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'Alene, 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'Alene 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 Typothetae 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 Typothetae, 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 Typothetae 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 Typothetae 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.

In the meantime, however, new court decisions made the situation more and more critical. A climax was reached in 1908-1909. In February 1908, came the Supreme Court decision in the Danbury Hatters' case, which held that members of a labor union could be held financially responsible to the full amount of their individual property under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act for losses to business occasioned by an interstate boycott.[72] By way of contrast, the Supreme Court within the same week held unconstitutional the portion of the Erdman Act which prohibited discrimination by railways against workmen on account of their membership in a union.[73] One year later, in the Buck's Stove and Range Company boycott case, Gompers, Mitchell, and Morrison, the three most prominent officials of the American Federation of Labor, were sentenced by a lower court in the District of Columbia to long terms in prison for violating an injunction which prohibited all mention of the fact that the plaintiff firm had ever been boycotted.[74] Even though neither these nor subsequent court decisions had the paralyzing effect upon American trade unionism which its enemies hoped for and its friends feared, the situation called for a change in tactics. It thus came about that the Federation, which, as was seen, by the very principles of its program wished to let government alone,—as it indeed expected little good of government,—was obliged to enter into competition with the employers for controlling government; this was because one branch of the government, namely the judicial one, would not let it alone.

A growing impatience with Congress was manifested in resolutions adopted by successive conventions. In 1902 the convention authorized the Executive Council to take "such further steps as will secure the nomination—and the election—of only such men as are fully and satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills" championed by the Federation. Accordingly, the Executive Council prepared a series of questions to be submitted to all candidates for Congress in 1904 by the local unions of each district.

The Federation was more active in the Congressional election of 1906. Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urge their defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefield of Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invaded his district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor. However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over the preceding election. The only positive success was the election of McDermott of the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. President Gompers, however, insisted that the cutting down of the majorities of the conspicuous enemies of labor's demands gave "more than a hint" of what organized labor "can and may do when thoroughly prepared to exercise its political strength." Nevertheless the next Congress was even more hostile than the preceding one. The convention of the Federation following the election approved the new tactics, but was careful at the same time to declare that the Federation was neither allied with any political party nor had any intention of forming an independent labor party.

In the Presidential election of 1908, however, the Federation virtually entered into an alliance with the Democrats. At a "Protest Conference" in March, 1908, attended by the executive officers of most of the affiliated national unions as well as by the representatives of several farmers' organizations, the threat was uttered that organized labor would make a determined effort in the coming campaign to defeat its enemies, whether "candidates for President, for Congress, or other offices." The next step was the presentation of the demands of the Federation to the platform committees of the conventions of both parties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests that it had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, since it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of malicious conspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protect business rights, which had regularly been asked by the American Federation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted an indefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed and a declaration in favor of jury trial on the charge of contempt of court.

The Republicans paid scant attention to the planks of the Federation. Their platform merely reiterated the recognized law upon the allowance of equity relief; and as if to leave no further doubt in the minds of the labor leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft, who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some of the most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A year earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunction standard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic platform, on the other hand, verbatim repeated the Federation plank on the injunction question and nominated Bryan.

After the party conventions had adjourned the American Federationist entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate. President Gompers recognized that this was equivalent to an endorsement of Bryan, but pleaded that "in performing a solemn duty at this time in support of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a political party, but partisan to a principle." Substantially, all prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead. That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is apparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it is true that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centers was not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant the conclusion that Gompers may have "delivered to Bryan" not a few labor votes which would otherwise have gone to Debs.

In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policy of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies." However, it avoided more successfully the appearance of partisanship. Many progressive Republicans received as strong support as did Democratic candidates. Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that the Federation was at last "on the inside" of one branch of the government. In addition, fifteen men holding cards of membership in unions, were elected to Congress, which was the largest number on record. Furthermore William B. Wilson, Ex-Secretary of the United Mine Workers, was appointed chairman of the important House Committee on Labor.

