LaborHistory, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2001

Eight Hours,Greenbacks and ªChinamenº: WendellPhillips, Ira Steward, and the Fate of Labor Reformin Massachusetts

TIMOTHYMESSER-KRUSE*

In 1872, “Anniversary Week,”as the annual May conventionseason was known in Boston,gave thepublic ademonstrationof thecontinuing strength of reform in thecity that wasthe cradle ofabolition. Competing for halls, celebrity speakers,and newsprint columnsthat weekwere suffragists, the Massachusetts Temperance Alliance, Unitari- ans,Universalists, evangelists andtract peddlers,the New England Female Moral Reform Society,the YMCA, the Seaman’ s Friend Society,the Children’ s Mission,and ahalf dozenothers, but not lost amidst this clubbing frenzywere the labor reformers whoattracted muchattention to themselves by ripping their movementapart. In an incidentthat theBoston Globe politely referredto as “ alittle unpleasantness,”the two epitomesof New England’ s labor reformers,Ira Stewardand Wendell Phillips, turned alabor conventioninto a hot shoutingmatch andput an end to their nearly decade- long collaboration that briey transcendedboth classand party. The Žrstconvention of the newly founded Massachusetts Labor Unionproceeded along theusual course and had carried onlonger than theeight-hour day that wasone ofthe group’ s chiefplanks whenthe last speakerof the evening, Wendell Phillips, ascendedto the podium. By this time thehall that earlier that morning had beenŽ lled by well-dressedgentlemen and ladies waspacked by theafter-work addition of“ rough yeomanry, with shaggy browsand beards, hard handsand bronzed faces, or tradesmen with pallid cheeks,thin legs andstooping shoulders.”This crowdgave Phillips an enthusiasticcheer that seta far differenttone from thepolite andsubdued applause of themorning. Phillips didnot deliver afull lecturethat night—his speechesnormally tookseveral hoursand commanded fees exceeding the monthly incomeof most of the workersin theroom, including askilled machinist suchas Steward— but instead took theliberty ofenlarging uponthe resolutions proposed by thedelegated committee, and that waswhen the “ unpleasantness”began. 1 The last resolutionthat Phillips read outaddressed the controversy that had recently eruptedin thepress over theconduct of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor (BSL),the nation’ s Žrst suchagency, that Phillips andthe Eight HourLeague had lobbied theGeneral Court to found three years earlier. Echoingthe recent barrage ofcriticism that had beenleveled against theBSL in thepress, Phillips statedhis “grave objectionsto themanner in whichthe Labor Bureauof this Statehas beenmanaged,”

*Iwould liketo thank David Zondermanfor his generoushelp in gatheringresearch materials forthis paper. Also many thanks to David Roediger,Patricia Cooper, AlexanderSaxton, HerbertHill, and Christopher Friday, who readearlier drafts of this paper in othercontexts and whose comments, criticisms, and suggestionshave inuenced my many revisionssince. 1Boston Globe,May 30,1872; Commonwealth ,June 1, 1872; New YorkHerald ,May 29,1872.

ISSN0023-656Xprint/ ISSN1469-9702online/ 01/020133–26 Ó 2001Taylor & Francis Ltd onbehalfof The Tamiment Institute DOI: 10.1080/00236560120047734 134 T.Messer-Kruse

butdefended the bureau’ s purposeand praised itsdirector, the educational reformer HenryKimble Oliver. Heconcluded,“ wehopehe [Oliver] may beretained at his post, andallowed tocall tohis assistanceparties whohave theconŽ dence and respect of the labor movement.”This brought Ira Stewardto his feetin a“words-run-mad”defense ofhis friendand president of the Eight HourLeague, George McNeill, whohappened tobe the unnamed BSL assistant that Phillips alludedto. Phillips wassoon forced to condemnMcNeill by namefor giving “undueprominence to the eight-hour idea”in theBSL’ s latest annual report. In amoment“ dignity andeven decency were forgotten” and“ personal recrimination becamerife.” Steward later admitted that helost control andbehaved ungentlemanly, butdismissed decorum and good manners as qualities of “toriesand the nobility,” not workingmen like himself. Phillips, for his part, “mortiŽed” his listenerswith his “rudespeech” and as he left thehall “spitefully”tore theEight HourLeague poster off the wall. 2 In thewake of these events both rival labor reform organizations slipped intodecline. Phillips’Massachusetts’ s Labor Unionwas short lived anddidn’ t survive theyear, though Phillips remained apopular speakerbefore labor crowdsfor years tocome. Ira Steward’s BostonEight HourLeague likewise shrank toa handfulof eight-hour die-hards.Though Stewardwould later argue that purging Phillips wasnecessary to attract labor support,in themonths after the“ unpleasantness”of Anniversary Week Stewardfound himself ostracizedby Boston’s trade unionmovement. When union ofŽcials convenedto make preparations for an upcoming July Fourth “eight-hour” parade, they argued for anhour andtook “ twoor threevotes” before they couldagree toadmit Stewardto their meeting. 3 By theFall of1872, labor reformers publicly complained that divisivenessin their ranks wasweakening the movement. “ The real

2Ibid.;Steward’s self-defenseis found in Commonwealth ,June 22,1872; on Steward’s mannerssee E. H.RogersPapers, microŽlm edition(frame 00386). 3New YorkHerald ,June 10,1872. Boston Globe,June 1, 1872. LaborReform in Massachusetts 135 progress ofLabor Reform,”declared the Labor Reform StateCommittee, a group representingthe most recent attempt at reorganizing thelabor reform coalition, “is of courseretarded by theseparate action ofnumberless knots of well meaning reformers whoare opposedto each other.” 4 Lessthan ayear after theexpulsion of Phillips the editorsof Boston’s labor paper pondered,“ Weare askedif this augustbody [the Eight HourLeague] is extinct. We do not know.” And in what musthave beenan indictment ofSteward and the eight-hour leadership, they continued,“ If it be,we shouldbe glad tohear that somejudicious friends of theworking-men had takenup the question of the hoursof labor, in connectionwith labor arbitration, cooperation,and other questions that, removedfrom thehands of professionalagitators, becomeeasier ofsolution.” By themid-1870s Ira Stewardsadly reportedthat “themost of our few are dispirited”and werelike “theforlorn hopeof a besiegedfort.” 5 Suchwas the inglorious endingof what had begunas one of the most promising cross-classlabor reform coalitions ofthe Reconstruction era.

* * * * * *

The building ofMassachusetts’ s coalition ofworkers and elite reformers wasnot an easyor inevitable achievement.At theoutset of William LloydGarrison’ s abolitionist campaign in the1830s, both themovement for theimmediate emancipation ofslaves andthat ofworkersstriving toretain their artisans’independence against theencroach- mentof industrialization wereoften deeply suspiciousof one another. Early in their careerssuch leading abolitionists asPhillips andGarrison expressedtheir faith in marketplace competition andeven praised poverty for therigorous discipline it en- forced.“ Poverty,”Phillips explained, “is thespur that winsthe race.” 6 Likewise,labor leadersoften dismissed elite abolitionists assentimental philan- thropists whooverlooked the oppression of workers upon their owndoorstep in their eagernessto uplift thedistant slave. For their part elite abolitionists accusedlabor spokesmenof racism andignorance andobjected to any comparison betweenthe conditionof blacks in slavery andthe problems ofnorthern workers. Butwhile thepolitical andideological distancebetween the leaders of the early abolitionist crusadeand radical workerswas daunting, it proved surmountable.Indeed, over thecourse of the next 30 years abolitionists andworkers would draw more closely together in their outlooksuntil, by theimmediate post-waryears, these two former antagonistshad joinedforces within several grand labor coalitions.By thelate 1860s, nearly every surviving abolitionist leader had endorsedthe labor movement’s central demand:the legislated reductionof hours in theworking day.Even leaders who seemed least sympathetic tolabor’ s demandsin the1830s, suchas Garrison, Henry Ward

4The TradesJournal andFinancial Record (Boston), Oct. 5,1872. 5TradesJournal andFinancial Record (Boston), Jan. 25,1873. This paper was the successorto the Boston American Workman ;IraSteward to FriederickSorge, n.d. (probably 1876),Ira Steward Papers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin. 6SeeGilbert Hobbs Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse,1830± 1844 (NewYork: Harcourt,Brace & World, Inc.,1933); Ronald G.Walters, American Reformers,1815± 1860 (NewYork: Hill &Wang, 1978),27– 29; Jonathan A.Glickstein,“ Povertyis not Slavery: AmericanAbolitionists and the Competitive Labor Market,”in LewisPerry and MichaelFellman, eds. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists ,(Baton Rouge:Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1979), 195– 206; James BrewerSteward, Holy Warriors:The Abolitionists andAmerican Slavery (NewYork: Hill &Wang, 1976),35. Phillips’ quote canbe found in Glickstein,“ Povertyis Not Slavery,”200. 136 T.Messer-Kruse

