Chapter 382: , Laws of 1889, to read as follows (26)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Netherlands: A. D. 1903.
Laws against Railway Strikes.
Failure of Labor Strike to prevent their Passage.

Early in 1903 it was made known that the Government of the
Netherlands intended to bring forward in the States-General a
bill prohibiting strikes among railway employees, on the
ground that they were engaged in a public service which must
not suffer interruption. At once the railway men gave notice
that they would, if this measure were undertaken, appeal to
all workmen in the country for a general strike. The
Government then prepared itself for a struggle by summoning a
certain quota of the infantry and engineers of the Reserves to
arms, and, on the 25th of February, its proposed legislation
was introduced. It amended the penal code, in order to punish
strikes by persons in the public service as misdemeanors and
to attach penalties of more severity to all attacks on the
freedom of labor. It provided, further, for the organization
of a military railway brigade, to insure service on the lines
in case of a strike; and finally, it created a commission to
investigate the condition of the railway service and of its
employees. Pending the discussion of these measures the
threatened strike was undertaken, and was seen very soon to
have failed. Without any serious conflict with the authorities
it was given up, and, on the 11th of April, the bills became
Law.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: New Zealand: A. D. 1896-1908.
The Compulsory Arbitration Law.
Its working.

At the meeting of the National Civic Federation of the United
States, in December, 1908, Mr. Hugh H. Lusk, of New Zealand,
spoke of the compulsory arbitration law of that country.

See, in Volume VI. of this work.
NEW ZEALAND.

"In form," he said, "the law is not compulsory upon all men,
but only upon those who become amenable to it by registering
their associations under the law. Since associations, both of
workers and of employers, are generally registered, it is and
has been for twelve years now past absolutely compulsory
arbitration. About six years ago the law was extended to the
Commonwealth of Australia, where it is now in force. In New
Zealand compulsory arbitration has hitherto been a great
success, It has had the effect of preventing all strikes and
all lockouts for twelve years in that country until the other
day. The history of its extension to Australia has been the
greatest tribute that could be made to its success in New
Zealand. It has not been in all respects as great a success in
Australia as in New Zealand. New Zealand has a million white
inhabitants, Australia nearly five million; therefore, by the
extension of the law from New Zealand to Australia you have
got, as it were, a stepping stone from which you can easily
see how far it would be likely to be a success in a country as
much greater and as much more populous than Australia as is
this country.

"The law of New Zealand, and now of Australia, compels all
associated workers who are registered under the act to submit
to the law if they have causes of difference with their
employers. In the first place, they have to go to a member of
the Board of Conciliation, one of which exists in any
considerable district, and the Conciliation Board failing in
its object they can remove the cause into the Court of
Arbitration, which passes final judgment.

"For twelve years the law operated without serious breakdown
in New Zealand. It has been carried on for five years without
a serious breakdown in Australia. Now, what is wrong with the
Act and its operations? At first the workers were perfectly
satisfied with the court because, as a general rule, it was
with them. Later on, the court as a rule has been against
them. They have been inclined to the belief that the
constitution of the court is unfavorable, the court being
constituted of two representatives of labor and two
representatives of capital, together with one Judge of the
Supreme Court, sitting as president or chairman. They have
come to the conclusion that it is the fifth man who really
gives the decision. The difficulty in such a case as this is
that if the representative man who gives his decision has not
the confidence of both parties the court fails in its object.
It is believed that the decisions are, in general, those of a
man belonging to the capitalist class—since laborers do not
often find their way to the Supreme Court bench in any
country. This seems to be the bottom of the difficulty both in
New Zealand and in Australia. I do not think you could enact a
law either as a Federal law or as a State law, to-day, such as
the law in New Zealand and enforce it. The people are not
ready for it. The Canadian plan seems to me to be a step,
although perhaps rather a timid step in the right direction."

The exceptional strike to which Mr. Lusk referred, as
occurring "the other day," was in February, 1907. The strike
was of men in the freezing works of the frozen meat trade.
They stopped work as individuals, not as a union, each
claiming his right to take a rest from work; but the law was
applied to them, nevertheless, and they were fined £5 each.
Mr. Gompers, who spoke after Mr. Lusk, declared himself
emphatically against the New Zealand system, saying: "I would
not have employers do as they please; I would not want workmen
to do as they please; but I believe that by the organization
of industry and by the organization of labor we are gathering
forces conscious of their power, which, intelligently and
wisely wielded, bring forth a spirit of conciliation that no
court of arbitration ever yet was able to impose. There is in
the United States more genuine conciliation between organized
employers and organized workmen than exists in any other part
of the world."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Russia: A. D. 1904-1905.
Revolutionary Strikes.

See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Scotland: A. D. 1904-1909.
Five Years of Peace in Coal Mining.
A threatened conflict averted.

In 1904 the coalmasters of Scotland made an agreement with
their men for regulating wages according to a fixed scale, to
be neither below 37½ per cent., nor over 100 per cent. above
what is called the basis of 1888, which was 4s. per day. In
effect the range was from 5s. 6d. to 8s. per day, and within
these limits the Coal Conciliation Board was empowered to
adjust questions of wages as they arose. Under this agreement
the Conciliation Board operated satisfactorily till the summer
of 1909, and under the constitution of the board there was
power to refer any question on which the representatives of
the masters and men could not agree to a neutral chairman,
whose decision was to be absolute.

