ployers were admitted. The most diverse reforms were championed: abolition of slavery, women's rights, land nationalization, the withholding of supplies from the American army in Mexico. The socialistic character of the movement is shown by the fact that George Ripley and Charles A. Dana were prominent among the founders of the New England Workingmen's Association, while the initial meeting of the association was addressed by Robert Owen and Albert Brisbane, 'the father of American Socialism.'
All three of these associations became moribund in the early fifties, and from that time until the end of the Civil War the most striking phenomenon is the multiplication of trade unions of the narrower kind. But during this period, also, there were not lacking men, even among the prominent trade-union leaders, who characterized the trade union as exclusive, and warmly advocated the formation of broader organizations which would elevate the masses by other means than the strike and the regulation of apprenticeship. In 1866 their efforts resulted in the formation of the National Labor Union, which, starting with a large membership and good prospects, wasted its strength on the attempt to found a Labor Reform Party, and died in 1870 'of the disease known as politics.' A slight connection may be traced between the National Labor Union and the International Workingmen's Association, which was founded in London in 1864, and moved its headquarters to New York in 1872, soon after which it disappeared. The International, however, came under the domination of Karl Marx, and was rather a socialistic party than a labor organization.
The work laid down by the National Labor Union fell into the hands of a remarkable labor organization, the 'Noble Order of the Knights of Labor.' (See Knights of Labor.) Although it began as a local union of garment workers, and in the course of its existence chartered many national unions, it contemplated from the very beginning something essentially hostile to the exclusive trade union. Following out this policy, no effort is made to restrict the membership to wage-earners, a universal practice among trade unions, but in general persons over sixteen years of age are eligible to membership. In their district assemblies, and even in the local assemblies, the members of different trades are amalgamated without respect to occupational limits. Finally, the government of the Knights is far more centralized than any federation of trade unions; the general executive board, to take a single illustration, may suspend any local or district officer, expel any member, revoke any charter, and by a unanimous vote may settle any strike. In other words, the Knights of Labor is a centralized national union of mixed trades, and not a federation.
The latest phase in the development of labor organizations is represented by the American Labor Union, possibly the most important labor organization of the present. See Labor Union, American.
Historically considered, the labor organization is distinguished from the trade union by an absence of exclusiveness, by the effort to secure the benefits of organization for the unskilled workers, by a more emphatic note of altruism, by a decided preference for coöperation, for legislative and political action over strikes and boycotts, and, it must be admitted, by a general tendency to take short cuts to universal reform. On the whole, the labor organization has been far less productive of tangible results than the trade union. But its work has not been in vain. The trade union of to-day is far less exclusive, far less monopolistic than it was before the appearance of the Knights of Labor and the new unions of England. Most important of all, the trade union now realizes the truth of that fundamental thesis of the Knights of Labor—that machinery is fast obliterating the line between the skilled and unskilled trades—and devotes a large share of its strength and funds to the organization of the lower classes of labor. This is the primary object of the American Federation of Labor. See Labor, American Federation of.
Fur an account of a momentous struggle, which bears much resemblance to the contrast between the labor organization and the trade union, see Problems of Organization under Trade Unions, where a general bibliography is also given. See, also, Socialist Parties under Socialism.
LABOR PROBLEMS. The rise of capitalistic industry, creating a social class whose only resource is the sale of their labor, has brought to the front a new group of social problems, which are commonly known as labor problems, or, more simply, as the labor problem. The determination of the just portion of labor in distribution, the social enforcement of the canons of distribution established, and the assurance to the laborer of tolerable conditions of life are the essence of the problem.
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century educated opinion viewed free competition as a force capable of bringing about the best possible solution of the problem. The greatest freedom of contract would place each individual where his productivity was greatest, and assure him of the greatest reward compatible with the maximum of social happiness. It was soon perceived, however, that the freedom of contract between employer and laborer was largely illusory, owing to the ignorance and helplessness of the latter. Especially was this true in the case of children, who were often bound to the employer by parish authorities or placed under his control by unnatural parents. A party arose demanding the State regulation of the labor contract in favor of the weak. (See Labor Legislation.) The extent of Government regulation was the concrete form assumed by the labor problem in England from the second decade of the nineteenth century.
Contract relations between the adult laborer and the employer were on an unsatisfactory basis so long as the individual laborer bargained with the employer, or perhaps a combination of employers. Partially as a result of this disadvantage of position, laborers began to combine in trade unions (q.v.), believing that thus they might better their position without the tardy intervention of the State. The struggles between combined labor and the employer gave a new impetus to Socialism. Many students of social science believed it to be necessary to eliminate the employer by founding an organization based upon free association (see Fourier; Fourierism), on coöperation (q.v.) (see also Owen, Robert),