Beecher,and Lydia Maria Child,came aroundafter thewar andpublicly supportedthe labor reform movement.After the war it waswidely recognizedthat labor’s closestallies outsideof theranks ofworkerswere the men and women who had formerly fought for theemancipation ofslaves. 7 Suchlabor reform coalitions didnot arise by themselvesbut were consciously constructedby thelabor leadersof the period. In Massachusettsmuch of thecredit for building thelabor reform coalition that wasthe Eight HourLeague goes to Ira Steward, alaborer’s sonwho was apprenticed to themachinist’ s trade while in his teens.Young Stewardwas not long at his benchbefore he chaffed under the bit ofhis 12-hour days anddevoted himself tothe cause of shorter hours.He was active in the10 hour movementof the1850s, writing lettersto the labor presscondemning a societywhere “thousandsof human beings… are virtually dragged from their bedsat early dawnand compelledto toil until theshade of the setting sun has spreadupon the earth.” In those years Steward’s ideological struggle wasnot with government or societybut often with elementsof his ownlabor movement,some of whosetrade unionswere resistant to the idea ofa legislated limitation onthe working day,fearing that ashorter day meant a shorter pay envelope.But, in 1863, asa delegate tothe International Machinistsand Blacksmiths Union(IMBU), then convening in Boston,Steward scored his Žrstvictory whenthe union endorsed his resolutionon shorter hours.Not only didthe IMBU agree with Stewardthat “themost important change tous asworking men,to which all else issubordinate, is apermanentreduction to eight ofthe hours exacted for eachday’ s work,”it evenbudgeted $400 toadvance the shorter hourscause and gave Stewardthe jobas paid organizer ofthe effort. 8 Freedfrom his daily toil asa machinist by theIMBU, Steward devoted all his efforts towardestablishing theeight-hour day.What Stewardaimed for wasbroadening the movementto include the many middle-classreformers ofNew England. The IMBU evenendorsed such a strategy—part ofthe eight-hour resolutionthat Stewardsuc- ceededin passing includeda passage that recognizedthat aneight-hour law couldnot bepassed without help from many reform allies andpledged to “ useall themachinery ofagitation, whetherit beamong thoseof the religious, political, reformatory or moneyedenterprises of the day …”It wasclear tothese labor leadersthat former abolitionists andother middle-classreformers had theorganizational experience,the money,and the in uence in thestate and federal governmentsthat couldmake their crusadea success. 9 In early 1864, asthe Ž rststep in cobbling together suchan alliance, Steward approached oneof Massachusetts’ s mostwell-known abolitionists, WendellPhillips, andsolicited his advice onthe best way tofashion an eight-hour appeal that would attract middle-classreformers. The twowere no strangers. Abolitionism andthe

7SeeTimothy Messer-Kruse, The Yankee International: Marxismand the American ReformTradition, 1848± 1876 (Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press,1998), chapt. 1. For an excellentreview of recenthistoriography on abolition and labor seeHerbert Shapiro, “Labor and Antislavery: Reections on the Literature,” Nature, Society andThought ,2(1989), 471–490. 8Hyman Kuritz,“ IraSteward and the EightHour Day,” Science andSociety ,20(1956), 410;Dorothy W.Douglass, “IraSteward on Consumption and Unemployment,” Journal ofPolitical Economy , 40 (Aug. 1932),532; Philip S.Fonerand BrewsterChamberlin, eds., FriedrichA. Sorge’sLaborMovement in the United States (Westport, CT: GreenwoodPress, 1977), 101– 102. 9 John R.Commons, UlrichB. Phillips, EugeneA. Gilmore,Helen L. Sumner, and John B. Andrews, eds., ADocumentary History ofAmerican Industrial Society (Cleveland: TheA.H. Clark Co., 1910–11), vol. 9, 279. LaborReform in Massachusetts 137

WendellPhillips antebellum 10-hour movementwere intertwined. Steward was an ardent abolitionist andit wasalleged by someof his associatesthat hehad fought in bleeding Kansas. Steward’s right-hand man,George McNeill, whomSteward described as his most likeminded ally andreferred to as a “walking convention… whenyou hear him talk youcan be sure that herepresents a numberof us in one,”was present at an abolitionist meeting with Phillips in the1840s that wasbroken up byaviolent mob of “well dressedyoung aristocrats.”10 Certainly, by1859 Stewardand Phillips werewell acquaintedwith oneanother, as Steward respectfully criticized Phillips’interpretation ofThomas Paine’s Rightsof Man in thepages ofthe  agship journal ofabolition, the Liberator.11 Phillips respondedwarmly toSteward’ s requestfor aid andadvised Steward that in order torecruit more ofhis fellowreformers heshould take an“ unequivocalposition” against strikes.Steward agreed, saying, “Wehave learnedto hate strikes.”Steward and

10Stewardto Sorge,Mar. 13, 1876, Ira Steward Papers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin. For details ofMcNeill’ s lifeand legacy,see Gary M. Fink, Biographical Dictionary ofAmerican Labor (Westport, CT: GreenwoodPress, 1984), 384; Robert R.Montgomery,“ ‘ToFight This Thing Till IDie’: TheCareer ofGeorge Edwin McNeill,” in Ronald C.Kent, et al, eds., Culture, Gender,Race, andU.S. Labor History (Westport, CT: GreenwoodPress, 1993), 3– 23. 11SeeMontgomery, ‘ To Fight This Thing Till IDie’: TheCareer of George Edwin McNeill,” 5; Liberator,Mar.4, 1859. 138 T.Messer-Kruse his felloworganizers weregrateful for Phillips’help; asthey toldhim after asking him for aloan tobuy ofŽce furnishings, “ wefeel strong only in your counsel!!!”12 The problem oftailoring thejustiŽ cations for labor reform tomore elite audiences ledSteward to a consumeremphasis. He bounced one idea offPhillips that hethought wouldappeal toa broad range ofreformers. “ [I]s thefollowing sound?”he asked of Phillips: “The Labor Reform Movementmeans theDischarge of all useless Middle Men and theAbolition of all Useless Working Hours .”The problem, heexplained, wasthat the systempaid “two,three, or Žve middle men to do one’s work,”and he gave theexample ofBoston where there were some 80 coal dealerswho each exacted their poundof esh from thepublic whena single agent wouldhave sufŽced. Steward estimated the cost to theBoston public ofthese excess numbers of middlemen at runningto some $5,000,000 per year. Phillips, noeconomist himself, musthave agreed that this wasa promising line ofargument for beforelong Mary Steward,Ira’ s wife,was hard at work combing through theBoston City Directory compiling atable ofthenumbers of people working in eachoccupational category in thecity soas to better nail downSteward’ s $5,000,000 estimate ofeconomic waste. 13 Steward,like Phillips, wonderedhow to appeal tothose reform elementsthat were traditionally least interestedin labor reform. To gain ammunition for them,Steward touredsome of the “ vilest places”in Boston,and recommended that Phillips go there too,for its“ sights werea text [for] that classof Temperance reformers,who ignore the poverty and labor sideof the story.” 14 In return,Steward offered Phillips advice onattracting workersto the Republican Party andto the project of Reconstruction. Steward warned Phillips that theDemocrats wereplanning toseize the upcoming 1867 Chicago Workingmen’s Conventionas a platform tolaunch their campaign. Stewardadvised that “theRepublicans could prick [their] …bubble by giving the8 hour systemto the Government workshops before the closeof the Winter Congress.”On another occasion,Steward advised Phillips that the bestway tosell workerson Radical Reconstructionwas to emphasize that withoutit therewould be continued southern unrest and occupation, both ofwhich wouldresult in their taxes being raised.“ Workingmen appealed toin thename ofhigher taxes,” recommendedSteward from experience,“ are quiteimpressible IŽnd.”15 By thesummer of 1864, theplanning wasdone and the actual workof building an eight-hour coalition wasbegun. Steward, along with his unionpartner, Charles W. Livermore, drafteda circular letter that ran undera headline incorporating both labor andconsumer themes: “ LABOR REFORMMOVEMENT! THE DISCHARGEOF ALLUSELESSMIDDLE MEN, andthe ABOLITION OFALLUSELESS HOURS!”In this circular’s salutation,the goal ofbuilding across-classcoalition was madeclear. The circular wasaimed for “distribution among UnionMen and to all who are in favor ofthe Social Elevation ofthe Great Producing Classes.”16 SoonSteward undertook to craft asetof resolutions that wouldappeal toboth workersand reformers. Gathering together agroup ofreformers at his hometownof HopedaleModern Age, a utopian community foundedby theUniversalist theologian

