The United States Since the Civil War

by Charles Ramsdell Lingley

[8] Cf. below, p. 387 ff. Hawaii was brought into the Union as a territory in 1900.

CHAPTER XIV

THE RISE OF THE WAGE EARNER

In their handling of the labor problem, the governments of the states and the nation showed greater ignorance and less foresight than characterized their treatment of any of the other issues of the quarter century following the Civil War. Yet the building of the railroads and their consolidation into great systems, the development of manufacturing and its concentration into large concerns, and the growth of an army of wage earners brought about a problem of such size and complexity as to demand all the information and vision that the country could muster.

The phenomenal accumulation of wealth in the fields of mining, transportation and manufacturing which characterized the new industrial America formed the basis of a powerful propertied class. Some of the wealth was amassed by such unscrupulous methods as those which caused the popular demand for government regulation of the railroads and trusts. The prizes of success were big. The men who made their way to the top—men like Gould, Fisk, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and Carnegie—were pioneers whose courage, foresight, and daring were combined with sufficient ruthlessness to enable them to triumph where others failed. A few of them, like Carnegie, had some slight conception of the meaning of the labor problem; most of them did not. Linked to the industrial pioneer by community of interest was the holder of the war bonds of the federal government. These securities were purchased with depreciated paper currency but increased very greatly in value after the successful outcome of the struggle, and formed an investment whose value it is extremely difficult to estimate. The owners of the stocks and bonds of the railroads and manufacturing combinations further swelled the ranks of the propertied class. Stability, continuous business and large earnings were the immediate considerations to this group. Anything which interfered was, naturally, a thing to be fought. Never before, unless in the South in slavery days, had a more powerful social class existed in the United States. A large fraction of the group was composed of men who had risen from poverty to wealth in a short time. From one point of view such a man is a "self-made" man, industrious, frugal, able, energetic, bold. From another point of view he is a parvenu, narrow, overbearing, ostentatious, proud, conceited, uncultivated. The relatively small size of the propertied class and an obvious community of interest tended to make its members reach a class consciousness even during the Civil War. The success of the group in preventing all tariff reduction after 1865 was a striking example of the solidarity of its membership and its readiness for action.

Class consciousness among the wage earners developed much more slowly, and in the nature of things was much less definite. Nevertheless the history of the industrial turmoil of the quarter century after the Civil War is the history of a class groping for political, social and economic recognition.

At the close of the war the labor situation was confused and complicated. A million and a half of men in the North and South had to be readmitted to the ranks of industry. Approximately another million had died or been more or less disabled during the conflict. A stream of immigrants, already large and constantly increasing, was pouring into the North and seeking a means of livelihood. As has been seen, most of these settled in the manufacturing and mining sections of the northern and eastern states, helped to crowd the cities, and overflowed into the fertile, free lands of the mid-West. Nearly 800,000 of them reached the United States in one year, 1882. Most of them were men—an overwhelming portion of them men of working age, unskilled, frequently illiterate and hence compelled to seek employment in a relatively small number of occupations. Both the chances of unemployment and the danger of a lowered standard of living were increased by the immigrants.

The greater use of machinery during the progress of the war has already been alluded to, but some of its results demand further mention.[1] Most evident was the huge increase in the volume and value of the products of the factories. The labor of a single worker increased in effectiveness many times; in other words, the labor cost of a unit of production greatly diminished with the improvement of mechanical devices. The labor cost of making nails by hand in 1813 was seventy fold the cost of making them by machinery in 1899; loading ore by hand was seventy-three times as expensive in 1891 as machine loading was in 1896. Increased production encouraged greater consumption, enhanced competition for markets, and opened the world to the products of American labor. Moreover, the introduction of machinery emphasized the importance of capital. When iron was rolled by hand, when cloth was produced by the use of the spinning wheel and hand-loom, when fields were tilled by inexpensive plow and hoe, relatively small amounts of capital were needed by the man who started in to work. Mechanical inventions revolutionized the situation. A costly power-loom enabled its owner to eliminate handworking competitors. If a workman could raise sufficient money or credit to purchase a supply of machines he could "set up in business," employ a number of "hands" and merely direct or manage the enterprise. Under such a system the employer must make enough profit to pay interest on his investment and to repair and replace his equipment. His attention was fixed on these elements of his industrial problem and the well-being of the laborer sank to a lower plane of importance. If the employer found the labor supply plentiful he had the upper hand in setting the wage-scale; the unorganized employee was almost completely at his mercy, because the employer could find another workman more easily than the workman could find another job. Meanwhile the workman knew the increased product which he was turning out, and became discontented because he did not see a corresponding increase in his remuneration.

From about 1830, when the rapid development of the use of mechanical appliances began, to the late eighties and early nineties when the new regime was meeting its sternest conflicts in the trust problem and the militant labor unions, the army of the wage earner was growing faster than the population. Between 1870 and 1890, for example, the population increased 63 per cent., while the number of laborers engaged in manufacturing increased nearly 130 per cent. By the latter year, 6,099,058 persons, about a tenth of the total population, were employed in transportation, mining and manufacturing.

It was noticeable, also, that the wage earners tended to concentrate. The laborers engaged in manufacturing were to be found, for the most part, in the Northeast, and especially in such leading industrial cities as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. Furthermore, the development of the factory system and the consolidation of many small companies into a few great ones tended to localize the labor problem still further—in a relatively small number of plants. The concentration of industry in great factories where large numbers of workers labored side by side ended the paternal care which the old-time employer had expended upon his employees. With the introduction of machinery, the danger of accidents due to the ignorance or carelessness of fellow workmen increased. The use of mechanical appliances also gave opportunity for the employment of women and children, and thus raised the question whether any restrictions ought to be placed upon the employment of these classes of people. The construction of factories, their ventilation, sanitary appliances, and safe-guards for health and comfort became subjects of importance.