CHAPTER 7

TRADE UNIONISM AND THE COURTS

While it was in the nineties that trade unionists first tasted the

sweets of institutionalization in industry through "recognition" by

employers, it was also during the later eighties and during the nineties

that they experienced a revival of suspicion and hostility on the part

of the courts and a renewal of legal restraints upon their activities,

which were all the more discouraging since for a generation or more they

had practically enjoyed non-interference from that quarter. It was at

this period that the main legal weapons against trade unionism were

forged and brought to a fine point in practical application. The history

of the courts' attitude to trade unionism may therefore best be treated

from the standpoint of the nineties.

The subject of court interference was not altogether new in the

eighties. We took occasion to point out the effect of court interference

in labor disputes in the first and second decades of the nineteenth

century and again in the thirties. Mention was made also of the court's

decision in the Theiss boycott case in New York in 1886, which proved a

prime moving factor in launching the famous Henry George campaign for

Mayor. And we gave due note to the role of court injunctions in the Debs

strike of 1894 and in other strikes. Our present interest is, however,

more in the court doctrines than in their effects: more concerned with

the development of the legal thought underlying the policies of the

courts than with the reactions of the labor movement to the policies

themselves.

The earliest case on record, namely the Philadelphia shoemakers' strike

case in 1806,[29] charged two offences; one was a combination to raise

wages, the other a combination to injure others; both offences were

declared by the judge to be forbidden by the common law. To the public

at large the prosecution seemed to rest solely upon the charge that the

journeymen combined to raise wages. The defense took advantage of this

and tried to make use of it for its own purposes. The condemnation of

the journeymen on this ground gave rise to a vehement protest on the

part of the journeymen themselves and their friends. It was pointed out

that the journeymen were convicted for acts which are considered lawful

when done by masters or merchants. Therefore when the next conspiracy

case in New York in 1809 was decided, the court's charge to the jury was

very different. Nothing was said about the illegality of the

combinations to raise wages; on the contrary, the jury was instructed

that this was not the question at issue. The issue was stated to be

whether the defendants had combined to secure an increase in their wages

by unlawful means. To the question what means were unlawful, in this

case the answer was given in general terms, namely that "coercive and

arbitrary" means are unlawful. The fines imposed upon the defendants

were only nominal.

A third notable case of the group, namely the Pittsburgh case in 1815,

grew out of a strike for higher wages, as did the preceding cases. The

charges were the same as in those and the judge took the identical view

that was taken by the court in the New York case. However, he explained

more fully the meaning of "coercive and arbitrary" action. "Where

diverse persons," he said, "confederate together by direct means to

impoverish or prejudice a third person, or to do acts prejudicial to the

community," they are engaged in an unlawful conspiracy. Concretely, it

is unlawful to "conspire to compel an employer to hire a certain

description of persons," or to "conspire to prevent a man from freely

exercising his trade in a particular place," or to "conspire to compel

men to become members of a particular society, or to contribute toward

it," or when persons "conspire to compel men to work at certain prices."

Thus it was the effort of the shoemakers' society to secure a closed

shop which fell chiefly under the condemnation of the court.

The counsel for the defense argued in this case that whatever is lawful

for one individual is lawful also for a combination of individuals. The

court, however, rejected the arguments on the ground that there was a

basic difference between an individual doing a thing and a combination

of individuals doing the same thing. The doctrine of conspiracy was thus

given a clear and unequivocal definition.

Another noteworthy feature of the Pittsburgh case was the emphasis given

to the idea that the defendants' conduct was harmful to the public. The

judge condemned the defendants because they tended "to create a monopoly

or to restrain the entire freedom of the trade." What a municipality is

not allowed to do, he argued, a private association of individuals must

not be allowed to do.

Of the group of cases which grew out of the revival of trade union

activity in the twenties, the first, a case against Philadelphia master

shoemakers, was decided in 1821, and the judge held that it was lawful

for the masters, who had recently been forced by employes to a wage

increase, to combine in order to restore wages to their "natural level."

But he also held that had the employers combined to depress wages of

journeymen below the level fixed by free competition, it would have been

criminal.

Another Pennsylvania case resulted from a strike by Philadelphia tailors

in 1827 to secure the reinstatement of six discharged members. As in

previous cases the court rejected the plea that a combination to raise

wages was illegal, and directed the attention of the jury to the

question of intimidation and coercion, especially as it affected third

parties. The defendants were found guilty.

In a third, a New York hatters' case of 1823, the charge of combining to

raise wages was entirely absent from the indictment. The issue turned

squarely on the question of conspiring to injure others by coercion and

intimidation. The hatters were adjudged guilty of combining to deprive a

non-union workman of his livelihood.

The revival of trade unionism in the middle of the thirties brought in,

as we saw, another crop of court cases.

In 1829 New York State had made "conspiracy to commit any act injurious

to public morals or to trade or commerce" a statutory offence, thus

reenforcing the existing common law. In 1835 the shoemakers of Geneva

struck to enforce the closed shop against a workman who persisted in

working below the union rate. The indictment went no further than

charging this offence. The journeymen were convicted in a lower court

and appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. Chief Justice Savage, in

his decision condemning the journeymen, broadened the charge to include

a conspiracy to raise wages and condemned both as "injurious to trade or

commerce" and thus expressly covered by statute.

The far-reaching effects of this decision came clearly to light in a

tailor's case the next year. The journeymen were charged with practising

intimidation and violence, while picketing their employers' shops during

a prolonged strike against a reduction in wages. Judge Edwards, the

trial judge, in his charge to the jury, stigmatized the tailors' society

as an illegal combination, largely basing himself upon Judge Savage's

decision. The jury handed in a verdict of guilty, but recommended mercy.

The judge fined the president of the society $150, one journeyman $100,

and the others $50 each. The fines were immediately paid with the aid of

a collection taken up in court.

The decisions produced a violent reaction among the workingmen. They

held a mass-meeting in City Hall Park, with an estimated attendance of

27,000, burned Judge Savage and Judge Edwards in effigy, and resolved to

call a state convention to form a workingmen's party.

So loud, indeed, was the cry that justice had been thwarted that juries

were doubtless influenced by it. Two cases came up soon after the

tailors' case, the Hudson, New York, shoemakers' in June and the

Philadelphia plasterers' in July 1836. In both the juries found a

verdict of not guilty. Of all journeymen indicted during this period the

Hudson shoemakers had been the most audacious ones in enforcing the

closed shop. They not only refused to work for employers who hired

non-society men, but fined them as well; yet they were acquitted.

Finally six years later, in 1842, long after the offending trade

societies had gone out of existence under the stress of unemployment

and depression, came the famous decision in the Massachusetts case of

Commonwealth _v._ Hunt.

This was a shoemakers' case and arose out of a strike. The decision in

the lower court was adverse to the defendants. However, it was reversed

by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. The decision, written by

Chief Justice Shaw, is notable in that it holds trade unions to be legal

organizations. In the earlier cases it was never in so many words held

that trade unions were unlawful, but in all of them there were

suggestions to this effect. Now it was recognized that trade unions are

_per se_ lawful organizations and, though men may band themselves

together to effect a criminal object under the disguise of a trade

union, such a purpose is not to be assumed without positive evidence. On

the contrary, the court said that "when an association is formed for

purposes actually innocent, and afterwards its powers are abused by

those who have the control and management of it to purposes of

oppression and injustice, it will be criminal in those who misuse it, or

give consent thereto, but not in other members of the association." This

doctrine that workingmen may lawfully organize trade unions has since

Commonwealth _v._ Hunt been adopted in nearly every case.

The other doctrine which Justice Shaw advanced in this case has been

less generally accepted. It was that the members of a union may procure

the discharge of non-members through strikes for this purpose against

their employers. This is the essence of the question of the closed shop;

and Commonwealth _v._ Hunt goes the full length of regarding strikes for

the closed shop as legal. Justice Shaw said that there is nothing

unlawful about such strikes, if they are conducted in a peaceable

manner. This was much in advance of the position which is taken by many

courts upon this question even at the present day.

