Massachusetts' Crispins alone claimed that many.18 The New York Tribune declared in May 1869 that there were then eighteen thousand Crispins in and around New York and fifty thousand in the United States.17 The organization's records show that about four hundred lodges were established, many of which had over six hundred members, 18 and some over a thousand. Unity Lodge of Lynn had over twelve hundred1 and a Philadelphia lodge over fifteen hundred members. This would indicate that Foster's estimate was a little too low. Even if the maximum number of active lodges never exceeded two hundred and fifty and their membership averaged only two hundred the enrollment would have been fifty thousand. This was the largest membership attained by any American labor union before 1875. The coopers and cigarmakers in 1871 and 1872 had but twelve thousand members each, the machinists and blacksmiths together but eighteen thousand. The miners, the first union to equal the Crispins in numbers, reached the forty thousand mark in 1875. The greatest strength of the Knights of St. Crispin was attained between April, 1868, and April, 1871. In this period they won a large proportion of their strikes, successfully resisted many hostile moves on the part of their employers and obtained for themselves the best wages that they had had since the war. Foster speaks of them as being at this time the most powerful labor organization in the world,20 while the editor of 18 American Workman, March 5, 1870. 17 American Workman, May 29, 1869. 18 Proceedings, 1872. 19 Workingman's Advocate, March 30, 1872. 20 "For five subsequent years after the Rochester session of 1868, the Order of the K. O. S. C. was a power in the land. It made and unmade politicians; it established a monthly journal; it started coöperative stores; it fought, often successfully, against threatened reductions of wages and for better returns to its members for labor performed; it grew rapidly in numbers and became international in scope; it is estimated that 400 lodges and 40,000 members at one time owed it allegiance; it became the undoubted foremost trade organization of the world." McNeill, G. E. The Labor Movement, p. 200. "The K. O. S. C. is one of the most powerful trade organizations in this country. Although but about eighteen months in existence, the several Lodges in the Eastern, Western, and Southern States number, in the aggregate about fifty thousand men, of which there are about eighteen thousand in this city and vicinity." New York Tribune, quoted, American Workman, May 29, 1869. the Hide and Leather Interest, an employers' paper, wrote in May, 1869: "It is well known that the Crispins number from thirty thousand to sixty thousand-we cannot give the exact figures-and have the most perfect organization that it is possible for a trade society to have, its ramifications extending all over the country, the Crispins of Chicago and San Francisco working in perfect harmony with those of Massachusetts." Speaking of a strike then waged in Chicago, he continued: "As soon as the Crispins of Chicago have got things as they want, they will, of course, be in a position to aid those of Massachusetts and then the employers will find out the policy of being beaten in detail." The editor urged the employers to form a national organization against the Crispins and to import Chinese, French, FrenchCanadians, Swedes, Germans, or other foreigners as strike breakers.2 21 The decline of the Crispins began in 1871, and it was particularly rapid after the crushing defeat of the Lynn lodges in 1872. Throughout the country growth was hindered from the first by rash strikes, and in some sections, especially Maine and Canada, many lodges were in precarious condition as early as the spring of 1870.22 The discussion at the Grand Lodge of 1870 showed much dissatisfaction, and in 1871 the officers were changed. William J. McLaughlin, of Ashland, Massachusetts, who had been International Grand Sir Knight since his election at the first Grand Lodge, June, 1868, was replaced by Thomas Ryan of New York, and Newell Daniels, Grand Scribe since March 1, 1867, was succeeded by Samuel P. Cummings of Lynn, Massachusetts. The changes were very unfortunate. Ryan, on charges preferred by Lodge No. 69, of New York, at the session. of 1872 was deposed from his office and expelled from the Grand Lodge, while Cummings was denounced by John Dormer of St. Louis, Missouri, for neglect of duty because he had not sent out his quarterly reports. Cummings said in defence of himself that if he had sent out his quarterly reports, the order would have been so discouraged that it certainly would have disbanded in despair. The membership had fallen to about thirteen 21 American Workman, June 5, 1869. 22 Proceedings, 1870, p. 19. 