{383}

During the first three years of the agreement trade was
prosperous and wages rose nearly to the maximum under which
the Conciliation Board could adjudicate. Then came the period
of general depression, and wages went down, along with prices
of coal, until, finally, the coalmasters applied for a further
reduction to the minimum of the agreement, 5s. 6d. per day.
The men's representatives on the Board refused to entertain
the proposal. The disagreement became acute in a few weeks,
and the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain threatened a
general strike in support of the contention of its Scottish
members. On a ballot taken in July, 518,361 of the coal miners
of the United Kingdom voted for a general stoppage of work, in
support of the demands of the Scottish miners against 62,980
who opposed the undertaking. But the efforts of the
Government, exerted through the Board of Trade, were
successful in averting the threatened catastrophe. Conferences
between delegates from the coal miners and the coal owners,
held at the offices of the Board of Trade and under
chairmanship of the President of the Board, Winston Churchill,
resulted in an agreement signed on the 30th of July, which is
to be in force until August 1st, 1912, and indefinitely
thereafter unless six months notice of a wish to terminate it
is served by one party to it on the other. The agreement
provides for the continuation of the former Conciliation Board
"with the provision that there shall be obligatory a neutral
chairman (whose decision in cases of difference shall be final
and binding) to be selected by such method as shall be
mutually agreed upon by the parties, and, failing agreement,
by the Speaker of the House of Commons."

On the point of wages, the opinion of the miners’ delegates
was reported to be that the agreement was "fair to all
parties, for it secured the owners against having to pay an
increased wage unless all the circumstances of the trade,
considered over a reasonable period, were taken into account
by a perfectly impartial arbitrator. The concession of the
principle of the 50 per cent. increase on the 1888 basis as a
_minimum_ wage would, as far as could be foreseen,
obviate trouble in the future, and the safeguards which had
been introduced into the grant of the concession were, in the
opinion of all the delegates who were willing to express their
views, eminently fair to all the interests concerned."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: South Africa: A. D. 1903-1904.
The question of Asiatic Labor for the mines in the Transvaal.
Admission of Chinese Coolies.
The political side of the Opposition to White Labor.

See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1903-1904.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Spain: A. D. 1902.
Great Strike at Barcelona.

Barcelona, the scene of frequent and much disturbance, both
political and industrial, produced, in the middle of February,
a general strike of 80,000 workmen, between whom and the
troops of General Weyler, the Minister of War, a week of
battle in the streets occurred, with martial law in force.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Spain: A. D. 1909.
Insurrection and Strike at Barcelona.

See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: Sweden: A. D. 1909.
The Lockout and the attempted General Strike of all
Labor in the Kingdom.

The labor conflicts of 1909 were marked most impressively by
two attempts, in two countries, to combine all unionized
labor, of all trades and employments, in the oft-threatened
"general strike," whereby an absolute paralysis of society
might be brought about. The first of these attempts was
planned in France, for the enforcement of the demands of the
postal and telegraphic employees of the Government, who
claimed the right to engage in conflict with the State by an
organized "strike." This came happily to naught; and, the
second, undertaken in Sweden, had the same result.

A dispute in the paper, woolen, and cotton industries of
Sweden led, first, to a lockout of about 13,000 workmen in
those factories, the employers acting in a compact
association, which seems to have embraced all important fields
of production. On the 26th of July the lockout was extended to
certain other allied trades, affecting about 40,000 employees
in all; and it was then announced that on the 2d of August, if
the men did not come to terms, the closing of works would be
carried into the iron trades, and further still. This
challenged the Allied Trade Unions to summon a "general
strike" of all their membership, and the call went out for an
universal dropping of work on August 4th. Exception, however,
was made in the call, of employees in the water-works,
lighting and sanitation departments of the public service, and
of those on whom hospitals, funerals and living animals were
dependent for care. Railway, postal, telegraph and telephone
employees were not included in the Labor Federation, and did
not strike. Between lockout and strike, however, the
suspension of industry was so extensive as to reduce
Stockholm, especially, to a very grave situation; but the
emergency was faced with remarkable energy and courage by both
Government and people.

Neither employers nor employees would listen to any mediation
between them by King or Ministers, and the measures of
Government were directed solely to the repression of disorder
and the checking of all that savored of revolutionary aims.
How the public of Stockholm saved itself from paralysis is
told by a correspondent who wrote from that city on the 28th
of August, when the strike was in its fourth week. "How is
it," he asked, "that the trams are running, cabs are plying
for hire in the streets, the steam ferries are working as
usual, streets and houses are lighted, and there seems no lack
of provisions or transport? The explanation is that these and
many other of the most important social services are being
performed by a brigade of volunteers, who have come forward in
the public interest and who devote their time and energies
gratuitously to supplying the most pressing needs of society
at large. …

"On July 31 plans were first formed for meeting the situation
by the organization of a band of voluntary helpers, and on
August 2 a meeting was held at which definite action was
determined upon. A ‘Public Security Brigade’ (Frivilliga
skyddskaren) was to be enrolled, and the following services,
amongst others, were to be undertaken: The protection of
banks, insurance officers, and similar institutions liable to
attack or plunder by the strikers; the working of trams and
steamboats, and of gas, water, and electric lighting
machinery; the driving of motor and other cabs; the conveyance
of the sick to the hospitals, and the rendering to the
hospital staff of any necessary help; the unloading and
transport of the necessities of life, such as food, coal,
wood, &c. The object of the organization was not to help
individual sufferers or to safeguard individual interests, but
in every way possible to maintain such services as should be
considered necessary for the security and welfare of the
community.

