The battles of labor; being the William Levi Bull lectures for the year 1906

Front matter

Class ■ -- i^ ^^ o

Book

V(A

Contents

I. The Background ... 7

11. In Medieval and Modern Industry 57

III; Great Modern Battles . . 109

II In Medieval And Modern Industry

II

It would be interesting to dwell at greater length upon the ancient background of labor. There were eight centuries during which Rome had but two classes of people, masters and slaves ; if we could tell the story of the latter we should get the story of the Roman workmen, for that empire, with its patricians arrogant and ostentatious, found it necessary to unite the patrician and the rich plebeian in order to overcome the opposition to the welfare and the rights of the working classes. Those of the latter who were not legal slaves were oftentimes in a worse condition than the slaves themselves.

But we must pass rapidly to mediaeval and modern times.

All through the centuries up to and including the eighteenth, the working people

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were slaves or serfs, and their condition was not much better than their forebears' prior to that period ; nor did they have the intelligence of the insurrectionists in the different countries prior to the Christian Era.

The workman was stagnated, as was society generally, and although out of the middle ages there came some of the grandest inventions the world has seen, in the development of science, in mathematics and medicine, yet in other directions, the world practically stood still.

The peasantry all through those centuries lived in slavish servility, but the people — the bourgeois — were, in the later centuries, gaining something in civilization and in political power. There were corporations and organizations among artisans and merchants, and these became powerful in their methods of defense against the oppression of the nobles. They were prolific in France, but they never attained similar power or position to those in Belgium, Holland or England.

These organizations were often as autocratic as the very power against which they aimed their forces, for the workmen did not hesitate, trained as they were under despotic rule, to reproduce some of the worst features of the aristocracy ; but when these features were announced and carried out as far as possible by the nobles, the workmen did not fail to denounce them.

There were many features of these unions coincident with those with which we are entirely familiar. They fixed the hours and the days for working ; they allowed or restricted output by regulating the size of articles to be made, the quality of the stuffs used in their manufacture and even the price at which they were to be sold.^ They prohibited night work, except in the production of funeral articles, which might be made at night ; but beyond and above all these stringent regulations the trade unions of those days taught industry and business integrity. They became pow-

» ''The atory of Manual Labor," by John C. Simonds.

erful and they worked strenuously to secure the advancement of honest labor and to bring about the great and resistless upheaval of the French revolution of 1789, and the abrogation of the rights and privileges of the nobles and the clergy. "^^ Among the strikes which occurred during the middle ages reference should be made to the disputes between masters and '' valets," that among the shearmen in 1350, and that of the weavers alien in 1362. There was at that time, or at least there is much evidence to show that there was, a separate journeyman class having various interests quite distinct in some of their essential features from the interests of the master artisans.

There occurred combinations, the result of agreements existing among the men themselves that they would not work except under certain circumstances and conditions. Our modern strikes find examples for their methods in these very agreements, for they gave the fullest power to the officers of their associations to deal with all cases of grievance or dissatisfaction which might arise. An extract from these agreements is exceedingly interesting in discussing how strikes arise and the causes of disputes.

'^ Whereas, heretofore, if there was any dispute between a master in the trade and his man (vadlett), such a man has been wont to go to all the men within the city of the same trade ; and then, by covin and conspiracy between them made, they would order that no one among them should work or serve his own master until the said master and his servant or man had come to an agreement ; by reason whereof the masters in the said trade have been in great trouble, and the people left unserved ; it is ordained, that from henceforth, if there be any dispute moved between any master and his man in the trade, such dispute shall be settled by the wardens of the trade. And if the man who shall have offended, or shall have badly behaved himself toward his master, will not submit to be tried before the said wardens, then such man shall be arrested by a sergeant of the Chamber, at the suit of the said wardens, and brought before the mayor and aldermen ; and before them let him be punished at their discretion."

Of course after the Black Death there was a great increase in wages, but also much difficulty between employers and employees. Men were not content even with the increased wages, and this discontent with remuneration caused many of the difficulties. Journeymen became masters of the situation temporarily. Their movement did not result in entire defeat, but it did result in the removal of the power to determine wages from the individual master to the craft as a whole, or to the wardens as its representatives.^

Some of the difficulties arose from very curious causes, but the strikes were in all respects like the strikes with which we are acquainted. In England the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 caused much disturbance

* Ashley, " Economic History " Vol, 1, among the journeymen in the towns quite like the ferment that existed among the villeins in the country places. The journeymen felt aware that they would never become masters, and they caught the idea that their independence and improvement must result from their own action ; and this action was jointly with the peasants, resulting in public demonstrations and refusals to work — that is, strikes — as the most powerful means of securing better compensation, better conditions, etc. These were old methods, however, and the very same that occurred thirty years before, to which I have just alluded. The Peasants' Revolt, as such, occurred June 10, 1381, and it was quite extensive, being simultaneous from the coast of Kent to Scarborough and all through the eastern towns.

