The Development of the American Economy History Essay

Create an essay of 500-750 words, describing the development of industry, business, and labor after the American Civil War. Address the following:
Discuss several of the industries of America’s Industrial Revolution in the post-Civil War period.
What made these leaders of industry successful?
Explain the origins and growth of labor unions.
What did Labor Unions accomplish?
Use a minimum of three of the sources provided to support your assignment and be sure to cite the sources.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

HIS-144 Topic 4 Primary Source List 

Utilize the primary sources below to assist in completing the Topic 4 assignments and DQs.

Click on the links below to access the primary source. To return to the Table of Contents, click on the article title, in text, when finished.

Table of Contents:

Andrew Carnegie: The Gospel of Wealth, 1889

Bonanza Farming and Its Impact

The Impact of the Factory on Worker Health

Samuel Gompers, The American Labor Movement: Its Makeup, Achievements and Aspirations (1914)

Populist Party Platform, 1896

Henry Demarest Lloyd: "The Lords of Industry," North American Review 331 (June 1884)

Henry Clay

Henry Clay: In Defense of the American System speech

Platform of the Knights of Labor

 Andrew Carnegie: The Gospel of Wealth, 1889

The problem of our age is the administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers. . . . The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to­day measures the change which has come with civilization.

This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor. Without wealth there can be no Maecenas [Note: a rich Roman patron of the arts]. The "good old times" were not good old times . Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to day. A relapse to old conditions would be disastrous to both-not the least so to him who serves-and would sweep away civilization with it....

. . .

We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be surveyed and pronounced good. The question then arises-and, if the foregoing be correct, it is the only question with which we have to deal-What is the proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few? And it is of this great question that I believe I offer the true solution. It will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate sums saved by many years of effort, the returns from which are required for the comfortable maintenance and education of families. This is not wealth, but only competence, which it should be the aim of all to acquire.

There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered during their lives by its possessors. Under the first and second modes most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto been applied. Let us in turn consider each of these modes. The first is the most injudicious. In monarchial countries, the estates and the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first son, that the vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and title are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The condition of this class in Europe to­day teaches the futility of such hopes or ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies or from the fall in the value of land.... Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed oftener work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of the members of their families and of the state, such bequests are an improper use of their means.

. . .

As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is dead before it becomes of much good in the world.... The cases are not few in which the real object sought by the testator is not attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted....

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion.... Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death, the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.

. . . This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people....

There remains, then, only one mode of using great fortunes: but in this way we have the true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the poor-a reign of harmony-another ideal, differing, indeed from that of the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded upon the present most intense individualism, and the race is prepared to put it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow­citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts.

. . .

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial result for the community-the man of wealth thus becoming the sole agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer-doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

Andrew Camegie, "Wealth," North American Review, 148, no. 391 (June 1889): 653, 657­62. 

Bonanza Farming and Its Impact

Moody, William Godwin

1883

Within the past year or two a new development in agriculture, in the great Northwest, has forced itself upon the public attention, that would seem destined to exercise a most potent influence on the production of all food products, and work a revolution in the great economies of the farm. But not enough is known of this new development to enable one to form any just estimate of either its force or extent. For the purpose of obtaining the data necessary to assist to a more correct understanding of the operations of what are known as the "Bonanza Farms," and their present and probable future effects, the writer went upon the ground to make them a study. . . .

Every facility was afforded for the fullest observation, and to give me all the information desired. It would be difficult to find a finer sight than was presented by those magnificent fields of grain, standing breast high, taking on the golden yellow that precedes the harvest, their heads, as far as the eye could reach, standing as level and smooth as the top of a great table; and when fanned by the wind moving in ripples and waves like the waters of a sea.

It was believed that the yield of wheat would be at least twenty bushels to the acre. Some portions, it was said, would give more than thirty bushels. It certainly was very fine. . . .

Now mark the change that has already taken place and is fast obtaining in all our new and great agricultural regions. Under the power of machinery and capital the farms have grown from the size of 100 acres, as formerly, to 1,000 acres, to 10,000 acres, to 100,000 acres, even to 500,000 acres, or nearly 800 square miles, and more, with not one home upon their vast areas; with no one surrounding a family rooftree with all that made the old home a paradise. . . .

This state of things is made possible, and is obtaining, solely by and under the power and use of machinery; first in the hands of individual capitalists; then in the hands of companies; and, lastly, by corporations.

The owners of these large tracts have bonanzas, yielding great profits, not one dollar of which is expended in beautifying and permanently improving their vast estates, beyond that necessary for the care of the stock and tools, nor in sustaining a permanent population. Their homes, their pleasures, their family ties, are not upon their farms. Their wealth is flaunted in the gaieties and dissipations, or expended in building and developing some distant city or country. But the owner and cultivator of the small farm in its neighborhood, upon which he has planted his rooftree, and around which are gathered all his hopes and ambitions, finds it impossible to pay his taxes, clothe and educate, or find any comfort for his wife and little ones. The case of the small farmer is steadily going from bad to worse. The two can not exist together; the small farmer can not successfully compete with his gigantic neighbor under present conditions. He will inevitably be swallowed up. It is at best but a question of time. . . .

The Impact of the Factory on Worker Health

Whitaker, Dr. John B.

1871

. . .

1. Accidents and casualties are very numerous, partly owing to the exposed machinery and partly owing to carelessness. . . . It is really painful to go round among the operatives and find the hands and fingers mutilated, in consequence of accidents.

