Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-06
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

The observance of Labor day is al
ways an impressive event. When it
comes in year Of presidential election
it is especially significant. The interest
lies not only in the beauty of the iea-
lures of the parades. though the floats
and the marcherS are symbols OF life S
endless toll and endeaVor" and of the
ideals of the toilerS to ameliorate the
hardshipS and rise to fuller enjoyment
of the fruits Of labor. But the para
mount interest lies in appreciation OF
the progress that organized labor has
achieved, especially in America. and the
powerfulness of its present voice in the
councils of the Nation, politically as we'll
as economically.
Last Monday in every city of the
United States, especially in the indus
trial centers, the bands and the march
ing filled the scene. But now that the
captains and the kings" Of labor have
departed from the center of the stage
and the shouting has ceased, it is of in
terest to review the development of all
this recognition of 1.-The wage earners'
as class, and to note the contrast OF a
single century's beginning and close.
X Il X 4
Historically the story of organized la
Dor in the United States begins little
over one century ago-in 1925. Trade
unions had been organized and they be-
gan their struggles for reform of labor
conditions with strikes; then when Jack
sonian democracy began to crystalline
the trade unions turned to politics by
organizing in Philadelphia a federation,
making its slogan Equality OF citizen
Ship" meaning manhood suffrage with
out property qualifications - the pre-
cursor, perhaps, of the control of the
prOletariat," which has developed to the
extreme in SocialiStic Soviet Russia.
The federation demanded mechanics
lien laws to assure payment OF wages,
opposed child labor and advocated pub
lie education. 1t also demanded abOli-
ton of laws for Imprisonment for debt.
These reforms have been so long eS-
tablished now tlfat 1t seems almost IN
credible that their origins are so recent
as one century. We owe our pubic
school system to that initiative OF or
ganized labor of 1925. But the fatal
bunder was made of making alliance
with political parties, and within only
five years-by l832--the whole Organl-
zation was dead.
During the following five years the
country prospered and trade unions re-
vived, warned to keep out of politics
and to limit activities to obtaining bet
| ter wages and shorter hours, until came
panic and business depression in 1885,
which effectually stopped collective bar
| gaining, while every wage Garner was
| facing a life or death struggle to earn
and collect any wages at all. That de-
! preston lasted 25 years and new gem
| Grafton grew up without knowledge or
| experience in trade union methods.
X X Il *
Various remedies for wage depression
were proposed chief of which was cry
that every man should be given by the
! Government a tract OF land Suf1lClenl
| for the support of himself and family
/ Those were days when there we're I'M
menSe areas of undeveloped country IN
| Guiding the Great American Desert,
| the Western prairies of the Mississippi
| Valley This demand eliminated IN
1862 in the passage of the homestead
law. and after the Civil War-Or before
IT. had ended--the soldiers sang, For
| Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all
a farm"
The stress and inflated prosperity
of war gave union labor another oppOr-
tunity, and in 1866 there was organized
! the National Labor Union, which in
dOrSed the elgnt-hour DAY ana secured
it, at least for Federal employees, in 1868.
Efforts to get a similar law through
State legislatures to apply to private
employment, were resisted, generally, 1or
many years.
Then there was grated upon the
cause one of those economic VaearieS
which so often Scducc the Judgment OF
enthusiasts INTO striving FOR something
| &c nothing" Some time later that
took the form OF l6-to-l silver dollar,
with only half the bullion value of a
dollar the other half being Government
| imitation But IN the days Immediately
following the Civil War the project of
financial insanity took the form OF
"greenbacks, composed entirely Of the
lrredeemable paper currency of the war
! crisis-the kind of imitation which has
more recently debauched nearly every