12Stewardto Phillips, n.d., in the CrawfordBlagden Collection of the Phillips Papers, Houghton Library, Boston (heraftercited as Phillips Papers). Many thanks to David Zondermanfor calling my attention to this setof invaluable letters. 13Ibid. 14Stewardto Phillips, Phillips Papers, July 20,1867. 15Ibid.;Stewardto Phillips, Phillips Papers, n.d. 16Stewardto Phillips, Phillips Papers, July 20,1867. LaborReform in Massachusetts 139 andabolitionist AdinBallou, Stewardtried outsome of his draft resolutionsin aspeech that emphasizedthe continuity of the abolitionist andreform tradition. Steward criticized thosereformers whoremained silenton the hours issue by comparing them tothe reformers ofthe American Tract Societywho had remained silentduring the Žght for abolition, andto the Hungarian patriot, LouisKossuth, who answered Garrison’s plea tojoin the Ž ght against slavery by saying that hewould leave this issue upto “ thosewho are interested.”Such fence-sitters were “ moral hermits”who “ want tomake money,go andcome, and receive the advantages ofsociety, without taking certain disagreeable responsibilities.”In consideringthe problem ofthese silent reform- ersand moral hermits, Stewardrevealed onecrucial reasonwhy thevoices of the abolitionists andother leading reformers,of middle-class allies generally, wereso crucial tohis strategy ofwinning the eight-hour reform. Speaking directly tothe fence-sitters,Steward explained, “This isour plan— to appeal toall goodmen and women,who, by their moral powerwill bayonet youup to the dreaded speaking point, whenyou, in your turn,will beshocked at theshameful silenceof others.” Who else carried more moral powerthan thereligious andsocial leadersof the crusade against slavery? Securingthe moral voice ofmen like Garrison andPhillips wasone of the linchpins ofSteward’ s long-term strategy for social change. 17 In November of1865, Stewardissued a call for amassmeeting todiscuss the eight-hour demand.The responsewas overwhelming andfar exceededhis expectations. In spiteof the rain that night, Faneuil Hall in Bostoncould not accommodate all who arrived, andhundreds were turned away. Five hundredworkers from Charlestown paraded tothe hall carrying “transparenciesand mottoes.” A cornetband entertained theaudience with popular songsfrom thebalcony. Along with themultitude of workingmen whoŽ lled thehall, several hundredwomen packed into the balcony. 18 Steward’s strategy ofappealing tothe abolitionist reformers wasevident at the Faneuil Hall rally. The keynotespeaker was, of course, Wendell Phillips. Steward introduceda setof resolutions that bridged thereform andworking-class communities. In theŽ rstresolution, the purpose of limiting thework day toeight hourswas explained. Rather than relying onthe bread-and-butter rationales for eight hourssuch asthe trade unionsof the day offered,Steward emphasized the cultural andmoral aspectsof the reform. Twoyears before,when Steward drafted a setof eight-hour resolutionsfor his Machinist’s andBlacksmith’ s Union,there was only onepurpose given, namely that “aReductionof Hours is anIncrease of Wages.” But here, in the presenceof WendellPhillips, thepurpose was far more universal. The “nextgreat step” for America, offeredSteward, harkening back tothe short-hour themes Ž rstvoiced in theJacksonian era, wasthe passage oflaws that wouldprevent capital from depriving workersof “ thetime andopportunity necessaryto study the institutions of his country, or thegreat questionsof the age.” Steward crafted his phrasesto link theeight-hour struggle with thegreat crusadefor emancipation that came beforeit. The adoptionof an eight-hour systemin thefederal workshopsand naval yards,said one resolution, “wouldbe of as much signiŽ cance to the Labor Reform movementas was the abolition ofslavery in theDistrict ofColumbia toemancipation in 1863.”Another resolution heraldedemancipation andthe recent Union victory in language far in advanceof what wasto be found in mostof the union halls andlabor papers ofthe day; the resolution declaredthat theassembly “rejoicethat therebel aristocracy ofthe South has been

17Boston Daily Evening Voice ,Aug. 4, 1865. 18Boston Daily Evening Voice ,Nov. 3,1865. 140 T.Messer-Kruse crushed,that werejoicethat beneaththe glorious shadowof our victorious ag menof every clime, lineage andcolor are recognizedas free.” Even in theone resolution that argued thecase for eight hoursfrom awagespoint ofview, the concerns of the middle-classconsumer were also assured.Eight hourswas the only reform in whichthe wagesof the laborer couldbe raised “withoutincreasing theprice ofthe article produced.”Rather, in abit ofeconomic legerdemain, thecost would be borne completely by theemployer: “this increasein thelaborer’ s wageswill beat theexpense ofthe vast wealth ofthe individual capitalist, andnot at theexpense of the laboring consumer.”19 The StateConvention of the Grand Eight HourLeague of Massachusetts followed theFanueil Hall rally in thespring of1866. Animpressive total of14 local eight-hour societieswere represented. Angered at theMassachusetts legislature’ s refusalto pass their eight-hour bill, theleague redoubledtheir effortsand established a special fundraising committee whosegoal wasraising $5000 for anewshort-hours campaign. This moneywas earmarked for building thecross-class alliance betweenMassachu- setts’s working menand women with former abolitionists andmiddle-class reformers that Stewardhad envisioned.As the convention put it, thesefunds would be used to “convincethousands of leading mindsthat theEight HourCry meansmore ofWealth, Health,Education, Morals andReform, than they Žrstimagined.” The sortsof people that thecampaign hopedto attract werethose “ fair, disinterested,and in uential personswho only needto be convinced of the soundness of our claims tocause them tobecome at onceour most valuable allies.”20 Steward’s effortsto attract reformers had paid off.The list ofmajor contributorsto theeight-hour campaign swelledwith thenames of former middle-classabolitionists. Gerrit Smith wroteto Steward objecting that his eight-hour idea didnot go far enough asan eight-hour law wasonly a“temporary”expedient. Rather, Smith believed that six hoursshould be the proper standardof theworking day.He enclosed $20 all thesame, agesturehe continued annually for many years.Other prominent abolitionists suchas Benjamin Butler,Rev. Edward Everett Hale, Dr. Dio Lewis,Josiah Abbott,Rufus Wyman, andEzra Heywoodall offeredtheir supportto the eight-hour campaign. William LloydGarrison placedhimself onpublic recordin supportof the eight-hour campaign andthe League behind it. Hesenta letter explaining his endorsementof the campaign along with his contribution.Within his testimonial canbe glimpsed theold universal reform sentimentthat animated somuch of antebellum reform: The sameprinciple whichhas ledme to abhor andoppose the unequaled oppressionof theblack laborers ofthe South, instinctively leadsme to feel an interestin whatever isproposed to be done to improve thecondition and abridge thetoil ofthewhite laborers oftheNorth— or, rather, ofall overtasked working classes. . 21 Though theeight-hour coalition’s primary demandwas bottled up in thelegislature, its political fortunesremained promising. EdwardH. Rogers,a longtime eight-hour spokesman,was sent to the legislature by his fellowworkers at theCharleston Navy

19Commons, Documentary History ,vol. 9, 280,304– 305; Boston Daily Evening Voice ,Nov. 3,1865. 20Susan M.Kingsbury, et al., LaborLaws and Their Enforcement: WithSpecial Reference to Massachusetts (NewYork: Longmans, Green,and Co., 1911),101; Boston Weekly Voice ,May 3, 1866. 21David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Laborand the RadicalRepublicans, 1862±1872 (1967;reprint, Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press,1981), 123– 124; Fincher’sTrades’Review ,May 12,1866; Boston Daily Evening Voice ,May 2, 1866. LaborReform in Massachusetts 141

Yard.The treasurer ofits recentfund drive campaign, James M.Stone,a veteran ofthe antebellum 10-hour movementand a member ofthe legislature from Charleston,was electedto the powerful position of speaker. In 1867, thelegislature approved an eight-hour league petition calling for thecreation ofa Bureauof Statistics of Labor. WendellPhillips exertedhis considerablein uence in theRepublican Party tosecure theappointment tothe BSL of Henry K. Oliver, arespectededucational reformer, and theeight-hour league’s ownGeorge McNeill ashis assistant.Oliver had madea mark in labor reform circlesas an eight-hour advocatewho resigned his commissionas the state’s Žrstappointed school constable, whose charge includedthe supervision of child labor in thestate’ s factoriesout of protestat theinadequacy of the laws he was pledged to enforce.22 Though theGrand Eight HourLeague, the statewide coalition thetwo men had founded,fell topieces in 1867 after thefailure ofaneight-hour law in thelegislature, therelationship betweenSteward and Phillips remained close.Little time waslost beforethe two activists reorganized themovement locally asthe Boston Eight Hour Leagueand continued their effortsto win a legally restrictedwork day. After Phillips addresseda Massachusettslegislative committee consideringan eight-hour bill, Stewarddescribed his speechas “ themost important contributionto the subject [of labor] which has ever beenmade.” In anuncharacteristic momentof humility, Stewardgave all thecredit for therecent successes of the national Eight-Hour Movement,including thewinning of the eight-hour day for all federal employees,to Phillips. “Butfor his [Phillips’] inuence in ourbehalf, Congresswould have waited several years longer beforewe couldhave brought powerenough to bear tosecure the Eight HourLaw.” 23 Elite former abolitionists continuedto take aneven more active role in themove- ment:Rev. J.T. Sargent, William Channing,and Aaron Powell,noted leaders of the National Anti-Slavery Society,were all electedvice-presidents of the Eight Hour League.24 Notlong afterwards,Eight HourLeague president George McNeill “congratulated theworkingmen uponthe espousal of their causeby somany veterans ofthe anti-slavery movement.”25 By theend of the 1860s, abolitionist participation in labor reform waswidely recognized. Woodhulland Cla¯in’ sWeekly observedthat it was“ Mr.Wendell Phillips andhis late anti-slavery coadjutors”who were giving their attentionto the eight-hour law.Theodore Tilton’ s reform paper, the Independent ,reecting onthe legacy of abolitionism, notedthat abolitionists, “in digging at theroot oftheslavery question… mellowedthe soil for ascoreof other great reforms,”among which hecounted “ the hoursof labor.” 26 Massachusett’s labor reformers reapedthe fruits of their steadily broadening baseof supportin theFall 1869 elections.With little preparation thelabor reform ticket won

