ial world a more radical
organization known as the "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor." It was
founded in Philadelphia in 1869, first as a secret society with rituals,
signs, and pass words; "so that no spy of the boss can find his way into
the lodge room to betray his fellows," as the Knights put it. In form
the new organization was simple. It sought to bring all laborers,
skilled and unskilled, men and women, white and colored, into a mighty
body of local and national unions without distinction of trade or craft.
By 1885, ten years after the national organization was established, it
boasted a membership of over 700,000. In philosophy, the Knights of
Labor were socialistic, for they advocated public ownership of the
railways and other utilities and the formation of cooeperative societies
to own and manage stores and factories.

As the Knights were radical in spirit and their strikes, numerous and
prolonged, were often accompanied by violence, the organization alarmed
employers and the general public, raising up against itself a vigorous
opposition. Weaknesses within, as well as foes from without, started the
Knights on the path to dissolution. They waged more strikes than they
could carry on successfully; their cooeperative experiments failed as
those of other labor groups before them had failed; and the rank and
file could not be kept in line. The majority of the members wanted
immediate gains in wages or the reduction of hours; when their hopes
were not realized they drifted away from the order. The troubles were
increased by the appearance of the American Federation of Labor, a still
mightier organization composed mainly of skilled workers who held
strategic positions in industry. When they failed to secure the
effective support of the Federation in their efforts to organize the
unskilled, the employers closed in upon them; then the Knights declined
rapidly in power. By 1890 they were a negligible factor and in a short
time they passed into the limbo of dead experiments.

=The Policies of the American Federation.=--Unlike the Knights of Labor,
the American Federation of Labor sought, first of all, to be very
practical in its objects and methods. It avoided all kinds of
socialistic theories and attended strictly to the business of organizing
unions for the purpose of increasing wages, shortening hours, and
improving working conditions for its members. It did not try to include
everybody in one big union but brough