policy was introduced, by which no more Americans were taken on in the railway service, though those already employed were allowed to stay. At first the new rule was applied to the lower ranks. The change to Mexican service came more rapidly than the rule demanded, since many of the Americans would not stay under the conditions that soon surrounded their work. As a result, by the end of the old régime, Americans occupied, with a few exceptions, only the higher executive positions. In other industries, especially textile manufacture, labor organizations sprang up but had only a weak and, almost without exception, ephemeral existence before the revolution. Even as late as 1908 the president of the Grand League of Railroad Workers reported the unions as including only the Grand League of Railroad Workers, 10,000 members; the mechanics' union, 500; the boilermakers' union, 800; the cigar-makers' union, 1,500; the carpenters' union, 1,500; the shop blacksmiths' union, 800; and the steel and smelter workers' union, 600.[1]
During the revolution, labor organization increased rapidly. Unions of all sorts sprang up overnight under the leadership of men who recognized not at all the limitations of those in whose interests they professed to be working. Workers in mines and textile industries, stevedores, public employees, clerks, barbers, street car men, coachmen, waiters, and a large number of other groups, formerly unorganized, had their unions and, under the most irresponsible leadership, made de-
- ↑ From figures published by John Kenneth Turner, Barbarous Mexico, Chicago, 1910.
