recreation."^ 
 
 1 The Church may also well do something in this direction, as was 
 suggested to me by the late Rev. Dr. Leeds of Grace Church, Balti- 
 more, whose letter is subjoined. 
 
 " Grace Church Rectory, Baltimore, March 9, 1885. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Ely : — '■ 
 
 "I thank you for sending me the paper containing your letter 
 on the great social problem, your solution of which I fully agree 
 with. There is a fault in the Church in not elevating as she ought 
 — and as she has it in her power to do — the so-called laboring 
 classes, and in promoting among all ranks in life a feeling of brother- 
 hood. 
 
 " The fault, however, is less in the Church, as such, than in the pro- 
 miscuous assemblies that gather within her walls; some of whom make 
 the poor workmen uncomfortable by coldness and distance, while 
 among others the workingman makes himself uncomfortable by the 
 thought of contrasted appearance and inequality of position. ... It 
 is not through worship alone that we shall reach them; but even more, 
 I believe, by the provision of places of innocent pastime, and social in- 
 tercourse among themselves, free from the dangers of alluring saloons, 
 and yet antidotes to the gloom of unattractive homes in crowded lanes 
 and alleys. Out of them they will pass under the Church's encourage- 
 ment into her places of prayer of their own choice and motion. 
 
 " Believe me in the fellowship of a common interest, 
 "Sincerely yours, 
 
 "George Leeds." 
 
THE REMEDIES. 331 
 
 The Church must claim her full place as a social power, 
 existing independently of the State. It is said that the 
 Church is the representative of Christ, whose kingdom was 
 not of this earth. True, but for us the higher life has its 
 basis in the lower life, and that Christianity is certainly de- 
 fective which is not a living force in matters of temporal 
 concern. It may be that the talents intrusted to us here 
 are small compared to the opportunities of a future state ; 
 but the attainment of the higher responsibilities depends 
 upon the administration of our earthly stewardship. Now, it 
 seems to the writer that the Church neglects the enforce- 
 ment of our duties with respect to temporal concerns. 
 
 The entire duty of man is summed up by Christ in two 
 commandments, which inculcate love to God and love to 
 one's neighbor, and the one is said to be like unto the 
 other. Now our theological seminaries have learned pro- 
 fessors to teach their students, the future clergy, how to 
 obey the first, and the various branches of learning taught 
 are called theology ; but we find in them no one to teach 
 us how to fulfil the second commandment. That is the func- 
 tion of social science, but too many think glittering gener- 
 alities are sufficient. This is a serious error, for it is by no 
 means always an easy thing to show our love to our fellow- 
 man in our deeds. We often hurt him when we would help 
 him. 
 
 It is with satisfaction one turns from the study of social 
 problems to the teachings of Christ, which seem, from a 
 purely scientific standpoint, to contain just what is needed. 
 On entering our churches, the painful scene of discord be- 
 tween what one sees and hears and what Christ taught, is by 
 no means easy to describe. It is too frequently difficult to 
 believe that the fashionable people about one are followers 
 of the humble Nazarene,' who found it so hard for the 
 
332 THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 
 
 wealthy to enter the kingdom of heaven, and bid the rich 
 young man sell all that he had and give to the poor. A 
 great deal is said in criticism of the communism of the 
 early Christians, and it is doubtless true that it proved no 
 brilliant success,^ but it would be well to dwell more at 
 length on the spirit which that early communism presup- 
 posed. A group of men and women, who sell their all and 
 form one fund that they may live in common as brothers 
 and sisters, without those social distinctions so dear to us 
 all, must have been actuated by sincere convictions and un- 
 feigned love. This is what men did who were near Christ 
 and upon whom there had been a wonderful outpouring of 
 God's Spirit. It may not be necessary for men to do that 
 now, though it is not certain that many a man may not be 
 called upon to part with wealth for the sake of Christian 
 progress ; but it is necessary that Christians manifest a will- 
 ingness to do this. 
 
 In the harmonious action of State, Church, and individual, 
 moving in the light of true science, will be found an escape 
 from present and future social dangers. Herein is pointed 
 out the path of safe progress ; other there is none. 
 
 1 Nevertheless, I know of no proof whatever for the common asser- 
 tion that the poverty of the believers at Jerusalem was in any way con- 
 nected with the experiment in communism. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. Platform of Principles of the National Labor 
 
 Union. 
 
 II. Pledge and Preamble of the Journeymen Brick- 
 
 layers' Association of Philadelphia. 
 
 III. Declaration of Principles and Objects of the 
 
 Cigar Makers' Progressive Union of America. 
 
 IV. Extracts from the Constitution of the National 
 
 Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel 
 Workers of the United States. 
 V. Manifesto of the International Working Peoples' 
 Association. 
 
 VI. Letter to Tramps, reprinted from the " Alarm " of 
 
 Chicago. 
 
 VII. Platform and Present Demands of the Socialistic 
 
 Labor Party. 
 VIII. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1886, by an 
 American Socialist. 
 
 PLATFORM OF PRINCIPLES OF THE NATIONAL 
 LABOR UNION. 
 
 Adopted Friday, September 25, 1868. 
 
 We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all people are 
 created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
 tain imlienable rights ; that among them are life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights, govern- 
 
331 APPENDIX. 
 
 ments are instituted among men, deriving their just povfers from 
 the consent of the governed. 
 
 That there are but two pure forms of government — the Auto- 
 cratic and the Democratic ; under the former, the will of the in- 
 dividual sovereign is the supreme law, under the latter, the sov- 
 ereignty is vested in the whole people, all other forms being a 
 modification of the one or the other of these principles, and that 
 ultimately one or the other of these forms must prevail through- 
 out all civilized nations, and it is now for the American people 
 to determine which of these principles shall triumph. That 
 the design of the founders of the republic, was to institute 
 a government upon the principle of absolute inherent sovereignty 
 of the people, and that would give to each citizen the largest 
 political and religious liberty compatible with the good order of 
 society, and secure to each the right to enjoy the fruits of his 
 labor and talents ; that when laws are enacted destructive of 
 these ends, they are without moral binding force, and it is the 
 right and duty of the people to alter, amend, or abolish them, 
 and institute such others, founding them upon the principles of 
 equality, as to them may seem most likely to effect their pros- 
 perity and happiness. Prudence will indeed dictate that impor- 
 tant laws long established, should not be changed for light and 
 transient causes ; and experience has shown that the American 
 people are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than 
 to change the forms and laws to which they have been accus- 
 tomed. But when a long train of legislative abuses, pursuing 
 invariably the same object, evinces a design to subvert the spirit 
 of freedom and equality upon which our institutions are founded, 
 and reduce them to a state of servitude, it is their right, it is 
 their duty, to abolish such laws and provide new guards for their 
 future security. Such has been the patient suffering of the 
 wealth-producing classes of the United States, and such is the 
 necessity which constrains them to put forth an organized and 
 united effort for maintaining their natural rights, which are im- 
 perilled by the insidious schemes and unwarranted aggression of 
 unscrupulous bankers and usurpers, by means of unwise and cor- 
 rupt legislation. 
 
APPENDIX. 33S 
 
 We further hold that all property or wealth is the product of 
 physical or intellectual labor employed in productive industry, and 
 in the distribution of the productions of labor. That laborers 
 ought of right, and would, under a just monetary system, receive 
 or retain the larger proportion of their productions ; that the 
 wrongs, oppressions, and destitution which laborers are suffering 
 in most departments of legitimate enterprise and useful occupa- 
 tion, do not result from insufficiency of production, but from the 
 unfair distribution of the products of labor between non-produc- 
 ing capital and labor. 
 
 That money is the medium of distributiqn to non-producing 
 capital and producing labor, the rate of interest determining 
 what proportion of the products of labor shall be awarded to 
 capital for its use, and what to labor for its productions ; 
 that the power to make money and regulate its value, is an 
 essential attribute of sovereignty, the exercise of which is, by 
 the Constitution of the United States, wisely and properly 
 granted to Congress ; and it is the imperative duty of Congress 
 to institute it upon such a wise and just basis that it shall be 
 directly under the control of the sovereign people who produce 
 the value it is designed to represent, measure and exchange, 
 that it may be a correct and uniform standard of value, and 
 distribute the products of labor equitably between capital and 
 labor, according to the service of labor performed in their pro- 
 duction. That the law enacting the so-called national banking 
 system is a delegation by Congress of the sovereign power to 
 make money, and regulate its power to a class of irresponsible 
 banking associations, thereby giving to them the power to con- 
 trol the value of all the property in the nation, and to fix the 
 rewards of labor in every department of industry, and is inimical 
 to the spirit of liberty, and subversive of the principles of justice 
 upon which our Democratic Republican institutions are founded, 
 and without warrant, in the Constitution ; justice; reason, and 
 sound policy demand its immediate repeal, and the substitution 
 of legal tender treasury notes, as the exclusive currency of the 
 nation. 
 
 That this money monopoly is the parent of all monopolies — 
 
336 APPENDIX. 
 
 the very root and essence of slavery — railroads, warehouses, 
 and all other monopolies, of whatever kind or nature, are the out- 
 growth of and subservient to this power, and the means used by 
 it to rob the enterprising, industrial, wealth-producing classes of 
 the products of their talents and labor. 
 