The rioters took Norwich and stormed the Castle ; the thriving artisans of London shared in the insurrection. On the west of England all the country from Hampshire to Lancashire was involved. The immediate occasion was the outrage committed on Watt Tyler's daughter and the vengeance which he undertook on the criminal, although many ascribed the difficulty to the poll tax. But the cause lay deeper than any personal grievance or any personal outrage, because the uprising was concerted and related more particularly to the wages of labor than to any other cause.

Curiously enough the serfs had organized their trade unions, and they were united in their resistance to the law and in their strenuous demands for increased wages ; yet Tyler's case had something to do with the Peasants' Revolt.

The conditions of villeinage and general dissatisfaction must be considered as contributing largely to the revolt; and yet, strange to say, Kent County led the insurrectionary movement, although there were no serfs in that county, and their action can be accounted for only through their sympathy with the serfs where they existed. In other words, the Kent County people — artisans, peasants — entered upon a sympathetic strike.

Just seventy years later Cade's Revolt found its starting point in Kent. Kent was active in all the leading events which took place prior to the days of Cromwell.

Under Tyler, in 1381, the insurrectionists marched to London, occupied Black Heath and South worth and forced Sir John Manley to approach the king and lay before him their grievances ; and then they crossed the bridge and entered London. The councils of that city were so divided, the interests and sympathies so varied, that the city was distracted. Then the insurrectionists became rioters and John of Gaunt's new palace was burned and the Hospital of St. John sacked, while on the last days of their occupancy they made London their camping-ground, probably in Smithfield.

Then came a night of terror, during which the young king, his mother, his two half-brothers, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and some of the nobles found lodging in the tower, but the garrison was a slender one and on' the next morning the insurgents approaching the tower informed the king that he must grant them a conference or the tower would be attacked, captured and all that were in it slain. The affrighted king left the tower and appointed a conference to take place at Mile End, but no sooner had he left it than the insurgents took possession of it, seized the Archbishop and others and forthwith put them to death.

Tyler was no doubt aided by many in London who were dissatisfied with this, that or the other condition, and probably by some old soldiers of the French wars.

The king met the rioters and on his demanding the occasion of the conference they answered : '^ We will that you make us free forever, ourselves, our heirs, and our lands, and that we be called no more bond or so reputed," and the king without delay assented, bidding the mob to return to their homes while the charters for their new condition were to be carried to them. The morning following Tyler occupied Smithfield in force.

The king was desirous of escaping from London and was even attempting to make his way out of the city. This was strange, for the whole country was in insurrection. The king found the peasants everywhere under arms and while at St. Bartholomew's Abbey undertook a parley. Tyler as he saw him commanded his followers to fall back, he himself advancing to meet the king, but Walworth, the mayor, slew Tyler. This enraged the crowd, but the king, braver than some of his associates, appeased them, riding boldly to the front and announcing to them that he was their monarch and their friend. Then the rebels returned to London and soon dispersed.

On returning to his mother, who was still in the tower, and being congratulated by her on his safe return, he assured her that he had well-nigh lost but actually gained his crown on that memorable morning at Smithfield.

yo In Mediaeval and Modem Industry

There were many more features, riotous, tragical, disastrous, which accompanied the Peasants' Revolt. They need not be related. The insurrection was over in a week, and then, as in our OAvn time, after the tragedy the authorities began to study the situation, to discover if possible the causes of the insurrection and how it was organized and developed.

There were all sorts of combinations, resulting in insurrections of greater or less magnitude, involving citizens of various classes and degrees, following the events of 1381, and they are sufficient to indicate the existence of strikes in mediaeval times and to establish their comparison with the strikes of our own times.

As additional mediaeval experiences we may cite the Peasants' War, which was the rebellion of the peasants of Southern and Central Germany in 1525. It may be, and probably it is, true that the Reformation offered the occasion but not the cause of this revolt. It was intimately associated with the Anabaptist uprising which took place early in the sixteenth century. The Anabaptists sprang up at about the time of the Reformation, but when or where they first appeared, whether in Germany or Switzerland, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine ; but they sprang up like rank vegetation. Their growth is explained from the fact that the seed was in the ground, and this explains the growth of all labor revolts and of all communistic attempts.