22Kingsbury, et al.,96–97, 102– 103; Jesse H. Jones, “HenryKimble Oliver, AMemorial,” Massachusetts Bureau ofStatistics ofLabor ,1886,14– 24; Edward Rogers Papers, Unpublished Autobiography (frames 00371–00372, 00391); see also, “TheLabor MovementPast and Present,”Boston Globe,June 15,1872. 23GeorgeE. McNeill,ed., The LaborMovement: The Problemof To-Day (Boston, 1887),139; National Anti-Slavery Standard (hereafterreferred to as NASS),Apr. 17,1869. 24NASS,Feb. 20,1869. 25American Workman ,Boston, May 28,1870. 26Woodhull &Cla¯in’ sWeekly ,May 28,1870; New York Independent ,Apr. 21,1870. Tilden’ s paper was not consistentin its endorsementof labor issues.At othertimes the aging“ IronLaw of Wages” theory was endorsed:“ Combinations ofworkingmen, trades’ unions, and protectiveassociations cannot successfullydefy the greatlaw ofsupply and demand”(New York Independent ,Mar.3, 1870). 142 T.Messer-Kruse asurprising 10% ofthe state’ s total votesand elected more than 20 oftheir candidates tostate ofŽ ce. The following year WendellPhillips wasnominated the labor party’s candidatefor governor andstood upon an even Ž rmer labor platform than theprevious statewiderace had proclaimed. Though hemade little dentin theRepublican control ofthe state, Phillips’ campaign achieved oneof the original goals ofthe movement— it succeededin uniting labor party voters,temperance reformers, and women suffragists behindhis candidacy.That year Phillips increasedthe labor party’s statewidepoll from 13,000 to22,000 votes.Phillips’ ability tobring together thesevaried constituencies wasthe key tothe party’ s successand in following years,after Phillips steppedout of theelectoral spotlight, thelabor party declined. In 1871 labor’s candidatefor governor, EdwinM. Chamberlin, swungonly 6848 votesto its column.Wendell Phillips’ candidacy proved thehigh-water mark ofthe labor reform movementin Massachusetts.The following year thepartnership between Stewardand Phillips dissolvedin anger. 27 The rise andfall ofthis labor reform coalition is butan extendedfootnote in the history ofreform. The breakup ofthis coalition in 1872 is signiŽcant less for the damage it didto the progress ofthe labor movementin Massachusetts,though this was considerable,than in what it reveals about thetensions that existedwithin thecross- classreform coalitions ofthe Reconstruction Era. The falling-out betweenPhillips and Stewardwas emblematic ofa pattern ofschism throughout labor reform organizations at that time. Betweenthe fall of1871 andthe spring of1872, thetwo most ambitious national labor coalitions ofthe era, theNational Labor Unionand the International Workingmen’s Association,each suffered acrimonious internal splits andbegan their rapid slidetoward history’ s dustbin. In explaining thesedivisions, the consensus among labor historians has beento emphasize theclass con icts that dividedelite “sentimentalreformers” from the “genuinely working classmovement” they couldnot stomach. In thecase of the break-up ofthe Boston Eight HourLeague, the personalities oftheleaders at thecenter ofthe dispute, one a BostonBrahmin, theother aself-taught machinist, seema clear example ofsuchclass animosities at work.But class identity itself cannotbe the cause ofthese breakups, for if classdifferences alone wereenough to split thesemovements, thenhow was it that theseunlikely allies came together in theŽ rstplace? Rather, the schismswithin theselabor reform organizations arosefrom differing ideologies,agen- das,and philosophies ofreform, notthe class character ofthereformers themselves.Of course,the possibility remains that thelines of class and of ideology ran together; however,such coherence cannot be presumed but must be based on acloseanalysis of thephilosophies andviewpoints of all theparties involved. In thecase of the Inter- national Workingmen’s Association,I have argued elsewherethat thesource of the split that destroyedthe First International originated in thedeeper historical andphilosoph- ical differencesthat separatedthe American radical tradition from that ofimmigrant Marxists.28 The IWA torealong anethno-cultural and philosophical seamthat ran betweenthe Marxists’ materialist reductionismand the Yankee reformers’ moralistic universalism. Asimilar geometry structuredthe ideological faultlines that underlay the rift in Boston’s labor reform movement.

27Commons, History ofLabour in the United States ,vol. 2, 142–143; Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell Phillips: BrahminRadical (1961;reprint, Westport, CT:GreenwoodPress, 1973), 351– 355; Oscar Sherwin, Prophetof Liberty: The Lifeand Times of Wendell Phillips (1958;reprint, Westport, CT: GreenwoodPress, 1975), 597. 28Timothy Messer-Kruse, passim. LaborReform in Massachusetts 143

Aswasthe case for theIWA, the Ž rstdraft ofthe history ofthis episodewas written by partisans ofone faction, and subsequent accounts were written based on the authority ofthoseearly interpretations.Subsequently, historians have notbeen particu- larly evenhandedin their treatment ofWendellPhillips andhave tendedto simplify the complex ideological conicts that toreapart thelabor reform movementinto a one-dimensionalcon ict between“ genuine”workers and elite “sentimentalreformers.” Oneof theŽ rsthistorians ofthe rise andfall oflabor reform in the1870s wasthe man wholed the putsch against theYankee Internationals, Friedrich A.Sorge.Sorge argued that Phillips wasthe cause of the breakup in Boston,but couldn’ t decidewhether Phillips didso because he was a political opportunist,or agullible faddistwho continually latched ontothe latest reform panacea.Phillips either was“ sent”by “bourgeois legislators”to “ wreckthe bureau’ s administration,”a task hedid for his ownpartisan political advantage, or heabandoned his eight-hour friendsfor anew panacea,Ž nancereform, which Sorge describedas “ thesolution to the labor problem by theissuing of paper money.”29 Several decadeslater labor historian JohnB. Andrew, oneof the team ofscholars contributing toJohn R. Commons’s magisterial History of LaborIn TheUnited States ,echoedSorge’ s lessconspiratorial theory andwrote that by 1872 Phillips had driftedaway from theeight-hour demandand into a“broader programme, with moneyreform at thehead of the list.” Phillip Foner’s Historyof the LaborMovement in theUnited States revived Sorge’s original charges andwrote: The split occurredover theeight-hour question.Steward regarded it asthe only questionof signiŽ cance to labor, andhe particularly opposedthe cur- rencyissue. Wendell Phillips, inuenced by thewritings ofEdward Kellogg, wasmoving more andmore towardcurrency reform. Whenhe insisted that theplatform ofthe Labor Party lead offwith ademandfor anewmonetary system,the eight-hour advocateswalked out and set up their ownorganiza- tion.30 This analysis survived theparadigm shift that occurredwithin labor history in the 1960s asa newsocial emphasis reinvigorated theŽ eld.“ New”labor historians suchas David Montgomery followed“ Old”labor historians in painting WendellPhillips asa “sentimentalreformer” who shifted his allegiance from the“ genuinely working-class” eight-hour mento the currency reformers andconducted a “mercilessand unabating disparagement ofboth the[Massachusetts Labor] bureauand the Eight Hour League.”31 Why doeseveryone pick onWendell Phillips? 32 Uponwhat evidencehave scholars assumedthat it wasPhillips whoseoutlook changed and triggered themeltdown of

