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mere fact that he earns more is a presumption that he has larger resources in the way of savings, so that a strike of a certain duration really causes him less hardship, to say nothing of the aid which he is more apt to receive from his union. The highly paid laborer being, moreover, more apt to be organized and confident of his strength, is perhaps more apt to strike with a comparatively slight provocation. On this point there is room for a difference of opinion, but enough has been said to show that the amount lost by the wage-receivers is an unsafe indication of the seriousness of a labor crisis. The fact is that no single series of figures seems to give us just what we want.

If the labor department published them, the figures showing the number of labor days lost in the aggregate would probably be the best single index of the severity of a strike, because those figures would combine the number of people out of employment with the duration of the strike, but those figures unfortunately are not given by the reports. I have therefore resorted to an artificial gauge, taking for each year the number of persons striking and multiplying that by the average duration of each strike. If each of the strikes involved exactly the same number of men, this would give us what we are looking for, namely, the number of days lost by strikes in the aggregate; but inasmuch as the short strikes may involve a large number of men, and the long strikes a small number, we cannot be confident that the product will indicate the number of days lost. Our index number is, therefore, a purely artificial figure, but it has the advantage of combining two of the most essential elements in labor crises, namely, the number of people who stop work and the length of time during which work is stopped in the average strike. The lockout must also be taken into consideration. Indeed the dividing line between the two is often a difficult one to establish, and is disputed. Men who want to strike may perhaps force their employer to lock them out in order to put the responsibility for the disturbance upon him, and the difference between the two is simply that in one case the wage-receivers take the initiative in order to gain a point, and in the other, the employer. Lockouts are on the whole much less numerous than strikes and involve less loss, but to

get a figure showing as completely as possible the intensity of labor crises, I have multiplied the number of strikes for each year with the average duration of the strike; I have likewise multiplied the number of persons locked out with the average duration of the lockout, and by adding these two products together, have obtained an index number for the years 1881 to 1894, the only years for which we have detailed figures in the reports of the Labor Department. For the earlier period we must fall back upon the rougher indications which history gives us. Let us first, therefore, look at the general features only of the whole period from 1827 to 1894, and then examine in more detail the latter part of that period.

Well-defined commercial crises occurred in the United States in the years 1819, 1837, 1839, 1857, 1873, 1884 and 1893. The earlier labor crises cannot be fixed so confidently. There is no doubt that there was a great deal of agitation in the ranks of labor during the years 1834-35. There was also considerable agitation in the years 1847, 1848 and 1850. The facts at our command are not sufficient to indicate whether there was what could properly be called a labor crisis during that period, but a great many powerful unions were formed shortly after 1850, and there were many strikes at that time. In the years 1858, 1859 and 1860, we have more definite evidence of a number of strikes inaugurated in order to restore wages after the reduction of prices which occurred in 1857. In the years 1862 and 1863 there were many strikes for an increase of wages on account of the inflated prices of the war. Well-defined labor crises occurred in 1877, in 1886 and in 1894. Our evidence does not show whether or not there was any connection between the labor disturbances of 1834 and 1835 and commercial disturbances. The movements from 1858-1860 did, however, stand in a direct causal relation to the crisis of 1857. In 1877 the most notable feature was the strike on the Pennsylvania Railroad system, with rioting and bloodshed at Pittsburgh. This strike was precipitated by the reduction of wages made by the Pennsylvania Railroad and by the order of that company to run what were called double-headers, long trains of cars with two locomotives, requiring one half the number of conductors and train hands

that two trains would have required. This order was caused by the falling off of traffic due to the commercial crisis of 1873 and had been preceded by a general reduction of wages. The most violent outbreaks in 1886 center about the Texas Pacific Railway, which had failed and was in the hands of a receiver, and were also due to a reduction of wages following the commercial crisis of 1884. Finally the great Chicago strike of 1894 was precipitated by a reduction of wages in the car manufacturing departments of the Pullman Co., and this was caused by the falling off in prices consequent upon the commercial crisis of 1893. In the case, therefore, of four such crises we can trace a very direct connection between the commercial crisis and the labor crisis.

If we look with more care at the diagram on page 191, we find that the parallelism extends even further. Not only is there a correspondence between the maxima of commercial failures and of strikes in the diagram, but there is also a fairly close correspondence between the lines in the intervals. The smaller maxima of commercial failures correspond fairly well with the smaller maxima of labor disturbances. We might be inclined, if we looked simply at these facts, to infer that the commercial crisis was the direct cause of the labor crisis, and that when a commercial failure led employers to economize, this produced strikes and difficulties. It can be shown that on three occasions some of the most prominent strikes were directly caused by such an attempt at economy. But closer study into the valuable and detailed statistics collected by the Department of Labor requires us to materially modify this hypothesis. For if we look into the question of causes we shall find that the full figures do not warrant such a generalization.

The study of these causes is, to be sure, beset with many difficulties. No less than 574 different causes are enumerated in the tables printed in the last report, and these are of the most varied nature. Often two or more causes are combined in a strike and it is very common to find strikes caused by what at first sight seem to be contradictory reasons. Nevertheless it does not seem hopeless to get some generalizations out of this mass of details. For it appears that, numerous as these causes

are, the seventeen leading causes supplied in the first enumeration over ninety per cent. of the totals and in the second enumeration eighty-one per cent. (Report for 1894, page 29.) Of these seventeen, again, there were three or four which far outranked all the others. And finally, by grouping the minor causes with these greater ones according to certain fundamental characteristics, we can reduce a very complex picture to a comparatively simple one.

In order to accomplish this I have first of all added together for each year those causes which involve a desire for a betterment in the condition of the laborer, such as larger pay or shorter hours, or lower prices for materials used, or some other advantage. In the second group I have placed all those which involve resistance to an attempt at economy on the part of the employer. The principal of these is a reduction of wages or an increase in the hours, but numerous minor causes group themselves under this one head. In the third class I have put the sympathetic strike, and in the fourth miscellaneous causes. The most important of these miscellaneous causes is usually a demand for recognition of the union or something similar, and while there are sporadic cases which cannot come fairly under this head, we shall not be far from the truth in assuming that most of these miscellaneous causes involve a demand for power, rather than a demand for a direct pecuniary advantage or a resistance to a direct pecuniary loss. I have given a special place to the sympathetic strike on account of its growing importance in recent times.

Now if we look at these causes as tabulated on page 193, we shall find that, taking the whole period together from 1881 to 1894, a large majority of strikes involve a demand for better terms on the part of the men rather than a resistance to economies. In the crisis year 1886, out of a total of 9,861, 8,251 involved a demand for an increase in wages, a reduction of hours, or something similar, and only 427 involved a resistance to economies. In the crisis year 1894, there was a decided falling off as compared with previous years in the strikes caused by a demand for better terms, the number having fallen from 4,138 in 1887 to 661 in 1894. There had also been an increase

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