In 1521 they appeared at Zwickau and later, under Thomas Miinzer, took part in and shared the sanguinary strife of the Peasants' War. Thus religion and labor conditions joined hands and Miinzer and his followers claimed a divine commission.

The Anabaptists were defeated near Muhlhausen and their leaders put to death. It 1533 they concentrated their operations at Miinster and, as in all such movements, fanaticism ruled, but after a sanguinary strife of fifteen months the so-called kingdom of Anabaptists perished.

The story is a cruel one. Throughout the most flourishing districts of the country travelers were horror-struck with the sight of heaps of dead bodies and of smoking ruins. Fifty thousand peasants perished and almost everywhere the people lost what little liberty they had previously possessed.

The revolt was primarily caused by the actual and burdensome grievances of the peasants, but they sought to rectif}^ these by a process which has always led to tenfold greater evils — plunder, rapine, murder, and all the excesses of infuriated hordes.

Read the story of the Reformation in all its bearings if you wish something possessing all the charm of romance and a truth stranger than any fiction.

Contemporaneously with the Peasants* War in Germany and the Anabaptist revolt culminated those mighty communistic movements in France, begun before the opening of the tenth centur}^ and resulting in the almost entire destruction of feudalism. They were ** the first attack of that mortal illness which eventually was to destroy the system."

We learn from Paul Lacombe that no epoch was ever more frightful for the poor peasant ; with no hope, since he owned no land and had no chance of becoming rich ; with none of the comforts or even necessities of existence, life was to him a perpetual agony. We must understand that around the castle of each feudal lord was generally a large palisaded enclosure, built to receive the serfs of the domain and their cattle, at the approach of the enemy. To live in his hut like a hare in his hollow, with his ear always on the alert ; to cultivate out of season, and against his will, barren soil ; at the slightest sound of danger to take refuge in the Manorial enclosure ; to encamp there in want and fear, hardly sheltered and not at all fed, a prey to epidemic diseases ; later to go out starved and trembling to see his plot of ground and harvest in cinders ; to repair the damage and begin again, with the prospect of another similar

catastrophe ; such was the life of a peasant under the feudal system of France and of other countries. The poor creatures felt it an impossibility that humanity could survive under such a system. And it is not surprising that insurrections, revolts, and the battles of labor came to be general, exhausting, tragical.

Then occurred the establishment of the French communes which were born in the holiest of holy causes. Under the prevailing conditions they became the most active and determining element in the processes of French civilization. The revolts, the massacres, the stupendous crimes, the wonderful sacrifices, the heroic deeds, the patriotic martyrdoms, and the demagogical stratagems which attended their birth and their christening into French history, have all been repeated in later times, but with varying purposes. They were the outgrowth of the conditions that surrounded the working man. The Revolution of '89 was inaugurated through and by their influence, and that Revolution swept away the privileges of the nobility and of the clergy ; and it swept away much more, but it left something for future generations which was good.

During the Revolution of 1848 these principles were reinvoked and the attempt was made to make labor the basis of the new order.

How many strikes or labor revolts occurred during the period from the beginning of the Christian Era to the middle of the eighteenth century, other than the great rebellions well known in history, it is impossible to state. Historians have been as negligent during this period as they were during the period prior to it. Whatever revolts there were, however, wherever they occurred, in what numbers, and with what results, they were the background that the middle ages formed for our own period.

I said in my first lecture that it was generally supposed that strikes were one of the direct products of modern industry. It is true that probably more strikes and lockouts and labor disturbances generally have occurred during the last twenty-five or thirty years than in all the previous period of history since the dawn of the Christian Era, but they have been of a different character and on the whole have been peaceful and not tragical ; although here and there, as we shall see in the next lecture, tragedy has played an important part in the conduct of the battles.

It cannot be without interest to take a cursory glance over this immediate past, in order to discover if possible whether the phenomena of strikes and lockouts are novel in our present industrial history, or whether they had their beginnings in times and under conditions which have passed ; whether they are the result of the powerful organizations of working men, or whether they are the outgrowth of discontent and dissatisfaction with existing industrial conditions, or the natural result of industrial development and the development of intelligence.

While it may be truly said that the strike, as a method pursued by working men to obtain the redress of real or fancied grievances, has assumed importance only during the last generation, it is true that the strike, as I have shown, is not a new weapon even in this country in the hand of the laborer.