23 thousand, and the attendance at the Grand Lodge had fallen from one hundred and thirty-three lodges in 1869 to only fiftytwo in 1872.24 The officers were again changed in 1872. James R. Wright, of Baltimore, Maryland, was elected International Grand Sir Knight, and M. P. Murphy International Grand Scribe. Their administration failed equally with the others to stem the ebbing tide. Dissatisfaction, insubordination and dissension continued to increase until the sixth annual session (Cleveland, June 1873) "revealed a deplorable spirit of discord and distrust existing in the organization." The convention vainly tried to find means of holding the order together. Delegates proposed coöperation, arbitration, and other plans for unification, but nothing adequate could be discovered. The subsequent year witnessed rapid decay, and when the seventh Grand Lodge met at Philadelphia in June 1874, the few delegates who were present attended, as one of them told Frank Foster, "the funeral of the K. O. S. C.''2 7725 Between 1874 and 1878 a desultory struggle was maintained. In 1875 G. B. Scully, of Lynn, Massachusetts, made a vigorous effort to revive the order, and succeeded after a year's hard work in reestablishing it in about thirty towns, mostly in Massachusetts.26 The movement was strong enough to defeat an iron-clad" contract proposed by the Lynn manufacturers in 1877 and aroused the hopes of many that the Knights of St. Crispin would be restored to their earlier power. Mr. Charles Litchman, Grand Scribe, wrote to the Workingman's Advocate of Chicago in Oct. 1877. "We seem to be upon the eve of the immediate reorganization of our craft throughout America. Our International Lodge is in grand condition financially, every debt being paid, or what is equivalent, money enough in the treasurer's hands to pay all outstanding bills. The per capita tax for this quarter is only one half of what it was last quarter, and will provide ample funds for the expenses of the next three months. New lodges are constantly being re 23 Proceedings, 1872, p. 17. Proceedings, 1869, pp. 31, 32; id. 1872, pp. 47, 48. 20 Chapter VII is a detailed discussion of this movement. organized outside of this state. All, therefore, that is necessary to make secure this success seemingly within our reach is a little earnestness among the lodges already organized in Massachusetts, and the arousing of the towns not yet with us." The attempt to revive the order did not, however, attain any considerable success. Something over thirty lodges were established and a few thousand members enrolled, but hardly any influence was obtained outside of Massachusetts. Only twenty-four delegates attended the convention of 1878, twentytwo of whom were from thirteen Massachusetts towns, and the other two from Chicago and Rochester. Many causes contributed both to the rise and the fall of the Knights of St. Crispin. The order was the product and the victim of complex industrial forces. Changes in markets, in mechanical methods, in the organization of industry, and in the supply of labor, all played their part in inciting its formation and undermining its power. These changes and their effects form the subject of the succeeding chapters. CHAPTER II INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION AND METHODS OF MANUFACTURE 1860-1872 Business organization and methods of manufacture in the shoe industry at the outbreak of the Civil War differed only in minor details from those of twenty years before. From the standpoint of the labor movement, five types of establishments were engaged in manufacture; custom, custom-retail, sale, "garret" (sweat shop), and merchant capitalist. The early sixties added the factory. The custom shops had their origin in the eighteenth century when father and son, with perhaps an apprentice or journeyman, pursued their labors in a shop not much larger than an ordinary hen-coop, with a chimney in one corner and a cutting board in another. When a sufficient number of pairs were completed, the boss trudged off to Boston with them in a bag on his shoulders, and sold them either to individual customers, who had left orders, or to merchants. The accumulation of a little capital enabled the boss to employ three or four journeymen, establish a shop outside his home, and develop a regular custom trade. 2 Except for the use of simple hand and foot-power devices, the manufacturing in these shops was entirely done by hand. The uppers were cut and sent out to women in their homes to stitch and bind, except in the case of such heavy work as the rivermen's boots made at Milwaukee and Chicago. On these 1 The custom, sale and garret shops might be considered by those interested only in manufacturing methods as but one type. The best exposition of the historical development of the various kinds of shops is that by Professor John R. Commons in "American Shoemakers, A Sketch of Industrial Evolution," Quar. Jour. Econ., Nov. 1909. 2 Lynn Record, Feb. 1, 1837. |