2. Unnatural or monotonous working positions . . . in some cases [make the worker] round-shouldered, in other cases producing curvature of the spine and bow-legs.

3. Exhaustion from overwork. In consequence of the long hours of labor, the great speed the machinery is run at, the large number of looms the weavers tend, and the general over-tasking, so much exhaustion is produced, in most cases, that immediately after taking supper, the tired operatives drop to sleep in their chairs. . . .

4. Work by artificial light. It is very injurious to the eyes. The affections consist principally in conjunctiviti, opacity of cornea, granulations of the lids, &c.

5. The inhalation of foreign articles. . . . I have been called to cases where I suspected this to be the cause of trouble in the stomach. After giving an emetic, they have in some cases vomited little balls of cotton. . . .

10. Predisposition to pelvic diseases . . . among the female factory operatives produces difficulty in parturition. The necessity for instrumental delivery has very much increased within a few years, owing to the females working in the mills while they are pregnant and in consequence of deformed pelvis. . . .

11. . . . Predisposition to sexual abuse. There is no doubt that this is very much increased, the passions being excited by contact and loose conversation. . . . They are, also, as a general thing, ignorant--at least to the extent that they do not know how to control their passions nor to realize the consequences. . . .

12. Predisposition to depression of spirits. . . . Factory life predisposes very much to depression of spirits. . . .

Samuel Gompers, The American Labor Movement: Its Makeup, Achievements and Aspirations (1914) 

Section 1

The American Federation of Labor was formed in 1881 in Pittsburgh. I was elected its first vice-president. With the exception of three terms I have been President of the A. F. of L. since that time.

The Federation covers practically the whole field of industry. There are no limitations as to membership. The only requirement, so far as the A. F. of L. is concerned, is that the organization desiring affiliation shall be composed of wage-earners.

The A. F. of L., as its name implies, is a federation, and not, as it is often mistakenly called, an organization. It is a federation of organizations, each of which has its own government, determined by its own needs and requirements, the result of the experiences of the members of the organization. This right to self-government was recognized in the beginning and has been reaffirmed and adhered to as consistently as possible. The Federation has no powers except those which are authorized and conceded by the organizations which compose it. These powers are enumerated in its written constitution and the definite direction of conventions.

Section 2

The affiliated organizations are held together by moral obligation, a spirit of camaraderie, a spirit of group patriotism, a spirit of mutual assistance.

There are no coercive methods used by the A. F. of L. to prevent the withdrawal or secession of any affiliated organization. The Western Federation of Miners, for instance, withdrew from the A. F. of L. about 1896. There were many efforts and many suggestions made to induce individual unions belonging to the Western Federation of Miners to join the A. F. of L. as local unions. Not only were these efforts discouraged but the proposal was repudiated.

Similarly, no coercion is used in regard to national organizations which are not affiliated to the A. F. of L. We feel that it is the duty of every wage-worker to belong to the union of his trade or calling; that it is the duty of the local union of a trade of calling to belong to the national or international union of that trade or calling; and that it is equally the moral duty of every national or international organization of bona fide workingmen to belong to the A. F. of L. But coercive methods are never employed....

Section 3

The general object of the Federation is to better the conditions of the workers in all fields of human activity. Economic betterment in all directions comes first. The Federation has from time to time formulated definite programs for such improvements, but it has always concerned itself with first questions first. The conventions have passed resolutions recommending concrete ameliorative measures.

The A. F. of L. has expressed itself in favor of shortening the workday in keeping with the increased productiveness of machinery. The demand and the movement for a shorter workday had been going on for nearly fifteen or twenty years prior to the organization of the A. F. of L., but it has had a more concrete form and expression since the A. F. of L. was organized in 1881.

The A. F. of L. declared that concerted effort should be made by the working people of the United States to secure the eight-hour workday. On May 1, 1886, the Federation offered its services to be helpful to the organizations in the establishment of the eight-hour workday by conferences between workmen and employers, by correspondence, by publications, agitation and education. Upon the recommendation of the A. F. of L. two piece-work trades enforced the eight-hour workday on May 1, 1886, and have maintained it from that day until this. As a result of the declaration of the A. F. of L. impetus was given to the movement to reduce the hours of labor in many trades and callings from eighteen and sixteen hour days to ten and nine.

The A. F. of L. is in favor of a shorter workday, and a progressive decrease of working hours in keeping with the development of machinery and the use of productive forces. The Federation has recognized the need for greater opportunities and more time for rest, leisure and cultivation among the workers. It favors a rest of not less than a day and a half in each week. We insist upon one entire day of rest in each week. I may say that it was my great pleasure to have been president of the New York State Federation of Labor when the Legislature of the State of New York enacted the first law in the United States making Saturday afternoon a legal holiday.

The Federation favors securing more effective inspection of workshops, factories, and mines, and has worked for the accomplishment of that purpose.

The Federation does not favor the employment of children under 16 years of age and has endeavored to forbid such employment.

It favors forbidding interstate transportation of the products of convict labor and the products of all uninspected factories and mines.

The A. F. of L. favors direct employment of workers by the United States government, state governments, and municipal governments without intervention of contractors, and has accomplished this to a large degree.

The A. F. of L. is not in favor of fixing, by legal enactment, certain minimum wages. The attempts of the government to establish wages at which workmen may work, according to the teachings of history, will result in a long era of industrial slavery.

