and the best paid English labor in the mills?[1] I heard no bitterer outbursts there than between members of these two groups. If this antagonism asserts itself when the difference in wages is less than fifty per cent, what must it be between those separated by three or four hundred per cent?
In 1880, the rents in the K. of L. organization were so threatening that the propensity to strike was acknowledged by the ablest leaders to be so perilous as to require immediate attention. Two years later these men ask that the Constitution be thoroughly overhauled. Schism was rife. Threats of withdrawal came in from all quarters. Though the radical element prevailed at this moment, it brought from Grand Master Powderly the following warning, which reads precisely like warnings which began to be heard in France two years ago. Powderly said:
One cause for the tidal wave of strikes that has swept over our Order comes from the exaggerated reports of the strength of the Order, numerically and financially, given by many of our organizers. Such a course may lead men into the Order, but by a path that leads them out again; for, as soon as they become convinced that they were deceived, they lose confidence in the Order.
In 1884, the Knights of Labor had learned that the boycott, unless carefully restrained, was also full of peril. We hear, too, that "benefit funds" must be built up to strengthen the Order. Two years later,
- ↑ This requires one modification. Individual men and women in receipt of high wages quit work from sympathy in many strikes. It is one of the noblest features in scores of great contests. To suppose, however, that this can be generalized into a universal fact and made the basis of a policy of social reconstruction is an illusion.
