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

in the number of strikes caused by a resistance to economies, this number being 895 as compared with 571 in 1887. This year was also the only one of the series in which the strikes caused by a demand for better terms were less numerous than those caused by a resistance to economies, but in that same year we find sympathetic strikes assuming large proportions, there being no less than 1,507, while the strikes caused by miscellaneous motives rose to 2,191. So that, even in that year directly following the commercial crisis, the number of strikes caused by a resistance to economies numbered only a little more than one-sixth of the total number of strikes. The figures, therefore, do not show that in the years of crisis thus far investigated the principal or even a very important cause of the strikes was to be found in a cutting down of expenses by the employers. It is true that in some cases the demand for an advance in wages may simply be a demand for the restoration of wages recently reduced. But our statistics do not enable us to trace such

cases.

Another curious fact follows from the figures. Not only have the strikes which aimed at resisting economies had less chance, on the average, of success than those which aimed to secure advantages, but their lack of success has been conspicuous in the years of crisis. In 1894 about two-thirds of the strikes caused by a demand for higher wages succeeded more or less, while more than two-thirds of those caused by a resistance to economies failed completely. These figures indicate that we are dealing with a phenomenon which has not a single but several causes, and that, while the economies necessitated by a commercial crisis cause a part of the strikes, and have been conspicuous in some very notable cases involving riot and violence, taking the strikes altogether, they play a comparatively small part.

This can best be explained on the theory that during the period investigated there were certain tendencies which operated steadily to improve the condition of the laboring man. Whether these were general economic causes, such as increased control of man over nature due to improved processes, new discoveries, etc., or whether they were due to the direct efforts

of the leaders of organized labor, is not easy to decide. The general economic causes are probably the most steady and have tended to raise wages during the period under review. Labor agitation as a cause of strikes operates spasmodically. It will be noticed that the men and the organizations which are prominent in one crisis are seldom prominent in another one. Many people have already forgotten the name of Martin Irons, who played such a part in the disturbance of 1886. Even Powderly has almost passed into history, while I doubt if any reader of the YALE REVIEW recalls the name of the leader of the Pittsburgh strike of 1877. Yet for several days Boss Ammon, a brakeman of eleven months experience, successfully ran the Pittsburgh division of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, & Chicago Railroad, and when Gov. Hartranft started back from the West to Pittsburgh in order to try to restore order, Ammon telegraphed him, welcoming him to the State and assuring him a safe passage.1 The movement of organized labor seems to go through a certain cycle, which, although influenced considerably by outside causes, has also a certain period of its own. If a certain set of men start a successful labor movement, they may carry it on for a time, but entirely apart from the depression produced by hard times, are apt to lose their influence and go out of power, and thus the movement they inaugurated is checked, until a new set of men come to the front to take their places and renew the agitation.

The following may be set forth as a tentative hypothesis based upon the facts considered above. The labor crisis is not the result of a single cause, but depends for its recurrence and its character upon three main forces, two of which may be considered to be cyclical, the third constant. The two former are the commercial crisis and the labor movement. The constant force is the general economic condition of the country. Of these three the commercial crisis is probably the most potent.

In times of general prosperity there is a demand for labor, employment is abundant, and wages tend either to go up, if the general economic tendency is upward, or at least not to go down, if the general economic tendency is downward. If now a

1 Report of Pittsburgh Riots, 1878, page 22.