Section 4

If the legislature should once fix a minimum wage it would have the opportunity to use the machinery of the state to enforce work at that rate whether the workers desired to render services or not. I am very suspicious of the activities of governmental agencies. I apprehend that once the state is allowed to fix a minimum rate, the state would also take the right to compel men or women to work at that rate. I have some apprehension that if the legislature were allowed to establish a maximum workday it might also compel workmen to work up to the maximum allowed. I ought to say, however, that I am in favor of the legal enactment fixing the maximum hours of labor for all workmen in direct government employment and for those who work for contractors substituted for governmental authority.

The A. F. of L. is in favor of fixing the maximum number of hours of work for children, minors, and women. It does not favor a legal limitation of the workday for adult men workers. The unions have very largely established the shorter workday by their own initiative, power and influence; they have done it for themselves. The A. F. of L. is opposed to limiting, by legal statutory authority, the hours of work for men in private industries. The A. F. of L. has apprehensions as to the wisdom of placing in the hands of the government additional powers which may be used to the detriment of the working people. It particularly opposes this policy when the things can be done by the workmen themselves.

It is in favor of a uniform shorter workday and would encourage and help affiliated organizations to secure it by collective bargaining and other methods employed by labor unions. For instance, the International Typographical Union undertook such a move. It gave employers more than a year’s notice that after a certain day they would not work longer than eight hours a day. Almost immediately a large number of employers acceded to the request, others refused. The men struck. Covering a period of more than a year, employees and individual firms came to agreements providing for the eight-hour day and its enforcement, until finally the eight-hour day has been accomplished, not only for the printers but generally for all those employed in the printing trades.

Section 5

The A.F. of L. favors a system of non-contributing old-age pensions for workers who have reached a certain age to be established by legal enactment and maintained by governmental machinery. The Federation favors a general system of state insurance against sickness, disability, and accidents. It has not endorsed state insurance of unemployment. In regard to the problem of unemployment the Federation proposes to shorten the workday of the employees that they may share with the unemployed the work that is to be performed, and thereby tend constantly toward the elimination of unemployment. The American workman refuses to regard unemployment as a permanent evil attending the industrial and economic forces of our country. The American workmen propose to share work with those who are unemployed and thereby to help to find work for the unemployed.

The A. F. of L. encourages and stimulates the workmen in their efforts to secure a constantly increasing share in the products of labor, an increasing share in the consumption and use of things produced, thereby giving employment to the unemployed, the only effective way by which that can be done.

Section 6

The workers of the United States do not receive the full product of their labor. It is impossible for any one to say definitely what proportion the workers receive in payment for their labor, but due to the organized labor movement they have received and are receiving a larger share of the product of their labor than ever before in the history of modern industry. One of the functions of organized labor is to increase the share of the workers in the product of their labor. Organized labor makes constantly increasing demands upon society for rewards for the services which the workers give to society and without which civilized life would be impossible. The process of increasing the share is not always gradual, but it is continual. The organized labor movement has generally succeeded in forcing an increase in the proportion the workers receive of the general product.

The working people — and I prefer to say working people and to speak of them as really human beings — are prompted by the same desires, the same hopes of a better life as are all other people. They are not willing to wait for a better life until after they have shuffled off this mortal coil but they want improvements here and now. They want to make conditions better for their children so that they may be prepared to meet other and new problems of their time. The working people are pressing forward, making their demands and presenting their claims with whatever power they can exercise in a natural, normal manner to secure a larger and constantly increasing share of what they produce. They are working toward the highest and the best ideals of social justice.

The intelligent, common-sense workingmen prefer to deal with the problems of today, with which they must contend if they want to make advancements, rather than to deal with a picture and a dream which have never had, and, I am sure, will never have, any reality in the affairs of humanity, and which threaten, if they could be introduced, the most pernicious system for circumscribing effort and activity that has ever been invented.

The workers will never stop in any effort, nor will they stop at any point in an effort to secure greater improvements in conditions or for a better life in all its phases. Where these efforts may lead, what that better life may be, I do not care to predict. I decline to permit my mind or my activities to be labeled or limited by any particular ism because of adherence to a theory or a dream. The A. F. of L. is neither governed in its activities by a so-called “Social Philosophy,” nor does it work “blindly from day to day.” Its work is well planned to be continually of the greatest benefit to the working people to protect and promote their rights and interest in every field of human activity.

The A. F. of L. is guided by the history of the past. It draws lessons from history in order to interpret conditions which confront working people so that it may work along the lines of least resistance to accomplish the best results in improving the conditions of the working men, women, and children, today, tomorrow, and tomorrow’s morrow, making each day a better day that the one which went before. That is the guiding principle, philosophy, and aim of the labor movement.

In improving conditions from day to day the organized labor movement has no “fixed program” for human progress. If you start out with a program everything must conform to it. With theorists; if facts do not conform to their theories, then so much the worse for the facts. Their declarations of theories and actions refuse to be hampered by facts. We do not set any particular standard, but work for the best possible conditions immediately obtainable for the workers. When they are obtained then we strive for better.

From: Gompers, Samuel L. The American Labor Movement, its makeup, achievements and aspiration. Washington, D.C.: The American Federation of Labor, 1914.

Populist Party Platform, 1896

From James P. Boyd. Parties, Problems, and Leaders of 1896: An Impartial Presentation of Living National Questions. [Philadelphia, Penn.]: Publishers' Union, 1896. 599-604.

