steadily, and the nation itself has virtually played the rôle of an
attentive but neutral spectator. In the case of direct conflict the
sympathy of the country has almost always been on the side of the
working-man, since in the concrete case the most impressive point was
generally not the opposition between capital and labour, but the
personal contrast of the needy day-labourer and the rich employer; and
the sentimentality of the American has always favoured the weaker
classes. The nation however, has shown an equal amount of sympathy
toward capital whenever a general matter of legislation was in question;
that is, whenever the problem has seemed more theoretical than personal.
In such cases the capitalists have always been felt to be the pioneers
of the American nation by putting their enterprise into all sorts of new
undertakings, applying their capital and intelligence to economic life;
so that they have seemed to a greater extent in need of national
protection than the workman, who may always be easily replaced by some
one else.
Considering the matter as a whole, it can be said indeed that the nation
has preserved a general neutrality, and let both parties virtually
alone. A change has very recently taken place. The new conditions of the
industrial struggle make it clearer day by day that there are three
parties to the conflict, rather than two; that is, not only capitalist
and labourer, but also the general public, which is dependent on the
industrial output, and therefore so immediately concerned in the
settlement of differences as to seem, even in concrete cases, entitled
to take active part. The turning-point came perhaps during the coal
strike in the winter of 1902–03, when the President himself stood out to
represent this third party. But we must follow the development more
minutely—must speak of the labour organizations as they exist to-day, of
the results of legislation, of the weapons employed by the labourers and
those used by the capitalists, of their advantages and disadvantages,
and of the latest efforts to solve the problem. Three forms of
working-men’s organizations can be discriminated to-day—the Knights of
Labour, the independent trades-unions, and the federated trades-unions.
The Knights of Labour are by principle different from both of the other
groups; and their influence, although once very great, is now waning.
Their fundamental idea is a moral one, while that of their rivals is a
practical one. This is, of course, not to be taken as meaning that the
labour unions pursue immoral ends or the Knights of Labour unpractical
ones. The Knights of Labour began very modestly in 1869 as a secret
organization, somewhat like the Free Masons, having an elaborate
initiation and somewhat unusual procedures. Their constitution began
with the motto, “Labour is noble and sacred,” and their first endeavours
were for the intellectual uplifting of the labourer and opposition to
everything which made labour mean or unworthy. The order grew steadily,
but at the same time the practical interests of different groups of
working-men necessarily came into prominence. In the middle eighties,
when they gave up their secret observances, the society had about a
million members, and its banner still proclaimed the one sentiment that
industry and virtue not wealth are the true measure of individual and
national greatness. Their members, they insisted, ought to have a larger
share of the things which they produced, so as to have more time for
their intellectual, moral, and social development. In this moral spirit,
the society worked energetically against strikes and for the peaceful
settlement of all disputes.
Its principal weakness was perhaps that, when the membership became
large, it began to take part in politics; the Knights demanded a reform
in taxation, in the currency, in the credit system, and a number of
other matters in line with state socialism. It was also a source of
weakness that, even in local meetings, working-men of different trades
came together. This was of course quite in accordance with the ethical
ideal of the society. As far as the moral problems of the workmen are in
question, the baker, tailor, mason, plumber, electrician, and so on,
have many interests which are identical; but practically it turned out
that one group had little interest in its neighbour groups, and
oftentimes even strongly conflicting interests were discovered. Thus
this mixed organization declined in favour of labour societies which
comprised members of one and only one trade, so that at the present time
the Knights of Labour are said to number only 200,000 and their
importance is greatly reduced. It is still undoubted that the idealistic
formulation in which they presented the interests of labour to the
nation has done much to arouse the public conscience.
At the present time the typical form of organization is the
trades-union, and between the independent and the federated
trades-unions there is no fundamental difference. There are to-day over
two million working-men united in trades-unions; the number increases
daily. And this number, which comprises only two-fifths of all
wage-earners, is kept down, not because only two-fifths of the members
of each trade can agree to unite, but because many trades exist which
are not amenable to such organization; the unions include almost all men
working in some of the most important trades. The higher the employment
and the more it demands of preparation, the stronger is the organization
of the employed. Printers, for instance, almost all belong to their
union, and in the building and tobacco trades there are very few who are
not members. The miners’ union includes about 200,000 men, who represent
a population of about a million souls. On the other hand, it would be
useless and impossible to perfect a close organization where new
individuals can be brought in any day and put to work without any
experience or training; thus ordinary day-labourers are not organized.