{384}

"The appeal for volunteers met with a generous and
enthusiastic response, and within a week of the first meeting
on August 2 the whole organization was in full working order.
All classes supplied their _quota_. Counts and barons,
military and naval officers, professional and business men,
engineers, clerks, students from the Universities and
technical schools, alike volunteered their services. The
importance of such a movement can hardly be overestimated. The
fact that the executive body has no connexion with the
Government or municipality and yet is working in constant
touch and in perfect harmony with both speaks Volumes for the
spirit in which the work has been undertaken and the
efficiency with which it is being carried out. It is an
object-lesson in the capacity of the upper and middle classes
to meet such an emergency. And lastly, if, as is thought
probable by some, the institution should become a permanent
one, Sweden will have one of the best guarantees for
industrial peace in the future."

When this was written, the struggle, so far as it involved an
attempted general strike, was near its end. On the 3d of
September the Labor Federation announced its willingness that
those organizations which were not connected with the original
dispute, but which had joined the strike to help make it
general, should return to work, if the Government would renew
its proffer of mediation in the primary dispute. This the
Government did willingly; but at the end of September it was
announced that the negotiations undertaken had broken down and
that 60,000 men were still without work.

The most serious feature of the conflict was the apparent
readiness with which many labor organizations broke agreements
and contracts, in order to take part in it, even when not
called on to do so by the general Federation. According to the
claim of the Employers’ Federation, moreover, it was
faithlessness to such contracts which had most to do with
bringing of the Lockout on. On the other hand, the workmen
maintain that it is the aim of the employers to break down
their unions, and that self-preservation justifies them in
breaking contracts when that course is necessary to defeat
such attempts. Where the very truth lies is questionable, here
as in most such conflicts.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States:
The Organization of Labor.

"Most of the national trade unions are affiliated to one great
federal organization, known as the American Federation of
Labor. The railway brotherhoods, so called, keep their
separate organizations, without affiliating to any other body.
There are some independent unions; while the Knights of Labor
are a body entirely distinct from all other organizations, and
have a different organic law. It is difficult to ascertain the
membership of unions. In Great Britain the law requiring
registration enables the Government to state with fair
accuracy the strength of unions in that country. According to
the latest reports available, the English trade unions had a
membership of 1,802,518, while in the United States,—with
double England’s population,—the estimated membership of labor
organizations on July 1 last was 1,400,000. It is estimated at
the present time that there are nearly 18,000,000 persons
(men, women, and children) in the United States working as
wage-earners. The percentage embraced in the labor unions is
not large, therefore, being not more than 8 per cent. of the
whole body. It must be remembered, however, that in many
trades the members are organized up to a large proportion,
—sometimes 90 per cent.—of the total number engaged. The
American Federation of Labor probably represents 850,000
members, and the Knights of Labor perhaps 200,000. The Order
of Railway Conductors of America,—whose head, Mr. E. E. Clark,
has been appointed on the Coal Commission,—has nearly 25,000
members; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, over
34,000; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, nearly 38,000;
the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, about 44,000; and there
are at least four other influential railroad organizations."

_Carroll D. Wright,
Labor Organization in the United States
(Contemporary Review, October. 1902)._

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States:
The Trade Union as a factor in the Assimilation of the
Foreign-born Population, and in its Political Education.

"Whatever our judgment as to the legality or expediency of the
industrial policy of our American unions, no student of
contemporary conditions can deny that they are a mighty factor
in effecting the assimilation of our foreign-born population.
Schooling is primarily of importance, of course, but many of
our immigrants come here as adults. Education can affect only
the second generation. The churches, particularly the Catholic
hierarchy, may do much. Protestants seem to have little
influence in the industrial centres. On the other hand, the
newspapers, at least such as the masses see and read, and the
ballot under present conditions in American cities, have no
uplifting or educative power at all. The great source of
intellectual inspiration to a large percentage of our inchoate
Americans, in the industrial classes, remains in the
trade-union. It is a vast power for good or evil, according as
its affairs are administered. It cannot fail to teach the
English language. That in itself is much. Its benefit system,
as among the cigarmakers and printers, may inculcate thrift.
Its journals, the best of them, give a general knowledge of
trade conditions, impossible to the isolated workman. Its
democratic constitutions and its assemblies and conventions
partake of the primitive character of the Anglo-Saxon
folkmoot, so much lauded by Freeman, the historian, as a
factor in English political education and constitutional
development. Not the next gubernatorial or presidential
candidate; not the expansion of the currency, nor the reform
of the general staff of the army; not free-trade or
protection, or anti-imperialism, is the real living thing of
interest to the trade-union workman. His thoughts, interests,
and hopes are centred in the politics of his organization. It
is the forum and arena of his social and industrial world."

_W. Z. Ripley,
Race Factors in Labor Unions
(Atlantic Monthly, March, 1904)_.

{385}

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1899-1907.
The Western Federation of Miners.
Its adoption of a Socialist Platform.
Its fierce Conflict with Mine Owners.
Alleged Criminal Instigations by its Leaders.
Orchard’s Confessions.
Trial and Acquittal of Secretary Haywood.

