Part 6 (1/2)
The agitation a.s.sumed large proportions in March. The main argument for the shorter day was work for the unemployed. With the exception of the cigar makers, it was left wholly in the hands of local organizations.
The Knights of Labor as an organization figured far less prominently than the trade unions, and among the latter the building trades and the German-speaking furniture workers and cigar makers stood in the front of the movement. Early in the strike the workingmen's cause was gravely injured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributed to anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen.
The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which had heretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity. For what many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval in a less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoretical justification, the contemporary Chicago ”anarchists,”[19] the largest branch of the ”Black International,” had elevated into a well rounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Labor upheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of the eighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalism was characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with which minor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades and large territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, to enter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by a ready resort to violence. In 1886 the members.h.i.+p of the Black International probably was about 5000 or 6000 and of this number about 1000 were English speaking.
The circ.u.mstances of the bomb explosion were the following. A strikers'
meeting was held near the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago, late on the third of May. About this time strike-breakers employed in these works began to leave for home and were attacked by strikers. The police arrived in large numbers and upon being received with stones, fired and killed four and wounded many. The same evening the International issued a call in which appeared the word _”Revenge”_ with the appeal: ”Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force.” A protest ma.s.s meeting met the next day on Haymarket Square and was addressed by Internationalists. The police were present in numbers and, as they formed in line and advanced on the crowd, some unknown hand hurled a bomb into their midst killing and wounding many.
It is unnecessary to describe here the period of police terror in Chicago, the hysterical att.i.tude of the press, or the state of panic that came over the inhabitants of the city. Nor is it necessary to deal in detail with the trial and sentence of the accused. Suffice it to say that the Haymarket bomb showed to the labor movement what it might expect from the public and the government if it combined violence with a revolutionary purpose.
Although the bomb outrage was attributed to the anarchists and not generally to the strikers for the eight-hour day, it did materially reduce the sympathy of the public as well as intimidate many strikers.
Nevertheless, _Bradstreet's_ estimated that no fewer than 340,000 men took part in the movement; 190,000 actually struck, only 42,000 of this number with success, and 150,000 secured shorter hours without a strike.
Thus the total number of those who secured with or without strikes the eight-hour day was something less than 200,000. But even those who for the present succeeded, whether with or without striking, soon lost the concession, and _Bradstreet's_ estimated in January, 1887, that, so far as the payment of former wages for a shorter day's work is concerned, the grand total of those retaining the concession did not exceed, if it equalled, 15,000.
American labor movements have never experienced such a rush to organize as the one in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. During 1886 the combined members.h.i.+p of labor organizations was exceptionally large and for the first time came near the million mark. The Knights of Labor had a members.h.i.+p of 700,000 and the trade unions at least 250,000, the former composed largely of unskilled and the latter of skilled. The Knights of Labor gained in a remarkably short time--in a few months--over 600,000 new members and grew from 1610 local a.s.semblies with 104,066 members in good standing in July 1885, to 5892 a.s.semblies with 702,924 members in July 1886. The greatest portion of this growth occurred after January 1, 1886. In the state of New York there were in July 1886, about 110,000 members (60,809 in District a.s.sembly 49 of New York City alone); in Pennsylvania, 95,000 (51,557 in District a.s.sembly 1, Philadelphia, alone); in Ma.s.sachusetts, 90,000 (81,191 in District a.s.sembly 30 of Boston); and in Illinois, 32,000.
In the state of Illinois, for which detailed information for that year is available, there were 204 local a.s.semblies with 34,974 members, of which 65 percent were found in Cook County (Chicago) alone. One hundred and forty-nine a.s.semblies were mixed, that is comprised members of different trades including unskilled and only 55 were trade a.s.semblies.
Reckoned according to country of birth the members.h.i.+p was 45 percent American, 16 percent German, 13 percent Irish, 10 percent British, 5 percent Scandinavian, and the remaining 2 percent scattered. The trade unions also gained many members but in a considerably lesser proportion.
The high water mark was reached in the autumn of 1886. But in the early months of 1887 a reaction became visible. By July 1, the members.h.i.+p of the Order had diminished to 510,351. While a share of this retrogression may have been due to the natural reaction of large ma.s.ses of people who had been suddenly set in motion without experience, a more immediate cause came from the employers. Profiting by past lessons, they organized strong a.s.sociations. The main object of these employers' a.s.sociations was the defeat of the Knights. They were organized sectionally and nationally. In small localities, where the power of the Knights was especially great, all employers regardless of industry joined in a single a.s.sociation. But in large manufacturing centers, where the rich corporation prevailed, they included the employers of only one industry.
To attain their end these a.s.sociations made liberal use of the lockout, the blacklist, and armed guards and detectives. Often they treated agreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress.
The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearly foreshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gould railways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886.
As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould system in March 1885, the employes were a.s.sured that the road would inst.i.tute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortly before pa.s.sed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over the entire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that the Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two months before the strike. District a.s.sembly 101, the organization embracing the employes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and authorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might find opportune to enforce the two following demands: first, the formal ”recognition” of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the unskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights of Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in the movement. But evidently the organization preferred to make the issue turn on discrimination against members. Another peculiarity which marked off this strike as the beginning of a new era was the facility with which it led to a sympathetic strike on the Missouri Pacific and all leased and operated lines. This strike broke out simultaneously over the entire system on March 6. It affected more than 5000 miles of railway situated in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Nebraska.
