These are a few of the more important exactions which have been made,
and to avoid strikes had been granted. There were many others, and they
presented themselves from time to time when least expected.
It was supposed that the entire vocabulary of demands had been
exhausted, and that the season of 1887 would pass without a strike, when
the Saturday pay-day bobbed up as a warning to the contractor that the
striker was not without resources, and that there were more to come.
The demands of the bricklayers had been met from time to time by the
Master Masons, and they were generally met in a weak way. Some were
conceded without question, and others were agreed to, after a mild
protest, in order to prevent the stoppage of some important work. The
striker had always been possessed of the knowledge _when to strike_, and
this had been one of the secrets of his success. The rule has been to
make a demand at a time when it was believed the employer would make the
concession, because he could not afford to do otherwise--that the
interest of the pocket of the employer would move him when his sympathy
could not be enlisted.
In the last strike the strikers were disappointed. They inaugurated
their movement upon the contractors at the opening of the building
season and went at it in the old way, assuming that the bosses, who had
so generally conceded everything, would not dare to refuse a simple
proposition like that which contemplated changing the pay-day. But they
struck a snag which grew to immense proportions, especially when the
manufacturers of and dealers in building material stepped up and said
they would quit manufacturing, and would stop selling material until
there was a settlement of the trouble and the principle of "individual
liberty" was recognized. They became an important and strengthening root
to the old snag. They held the key to the situation, and asserted the
right to handle it. They turned it and thirty thousand employes were
locked out.