 That as government is instituted to protect life and secure the 
 rights of property, each should share its just and proper propor- 
 tion of the burdens and sacrifices necessary for its maintenance 
 and perpetuity ; and that the exemption from taxation of bank 
 capital and government bonds, bearing double and bankrupting 
 rates of interest, is a species of unjust class legislation, opposed 
 to the spirit of our institutions, and contrary to the principles of 
 sound morality and enlightened reason. That our monetary, 
 financial, and revenue laws are, in letter and spirit, opposed to 
 the principles of freedom and equality upon which our Demo- 
 cratic Republican institutions are founded. There is in all their 
 provisions, manifestly a studied design to shield non-producing 
 capital from its just proportion of the burdens necessary for the 
 support of the government, imposing them mainly on the in- 
 dustrial, wealth-producing classes, thereby condemning them to 
 lives of unremunerated toil, depriving them of the ordinary con- 
 veniences and comforts of life, of the time and means necessary 
 for social enjoyment, intellectual culture, and moral improve- 
 ment, and ultimately reducing them to a state of practical servi- 
 tude. We further hold that while these unrighteous laws of 
 distribution remain in force, laborers cannot, by any system of ' 
 combination or co-operation, secure their natural rights. That 
 the first and most important step towards the establishment of 
 the rights of labor, is the institution of a system of true co- 
 operation between non-producing capital and labor. That to 
 effect this most desirable object, money — the medium of distri- 
 bution to capital and labor — must be instituted upon ,such a 
 wise and just principle that, instead of being a power to centralize 
 the wealth in the hands of a few bankers, usurers, middlemen, 
 and non-producers generally, it shall be a power that will dis- 
 tribute products to producers, in accordance with the labor or 
 service performed in their production — the servant and not the 
 
APPENDIX. 337 
 
 master of labor. This done, the natural rights of labor will be 
 secured, and co-operation in production, and in the distribution 
 of products, will follow as a natural consequence. The weight 
 will be lifted from the back of the laborer, and the wealth- 
 producing classes will have the time and the means necessary for 
 social enjoyment, intellectual culture, and moral improvement, 
 and the non-producing classes compelled to earn a living by 
 honest industry. We hold that this can be effected by the issue 
 of treasury notes made a legal tender in the payment of all debts, 
 public and private, and convertible, at the option of the holder, 
 into government bonds, bearing a just rate of interest, sufficiently 
 below the rate of increase in the national wealth, by natural pro- 
 duction, as to make an equitable distribution of the products of 
 labor between non-producing capital and labor, reserving to Con- 
 gress the right to alter the same \?hen, in their judgment, the 
 public interest would be promoted thereby; giving the govern- 
 ment creditor the right to take the lawful money or the interest- 
 bearing bonds at his election, with the privilege to the holder to 
 re-convert the bonds into money, or the money into bonds, at 
 pleasure. 
 
 We hold this to be the true American or people's monetary 
 system, adopted to the genius of our Democratic Republican 
 institutions, in harmony with the letter and spirit of our Consti- 
 tution, and suited to the wants of the government aud business 
 interests of the nation ; that it would furnish a medium of ex- 
 change, having equal power, a uniform value, and fitted for the 
 performance of all the functions of money, co-extensive with the 
 jurisdiction of government. That with a just rate per cent 
 interest on the government bonds, it would effect the equitable 
 distribution of the products of labor between non-producing 
 capital and labor, giving to laborers a fair compensation for their 
 products, and to capital a just reward for its use ; remove the 
 necessity for excessive toil, and afford the industrial classes the 
 time and means necessary for social and intellectual culture. 
 With the rate of interest at three per cent on the government 
 bonds, the national debt would be liquidated within less than 
 thirty years, without the imposition or collection of a farthing of 
 
338 APPENDIX. 
 
 taxes for that purpose. Thus it would dispense with the hungry 
 horde of assessors, tax gatherers, and government spies, that are 
 harassing the industrial classes, and despoiling them of their 
 subsistence. 
 
 We further hold that it is essential to the happiness and pros- 
 perity of the people, and the stability of our Democratic Repub- 
 lican institutions, that the public domain be distributed as 
 widely as possible among the people, — a land monopoly being 
 equally as oppressive to the people, and dangerous to our institu- 
 tions, as the present money monopoly. To prevent this, the 
 public lands should be given in reasonable quantities and to 
 none but actual occupants. 
 
 We further hold that intelligence and virtue in the sovereignty 
 are necessary to a wise administration of justice, and that as our 
 institutions are founded upon the theory of sovereignty in the 
 people, in order to their preservation and perpetuity, it is the 
 imperative duty of Congress to make such wise and just regula- 
 tions as shall afford all the means of acquiring the knowledge 
 requisite to the intelligent exercise of the privileges and duties 
 pertaining to sovereignty, and that Congress should ordain that 
 eight hours' labor, between the rising and setting of the sun, 
 should constitute a day's work in all government works and 
 places where the national government has exclusive jurisdiction ; 
 and that it is equally imperative on the several States to make 
 like provision by legal enactment. Be it therefore unanimously 
 
 Resolved, That our first duty is now to provide, as speedily as 
 possible, a system of general organization in accordance with 
 the principles herein more specifically set forth, and that each 
 branch of industry shall be left to adopt its own particular form 
 of organization, subject only to such restraint as may be neces- 
 sary to place each organization within line, so as to act in har- 
 mony in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the whole, as 
 well as each of the parts ; and that it is the imperative duty of 
 each individual, in each and every branch of industry, to aid in 
 the formation of such labor organizations in their respective 
 branches, and to connect themselves therewith. 
 
APPENDIX. 339 
 
 CO-OPERATIVE. 
 
 Resolved, That in co-operation based upon just financial and 
 revenue laws, we recognize a sure and lasting remedy for the 
 abuse of the present industrial system, and that, until the laws 
 of the nation can be remodelled so as to recognize the rights of 
 men instead of classes, the system of co-operation carefully 
 guarded will do much to lessen the evils of our present system. 
 We therefore hail with delight the organization of co-operative 
 stores and worlcshops, and would urge their formation in every 
 section of the country, and in every branch of business. 
 
 woman's labor. 
 
 Resolved, That with the equal application of the fiindamental 
 principles of our Republican Democratic government, and a 
 sound monetary system, there could be no antagonism between 
 the interests of the workingmen and workingwomen of this coun- 
 try, nor between an}' of the branches of productive industry, — 
 the direct operation of each, when not prevented by unjust mone- 
 tary laws, being to benefit all the others by the production and 
 distribution of the comforts and necessaries of life; and that 
 the adoption, by the national government, of the financial policy 
 set forth in this platform, will put an end to the oppression of 
 workingwomen, and is the only means of securing to them as 
 well as to the workingmen the just reward of their labor. 
 
 Resolved, That we pledge our individual and undivided sup- 
 port to the sewing-women and daughters of toil in this land, 
 and would solicit their hearty co-operation, knowing, as we do, 
 that no class of industry is so much in need of having their con- 
 dition ameliorated as the factory operatives, sewing-women, etc., 
 of this country. 
 
 convict-labor. 
 
 Resolved, That we demand the abolishment of the system of 
 convict-labor in our prisons and penitentiaries, and that the labor 
 performed by convicts shall be that which will least conflict with 
 honest industry outside of the prisons, and that the wares man- 
 ufactured by the convict shall not be put upon the market at less 
 than the current market-rates. 
 
340 APPENDIX. 
 
 IMPROVED DWELLINGS FOR LABORERS. 
 
 Resolved, That we would urgently call the attention of the in- 
 dustrial classes to the subject of tenement houses and improved 
 dwellings, believing it to be essential to the welfare of the whole 
 community that a reform should be efifected in this respect, as 
 the experience of the past has proved that vice, pauperism, and 
 crime are the invariable attendants of the over-crowded and illy 
 ventilated dwellings of the poor, and urge upon the capitalists of 
 the country attention to the blessings to be derived from invest- 
 ing their means in the erection of such dwellings. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 Resolved, That the formation of mechanics' institutes, lyceums, 
 and reading-rooms, and the erection of buildings for that pur- 
 pose, are recommended to workingmen in all cities and towns, 
 as a means of advancing their social and intellectual improve- 
 ment. , 
 
 REMEDY FOR INSUFFICIENT WORK. 
 
 Resolved, That this Labor Congress would most respectfiilly 
 recommend to the workingmen of the country, that in case they 
 are pressed for want of employment, they proceed to become 
 actual settlers ; believing that if the industry of the country can 
 be coupled with its natural advantages, it will result both in 
 individual relief and national advantages. 
 
 Resolved, That where a workingman is found capable and 
 available for office, the preference should invariably be given to 
 such person. 
 
 Six Additions to the Platform adopted by the 
 National Labor Unions since 1868. 
 
 Resolved, That the public lands of the United States belong to 
 the people, and should not be sold to individuals, nor granted to 
 corporations ; but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit 
 of the people, and should be granted, free of cost, to landless 
 settlers only, in amounts not exceeding 160 acres of land. 
 
 Resolved, That the treaty-making power of the government 
 has no authority in the Constitution to " dispose of" the public 
 
APPENDIX. 341 
 
 lands without the joint sanction of the Senate and House of 
 Representatives. 
 
 Resolved, That as labor is the foundation and cause of national 
 prosperity, it is both the duty and interest of the government to 
 foster and protect it. Its importance, therefore, demands the 
 creation of an executive department of the government at Wash- 
 ington, to be denominated the Department of Labor, which 
 shall aid in protecting it above all other interests. 
 
 Resolved, That the protection of life, liberty, and property are 
 the three cardinal principles of government, and the first two 
 more sacred than the latter; therefore, money necessary for 
 prosecuting wars should, as it is required, be assessed and col- 
 lected from the wealth of the country and not be entailed as a 
 burden on posterity. 
 
 Resolved, That inasmuch as both the present political parties 
 are dominated by the non-producing classes, who depend on 
 public plunder for subsistence and wealth, and have no sym- 
 pathy with the working millions beyond the use they can make 
 of them for their own political and pecuniary aggrandizement ; 
 therefore, the highest interest of our colored fellow-citizens is 
 with the workingmen, who, like themselves, are slaves of capital 
 and politicians, and strike for liberty. 
 