The Western Federation of Miners was organized in Butte,
Montana, in 1893. The domain of the organization was and is
mainly the metal mining fields west of the Mississippi River;
while that of the organization called the United Mine Workers
was and is the coal fields east of the Mississippi. The
strongly marked difference in character between these two
comprehensive unions of mining labor is indicated in an
article by William Hard, contributed to _The Outlook_ of
May 19, 1906. "The United, Mine Workers," wrote Mr. Hard,
"accepts the present industrial system and regards the
employer as its partner. The Western Federation of Miners
denounces the present industrial system and regards the very
existence of the employer as an evil. The United Mine Workers
is interested mainly in the division of the proceeds of the
present industrial system between itself and its partner, the
employer. It wants to increase its own share of the proceeds
and it wants to reduce its partner’s share. The Western
Federation of Miners, on the other hand, is interested mainly
in the elimination of the employer. It wants more wages, of
course, but if it should succeed in establishing a scale of
even a hundred dollars a day it would still be bound by its
principles to spurn the relaxing comforts of prosperity and to
nerve itself to a continuation of the struggle.

"Edward Boyce, as President of the Federation, addressed its
annual Convention in 1902 as follows: ‘There are only two
classes of people in the world. One is composed of the men and
women who produce all. The other is composed of men and women
who produce nothing, but live in luxury upon the wealth
produced by others.’" The Convention, at the same session,
adopted the following declaration: "We, the tenth annual
Convention of the Western Federation of Miners, do declare for
a policy of independent political action, and do advise and
recommend the adoption of the platform of the Socialist Party
of America."

Says Mr. Hard, in comment on this Socialist pronouncement by
the Western Federation: "There is usually one of two reasons
for the presence of a large number of Socialists in any trade
union. One is the influence of Europeans; the other is a
particularly spectacular triumph of the machine over the man,
and a particularly cruel displacement of human beings by
superhuman tools. … The Western Federation of Miners,
however, has not been devoured by the machine, and it does not
contain more than a small percentage of Europeans. Whatever of
lawlessness there has been in the history of the Western
Federation has been American lawlessness. Whatever of
radicalism there has been in that history has been radicalism
cherished and propagated by Americans. That favorite National
scapegoat, ‘the foreigner,’ cannot be loaded with the sins of
the Western Federation. … The Western mines are full of
longlimbed, franked-eyed men who have adventured themselves
far and wide upon the face of the earth. There are Eastern
miners who were blacklisted after leading unsuccessful
strikes. There are cowboys who tired of the trail. There are
farmers who preferred prospecting to plowing. There are city
men who burst the bars of their cages to breathe the open air
of the West. These adventurous characters, going out into a
new country and plunging into the virgin, everlasting hills,
where it would seem that at last all men would stand on the
same footing, have suddenly discovered that amid these
primitive surroundings the modern industrial system is not
only found, but is found at its worst. No one would try to
find a parallel anywhere else on earth for the reckless
unscrupulous and maddening insolence of the corporations of
the Rocky Mountain States. And practical anarchism among
corporations is always a strong promoter of theoretical
Socialism among trade unions. …

"The internal policy of the Western Federation of Miners is
consistent with its published principles. The most important
part of this policy is an aversion to the signing of contracts
with employers. A contract is regarded as a manacle. It binds
one union when another union might need its help. … In
consequence of not demanding a contract, the Federation
naturally does not demand a closed shop. As it does not ask
the employer to bind himself by a contract to anything, it
does not ask him to bind himself to the exclusive employment
of union men. In three other respects besides its failure to
demand a closed shop the Western Federation of Miners follows
a policy which has often been admired by enemies of trade
unions. The Western Federation has no apprentice system. It
does not restrict output. And it discountenances
jurisdictional quarrels between rival trade organizations. …

"So much for the philosophy of the Western Federation of
Miners. Now for the lawlessness with which it has been
charged. There can be no doubt that members of the Western
Federation of Miners have frequently coerced non-union men. …
A programme of intimidation has at times, in certain mining
camps, become the equivalent of a closed shop contract. The
employer was not asked to exclude non-union men. The union
excluded them spontaneously, without bothering the employer
about it. … In addition to the coercion of individual
non-unionists, there have been a few occasions on which armed
bodies of union men have stormed mining property and captured
it."

On the other side of the case this writer recounts the acts of
violence and the barbarous "deportations" which the miners of
the Western Federation have suffered at the hands of the
Mine-Owners’ Association and the Citizens’ Alliance in
coöperation with them; and he emphasises this fact:—"that the
members of the Citizens’ Alliance and the members of the
Western Federation of Miners are brothers under their skins.
They come in the main from exactly the same breed. Two men go
out prospecting. They come from the same town in Ohio. Their
claims are half a mile apart. One man strikes gold. The other
doesn’t. One man becomes a millionaire and a member of the
Mine-Owners’ Association. The other becomes a workingman and a
member of the Western Federation. … They were all of them
American adventurers before they became employers and
employees. Practically identical in breed, the mine-owners and
the miners are practically identical in temperament. They
transact their affairs on both sides with an untrammeled
recklessness which is appalling, but which, if the distinction
be admitted, savors of anarchy rather than of illegality.
{386}
The situation is like that in the rough early mediaeval States
before the central authority had established its power by
means of police. … That these frontiersmen, as workingmen and
as members of the Western Federation, have used their guns in
trade union controversies is indubitable. That the Western
Federation, however, is an organized criminal clique, and that
it accentuates and stimulates the gun-playing proclivities of
its members, is, so far, unsupported by evidence."