Careful investigation of records shows that it is reasonably certain that a strike occurred among the bakers of New York city as early as 1741, for in the trial of journeymen cordwainers in the city of New York in 1810, counsel for the defense stated that he had ascertained the facts relative to the occurrence in 1741.

There was also a series of strikes among the boot- and shoemakers of Philadelphia, beginning in 1796; and again in 1798 there was a '' turnout," as a strike was then called, ordered by the journeymen shoemakers of this city. The cause of this was a demand for an increase of wages, the same as in New York in 1741. This strike lasted ten weeks and was partly successful, although the next year the journeymen shoemakers turned out to resist a demand made by the masters for a reduction of wages.

In New York, in November, 1803, occurred what is commonly known as the Sailors' Strike. This has been considered generally by writers as the first strike in the United States, but the facts just cited indicate the contrary. The sailors formed in a body, marched around the city and compelled other seamen who were employed at the old rates to leave their ships and join the strike. The strikers were pursued and dispersed by the constables, who arrested their leaders and lodged them in jail; so this strike failed.

The shoemakers, always the leaders in agitation, in those days as in revolutionary times, turned out again in 1805 here in Philadelphia. They demanded an increase of wages. This particular strike lasted six or seven weeks and was unsuccessful. The strikers were tried for conspiracy and the men convicted, but I have not been able to learn whether sentence was passed upon them.

There occurred a strike among the cordwainers in the city of New York in 1809. This strike is memorable only because there originated in it some of the terminology which enters into all strike literature of our time. The proprietors took their work at the time of this strike to other shops and by this stratagem defeated the strikers ; but the action being discovered a general turnout was ordered by the Journeymen Cordwainers' Association against all the master workmen of the city, nearly two hundred men being engaged in the strike.

At that time, November, 1809, a stoppage of work in one shop by the journeymen was called a '' strike " ; a general stoppage in all shops in a trade was known as a *' general turnout," and a member of a journeymen's

8o In Mediaeval and Modern Industry

association who did not keep his obligations to the organization, that is, a man who would work while a strike was on, was denominated a '' scab." This is the first time, so far as I have been able to discover, that this word was applied to one who would work while his comrades were on strike.

An interesting strike occurred in 1817 at Medford, in the State of Massachusetts, when one Thacher Magoun, a shipbuilder, determined to abolish the grog privilege customar}^ at that time, drink being furnished to workmen at certain intervals during the day. Upon notice being given by Mr. Magoun that no liquor should be used in his shipyard, the words '' No Rum " were written upon nearly every clapboard of the workshop and upon each timber of the yard. Some of the men refused to work but finally gave in, and a ship was built without the use of liquor in any form. I do not remember that the temperance question or the use or the prohibition of the use of liquor ever appeared as a cause in any other American strike, nearly all those occurring prior to 1880 being for an increase in wages or to prevent a reduction, or to establish some rule the working people thought necessary, or to prevent some rule to which they were opposed.

During this period the year 1835 must be considered as exceptional, for then occurred not so very many strikes, but some of considerable importance. Five hundred mechanics in Boston struck for the ten-hour system, and this was the case in twenty mills in Paterson, New Jersey. The stone-cutters of New York struck not only for an increase of wages, but for the regulation of piece w^ork. In May of that year the Schuylkill merchants pledged themselves not to employ laborers unless they would agree to work by the day and from sunrise to sunset. A contemporary writer, commenting upon this lockout, said : '' All combinations are wrong, but if on one part, they must be on the other."

In the same month there was a serious strike in Philadelphia coal yards. This was for a reduction in the hours of labor ; and in June several trades in Philadelphia met and offered an imposing manifestation in favor of the change in hours. They formed a procession with a large white banner bearing the motto '' From 6 to 6," but their conduct was peaceable. In the same month occurred other strikes of house carpenters and brick-layers, lamp and chandelier employees, together with the tin plate and sheet iron workers. In some of these eases the demands were promptly complied with. In the same month also the journeymen cordwainers again took the field, and the strike committee reported that nearly one hundred and forty employers acceded to the demands. Then in the same month the working women, tailoresses, seamstresses, binders, folders, etc., undertook to formulate a schedule of prices and asked advances. The master bookbinders considered the cause of these women whose claims were founded alike on justice and humanity,

In Mediaeval and Modern Industty 83

and they resolved that $3.00 per week was the least amount of wages that could be offered by any one possessed of practical principles of humanity, and that less wages were unjust, inhuman, and oppressive.