       We recognize that through the connivance of the present and preceding administrations, the country has reached a crisis in its National life as predicted in our declaration four years ago, and that prompt and politic action is the supreme duty of the hour.

      We realize that while we have political independence, our financial and industrial independence is yet to be attained by restoring our country the Constitutional control and exercise of the functions necessary to a people's government, which functions have been basely surrendered by our public servants to corporate monopolies. The influence of European money-changers has been more potent in shaping legislation than the voice of the American people. Executive power and patronage have been used to corrupt our Legislatures and defeat the will of the people, and plutocracy has been enthroned upon the ruins of Democracy.

      To restore the government intended by the fathers, and for the welfare and prosperity of this and future generations, we demand the establishment of an economic and financial system which shall make us masters of our own affairs, and independent of European control by the adoption of the following Declaration of Principles:--

Finance.

      First.--We demand a National money, safe and sound, issued by the general Government only, without the intervention of banks of issue, to be a full legal tender for all debts, public and private. . . .

      Second.--We demand the free and unrestricted coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the consent of foreign nations.

      Third.--We demand the volume of circulating medium be speedily increased to an amount sufficient to meet the demands of the business population of this country, and to restore the just level of prices of labor and production. . . .

      Seventh.--We demand a graduated income tax, to the end that aggregated wealth shall bear its just proportion of taxation; . . .

Transportation.

      Transportation being a means of exchange and public necessity, the Government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people, and on nonpartisan basis, to the end that all may be accorded the same treatment in transportation, and that the tyranny and political power now exercised by the great railroad corporations, which result in the impairment, if not the destruction of the political rights and personal liberties of the citizen, may be destroyed. . . .

Land Monopolies.

      First.--The true policy demands that the National and State legislation shall be such as will ultimately enable every prudent and industrious citizen to secure a home, and, therefore, the land should not be monopolized for speculative purposes.

      All lands now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs should, by lawful means, be reclaimed by the Government and held for actual settlers only; and private land monopoly, as well as alien ownership, should be prohibited. . . .

      Third.--We demand that bonafide settlers on all public lands be granted free homes, as provided in the National Homestead Law, and that no exception be made in the case of Indian reservations when opened for settlement. . . .

      We favor a system of direct legislation through the initiative and referendum, under proper Constitutional safeguards.

General Propositions.

       First.--We demand the election of President, Vice-President and United States Senators by a direct vote of the people.

      Second.--We tender to the patriotic people of Cuba our deepest sympathy in their heroic struggle for political freedom and independence, and we believe the time has come when the United States, the great republic of the world, should recognize that Cuba is and of right ought to be a free and independent state. . . . .

      Fifth.--In times of great industrial depression, idle labor should be employed on public works as far as practicable. . . .

      Eighth.--Believing that the election franchise and untrammeled ballot are essential to a Government of, for and by the people, the People's Party condemn the wholesale system of disfranchisement adopted in some States as unrepublican and undemocratic, and we declare it to be the duty of the several State Legislatures to take such action as will secure a full, free and fair ballot, and an honest count.

      Ninth.--While the foregoing propositions constitute the platform upon which our party stands, . . . we recognize that the great and pressing issue of the pending campaign . . . is the financial question, and, upon this great and specific issue between the parties, we cordially invite the aid and co-operation of all organizations and citizens agreeing with us upon this vital question.

Houghton Mifflin Company

Henry Demarest Lloyd:
"The Lords of Industry," North American Review 331 (June 1884)

Lloyd (1847-1903) was an influential critic of the "Robber Barons". These were the capitalists such as Carnegie, Rockefellar, and Vanderbilt who developed the transportation, communication, and industrial sectors after 1865. For years Lloyd was   associated with the Chicago Tribune.

When President Gowen, of the Reading Railroad, was defending that company in 1875 before a committee of the Pennsylvania legislature for having taken part in the combination of the coal companies to cure the evil of "too much coal" by putting up the price and cutting down the amount for sale, he pleaded that there were fifty trades in which the same thing was done. He had a list of them to show the committee. He said:

"Every pound of rope we buy for our vessels or for our mines is bought at a price fixed by a committee of the rope manufacturers of the United States. Every keg of nails, every paper of tacks, all our screws and wrenches and hinges, the boiler flues for our locomotives, are never bought except at the price fixed by the representatives of the mills that manufacture them. Iron beams for your houses or your bridges can be had only at the prices agreed upon by a combination of those who produce them. Fire­brick, gas­pipe, terra­cotta pipe for drainage, every keg of powder we buy to blast coal, are purchased under the same arrangement. Every pane of window glass in this house was bought at a scale of prices established exactly in the same manner. White lead, galvanized sheet iron, hose and belting and files are bought and sold at a rate determined in the same way. When my friend Mr. Lane was called upon to begin his speech the other day and wanted to delay because the stenographer had not arrived, I asked Mr. Collins, the stenographer of your committee, if he would not act. He said no, it was against the rules of the committee of stenographers. I said, 'Well, Mr. Collins, I will pay you anything you ask. I want to get off.' ' Oh,' said he, 'prices are established by our combination, and I cannot change them.' And when we come to the cost of labor, which enters more than anything else in the cost of coal, we are met by a combination there, and are often obliged to pay the price fixed by it."