 Resolved, That women are entitled to equal pay for equal ser- 
 vices with men ; that the practice of working women and chil- 
 dren ten to fifteen hours a day at starvation prices is brutal in 
 the extreme, and subversive to the health, intelligence, and 
 morality of the nation, and demands the interposition of law. 
 
 II. 
 
 JOURNEYMEN BRICKLAYERS' PROTECTIVE ASSO- 
 CIATION OF PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Pledge. 
 
 I hereby solemnly and sincerely pledge my honor as a man, 
 that 1 will not reveal any private business or proceedings of this 
 
342 APPENDIX. 
 
 Association, or any individual action of its members; that I 
 will, without equivocation or evasion, and to the best of my 
 ability, so long as I remain a member thereof, abide by the 
 Constitution and By-Laws, and the particular scale of prices of 
 work adopted by it; that I will acquiesce in the will of the 
 majority, and that I will at all times, by every honorable means 
 within my power, procure employment for members of this 
 Association ; that I will, at all times and places, especially at 
 work, endeavor to assist and comfort my fellow-workmen who 
 are members of this Association. 
 
 Preamble. 
 
 Whereas, To elevate and maintain a proper position in our 
 trade and calling, we have found it necessary to organize and 
 adopt means by which we may assert our individual rights, there- 
 fore be it 
 
 Resolved, That the Journeymen Bricklayers' Protective Asso- 
 ciation of Philadelphia, with a view to maintain a fair rate of 
 wages, encourage members to advance themselves in their trade, 
 to fraternize in a spirit of harmony, and use every means which 
 may tend to the elevation of Bricklayers in the social scale of 
 life, form themselves into a union for the accomplishment 
 of these ends, do therefore enact and declare the following as 
 their Constitution, By-Laws, and Rules of Order. 
 
 in. 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CIGAR-MAKERS' PROGRES- 
 SIVE UNION OF AMERICA.1 
 
 Declaration of Principles. 
 
 The working people, though being the creators of all wealth, 
 are in every sense of the word unfree, economically and politi- 
 cally. 
 
 * This is one of the socialistic unions. 
 
APPENDIX. 343 
 
 The means of production, money, machinery and tools of all 
 kinds, as well as the soil, are in the hands of a few — the capi- 
 talistic class. 
 
 The working classes, compelled by want, are selling their only 
 means, their laboring power, to the capitalistic class for wages, 
 regulated by supply and demand. 
 
 The surplus of the values created by the laboring classes goes 
 to the capitalistic class causing the growth of gigantic monopo- 
 lies, the destruction of the middle class, and the pauperization 
 of the working people in an ever-increasing ratio. The means of 
 production in the hands of capitalists are a powerfiil means 
 of subduing the class of workers. 
 
 Every improvement in the means of production does away 
 with a number of human hands, and annually the army of the 
 unemployed is on the increase, thereby decreasing the demand 
 for the means of life on the part of the laboring class. 
 
 The misproportion of production and the demand for products 
 is growing, and crises are the natural consequence. 
 
 The capitalistic class, by its wealth, owns all legislation, its 
 privileges are guaranteed by law. 
 
 The laboring classes have — as experience shows — nothing to 
 expect from present legislatures. Therefore, we consider it to 
 be a necessity for the workers of our day to recognize and defend 
 their common interests as a class. 
 
 For that purpose they need Organizationl 
 
 Disunited, the workers are nothing ! United, they are an irre- 
 sistible power! 
 
 Organization and united action are the only means by which 
 the laboring classes can gain any advantages for themselves. 
 
 Organization and Unity bear, in themselves, the germ for a 
 just form of society. 
 
 Good and strong labor organizations are enabled to defend 
 and preserve the interests of the working mass. 
 
 Organization enables them to assist each other in case of 
 strikes, death and disease. 
 
 By Organization only, the workers, as a class, are able to gain 
 legislative advantages. The battle-cry of the laboring class 
 
344 APPENDIX. 
 
 must be: "Cut loose from the present political parties; Elect 
 none but workingnien to the Legislature'. " They know the suf- 
 ferings of the people ; they know where to put in the lever to lift 
 the burdens from their fellow-suiferers and to give them their 
 economic and political rights. 
 
 These organized economic and political struggles teach tlie 
 workers to conduct their own case and to give them confidence 
 in their own might. 
 
 Self-confidence gives to the worker the power to do away with 
 the present unjust mode of production, as well as with the social 
 system of classes to put in their stead the co-operative mode of 
 producing, with a just distribution of all products, and political 
 equality of all individuals. 
 
 The confidence in one's own power destroys the belief in all 
 authority wherever exerted. 
 
 To do away with all unjust domination in state, society, etc., 
 and to establish real sovereignty of the people is the aim of the 
 modern labor movement. 
 
 The laboring classes must be freed by the laboring classes them- 
 selves. 
 
 ARTICLE 11. — OBjECt. 
 
 Sec. I. This Union aims at the furtherance of the material 
 and intellectual welfare of all workers, male and female, em- 
 ployed at the manufacture of cigars. 
 
 Sec. 2. This Union proposes to carry out its aims by the fol- 
 lowing means : — 
 
 a) By gratuitously fiirnishing work ; 
 b") By mutual pecuniary aid ; 
 
 i) In case of strikes and lockouts, of sickness and death; 
 
 2) By lending money for travelling ; 
 
 3) In case of legal difficulties consequent upon af&irs con- 
 cerning the Union ; 
 
 f) Regarding intellectual advancement ; 
 
 i) By issuing an organ defending the interests of the Union; 
 a) By lectures and discussions upon topics of Political Econ- 
 omy, Statistics, etc ; 
 
APPENDIX. 34S 
 
 d") By agitating propositions for the introduction of laws for the 
 
 ■protection of labor's interests. 
 
 Sec. 3. Laws for the protection of labor's interests, as this 
 Union understands them, are : 
 
 a) Prohibition of industrial labor for boys under 14 and for 
 girls under 16 years of age. 
 
 b) Limiting the hours of labor to not more than eight per day, 
 and enforcing such a law by the executive powers of the 
 State. 
 
 c) Prohibition of all night work. 
 
 d) Abolition of the truck system. 
 
 e) Prohibition of tenement-house cigar-manufacture. 
 
 /) Prohibition of contract labor in prisons and reformatory 
 
 institutions. 
 g) State control of factories and workshops with reference to 
 
 their sanitary condition, also laws for the protection of the 
 
 life and limbs and the health of the workmen. 
 h) Owners of factories to be made liable, unconditionally, for 
 
 accidents caused by the lack of proper measures for the safety 
 
 of their workers. 
 i) Establishment of a Central Bureau of Statistics for labor and 
 
 labor interests ; the Bureau to be controlled by the labor 
 
 unions. 
 
 IV. 
 
 REVISED CONSTITUTION AND GENERAL LAWS OF 
 THE NATIONAL AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION 
 OF IRON AND STEEL WORKERS OF THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 Preamble. 
 
 " Labor has no protection — the weak are devoured by the 
 strong. All wealth and all power centre in the hands of few, 
 and the many are their victims and their bondsmen." 
 
 So says an able writer in a treatise on association ; and in 
 
346 APPENDIX. 
 
 studying the history of the past, the impartial thinker must be 
 impressed with the truth of the above quotation. In all coun- 
 tries and at all times capital has been used by those possessing 
 it -to monopolize particular branches of business, until the vast 
 and various industrial pursuits of the world have been under the 
 immediate control of a comparatively small portion of mankind. 
 Although an unequal distribution of the world's wealth, it is per- 
 haps necessary that it should be so. 
 
 To attain to the highest degree of success, in any undertaking, 
 it is necessary to have the most perfect and systematic arrange- 
 ment possible : to acquire such a system it requires the manage- 
 ment of a business to be placed as nearly as possible under the 
 control of one mind ; thus concentration of wealth and business 
 tact conduces to the most perfect working of the vast business 
 machinery of the world. And there is, perhaps, no other organ- 
 ization of society so well calculated to benefit the laborer and 
 advance the moral and social condition of the mechanic of the 
 country, if those possessed of wealth were all actuated by those 
 pure and philanthropic principles so necessary to the happiness 
 of all. But, alas ! for the poor of humanity, such is not the 
 case. " Wealth is power," and practical experience teaches us 
 that it is power too often used to depress and degrade the daily 
 laborer. 
 
 Year after year the capital of the country becomes more and 
 more concentrated in the hands of the few ; and in proportion 
 as the wealth of the country becomes centralized, its power in- 
 creases, and the laboring classes are impoverished. It there- 
 fore becomes us, as men who have to battle with the stern re- 
 alities of life, to look this matter fair in the face. There is no 
 dodging the question. Let every man give it a fair, full, and 
 candid consideration, and then act according to his honest con- 
 victions. What position are we, the Iron and Steel Workers of 
 America, to hold in Society? Are we to receive an equivalent 
 for our labor sufficient to maintain us in comparative independ- 
 ence and respectability, to procure the means with which to 
 educate our children and qualify them to play their part in the 
 world's drama? or must we be forced to bow the suppliant's knee 
 
APPENDIX. 347 
 
 to wealth, and earn by unprofitable toll a life too void of solace 
 to confirm the very chains that bind us to our doom ? 
 
 "In union there is strength;" and in the formation of a 
 National Amalgamated Association, embracing every iron and 
 steel worker in the country, a union founded upon a basis broad 
 as the land in which we live, lies our only hope. Single-handed 
 we can accomplish nothing, but united there is no power of 
 wrong we may not openly defy. 
 