29FriedrichA. Sorge’sªLaborMovement in the United States,º 130.Sorge’ s and Phillip Foner’s chargethat Phillips was out to getthe eight-hourmen forpartisan political advantage has no basis in fact.Phillips was no machine Republican. Heoften advised votersto casttheir ballots against the party. As lateas November 1871,Phillips advised Boston’s black votersto punish the Republicans forhaving treatedthem with contempt in localaffairs by votingthe Democraticticket ( Boston Post,Nov. 7,1871). 30Commons, History ofLabour in the United States ,vol. 2, 143;Phillip Foner, History ofthe Labor Movement in the United States (NewYork: InternationalPublishers, 1947),vol. 1, 426. 31David Montgomery,413– 414. 32Phillips’own biographers have generallyfollowed Andrews’ and Commons’authority and castblame upon Phillips’alleged backsliding fromlabor issuesto monetary reform.Oscar Sherwin in his Prophet of Liberty,explainedthe conict between Steward’ s Labor Unionand Phillips’Eight Hour League as arising fromSteward’ s eight-hour“ monomania”and Phillips’infatuation with “money reform”(Commons, History ofLabour in the United States ,vol. 2, 143;Sherwin, 633). Likewise,Irving Bartlett, in Wendell Phillips , tracesPhillips’ ostracism from the eight-hourmen as stemming fromhis driftinginto greenbackism(359). 144 T.Messer-Kruse labor reform in thespring of1872? The factual basis uponwhich Commonsand Andrewsand all other historians whohave followedin their footstepshave made their judgmentsabout WendellPhillips is,astonishingly, buta single source—apolemical letter writtenby Ira Stewardhimself in theheat offactional battle. 33 In this revealing letter Stewarddoes not even mention the issue of currency reform, nordoes he claim it asthe substance of Phillips’ heresy. Rather, Stewardcondemns Phillips for distracting workersfrom thetrue cause of reduced hours by his advocacy of“ corporation dividends,Chinese custom-houses, the national banking system,and the attacks upon theBureau of Statistics of Labor.”Which oneof these deviations from theeight-hour ideal wasmost galling tohim, Stewarddid not say, though, of these, the Chinese Questionand the controversy surrounding the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, which wereboth related tothe question of Chinese immigration andlegal equality, werethe only oneshe mentioned more than once. 34 Assumingfor amomentthat Stewardis correct and the cause of the rift wasPhillips’ own apostasy from the principles oftheEight HourLeague, the question then is, on what particular issuesdid Phillips change his public positionand when did this change occur? The Žrstthing that becomesimmediately apparent whenreviewing Phillips’public record,is that at thetime ofthe breakup ofthe Eight HourLeague, Phillips wasno greenbacker.Indeed, his viewson Ž nanceand banking werefar tothe left ofthe greenbackersthemselves. The year beforePhillips’ and Steward’ s alliance soured,their positionson Ž nancial questionswere very muchin synch;indeed, at that time, Phillips wascondemned by greenbackersas an opponent of Ž nancial reform. In June1871, Phillips delivered arosterof resolutions before the Eight HourLeague (Phillips was usually entrustedwith thetask ofpreparing andreporting theLeague’ s resolutionsprior to1872) andlater washarshly criticized by currencyreform advocateswho darkly hinted that Phillips wasin league with the“ moneypower.” 35 ASt.Louis greenbacker wroteto the Workingman’sAdvocate ,alabor paper that campaigned for monetary reform, saying that “Phillips isa repudiator ofour Ž nancial platform andwe cannot support him.” 36 However,in thespring of1872 Žnancial topicsbegan tocreepinto Phillips’ speeches. This isone likely sourceof historical confusionsurrounding Phillips’ views in 1872. But addressingissues of banking andinterest is not necessarily the same thing asadvocating monetary reform. In fact,Phillips’ evolving viewsof banking andinterest propelled him far tothe left ofmost greenbackers of the period. Phillips Žrstbegan including referencesto banking andŽ nancein his speechesand writing early in 1872. In mid-February hewrote a letter tothe business-oriented Boston

Theonly exceptionto this trendis James BrewerStewart’ s unique explanation in Wendell Phillips:Liberty’ s Hero that Phillips repudiatedSteward because his wife,Anne, put herfoot down and orderedhim to quit labor politics, 301–302. Anne’ s disapproval didn’t deterPhillips fromaddressing a meetingof Boston’ s union leadersseveral weeks after the MassachusettsLabor Unionconvention (Boston Globe, June 19, 1872). 33Scholars have generallycited two primary sources,letters from Ira Steward to the Commonwealth for June 29,1872 and to Equity (Boston) ofJune 1874.The Equity letterdoes not speciŽcally dealwith the eventsof 1872, but ismerely an exampleof Steward’ s continuinghostility to currencyand Žnancial schemestwo yearslater; cf. Phillip Foner, History ofthe LaborMovement in the United States ,vol. 1, 554, n. 44. 34Commonwealth (Boston), June 29,1872. 35On Phillips’preparation ofresolutions see Boston Eight Hour League: Its Objects andWork: Annual Report ofthe President ¼ (Boston EightHour League: Boston, 1872),3; Workingman’sAdvocate , June 17, 1871; New YorkWorld ,June 1, 1871. 36Workingman’sAdvocate ,July 8,1871. LaborReform in Massachusetts 145

Advertiser criticizing its positionon banking reform. Herailed against private banks, noting that their proŽts “ comeŽ nally outof the labor ofthe nation” — indeed,banks “sit like anincubus on it.” His solution was typically sweepingand revolutionary: “abolish all thenational banksand bring thegovernment faceto face with the borrower.”In other words,nationalize thenation’ s banking system. 37 All through that spring of1872, Phillips avoidedany discussionof greenbacks or other currencyschemes. He raised his plan tonationalize thebanks again andagain, eventually simplifying it tothe slogan ofhaving thegovernment “give usmoneyat 3per cent”. Evenbefore greenback audiences,Phillips didnot broach theissue of currency butstuck to his radical plan ofbank nationalization. OnApril 18th, 1872, Wendell Phillips addresseda massive assembly ofthe largest labor unionin thestate, a unionof shoemakersknown as the Knights ofSt.Crispin, who were widely knownas the most staunchsupporters of greenbackism in thestate. Before the Crispins, Phillips toutedhis bank nationalization scheme.More importantly, in contrastto the tendency of green- backersof the era, Phillips didnot present his plan asa panacea or evenrecommend it onits economicmerits alone,but urged its adoptionas a steptoward unifying the working classin its political struggle with capital: 38 Wehave thirty-eight one-horselegislatures in this country,and we have got a man like Tom Scott,with $350,000,000 in his hands,and if hewalks through theStates they have nopower at all …Nowthere is nothing butthe rallying ofmen against moneythat cancontest with that power.Rally industrially, if youwill, rally for eight hours,for alittle division oftheproŽ ts, for co-operation;rally for sucha banking powerin thegovernment aswould give usmoney at 3per cent;only organize andstand together. (Applause.) Claim something together andall at once;let thenation hear auniteddemand from thelaboring voice,and then, when you have got that, go toanother; but get asomething. 39 Later that spring, whenhe was denounced by Ira Stewardand the eight-hour men, WendellPhillips had notyet begunto advocate greenback schemesas the solution to labor’s plight. Phillips delivered his Žrstspeech that supportedEdward Kellog’ s “greenback”currency plan, beforethe American Social ScienceAssociation in Boston onMarch 3, 1875, threeyears after his schismwith Steward. 40 Rather, in May 1872, Phillips stoodupon a platform oflabor issuesthat includedonly twointerrelated Žnancial planks—one advocated the nationalization ofthe banking systemand the other supportedthe restriction ofinterestrates to two or threepercent that wouldresult

37Boston Advertiser ,Feb. 12,1872. 38Theworking class of Massachusetts was badly divided overthe currencyissue. Textile operatives were against it, shoemakerswere for it. Ofall the unions in the stateit was the Crispins who werethe most ardent supportersof currency and banking reform.See Commons, History ofLabour in the United States , vol. 2, 139–140. 39Boston Advertiser ,April 19,1872. 40LorenzoSears, Wendell Phillips:Orator and Agitator (NewYork: Benjamin Bloom, 1909),301. Just about the same time that Phillips driftedoff into Greenbackism,Steward moved toward the ideaas well. When labor reformersmet in conventionin the fall of1874 there was “keendisappointment” due to a puny turnout ofnear 30 people. Inspite ofthis, or, perhaps, becauseof the fewin attendance,the eight-hourmen werein control:George McNeill was electedpresident and IraSteward was appointed to the committeeon resolutions.Somehow, in spite ofthe eight-hourmen’ s controlof the assembly, Steward’s committeeincluded in its platform demands fora “circulatingmedium issueddirectly to the people”and planks in favorof land reform,improved public schools and freehalls ( Equity (Boston), September 1874,44– 45). 146 T.Messer-Kruse from nationalization. Neither ofthese either rankedvery high onthe group’ s agenda, appearing aspoints six andseven on the MLU program, norwere they at all representative ofthe Greenback Movement, which at that time wasfocused on inating themoney supply through bondissues and paper currency,rather than usingfederal powersto take over banksand legislate interestrates. At thetime Phillips islabeled a greenbacker by mostlabor historians his highest priorities wereencouraging all workers toorganize, supporting their right tostrike, advocating theformation ofproducer cooperatives,reducing the hours in theworking day andusing state power to force corporations toshare half oftheir proŽts with their employees. 41 At his nextlabor meeting heldjust two weeks later, Phillips mentionednothing ofŽ nancial theoriesand merely compared thelabor movementto the abolitionist causeof old. 42 Phillips’ activities that spring hardly constitutea signiŽcant “ drift”towards monetary reform. If Phillips didnot drift intothe greenbackers’ camp, aslater historians have argued, werethere other issuesthat headopted that provoked thecon ict? Luckily,if there wereother waysin which Phillips deviatedfrom theeight-hour line thetime frame in whichthey musthave occurredcan be established with someaccuracy. In his recrimi- natory letter tothe Boston Commonwealth ,Stewardoff-handedly mentioned that the bad bloodbetween Phillips andthe League predated the conventions of Anniversary Week:“ …theEight HourLeague voted, a fewweeks ago, April 18th, notto invite him [Phillips] tospeak at its Third AnnualConvention, because he no longer represented its views.”43 Unfortunately,no minutes or accountsof that meeting survive todetail what thesource of Phillips’ censure was. On the other endof the timeline George McNeill, presidentof the League, had nothing butpraise for Phillips in his annual report ofthe League’ s workthat hepublished four months earlier in January: “…Ihave thepleasure of recording thenames of the following gentlemen,who have in thepast contributedtowards our Conventions. Foremost among them is thename of onewho, tohis contributionsof money,has lentthe greater contributionof his voice—Wendell Phillips.”44 If it istrue that thesplit wasthe product of Phillips’ drift away from the program ofthe Eight HourLeague it musthave beena rapid slide,for beforethe middle ofApril 1872 therewere no indications of any earlier animosity betweenPhillips andthe Eight HourLeague. Knowingthe time frame within whichthe rift betweenPhillips andthe eight-hour mengrew, it should,in theory, bepossible to identify thewedge issues that cleavedthe labor reform coalition apart. Whenall thepublic statementsof both Phillips andthe eight-hour menare carefully compared anumberof differencesbecome apparent. One obviouscandidate is theissue that brought theconvention of the Massachusetts Labor

