THE GREAT LABOR MOVEMENT OF 1886
Now, to the intense alarm of all sections of the capitalist class, a very different quality of movement reared itself upward from the deeps of the social formation. [Footnote: It may be asked why an extended description of this movement is interposed here. Because, inasmuch as it is a part of the plan of this work to present a constant succession of contrasts, this is, perhaps, as appropriate a place as any to give an account of the highly important labor movement of 1886. Of course, it will be understood that this movement was not the result of any one capitalist fortune or process, but was a general revolt to compel all forms of capitalist control to concede better conditions to the workers.]
This time it was the laboring masses preparing for the most vigorous and comprehensive attack that they had ever made upon capitalism's intrenchments. Long exploited, oppressed and betrayed, starved or clubbed into intervals of apathy or submission, they were again in motion, moving forward with a set deliberation and determination which disconcerted the capitalist class. No mere local conflict of class interests was it on this occasion, but a general cohesive revolt of the workers against some of the conditions and laws under which they had to labor.
In 1884 the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada had issued a manifesto calling upon all trades to unite in the demand for an eight-hour workday. The date for a general strike was finally fixed for May 1, 1886. The year 1886, therefore, was one of general agitation throughout the United States. With rapidity and enthusiasm the movement spread. Presently it took on a radical character. Realizing it to be at basis the first national awakening of the proletariat, progressive men and women of every shade of opinion hastened forward to support it and direct it into one of opposition, not merely to a few of the evils of wage slavery, but to what they considered the fundamental cause itself—the capitalist system.
The propertied classes were not deceived. They knew that while this labor movement nominally confined itself to one for a shorter workday, yet its impetus was such that it contained the fullest potentialities for developing into a mighty uprising against the very system by which they were enabled to enrich themselves and enslave the masses.
The moment this fact was discerned, both great and small capitalists instinctively suspended hostilities. They tacitly agreed to hold their bitter warfare for supremacy in abeyance, and unite in the face of their common danger. The triangular conflict between the large and small capitalists and the trades unions now resolved into a duel between the propertied classes of all descriptions on the one hand, and, on the other, the workingmen's organizations. The Farmers' Alliance, essentially a middle-class movement of the employing farmers in the South and West, was counted upon as aligned with the propertied classes. On the part of the capitalists there was no unity of organization in the sense of selected leaders or committees. It was not necessary. A stronger bond than that of formal organization drove them into acting in conscious unison—namely, the immediate peril involved to their property interests. Apprehension soon gave way to grim decision. This formidable labor movement had to be broken and dispersed at any cost.
But how was the work of destruction to be done? This was the predicament. Vested wealth could succeed in bribing a labor leader here and there; but the movement had bounded far beyond the elemental stage, and had become a glowing agitation which no traitor or set of traitors could have stopped.
One effective way of discrediting and suppressing it there was; the ancient one of virtually outlawing it, and throwing against it the whole brute force of Government. The task of putting it down was preŽminently one for the police, army and judiciary. They had been used to stifle many another protest of the workers; why not this? As the great labor movement rolled on, enlisting the ardent attachment of the masses, denouncing the injustices, corruption and robberies of the existing industrial system, the propertied classes more acutely understood that they must hasten to stamp it out by whatever means. The municipal and State governments and the National Government, completely representing their interests and ideas, and dominated by them, stood ready to use force. But there had to be some kind of pretext. The hosts of labor were acting peacefully and with remarkable self control and discipline.
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