After Commonwealth _v._ Hunt came a forty years' lull in the courts'

application of the doctrine of conspiracy to trade unions. In fact so

secure did trade unionists feel from court attacks that in the seventies

and early eighties their leaders advocated the legal incorporation of

trade unions. The desire expressed for incorporation is of extreme

interest compared with the opposite attitude of the present day. The

motive behind it then was more than the usual one of securing protection

for trade union funds against embezzlement by officers. A full

enumeration of other motives can be obtained from the testimony of the

labor leaders before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in

1883. McGuire, the national secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters

and Joiners, argued before the committee for a national incorporation

law mainly for the reason that such a law passed by Congress would

remove trade unions from the operation of the conspiracy laws that still

existed though in a dormant state on the statute books of a number of

Slates, notably New York and Pennsylvania. He pleaded that "if it

(Congress) had not the power, it shall assume the power; and, if

necessary, amend the constitution to do it." Adolph Strasser of the

cigar makers raised the point of protection for union funds and gave as

a second reason that it "will give our organization more stability, and

in that manner we shall be able to avoid strikes by perhaps settling

with our employers, when otherwise we should be unable to do so, because

when our employers know that we are to be legally recognized that will

exercise such moral force upon them that they cannot avoid recognizing

us themselves." W.H. Foster, the secretary of the Legislative Committee

of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, stated that in

Ohio the law provided for incorporation at a slight cost, but he wanted

a national law to "legalize arbitration," by which he meant that "when a

question of dispute arose between the employers and the employed,

instead of having it as now, when the one often refuses to even

acknowledge or discuss the question with the other, if they were

required to submit the question to arbitration, or to meet on the same

level before an impartial tribunal, there is no doubt but what the

result would be more in our favor than it is now, when very often public

opinion cannot hear our cause." He, however, did not desire to have

compulsory arbitration, but merely compulsory dealing with the union, or

compulsory investigation by an impartial body, both parties to remain

free to accept the award, provided, however, "that once they do agree

the agreement shall remain in force for a fixed period." Like Foster,

John Jarrett, the President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and

Steel Workers, argued for an incorporation law before the committee

solely for its effect upon conciliation and arbitration. He, too, was

opposed to compulsory arbitration, but he showed that he had thought out

the point less clearly than Foster.

The young and struggling trade unions of the early eighties saw only the

good side of incorporation without its pitfalls; their subsequent

experience with courts converted them from exponents into ardent

opponents of incorporation and of what Foster termed "legalized

arbitration."

During the eighties there was much legislation applicable to labor

disputes. The first laws against boycotting and blacklisting and the

first laws which prohibited discrimination against members who belonged

to a union were passed during this decade. At this time also were passed

the first laws to promote voluntary arbitration and most of the laws

which allowed unions to incorporate. Only in New York and Maryland were

the conspiracy laws repealed. Four States enacted such laws and many

States passed laws against intimidation. Statutes, however, played at

that time, as they do now, but a secondary role. The only statute which

proved of much importance was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. When Congress

passed this act in 1890, few people thought it had application to labor

unions. In 1893-1894, as we shall see, however, this act was

successfully invoked in several labor controversies, notably in the Debs

case.

The bitterness of the industrial struggle during the eighties made it

inevitable that the labor movement should acquire an extensive police

and court record. It was during that decade that charges like "inciting

to riot," "obstructing the streets," "intimidation," and "trespass" were

first extensively used in connection with labor disputes. Convictions

were frequent and penalties often severe. What attitude the courts at

that time took toward labor violence was shown most strikingly, even if

in too extreme a form to be entirely typical, in the case of the Chicago

anarchists.[30]

But the significance of the eighties in the development of relations of

the courts to organized labor came not from these cases which were,

after all, nothing but ordinary police cases magnified to an unusual

degree by the intensity of the industrial struggle and by the excited

state of public opinion, but in the new lease of life to the doctrine of

conspiracy as affecting labor disputes. During the eighties and nineties

there seemed to have been more conspiracy cases than during all the rest

of the century. It was especially in 1886 and 1887 that organized labor

found court interference a factor. At this time, as we saw, there was

also passed voluminous state legislation strengthening the application

of the common law doctrine of conspiracy to labor disputes. The

conviction of the New York boycotters in 1886 and many similar

convictions, though less widely known, of participants in strikes and

boycotts were obtained upon this ground.

Where the eighties witnessed a revolution was in a totally new use made

of the doctrine of conspiracy by the courts when they began to issue

injunctions in labor cases. Injunctions were an old remedy, but not

until the eighties did they figure in the struggles between labor and

capital. In England an injunction was issued in a labor dispute as early

as 1868;[31] but this case was not noticed in the United States and had

nothing whatever to do with the use of injunctions in this country. When

and where the first labor injunction was issued in the United States is

not known. An injunction was applied for in a New York case as early as

1880 but was denied.[32] An injunction was granted in Iowa in 1884, but

not until the Southwest railway strike in 1886 were injunctions used

extensively. By 1890 the public had yet heard little of injunctions in

connection with labor disputes, but such use was already fortified by

numerous precedents.

The first injunctions that attained wide publicity were those issued by

Federal courts during the strike of engineers against the Chicago,

Burlington, & Quincy Railroad[33] in 1888 and during the railway strikes

of the early nineties. Justification for these injunctions was found in

the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust

Act. Often the State courts used these Federal cases as precedents, in

disregard of the fact that there the issuance of injunctions was based

upon special statutes. In other cases the more logical course was

followed of justifying the issuance of injunctions upon grounds of

equity. But most of the acts which the courts enjoined strikers from

doing were already prohibited by the criminal laws. Hence organized

labor objected that these injunctions violated the old principle that

equity will not interfere to prevent crime. No such difficulties arose

when the issuance of injunctions was justified as a measure for the

protection of property. In the Debs case,[34] when the Supreme Court of

the United States passed upon the issuance of injunctions in labor

disputes, it had recourse to this theory.

But the theory of protection to property also presented some

difficulties. The problem was to establish the principle of irreparable

injury to the complainant's property. This was a simple matter when the

strikers were guilty of trespass, arson, or sabotage. Then they damaged

the complainant's physical property and, since they were usually men

against whom judgments are worthless, any injury they might do was

irreparable. But these were exceptional cases. Usually injunctions were

sought to prevent not violence, but strikes, picketing, or boycotting.

What is threatened by strikes and picketing is not the employer's

physical property, but the relations he has established as an employer

of labor, summed up in his expectancy of retaining the services of old

employes and of obtaining new ones. Boycotting, obviously, has no

connection with acts of violence against physical property, but is

designed merely to undermine the profitable relations which the employer

had developed with his customers. These expectancies are advantages

enjoyed by established businesses over new competitors and are usually

transferable and have market value. For these reasons they are now

recognized as property in the law of good-will and unfair competition

for customers, having been first formulated about the middle of the

nineteenth century.

The first case which recognized these expectancies of a labor market was

Walker _v._ Cronin,[35] decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial

Court in 1871. It held that the plaintiff was entitled to recover

damages from the defendants, certain union officials, because they had

induced his employes, who were free to quit at will, to leave his employ

and had also been instrumental in preventing him from getting new

employes. But as yet these expectancies were not considered property in

the full sense of the word. A transitional case is that of Brace Bros.

_v._ Evans in 1888.[36] In that case an injunction against a boycott was

justified on the ground that the value of the complainant's physical

property was being destroyed when the market was cut off. Here the

expectancies based upon relations which customers and employes were

thought of as giving value to the physical property, but they were not

yet recognized as a distinct asset which in itself justifies the

issuance of injunctions.

This next step was taken in the Barr[37] case in New Jersey in 1893.

Since then there have been frequent statements in labor injunction cases

to the effect that both the expectancies based upon the

merchant-function and the expectancies based upon the employer-function

are property.

But the recognition of "probable expectancies" as property was not in

itself sufficient to complete the chain of reasoning that justifies

injunctions in labor disputes. It is well established that no recovery

can be had for losses due to the exercise by others of that which they

have a lawful right to do. Hence the employers were obliged to charge

that the strikes and boycotts were undertaken in pursuance of an

unlawful conspiracy. Thus the old conspiracy doctrine was combined with

the new theory, and "malicious" interference with "probable

expectancies" was held unlawful. Earlier conspiracy had been thought of

as a criminal offence, now it was primarily a civil wrong. The emphasis

had been upon the danger to the public, now it was the destruction of

the employer's business. Occasionally the court went so far as to say

that all interference with the business of employers is unlawful. The

better view developed was that interference is _prima facie_ unlawful

but may be justified. But even this view placed the burden of proof upon

the workingmen. It actually meant that the court opened for itself the

way for holding the conduct of the workingmen to be lawful only when it

sympathized with their demands.