41Sherwin, 627–628; Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era:A Social andPolitical History ofAmerican Finance, 1865± 1879 (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1964), 97– 119; Boston Globe,May 30,1872. Phillips’ callfor the “abolition ofinterest” appeared in the contextof a wholesaleattack upon capitalism itself:“ The system and structureof which allows the oneman to be worth millions …while his thousands ofemployees don’t know wheretheir bread is coming from came from hell …Thecornerstones of this movement are cooperationand the abolition ofinterest. The wages system neverproduces the bestresults. The wages laborerwon’ t workmore than Žftyor sixty per cent of what he can—he’ d be afool ifhe did, he would introducecooperation, and testit by making corporationsdivide proŽts between stockholders and employees. Theremust be no such thing as awageslave or a capital tyrant”( Boston Globe ,May 30,1872). The New YorkWorld (May 30,1872) had aslightly differentand morecondensed summary ofPhillips’ remarksthough they did not differin any essentialsfrom the Globe’s account. 42Boston Globe,June 19,1872. 43Commonwealth ,June 29,1872. 44Boston EightHour League, Annual Report ofthe President (Boston, 1872),12. LaborReform in Massachusetts 147

Unionto a screaming end—Phillips’ criticism ofthe Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics(MBLS). While therecan be no doubt that by anniversary weekof 1872 Phillips andSteward had arrived at oppositeviews of the MBLS, this issuecannot have beenthe source of their discord.The MBLSreport that Phillips criticized wasnot releaseduntil thefourth week in April, afortnight after theEight HourLeague censuredPhillips. 45 Phillips couldnot have evenread, much less taken a public stand ona documentthat wasnot yet published. 46 Phillips didnot begin his labor apostasy by criticizing theMBLS, though this issuewould later becomethe conduit through which amore fundamental,philosophical conict wouldbe channeled. If therewas but one issue that proved thegravestone oflabor reform in Boston,the mostlikely candidateis not greenbackism, or theleadership ofthe BLS, or eventhe eight-hour day itself,but the so-called Chinese Question. Within thebroad array of radical measuresthat WendellPhillips stoodfor in 1872, theone that mostseparated him from his working-classconstituency, and the only issuewhose novel appearance coincidedwith Phillips’expulsion from Steward’s Eight HourLeague, was his call to treat theChinese immigrant equally with immigrants from all other nations. By the1870s, Ira Steward’s economicideas had turnedhim into aSinophobe. Lurking in thebackground ofSteward’ s writings wasa deepconcern at theprospect of theintroduction of Chineseworkers into American industrial society.Steward’ s fear of thecoming ofthe Chinese was intrinsically linked with his understandingof the economicsof wages,hours, and even of history andhuman progress itself.Well before thepresence of Chineseworkers became an issue east of theMississippi in thesummer of1870 (when75 Chineseworkmen were brought from SanFrancisco tobreak astrike ofshoemakers in North Adams,Massachusetts), Steward had already publishedessays conating theeight-hour-day demand,a cultural theory ofwages,and a racist vision of theChinese character. Again andagain, Stewardturned to China toillustrate his innovative economic theories.Before a meeting ofcarpenters in 1869, Stewardspoke at length onthedanger of“ cheap labor, suchas that performed by thecoolies,” showing in his usualway how it was“ dearestin theend.” 47 Evenbefore the Ž rstChinese workers stepped off the train in North Adams,Steward began todraw his metaphor in more lurid tones.“ Apeasant ofthe Celestial Empire canlive onrats,” he wrotein the AmericanWorkman , “and his wagesare gauged accordingly; buta Manaccustomed to beefsteak, succeeds in getting workenough to buy it.”48 Astime wenton, Steward’ s attacks onthe Chinese became ever more shrill, culminating in his tract, “The Powerof the Cheaper Over theDearer,” a workthat he envisionedas the beginning ofa bookwhich would present his ideasof political economyto the world in amore systematicfashion. In it hebegan by illustrating how “cheap men”undermine a nation’s march forward in history. Hisexample, ofcourse, wasChina, where sedan chairs werethe primary modeof transportation sincemen were cheaper than horses,and where thousands of men hauled water upfrom amine becausethey werecollectively cheaper than asteampump. Indeed, as China’ s economy

45TheŽ rstreferences to the MBLS reportappeared in the Boston Advertiser on April 29,1872. Phillips was censuredon April 18,1872. 46For an accountof the MBLS controversy,see James Leiby, CarrollWright and Labor Reform: The Origins ofLabor Statistics (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1960), 59– 62. 47American Workman ,Sept. 25,1869. 48American Workman ,July 31,1869; Steward again usedthe “cheap labor”/“ Coolie”illustration before Boston’s Carpentersand Joiners, American Workman ,Sept. 25,1869. 148 T.Messer-Kruse wasundermined by thecheapness of its men,so also wereits national geniusand character stunted: With suchpetty productions,small housesand vessels, and very fewnovelties or wondersin engineering, theChinese have very little usefor mathematics. Andwithout mathematics they cannothave astronomy andwithout astron- omy they mustbe narrow andsuperstitious, just the condition to invite the iron handeddespotism of anEmperor. The people whodig theleast iron out ofthe earth, will have themost iron putinto their government. 49 Sucha stateof affairs wasdeplorable enoughfor theChinese people themselves, but its effectswere felt aroundthe globe. “Thusit is that notmany silver table knivesand forks canbe usedon one side of the world, as long asthe people on the other sideare eating with chop sticks!”The millennium awaited theday when“ chopsticks are driven outof the world.”50 From Steward’s viewpoint,Chinese immigrants threatenedthe entire movement for eight hoursbecause their “cheapness”was the product of their race andculture, qualities that werenot easily changedby additional leisure.As long asChinese, who wereso far behindthe white American worker in termsof their wantsand desires, stood available for capitalists toemploy in place ofexpensive white laborers, thestruggle for eight hourswould be lost. Steward’s theoretical linkage ofeight-hour economicsand race wasgiven apowerful boostby thesudden attention given tothe issue of Chineseimmigration with thearrival of73 Chinesefrom SanFrancisco towork at ashoefactory in North Adams, Massachusettsin 1870. 51 In thewake of the coming ofthe Ž rstgroup ofChinese workersto Massachusetts, mass protest meetings were held in Bostonand New York. AtBoston’ s Tremont Temple thecream ofMassachusetts’ s trade unionmovement gathered in outrage over thearrival ofthe Chinese to the Commonwealth. The meeting wasadvertised, according toone report, by alarge “rude”picture postedat the entranceof thebuilding that featureda “swift-footedcelestial with Žve of[his] favorite rats onhis shoulder,and his braided pigtail trailing far in therear.” Practically the entireexecutive committee ofthe Boston Eight HourLeague showed up, including presidentGeorge McNeill, vice-presidentsE.H. Rogers andWilliam McLaughlin, secretariesRansom Pratt andEleanor Rockwood,as well asits delegate tothe NLU, Charles McLean.Resolutions were adopted decrying this plot ofcapital toreduce American workersto the “ Chinesestandard of rice andrats.” McNeill, an invited speaker,returned to the idea that what wasimportant wasnot the supply ofand demandfor workers,but their standardof living. “Every seventy-Žve Chinamen brought herethrew a hundredand twenty-Ž ve menout of employment,” he claimed, “onaccount of the limited numberof their needs.”The successof the labor movement dependedupon getting workingmen tocooperate, McNeill wenton, but the “Chinamenmade it impossible tocooperate.” 52

