The system is worse here [probably Lynn] than elsewhere, because machinery has been more thoroughly introduced. ''1o Wages were low as well as irregular. The testimony before the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor showed that the majority of shoeworkers were on the margin of dependence and that it was "impossible to buy a home since the factory system came in." 11 Similar conditions obtained in Baltimore,12 Chicago and San Francisco.13 The Hide and Leather Interest, in June, 1869, described the situation as follows:14 "We know full well that the boot and shoe workmen as a class are, and have been for several years, suffering at certain seasons of the year from a lack of steady employment, and from a rate of wages that can scarcely be called remunerative. That their condition is one that calls for relief, no one that is acquainted with it will deny; a few individuals, favored by peculiar circumstances, have been able to earn at times four, five, and six dollars per day; but for every one who has earned four dollars per day, there have been ten equally deserving workmen who earned less than half that sum. We know of towns where improved tools and the gang system have not been introduced, where intelligent American workmen are unable to earn by twelve hours' labor more than $1.50 per day. Ten years ago, the shoemakers of New England, as a class, were well fed, well clothed, well housed, and had their pockets well supplied with spending money; now they have less surplus money, are more poorly clothed, and are crowding themselves into smaller tenements, while many of them who formerly saw meat and butter daily upon their tables now see those articles there but seldom. During these ten years, their food and family supplies have nearly doubled in prices, while the wages have increased but half. This may be seen by the following figures gathered from shoe manufacturing towns in Massachusetts. 10 The working seasons under the hand work system were from February 1 to December 1, with a heavier rush in the early spring, and from August to October. Different scales of wages were paid on the spring and fall work with an extra cut for the dullness of the season during the summer. Under the factory system a longer winter period of unemployment was followed by a spring rush, summer unemployment and a fall rush. Massachusetts Statistics of Labor, Report 1871, p. 243. "Id. p. 245, 246, 612, and many other places. 13 Workingmen's Advocate, Feb. 5, 1870. 13 Same as above, June 12, 1869. 14 Quoted, American Workman, July 3, 1869. Taking all the articles needed by the shoemaker to support himself and family, and comparing their present prices with the prices of them in 1858, we find the advance is about ninety per cent. In the same section, and during the same period, the advance in the shoemaker's wages have been as follows: 1858-Wages for cutters and shop hands, $1.50 to $2.25. Average $1.75. 1868-Wages for cutters and shop hands, $2.00 to $3.25. Average $2.62. Increase per day 87 cents. day 87 cents. Thus the increase of wages is fifty per cent or half as much more than the wages earned in 1858. The earnings of the bottomers and other hands have only increased about the same proportion. 9915 The shoe industry at the end of the war was evidently in a most chaotic condition. Hand and machine labor were competing fiercely for the market; an oversupply of labor was seeking employment. Markets were lessened though factories had become larger and more numerous. Unskilled labor was on the machines. Wages were low and falling, employment irregular and uncertain. Large manufacturers were reducing wages to increase their competitive advantage, small manufacturers to save themselves from bankruptcy. Out of the chaos came the Knights of St. Crispin, the protest of fifty thousand shoemakers against their unfortunate situation. 15 Endorsed by Samuel P. Cummings, Grand Scribe of the Knights of St. Crispin 1871-2, in an article commenting upon the one from which the above is quoted. American Workman, July 3, 1869. CHAPTER IV THE RELATION OF THE KNIGHTS OF ST. CRISPIN TO THE INDUSTRIAL CHANGES THAT ACCOMPANIED THE CIVIL WAR The last chapter showed that the journeymen were affected in three ways by the rapid introduction of factories during the Civil War, namely, reduced wages, a shortened working year, and difficulty in obtaining employment. Newell Daniels found the essential cause of this situation to be the employment of the unskilled, or "green hands", in the factories. They reduced the level of competition, crowded the factories during the rush season, and made employment difficult to secure during the dull season. The remedy, he decided, had to be a national union. that would not allow "anyone to learn new hands without the consent of the organization." 1 This diagnosis was the foundation stone of the Knights of St. Crispin. Upon it was built the structure of the order's organization, purposes, and methods. According to it was directed the order's policies. Its acceptance was the "Open Sesame" to membership. The Crispins did not direct their attack against the factory system, but against the green hands. They discriminated between the machine and the unskilled laborer operating it. The one they accepted; the other they resisted. And this, as Daniels well knew, was the only policy restricting machinery that public opinion would have tolerated.2 An attempt to prevent the 1 K. O. S. C., Monthly Journal, Jan. 1872. Article by Newell Daniels. 