Adam Smith said in 1776: "People of the same trade hardly meet together even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." The expansive ferment of the New Industry, coming with the new­science, the new land, and the new liberties of our era, broke up these "conspiracies," and for a century we have heard nothing of them; but the race to overrun is being succeeded by the struggle to divide, and combinations are re­appearing on all sides. This any one may see from the reports of the proceedings of the conventions and meetings of innumerable associations of manufacturers and dealers and even producers, which are being held almost constantly. They all do something to raise prices, or hold them up, and they wind up with banquets for which we pay.

Four years ago the Chicago Lumbermen's Exchange adopted a resolution declaring it to be "dishonorable" for any dealer to make lower prices than those published by it for the control of prices in one of the greatest lumber markets of the world. Monthly reports are required by this Exchange from dealers, so that accurate accounts may be kept of stock on hand in order to regulate prices. The price lists of the Exchange are revised and made "honest" at monthly banquets. In February, 1883, it was found that members who ostensibly adhered to the price lists dipped into the dishonorable practice of competition on the sly by giving buyers greater than the usual discounts. This was then forbidden, and another pathway of competition closed. The effect of this price­legislation was attested by the address of a dealer of Minneapolis at one of the price­list banquets of the Exchange, who said that his firm, which made sales as far off as Manitoba and Dakota, had never sold a foot for less than the published lists. A delegation of dealers from the Mississippi River district spoke feelingly of their labors "for harmony" and their willingness that Chicago should make prices. A secret meeting of lumbermen from all parts of the West was held in Chicago, March 8, 1883, to discuss means for advancing prices, restricting production at least thirty­five per cent., and in general, in the language of one of them, putting themselves into a position like that of the coal producers of Pennsylvania, who by combination dictated the prices of coal throughout the whole country. In May, last year, the national association of lumber dealers met in Chicago. It represents over five hundred and fifty retail dealers in the West, and its principal purpose was to prevent wholesale dealers at Chicago, St. Louis, and other centers from retailing lumber to carpenters, farmers, and scalpers in the territory of the retailers. There are too many sellers; and, so any wholesaler who persists in competing in this way with local dealers is, when found guilty, named to all the retailers and punished by losing their trade. The mills of Puget Sound, which supply a large proportion of the lumber consumed in the Pacific States, formed a combination last year to regulate the production and sustain prices. It is said by the local newspapers that the mills which do not belong to the association are hired to stand idle, as there are too many mills, and the association finds it profitable to sustain prices at the cost of thousands of dollars paid out in this way. The lumber market of the Pacific coast is ruled by the California Lumber Exchange, and that is controlled by a few powerful firms. The prices of red­wood are fixed by the Redwood Manufacturers' Association, and those of pine by the Pine Manufacturers' Association. During the past year the retail dealers of San Francisco have had to sign contracts with these associations, binding themselves to buy only from members of the associations, to buy and sell only at prices fixed by them, to give time and discount only according to rule, and to keep accounts so that every item will be clear to the inspectors hired by the associations to look after the retailers. Finally, the retailer binds himself, if he is " found guilty" of committing any of the forbidden sins, to pay a fine which may amount to one thousand dollars, to be divided among the faithful. The literature of business can show no more remarkable productions than the printed forms of these contracts. This system is in imitation of the "special contracts" with shippers which have been put in force by the Central Pacific Railroad.

Western ranch­men complain that the competition of buyers is disappearing. They declare that there exist at the Chicago stock­yards combinations of buyers who, by their ability to make large purchases and their agreement to offer but one price, get cattle at their own figures. One member of the " ring " does the buying to­day; another to­morrow, and so on. The cattle kings have combinations to defend themselves from cattle thieves, State legislatures, and other enemies, and propose to extend this category so as to include the middle­men at the stock­yards. The Stock­growers' Association of Wyoming have $100,000,000 in cattle. At the recent convention held by this body in Cheyenne, it was unanimously declared that its business had been "seriously injured by the pooling arrangements prevailing among buyers­at the Chicago stock­yards," and the executive committee were instructed to obtain the fullest possible information as to VOL. CXXXVIII. NO. 331-38, the means by which cattle might be shipped direct to the European Consumer.

Last July Messrs. Vanderbilt, Sloan, and one or two others out of several hundred owners of coal lands and coal railroads, met in the pleasant shadows of Saratoga to make " a binding arrangement for the control of the coal trade." " Binding arrangement" the sensitive coal presidents say they prefer to the word "combination." The gratuitous warmth of summer suggested to these men the need the public would have of artificial heat, at artificial prices, the coming winter. It was agreed to fix prices, and to prevent the production of too much of the raw material of warmth, by suspensions of mining. In anticipation of the arrival of the cold wave from Manitoba, a cold wave was sent out all over the United States, from their parlors in New York, in an order for half­time work by the miners during the first three months of this year, and for an increase of prices. These are the means this combination uses to keep down wages­the price of men, and keep up the price of coal­the wages of capital. Prices of coal in the West are fixed by the Western Anthracite Coal Association, controlled entirely by the large railroads and mine­owners of Pennsylvania. This association regulates the price west of Buffalo and Pittsburgh and in Canada. Our annual consumption of anthracite is now between 31,000,000 and 32,000,000 tons. The West takes between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 tons. The companies which compose the combination mine, transport, and sell their own coal. They are obliterating other mine­owners and the retailer. The Chicago and New York dealer has almost nothing to say about what he shall pay or what he shall charge, or what his profits shall be. The great companies do not let the little men make too much. Year by year the coal retailers are sinking into the status of mere agents of the combination, with as little freedom as the consumer.