49IraSteward, “ThePower of the Cheaper Overthe Dearer,”15– 16, in the IraSteward Papers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin. 50Ibid., 22. 51For detailsof the North Adams controversysee Frederick Rudolph, “Chinamen in Yankeedom: Anti-Unionism in Massachusettsin 1870,” American Historical Review ,53(1947), 1–29; Stuart Creighton Miller, The Unwelcome Immigrant:The American Imageof the Chinese, 1785±1882 (Berkeley:University of California Press,1969), Chapt. 8; GunterBarth, Bitter Strength: AHistory ofthe Chinese in the United States, 1850± 1870 (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1964), 198– 202. 52Daily Advertiser (Boston), June 30,1870; Boston Investigator ,July 6, 1870. LaborReform in Massachusetts 149

The factthat thepresence of Chinese workers in Massachusettswas of special concernto Steward was amply illustrated by theamount of the space devoted to the issuein theMassachusetts’ s Bureauof Labor Reportsthat theeight-hour men authored.Though notat thehelm ofthe Bureau, George McNeill, along with Steward’s energeticwife Mary, whomhe hired ashis assistant,quickly tookover mostof thework from theostensible head of theBureau, General Henry K. Oliver, a man with little knowledgeor experiencein labor issues. 53 The Bureau’s early reports bear Stewardand McNeill’ s stamp onnearly every page. Thesereports were distributedwidely, both directly andthrough reprinting in thelabor press.Even read onthe  oor ofCongress, they becameone of the most important meansof propagating themessage of eight hoursand danger ofChinesecheap labor throughout the nation.54 Amajor portion ofthe Bureau’ s secondannual report (1871) wasdevoted to the introductionof the Chinese into North Adams.Scores of testimonials werecollected from displacedworkers, townspeople, the foreman andfactory owner,though no Chinesewere interviewed. In conclusion,McNeill andthe director ofthe Bureau, GeneralHenry K. Oliver, spokeof the Chinese and repeated an aphorism that Steward had earlier coined,“ cheap labor is thedearest, for it makeseverything poor in quality anddear in price.”The presenceof Chinese was not just a threat tothe Crispins, but tothe entire economy of the state: Our visit toMr. Sampson’ s establishment at North Adams,where Chinese coolie laborers are employed at shoemaking, convincedus of this fact.We foundthere seventy-three men, clad in cottoncloth, with cheap Chinesehats andshoes. Their dining-tables weremade of pine boards, without covering; their chairs werewooden benches, their sleeping placesbunks … with thin mattressesand scant bedding … for their table cutlery,a pair ofchopsticks for each;what tea they took,being takenin thesame rice bowl.Now, what industrial productionis stimulated by sucha laboring population? The woolenand cotton mills ofLowell and Lawrence, of Fall River and Salisbury, thecutlery establishmentsof ShelburneFalls, thefurniture factories ofEssex and Worcester counties … nay more,the authors, the publishers, the newspapers,the expressmen, the railroads, yea all thevaried industriesof the Commonwealth,would be brought toruin …(by) this cheap andignorant labor. Indeed,these “ submissiveand docile … Asiatics”would never rise tothe level ofthe native workingmen whohad risenin will andintelligence toorganize for their mutual protection.Rather they were“ quietly managed, andcontrolled with perfectease.” Consequently,the arrival ofthe Chinese, “ by bringing downthe standard of daily living,”would only substitutetheir “unthinking andimbecile poverty”for the“ spirit of independence,now wakened into quicker life by increasedintelligence” among the workingmen ofMassachusetts. 55 In thefollowing year’s report, McNeill andOliver distilled their critique ofthe Chinese to this: “ Cheaplabor meansChina, with her

53MarySteward performed most ofthe tediousstatistical collecting, collating, and computing, and, for herŽ rstyear, putting in herlong hours without pay. Biographical detailsand eulogiesof Mary Steward canbe found in the LaborStandard (NewYork), Mar.3, 1878. 54Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years ofLife and Labor: An Autobiography (NewYork: E.P.Dutton &Co., 1925),vol. 1, 480. 55“SecondAnnual Report ofthe Bureauof Statistics ofLabor” (Massachusetts House Document #150, 1871),555– 557. 150 T.Messer-Kruse millions ofpoor,with her stuntedgrowth andinferior race.Dear labor meansAmerica with her freeand intelligent citizens… ”56 In theface of this rising tideof labor nativism, Phillips andfellow elite reformers stuckby their equalitarian principles, anddenounced what they perceivedas bigotry within thelabor movementand worried that sucha developmentcould derail their recentlywon civil rights campaigns. Charles Sumnerand Wendell Phillips railed against themovement to place Chineseimmigrants in asecond-classposition. Abolitionist journalsdenounced the movement and drew the analogy betweenthe status of blacks andthat oftheChinese. 57 Black newspaperssaw in theChinese a reection of their own struggle, andsupported their equal rights andcalled for acolor-blind immigration policy.58 The sentimentof such egalitarian-minded leaderswas expressed by William Everettwhen he asked his audienceat anIndependence Day celebration: Have youso poorly learnedthe Declaration that youare going at this hour to take upthe old cries of “ race,”and “ America for theAmericans?” Good Heavens!Ten years ago theNorth roseagainst theoppression of the African— sworethere should be no distinctionof color …andnow comes the Mongo- lian, andasks to do thevery thing youwant done, and some of the very men whohave declaimedloudest against distinctionof race andcolor talk about degradation from thecontact … 59 Ezra Heywood’s Labor Reform League,an early foeof Steward’ s, was more clear than any trade uniongroup or journal in its supportof the Chinese: “ [We regard] as morally indefensiblethe special legislative andclass devices which aim, by arbitrary power,to … excludethe Chinamen and other destitutecompetitors … ”Elite reformer TheodoreTilton praised “theChinese immigrants whobring their prudence,thrift, industry,and cultured simplicity ofmind tothis countryto pick upthecrumbs which drop from ourindustrial feast,and yet have beenbeaten and butchered with abarbarity unworthyof a race ofsavages …”60 Likethe evangelical missionaries oftheir age, many social reformers heldtheir own chauvinistic stereotypes,but they didnot believe that thepejorative qualities they

56“Third Annual Report ofthe Bureauof Statistics ofLabor” (Massachusetts Senate Document #180, 1872), 536. 57See,for example, National Anti-Slavery Standard ,May 29,July 17,1869; also FrederickDouglass to Charles Sumner, July 6, 1870,Frederick Douglass Papers. 58AndrewGyory, in his “Rolling in the Dirt: TheOrigins of the Chinese-ExclusionAct and the Politics ofRacism, 1870–1882” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Universityof Massachusetts, 1991), asserts that “Black working-classand political organizations,from the 15th Amendment Club in Cincinnati tothe National Labor Bureauof Colored Men in Washington, took the identicalpro-immigration, anti-importation stance”(72). This is not the fullstory. In1871the LincolnMemorial Club ofCincinnati, composed of“ prominent coloredcitizens,” stood and offereda toast to the “HeathenChinese— ‘Thou shalt not oppress the stranger,for ye know the heartof a stranger,seeing ye were strangers in the land ofbondage’ ” ( New Era (Washington, DC), March2, 1871).San Francisco’s only African-American newspaper, The Elevator ,was alonely voiceof support forthe Chinesein that citywhen it editorialized on July 8, 1870,“ Webelieve with SenatorSchurz that the excitementabout Chineseimmigration is needless.We fearno delugeof Chinamen.” In 1870 black abolitionist FrederickDouglass wroteto Charles Sumner praisinghim forhis opposition to closingthe doorsof immigration to the Chinese: “Upon the Chinesequestion Irejoiceto seeyou in the rightplace, farin the advanceand the countryas usual behind you. Abittercontest, I fear,is before us on this question. Prejudice,pride of race, narrow views of political economy, areon one, humanity, civilization and socialpolicy areon the other”(Douglass to Sumner, July 6, 1870,Frederick Douglass Papers (microŽ lm edition), Libraryof Congress, Washington, DC). 59Commonwealth (Boston), July 9, 1870. 60The Banner ofLight ,Feb. 25,1871; The Golden Age ,Nov. 4, 1871. LaborReform in Massachusetts 151 sometimesattributed tothe Chinese were essential and fundamental. Their faith in their owncultural superiority ledthem totrust that theChinese would, in time, become like themselves.Julia Ward Howe,editor ofthe suffragist WomansJournal , expressed thereformers’ common faith in theredemptive powerof American circumstances well:“ Foreigners among us,so far, showa remarkable capacity for becoming Ameri- cans.This is becauseour institutions correspond to human needs,and encourage human activity. Wesee no reason why theChinese should not, in time, make an excellentAmerican. Treat him like anAmerican, andhe will soonbecome one … let theland ofhis adoptionbecome a candidatefor his regard by her scrupulousand renderadministration ofhis rights, anda generation notremote from thepresent will smile at theremembrance ofthe present inconvenient clause in Chinese-American contracts.”61 Steward’s racial economicsplaced him at oddsnot only with reformers whoseroots extendeddeep into the early abolitionist era, butalso clashedwith theegalitarian principles ofhis ownyouth. Steward had lived for atime at Hopedale,Adin Ballou’ s Christian perfectionistcommunity, and he was rumored to have gonewest in the1850s tobattle for afreeKansas. Throughout his life Stewardpraised theabolitionist struggle, condemnedslavery, andsaw his owncrusade as but the continuation of anti-slavery principles. Likewise,his great successin Bostonwas due to the support of acommunity offormer abolitionists whosevision offreedom and liberty includedwelcoming the sufferingimmigrants ofall nations.Racist immigration restriction contradictednot only his allies buthis ownearlier ideological commitments. 62 In all his writings, Stewardattempted to maintain thelofty color-blind vision of his abolitionist past.In his “Powerof the Cheaper Over theDearer,” the lesson he drawsfrom thedrag placedupon the progress ofthe “ civilized”nations by “half civilizations”and “ barbarians”was that “thetime has fully arrived, whenpolitical economymust begin with theidea that ourcountry is the world, and our countrymen are all mankind!”In fact,Chinese immigration wasa kindof divine retribution for the sinsof the nation: The misery andterrors that Chinamenhave already inicted upon Western America, are themoral …judgmentthat has already begunto fall uponthe world’s highest civilization, asa retribution andpunishment for forgetting the brotherhood ofthe entire human race. 63 In theEight HourLeague’ s early years,Steward was little troubledby theinternal conict betweenhis egalitarian commitmentsand his wage theoriesand, during this time, reacheda compromise with his abolitionist allies. While in coalition with Phillips andother radical abolitionists, theplatform ofthe labor reform groups in which Stewardand his felloweight-hour menwere active maintained thesubtle distinction between“ importation”and “ free”immigration by condemningthe former andaccept- ing thelatter. Sucha distinctioncloaked the anti-Chinese cause as a call for the abolition ofservitude rather than for nativist exclusion.Indeed, Charles McLean,one ofIra Steward’s associatesin theBoston Eight HourLeague, offered a resolutionon contractlabor at theNLU conventionof 1870 that speciŽcally combatedthe racist directionof the assembly in welcoming “every man,every race,and every creed… to

