The question of hours has been a vital one. The 12-hour day was still common in some of the large scale industries and to this should be added the 7-day week, especially in those in dustries such as steel which depended upon the continuous process. The humanitarians again entered the field and, basing their demand upon social welfare rather than upon simply the wel fare of the workers directly affected, they and the workers together succeeded in getting the 8-hour day enacted into law in certain indus tries. This marks the beginning of the indus trial hygiene period. On the same basis con siderable limitations have been put upon woman and child labor (q.v.).
Since the Civil War strikes have been marked by increasing violence. The great rail road strikes of 1877 and 1894, the strike in the steel mills at Homestead in 1892, in the textile mills at Lawrence in 1912 and in various coal mines culminating in the troubles in Colorado and Arkansas in 1914 are good examples of this.
The legal position of the strikers has ex perienced little change. The New York law of 1820 legalizing the strike added little to the rights already held, that of merely striking. In 1894 Eugene V. Debs was acquitted of a charge of conspiracy, but convicted and sent to prison for violating an injunction forbidding the American Railway Union and tall other persons to interfere with certain trains carrying United States mail and inter state commerce. The use of the injunction since the Civil War has been of far greater consequence than the fines for conspiracy be f ore the war, even with the slight limitations imposed upon its use in recent years. Such prosecutions as that of Mr. Debs and of the Federation officers (Messrs. Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison) for violating an injunction against the publication of unfair lists and the awarding of damages against the Danbury hatters for boycotting under the Sherman Anti Trust Act have virtually nullified picketing and the boycott (q.v.), two of labor's effective weapons, though three States nominally legalize the boycott and a recent decision has upheld picketing.
Under the circumstances it is no wonder that the unions have expended considerable energy in fighting for recognition. ler the pe riod 1881-1905, 18 per cent of the strikes, or nearly one-third of those ordered by unions, were for recognition of the union and another 7 per cent really involved this question. Many employers have agreed to recognize and deal with unions; a few have agreed to the closed shop; some, on the other hand, keep their shops open to non-union labor and closed to union labor. In large scale production unionism is weak, practically non-existent in some cases. In 1908 the Federation began active participa tion in politics in furtherance of its aims. It does not have official candidates, but works for those in sympathy with the cause and against those known to be hostile. Among the demands
presented to the national conventions of the political parties in 1916 was one for the legal ization of unions.
A general recognition of labor unions would make employers' unions almost necessary. Such unions exist and they seek to work with the labor unions. There is also another employers' union which is bitterly hostile to labor unions and uses every means to break them up. Unions of this type began in the sixties. Refusal to employ union men, blacklists and lockouts are the weapons used.
One of the most significant things in all the history of the labor movement is the compara tively recent entrance of a third party to the trouble, the public. Quarrels and disputes are vexatious to the disinterested where they have to listen to them. disturb repose. But with the modern social organization such as it is, disputes long protracted may cause incon venience, even when they do not terminate in violence and war. The movement for concilia tion and arbitration to end such disputes has gained considerable headway in the last quarter century. The United States and most of the several States have provided official machinery for this work. A few notable cases of success ful operation could be cited, but the general attitude of 'both labor and capital toward this movement is hostile. Compulsory arbitration would have to be adopted to cover anything like all the cases. This, says capital, is taking property without due process of law. This, says labor, with the enforcement of the award would mean compulsory labor or slavery. But the public is beginning to ask whether the right of operators and miners to keep a mine closed while they dispute over the terms of operating it, as in 1902, or to close a city by tying up the railways, as in 1894, is any more sacred than the right of the public to keep from freezing and starving. A negative answer may mean taking property without due process of law, but it does not mean slavery. It simply means that it is to the welfare of society that the mines be kept open and the railroads in opera tion. It may mean that the present capitaliza tion of industry will be displaced, not by in dustrial democracy, but by the democratization of industry. See LABOR LEGISLATION; PROFIT SHARING; LABOR UNIONS; WAGES.
Bibliography.—Adams and Sumner,