The strikers did not content themselves with mere picketing, but actually took possession of the railroad property and by a systematic ”killing” of engines, that is removing some indispensable part, effectively stopped all the freight traffic. The number of men actively on strike was in the neighborhood of 9000, including practically all of the shopmen, yardmen, and section gangs. The engineers, firemen, brakemen, and conductors took no active part and had to be forced to leave their posts under threats from the strikers.
The leader, one Martin Irons, accurately represented the feelings of the strikers. Personally honest and probably well-meaning, his att.i.tude was overbearing and tyrannical. With him as with those who followed him, a strike was not a more or less drastic means of forcing a better labor contract, but necessarily a.s.sumed the aspect of a crusade against capital. Hence all compromise and any policy of give and take were excluded.
Negotiations were conducted by Jay Gould and Powderly to submit the dispute to arbitration, but they failed and, after two months of sporadic violence, the strike spent itself and came to an end. It left, however, a profound impression upon the public mind, second only to the impression made by the great railway strike of 1877; and a Congressional committee was appointed to investigate the whole matter.
The disputes during the second half of 1886 ended, for the most part, disastrously to labor. The number of men involved in six months, was estimated at 97,300. Of these, about 75,300 were in nine great lockouts, of whom 54,000 suffered defeat at the hands of a.s.sociated employers. The most important lockouts were against 15,000 laundry workers at Troy, New York, in June; against 20,000 Chicago packing house workers; and against 20,000 knitters at Cohoes, New York, both in October.
The lockout of the Chicago butcher workmen attracted the most attention.
These men had obtained the eight-hour day without a strike during May. A short time thereafter, upon the initiative of Armour & Company, the employers formed a packers' a.s.sociation and, in the beginning of October, notified the men of a return to the ten-hour day on October 11.
They justified this action on the ground that they could not compete with Cincinnati and Kansas City, which operated on the ten-hour system.
On October 8, the men, who were organized in District a.s.semblies 27 and 54, suspended work, and the memorable lockout began. The packers'
a.s.sociation rejected all offers of compromise and on October 18 the men were ordered to work on the ten-hour basis. But the dispute in October, which was marked by a complete lack of ill-feeling on the part of the men and was one of the most peaceable labor disputes of the year, was in reality a mere prelude to a second disturbance which broke out in the plant of Swift & Company on November 2 and became general throughout the stockyards on November 6. The men demanded a return to the eight-hour day, but the packers' a.s.sociation, which was now joined by Swift & Company, who formerly had kept aloof, not only refused to give up the ten-hour day, but declared that they would employ no Knights of Labor in the future. The Knights retaliated by declaring a boycott on the meat of Armour & Company. The behavior of the men was now no longer peaceable as before, and the employers took extra precautions by prevailing upon the governor to send two regiments of militia in addition to the several hundred Pinkerton detectives employed by the a.s.sociation. To all appearances, the men were slowly gaining over the employers, for on November 10 the packers' a.s.sociation rescinded its decision not to employ Knights, when suddenly on November 15, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, a telegram arrived from Grand Master Workman Powderly ordering the men back to work. Powderly had refused to consider the reports from the members of the General Executive Board who were on the ground, but, as was charged by them, was guided instead by the advice of a priest who had appealed to him to call off the strike and thus put an end to the suffering of the men and their families.
New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strike and on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separate strikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New York with coal and the other by longsh.o.r.emen on the New York water front; both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed by the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of Labor, struck against a reduction of 2-1/2 cents an hour in the wages of the ”top-men” and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances of their own. Soon the strike spread to the other roads and the number of striking coal-handlers reached 3000. The longsh.o.r.emen's strike was begun by 200 men, employed by the Old Dominion Steams.h.i.+p Company, against a reduction in wages and the hiring of cheap men by the week. The strikers were not organized, but the Ocean a.s.sociation, a part of the Knights of Labor, took up their cause and was a.s.sisted by the longsh.o.r.emen's union.
Both strikes soon widened out through a series of sympathetic strikes of related trades and finally became united into one. The Ocean a.s.sociation declared a boycott on the freight of the Old Dominion Company and this was strictly obeyed by all of the longsh.o.r.emen's unions. The International Boatmen's Union refused to allow their boats to be used for ”scab coal” or to permit their members to steer the companies'
boats. The longsh.o.r.emen joined the boatmen in refusing to handle coal, and the shovelers followed. Then the grain handlers on both floating and stationary elevators refused to load s.h.i.+ps with grain on which there was scab coal, and the bag-sewers stood with them. The longsh.o.r.emen now resolved to go out and refused to work on s.h.i.+ps which received scab coal, and finally they decided to stop work altogether on all kinds of craft in the harbor until the trouble should be settled. The strike spirit spread to a large number of freight handlers working for railroads along the river front, so that in the last week of January the number of strikers in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, reached approximately 28,000; 13,000 longsh.o.r.emen, 1000 boatmen, 6000 grain handlers, 7500 coal-handlers, and 400 bag-sewers.
On February 11, August Corbin, president and receiver of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, fearing a strike by the miners working in the coal mines operated by that road, settled the strike by restoring to the eighty-five coal-handlers, the original strikers, their former rate of wages. The Knights of Labor felt impelled to accept such a trivial settlement for two reasons. The coal-handlers' strike, which drove up the price of coal to the consumer, was very unpopular, and the strike itself had begun to weaken when the brewers and stationary engineers, who for some obscure reason had been ordered to strike in sympathy, refused to come out. The situation was left unchanged, as far as the coal-handlers employed by the other companies, the longsh.o.r.emen, and the many thousands of men who went out on sympathetic strike were concerned. The men began to return to work by the thousands and the entire strike collapsed.
The determined attack and stubborn resistance of the employers'