The Armies of Labor [14]
starve. We must have a revolution. We cannot submit any longer." The cry of "Revolution! Revolution!" was taken up by the throng.
In the midst of this agitation a New York branch of the New England Protective Union was organized as an attempt at peaceful revolution by cooperation. The New York Protective Union went a step farther than the New England Union. Its members established their own shops and so became their own employers. And in many other cities striking workmen and eager reformers joined hands in modest endeavors to change the face of things. The revolutionary movements of Europe at this period were having a seismic effect upon American labor. But all these attempts of the workingmen to tourney a rough world with a needle were foredoomed to failure. Lacking the essential business experience and the ability to cooperate, they were soon undone, and after a few years little more was heard of cooperation.
In the meantime another economic movement gained momentum under the leadership of George Henry Evans, who was a land reformer and may be called a precursor of Henry George. Evans inaugurated a campaign for free farms to entice to the land the unprosperous toilers of the city. In spite of the vast areas of the public domain still unoccupied, the cities were growing denser and larger and filthier by reason of the multitudes from Ireland and other countries who preferred to cast themselves into the eager maw of factory towns rather than go out as agrarian pioneers. To such Evans and other agrarian reformers made their appeal. For example, a handbill distributed everywhere in 1846 asked:
"Are you an American citizen? Then you are a joint owner of the public lands. Why not take enough of your property to provide yourself a home? Why not vote yourself a farm?
"Are you a party follower? Then you have long enough employed your vote to benefit scheming office seekers. Use it for once to benefit yourself; Vote yourself a farm.
"Are you tired of slavery--of drudging for others--of poverty and its attendant miseries? Then, vote yourself a farm.
"Would you free your country and the sons of toil everywhere from the heartless, irresponsible mastery of the aristocracy of avarice? .... Then join with your neighbors to form a true American party...whose chief measures will be first to limit the quantity of land that any one may henceforth monopolize or inherit; and second to make the public lands free to actual settlers only, each having the right to sell his improvements to any man not possessed of other lands."
"Vote yourself a farm" became a popular shibboleth and a part of the standard programme of organized labor. The donation of public lands to heads of families, on condition of occupancy and cultivation for a term of years, was proposed in bills repeatedly introduced in Congress. But the cry of opposition went up from the older States that they would be bled for the sake of the newer, that giving land to the landless was encouraging idleness and wantonness and spreading demoralization, and that Congress had no more power to give away land than it had to give away money. These arguments had their effect at the Capitol, and it was not until the new Republican party came into power pledged to "a complete and satisfactory homestead measure" that the Homestead Act of 1862 was placed on the statute books.
A characteristic manifestation of the humanitarian impulse of the forties was the support given to labor in its renewed demand for a ten-hour day. It has already been indicated how this movement started in the thirties, how its object was achieved by a few highly organized trades, and how it was interrupted in its progress by the panic of 1837. The agitation, however, to make the ten-hour day customary throughout the country was not long in coming back to life. In March, 1840, an executive order of President Van Buren declaring ten hours to be the working day for laborers and mechanics in government employ forced the issue upon private employers. The earliest concerted action, it would seem, arose in New
In the midst of this agitation a New York branch of the New England Protective Union was organized as an attempt at peaceful revolution by cooperation. The New York Protective Union went a step farther than the New England Union. Its members established their own shops and so became their own employers. And in many other cities striking workmen and eager reformers joined hands in modest endeavors to change the face of things. The revolutionary movements of Europe at this period were having a seismic effect upon American labor. But all these attempts of the workingmen to tourney a rough world with a needle were foredoomed to failure. Lacking the essential business experience and the ability to cooperate, they were soon undone, and after a few years little more was heard of cooperation.
In the meantime another economic movement gained momentum under the leadership of George Henry Evans, who was a land reformer and may be called a precursor of Henry George. Evans inaugurated a campaign for free farms to entice to the land the unprosperous toilers of the city. In spite of the vast areas of the public domain still unoccupied, the cities were growing denser and larger and filthier by reason of the multitudes from Ireland and other countries who preferred to cast themselves into the eager maw of factory towns rather than go out as agrarian pioneers. To such Evans and other agrarian reformers made their appeal. For example, a handbill distributed everywhere in 1846 asked:
"Are you an American citizen? Then you are a joint owner of the public lands. Why not take enough of your property to provide yourself a home? Why not vote yourself a farm?
"Are you a party follower? Then you have long enough employed your vote to benefit scheming office seekers. Use it for once to benefit yourself; Vote yourself a farm.
"Are you tired of slavery--of drudging for others--of poverty and its attendant miseries? Then, vote yourself a farm.
"Would you free your country and the sons of toil everywhere from the heartless, irresponsible mastery of the aristocracy of avarice? .... Then join with your neighbors to form a true American party...whose chief measures will be first to limit the quantity of land that any one may henceforth monopolize or inherit; and second to make the public lands free to actual settlers only, each having the right to sell his improvements to any man not possessed of other lands."
"Vote yourself a farm" became a popular shibboleth and a part of the standard programme of organized labor. The donation of public lands to heads of families, on condition of occupancy and cultivation for a term of years, was proposed in bills repeatedly introduced in Congress. But the cry of opposition went up from the older States that they would be bled for the sake of the newer, that giving land to the landless was encouraging idleness and wantonness and spreading demoralization, and that Congress had no more power to give away land than it had to give away money. These arguments had their effect at the Capitol, and it was not until the new Republican party came into power pledged to "a complete and satisfactory homestead measure" that the Homestead Act of 1862 was placed on the statute books.
A characteristic manifestation of the humanitarian impulse of the forties was the support given to labor in its renewed demand for a ten-hour day. It has already been indicated how this movement started in the thirties, how its object was achieved by a few highly organized trades, and how it was interrupted in its progress by the panic of 1837. The agitation, however, to make the ten-hour day customary throughout the country was not long in coming back to life. In March, 1840, an executive order of President Van Buren declaring ten hours to be the working day for laborers and mechanics in government employ forced the issue upon private employers. The earliest concerted action, it would seem, arose in New