 Let the iron and steel workers of such places as have not 
 already moved in this matter, organize as quickly as possible and 
 connect themselves with the National Association. Do not be 
 humbugged with the idea that this thing cannot succeed. We 
 are not theorists ; this is no visionary plan, but one eminently 
 practicable. Nor can injustice be done to any one ; no undue 
 advantage can be taken of any of our employers. There is not, 
 there cannot be any good reason why they should not pay us a 
 fair price for our labor. If the profits of their business are not 
 sufficient to remunerate them for their trouble of doing business, 
 let the consumer make the balance. The stereotype argument 
 of our employers, in every attempt to reduce wages, is that their 
 large expenses and small profits will not warrant the present 
 prices for labor ; therefore, those just able to live now must be 
 content with less hereafter. 
 
 In answer, we maintain the expenses are not unreasonable, 
 and the profits are large, and the aggregate great. There is no 
 good reason why we should not receive a fair equivalent for our 
 labor. A small reduction seriously diminishes the already scanty 
 means of the operative and puts a large sum in the employer's 
 pocket, and yet some of the manufacturers would appear chari- 
 table before the world. 
 
 We ask, is it charitable, is it humane, is it honest, to take 
 from the laborer, who is already fed, clothed, and lodged too 
 poorly, a portion of his food and raiment, and deprive his family 
 of the necessaries of life by the common resort — a reduction 
 of his wages? It must not be so. 
 
 To rescue, our trades from the condition into which they have 
 fallen, and raise ourselves to that condition in society to which 
 
348 APPENDIX. 
 
 we, as mechanics, are justly entitled, and to place ourselves on a 
 foundation sufficiently strong to secure us from further encroach- 
 ments, and to elevate the moral, social, and intellectual condition 
 of every iron and steel worker in the country, is the object of 
 our National Association ; and to the consummation of so de- 
 sirable an object, we, the delegates in convention assembled, do 
 pledge ourselves to unceasing effort. 
 
 ARTICLE I. --Name and Objects. 
 
 Section l. This Association shall be known as the Na- 
 tional Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel 
 Workers of the United States, consisting of Puddlers, 
 Boilers, Heaters and their Helpers ; Roll Hands, except Drag- 
 Outs on Muck Mills; Nailers, Spike Makers, Nail and Spike 
 Feeders, Hammermen, Shinglers and Knobblers, Refiners, Roll 
 Turners ; also Picklers, Annealers, Washmen, Assorters, and Tin 
 Men in Tin Mills ; Hot and Cold Straighteners and their Help- 
 ers ; Gaggers and Drillers working by the ton ; Chargers, Pull- 
 Outs, Hot-Bed Men and Clippers in Rail Mills ; Wire Drawers, 
 Tackers, Spring Makers, Spring Fitters, Axle Turners, Water 
 Tenders, Rivet Men, Axle Makers, their Heaters and Helpers ; 
 Heaters and Welders in Pipe Mills; Gas Makers in Crucible 
 Steel and Iron Works, after they have been working at the 
 business one year ; Shearmen in Bar, Plate, Sheet, and Nail 
 Mills ; Engineers and Blacksmiths directly connected with Iron, 
 Steel or Tin Works ; also Stockers, Chargers, Cupola Tenders, 
 Speigel Melters, Runnermen, Vesselmen, Bottom Makers, Ladle- 
 men, Pitmen, Cindermen, Stagemen, and Blowers working by 
 the ton, and Pipe Fitters connected with Bessemer Steel Works. 
 Also Keepers and their Helpers, Bottom Fillers, Top Fillers, 
 Engineers, Iron Men, Cindermen, and Water Tenders at Blast 
 Furnaces directly connected with Bessemer Steel Mills. 
 
 Sec. 2. The objects of this Association shall be the eleva- 
 tion of the position of its members, the maintenance of the 
 best interests of the Association, and to obtain by conciliation, 
 or by other means that are fair and legal, a fair remuneration to 
 the members for their labor ; and to afford mutual protection to 
 
APPENDIX. 349 
 
 members against broken contracts, obnoxious rules, unlawful 
 discharge, or other systems of injustice or oppression. 
 
 ARTICLE II. — National Jurisdiction and General 
 Office. 
 
 Section i . This Association shall have jurisdiction over the 
 United States and Canada, in which there are at present, or may 
 be hereafter. Subordinate Lodges located ; and shall be the high- 
 est authority of the Order in its jurisdiction, and without its 
 sanction no lodge can exist. 
 
 Sec. 2. The general office of the Association shall be 
 located in the city of Pittsburg, Pa., and it shall be required 
 that the President and the Secretary of the National Lodge reside 
 in the city where the general office is located. 
 
 ARTICLE III. — National Lodge Elective Officers and 
 their Duties. 
 
 Section i. The elective officers of the National Association 
 shall be a President, who shall also be Organizer, a Secretary, 
 a Vice-President for each district or division of a district, a 
 Treasurer, and three Trustees, who shall hold their offices until 
 their successors are elected or appointed. 
 
 Sec. 2. The President shall be elected from among the dele- 
 gates at Convention, or those who have been delegates at any 
 previous Convention, or whoever held office in the National 
 Association previous to the adoption of this Article. He shall 
 instruct all new members in the workings of the Association, 
 and superintend the workings of the order throughout the juris- 
 diction. He shall sign all official documents whenever satisfied 
 of their correctness and authenticity, and appoint Vice-Presi- 
 dents or Trustees of the National Lodge where vacancies occur. 
 He shall have power to visit any Sub-Lodge and inspect their 
 proceedings, either personally or by deputy ; and require a com- 
 pliance to the laws, rules, and usages of this Association, and if 
 any Sub-Lodge shall refuse or neglect to place any of their books 
 or documents, or any information in their possession, into the 
 hands of the President, or his deputy, whenever required by 
 
350 APPENDIX. 
 
 either of them for any information or investigation he may deem 
 necessary, the President may fine or suspend the Sub-Lodge 
 immediately, and report his action to the Secretary of the Na- 
 tional Lodge, who, in turn, shall report the same to the Vice- 
 President of the district in which the lodge is located, and to all 
 Sub-Lodges in the Association as soon as possible. He shall 
 submit to the Secretary at the end of each month, an itemized 
 account of all moneys, travelling and incidental, expended by 
 him in the interest of the Association, and at the end of his 
 term of oiBce he shall report his acts and doings, in which shall 
 be embodied the reports of the Vice-Presidents, to the National 
 Convention. He shall be required to devote all his time to the 
 interest of this Association, and for his services shall receive 
 such sum as the National Convention shall determine. 
 
 Sec. 3. The Secretary shall be elected from among the dele- 
 gates at Convention, or those who have been delegates at any 
 previous Convention, or who ever held office in the National 
 Association previous to the adoption of this Article. He shall 
 take charge of all books, papers, and effects of the general office. 
 He shall furnish all elective officers with the necessary letter 
 heads and stationery. He shall convene and act as Secretary of 
 the National Convention, keep all documents, papers, accounts, 
 letters received, and copies of all important letters sent by him 
 on business of the Association in such a manner and place, and 
 for such purposes as the National Convention shall direct. He 
 shall collect and receive all moneys due the National Associa- 
 tion, pay the same to the Treasurer, taking his receipt therefor. 
 He shall also draw all warrants on the Treasurer and Trustees, 
 which shall be signed by the President. He shall prepare a 
 quarterly report of the financial transactions connected with the 
 National Association, and fiirnish each Sub-Lodge with a copy 
 •of the same. He shall also furnish each Sub-Lodge, in arrears, 
 with a statement of their indebtedness on or before the fifteenth 
 of June in each year. He shall register the names of members 
 who have received strike or victimized benefits and the amount 
 each member has received. He shall close all accounts of the 
 National Association on the thirtieth day of June in each year, 
 
APPENDIX. 351 
 
 and all moneys received or disbursed after said date shall not 
 be reported in tlie general balance account at the next National 
 Convention. He shall, after the adjournment of each National 
 Convention, prepare a general account of the proceedings there- 
 of as soon as possible, together with a general balance account 
 of all moneys received and disbursed, a copy of which shall be 
 furnished gratis to each Subordinate Lodge in good standing, 
 and for his services shall receive such sum as the National Con- 
 vention shall determine. 
 
 Sec. 4. Upon the death, resignation, or removal of the Presi- 
 dent of the National Lodge, the Vice-President of the First Divi- 
 sion of the First District shall immediately assume the duties of 
 the President and notify the different Vice-Presidents, who shall 
 meet, and in conjunction with the National Lodge oiBcers, shall 
 elect a successor for the unexpired term. 
 
 Sec. J. Upon the death, resignation, or removal of the Sec- 
 retary or the Treasurer of the National Lodge, the President 
 thereof shall immediately take charge of all books, papers, and 
 effects of the general office, and notify the different Vice-Presi- 
 dents, who shall meet, and in conjunction with the National 
 Lodge officers, shall elect a successor for the unexpired term. 
 
 Sec. 6. It shall be the duty of the Vice-Presidents to act as 
 executives of the several districts or divisions of districts in 
 which they may reside, and render such other assistance to the 
 President as he may require. They shall report their acts and 
 doings for their term of office, to the President of the National 
 lodge, not later than the first of July in each year. (See 
 President's duties.) They shall appoint three deputies each to 
 assist them in their duties, the same to report to their respective 
 Vice-Presidents every three months. When either or all of the 
 regular deputies cannot attend, then the Vice-President shall 
 have power to appoint special deputies for that occasion. Vice- 
 f residents shall be delegates at large to the National Conven- 
 tion. 
 