There was an investigation of the coal combination by the Pennsylvania legislature in 1871, the testimony taken in which showed, as summarized in " The Nation," then the leading anti­monopoly paper­ in the United States, that when, after a thirty­days' strike by the men, a number of private coal­mine owners acceded to their terms and wished to reopen their mines and send coal again 'to market, the railroads, by which alone they could get to market, raised their freights, as their men were still on strike, to three times the previous figures. These great corporations had determined not to yield to their men, and as they were mine­owners and coal sellers as well as carriers, they refused to take coal for their competitors. The latter, if they could have got transportation, would have given their own men employment and supplied the people of the country with coal. This would have compelled the great companies either to make terms with their workmen, or to let_ these other mine­owners take the trade. Instead of doing so, they used their power over the only available means of transportation to dictate the terms upon which every other employer should deal with his men, by preventing him from sending his products to market so long as he granted his men better terms than those laid down by the company. The result was that the price of coal was doubled, rising to $12 a ton; the resumption by the private mine­owners was stopped; and they, the workmen and the Consumer, were all delivered over to the tender mercies of the six great companies.

The coal combination was again investigated by the New York legislature in 1878, after the combination had raised the prices of coal in New York to double what they had been. The legislature found that private mine­operators who were not burdened like the great companies with extravagant and often corrupt purchases of coal lands, heavily watered stock, and disadvantageous contracts, forced on them by interested directors, and who have only to pay the actual cost of producing the coal, "can afford to sell at a much less price than the railroad coal­producing companies, and would do so if they could get transportation from the mines to the market." This is denied them by the great companies. "The private operators," says the report, " either find themselves entirely excluded from the benefits of transportation by reason of the high freights, or find it for their interest to make contracts with the railroads, by which they will not sell to others, and so the railroads have and will keep the control, of the supply of the private operators." To those who will not make such contracts, rates are fixed excluding them from the market, with the result, usually, of forcing them to sell their property to the lords of the pool. "The combination," the committee declared, "can limit the supply, and thereby create such a demand and price as they may deem advisable.» The committee found that coal could be laid down on the dock in New York, after paying all charges, for an average of $3.20 a ton. It was at that time retailing in the city for $4.90 to $5.25 a ton. "The purposes of the combination are solely to advance the price of coal, and it has been successful to the amount of seventy­five cents to one dollar a ton. Its further advance is only a question whether the combination can continue to repress the production." An advance of only twenty­five cents a ton would on 32,000,000 tons be $8,000,000 a year, which is not a bad thing­for the combination.

Some excitement was caused by the report in August, 1882, that there had been formed in New York and Philadelphia a combination of buyers to control the markets, and " that it was far more autocratic than that of operators and railroads had ever thought of being." Nothing has since been heard of this combination. The only combination of buyers of coal that now exists is called the State, but its members have not yet learned to know their rights or their power. The total amount of anthracite coal land is estimated by President Gowen, of the Reading, to be between 260,000 and 270,000 acres. Of this the Reading Coal and Iron Company owns 95,000 acres, and also holds under a lease of the Central Railroad of New Jersey about 14,000 acres, making in the neighborhood of 110,000 acres. The Lehigh Valley Railroad controls about 25,000 acres; the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western about 20,000; the Delaware and Hudson about 20,000; the Pennsylvania Coal Company 8000 to 10,000, and the Pennsylvania Railroad 5000 to 10,000. The rest of the coal lands is held by individuals, firms, and corporations, and is "necessarily tributary" to the railroad lines of the companies above named, with all that implies. The capitalization of the coal companies with that of their satellites is upward of $500,000,000. This capitalization was declared by the New York legislative committee to be excessive. Mr. James B. Hodgskin explained, some years ago, in "The Nation," how this inflation was brought about. A generation since, the most important coal lands were covered by the prettiest farms and the wildest mountain forests in the United States, then worth fifty cents to fifty dollars an acre. They were bought up by speculators who sold them to the companies at ten to twenty times the real cost. When railroads were found to be necessary for the development of the mines, railroad schemes were taken in hand by the same class of men, who had acquired experience, skill, and money by their manipulation, of the mining companies, and similar tactics­were employed to make money out of the new roads. Roads were built costing but one­half or three­quarters of the first mortgage bonds issued on them, and were then saddled with additional stock capital equal to the bonds, making the nominal capital of the roads three or four times the real cost. Of course the road was expected to earn dividends on the twenty­five dollars of real cost as well as the seventy­five dollars of fictitious cost. The swollen total at which the capitalization of the coal companies now stands was obtained by adding the drops in all mining stocks to the drops in all railroad stocks. This is one of the cases in which like has not cured like.

One of the sights which this coal side of our civilization has to show is the presence of herds of little children of all ages, from six years upward, at work in the coal breakers, toiling in dirt, and air thick with carbon dust, from dawn to dark, of every day in the week except Sunday. These coal breakers are the only schools they know. A letter from the coal regions in the Philadelphia " Press " declares that " there are no schools in the world where more evil is learned or more innocence destroyed than in the breakers. It is shocking to watch the vile practices indulged in by these children, to hear the frightful oaths they use, to see their total disregard for religion and humanity." In the upper part of Luzerne county, out of 22,000 inhabitants 3000 are children, between six and fifteen years of age, at work in this way. " There is always a restlessness among the miners," an officer of one of the New York companies said, "when we are working them on half time." The latest news from the region of the coal combination is that the miners are so dissatisfied with the condition in which they are kept, by the suspension of work and the importation of competing Hungarian laborers in droves, that they are forming a combination of their own, a revival of the old Miners and Laborers' Association, which was broken up by the labor troubles of 1874 and 1875.