2 It is not likely that Daniels himself would have countenanced an attempt to prevent the use of machinery. Mr. H. L. Atkins of Madison, Wis., in whose factory at Milwaukee Daniels founded the K. O. S. C.. said of Daniels during a personal conversation with the writer, "He was a large souled man and would not have countenanced any opposition to machinery. When he came from the East, he had a strong feeling that somehow wealth was not being distributed as use of new machinery would have brought upon the organization a storm of public indignation. But the policy of the national organization did not prevent many local lodges from opposing machinery. Their freedom of action in everything but adherence to the "green hand" principle enabled them to adopt many policies locally that were not recognized by the order nationally. At North Adams the Crispins made it cost a manufacturer more to use a lasting machine than to last by hand, and when the pegging machine was introduced two-thirds of them quit. So popular was this opposition to machinery with some lodges that members made it a platform upon which to run for office.* These efforts of local lodges led to the charge made by manufacturers that the national organization was opposed to machinery. The Hide and Leather Interest of May, 1869, contained the following: "They [the Crispins] have endeavored, through paragraphs in sundry papers, to show that they are not opposed to the introduction of new machinery, knowing the prejudicial effect that the admission of such a fact would have upon the minds of the public; but when they make such a statement they state what! they know to he absolutely false. It is only a short time since they refused to allow a new lasting machine that was admirably fitted for the purpose for which it was intended to be used, and this refusal was given by authorities of the order, who declined to allow it to be worked at all." 5 it ought to be. The only means he knew of getting a more equitable distribution was by such an order as the Knights of St. Crispin, which would limit the supply of labor." It should be said in defense of the Crispins that in this particular case two-thirds of the men were French Canadians and did not represent the best type of Crispins, while the manufacturer, Mr. Sampson, was one of the most aggressive and quarrelsome employers in the State of Massachusetts. One of his foremen said of him before the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor: (Massachusetts Statistics of Labor, Report 1871, p. 98.) "Mr. Sampson never kept a bar. gain with me that he ever made," while one of his friends, a manufacturer, told me in a personal conversation that he was a very aggressive and quarrelsome fellow. "Speaking of dishonest conniving in locals." McLaughlin said in 1870, "T actually know of where the question of opposing the use of machinery has come up 3 or 4 different times just before an election, and it has been used as a lever to hoist them into office, or keep them in for another term." Proceedings, 1870, p. 10. Quoted, American Workman, May 29, 1869. In reply to such charges the organization again and again passed resolutions deprecating all resistance to machinery. The expression of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge in 1869 is typical: "Resolved, That we do not oppose the introduction of ma chinery that lightens human toil, or cheapens production, as we believe that just in proportion as the comforts or luxuries of life are cheapened, they are brought more readily within the reach of the laboring classes; and we therefore repel the oft-repeated charges of hostility to labor-saving machinery as the offspring of hostility and ignorance on the part of those who make them, and unjustified by anything done by the order as a whole, or within the scope of its principles and purposes. A similar resolution met unanimous support at the Interna tional Grand Lodge meeting a month earlier. The views of the Crispins as a whole on the machinery question are probably expressed more correctly by the views of their leader, William J. McLaughlin, than by the actions of such locals as that of North Adams. He said, 8 "In the cutting up of the trades and the introduction of new and useful machinery our employers have stolen nearly all the advantages arising from them, so that in place of their being a great blessing to the toiling men, women and children of the land, they have used them as engines of oppression, in keeping the people in subjection, so that by their degradation they might be able to promote their own greatness." " The burden of emphasis in this statement is significant. It is not upon the fact that machinery had been introduced, but upon the fact that the employers had "stolen" all the advan-. tages of it by seizing for themselves both the savings due to its productive power and an increment from the wages of their employees. This had been accomplished very largely through the employment of green hands rather than journeymen in the factories.10 Same as above, May 22, 1869. Grand Sir Knight (President) of the National Lodge. Proceedings, 1870, p. 13. 10 It is worthy of notice that shoe machinery did not injure the journeymen by substituting female or child labor. Though many women and children were employed in the factories it was upon the same parts of the work as they had |