The number of two million thus represents the most important trades, and
includes the most skilled workers.
The oldest trades-union in America is the International Typographical
Union, which began in 1850. It is to be noticed at once that the
distinction between national and international trades-unions is a wholly
superficial one, for in the hundreds of so-called international unions
there has been no effort to stretch out across the ocean.
“International” means only that citizens of Canada and, in a few cases,
of Mexico are admitted to membership. It has been the experience of
other countries, too, that the printing trades were the first to
organize. In America the hatmakers followed in 1854, the iron founders
in 1859, and the number of organized trades increased rapidly during the
sixties and seventies. The special representation of local interests
soon demanded, on the one hand, the division of the larger societies
into local groups, and, on the other, the affiliation of the larger
societies having somewhat similar interests. Thus it has come about that
each locality has its local union, and these unions are affiliated in
state organizations for purposes of state legislation and completely
unified in national or international organizations. On the other hand,
the unions belonging to different trades are pledged locally and
nationally to mutual support. But here it is no longer a question, as
with the Knights of Labour, of the mixing up of diverse interests, but
of systematic mutual aid on practical lines.
The largest union of this sort is the American Federation of Labour,
which began its existence in Pittsburg in 1881, and has organized a
veritable labour republic. The Federation took warning at the outset
from the sad fate of previous federations, and resolved to play no part
in politics, but to devote itself exclusively to industrial questions.
It recognized the industrial autonomy and the special character of each
affiliating trades-union, but hoped to gain definite results by
co-operation. They first demanded an eight-hour day and aimed to forbid
the employment of children under fourteen years of age, to prevent the
competition of prison labour and the importation of contract labour;
they asked for a change in laws relating to the responsibility of
factory owners and for the organization of societies, for the
establishment of government bureaus for labour statistics, and much else
of a similar sort. At first the Federation had bitter quarrels with the
Knights of Labour, and perhaps even as bitter a one with socialistic
visionaries in its own ranks. But a firm and healthy basis was soon
established, and since the Federation assisted in every way the
formation of local, provincial, and state organizations, the parts grew
with the help of the whole and the whole with the help of the parts.
To-day the Federation includes 111 international trades-unions with 29
state organizations, 542 central organizations for cities, and also
1,850 local unions which are outside of any national or international
organizations. The interests of this Federation are represented by 250
weekly and monthly papers. The head office is naturally Washington,
where the federal government has its seat. Gompers is its indefatigable
president. Outside of this Federation are all the trades-unions of
railway employees and several unions of masons and stonecutters. The
railway employees have always held aloof; their union dates from 1893,
and is said to comprise 200,000 men.
The trades-unions are not open to every one; each member has to pay his
initiation fees and make contributions to the local union, and through
it to the general organization. Many of the trades-unions even require
an examination for entrance; thus the conditions for admission into the
union of electrical workers are so difficult that membership is
recognized among the employers themselves as the surest evidence of a
working-man’s competence. Every member is further pledged to attend the
regular meetings of the local branch, and in order that these local
societies may not be too unwieldy, they are generally divided into
districts when the number of members becomes too great to admit of all
meeting together. The cigarmakers of the City of New York, for example,
have a trades-union of 6,000 members, which is divided into ten smaller
bodies. Every single society in the country has its own officials. If
the work of the official takes all his time, he receives a salary equal
to the regular pay for work in his trade. The small organizations send
delegates to the state and national federations; and wherever these
provincial or federal affiliations represent different trades, each of
these trades has its own representative, and all decisions are made with
that technical formality which the American masters so well. In
accordance with this parliamentary rigour, every member is absolutely
pledged to comply with the decisions of the delegates. Any one who
refuses to obey when a strike is ordered thereby loses all his rights.
The rights enjoyed by the members of the trades-unions are in fact
considerable. Firstly, the local union is a club and an employment
agency, and especially in large cities these two functions are very
important for the American working-man. Then there are the arrangements
for insurance and aid. Thus the general union of cigarmakers of the
country, which combines 414 local unions having a total membership of
34,000 men, has given in the last twenty years $838,000 for the support
of strikes, $1,453,000 for aid to ill members, $794,000 for the families
of deceased members, $735,000 for travelling expenses, and $917,000 for
unemployed members; and most of the large unions could show similar
figures. Yet these are the lesser advantages. The really decisive thing
is the concessions which have been won in the economic fight, and which
could never have been gotten by the working-men individually.