During the eighties, despite the far-reaching development of legal

theories on labor disputes, the issuance of injunctions was merely

sporadic, but a veritable crop came up during 1893-1894. Only the

best-known injunctions can be here noted. The injunctions issued in the

course of the Southwest railway strike in 1886 and the Burlington strike

in 1888 have already received mention. An injunction was also issued by

a Federal court during a miners' strike at Coeur d'Alène, Idaho, in

1892.[38] A famous injunction was the one of Judges Taft and Rickes in

1893, which directed the engineers, who were employed by connecting

railways, to handle the cars of the Ann Arbor and Michigan railway,

whose engineers were on strike.[39] This order elicited much criticism

because it came close to requiring men to work against their will. This

was followed by the injunction of Judge Jenkins in the Northern Pacific

case, which directly prohibited the quitting of work.[40] From this

injunction the defendants took an appeal, with the result that in Arthur

_v._ Oakes[41] it was once for all established that the quitting of work

may not be enjoined.

During the Pullman strike numerous injunctions, most sweeping in

character, were issued by the Federal courts upon the initiative of the

Department of Justice. Under the injunction which was issued in Chicago

arose the famous contempt case against Eugene V. Debs,[42] which was

carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision of the

court in this case is notable, because it covered the main points of

doubt above mentioned and placed the use of injunctions in labor

disputes upon a firm legal basis.

Another famous decision of the Supreme Court growing out of the railway

strikes of the early nineties was in the Lennon case[43] in 1897.

Therein the court held that all persons who have actual notice of the

issuance of an injunction are bound to obey its terms, whether they were

mentioned by name or not; in other words, the courts had evolved the

"blanket injunction."

At the end of the nineties, the labor movement, enriched on the one side

by the lessons of the past and by the possession of a concrete goal in

the trade agreement, but pressed on the other side by a new form of

legal attack and by the growing consolidation of industry, started upon

a career of new power but faced at the same time new difficulties.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] See above, 6.

[30] See above, 91-93.

[31] Springhead Spinning Co. _v._ Riley, L.R. 6 E. 551 (1868).

[32] Johnson Harvester Co. _v._ Meinhardt, 60 How. Pr. 171.

[33] Chicago, Burlington, etc., R.R. Co. _v._ Union Pacific R.R. Co.,

U.S. Dist. Ct., D. Neb. (1888).

[34] In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895).

[35] 107 Mass. 555 (1871).

[36] 5 Pa. Co. Ct. 163 (1888).

[37] Barr _v._ Trades' Council, 53 N.J.E. 101 (1894).

[38] Coeur d'Alène Mining Co. _v._ Miners' Union, 51 Fed. 260 (1892).

[39] Toledo, etc. Co. _v._ Penn. Co., 54 Fed. 730 (1893).

[40] Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. _v._ N.P.R. Co., 60 Fed. 803 (1895).

[41] 64 Fed. 310 (1894).

[42] In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1894).

[43] In re Lennon, 166 U.S. 548 (1897).

PART II

THE LARGER CAREER OF UNIONISM

CHAPTER 8

PARTIAL RECOGNITION AND NEW DIFFICULTIES, 1898-1914

When, in 1898, industrial prosperity returned, there came with it a

rapid expansion of labor organization. At no time in its history, prior

to the World War, not excepting the Great Upheaval in the eighties, did

labor organizations make such important gains as during the following

five years. True, in none of these years did the labor movement add over

half a million members as in the memorable year of 1886; nevertheless,

from the standpoint of permanence, the upheaval during the eighties can

scarcely be classed with the one which began in the late nineties.

During 1898 the membership of the American Federation of Labor remained

practically stationary, but during 1899 it increased by about 70,000 (to

about 350,000); in 1900, it increased by 200,000; in 1901, by 240,000;

in 1902, by 237,000; in 1903, by 441,000; in 1904, by 210,000, bringing

the total to 1,676,000. In 1905 a backward tide set in; and the

membership decreased by nearly 200,000 during that year. It remained

practically stationary until 1910, when the upward movement was resumed,

finally bringing the membership to near the two million mark, to

1,996,000, in 1913. If we include organizations unaffiliated with the

Federation, among them the bricklayers[44] and the four railway

brotherhoods, with about 700,000 members, the union membership for 1913

will be brought near a total of 2,700,000.

A better index of progress is the proportion of organized workers to

organizable workers. Two such estimates have been made. Professor George

E. Barnett figures the organizable workers in 1900 at 21,837,000; in

1910 at 30,267,000. On this basis wage earners were 3.5 percent

organized in 1900 and 7 percent in 1910.[45] Leo Wolman submits more

detailed figures for 1910. Excluding employers, the salaried group,

agricultural and clerical workers, persons engaged in personal or

domestic service, and those below twenty years of age (unorganizable

workers), the organizable total was 11,490,944. With an estimated trade

union strength of 2,116,317 for 1910 the percentage of the organized was

18.4.[46] Excluding only employers and salaried persons, his percentage

was 7.7, which compares closely with Professor Barnett's.

Of greater significance are Wolman's figures for organization by

industries. These computations show that in 1910 the breweries had 88.8

percent, organized, printing and book binding 34.3 percent, mining 30.5

percent, transportation 17.3 percent, clothing 16.9 percent, building

trades 16.2 percent, iron and steel 9.9 percent, metal 4.7 percent, and

textile 3.7 percent.[47] By separate occupations, railway conductors,

brakemen, and locomotive engineers were from 50-100 percent organized;

printers, locomotive firemen, molders and plasterers, from 30-50

percent; bakers, carpenters, plumbers, from 15-30 percent organized.[48]

Accompanying the numerical growth of labor organizations was an

extension of organization into heretofore untouched trades as well as a

branching out into new geographical regions, the South and the West. On

the whole, however, though the Federation was not unmindful of the

unskilled, still, during the fifteen years after 1898 it brought into

its fold principally the upper strata of semi-skilled labor. Down to the

"boom" period brought on by the World War, the Federation did not

comprise to any great extent either the totally unskilled, or the

partially skilled foreign-speaking workmen, with the exception of the

miners and the clothing workers. In other words, those below the level

of the skilled trades, which did gain admittance, were principally the

same elements which had asserted their claim to organization during the

stormy period of the Knights of Labor.[49] The new accretions to the

American wage-earning class since the eighties, the East and South

Europeans, on the one hand, and the ever-growing contingent of

"floaters" of native and North and West European stock, on the other

hand, were still largely outside the organization.

The years of prosperity brought an intensified activity of the trade

unions on a scale hitherto unknown. Wages were raised and hours reduced

all along the line. The new strength of the trade unions received a

brilliant test during the hard times following the financial panic of

October 1907, when they successfully fought wage reductions. As good a

test is found in the conquest of the shorter day. By 1900 the eight-hour

day was the rule in the building trades, in granite cutting and in

bituminous coal mining. The most spectacular and costly eight-hour fight

was waged by the printers. In the later eighties and early nineties, the

Typographical Union had endeavored to establish a nine-hour day in the

printing offices. This was given a setback by the introduction of the

linotype machine during the period of depression, 1893-1897. In spite of

this obstacle, however, the Typographical Union held its ground.

Adopting the policy that only journeymen printers must operate the

linotype machines, the union was able to meet the situation. And,

furthermore, in 1898, through agreement with the United Typothetæ of

America, the national association of employers in book and job printing,

the union was able to gain the nine-hour day in substantially all book

and job offices. In 1903 the union demanded the eight-hour day in all

printing offices to become effective January 1, 1906. To gain an

advantage over the union, the United Typothetæ, late in the summer of

1905, locked out all its union men. This at once precipitated a strike

for the eight-hour day. The American Federation of Labor levied a

special assessment on all its members in aid of the strikers. By 1907

the Typographical Union won its demand all along the line, although at a

tremendous cost of money running into several million dollars, and in

1909 the United Typothetæ formally conceded the eight-hour day.

Another proof of trade union progress is found in the spread of trade

agreements. The idea of a joint partnership of organized labor and

organized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since the

fifties, had been struggling for acceptance, finally showed definite

signs of coming to be materialized.

(1) _The Miners_

In no other industry has a union's struggle for "recognition" offered a

richer and more instructive picture of the birth of the new order with

its difficulties as well as its promises than in coal mining. Faced in

the anthracite field[50] by a small and well knitted group of employers,

generally considered a "trust," and by a no less difficult situation in

bituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mine

operators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a space of fifteen

years in unionizing the one as well as the other; while at the same time

successfully and progressively solving the gigantic internal problem of

welding a polyglot mass of workers into a well disciplined and obedient

army.