_William Hard,
The Western Federation of Miners
(The Outlook, May 19, 1906)._

The question on which Mr. Hard threw doubt, as to whether the
leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, or any of its
responsible members, had been implicated in the dreadful
crimes of murder and destruction of property which attended
the conflict between the Federation and the mine-owners of the
Far West, came to trial in connection with the horrible murder
of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho. The victim had
been Governor of that State in 1899, when, during a strike in
the Cœur d’Alene district, a mill at Wardner was blown up by a
mob. Governor Steunenberg obtained the aid of Federal troops
and vigorously crushed the disorder. Six years afterwards, on
the 30th of December, 1905, at the gate of his residence in
Caldwell, he was blown to pieces by a bomb, so placed that it
was exploded by the opening of the gate. A man named Harry
Orchard was arrested on suspicion and held until, finally, he
not only confessed the crime in question, but owned, or
claimed to have participated in, or had knowledge of, an
appalling number of other murders, deadly explosions, and
other barbarities, all of which he alleged to have been
committed at the instigation and under the direction of
officials in the Western Federation. Its President, Charles H.
Moyer, its Secretary, W. D. Haywood, and George A. Pettibone
of its executive were especially implicated by Orchard’s
confession in the murder of Governor Steunenberg. These
accused men were in Colorado at the time, and there, on a
requisition from the Governor of Idaho, they were arrested on
the 15th of February, 1906, and taken hurriedly to Boise,
having no opportunity to resist what was claimed to be the
illegal extradition. Subsequently, however, when the question
was carried from the Supreme Court of Idaho up to the Supreme
Court of the United States, the legality of the proceeding was
affirmed by all of the tribunals which reviewed it.

Intense feeling in labor circles was enlisted in behalf of the
accused chiefs of the Western Federation of Miners. Very
generally their innocence of the imputed crimes was believed,
and they were looked on as victims of an implacable
conspiracy, in which capitalists and politicians were leagued,
to hunt them to their death. More than a year intervened
between their arrest and the trial of Haywood, who was the
first to be arraigned. This greatly exciting trial was opened,
at Boise City, the capital of Idaho, in May, 1907, and was
concluded on the 28th of July, resulting in the acquittal of
the accused. Orchard’s testimony does not seem to have been
seriously shaken, otherwise than by the incredible horrors of
his story; but corroborative evidence was lacking, and nobody
could trust a witness whose moral irresponsibility was so
plain a fact. The announcement of the verdict of acquittal was
gladly received. It was followed at once by the release of
President Moyer on bail.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909.
Labor Unions and Oriental Immigration.

See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909.
Study and treatment of Industrial Problems by the
National Civic Federation.

See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901.
Teamsters’ Strike in San Francisco.

See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901.
The unfortunate Strike of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate Workers.
Its conflict with the United States Steel Corporation.
Breaches of Contract involved.
Failure.

A strike which involved breaches of contract between employés
and employers, and which resulted most unfortunately to those
engaged in it, was ordered in July, 1901, by the heads of the
National Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate
Workers of the United States. As in the case of the Anthracite
Coal Strike of 1902, which is told of below, the circumstances
of this strike received a very thorough study and a very clear
exposition to the public, in an article from the pen of Dr.
Talcott Williams, published in the _American Review of
Reviews_ for September, 1901, and what is stated here is
drawn from that article:

The industries concerned in what occurred had been carried on
for a considerable period under conditions too complicated to
be described in this limited place. It must suffice to say
that there were union mills and non-union mills, and also a
third class, of "open" mills, in which union and non-union men
worked together. A truce had sprung up during a period of
prosperity in which, says Dr. Williams, "there had come to be
a quasi, only a quasi, general understanding that certain
mills were to be considered as union, certain as non-union,
and certain as ‘open.’" While "the trade was still divided
among hundreds of mill-owners," the Amalgamated Association of
workers in them "equalized conditions for all of them. It
lifted wage disputes out of the narrow mill atmosphere. It
forced all concerned to look at the trade as a whole. It gave
continuity and uniformity to contracts for wages. It
established standards of wages"—for union and non-union, both.
But when, in June, 1901, "the Amalgamated came to its annual
collective bargaining," it had to deal, not with numerous
independent mill-owners, but with the great consolidation of
them that had just occurred, in the formation of the mammoth
United States Steel Corporation.

