The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Armies of Labor, by Samuel P. Orth

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Title: The Armies of Labor
Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series

Author: Samuel P. Orth

Editor: Allen Johnson

Posting Date: February 9, 2009 [EBook #3038]
Release Date: January, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARMIES OF LABOR ***

Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's
University, and Alev Akman

THE ARMIES OF LABOR,

A CHRONICLE OF THE ORGANIZED WAGE-EARNERS

By Samuel P. Orth

VOLUME 40 IN THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES, ALLEN JOHNSON, EDITOR

NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO.

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1919

CONTENTS

I. THE BACKGROUND
II. FORMATIVE YEARS
III. TRANSITION YEARS
IV. AMALGAMATION
V. FEDERATION
VI. THE TRADE UNION
VII. THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS
VIII. ISSUES AND WARFARE
IX. THE NEW TERRORISM: THE I.W.W.
X. LABOR AND POLITICS

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

THE ARMIES OF LABOR

CHAPTER I. THE BACKGROUND

Three momentous things symbolize the era that begins its cycle with
the memorable year of 1776: the Declaration of Independence, the steam
engine, and Adam Smith's book, "The Wealth of Nations." The Declaration
gave birth to a new nation, whose millions of acres of free land were to
shift the economic equilibrium of the world; the engine multiplied man's
productivity a thousandfold and uprooted in a generation the customs of
centuries; the book gave to statesmen a new view of economic affairs and
profoundly influenced the course of international trade relations.

The American people, as they faced the approaching age with the
experiences of the race behind them, fashioned many of their
institutions and laws on British models. This is true to such an extent
that the subject of this book, the rise of labor in America, cannot be
understood without a preliminary survey of the British industrial system
nor even without some reference to the feudal system, of which English
society for many centuries bor