A History of Trade Unionism in the United States Part 2

In 1836 many of the trade societies began to lose their strikes and turned to cooperation. The cordwainers working on ladies' shoes entered upon a strike for higher wages in March 1836, and opened three months later a "manufactory" or a warehouse of their own. The handloom weavers in two of the suburbs of Philadelphia started cooperative a.s.sociations at the same time. At the end of 1836 the hand-loom weavers of Philadelphia proper had two cooperative shops and were planning to open a third. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the journeymen cordwainers opened a shop after an unsuccessful strike early in 1836; likewise the tailors of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville. In New York the carpenters had done so already in 1833, and the painters of New York and Brooklyn opened their shops in 1837.

Before long the spirit became so contagious that the Trades' Union of Philadelphia, the city federation of trade societies, was obliged to take notice. Early in 1837 a conference of about 200 delegates requested each trade society to submit estimates for a shop to employ ten members.

However, further steps were prevented by the financial panic and business depression.

The forties witnessed several similar attempts. When the iron molders of Cincinnati failed to win a strike in the autumn of 1847, a few of their number collected what funds they could and organized a sort of joint-stock company which they called "The Journeymen Molders' Union Foundry." Two local philanthropists erected their buildings. In Pittsburgh a group of puddlers tried to raise money by selling stock to anyone who wished to take an interest in their cooperative venture.

The cooperative ventures multiplied in 1850 and 1851, following a widespread failure of strikes and were entered upon with particular readiness by the German immigrants. Among the Germans was an att.i.tude towards producers' cooperation, based more nearly on general principles than the practical exigencies of a strike. Fresh from the scenes of revolutions in Europe, they were more given to dreams about reconstructing society and more trustful in the honesty and integrity of their leaders. The cooperative movement among the Germans was identified with the name of Wilhelm Weitling, the well-known German communist, who settled in America about 1850. This movement centered in and around New York. The cooperative principle met with success among the English-speaking people only outside the larger cities. In Buffalo, after an unsuccessful strike, the tailors formed an a.s.sociation with a members.h.i.+p of 108 and in October 1850, were able to give employment to 80 of that number.

Again, following an unsuccessful Pittsburgh strike of iron founders in 1849, about a dozen of the strikers went to Wheeling, Virginia, each investing $3000, and opened a cooperative foundry shop. Two other foundries were opened on a similar basis in Stetsonville, Ohio, and Sharon, Pennsylvania. These a.s.sociations of iron founders, however, might better be called a.s.sociation of small capitalists or master-workmen.

During the forties, consumers' or distributive cooperation was also given a trial. The early history of consumers' cooperation is but fragmentary and, so far as we know, the first cooperative attempt which had for its exclusive aim "competence to purchaser" was made in Philadelphia early in 1829. A store was established on North Fifth Street, which sold goods at wholesale prices to members, who paid twenty cents a month for its privileges.

In 1831 distributive cooperation was much discussed in Boston by a "New England a.s.sociation of Farmers, Mechanics, and Other Working Men." A half dozen cooperative attempts are mentioned in the Cooperator, published in Utica in 1832, but only in the case of the journeymen cordwainers of Lynn do we discover an undertaking which can with certainty be considered as an effort to achieve distributive cooperation. Several germs of cooperative effort are found between 1833 and 1845, but all that is known about them is that their promoters sought to effect a saving by the purchase of goods in large quant.i.ties which were then broken up and distributed at a slight advance above original cost in order to meet expenses. The managers were unpaid, the members' interest in the business was not maintained, and the stores soon failed, or pa.s.sed into the possession of private owners.

It was the depression of 1846-1849 which supplied the movement for distributive cooperation with the needed stimulus, especially in New England. Although the matter was discussed in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even as far west as Ohio and Illinois, yet in none of the industrial centers of these States, except perhaps in New York, was it put into successful operation.

In New England, however, the conditions were exceptionally favorable. A strike movement for higher wages during a partial industrial revival of 1843-1844 had failed completely. This failure, added to the fact that women and girls were employed under very unsatisfactory conditions, strengthened the interest of humanitarians in the laboring people and especially in cooperation as a possible means of alleviating their distress.

Under the stimulus of these agitations, the New England Protective Union was formed in 1845. Until 1849, however, it bore the name of the Working Men's Protective Union. As often happens, prosperity brought disunion and, in 1853, a schism occurred in the organization due to personal differences. The seceders formed a separate organization known as the American Protective Union.

The Working Men's Protective Union embodied a larger conception of the cooperative idea than had been expressed before. The important thought was that an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase of commodities was a poor way out of labor difficulties, but was valuable only as a preparation for something better.

Though the resources of these laborers were small, they began the work with great hopes. This business, starting so unpretentiously, a.s.sumed larger and increasing proportions until in October, 1852, the Union embraced 403 divisions of which 167 reported a capital of $241,712 and 165 of these announced annual sales amounting to $1,696,825. Though the schism of 1853, mentioned above, weakened the body, the agent of the American Protective Union claimed for the divisions comprising it sales aggregating in value over nine and one-fourth millions dollars in the seven years ending in 1859.