"Two courses," says Dr. Williams, "were open to the president
and officers and Advisory Council of the Amalgamated. They
might, after the usual conference, for which its constitution
provides, through a special committee, have signed its ‘scale’
for the union mills in which its membership worked and wait
for the social and political pressure of public opinion, as in
1900, to force this new representative of capital—the
‘Trust’—in its various forms to accept a collective bargain
for part of its mills, trusting to events, the steady
gravitation of skilled labor to its ranks, and the greater
economic efficiency of the union—for unless it is that it
cannot survive—to win a slow battle. Much depended for
organized labor all over the country in formally committing
the United States Steel Corporation, the greatest employer of
labor on the planet, to the recognition of a union scale as
the best regulator of wages, union and non-union.
{387}
It looked as if this waiting plan were adopted when the scale
was signed for one year to come, carrying a new
non-interruption clause, with the American Tin Plate Company.
… On the last day on which the scale could be signed—June 29—
and it generally is not signed before, the demand was made
that the scale should be signed for all [of certain] non-union
mills. The advance in wages asked was conceded. Mr. Persifor
F. Smith, for the company, offered to sign for twenty-one
mills accepted in the past as union. President Shaffer refused
to sign for any, unless all were accepted as union. Mr. Smith
refused to sign for mills non-union in the past, and claimed
that two, Salzburg and Old Meadow, hitherto union, had
abandoned the organization, a position later conceded. The
issue raised was whether the change from individual to
collective bargaining could be required under penalty of a
strike, not only in the mills in question, but in all the
mills of the company. The men involved had a right to require
a collective bargain for as many as they chose to include. The
company had its right, equally, to decide where it would have
individual and where collective bargaining. …

"The Amalgamated was … strong, until it struck. Its demand for
wages and hours were all accepted. It had been allowed to
organize lodges in various non-union mills, after the
corporation had bought them, where before it was excluded.
When it attempted, on its own demand and instance, to change
the status of these mills and act for their labor, it proved
right in its claim that the men wished to be union in four out
of five of the steel hoop mills and wrong in five out of the
seven mills claimed in the Sheet Steel Company. Each
contestant claimed more than it could control. A compromise
was in order. A compromise was offered. Twelve mills in all
were in dispute. The corporation offered four. The Amalgamated
demanded all or none. … A strike was ordered July 15, and
the American Tin Plate Company men broke their year’s contract
of a fortnight before."

The strike was "circumscribed at first by members of the
Amalgamated in the Federal Steel Company plants at Chicago,
Joliet, and Milwaukee refusing to break their contracts and
strike. Here, the membership of the Amalgamated was less than
a tenth of the whole number involved. It is not over this
proportion in the general body of men on the pay-roll of the
United States Steel Corporation. The proportion in union mills
varies. In none does it include all. In some, those without
its membership are a small fraction, in others, more than
half. By the men of the National Steel Company and the
National Tube Company, annual contracts were broken,
sacrificing the annual collective bargain."

"Nothing can be accomplished for labor, even that tenth share
of it organized in the Amalgamated, until this share has
learned that contracts must be kept and the line drawn between
wages and business control. The successful efforts of the
Amalgamated to induce its members to break their contracts,
first in the tin works and later at various works in the
Federal Steel Company, has deepened the conviction among
business men and the public that men in the union cannot be
trusted to keep promises; and until this trust is possible,
nothing is possible."

The strike failed in its objects completely, and came to an
end on the 14th of September, having lasted sixty-one days.
Under the agreement which then terminated it, the union mills
which the Amalgamated Association had been able to keep closed
were recognized as being within its sphere, but no provision
could be made for the displaced union men of mills which had
been wholly or partly reopened during the progress of the
strike, and large bodies of the strikers were left to seek
employment where they could.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902.
Remarkable Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of Labor
Disputes, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation.
Appointment of a Committee of Conciliation.

In January, 1902, a remarkable conference, to discuss the
relations between labor and capital and to seek means for the
peaceable settlement of industrial disputes, was held in New
York, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation.
Notable men of all professions, of high circles in business,
of high leadership in trade unions, and of high official
positions, came together, with the Honorable Oscar S. Straus
presiding, and held frank and free talk on a subject which
concerned them all in the greatest possible degree. The main
practical result of the Conference was the appointment of a
powerful standing Committee, to act for the Civic
Confederation as an agency of conciliation and intermediation
between the parties in industrial disputes. The Committee,
which has exercised its good offices many times since, not
always with success, but always with an influence that must be
of growing effect, was appointed as follows:

On Behalf of the Public.

Grover Cleveland;
Cornelius N. Bliss;
Charles Francis Adams;
Archbishop John Ireland;
Bishop Henry C. Potter;
Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University;
Franklin MacVeagh, Chicago;
James H. Eckels;
John J. McCook;
John G. Milburn, Buffalo;
Charles J. Bonaparte, Baltimore;
Oscar S. Straus;
Ralph M. Easley.

Representatives of Organized Labor.—

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor;
John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers;
F. P. Sargent, grand master of the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Firemen;
T. J. Shaffer, president of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers;
James Duncan, secretary of the Granite Cutters’ Association;
Daniel J. Keefe, president of the International Association
of ’Longshoremen;
Martin Fox, president of the National Iron Molders’ Union;
James E. Lynch, president of the International
Typographical Union;
Edward E. Clarke, grand conductor, Brotherhood of
Railway Conductors;
Henry White, secretary of the Garment Workers of America;
Walter Mac Arthur, editor of the
_Coast Seamen's Journal_, San Francisco;
James O’Connell, president of the International
Association of Machinists.

Representative Employers.

Senator Marcus A. Hanna, Cleveland;
Charles M. Schwab, president of the
United States Steel Corporation;
S. R. Callaway, American Locomotive Works;
Charles Moore, president of the National Tool Company;
J. D. Rockefeller, Jr.;
H. H. Vreeland, Metropolitan Street Railway Company;
Lewis Nixon, Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey;
James A. Chambers, president of the American Glass Company,
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania;
William H. Pfahler, president of the National Association
of Stove Manufacturers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
E. P. Ripley, president of the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railway;
Marcus M. Marks, president of the National Association
of Clothing Manufacturers;
J. Kruttschnitt, president of the Southern
Pacific Railway Company.