 Sec. 7. The Treasurer shall receive and take charge of all 
 moneys, property, and security of the National Association de- 
 livered to him by the Secretary, and all moneys that accumulate 
 
352 APPENDIX. 
 
 in his hands over and above the amount of his bond ($10,000), 
 he shall deposit in bank, taking a certificate of deposit there- 
 for, and all such certificates he shall turn over to the Trustees of 
 the National Lodge. He shall pay, through the Secretary, ail 
 warrants regularly drawn on him, signed by the President and 
 countersigned by the Secretary, as required by this Constitution, 
 and none others. He shall submit to the National Convention 
 a complete statement of all receipts and disbursements during 
 his term of office. He shall be required to attend the Sessions 
 of the National Association ; and at the expiration of his term 
 of office, he shall deliver up to the successor all moneys, securi- 
 ties, books, and papers of the National Association under his 
 control. 
 
 Sec. 8. It shall be the duty of the Board of Trustees to 
 receive and hold the certificates of deposit turned over to them 
 by the Treasurer of the National Lodge, as set forth in the 
 duties of the Treasurer, and in no case shall the Trustees re- 
 turn to the Treasurer any of said certificates, except on the order 
 of the President, attested by the Secretary of the National 
 Lodge. They shall also hold the required bonds of the Presi- 
 dent, Secretary, and Treasurer, which shall be five thousand dol- 
 lars ($5,000.00) each for the President and Secretary, and ten 
 thousand dollars ($10,000.00) for the Treasurer. They shall 
 also, in conjunction with the President, Secretary, and Treas- 
 urer, audit all accounts of the National Lodge every three 
 months, which settlement shall be final for each quarter. 
 
 A copy of such settlement shall be sent to each Sub-Lodge by 
 the Secretary of the National Lodge, in which shall appear the 
 individual expenses of the National Lodge Officers, including 
 the Deputies and members of the Executive and Conference 
 Committees of the several districts, and those settlements shall 
 be referred to the Committee on Auditing at each National Con- 
 vention. For the faithful performance of their duties the Trus- 
 tees shall give a bond of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) each, 
 which shall be deposited with the President. 
 
 Sec. 9. The Trustees and officers of the National Lodge 
 shall also constitute an Advisory Board to the President of 
 
APPENDIX. 353 
 
 the National Lodge, with whom he shall consult at his dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 Sec. 10. The President of the National Association shall 
 preside at all National Conventions. He shall preserve order 
 and enforce the laws thereof. He shall have the casting vote 
 when equally divided on any question, but shall not vote at 
 other times, except at the election of officers pro tem. He shall 
 make out and announce the following committees : — 
 
 On report of the President and other officers, on Ways and 
 Means, on Auditing, on Secret Work, on Grievance, on'Claims, 
 on Appeals, on Constitution and General Laws, on General 
 Good of the Order. 
 
 Sec. 1 1 . The National Lodge Officers, Vice-Presidents, Depu- 
 ties, Executive, and Conference Committees shall, at the end of 
 each quarter, present to the Secretary of the National Lodge, an 
 itemized report of their actual lost time in the mill and all travel- 
 ling and other necessary expenses incurred by them in the dis- 
 charge of their duties, which shall be paid by the National 
 Association. (See Section 8 of this Article.) 
 
 Sec. 12. The term of office of the President, Secretary, 
 Treasurer, and Trustees of the National Lodge, also the Vice- 
 Presidents of the several Districts and Divisions, shall not expire 
 until the first day of October, after a successor to either of them 
 has been elected. 
 
 ARTICLE v. — Revenue. 
 
 Section i. The revenue of this Association shall be de- 
 rived as follows : — 
 
 For issuing a Charter to a Subordinate Lodge, $5.00 ; new 
 Seal, $6.00 ; remodeling an old Seal, $4.50 ; Rituals, $1.00 each ; 
 Due and Withdrawal Cards, 10 cents each ; Constitution and 
 General Laws, 10 cents each ; Blank Reports, 10 cents each. 
 
 Sec. 2. In order to create a fund to meet the expenses of the 
 National Association it shall be the duty of the President to 
 assess a quarterly tax on the different Subordinate Lodges, in 
 , proportion to the number of taxable members on the last re- 
 port preceding the date assessments are made, sufficient to de- 
 fray the expenses of the National Association. 
 
354 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sec. 3. In order to create a fund for the support of victim- 
 ized members, or such members as may be engaged in legalized 
 strikes, it shall be required that each member of the Association 
 shall pay to his lodge, for the Protective Fund, the sum of 
 twenty-five cents per month. 
 
 Sec. 4. At the last stated meeting in each quarter the 
 Financial Secretary of each lodge shall report to the lodge the 
 correct number of members on his books taxable to the Protec- 
 tive Fund for the quarter, when an order shall be drawn on the 
 Treasurer for a sum equal to seventy-five cents for every member 
 on the books thus reported by the Financial Secretary, and the 
 sum thus drawn on the Treasurer shall be given to the Corre- 
 sponding Representative, who shall, as soon as possible, for- 
 ward the same to the Secretary of the National Lodge, who will 
 receipt therefor. 
 
 Sec. 5. In order to replenish the Protective Fund when it 
 has been depleted by a long and continuous drain thereon, the 
 President of the National Lodge shall have discretionary power 
 to levy a special assessment upon each member reported in good 
 standing on the past quarterly report, except members on strike 
 or out of work two weeks, which assessment must be collected 
 by the Financial Secretary of the lodge and sent to the Secre- 
 tary of the National Lodge without delay. 
 
 Sec. 6. Any member who is sick or out of employment dur- 
 ing the period of one full month shall be exempt from paying 
 the twenty-five cents per month to the Protective Fund until he 
 recovers from his sickness or finds employment. But members 
 out of employment must report the fact to their lodge at every 
 regular meeting or be charged with the twenty-five cents per 
 month to the Protective Fund. 
 
 Sec. 7. All moneys due the National Association shall be 
 forwarded to the Secretary thereof by draft (on New York, 
 Philadelphia, or Pittsburg), Express, P. O. Order, or Registered 
 Letter. For checks sent on any bank, except in the city of 
 Pittsburg, twenty-five cents extra will be charged for collection. 
 
APPENDIX. 3SS 
 
 ARTICLE VII.— Strikes. 
 
 Section i . No Sub- Lodge under the jurisdiction of this 
 Association shall be permitted to enter into a strike unless 
 authorized by the Executive Committee of their district or 
 division. 
 
 Sec. 2. When the Executive Committee of a district or 
 division find it necessary, in accordance with the laws of this 
 Association, to legalize a strike in any one department of a 
 mill or works, it shall be required that the men of all other de- 
 partments shall also cease work until the difficulty is settled. 
 
 Sec. 3. When a strike has been legalized, and the general 
 office of the Association has been properly notified of the fact, 
 the Secretary of the National Lodge shall at once prepare a 
 printed statement of all the facts as near as possible, and for- 
 ward to all lodges, warning all true men not to accept work in 
 such mills. 
 
 Sec. 4. Any Subordinate Lodge entering into a strike in 
 the manner provided by the laws of this Association, shall re- 
 ceive from the Protective Fund the sum of four dollars ($4.00) 
 per week for each member actually engaged in the strike in the 
 mill over which the lodge has jurisdiction, provided they remain 
 in the locality of the strike, or notify the Corresponding Repre- 
 sentative of that lodge of their location, and their being unem- 
 ployed each week while on strike, and have held membership in 
 the Association for six months, are not in arrears, and the lodge 
 to which they belong is in good standing in the National Asso- 
 ciation. This section also applies to members who are standing 
 turns in the mill on strike, and who hold no other situation 
 except that of standing turns in that mill. - 
 
 Sec. 5. No member shall be entitled to strike benefits for 
 the first two weeks while on a legalized strike. Payment of 
 benefits shall date from the commencement of the fourth week 
 after the strike has been legalized, and no benefits shall be 
 allowed for the fractional part of the first week. 
 
 Sec. 6. A member who has been suspended or expelled shall 
 not receive any strike benefits until six months after he has been 
 restored to membership. 
 
3S6 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sec. 7. If any member or members, while receiving benefits 
 from this Association shall work three or more days in one week, 
 at any job, either in or outside of a mill or factory, he or they 
 shall not be entitled to benefits for that week. 
 
 Sec. 8. Any member engaged in a legalized strike, procuring 
 a permanent situation elsewhere, forfeits his claims to strike 
 benefits during the continuance of such strike. 
 
 ARTICLE VIII. — Victimized Members. 
 
 Section i . Should any member or members of this Associa- 
 tion be discharged (victimized) from his or their employment for 
 taking an active part in the affairs of this Association, either as 
 a member of the Mill or Conference Committee, or for otherwise 
 being active in promoting and guarding the interests of this 
 Association, such member or members shall use his or their best 
 endeavors, with the Manager, to get reinstated, and failing in 
 this, he or they shall then and there report such case to the 
 chairman of the Mill Committee, who shall at once proceed to 
 investigate the case as set forth in Sections 2 and 3 of Article 
 VI. Should the committee fail to get the brother or brothers 
 reinstated, they shall then carry the case to the lodge in precisely 
 the same manner as in cases where the whole mill is involved in 
 difficulty, and in no case of individual discharge (except the 
 Mill Committee have good grounds to believe that the brother 
 is discharged without just cause), shall such job be declared 
 vacant until the Executive Committee of the district or division 
 has decided the case. 
 
 Sec. 2. Should the Executive Committee of the district or 
 division, after deciding the brother victimized, deem the organ- 
 ization unable to sustain a strike for his reinstatement, he shall 
 receive from the Protective Fund of the Association six dollars 
 ($6.00) per week until another situation has been procured for 
 him, either by himself or other members of the Association. 
 The law applying to the payment of victimized benefits shall be 
 the same as that governing the payment of strike benefits. 
 (See Sections 5, 6 and 7 of Article VII.) 
 
APPENDIX. 357 
 
 ARTICLE X. — Scale of Prices. 
 