There were not many strikes during the Civil War. People were too busy, too excited, too much interested in greater affairs. The decade of the '70's was more turbulent, coal miners, railroad employees and others entering into great contests for an increase of wages and an improvement in conditions.

The greatest strike of that period was that of July, 1877, on the Pennsylvania Railroad. This strike will be dealt with more specifically in the succeeding lecture, as it is one of the historic strikes of the country.

Taking the whole period then, from 1741 to 1880, my investigations show that there were 1,491 strikes and lockouts, and that of these 1,089 related to wages and 278 only to other causes ; that of the whole number 316 succeeded, 154 were compromised, 583 failed entirely, while the results in 438

84 In Mediaeval and Modem Indastty

cases cannot be ascertained. It was shown by a report of the tenth census that in 1880 there were 610 strikes. In no year prior to that was there any considerable number of strikes, certainly not more than 80 or 90. From that year, 1880, we have a very accurate record down to December 31, 1900. The facts for subsequent years are not yet ready for use, but I apprehend that when they are known w^e shall find that there has been a decrease in the total number. When we anal3^ze the course of strikes during the twenty years from January 1, 1881, to December 31, 1900, we shall be astonished at the magnitude of the disturbances in the aggregate.

In 1881 there were but 471 strikes, while in 1900 there were 1,779. The largest number occurred in 1890, when there were 1,833. These figures signify but little in themselves, but when we learn that the number of establishments involved in these strikes during the period under discussion was 117,509 we begin to appreciate the impor-

In Mediaevdl and Modern Industry 85

tance or influence for good or ill these strikes exerted. During that period there were 6,105,694 employees thrown out of employment. The largest number was in 1884, when over 660,000 people were thrown out of work. In addition to these strikes there occurred during the same twenty years 1,005 lockouts, involving nearly 10,000 establishments and throwing out of employment over 1,000,000 people. In the strikes 90 per cent, of the employees thrown out were males and 10 per cent, females, while in the lockouts 80i per. cent were males and 191 per cent, females. And now we learn the power that the organizations exert in these later times as in the ancient periods, for of the whole number of strikes in the twenty years in question nearly 631 per cent, were ordered by organizations, and of the lockouts 17 per cent, by associations of employers. The average duration of all the strikes was nearly twenty-four days and of the lockouts over ninety-seven days.

The successes of the strikes is a most interesting feature, and the facts usually disturb the theories of those who have not studied the subject. I have heard it asserted by intelligent men that nearly all strikes fail, yet the facts show that of the whole number occurring during the twenty years, nearly 51 per cent, succeeded, while over 13 per cent, succeeded partly, and but 36 per cent, failed. These proportions are quite as true for the lockouts, for nearly 51 per cent, succeeded and nearly 43 per cent, failed.

It is more interesting still to learn what became of the strikes ordered by the labor organizations. Here again we find similar proportions, for of those strikes ordered by such organizations nearly 53 per cent, succeeded and 331 per cent, failed, while nearly 14 per cent, succeeded in part. Of the strikes not ordered by organizations — those which were inaugurated by temporary concerted movements, 351 per cent, succeeded and more than 55 per cent, failed.

The concentration of strikes in certain localities offers some very serious lessons not only for the economist, but for the sociologist.

Taking those in Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, we find that in these five states, which contain nearly 75 per cent, of all the manufacturing establishments involved in strikes during the twenty years, and almost 85 per cent, of all the establishments involved in lockouts, the strikes averaged in the different years very nearly 58 per cent, of all the strikes occurring in 1892 and over 87 per cent, of those occurring in 1897. But it may not be unreasonable to assume that after all the proportion of strikes occurring in these five states was not undue, relative to the capital invested and the number of establishments in these states.

The losses resulting from all these strikes cannot be accurately ascertained, but they have been ascertained with sufiicient accuracy to indicate their vastness from an economic point of view.

It is fairly easy to calculate or even to ascertain the wage losses of the employees, and the assistance to employees by labor organizations while their members were on strike is the subject of very positive information.

The wage loss during the twenty years amounted to nearly $258,000,000 and the money the organizations spent in assisting their striking fellows was over $16,000,000, a sum sufficiently large to have enabled these men to establish cooperative plants, or to carry out various plans for improvement and advancement. The losses of the employers has been set at nearly $132,000,- 000. This, again, is the subject of fairly accurate calculation, but no method can ascertain the losses of society at large, or of thousands of individuals discommoded, hindered in their occupations and otherwise interfered with.

In lockouts the employees lost nearly $49,000,000 and paid out nearly $3,500,000 while the employers lost nearly $20,000,000.