{388}

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902-1903.
The Great Strike of Anthracite Coal Miners.
Distress and Alarm in the Country.
Intermediation of President Roosevelt.
Arrogant Attitude of Mine-owning Interests.
Final submission to Arbitration Commission appointed by
the President.
Award of the Commission.

A prolonged general strike of miners in the anthracite coal
fields of Pennsylvania, beginning in May, 1902, was one of the
most serious in its public effects and the most alarming that
has ever occurred in the United States. It may be said to have
had its origin in a previous strike that came about in the
fall of 1900, resulting from which the miners had obtained an
advance in wages of ten per cent. That increase was guaranteed
until the 1st of April, 1901. In the interval Mr. John Mitchell,
the able and much respected President of the United Mine
Workers of America, strove to secure from the railway magnates
who are the masters of the anthracite coal property and trade
some recognized right on the part of the miners as a body to
discuss and arrange the terms and conditions of their work.
The rebuffs that he met with were near to causing another
strike in the spring; but some powerful influences were
brought to bear, it was said, by New York financiers, which
patched up a truce for the ensuing year. The ten per cent
increase of wages was continued for that further period, and
the miners, in some way, rightly or wrongly, acquired an idea
that the next year was to bring about an arrangement of free
and fair representative conferences between their union and
the union of mine-owners and operatives, like that which had
been established in the bituminous coal regions. In this
expectation they were wholly disappointed when the year came
to its end, as it did on the 1st of April, 1902.

The National Civic Federation, in which every great social
interest, of capital, labor, politics, education, religion,
philanthropy, is splendidly represented, intervened in the
disputes which followed, and brought about some meetings on
the subject; but the capitalist side of the controversy was
entrenched in its determination to give no recognition to any
union of miners, and to refuse an arbitration of the dispute,
while the miners were provoked to the making of larger demands
than they might have insisted upon, probably, if they had been
differently met. By a small majority of the delegates to a
convention held in May the miners voted to strike—against the
judgment of President Mitchell it is said—and work in the
mines was stopped about the middle of the month.

On both sides of the conflict there were real difficulties in
the way of approach to a common ground of negotiation. These
were fairly set forth by Dr. Talcott Williams, of the
Philadelphia Press, in The _Review of Reviews_ for July,
1902. On the side of the anthracite railroad managers and mine
operators he pointed to the fact that they were "under a
grinding competition with bituminous coal. To accept a union
of United Mine Workers of America, in which the bituminous
workers were two to one, was, they believed, to render it
certain that on most issues the management of the union would
keep bituminous mines busy rather than anthracite." Further to
the fact that "anthracite mining varies greatly from mine to
mine, and a uniform ‘scale,’ as in bituminous mines, is
difficult." But, said he, "it cannot be impracticable, for
veins as narrow, tortuous and varying are mined under a
‘scale' in England." As for difficulties of concession on the
part of the mine-workers, this just analyzer of the conflict
described their division into three classes having different
and unequal footings in the industry. These were the miners
who break out or detach the coal in the mines; the laborers
whom the miners employ to load and remove what the latter
detach; and, finally, the men employed as mine bosses and to
operate engines and pumps. The miners are paid for the
quantity taken out; the laborers (who aspire to become miners)
receive wages for a ten hours day; the bosses and engineers
are employed by the year and have continuous work, because the
pumps cannot be stopped, whether mining goes on or not. These
three interests must be consolidated in a union of the
mine-workers if it is to have any effective strength; and this
raises knotty problems among them. The attitude of the
railroad managers and operators had prevented such a
consolidation, with bad results, in Dr. Williams’s opinion. As
he summed up the situation, it was this: "Had the miners’
union in the past eighteen months exerted the rigid discipline
of big well-managed unions, prevented small strikes, and
worked for a cheap output, it might have divided capital. But
it had not been ‘recognized.’ Therefore, its control was often
loose. Local unions irritated local operators. In the Reading
mines, the proportion of coal mined per miner fell one-eighth.
It is part of a bad system of over-manned mines under which
miners try to distribute work. Output was reduced and wages
increased. The result was that the miners were without the
responsible control of a big union, and the railroad managers
and operators irritated by small strikes and ready for a
fight."

In his conclusions this well-informed critic of the situation
justified the public feeling of the time which held the
capitalists of the controversy more accountable than the
laborers for the loss and suffering inflicted on the country.
He closed his article with these words:

"Under competition, the anthracite plant is one-half larger in
mines and one-half greater in labor than the utmost demand of
the public. Two-thirds of the mines and two-thirds of the men,
run more regularly and systematically, could in spite of the
lack of demand in summer, produce the coal cheaper and more
profitably, and at a higher individual aggregate average, even
if at a lower per diem or per ton than the present system.
{389}
What the anthracite coal industry really needs is a
reorganization like that after the London dock strike of 1889,
reducing the number of men but increasing work for each. As it
is, men who prefer working all the year to working two-thirds
of the year, and often half a day at that, have, by a natural
elimination, been weeded out steadily, and have left a large
share of men, bred to a habit of irregular work and short
hours. This one fact is at the bottom of much fitful
irregularity in the mines.