 Section i. Wherever practicable, steps shall be taken to 
 provide a scale of prices for every trade or calling in each dis- 
 trict-represented in this Association. 
 
 ARTICLE XVII. — Dishonorable Members. 
 Section i. Any member robbing or embezzling from a 
 brother member, or leaving a member in debt with intent to 
 defraud by not giving proper notice of his departure, or has 
 been fraudulently receiving or misapplying the funds of the 
 Association, or the money of any member or candidate intrusted 
 to him for payment of the same, or by divulging any of the pro- 
 ceedings of his lodge, or who has slandered any brother mem- 
 ber, or advocated division of the funds or separation of lodge 
 districts, or by acting contrary to the established rules of this 
 Association on any question affecting the price of labor, or the 
 system of working in any district, if opposed to the interests of 
 his fellow-workmen in keeping with the rules of this Association, 
 shall, upon trial and conviction thereof, be punished by fine, sus- 
 pension, or expulsion, as may be determined by two-thirds of the 
 members present. 
 
 ARTICLE XXVIIL — Fines for Various Causes. 
 
 Section i. Officers and members of Subordinate Lodges are 
 required to be punctual in their attendance. 
 
 Sec. 2. Officers of Subordinate Lodges failing to attend the 
 regular mefetings of the lodge shall, for each omission, be fined 
 twenty-five cents, unless satisfactory reasons can be shown, in 
 which case the fine shall be remitted. 
 
 Sec. 3. Members of Subordinate Lodges failing to attend 
 meetings of their lodge at least once a month, shall be fined the 
 sum of ten cents, unless excused through sickness or some un- 
 avoidable cause. 
 
 Sec. 4. Any member of Subordinate Lodges failing to appear 
 at the last stated meeting in June and December, shall be fined 
 fifty cents, uifless he can give satisfactory evidence that it was 
 impossible to attend. 
 
358 APPENDIX. 
 
 Sec. 5. Any member of Subordinate lodges persisting in 
 using unseemly language, or in an indecent manner giving 
 oflFence to a brotiier member, or by offensive conduct, shall be 
 fined one dollar for the first offence, and if he still persists in the 
 unmanly use of such language, he shall be excluded from the 
 lodge room, and not permitted to re-enter during the meeting. 
 
 Sec. 6. The Chairman of any committee failing to report at 
 the time required, unless further time be granted, shall be fined 
 one dollar. Such fine, however, shall be remitted when satisfac- 
 tory explanations are given. 
 
 Sec. 7. Any member entering a Subordinate Lodge under 
 the influence of liquor, shall for the first offence be fined one 
 dollar, and double the sum for every subsequent offence. 
 
 Sec. 8. Any member of a Subordinate Lodge violating his 
 obligation to this Order, shall be liable to a fine of not less than 
 three dollars, reprimand, suspension, or expulsion, according to 
 a decision of his lodge, on a two-thirds majority. 
 
 Sec. 9. Any Corresponding Representative failing or neglect- 
 ing to prepare and forward the quarterly report of his lodge, or 
 to attend to such other duties as pertain to his office, shall be 
 fined two dollars. 
 
 Sec. 10. All fines thus imposed, if not paid at the time, shall 
 be charged by the Financial Secretary to the person from whom 
 due, and shall stand against such person as regular dues, and 
 must be liquidated to entitle him to any privileges or benefits of 
 this Association. 
 
 V. 
 
 MANIFESTO OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING 
 
 PEOPLES' ASSOCIATION. 
 
 To the Workingmen of America. 
 
 Fellow- Workmen : The Declaration of Independence 
 says : — 
 
 "... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pur- 
 suing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce 
 
APPENDIX. 3S9 
 
 them (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their right, 
 it is their duty to throw off such government and provide new 
 guards for their future security." 
 
 This thought of Thomas Jefferson was the justification for 
 armed resistance by our forefathers, which gave birth to our 
 Republic, and do not the necessities of our present time compel 
 us to reassert their declaration ? 
 
 Fellow-Workmen, we ask you to give us your attention for a 
 few moments. We ask you candidly to read the following mani- 
 festo issued in your behalf, in the behalf of your wives and chil- 
 dren, in behalf of humanity and progress. 
 
 Our present society is founded on the expoliation of the prop- 
 ertyless classes by the propertied. This expoliation is such that 
 the propertied (capitalists) buy the working force body and soul 
 of the propertyless, for the price of the mere costs of existence 
 (wages), and take for themselves, i.e., steal, the amount of new 
 values (products) which exceeds this price, whereby wages are 
 made to represent the necessities instead of the earnings of the 
 wage-laborer. 
 
 As the non-possessing classes are forced by their poverty to 
 offer for sale to the propertied their working forces, and as our 
 present production on a grand scale enforces technical develop- 
 ment with immense rapidity, so that by the application of an 
 always decreasing number of human working forces, an always 
 increasing amount of products is created ; so does the supply of 
 working forces increase constantly, while the demand therefor 
 decreases. This is the reason why the workers compete more 
 and more intensely in selling themselves, causing their wages to 
 sink, or at least on the average, never raising tl^em above the 
 margin necessary for keeping intact their working ability. 
 
 Whilst by this process the propertyless are entirely debarred 
 from entering the ranks of the propertied, even by the most 
 strenuous exertions, the propertied, by means of the ever- 
 increasing plundering of the working class, are becoming richer 
 day by day, without in any way being themselves productive. 
 
 If now and then one of the propertyless class become rich, it 
 is not by their own labor, but from opportunities which they 
 
360 APPENDIX. 
 
 have to speculate upon, and absorb the labor-product of 
 others. 
 
 With the accumulation of individual vifealth, the greed and 
 power of the propertied grows. They use all the means for com- 
 peting among themselves for the robbery of the people. In this 
 struggle, generally, the less-propertied (middle class) are over- 
 come, while the great capitalists, par excellence, swell their 
 wealth enormously, concentrate entire branches of production, 
 as well as trade and intercommunication, into their hands, and 
 develop into monopolists. The increase of products, accom- 
 panied by simultaneous decrease of the average income of the 
 ■working mass of the people, leads to so-called " business " and 
 "commercial" crises, when the misery of the wage-workers is 
 forced to the extreme. 
 
 For illustration, the last census of the United States shows 
 that after deducting the cost of raw material, interest, rents, risks, 
 etc., the propertied class have absorbed — i.e., stolen — more 
 than five-eighths of all products, leaving scarcely three-eighths to 
 the producers. The propertied class, being scarcely one-tenth 
 of our population, and in spite of their luxury and extravagance, 
 unable to consume their enormous "profits," and the produc- 
 ers, unable to consume more than they receive, — three-eighths, 
 — so-called "over-productions" must necessarily take place. 
 The terrible results of panics are well known. 
 
 The increasing eradication of working forces from the pro- 
 ductive process, annually increases the percentage of the prop- 
 ertyless population, which becomes pauperized, and is driven to 
 " crime," vagabondage, prostitution, suicide, starvation, and 
 general depravjty. This system is unjust, insane, and murderous. 
 It is therefore necessary to totally destroy it with and by all 
 means, and with the greatest energy on the part of every one 
 who suffers by it, and who does not want to be made culpable 
 for its continued existence by his inactivity. 
 
 Agitation for the purpose of organization ; organization for 
 the purpose of rebellion. In these few words the ways are 
 marked, which the workers must take if they want to be rid of 
 their chains, as the economic condition is the same in all coun- 
 
APPENDIX. 361 
 
 tries of so-called " civilization," as the governments of all Mon- 
 archies and Republics work hand in hand for the purpose of 
 opposing all movements of the thinking part of the workers, as 
 finally the victory in the decisive combat of the proletarians 
 against their oppressors can only be gained by the simultaneous 
 struggle along the whole line of the bourgeois (capitalistic) 
 society, so therefore the international fraternity of peoples, as 
 expressed in the International Working People's Association, 
 presents itself a self-evident necessity. 
 
 True order should take its place. This can only be achieved 
 when all implements of labor — the soil and other premises of 
 production, in short, capital produced by labor — is changed into 
 societary property. Only by this presupposition is destroyed 
 every possibility of the future spoliation of man by man. Only 
 by common, undivided capital can all be enabled to enjoy in 
 their fulness the fruits of the common toil. Only by the impossi- 
 bility of accumulating individual (private) capital can every one 
 be compelled to work who makes a- demand to live. 
 
 This order of things allows production to regulate itself ac- 
 cording to the demand of the whole people, so that nobody need 
 work more than a few hours a day, and that all nevertheless can 
 satisfy their needs. Hereby time and opportunity are given for 
 opening to the people the way to the highest possible civiliza- 
 tion ; the privileges of higher intelligence fall with the privileges 
 of wealth and birth. To theachievement of such a system the 
 political organizations of the capitalistic classes — be they mon- 
 archies or republics — form the baniers. These political struc- 
 tures (States) , which are completely in the hands of the propertied, 
 have no other purpose than the upholding of the present order 
 of expoliation. 
 
 All laws are directed against the working people. In so far 
 as the opposite appears to be the case, they serve on one hand 
 ; to blind the worker, while on the other hand they are simply 
 evaded. Even the school serves only the purpose of furnishing 
 the offspring of the wealthy with those qualities necessary to up- 
 hold their class domination. The children of the poor get 
 scarcely a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly 
 
362 APPENDIX. 
 
 directed to such branches as tend to producing prejudices, arro- 
 gance, and servility ; in short, want of sense. The Church finally 
 seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass and to make them 
 forego the paradise on earth by promising a fictitious heaven. 
 The capitalistic press, on the other hand, takes care of the con- 
 fusion of spirits in public life. All these institutions, far from 
 aiding in the education of the masses, have for their object the 
 keeping in ignorance of the people. They are all in the pay and 
 under the direction of the capitalistic classes. The workers can 
 therefore expect no help from any capitalistic party in their 
 struggle against the existing system. They must achieve their 
 liberation by their own efforts. As in former times a privileged 
 class never surrendered its tyranny, neither can it be expected 
 that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without 
 being forced to do it. 
 