Nevertheless, to-day not a few men hold off from the unions and get rid
of paying their dues, because they know that whatever organized labour
can achieve, will also help those who stay outside.
The main contention of these trades-unions refers to legislation and
wages, and no small part of their work goes in fighting for their own
existence—that is, in fighting for the recognition of the union labourer
as opposed to the non-union man—a factor which doubtless is becoming
more and more important in the industrial disputes. Many a strike has
not had wages or short hours of labour or the like in view, but has
aimed solely to force the employers officially to recognize the
trades-unions, to make contracts with the union delegates rather than
with individual men, and to exclude all non-union labourers.
The newly introduced contention for the union label is in the same
class. The labels were first used in San Francisco, where it was aimed
to exclude the Chinese workmen from competition with Americans. Now the
labels are used all over the country. Every box of cigars, every brick,
hat, or piano made in factories which employ union labour, bears the
copyrighted device which assures the purchasing public that the wares
were made under approved social and political conditions. The absence of
the label is supposed to be a warning; but for the population of ten
millions who are connected with labour unions, it is more than a
warning; it is an invitation to boycott, and this is undoubtedly felt as
a considerable pressure by manufacturers. The more the factories are
thus compelled to concede to the unions, and the more inducements the
unions thus offer to prospective members, and the faster therefore these
come in, the more power the unions acquire. So the label has become
to-day a most effective weapon of the unions.
But this is only the means to an end. We must consider these ends
themselves, and first of all labour legislation. Most striking and yet
historically necessary is the diversity in the statutes of different
states, which was formerly very great but is gradually diminishing. The
New England states, and especially Massachusetts, have gone first, and
still not so fast as public opinion has often desired. In the thirties
there were many lively fights for the legislative regulation of the
working hours in factories, and yet even the ten hours a day for women
was not established until much later; on the other hand, the employment
of children in factories was legislated on at that time, and in this
direction the movement progressed more rapidly.
A considerable step was taken in 1869, when Massachusetts established at
the expense of the state a bureau for labour statistics, the first in
the world; this was required to work up every year a report on all
phases of the labour question—economic, industrial, social, hygienic,
educational, and political. One state after another imitated this
statistical bureau, and especially it led to the establishment of the
Department of Labour at Washington, which has already had a world-wide
influence. During the seventies there followed strict laws for the
supervision of factories, for precautionary measures, and hygienic
improvements. Most of the other states came after, but none departed
widely from the example of Massachusetts, which was also the first state
to make repeated reductions in the working-day. Here it followed the
example of the federal government. To be sure, the reduction of the
working-day among federal employees was first merely a political
catering to the labour vote, but the Federation kept to the point and
the separate states followed. Twenty-nine states now prescribe eight
hours as the day for all public employees and the federal government
does the same.
The legislative changes in the judicial sphere have been also of
importance for trades-unions. According to Old English law at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, it was conspiracy for workmen to
unite for the purposes which the trades-unions to-day hold before
themselves. This doctrine of conspiracy, which to be sure from the
beginning depended largely on the arbitrary interpretation of the
judges, has been weakened from time to time through the century, and has
finally given away to legal conceptions which put no obstacles in the
way of the peaceful alliance of working-men for the purpose of obtaining
better conditions of labour. They especially regard the strike as lawful
so long as violence is not resorted to. Nearly all states have now
passed laws which so narrow the old conception of criminal conspiracy
that it no longer stands in the way of trades-unions. Other legal
provisions concern the company stores. In some mining districts far
removed from public shops, the company store may still be found, where
the company buys the articles needed by its employees and sells these
things to them at a high price. But nearly every state has legally done
away with this system; it was, indeed, one of the earliest demands of
the trades-unions.
There have been great improvements too in legislation relating to the
responsibility of employees. The Anglo-Saxon law makes an employer
responsible for injury suffered by the workmen by reason of his work,
but not responsible if the injuries are due to the carelessness of a
fellow-workman. The penalty fell then on the one who had neglected his
duty. It was said that the workman on taking up his duties must have
known what the dangers were. But the more complicated the conditions of
labour have become, the more the security of any individual has depended
on a great many fellow-labourers who could not be identified, so that
the old law became meaningless. Therefore, the pressure of trades-unions
has in the last half century steadily altered and improved the law in
this respect. American state law to-day virtually recognizes the
responsibility of the employer for every accident, even when due to the
carelessness of some other labourer than the one injured.