"The railroad managers, holding public franchises weighted by
public responsibilities, have clearly no right, as they have
all united in doing, to refuse all compromise, conciliation,
or adjustment, and simply stop work, letting the public pay
the cost in higher coal. They are bound either to reach an
adjustment themselves, to let some one else reach one for
them, or to reorganize the whole industry on a basis which
will reduce the material and moral waste of the present
system, where poor mines are worked and men are one-third of
the year idle even in a prosperous year."

The powers which controlled the mines did not, however, see
their duty to the public in this light, and the strike went
on. Before the summer ended the pinch of scarcity in the
supply of fuel to the country was being felt widely, in most
industries and in domestic life. The pinch increased, and the
price of coal went higher as cold weather came on. Control of
the rougher elements among the miners and mine laborers was
lost by their leaders, and rioting broke out, with dark
outrages of crime, calling for a strenuous employment of
militia and police. There were threatenings, too, of a
sympathetic strike of bituminous miners, which might easily
produce a fuel famine of frightful effect; but President
Mitchell and other intelligent leaders succeeded in persuading
the miners of the bituminous district that their best help to
the anthracite unions was by adhering to their yearly contract
and continuing the work which enabled them to contribute funds
to the support of the existing strike. In August they were
reported to be sending to the idle anthracite men no less than
$130,000 a week. With this and other help these seemed likely
to maintain their stand for months. By the first of October
the supply of anthracite coal was so meagre that "factory
managers were put to their wits’ end to get fuel enough at $15
or $20 a ton to keep their machinery running; whereas, in
normal times, their supplies had cost perhaps $3 a ton. The
great majority of the retail coal dealers were entirely sold
out, and for the poor who were obliged to buy in small
quantities the price had reached a cent a pound, or even more,
with prospect of a total cessation of the anthracite supply.
Soft coal was being largely substituted for hard coal; but it
also, in the East, had advanced 300 or 400 per cent. in price,
and it was not well adapted for chimneys, furnaces, stoves and
grates that had been constructed for anthracite. Furthermore,
the cessation of anthracite mining during that half of the
year in which the bulk of the winter’s supply is produced had
created a situation of scarcity that could not have been
wholly overtaken by the utmost effort to substitute the
bituminous article."

The situation was now so grave that the whole country was
demanding an intervention of government by some means to end
the obstinate dispute. The Federal Executive could find no
legal authority to act; but President Roosevelt determined to
bring the prestige and weight of his high office and of his
vigorous personality into an exercise of persuasive influence
in the case. He invited the representatives of both parties in
the conflict to meet him, and the meeting took place October
3d. In opening a discussion of the subject he disclaimed any
right or duty to intervene between them on legal grounds, but
said that "the urgency and the terrible nature of the
catastrophe impending over a large portion of our people " had
impelled him to think it incumbent on him to use such
influence as he could to "bring to an end a situation which
has become literally intolerable." "With all the earnestness
that is in me," he pleaded, "I ask that there be an immediate
resumption of operations in the coal mines in some such way as
will, without a day’s unnecessary delay, meet the crying needs
of the people. I do not invite a discussion of your respective
claims and positions. I appeal to your patriotism, to the
spirit that sinks personal considerations and makes individual
sacrifices for the general good." Mr. Mitchell then spoke
briefly, saying that he and his associates did not feel that
they were responsible for "this terrible state of affairs";
and he made the following proposition; "We are willing to meet
the gentlemen representing the coal operators to try to adjust
our differences among ourselves. If we cannot adjust them that
way, Mr. President, we are willing that you shall name a
tribunal who shall determine the issues that have resulted in
the strike; and if the gentlemen representing the operators
will accept the award or decision of such a tribunal, the
miners will willingly accept it, even if it is against their
claims."

To say that the President’s appeal and Mr. Mitchell’s proposal
of arbitration had an arrogant response from the chiefs of the
coal monopoly is to speak mildly of the spirit and language of
their replies. "I now ask you," said one of them, "to perform
the duties vested in you as President of these United States
and to at once squelch the anarchistic condition of affairs in
the coal region by the strong arm of the military at your
command." "The duty of the hour," cried another dictatorially,
"is not to waste time negotiating with the fomenters of this
anarchy and insolent defiance of law, but to do as was done in
the War of the Rebellion—restore the majesty of the law."
With one consent they rejected the proposal of arbitration
with scornful defiance, and the meeting broke up without
result.

But, behind the men in immediate command of the railway and
the mining companies there was a bigger-brained financial
power that could comprehend, as they could not, the
recklessness of so arrogant a challenge, which went straight
past the miners and the President of the United States to a
suffering public. As the captain of that force, Mr. J.
Pierpont Morgan took the business in hand, and, after a
conference with Secretary Root and some talk with railway
presidents, brought the latter to a different state of mind.
On the 13th of October he went to Washington with the proposal
of a Commission, to be appointed by the President, to which
the companies were willing that "all questions between the
respective companies and their own employés" should be
referred.
{390}
"The Commission to be constituted as follows:

(1) An officer of the Engineer Corps of either the military or
naval service of the United States;

(2) an expert mining engineer, experienced in the mining of
coal and other minerals, and not in any way connected with
coal-mining properties, either anthracite or bituminous;

(3) one of the judges of the United States courts of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania;

(4) a man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist;

(5) a man who by active participation in mining and selling
coal is familiar with the physical and commercial features of
the business."