It is not possible to tell what might have been the outcome of this cooperative movement had the peaceful development of the country remained uninterrupted. As it happened, the disturbed era of the Civil War witnessed the near annihilation of all workingmen's cooperation.

It is not difficult to see the causes which led to the destruction of the still tender plant. Men left their homes for the battle field, foreigners poured into New England towns and replaced the Americans in the shops, while share-holders frequently became frightened at the state of trade and gladly saw the entire cooperative enterprise pa.s.s into the hands of the storekeeper.

This first American cooperative movement on a large scale resembled the British movement in many respects, namely open members.h.i.+p, equal voting by members irrespective of number of shares, cash sales and federation of societies for wholesale purchases, but differed in that goods were sold to members nearly at cost rather than at the market price. Dr.

James Ford in his _Cooperation in New England, Urban and Rural_,[8]

describes two survivals from this period, the Central Union a.s.sociation of New Bedford, Ma.s.sachusetts, founded in 1848, and the Acushnet Cooperative a.s.sociation, also of New Bedford, which began business in 1849.

But the most characteristic labor movement of the forties was a resurgence of the old Agrarianism of the twenties.

Skidmore's "equal division" of all property appealed to the workingmen of New York because it seemed to be based on equality of opportunity.

One of Skidmore's temporary a.s.sociates, a Welshman by the name of George Henry Evans, drew from him an inspiration for a new kind of agrarianism to which few could object. This new doctrine was a true Agrarianism, since it followed in the steps of the original "Agrarians," the brothers Gracchi in ancient Rome. Like the Gracchi, Evans centered his plan around the "ager public.u.m"--the vast American public domain. Evans began his agitation about 1844.

Man's right to life, according to Evans, logically implied his right to use the materials of nature necessary for being. For practical reasons he would not interfere with natural resources which have already pa.s.sed under private owners.h.i.+p. Evans proposed instead that Congress give each would-be settler land for a homestead free of charge.

As late as 1852 debaters in Congress pointed out that in the preceding sixty years only 100,000,000 acres of the public lands had been sold and that 1,400,000,000 acres still remained at the disposal of the government. Estimates of the required time to dispose of this residuum at the same rate of sale varied from 400 or 500 to 900 years. With the exaggerated views prevalent, it is no wonder that Evans believed that the right of the individual to as much land as his right to live calls for would remain a living right for as long a period in the future as a practical statesman may be required to take into account.

The consequences of free homesteads were not hard to picture. The landless wage earners could be furnished transportation and an outfit, for the money spent for poor relief would be more profitably expended in sending the poor to the land. Private societies and trade unions, when laborers were too numerous, could aid in transporting the surplus to the waiting homesteads and towns that would grow up. With the immobility of labor thus offering no serious obstacle to the execution of the plan, the wage earners of the East would have the option of continuing to work for wages or of taking up their share of the vacant lands. Moreover, mechanics could set up as independent producers in the new settlements.

Enough at least would go West to force employers to offer better wages and shorter hours. Those unable to meet the expenses of moving would profit by higher wages at home. An equal opportunity to go on land would benefit both pioneer and stay-at-home.

But Evans would go still further in a.s.suring equality of opportunity. He would make the individual's right to the resources of nature safe against the creditors through a law exempting homesteads from attachment for debts and even against himself by making the homestead inalienable.

Moreover to a.s.sure that right to the American people _in perpetuo_ he would prohibit future disposal of the public land in large blocks to moneyed purchasers as practiced by the government heretofore. Thus the program of the new agrarianism: free homesteads, homestead exemption, and land limitation.

Evans had a plan of political action, which was as unique as his economic program. His previous political experiences with the New York Workingmen's party had taught him that a minority party could not hope to win by its own votes and that the politicians cared more for offices than for measures. They would endorse any measure which was supported by voters who held the balance of power. His plan of action was, therefore, to ask all candidates to pledge their support to his measures. In exchange for such a pledge, the candidates would receive the votes of the workingmen. In case neither candidate would sign the pledge, it might be necessary to nominate an independent as a warning to future candidates; but not as an indication of a new party organization.

Evans' ideas quickly won the adherence of the few labor papers then existing. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune endorsed the homestead movement as early as 1845. The next five years witnessed a remarkable spread of the ideas of the free homestead movement in the press of the country. It was estimated in 1845 that 2000 papers were published in the United States and that in 1850, 600 of these supported land reform.

Pet.i.tions and memorials having proved of little avail, the land reformers tried Evans' pet plan of bargaining votes for the support of their principles. Tammany was quick to start the bidding. In May, 1851, a ma.s.s-meeting was held at Tammany Hall "of all those in favor of land and other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidential contest of 1852." A platform was adopted which proclaimed man's right to the soil and urged that freedom of the public lands be endorsed by the Democratic party. Senator Isaac A. Walker of Wisconsin was nominated as the candidate of the party for President.