The Congress of 1911-1913 with its Democratic House of Representatives passed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had been urging for fifteen years. It passed an eight-hour law on government contract work, as already noted, and a seaman's bill, which went far to grant to the sailors the freedom of contract enjoyed by other wage earners. It created a Department of Labor with a seat in the Cabinet. It also attached a "rider" to the appropriation bill for the Department of Justice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes of prosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and other Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointed to the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic House of Representatives and let the workers draw their own conclusions. The corner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legal exemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislation and from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yet to be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democratic administration was the logical means to that end.

At last, with the election of Woodrow Wilson as President and of a Democratic Congress in 1912, the political friends of the Federation controlled all branches of government. William B. Wilson was given the place of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, the Federation was an "insider" in the national government. The road now seemed clear to the attainment by trade unions of freedom from court interference in struggles against employers—a judicial laissez-faire. The political program initiated in 1906 seemed to be bearing fruit.

The drift into politics, since 1906, has differed essentially from that of earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from "on top," not from the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats in strikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led by local unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically in all preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of court. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by the Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the political parties by holding out a quid pro quo of such an uncertain value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a mark of the instability of the general political alignment in the country.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] The bricklayers became affiliated in 1917.

[45] "The Growth of Labor Organizations in the United States, 1897-1914," in Quarterly Journal of Economics, Aug., 1916, p. 780.

[46] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in Annals of American Academy of Political Science, Vol. 69, p. 118.

[47] Ibid.

[48] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in Annals of American Academy of Political Science, Vol. 69, p. 118.

[49] The "federal labor unions" (mixed unions) and the directly affiliated local trade unions (in trades in which a national union does not yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designed for bringing in the more miscellaneous classes of labor. The membership in these has seldom reached over 100,000.

[50] A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where the only anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found.

[51] At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operators from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organized miners and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevail throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30, 1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish to give the markets of the central competitive field to the Ohio operators. Ohio was favored in the scale established by this first Interstate conference probably because more than half of the operators present came from that State, and because the chief strength of the miners' union also lay in that State. To prevent friction over the interpretation of the Interstate agreement, a board of arbitration and conciliation was established. This board consisted of five miners and five operators chosen at large, and one miner and operator more from each of the States of this field. Such a board of arbitration and conciliation was provided for in all of the Interstate agreements of the period of the eighties. This system of Interstate agreement, in spite of the cut-throat competition raging between operators, was maintained for Pennsylvania and Ohio practically until 1890, Illinois having been lost in 1887, and Indiana in 1888. It formed the real predecessor of the system established in 1898 and in vogue thereafter.

[52] See above, 136.

[53] The run-of-mine system means payment by weight of the coal as brought out of the mine including minute pieces and impurities.

[54] The check-off system refers to collection of union dues. It means that the employer agrees to deduct from the wage of each miner the amount of his union dues, thus constituting himself the union's financial agent.

[55] In that district the check-off was granted in 1902.

[56] Hitchman Coal and Coke Company v. Mitchell, 245 U.S. 232.

[57] See below, 175-177.

[58] The actual membership of the union is considerably above these figures, since they are based upon the dues-paying membership, and miners out on strike are exempted from the payment of all dues. The number of miners who always act with the union is much larger still. Even in non-union fields the United Mine Workers have always been successful in getting thousands of miners to obey their order to strike.

[59] See Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 205 ff.

[60] This was demonstrated in the bitterly fought strike on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1888. (See above, 130-131.)

[61] Seniority also decides the assignment to "runs," which differ greatly in desirability, and it gives preference over junior employes in keeping the job when it is necessary to lay men off.

[62] The first arbitration act was passed by Congress in 1888. In 1898 it was superseded by the well known Erdman Act, which prescribed rules for mediation and voluntary arbitration.

[63] Concerted movements began in 1907 as joint demands upon all railways in a single section of the country, like the East or the West, by a single group of employes; after 1912 two or more brotherhoods initiated common concerted movements, first in one section only, and at last covering all the railways of the country.