Combination is busy in those soft­coal districts, whose production is so large that it must be sent to competitive markets. A pool has just been formed covering the annual product of 6,000,000 tons of the mines of Ohio. Indiana and Illinois are to be brought in, and it is planned to extend it to all the bituminous coal districts that compete with each other. The appearance of Mr. Vanderbilt, last December, in the Clearfield district, of Pennsylvania, at the head of a company capitalized for $5,000,000, was the first entry of a metropolitan mind into this field. Mr. Vanderbilt's role is to be that of producer, carrier, dealer, and consumer, all in one. Until he came, the district was occupied by a number of small companies and small operators, as used to be the case in the anthracite field in the old days. But the man who works himself, with his sons, in a small mine, cutting perhaps from twenty to forty tons a day, cannot expect to survive the approach of the Manhattan capitalist. The small Clearfield producers, looking at the fate of their kind in the anthracite country, greeted Mr. Vanderbilt's arrival with the question, " What is to become of us?" "If the small operator," said one of the great man's lieutenants," goes to the wall, that ­is his misfortune, not our fault." In March last the prominent Clearfield companies gave notice that wages must be reduced on the 1st of April, and immediately thereafter a union of their employees resolved that if the reduction, which they declared to be " without reason," was made they would strike.

Powerful syndicates are at work to control the coke industries of Pennsylvania, which will require from ten to fifteen millions of dollars. March 23, 1884, it was stated that the efforts of a year or more to consolidate the large and small coke­makers of the Connellsville district had succeeded. Nearly 8000 ovens joined the pool, which is under the command of the four largest firms. The smaller men agreed to shut their ovens whenever the heads of the pool ordered. It was announced, two days afterward, that one oven out of every seven had been closed "until further orders," that the price of coke would be advanced at once from ninety­five cents to $1.15 a ton, and that farther advances would be made until the price had been raised to $1.50. In March, 1883, the St. Louis " Age of Steel" had news that a combination had been made of all the coke iron furnaces, with one exception, in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, to fix uniform prices and prevent indiscriminate competition and "trickery" of all kinds, which is the disrespectful language in which the coke iron economists speak of the sacred law of competition.

There has been since 1872 a national combination of the manufacturers of the stoves, into which the combination coal must be put; and its effect, the founder said, in his speech at the annual banquet in Cleveland, last February, had been ­to change the balance from the wrong to the right side of the ledger. Until lately, at least, combination matches lighted the fire of combination coal in these combination stoves, and it is combination oil which the cook, contrary to orders, puts on the fires to make them burn faster. The combination of match manufacturers was perfected by tho experience of sixteen years of fusions, till lately it shared with the coal combination the pleasure of advancing the price of fire by proclamation on the approach of winter. It is now at war with the new companies which have gone into the manufacture since the repeal of the internal revenue tax. These it is attempting to ,conquer by underselling them, tactics which have hitherto` never failed. The Government of the United States, before which all men are equal, helped this combination to kill off its competitors, shielding it from foreign competition by a tax of thirty­five per cent. on the importation of matches from abroad, and shielding it from domestic competition, by administering the internal revenue tax so as to make its small competitors pay ten per cent. more tax. This drove them into bankruptcy, or combination with`the ring, at the rate of one or two every month. The railroads, like the Government, helped to transfer this business from the many to a few, by carrying the combination's matches at lower rates than were given to its little competitors.

When the house­maid strikes a combination match on the wall­paper, she leaves a mark on an article the manufacture, sale, and price of which are rigidly regulated by the American Wall Paper Manufacturers' Association. A recent writer has described this oath­bound combination which has established a wall­paper monarchy in the United States. When the cook takes the paper from off the express package, the hardware, the dry­goods, the groceries, the candy, the ham, which have been sent home, she is still handling an article the price of which is fixed by private enactments. The Western Wrapping­paper Association, ever since 1880, has, with more or less success, been struggling to keep down the deluge of too much wrapping­paper, and to fix the prices of all kinds, from the paper under the carpet to that which is used in roofing. It recently failed,­ but was at once reorganized on a firmer footing than before, and its mills are now allowed to turn out but one­half as much as they could produce. Besides this, the wood pulp and straw paper industries have been amalgamated.

The American Paper Association aims to control the prices and production of paper for newspapers and books, and` for writing. The dealers in old rags and old paper formed an association in Cleveland three years ago to deal with the "old rag" problem of how to cut down the enormous profits the women of our country are making out of the contents of their rag­bags. In January, 1883, the trade met again at Rochester, formed two "national" associations, and solemnly agreed upon the prices to be paid for mixed rags "that we gather from house to house," and for brown paper and rag carpet. " No change of price for rags or paper," runs the decree of the old­rag barons, "is to be made without consultation of every member of the executive committee." The Western Wooden Ware Association discovered, last December, that there were too many pails, tubs, and bowls, and ordered its members to manufacture but one­fifth of their capacity. In February it gave them permission to increase this to one­half. The Western Cracker Bakers' Association met in Chicago in February to consider, among other things, "the reprehensible system of cutting prices;" They first had a banquet. After their "merriment and diversion" the revelers, true to Adam Smith's description, turned to consider "some contrivance to raise prices." "The price lists were perfected," said the newspaper report, and then they adjourned.