Thus on the whole a progress has been made all along the line. It is
true that some states have still much to do in order to come up with the
most advanced states, and the labour unions have still many demands in
store which have so far been nowhere complied with—as, for instance,
that for the introduction of the Swiss referendum, and so forth.
Government insurance is not on this programme—one point in which the
American working-man remains individualistic. He prefers to make
provision for those dependent on him, against old age, accident and
illness, in his own way, by membership in unions or insurance companies.
As a fact, more than half the labouring men are insured. Then too the
number of industrial concerns is increasing which make a voluntary
provision for their employees against illness and old age. This was
started by railroad companies, and the largest systems fully realize
that it is in their interest to secure steady labour by putting a
pension clause in the contract. When a workman takes work under
companies which offer such things, he feels it to be a voluntary
industrial agreement, while state insurance would offend his sense of
independence.
The state has had to deal with the labour question again in the matter
of strikes, lockouts, boycotts, and black-lists. During the last two
decades of the nineteenth century, there were 22,793 strikes in the
country, which involved 117,509 workers; the loss in wages to the
workmen was $257,000,000 and in profit to the employers $122,000,000;
besides that $16,000,000 were contributed to aid the strikes, so that
the total loss made about $400,000,000. The problems here in question
are of course much more important than the mere financial loss. About 51
per cent. of these strikes resulted successfully for the workmen, 13 per
cent. partially successfully, and in 36 per cent. the employers won.
Since 1741, when the bakers of New York City left work and were
immediately condemned for conspiracy, there has been no lack of strikes
in the country. The first great strike was among sailors in 1803, but
frequent strikes did not occur until about 1830. The first strike of
really historical importance was on the railroads in 1877; great
irregularities and many street riots accompanied the cessation of work,
and the state militia had to be called out to suppress the disturbances
in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburg. The losses were
tremendous, the whole land suffered from the tumults, and in the end the
working-men won nothing. When in the year 1883 all the telegraphers in
the country left their work and demanded additional payment for working
on Sunday, most of the country was in sympathy with them; but here too
the employers, although they lost millions of dollars, were successful.
In 1886 there were great strikes again in the railroad systems of the
Southwest.
The bitterness reached its highest point in 1892, when the Carnegie
Steel Works at Homestead were the scenes of disorder. Wages were the
matter under dispute; the company, which could not come to an agreement
with the labour union, proposed to exclude organized labour and
introduced non-union workmen. The union sought by the use of violence to
prevent the strangers from working; the company called for aid from the
state; the union still opposed even the militia, and actual battles took
place, which only the declaration of martial law by the governor, after
the loss of many lives, was able to suppress.
The Chicago strike in 1894 was more extensive. It began with a strike in
the Pullman factories in Chicago, and at its height succeeded in
stopping the traffic on a quarter of all American railroads. The
interruption of railway connections meant a loss to every person in the
country, and the total loss is estimated at $80,000,000. The worst
accompaniments of strikes soon appeared—riots, intimidations, assaults,
and murders. And again it was necessary to call out troops to restore
peace. Great wage disputes followed presently in the iron and steel
trades; but these were all surpassed in inner significance by the great
coal strike of the winter before last.
The conditions of labour in the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania
were unfavourable to the labourers. They had bettered themselves in a
strike in 1900, but the apparently adequate wages for a day’s labour
yielded a very small annual income, since there was little employment at
some seasons of the year. The working-men felt that the coal trusts
refused to raise the wages by juggling with arguments; the capitalists
tried to prove to them that the profit on coal did not permit a higher
wage. But the labourers knew too well that the apparently low profits
were due only to the fact that the trusts had watered their stock, and
especially that the coal mines were operated in connection with
railroads under the same ownership, so that all profits could be brought
on the books to the credit of the railroads instead of the mines. The
trades-unions thought the time was ripe for demanding eight hours a day,
a ten per cent. increase in wages, and a fundamental recognition of
trades-unions, along with a few other technical points. The organized
miners, under their leader, Mitchell, offered to wait a month, while the
points of difference might be discussed between both parties; Senator
Hanna, whose death a short time later took from politics one of the
warmest friends of labour, offered his services as mediator, and left no
doubt that the workmen would accept some compromise.