The miners' union attained its first successes in the so-called central

bituminous competitive field, including Western Pennsylvania, West

Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. In this field a

beginning had been made in 1886 when the coal operators and the union

entered into a collective agreement. However, its scope was practically

confined to Ohio and even that limited agreement went under in 1890.[51]

With the breakdown of this agreement, the membership dwindled so that

by the time of a general strike in 1894, the total paid-up membership

was barely 13,000. This strike was undertaken to restore the wage-scale

of 1893, but during the ensuing years of depression wages were cut still

further.[52]

The turn came as suddenly as it was spectacular. In 1897, with a

membership which had dropped to 10,000 and of which 7000 were in Ohio

and with an empty treasury, the United Mine Workers called a general

strike trusting to a rising market and to an awakened spirit of

solidarity in the majority of the unorganized after four years of

unemployment and distress. In fact the leaders had not miscalculated.

One hundred thousand or more coal miners obeyed the order to go on a

strike. In Illinois the union had but a handful of members when the

strike started, but the miners struck to a man. The tie-up was

practically complete except in West Virginia. That State had early

become recognized as the weakest spot in the miners' union's armor.

Notwithstanding the American Federation of Labor threw almost its entire

force of organizers into that limited area, which was then only

beginning to assume its present day importance in the coal mining

industry, barely one-third of the miners were induced to strike. A

contributing factor was a more energetic interference from the courts

than in other States. All marching upon the highways and all assemblages

of the strikers in large gatherings were forbidden by injunctions. On

one occasion more than a score of men were sentenced to jail for

contempt of court by Federal Judge Goff. The handicap in West Virginia

was offset by sympathy and aid from other quarters. Many unions

throughout the country and even the general public sent the striking

miners financial aid. In Illinois Governor John R. Tanner refused the

requests for militia made by several sheriffs.

The general strike of 1897 ended in the central competitive field after

a twelve-weeks' struggle. The settlement was an unqualified victory for

the union. It conceded the miners a 20 percent increase in wages, the

establishment of the eight-hour day, the abolition of company stores,

semi-monthly payments, and a restoration of the system of fixing

Interstate wage rates in annual joint conferences with the operators,

which meant official recognition of the United Mine Workers. The

operators in West Virginia, however, refused to come in.

The first of these Interstate conferences was held in January, 1898, at

which the miners were conceded a further increase in wages. In addition,

the agreement, which was to run for two years, established for Illinois

the run-of-mine[53] system of payment, while the size of the screens of

other states was regulated; and it also conceded the miners the

check-off system[54] in every district, save that of Western

Pennsylvania.[55] Such a comprehensive victory would not have been

possible had it not been for the upward trend which coal prices had

taken.

But great as was the union's newly discovered power, it was spread most

unevenly over the central competitive field. Its firmest grip was in

Illinois. The well-filled treasury of the Illinois district has many

times been called upon for large contributions or loans, to enable the

union to establish itself in some other field. The weakest hold of the

United Mine Workers has been in West Virginia. At the end of the general

strike of 1897, the West Virginia membership was only about 4000.

Moreover, a further spread of the organization met with unusual

obstacles. A large percentage of the miners of West Virginia are Negroes

or white mountaineers. These have proven more difficult to organize than

recent Southern and Eastern European immigrants, who formed the majority

in the other districts. And yet West Virginia as a growing mining state

soon assumed a high strategic importance. A lower wage scale, the better

quality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have made

West Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in the

central competitive field. Consequently West Virginia operators have

been able to operate their mines more days during the year than

elsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners

have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States.

But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West

Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and in

campaigns of organization. In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted at

the behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company, a West Virginia

concern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organize

employes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers while

in the employ of the company. The injunction was made permanent in 1913.

The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court of

Appeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in

March 1917.[56] Recently the United States Steel Corporation became a

dominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lent

additional strength to the already strong anti-union determination of

the employers.

Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strict

adherence to agreements made. This faithfulness to a pledged word, which

justified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as much

as it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasions

by John Mitchell, the national President of the Union. The first test

came in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the joint

conference had adjourned. Although they might have won higher wages had

they struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe test

came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.[57] A special union

convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners

should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners

in the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the convention

voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the

operators. The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when,

in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, it

accepted without a strike a reduction in wages in the central

competitive field. However, as against the miners' conduct in these

situations must be reckoned the many local strikes or "stoppages" in

violation of agreements. The difficulty was that the machinery for the

adjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome.

In 1906 the trade agreement system encountered a new difficulty in the

friction which developed between the operators of the several

competitive districts. On the surface, the source of the friction was

the attempt made by the Ohio and Illinois operators to organize a

national coal operators' association to take the place of the several

autonomous district organizations. The Pittsburgh operators, however,

objected. They preferred the existing system of agreements under which

each district organization possessed a veto power, since then they could

keep the advantage over their competitors in Ohio and Indiana with which

they had started under the original agreement of 1898. The miners in

this emergency threw their power against the national operators'

association. A suspension throughout most districts of the central

competitive field followed. In the end, the miners won an increase in

wages, but the Interstate agreement system was suspended, giving place

to separate agreements for each district.

In 1908 the situation of 1906 was repeated. This time the Illinois

operators refused to attend the Interstate conference on the ground that

the Interstate agreement severely handicapped Illinois. As said before,

ever since 1897 payment in Illinois has been upon the run-of-mine basis;

whereas in all other States of the central competitive field the miners

were paid for screened coal only. With the operators of each State

having one vote in the joint conference, it can be understood why the

handicap against Illinois continued. Theoretically, of course, the

Illinois operators might have voted against the acceptance of any

agreement which gave an advantage to other States; however, against this

weighed the fact that the union was strongest in Illinois. The Illinois

operators, hence, preferred to deal separately with the United Mine

Workers. Accordingly, an Interstate agreement was drawn up, applying

only to Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

In 1910, the Illinois operators again refused to enter the Interstate

conference, but this time the United Mine Workers insisted upon a return

to the Interstate agreement system of 1898. On April 1, 1910, operations

were suspended throughout the central competitive field. By July

agreements had been secured in every State save Illinois, the latter

State holding out until September. This long struggle in Illinois was

the first real test of strength between the operators and the miners

since 1897. The miners' victory made it inevitable that the Illinois

operators should eventually reenter the Interstate conference.

In 1912, after repeated conferences, the net result was the restoration

of the Interstate agreement as it existed before 1906. The special

burden of which the Illinois operators had been complaining was not

removed; yet they were compelled by the union to remain a party to the

Interstate agreement. The union justified its special treatment of the

operators in Illinois on the ground that the run-of-mine rates were 40

percent below the screened coal rates, thus compensating them amply for

the "slack" for which they had to pay under this system. The Federal

report on "Restriction of Output" of 1904 substantiated the union's

contention. Ultimately, the United Mine Workers unquestionably hoped to

establish the run-of-mine system throughout the central competitive

field.

The union, incidentally to its policy of protecting the miners, has

considerably affected the market or business structure of the industry.

An outstanding policy of the union has been to equalize competitive

costs over the entire area of a market by means of a system of grading

tonnage rates paid to the miner, whereby competitive advantages of

location, thickness of vein, and the like were absorbed in higher labor

costs. This doubtless tended to eliminate cut-throat competition and

thus stabilize the industry. On the other hand, it may have hindered the

process of elimination of unprofitable mines, and therefore may be in

some measure responsible for the present-day overdevelopment in the

bituminous mining industry, which results in periodic unemployment and

in idle mines.

In the anthracite coal field in Eastern Pennsylvania the difficulties

met by the United Mine Workers were at first far greater than in the

bituminous branch of the industry. First, the working population was

nearly all foreign-speaking, and the union thus lacked the fulcrum which

it found in Illinois with its large proportion of English-speaking

miners accustomed to organization and to carrying on a common purpose.

Secondly, the employers, instead of being numerous and united only for

joint dealing with labor, as in bituminous mining, were few in number

besides being cemented together by a common selling policy on top of a

common labor policy. In consequence, the union encountered a stone wall

of opposition, which its loose ranks found for many years well-nigh

impossible to overcome.