The men who make our shrouds and coffins have formed a close corporation known as the National Burial Case Association, and held their national convention in Chicago last year. Their action to keep up prices and keep down the number of coffins was secret, lest mortality should be discouraged. The largest manufacturers of quinine in the world are the Boehringers of Milan, Manheim, and Paris. The next largest are Powers and Weightman of Philadelphia. The latter have just leased the Boehringer factory in Manheim. New York druggists say that these two could force up the price of quinine very high by combination, but do not believe they will do so. A pool of the seventeen leading quinine manufacturers of the world was formed last July. It included the manufacturers of America, Great Britain, and the continent of Europe. It advanced prices for a time twenty cents an ounce, but went to pieces at the beginning of 1884. The manufacturers of patent medicines organized in 1883, and the wholesale and retail druggists have followed with organizations to prevent the sale of these nostrums at cut prices, or by any persons who were not regular druggists. A " drug war" has broken out and threatens to rage over the entire Union. The combination of the wholesale druggists and that of the manufacturers have mutually agreed to divide the United States into districts, each of which shall be under a superintendent, who is to watch the druggists and report all those cutting prices, who are thereupon to be boycotted.

Every one knows about the thirty­million­dollar steel combination, which has not kept the price of rails from declining from $166 a ton in 1867 to $32 a ton in 1884, but during this decline has kept the price of rails­that is, the price of transportation, that is, the price of everything, higher in this country than anywhere else. Chairman Morrison of the Committee of Ways and Means is a witness to the fact that the chimneys of the Vulcan Mill at St. Louis stood smokeless for years, and meanwhile its owners received a subsidy reported at $400,000 a year from the other mills of the combination for not making rails, with, however, no payment to its men for not working. The steel­rail makers of England, France, Belgium, and Germany are negotiating for an international combination to keep up prices. The "Age of Steel" startled the country last January by the statement that a monster pool was to be formed of all our pig­iron manufacturers. The country was to be divided into six districts. As many furnaces were to be put out of blast as were necessary to prevent us from having too much iron, and these idle furnaces were to share, like the Vulcan Steel Mill, the profits of those that ran. This has not yet proved to be history, but it may turn out to have been prophecy.

There are too many nails for the nail­makers, though no such complaint has been heard from the house­builders. There is a nail association, which at the beginning of the year advanced price ten cents a keg. Last November it ordered a suspension of the nail machines for five weeks, to the great distress of eight thousand workmen, who are also machines­self­feeders. " We hope," said the nail­men, according to a Pittsburgh dispatch of December 29, 1882," to show consumers that we can not only control production, but that we can do so unanimously, and at the very time when nails are tho least wanted.'' On April 9th, of this year, the nail manufacturers of the West met again at Pittsburgh, and adopted the most modern form of pool, with managers having full powers to regulate prices and restrict production. "An early advance of prices may be expected," we are told. Every mill in the West is in the pool. Nail­buyers are not allowed to converse with nail­makers. All business must be done through the Board of Control.

There is too much barbed wire for the wire manufacturers, though not for the farmers, and a pool, under the " entire control" of eleven directors, has, within a few weeks, been formed, in which are enrolled all of the chief manufacturers. Its members met in March in St. Louis, and advanced prices. They met again in Chicago, April 4th, and advanced prices 10 percent, and adjourned to meet in thirty days for the purpose of making another advance. This combination cuts off competition at both ends. It confederates the makers, so that they shall not sell in competition with each other, and it buys all its raw material through one purchasing agent, so that its members do not buy in competition. The Western Pig Iron Association regard "the cutting of prices as the bane of business," and do what they can to stop it. Thirteen concerns making wrought­iron pipes in this country met in December last to unite under the very appropriate name of the Empire Iron Company. Each was to deposit $20,000 as security that he would adhere to rules to prevent the calamity of too much iron pipe. One feature of the pool was that it proposed to keep men on guard at each mill, to keep account of the pipe made and shipped; and these superintendents were to be moved around from one mill to another at least once every eight weeks. April 1, 1882, when the rest of us were lost in the reckless gaiety of All Fools' Day, forty­one tack manufacturers found out that there were too many tacks, and formed the "Central Manufacturing Company of Boston," with $3,000,000 capital. The tack mills in the combination run about three days in the week. When this combination, a few weeks ago, silenced a Pittsburgh rival by buying him out, they did not remove the machinery. The dead chimneys and idle machines will discourage new men from starting another factory, or can be run to ruin them if they are not to be discouraged in any other way. The first­fruits of the tack­pool were an increase of prices to twice what they had been.

One of the objections raised thousands of years ago in Greece, against the union of people of the same trade, was that their meetings degenerated into political conspiracies, and Trajan, for the same `reason, refused to accede to the request of Pliny that he might enroll a fire company out of the workmen of Nicomedia. No precautions, said the shrewd emperor, can prevent such associations from becoming dangerous conspiracies. The whisky distillers' pool is a combination of all the distillers north of the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to the Pacific Ocean. It regulates production, export, and prices. Its success at Washington, in scouring legislation several years ago granting whisky makers the privilege, given to no other tax­payer, of a postponement of the time for payment of taxes, is a significant reminder of Trajan's saying. The demand for whisky so far falls short of the capacity of the pool to produce, that a large number of distilleries are kept idle, drawing pensions from