 If there ever could have been any question on this point, it 
 should long ago have been dispelled by the brutalities which the 
 bourgeoisie of all countries — in America as well as in Europe — 
 constantly commits, as often as the proletariat anywhere ener- 
 getically move to better their condition. It becomes, therefore, 
 self-evident that the struggle of the proletariat with the burgeoisie 
 must have a violent revolutionary character. 
 
 We gould show by scores of illustrations that all attempts in 
 the past to reform this monstrous system by peaceable means, 
 such as the ballot, have been futile, and all such efforts in the 
 future must necessarily be so, for the following reasons : — 
 
 The political institutions of our time are the agencies of the 
 propertied class ; their mission is the upholding of the privileges 
 of their masters ; any reform in your own behalf would curtail 
 theseprivileges. To this they will not and cannot consent, for 
 it would be suicidal to themselves. 
 
 That they will not resign their privileges voluntarily we know ; 
 that they will not make any concessions to us we likewise know. 
 Since we must then rely upon the kindness of our masters for 
 whatever redress we have, and knowing that from them no good 
 may be expected, there remains but one recourse —force! 
 Our forefathers have not only told us that against despots force 
 
APPENDIX. 363 
 
 is justifiable, because it is the only means, but they themselves 
 have set the immemorial example. 
 
 By force our ancestors liberated themselves from political op- 
 pression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves 
 from economic bondage. "It is, therefore, your right; it is 
 your duty,'' says Jefferson ; " to arms 1 " 
 
 What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly and simply, — 
 
 First, Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, 
 i.e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international 
 action. 
 
 Second, Establishment of a free society based upon co-opera- 
 tive organization of production. 
 
 Third, Free exchange of equivalent products by and between 
 the productive organizations without commerce and profit- 
 mongery. 
 
 Fourth, Organization of education on a secular, scientific, 
 and equal basis for both sexes. 
 
 Fifth, Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race. 
 
 Siocth, Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between 
 the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, rest- 
 ing on a federalistic basis. 
 
 Whoever agrees with this ideal let him grasp our outstretched 
 brother hands ! 
 
 Proletarians of all countries, unite ! 
 
 Fellow-workmen, all we need for the achievement of this 
 great end is ORGANIZATION and UNITY. 
 
 There exists now no great obstacle to that unity. The work 
 of peaceful education and revolutionary conspiracy well can and 
 ought to run in parallel lines. 
 
 The day has come for solidarity. Join our ranks ! Let the 
 drum beat defiantly the roll of battle, "Workmen of all lands, 
 unite ! You have nothing to loose but your chains ; you have a 
 world to win ! " 
 
 Tremble, oppressors of the world ! Not far beyond your pur- 
 blind sight there dawns the scarlet and sable lights of the Judg- 
 ment Day. 
 
364 APPENDIX. 
 
 VI. 
 
 LETTER TO TRAMPS. 
 
 To Tramps, the Unemployed, the Disinherited, and 
 Miserable. 
 
 A word to the 35,000 now tramping the streets of this great 
 •city, with hands in pockets, gazing listlessly about you at the 
 evidences of wealth and pleasure of which you own no part, 
 not suiiScient even to purchase yourself a bit of food with which 
 to appease the pangs of hunger now gnawing at your vitals. It 
 is with you and the hundreds of thousands of others similarly 
 situated in this great land of plenty, that I wish to have a word. 
 
 Have you not worked hard all your life, since you were old 
 enough for your labor to be of use in the production of wealth ? 
 Have you not toiled long, hard, and laboriously in producing 
 wealth ? And in all those years of drudgery, do you not know 
 you have produced thousand upon thousands of dollars' worth of 
 wealth, which you did not then, do not now, and unless you act, 
 never will, own any part in? Do you not know that when you 
 were harnessed to a machine, and that machine harnessed to 
 steam, and thus you toiled your ten, twelve, and sixteen hours in 
 the twenty-four, that during this time in all these years you re- 
 ceived only enough of your labor product to furnish yourself the 
 bare, coarse necessaries of life, and tliat wlien you wished to 
 purchase anything for yourself and family it always had to be of 
 the cheapest quality? If you wanted to go anywhere you had 
 to wait until Sunday, so little did you receive for your unremit- 
 ting toil that you dare not stop for n moment, as it were? And 
 do you not know that with all your squeezing, pinching, and 
 economizing, you never were enabled to keep but a few days ahead 
 of the wolves of want? And that at last when the caprice of 
 your employer saw fit to create an artificial famine by limiting 
 production, that the fires in the furnace were extinguished, the 
 iron horse to which you had been harnessed was stilled, the 
 factory door locked up, you turned upon the highway a tramp, 
 with hunger in your stomach and rags upon your back? 
 
APPENDIX. 365 
 
 Yet your employer told you that it was over-production "which 
 made him close up. Who cared for the bitter tears and heart- 
 pangs of your loving wife and helpless children, when you bid 
 them a loving " God bless you ! " and turned upon the tramper's 
 road to seek employment elsewhere? I say, who cared for those 
 • heartaches and pains? You were only a tramp now, to be exe- 
 crated and denounced as a "worthless tramp and a vagrant" by 
 that very class who had been engaged all those years in robbing 
 you and yours. Then can you not see that the " good boss" or 
 the "bad boss" cuts no figure whatever? that you are the com- 
 mon prey of both, and that their mission is simply robbery? 
 Can you not see that it is the industrial system and not the 
 " boss " which must be changed ? 
 
 Now, when all these bright summer and autumn days are go- 
 ing by, and you have no employment, and consequently can save 
 up nothing, and when the. winter's blast sweeps down from the 
 north, and all the earth is wrapped in a shroud of ice, hearken 
 not to the voice of the hypocrite who will tell you that it was 
 ordained of God that " the poor ye have always " ; or to the arro- 
 gant robber who will say to you that you " drank up all your 
 wages last summer when you had work, and that is the reason 
 why you have nothing now, and the workhouse or the woodyard 
 is too good for you; that you ought to be shot." And shoot 
 you they will if you present your petitions in too emphatic a 
 manner. So hearken not to them, but list ! Next winter, when 
 the cold blasts are creeping through the rents in your seedy gar- 
 ments ; when the frost is biting your feet through the holes in 
 your worn-out shoes, and when all wretchedness seems to have 
 centered in and upon you ; when misery has marked you for her 
 own, and life has become a burden and existence a mockery ; 
 when you have walked the streets by day, and slept upon hard 
 boards by night, and at last determined by your own hand to 
 take your life, — for you would rather go out into utter nothing- 
 ness than to longer endure an existence which has become such 
 a burden, — so, perchance, you determine to dash yourself into 
 the cold embrace of the lake rather than longer suffer thus. But 
 halt before you commit this last tragic act in the drama of your 
 
366 APPENDIX. 
 
 simple existence. Stop ! Is there notliing you can do to insure 
 those whom you are about to orphan against a like fate? The 
 waves will only dash over you in mockery of your rash act ; but 
 stroll you down the avenues of the rich, and look through the 
 magnificent plate windows into their voluptuous homes, and here 
 you will discover the very identical robbers who have despoiled 
 you and yours. Then let your tragedy be enacted here I Awaken 
 them from their wanton sports at your expense. Send forth 
 your petition, and let them read it by the red glare of destruction. 
 Thus when you cast " one long, lingering look behind," you can 
 be assured that you have spoken to these robbers in the only 
 language which they have ever been able to understand; for 
 they have never yet deigned to notice any petition from their 
 slaves that they were not compelled to read by the red glare 
 bursting from the cannons' mouths, or that was not handed to 
 them upon the point of the sword. You need no organization 
 when you make up your mind to present this kind of petition. 
 In fact, an organization would be a detriment to you ; but each 
 of you hungry tramps who read these lines avail yourselves of 
 those little methods of warfare which Science has placed in the 
 hands of the poor man, and you will become a power in this 
 or any other land. 
 Learn the use of explosives I 
 
 VII, 
 PLATFORM OF THE SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY. 
 
 Labor being the only creator of all wealth and civilization, it 
 rightfully follows that those who perform all labor and create all 
 wealth should enjoy the result of their toil. 
 
 But this is rendered impossible by the modern system of pro- 
 duction, which, since the discovery of steam-power and since 
 the general introduction of machinery, is in all branches of in- 
 dustry carried with such gigantic means and appliances as but a 
 few are able to possess. 
 
APPENDIX. 367 
 
 The present industrial system is co-operative in one respect 
 tly, which is, That not, as in former times, the individual 
 orks alone for his own account, but dozens, hundreds, and 
 lousands of men work together in shops, in mines, on huge 
 rms and lands, co-operating according to the most efficient 
 ivision of labor. But the fruits of this co-operative labor are 
 Dt reaped by the workers themselves, but are in a great meas- 
 re appropriated by the owners of the means of production ; to 
 it, of the machines, of the factories, of the mines, and of the 
 ,nd. 
 
 This system, by gradually extinguishing the middle class, nec- 
 isarily produces two separate sets of men : That class of the 
 orkers, and that of the great bosses. 
 
 It brings forth as its natural outgrowths, — 
 . The planlessness and reckless rate of production. 
 
 The waste of human and natural forces. 
 
 The commercial and industrial crisis. 
 
 The constant uncertainty of the material existence of the 
 ■age- workers. 
 
 The misery of the proletarian masses. 
 