During the general strike of 1897 the United Mine Workers made a

beginning in organizing the anthracite miners. In September 1900, they

called a general strike. Although at that time the union had only 8000

members in this region, the strike order was obeyed by over 100,000

miners; and within a few weeks the strike became truly general. Probably

the union could not have won if it had to rely solely on economic

strength. However, the impending Presidential election led to an

interference by Senator Mark Hanna, President McKinley's campaign

manager. Through him President John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers

was informed that the operators would abolish the objectionable sliding

scale system of wage payments, increase rates 10 percent and agree to

meet committees of their employes for the adjustment of grievances.

This, however, did not carry a formal recognition of the union; it was

not a trade agreement but merely an unwritten understanding. A part of

the same understanding was that the terms which had been agreed upon

should remain in force until April, 1901. At its expiration the

identical terms were renewed for another year, while the negotiations

bore the same informal character.

During 1902 the essential instability of the arrangement led to sharp

friction. The miners claimed that many operators violated the unwritten

agreement. The operators, on their part, charged that the union was

using every means for practically enforcing the closed shop, which was

not granted in the understanding. In the early months of 1902 the miners

presented demands for a reduction of the hours of labor from 10 to 9,

for a twenty percent increase in wages, for payment according to the

weight of coal mined, and for the recognition of the union. The

operators refused to negotiate, and on May 9 the famous anthracite

strike of 1902 began.

It is unnecessary to detail the events of the anthracite strike. No

other strike is better known and remembered. More than 150,000 miners

stood out for approximately five months. The strike was financed by a

levy of one dollar per week upon all employed miners in the country,

which yielded over $2,000,000. In addition several hundred thousand

dollars came in from other trade unions and from the public generally.

In October, when the country was facing a most serious coal famine,

President Roosevelt took a hand. He called in the presidents of the

anthracite railroads and the leading union officials for a conference in

the White House and urged arbitration. At first he met with rebuff from

the operators, but shortly afterward, with the aid of friendly pressure

from New York financiers, the operators consented to accept the award of

a commission to be appointed by himself. This was the well-known

Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. Its appointment terminated the

strike. Not until more than a half year later, however, was the award of

the Commission made. It conceded the miners a 10 percent increase in

wages, the eight and nine-hour day, and the privilege of having a union

check-weighman at the scale where the coal sent up in cars by the miners

is weighed. Recognition was not accorded the union, except that it was

required to bear one-half of the expense connected with the maintenance

of a joint arbitration board created by the Commission. When this award

was announced there was much dissatisfaction with it among the miners.

President Mitchell, however, put forth every effort to have the union

accept the award. Upon a referendum vote the miners accepted his view.

The anthracite coal strike of 1902 was doubtless the most important

single event in the history of American trade unionism until that time

and has since scarcely been surpassed. To be sure, events like the great

railway strike of 1877 and the Chicago Anarchist bomb and trial in

1886-1887 had equally forced the labor question into public attention.

What distinguished the anthracite coal strike, however, was that for the

first time a labor organization tied up for months a strategic industry

and caused wide suffering and discomfort to the public without being

condemned as a revolutionary menace to the existing social order calling

for suppression by the government; it was, on the contrary, adjudged a

force within the preserves of orderly society and entitled to public

sympathy. The public identified the anthracite employers with the trust

movement, which was then new and seemingly bent upon uprooting the

traditional free American social order; by contrast, the striking miners

appeared almost as champions of Old America. A strong contributory

factor was the clumsy tactics of the employers who played into the hands

of the leaders of the miners. The latter, especially John Mitchell,

conducted their case with great skill.

Yet the award of the Commission fell considerably short of what the

union and its sympathizers outside the ranks of labor hoped for. For by

refusing to grant formal recognition, the Commission failed to

constitute unionism into a publicly recognized agency in the management

of industry and declared by implication that the role of unionism ended

with a presentation of grievances and complaints.

For ten years after the strike of 1902 the union failed to develop the

strength in the anthracite field which many believed would follow.

Certain proof of the weakness of the union is furnished by the fact that

the wage-scale in that field remained stationary until 1912 despite a

rising cost of living. The wages of the anthracite miners in 1912 were

slightly higher than in 1902, because coal prices had increased and the

Anthracite Coal Strike Commission had reestablished a sliding scale

system of tonnage rates.

A great weakness, while the union still struggled for existence, was the

lack of the "check-off." Membership would swell immediately before the

expiration of the agreement but diminish with restoration of quiet. With

no immediate outlook for a strike the Slav and Italian miners refused to

pay union dues. The original award was to be in force until April 1,

1906. In June, 1905, the union membership was less than 39,000. But by

April 1, 1906, one-half of the miners were in the union. A month's

suspension of operations followed. Early in May the union and the

operators reached an agreement to leave the award of the Anthracite Coal

Strike Commission in force for another three years.

The following three years brought a duplication of the developments of

1903-1906. Again membership fell off only to return in the spring of

1909. Again the union demanded formal recognition, and again it was

refused. Again the original award was extended for three more years.

In the winter of 1912, when the time for renewing the agreement again

drew near, the entire membership in the three anthracite districts was

slightly above 29,000. Nevertheless, the union demanded a twenty percent

raise, a complete recognition of the union, the check-off, and yearly

agreements, in addition to a more expeditious system of settling local

grievances to replace the slow and cumbersome joint arbitration boards

provided by the award of the Commission. A strike of 180,000 anthracite

miners followed on April 1, 1912, during which the operators made no

attempt to run their mines. The strike ended within a month on the basis

of the abolition of the sliding scale, a wage increase of approximately

10 percent, and a revision of the arbitration machinery in local

disputes. This was coupled with a somewhat larger degree of recognition,

but by no means a complete recognition. Nor was the check-off system

granted. Strangest of all, the agreement called for a four-year

contract, as against a one-year contract originally demanded by the

union. In spite of the opposition of local leaders, the miners accepted

the agreement. President White's chief plea for acceptance was the need

to rebuild the union before anything ambitious could be attempted.

After 1912 the union entered upon the work of organization in earnest.

In the following two years the membership was more than quadrupled. With

the stopping of immigration due to the European War, the power of the

union was greatly increased. Consequently, in 1916, when the agreement

was renewed, the miners were accorded not only a substantial wage

increase and the eight-hour day but also full recognition. The United

Mine Workers have thus at last succeeded in wresting a share of

industrial control from one of the strongest capitalistic powers of the

country; while demonstrating beyond doubt that, with intelligent

preparation and with sympathetic treatment, the polyglot immigrant

masses from Southern and Eastern Europe, long thought to be impervious

to the idea of labor organization, can be changed into reliable material

for unionism.

The growth of the union in general is shown by the following figures.

In 1898 it was 33,000; in 1900, 116,000; in 1903, 247,000; in 1908,

252,000; and in 1913, 378,000.[58]

(2) _The Railway Men_

The railway men are divided into three groups. One group comprises the

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railroad Conductors,

the Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen, and the Brotherhood of

Railroad Trainmen. These are the oldest and strongest railway men's

organizations and do not belong to the American Federation of Labor. A

second group are the shopmen, comprising the International Association

of Machinists; the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop

Forgers, and Helpers; the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America; the

Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance; the Brotherhood

of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders and Helpers of America; the

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the International

Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and Oilers. A third and more

miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of

Railway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, the

International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad

Shop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. The

organizations comprised in the latter two groups belong to the American

Federation of Labor. For the period from 1898 to the outbreak of the

War, the organizations, popularly known as the "brotherhoods," namely,

those of the engineers, conductors, firemen, and trainmen, are of

outstanding importance.

The brotherhoods were unique among American labor organizations in that

for many years they practically reproduced in most of their features the

sort of unionism typified by the great "Amalgamated" unions of the

fifties and sixties in England.[59] Like these unions the brotherhoods

stressed mutual insurance and benefits and discouraged when they did not

actually prohibit striking. It should, however, be added that the

emphasis on insurance was due not to "philosophy," but to the practical

consideration that, owing to the extra hazardous nature of their

occupations, the men could get no insurance protection from ordinary

commercial insurance companies.