For a while the professional politician triumphed over the too trusting workingman reformer. But the cause found strong allies in the other cla.s.ses of the American community. From the poor whites of the upland region of the South came a similar demand formulated by the Tennessee tailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, who introduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneers and settlers came the demand for increased population and development of resources, leading both to homesteads for settlers and land grants for railways. The opposition came from manufacturers and landowners of the East and from the Southern slave owners. The West and East finally combined and the policy of the West prevailed, but not before the South had seceded from the Union.

Not the entire reform was accepted. The Western spirit dominated. The homestead law, as finally adopted in 1862, granted one hundred and sixty acres as a free gift to every settler. But the same Congress launched upon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homestead legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to those which sprang of a different policy of the Australian colonies, but did not carry out the broad principles of inalienability and land limitation of the original Agrarians.

Their principle of homestead exemption, however, is now almost universally adopted. Thus the homestead agitation begun by Evans and a group of wage earners and farmers in 1844 was carried to victory, though to an incomplete victory. It contained a fruitful lesson to labor in politics. The vested interests in the East were seen ultimately to capitulate before a popular movement which at no time aspired toward political power and office, but, concentrating on one issue, endeavored instead to permeate with its ideas the public opinion of the country at large.

Of all the "isms" so prevalent during the forties, "Agrarianism" alone came close to modern socialism, as it alone advocated cla.s.s struggle and carried it into the political field, although, owing to the peculiarity of the American party structure, it urged a policy of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies" rather than an out and out labor party. It is noteworthy that of all social reform movements of the forties Agrarianism alone was not initiated by the intellectuals. On the other hand, another movement for legislative reform, namely the shorter-hour movement for women and children working in the mills and factories, was entirely managed by humanitarians. Its philosophy was the furthest removed from the cla.s.s struggle idea.

For only a short year or two did prosperity show itself from behind the clouds to cause a mushroom growth of trade unions, once in 1850-1851 and again in 1853-1854, following the gold discoveries in California. During these few years unionism disentangled itself from humanitarianism and cooperationism and came out in its wholly modern form of restrictive craft unionism, only to be again suppressed by the business depressions that preceded and followed the panic of 1857. Considered as a whole, however, the period of the forties and fifties was the zenith in American history of theories of social reform, of "panaceas," of humanitarianism.

The trade union wave of the fifties was so short lived and the trade unionists were so preoccupied with the pressing need of advancing their wages to keep pace with the soaring prices caused by the influx of California gold, that we miss the tendency which was so strong in the thirties to reach out for a wider basis of labor organization in city trades' unions, and ultimately in a National Trades' Union. On the other hand, the fifties foreshadowed a new form of expansion of labor organization--the joining together in a nation-wide organization of all local unions of one trade. The printers[9] organized nationally in 1850, the locomotive engineers and the hat-finishers in 1854; and the iron molders, and the machinists and blacksmiths in 1859; in addition there were at least a half dozen less successful attempts in other trades.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] See below, 147-148.

[3] See below, 148-149.

[4] See below, 270-272.

[5] The workingmen felt that they required leisure to be able to exercise their rights of citizens.

[6] The s.h.i.+p carpenters had been similarly defeated in 1832.

[7] For a detailed discussion of these trials see below, 149-152.

[8] Published in 1916 by the Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 16-18.

[9] The printers had organized nationally for the first time in 1836, but the organization lasted less than two years; likewise the cordwainers or shoemakers. But we must keep in mind that what const.i.tuted national organization in the thirties would pa.s.s only for regional or sectional organization in later years.

CHAPTER 2

THE "GREENBACK" PERIOD, 1862-1879

The few national trade unions which were formed at the close of the fifties did not const.i.tute by themselves a labor movement. It needed the industrial prosperity caused by the price inflation of the Civil War time to bring forth again a ma.s.s movement of labor.

We shall say little of labor's att.i.tude towards the question of war and peace before the War had started. Like many other citizens of the North and the Border States the handful of organized workers favored a compromise. They held a labor convention in Philadelphia, in which a great labor leader of the sixties, William H. Sylvis, President of the International Molders' Union, took a prominent part and p.r.o.nounced in favor of the compromise solution advanced by Congressman Crittenden of Kentucky. But no sooner had Fort Sumter been fired upon by the secessionists than labor rallied to the support of the Federal Union.

Entire local unions enlisted at the call of President Lincoln, and Sylvis himself a.s.sisted in recruiting a company composed of molders.

The first effect of the War was a paralysis of business and an increase of unemployment. The existing labor organizations nearly all went to the wall. The period of industrial stagnation, however, lasted only until the middle of 1862.

The legal tender acts of 1862 and 1863 authorized the issue of paper currency of "greenbacks" to the amount of $1,050,000,000, and immediately prices began to soar. For the next sixteen years, namely until 1879, when the government resumed the redemption of greenbacks in gold, prices of commodities and labor expressed in terms of paper money showed varying degrees of inflation; hence the term "greenback" period.