 The accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. 
 
 Such a condition, which under the present industrial rigime 
 annot but become more and more aggravated, is inconsistent 
 ith the interests of mankind, with the principles of justice and 
 rue democracy, as it destroys those rights which the Declara- 
 on of Independence of the United States held to be inalienable 
 1 all men; viz., life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
 
 This condition shortens and imperils life by want and misery. 
 t destroys liberty because the economical subjection of the 
 rage-workers to the owners of the means of production inime- 
 iately leads to their political dependence, and it finally frus- 
 ■ates the pursuit of happiness, which is never possible when 
 fe and personal liberty are in constant danger. 
 
 To put an end to this degrading state of things, we strive to 
 itroduce the perfect system of co-operative production ; that 
 i, we demand that the workers obtain the undivided product of 
 beir toil. 
 
368 APPENDIX. 
 
 This being only feasible by securing to the workers control of 
 the means of production, 
 
 We demand, — 
 
 That the land, the instruments of production (machines, fac- 
 tories, etc.), and the products of labor become the common 
 property of the whole people ; and. 
 
 That all production be organized co-operatively, and be car- 
 ried on under the direction of the commonwealth ; as also the 
 co-operative distribution of the products according to the ser- 
 vice rendered, and to thf; just needs of the individuals. 
 
 To realize our demands, we strive to gain control of the polit- 
 ical power, with all proper means. 
 
 The Socialistic Labor Party claims the title, " Labor Party," 
 because it recognizes the existence of an oppressed class of 
 wage-workers as its fundamental truth, and the emancipation of 
 this oppressed laboring class as its foremost object 
 
 Demands for the Amelioration of the Condition of the 
 Working People under the Present Industrial Sys- 
 tem OF Society. 
 
 The Socialistic Labor Party strives for a radical revision of 
 the Constitution and Statutes of the United States, the States 
 and Municipalities, according to the following demands : — 
 
 a. social demands. 
 
 1. The United States shall take possession of the railroads, 
 canals, telegraphs, telephones, and all other means of public 
 transportation. 
 
 2. The municipalities to take possession of the local railroads, 
 of ferries, and of the supply of light to streets and public places. 
 
 3. Public lands to be declared inalienable. They shall be' 
 leased according to fixed principles^ Revocation of all grants 
 of lands by the United States to C^porations or individuals, the 
 conditions of which have not been complied with or which are 
 otherwise illegal. 
 
APPENDIX. 369 
 
 4. The United States tp have the exclusive righfi to issue 
 money. 
 
 J. Congressional legislation providing for the scientific man- 
 agement of forests and waterways, and prohibiting the waste of 
 the natural resources of the country. 
 
 6. The United States to have the right ,of expropriation of 
 running patents, new inventions to' be free to all, but inventors 
 to be remunerated by national rewards. 
 
 7. Legal provision that the rent of dwellings shall not exceed 
 a certain percentage of the value of the buildings as taxed by 
 the municipality. 
 
 8. Inauguration of public works in,times of ^ economical de- 
 "pfSs^ion. 
 
 ' JL^Trogressi'ire income tax and tax on inheritances; but 
 smafler incomes to be exempt. 
 
 ^'W'tor'Compulsory school education of all children under four- 
 'teen years of age, instruction in all edu cation al institutions to be 
 gratuitous, and to be made accessible to all by public assistance 
 (furnishing meals, clothes, books, etc.). All instruction to be 
 under the direction of the United States and to be organized on 
 a uniform plan. 
 
 11. Repeal of all pauper, tramp, conspiracy, and temperance 
 laws. Unabridged right of combination. 
 
 12. Official statistics concerning the condition of labor. Pro- 
 hibition of the employment of children in the school age, and 
 the employment of female labor in occupations detrimental to 
 health or morality. Prohibition of the convict labor contract 
 system. 
 
 1 3.' 'AH wages to be_paid in cash mlbney/ Equalization by 
 law of women's wages with those of menwhere equal service is 
 performed. 
 
 14. Laws for the protection of life and limbs of working 
 people, and an efficient employer's liability law. 
 
 15. Legal incorporation of trades-unions. \^ 
 
 I 16. Reduction of the hours of labor inriirSportion "t'o'The 
 progress of production ; establishment by Act of Congress of a 
 iegai work-day of not more than eight houi^ for all industrial 
 
370 APPENDIX. 
 
 workers, and corresponding provisions for all agricultural 
 laborers. 
 
 b. POLITICAL DEMANDS. 
 
 1. Abolition of the Presidency, Vice-Presidency, and Senate 
 of the United States. An Executive Board to be established, 
 whose members are to be elected, and may at any time be re- 
 called by the House of Representatives as the only legislative 
 body. The States and Municipalities to adopt corresponding 
 amendments of their constitution and statutes. 
 
 2. Municipal self-government. 
 
 3. Direct vote and secret ballots in all elections. Universal 
 and equal right of suffrage without regard to color, creed, or sex. 
 Election days to be legal holidays. The principle of minority 
 representation to be introduced. 
 
 4. The people to have the right to propose laws (initiative) 
 and to vote upon all laws of importance (Referendum.) 
 
 5. The members of all legislative bodies to be responsible to 
 and subject to recall by the constituency. 
 
 6. Uniform law throughout the United States. Administra- 
 tion of justice to be free of charge. Abolition of capital pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 7. Separation of all public affairs from religion ; church prop- 
 erty to be subject to taxation. 
 
 8. Uniform national marriage laws. Divorce to be granted 
 upon mutual consent, and upon providing for the care of the 
 children. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF 
 THE WAGE-WORKERS OF THE UNITED STATES 
 OF AMERICA IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 
 
 When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary 
 for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have con- 
 nected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of 
 
APPENDIX. 371 
 
 earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature 
 and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinion 
 of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which 
 impel them to the separation. 
 
 We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are 
 created free and equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness, and the right of each to the un- 
 divided product of his labor. 
 
 That to secure these rights governments are instituted among 
 men, deriving their just powers from the consent of tlie gov- 
 erned ; that whenever any form of government becomes destruc- 
 tive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to 
 abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its founda- 
 tion on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form 
 as to them shall seem most lilcely to effect their safety and 
 happiness. 
 
 Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long estab- 
 lished should not be changed for light and transient causes ; 
 and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are 
 more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right 
 themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 
 
 But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing 
 invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them 
 under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to 
 throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their 
 future security. Such has been the patient sufferances of the 
 people of these United States, and such is now the necessity 
 which constrains them to alter their former system of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The history of the present government of these United States 
 is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in 
 direct object, the establishment of a system of absolute tyranny 
 and oppression over the people of these States. 
 
 To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world : 
 
 It has refused its assent to laws the most wholesome for the 
 public good. 
 
372 APPENDIX. 
 
 It has refused to pass laws for the accommodation of large 
 districts of people. 
 
 It has in every way betrayed the interests of the people. 
 
 It has manipulated the votes of the peopje to subserve the 
 personal ends of its officials. 
 
 It has placed in offices of public trust, self-admitted thieves 
 and bribe-takers. 
 
 It has created a multitude of new offices, and has sent out 
 swarms of officials to harass the people. 
 
 It has instituted a system under which public office may be 
 bought and sold, and has established a market-value for the 
 votes of the ignorant. 
 
 It has, in violation of its own formulated laws, continuously 
 appropriated public funds and public offices, that the rule of a 
 faction might be indeiinitely prolonged. 
 
 It has, in the shape of bastard appropriations, recklessly dis- 
 tributed the wealth which our tax-payers year after year pour 
 into the governmental coffers, that its members might share in 
 the spoils. 
 
 It has permitted and assisted railroad corporations to assume 
 the controf of entire States. 
 
 It has upheld such corporations by locating in such States, 
 judges who are empowered to construe the Constitution to their 
 own ends. 
 
 It has created among the people distinctions as marked as 
 those under monarchial reign. 
 
 It has established a "shoddy aristocracy" in our midst. 
 
 It has refused legal incorporation to organized bodies of 
 orderly workingmen. 
 
 It has legislated always for the interests of the few as against 
 the interests of the many. 
 
 As the result : 
 
 Justice has become a by-word. 
 
 Patriotism is unknown. 
 
 In the mad rush for wealth and political sinecure, humanity 
 and morality have been forgotten ; " labor" has been humiliated 
 and trampled in the mud. 
 
APPENDIX. 373 
 
 " God " has assumed the figure of the " mighty dollar." 
 
 In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for 
 redress: our repeated petitions have been answered only by 
 repeated injury. 
 
 Nor have we been wanting in attention to our government 
 oiiScials. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts 
 made to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 
 appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have 
 conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to cease 
 these usurpations, but in all cases have they been deaf to the 
 voice of justice. 
 
 We, therefore, the representatives of the wage-workers of the 
 United States of America, in General Congress assembled, 
 appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude 
 of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the 
 wage-workers here represented, solemnly publish and declare, 
 that the Trade and Labor Organizations herein represented are, 
 and of right ought to be, free and independent organizations ; 
 that they are absolved from all political allegiance to the present 
 government, and to the Old political parties, and that all political 
 connection between them is, and ought to be totally dissolved ; 
 and that, as free and independent organizations, they have full 
 power to formulate their own laws and to enforce them, by the 
 boycott, by social ostracism, and by any and all peaceful measures 
 which may hereafter be deemed necessary. 
 
 And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance 
 upon the protection of a Divine Providence, we mutually pledge 
 to each other our lives, our services, and our sacred 'honor. 
 
 July 4, 1886. Signed : 
 
 Representatives of Labor Organizations. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 PRINTED IN U..S.A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 HD 8072.E58 
 
 The labor movement in America. 
 
 3 1924 002 356 172 
 

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