By the end of the eighties the brotherhoods began to press energetically

for improvements in employment conditions and found the railways not

disinclined to grant their demands in a measure. This was due in great

measure to the strategic position of these trades, which have it in

their power completely to tie up the industry when on strike, causing

enormous losses to the carriers.[60] Accordingly, they were granted

wages which fairly placed them among the lower professional groups in

society as well as other privileges, notably "seniority" in promotion,

that is promotion based on length of service and not on a free selection

by the officials. Seniority was all the more important since the train

personnel service is so organized that each employe will pass several

times in the regular course of his career from a lower to a higher rung

on the industrial ladder.[61] For instance, a typical passenger train

engineer starts as fireman on a freight train, advances to a fireman on

a passenger train, then to engineer on a freight train, and finally to

engineer on a passenger train. A similar sequence is arranged in

advancing from brakeman to conductor. Along with seniority the

brotherhoods received the right of appeal in cases of discharge, which

has done much to eliminate discrimination. Since they were enjoying such

exceptional advantages relative to income, to the security of the job,

and to the stability of their organization, it is not surprising, in

view of the limited class solidarity among American laboring men in

general, that these groups of workers should have chosen to stand alone

in their wage bargaining and that their refusal to enter "entangling

alliances" with other less favored groups should have gone even to the

length of staying out of the American Federation of Labor.

This condition of relative harmony between employer and employe,

notwithstanding the energetic bargaining, continued for about fifteen

years until it was disturbed by factors beyond the control of either

railway companies or brotherhoods. The steady rise in the cost of living

forced the brotherhoods to intensify their demands for increased wages.

At the same time an ever tightening regulation of railway rates by the

Federal government since 1906 practically prevented a shift of increased

costs to the shipper. "Class struggles" on the railways began in

earnest.

The new situation was brought home to the brotherhoods in the course of

several wage arbitration cases in which they figured.[62] The outcome

taught them that the public will give them only limited support in their

efforts to maintain their real income at the old high level compared

with other classes of workers.

A most important case arose from a "concerted movement" in 1912[63] of

the engineers and firemen on the 52 Eastern roads for higher wages. Two

separate arbitration boards were appointed. The engineers' board

consisted of seven members, one each for the interests involved and five

representing the public. The award was unsatisfactory to the engineers,

first, because of the meager raise in wages and, second, because it

contained a strong plea to Congress and the country to have all wages of

all railway employes fixed by a government commission, which implied a

restriction of the right to strike. The award in the firemen's case,

which was decided practically simultaneously with the engineers', failed

to satisfy either side.

The conductors and trainmen on the Eastern roads were next to move "in

concert" for increased wages. The roads refused and the brotherhoods

decided by a good majority to quit work. This threatened strike

occasioned the passage of the so-called Newlands bill as an amendment to

the Erdman Act, with increased powers to the government in mediation and

with more specified conditions relative to the work of the arbitration

boards chosen for each occasion. Whereupon both sides agreed to submit

to arbitration.

The award allowed an increase in wages of seven percent, or less than

one-half of that demanded, but disallowed a plea made by the men for

uniformity of the wage scales East and West, and denied the demanded

time and a half for overtime. The men accepted but the decision added to

their growing opposition to the principle of arbitration.

Another arbitration case, in 1914, involving the engineers and firemen

on the Western roads led the brotherhoods to come out openly against

arbitration. The award was signed only by the representatives on the

board of the employers and the public. A characteristic aftermath of

this case was an attack made by the unions upon one of the "neutrals" on

the board. His impartiality was questioned because of his relations with

several concerns which owned large amounts of railroad securities.

Therefore, when in 1916 the four brotherhoods together demanded the

eight-hour day, they categorically refused to consider arbitration.[64]

The evolution to a fighting unionism had become complete.

While the brotherhoods of the train service personnel were thus shifting

their tactics, they kept drawing nearer to the position held by the

other unions in the railway service. These had rarely had the good

fortune to bask in the sunshine of their employers' approval and

"recognition." Some railways, of the more liberal sort, made agreements

with the machinists and with the other shop unions. On the whole,

however, the hold of these organizations upon their industry was of a

precarious sort.

To meet their strong opponents on a basis nearer to equality, they

started about 1904 a movement for "system federations,"[65] that is,

federations of all organized trades through the length of a given

railway system as, for instance, the Pennsylvania Railroad or the

Illinois Central Railroad. In turn the creation of system federations

sharpened the employers' antagonism. Some railway systems, like the

Illinois Central, might be willing to enter into agreements with the

separate crafts, but refused to deal with a federation of crafts. In

1912, stimulated by a dispute on the Illinois Central Railroad and on

the Harriman lines in general, involving the issue of system

federations, a Federation of System Federations was formed by forty

systems upon an aggressive program. In 1908 a weak and rather tentative

Railway Employes' Department had been launched by the American

Federation of Labor. The Federation of Federations was thus a rival

organization and "illegal" or, at best, "extra-legal" from the

standpoint of the American Federation of Labor. The situation, however,

was too acute to permit the consideration of "legality" to enter. An

adjustment was made and the Federation of System Federations was

"legitimatized" through fusion with the "Department," to which it gave

its constitution, officers, and fighting purpose, and from which it took

only its name. This is the now well-known Railway Employes' Department

of the American Federation of Labor (embracing all important national

unions of the railway workers excepting the four brotherhoods), and

which, as we shall see, came into its own when the government took over

the railways from their private owners eight months after America's

entry into the World War.

(3) _The Machinery and Metal Trades_

Unlike the miners and the railway brotherhoods, the unions in the

machinery and metal trades met with small success in their efforts for

"recognition" and trade agreements. The outstanding unions in the

industry are the International Association of Machinists and the

International Molders' Union, with a half dozen smaller and very small

unions.[66] The molders' International united in the same union the

stove molders, who as was seen had been "recognized" in 1891, and the

molders of parts of machinery and other foundry products. The latter

found the National Founders' Association as their antagonist or

potential "co-partner" in the industry.

The upward swing in business since 1898, combined with the growth of

trade unionism and with the successful negotiation of the Interstate

agreement in the soft coal mining industry, created an atmosphere

favorable to trade agreements. For a time "recognition" and its

implications seemed to all concerned, the employer, the unions, and the

public, a sort of cure-all for industrial disputes. Accordingly, in

March 1899, the National Founders' Association (organized in the

previous year and comprising foundrymen engaged principally in machinery

manufacturing and jobbing) and the International Molders' Union of North

America met and drew up the following tersely worded agreement which

became known as the New York Agreement:

"That in event of a dispute arising between members of the

respective organizations, a reasonable effort shall be made by the

parties directly at interest to effect a satisfactory adjustment of

the difficulty; failing to do which, either party shall have the

right to ask its reference to a Committee of Arbitration which

shall consist of the President of the National Founders'

Association and the President of the Iron Molders' Union or their

representatives, and two other representatives from each

organization appointed by the respective Presidents.

"The finding of this Committee of Arbitration by majority vote

shall be considered final in so far as the future action of the

respective organizations is concerned.

"Pending settlement by the Committee, there shall be no cessation

of work at the instance of either party to the dispute. The

Committee of Arbitration shall meet within two weeks after

reference of dispute to them."

The agreement was a triumph for the principle of pure conciliation as

distinct from arbitration by a third party. Both sides preferred to run

the risk of a possible deadlock in the conciliation machinery to

throwing decisions into the hands of an umpire, who would be an

uncertain quantity both as regards special bias and understanding of the

industry.

The initial meeting of the arbitration committee was held in Cleveland,

in May 1899, to consider the demand by the unions at Worcester,

Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, for a minimum wage which

the employers had refused. In each city one member of the National

Founders' Association was involved and the men in these firms went to

work pending the arbitration decision, while the others stayed out on

strike.

The meeting ended inauspiciously. The founders and molders seemed not

to be able to settle their difficulties. Each side stood fast on its own

principles and the arbitration committees regularly became deadlocked.

The question of a minimum wage was the most important issue. From 1899

to 1902 several joint conventions were held to discuss the wage

question. In 1899 a settlement was made, which, however, proved of short

duration. In November 1902, the two organizations met, differed, and

arranged for a sub-committee to meet in March 1903. The sub-committee

met but could reach no agreement.

The two organizations clashed also on the question of apprentices. The

founders contended that, because there were not enough molders to fill

the present demand, the union restrictions as to the employment of

apprentices should be removed. The union argued that a removal of the

restriction would cause unlimited competition among molders and

eventually the founders could employ them at their own price. They

likewise failed to agree on the matter of classifying molders.

Owing to the stalling of the conciliation machinery many strikes

occurred in violation at least of the spirit of the agreement. July 1,

1901, the molders struck in Cleveland for an increase in wages;

arbitration committees were appointed but failed to make a settlement.

In Chicago and San Francisco strikes occurred for the same reason.

It was at last becoming evident that the New York agreement was not

working well. In the autumn of 1903 business prosperity reached its high

watermark and then came a sharp depression which lessened the demand for

molders. Early in 1904 the National Founders' Association took advantage

of this situation to reduce wages and finally practically abrogated the

New York agreement. In April, 1904, the founders and molders tried to

reach a decision as to how the agreement could be made effective, but

gave it up after four days and nights of constant consideration. The

founders claimed that the molders violated the agreement in 54 out of

the 96 cases that came up during the five years of its life; and further

justified their action on the ground that the union persistently refused

to submit to arbitration by an impartial outsider the issues upon which

the agreement was finally wrecked.

An agreement similar to the New York one was concluded in 1900 between

the National Metal Trades' Association and the International Association

of Machinists. The National Metal Trades' Association had been organized

in 1899 by members of the National Founders' Association, whose

foundries formed only a part of their manufacturing plants. The spur to

action was given by a strike called by the machinists in Chicago and

other cities for the nine-hour day. After eight weeks of intense

struggle the Association made a settlement granting a promise of the

shorter day. Although hailed as one of the big agreements in labor

history, it lasted only one year, and broke up on the issue of making

the nine-hour day general in the Association shops. The machinists

continued to make numerous agreements with individual firms, especially

the smaller ones, but the general agreement was never renewed.

Thereafter the National Metal Trades' Association became an

uncompromising enemy of organized labor.

In the following ten years both molders and machinists went on fighting

for control and engaged in strikes with more or less success. But the

industry as a whole never again came so near to embracing the idea of a

joint co-partnership between organized capital and labor as in 1900.

(4) _The Employers' Reaction_

With the disruption of the agreement systems in the machinery producing

and foundry industries, the idea of collective bargaining and union

recognition suffered a setback; and the employers' uneasiness, which had

already steadily been feeding on the unions' mounting pressure for

control, now increased materially. As long, however, as business

remained prosperous and a rising demand for labor favored the unions,

most of the agreements were permitted to continue. Therefore, it was not

until the industrial depression of 1907-1908 had freed the employers'

hands that agreements were disrupted wholesale. In 1905 the Structural

Erectors' Association discontinued its agreements with the Structural

Iron Workers' Union, causing a dispute which continued over many years.

In the course of this dispute the union replied to the victorious

assaults of the employers by tactics of violence and murder, which

culminated in the fatal explosion in the _Los Angeles Times_ Building in

1911. In 1906 the employing lithographers discontinued their national

agreement with the lithographers' union. In 1907 the United Typothetæ

broke with the pressmen, and the stove founders with the stove mounters

and stove polishers. In 1908 the agreements between the Lake Carriers

and Lumber Carriers (both operating on the Great Lakes) and the

seafaring and water front unions were terminated.

In the operation of these unsuccessful agreements the most serious

stumbling blocks were the union "working rules," that is to say, the

restrictive rules which unions strove to impose on employers in the

exercise of their managerial powers in the shop, and for which the

latter adopted the sinister collective designation of "restriction of

output."

Successful trade unionism has always pressed "working rules" on the

employer. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, the

trade societies then existing tried to impose on the masters the closed

shop and restrictions on apprenticeship along with higher wages and

shorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral association to a

stable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages to

working rules. Unionists have discovered that on the whole wages are the

unstable factor, going up or down, depending on fluctuating business

conditions and cost of living; but that once they have established their

power by making the employer accept their working rules, high wages will

ultimately follow.

These working rules are seldom improvisations of the moment, but, crude

and one-sided as they often are, they are the product of a long labor

experience and have taken many years to be shaped and hammered out.

Since their purpose is protective, they can best be classified with

reference to the particular thing in the workingman's life which they

are designed to protect: the standard of living of the trade group,

health, the security of the worker's job, equal treatment in the shop

and an equal chance with other workmen in promotion, the bargaining

power of the trade group, as a whole, and the safety of the union from

the employer's attempts to undermine it. We shall mention only a few of

these rules by way of illustration. Thus all rules relating to methods

of wage payment, like the prohibition of piece work and of bonus

systems (including those associated with scientific management

systems), are primarily devices to protect the wage earner's rate of pay

against being "nibbled away" by the employer; and in part also to

protect his health against undue exertion. Other rules like the normal

(usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the rule

demanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or a

guarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quantity of work

available in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slack

times among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary,

the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuous

employment based on "seniority" in the shop;--all these have for their

common aim chiefly the protection of the job. Another sort of rules,

like the obstruction to the splitting up of trades and the restrictions

on apprenticeship, have in view the protection of the bargaining power

of the craft group--through artificially maintaining an undiminished

demand for skilled labor, as well as through a reduction of the number

of competitors, present and future, for jobs. The protection of the

union against the employer's designs, actual or potential, is sought by

an insistence on the closed union shop, by the recognition of the right

of appeal to grievance boards in cases of discharge to prevent

anti-union discrimination, and through establishing a seniority right in

promotion which binds the worker's allegiance to his union rather than

to the employer.

With these rigid rules, partly already enforced on the employer by

strikes or threats to strike and partly as yet unrealized but

energetically pushed, trade unionism enters the stage of the trade

agreement. The problem of industrial government then becomes one of

steady adjustment of the conflicting claims of employer and union for

the province of shop control staked out by these working rules. When the

two sides are approximately equal in bargaining strength (and lasting

agreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promising

line of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extend

to the unions and their members in some form that will least obstruct

shop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive to

obtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employer

might induce a union to give up or agree to mitigate its working rules

designed to protect the job by offering a _quid pro quo_ in a guarantee

of employment for a stated number of weeks during the year; and

likewise, a union might hope to counteract the employer's natural

hankering for being "boss in his own business," free of any union

working rules, only provided it guaranteed him a sufficient output per

unit of labor time and wage investment.

However, compromises of this sort are pure experiments even at

present--fifteen to twenty years after the dissolution of those

agreements; and they certainly require more faith in government by

agreement and more patience than one could expect in the participants in

these earlier agreements. It is not surprising, therefore, that the

short period of agreements after 1898 should in many industries have

formed but a prelude to an "open-shop" movement.[67]

After their breach with the union, the National Founders' Association

and the National Metal Trades' Association have gone about the business

of union wrecking in a systematic way. They have maintained a so-called

"labor bureau," furnishing men to their members whenever additional help

was needed, and keeping a complete card system record of every man in

the employ of members. By this system occasion was removed for employers

communicating with the business agents of the various unions when new

men were wanted. The associations have had in their regular pay a large

number of non-union men, or "strike-breakers," who were sent to the shop

of any member whose employes were on strike.

In addition to these and other national organizations, the trade unions

were attacked by a large and important class of local employers'

associations. The most influential association of this class was the

Employers' Association of Dayton, Ohio. This association had a standing

strike committee which, in trying to break a strike, was authorized to

offer rewards to the men who continued at work, and even to compensate

the employer for loss of production to the limit of one dollar per day

for each man on strike. Also a system was adopted of issuing cards to

all employes, which the latter, in case of changing employment, were

obliged to present to the new employer and upon which the old employer

inscribed his recommendation. The extreme anti-unionism of the Dayton

Association is best attested by its policy of taking into membership

employers who were threatened with strikes, notwithstanding the heavy

financial obligations involved.

Another class of local associations were the "Citizens' Alliances,"

which did not restrict membership to employers but admitted all

citizens, the only qualification being that the applicant be not a

member of any labor organization. These organizations were frequently

started by employers and secured cooperation of citizens generally. In

some places there were two associations, an employers' and a Citizens'

Alliance. A good example of this was the Citizens' Alliances of Denver,

Colorado, organized in 1903. These "Citizens' Alliances," being by

virtue of mixed membership more than a mere employers' organization,

claimed in time of strikes to voice the sentiment of the community in

general.

So much for the employers' counter attacks on trade unions on the

strictly industrial front. But there were also a legal front and a

political front. In 1902 was organized the American Anti-Boycott

Association, a secret body composed mainly of manufacturers. The purpose

of the organization was to oppose by legal proceedings the boycotts of

trade unions, and to secure statutory enactments against the boycott.

The energies of the association have been devoted mainly to taking

certain typical cases to the courts in order thereby to create legal

precedents. The famous Danbury Hatters' Case, in which the Sherman

Anti-Trust law was invoked against the hatters' union, was fought in the

courts by this Association.

The employers' fight on the political front was in charge of the

National Association of Manufacturers. This association was originally

organized in 1895 for the pursuit of purely trade interests, but about

1903, under the influence of the Dayton, Ohio, group of employers,

turned to combating trade unions. It closely cooperated with other

employers' associations in the industrial and legal field, but its chief

efforts lay in the political or legislative field, where it has

succeeded through clever lobbying and manipulations in nullifying

labor's political influence, especially in Congress. The National

Association of Manufacturers saw to it that Congress and State

Legislatures might not weaken the effect of court orders, injunctions

and decisions on boycotts, closed shop, and related matters.

The "open-shop movement" in its several aspects, industrial, legal, and

political, continued strong from 1903 to 1909. Nevertheless, despite

most persistent effort and despite the opportunity offered by the

business depression which followed the financial panic of 1907, the

results were not remarkable. True, it was a factor in checking the rapid

rate of expansion of unionism, but it scarcely compelled a retrogression

from ground already conquered. It is enough to point out that the unions

managed to prevent wage reductions in the organized trades

notwithstanding the unemployment and distress of 1907-1908. On the whole

trade unionism held its own against employers in strictly competitive

industry. Different, however, was the outcome in industries in which the

number of employers had been reduced by monopolistic or

semi-monopolistic mergers.

The steel industry is the outstanding instance.[68] The disastrous

Homestead strike of 1892[69] had eliminated unionism from the steel

plants of Pittsburgh. However, the Carnegie Steel Company was only a

highly efficient and powerful corporation, not yet a "trust." The panic

of 1893 dealt another blow to the Amalgamated Association of Iron &

Steel Workers. The steel mills of Alleghany County, outside Pittsburgh,

were all put upon a non-union basis before 1900. In Pittsburgh, the iron

mills, too, became non-union between 1890 and 1900. There remained to

the organization only the iron mills west of Pittsburgh, the large steel

mills of Illinois, and a large proportion of the sheet, tin, and iron

hoop mills of the country. In 1900 there began to be whisperings of a

gigantic consolidation in the steel industry. The Amalgamated officials

were alarmed. In any such combination the Carnegie Steel Company, an old

enemy of unionism, would easily be first and would, they feared, insist

on driving the union out of every mill in the combination. Then it

occurred to President Shaffer and his associates that it might be a

propitious time to press for recognition while the new corporation was

forming. Anxious for public confidence and to float their securities,

the companies could not afford a labor controversy.

Accordingly, when the new scales were to be signed in July 1901, the

Amalgamated Association demanded of the American Tin Plate Company that

it sign a scale not only for those mills that had been regarded as union

but for all of its mills. This was agreed, provided the American Sheet

Steel Company would agree to the same. The latter company refused, and a

strike was started against the American Tin Plate Company, the American

Sheet Steel Company, and the American Steel Hoop Company. In conferences

held on July 11, 12, and 13 these companies offered to sign for all tin

mills but one, for all the sheet mills that had been signed for in the

preceding year and for four other mills that had been non-union, and for

all the hoop mills that had been signed for in the preceding year. This

highly advantageous offer was foolishly rejected by the representatives

of the union; they demanded all the mills or none. The strike then went

on in earnest. In August, President Shaffer called on all the men

working in mills of the United States Steel Corporation to come out on

strike.

By the middle of August it was evident that the Association had made a

mistake. Instead of finding their task easier because the United States

Steel Corporation had just been formed, they found that corporation

ready to bring all its tremendous power to bear against the

organization. President Shaffer offered to arbitrate the whole matter,

but the proposal was rejected; and at the end of August the strike was

declared at an end.

The steel industry was apparently closed to unionism.[70]

(5) _Legislation, Courts, and Politics_

While trade unionism was thus on the whole holding its ground against

the employers and even winning victories and recognition, its influence

on National and State legislation failed for many years to reflect its

growing economic strength. The scant success with legislation resulted,

on the one hand, from the very expansion of the Federation into new

fields, which absorbed nearly all its means and energy; but was due in a

still greater measure to a solidification of capitalist control in the

Republican party and in Congress, against which President Roosevelt

directed his spectacular campaign. A good illustration is furnished by

the attempt to get a workable eight-hour law on government work.

In the main the leaders of the Federation placed slight reliance upon

efforts to shorten the working day through legislation. The movement for

shorter hours by law for women, which first attained importance in the

nineties, was not the work of organized labor but of humanitarians and

social workers. To be sure, the Federation has supported such laws for

women and children workers, but so far as adult male labor was

concerned, it has always preferred to leave the field clear for the

trade unions. The exception to the rule was the working day on public

work.

The Federal eight-hour day law began to receive attention from the

Federation towards the end of the eighties. By that time the status of

the law of 1868 which decreed the eight-hour day on Federal government

work[71] had been greatly altered. In a decision rendered in 1887 the

Supreme Court held that the eight-hour day law of 1868 was merely

directory to the officials of the Federal government, but did not

invalidate contracts made by them not containing an eight-hour clause.

To counteract this decision a special law was passed in 1888, with the

support of the Federation, establishing the eight-hour day in the United

States Printing Office and for letter carriers. In 1892 a new general

eight-hour law was passed, which provided that eight-hours should be the

length of the working day on all public works of the United States,

whether directed by the government or under contract or sub-contract.

Within the next few years interpretations rendered by attorney generals

of the United States practically rendered the law useless.

In 1895 the Federation began to press in earnest for a satisfactory

eight-hour law. In 1896 its eight-hour bill passed the House of

Representatives unanimously. In the Senate it was introduced by Senator

Kyle, the chairman of the committee on Education and Labor. After its

introduction, however, hearings upon the bill were delayed so long that

action was prevented during the long session. In the short session of

1898-1899 the bill met the cruel fate of having its introducer, Senator

Kyle, submit a minority report against it. Under the circumstances no

vote upon the bill could be had in the Senate. In the next Congress,

1899-1901, the eight-hour bill once more passed the House of

Representatives only to be lost in the Senate by failure to come to a

vote. In 1902, the bill again unanimously passed the House, but was not

even reported upon by the Senate committee. In the hearings upon the

eight-hour bill in that year the opposition of the National

Manufacturers' Association was first manifested. In 1904 the House Labor

Committee sidetracked a similar bill by recommending that the Department

of Commerce and Labor should investigate its merits. Secretary Metcalf,

however, declared that the questions submitted to his Department with

reference to the eight-hour bill were "well-nigh unintelligible." In

1906 the House Labor Committee, at a very late stage in the session,

reported "favorably" upon the eight-hour bill. At the same time it

eliminated all chances of passage of the bill through the failure of a

majority of the members of the committee to sign the "favorable" report

made. This session of Congress, also, allowed a "rider" to be added to

the Panama Canal bill, exempting the canal construction from the

provisions of the eight-hour law. In the next two Congresses no report

could be obtained from the labor committees of either House upon the

general eight-hour day bill, despite the fact that President Roosevelt

and later President Taft recommended such legislation. In the sessions

of the Congress of 1911-1913 the American Federation of Labor hit upon a

new plan. This was the attachment of "riders" to departmental

appropriation bills requiring that all work contracted for by these

departments must be done under the eight-hour system. The most important

"rider" of this character was that attached to the naval appropriation

bill. Under its provisions the Attorney-General held that in all work

done in shipyards upon vessels built for the Federal government the

eight-hour rule must be applied. Finally, in June 1912, a Democratic

House and a Republican Senate passed the eight-hour bill supported by

the American Federation of Labor with some amendments, which the

Federation did not find seriously objectionable; and President Taft

signed it.

Still better proof of the slight influence of the Federation upon

government is furnished by the vicissitudes of its anti-injunction bills

in Congress. The Federation had been awakened to the seriousness of the

matter of the injunction by the Debs case. A bill of its sponsoring

providing for jury trials in "indirect" contempt cases passed the Senate

in 1896 only to be killed in the House. In 1900 only eight votes were

recorded in the House against a bill exempting labor unions from the

Sherman Anti-Trust Act; it failed, however, of passage in the Senate. In

1902 an anti-injunction bill championed by the American Federation of

Labor passed the House of Representatives. That was the last time,

however, for many years to come when such a bill was even reported out

of committee. Thereafter, for a decade, the controlling powers in

Congress had their faces set against removal by law of the judicial

interference in labor's use of its economic strength against employers.