61WomansJournal ,July 30,1870. 62Stewardsigned several letters from “ Hopedale”and “HopedaleModern Age” : Liberator ,Mar.4, 1854; Daily Evening Voice ,Aug. 4, 1865. 63Ibid., 26, 32. 152 T.Messer-Kruse ourshores” while denouncing“ theright ofcapital to… import human freight for the expresspurpose of lessening wages.” McLean’ s resolutionwas quickly tabled. 64 But as time wenton, especially after WendellPhillips andhis fellowuniversalistic reformers split offfrom theEight HourLeague, such hair-splitting wasless scrupulously ob- served. With Phillips andthe other civil libertarian-minded reformers gone,the Eight Hour Leaguewas freed to follow its ownlight unhinderedby theniceties of compromise language. It soonabandoned all pretenseof opposition to “ importation”and “ slavery” in Asianguise and simply called for any andall policies that wouldkeep the Chinese out.65 It ofŽcially encouragedall workersto study the May Day speechof U.S. Senator Aaron Sargent that called for atotal ban onChinese immigration andrepeated labor’ s theoriesof cheap labor. 66 It evencounted workers lucky for having sufferedthrough several years ofindustrial stagnation, for this sluggishnessin theeconomy was all that had “savedNew England from alarge inux ofChinamen, and the most deadly competition ofcheap labor ever visited uponChristendom.” 67 Apparently, thespecter ofChinese workers was enough to jar Stewardand his fellow“ eight-hour men”out of their famed“ monomania.”The hardening linesof race andracial consciousnesshad separatednot only workersof different hues, but reformers ofdifferent stripes. Whereasbefore North Adamsit waspossible for theeight-hour mento argue that they continuedto honor the highest egalitarian andrepublican values andwere only opposedto importation— which was, they argued,but another form ofslavery— such claims rang hollow afterwards.For it waswell knownthat thelaborers brought toNorth Adamswere not imported from abroad (evenOliver andMcNeill substantiatedthis fact during their investigations) butwere recruited over aperiod ofmonthsfrom all parts of California. Oneof the few remaining organs ofthe abolitionist tradition in Boston called thecry against the“ coolie”as being “utterly absurd”: the[Chinese] applicants came from every quarter, precisely asthey wouldto asimilar advertisementanywhere. They werecontracted with individually, andfor threeyears, but no part oftheir wagesgoes to any other person.The SanFrancisco Žrm wasrecompensed for its assistancein obtaining them precisely asany intelligence ofŽce wouldbe … theNorth Adamsshoemakers belong tothe self-electing class of workmen and contractors; they had beenin California for monthsor years,and probably weresome of those discharged onthe completion ofthe heavy railroad workof last year. 68 In theend, the Chinese issue drove a wedgebetween many oftheleaders of thelabor movementand the former leadersof the abolitionist crusadewho had continuedtheir

64Workingman’sJournal (Columbus, Kansas), Sept. 2,1870.Andrew Gyory accepts at facevalue labor reformleaders’ justiŽ cations for racial exclusion when it cameto the Chinese. For an extended commentary on Gyory’s revisionistthesis, seemy forthcomingarticle “ Cheap Labor and Cheap Men:Race and the Conceptof ‘ Cheap Labor’and AmericanLabor Historians.” 65Inthe EightHour League’ s phrasing, “(that) all treatiesand intercoursewith othernations, and national and locallegislation should proceedwith referenceto the broad moral and natural causesthat increasethe priceof human labor everywhere.” 66Congressional Record ,vol. 4, part 3(44th Congress,1st. session), May 1, 1876,2850– 2858. 67“Resolutions ofthe Boston EightHour League, May 31,1876,” broadside in the J.P. McDonnell Papers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin, MSS8A, Box1. 68Commonwealth ,July 2, 1870.Shih-Shan HenryTsai, in The Chinese Experience in America (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1986), explodes the “cooliemyth.” Tsai points out that though U.S. merchantsand shippers wereinvolved in the horrendous“ coolie”slave trafŽ c betweenSouth China and Latin America, the U.S. had, “to all intentsand purposes, prohibited coolieimmigration; it allowed LaborReform in Massachusetts 153 struggles after thewar by embracing thecause of the worker. In NewYork, the Chinese issuewas one clear area ofideological disagreementbetween the Yankee sections of the International Workingmen’s Associationand the German immigrant Marxists who werewilling toscuttle internationalist principles for thesake of ingratiating themselves with anincreasingly exclusionary trade unionmovement. 69 Onthe issue of the Chinese, Stewardquickly foundhimself at oddswith his mostfamous and in uential convertto thecause of eight hours,Wendell Phillips. SinceAppomattox, Phillips had increasingly devotedhimself tothe cause of labor while maintaining his commitmentsto civil rights. Asanti-Chinese sentiment grew within theMassachusetts labor movementafter the North Adamsepisode, Phillips attemptedto Ž nda positionthat wouldsatisfy both agendas. Phillips nevershied away from unpopular positions,even before audiences that he knewto be hostile. If notimmune tocriticism, hehad certainly beenso well inoculated through past experiencethat heno longer tookany notice.In 1869, Phillips introduced thequestion of the Chinese before a conventionof the New England Reform League by calling for theextension of Fifteenth Amendmentvoting rights tothe resident Chinese.He warned that: The questionof the Chinese as laborers andvoters [was] looming upin the immediate future,and there was likely tobe a controversyas violent asthere wason the negro question,and unless the laboring masseswere educated beforehand,there would be as many battles fought asthere were over the negro.70 Hisspeech drew Ž re from unnamedmembers ofthe coalition andfrom the Working- man’sAdvocate ,oneof the most in uential labor newspapersin thenation, which ridiculed Phillips, calling his proposal for Chinesevoting rights a“calamity may Godin Hiskind providence avert.” 71 Butthis wasbefore the Chinese issue  ared upso dramatically after thearrival ofChineseworkers in North Adams.In 1872, Phillips did noteven have togo this far toso offend his eight-hour league allies asto get himself tossedoff their bandwagon.In theface of theincreasing popularity oftheanti-Chinese movement,Phillips fell back andmerely attemptedto de ect the question of the Chinesefrom its exclusionary, racist, andanti-civil libertarian direction. Onthe afternoon of April 18, 1872, Phillips addressedthe International Grand Lodgeof theKnights ofSt. Crispin, the backbone of the labor movementin Massachu- only freeand voluntary immigrants fromChina.” He concludes, “ TheChinese emigration to California was freeand voluntary, conŽned to independentimmigrants who paid theirown passagemoney and were in acondition to look to theirarrangements” (6– 8). KilYoung Zo, in “ChineseEmigration Into the United States, 1850–1880” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University,1971), similarly Žnds that “despitethe coolieimage of the Chineseheld by the Americanpublic, the factis that the Chinesecame hereas freemen,not as involuntary quasi-slaves, as they weregenerally taken for in nineteenthcentury America.”Such researchŽ ndingsare hardly new;as earlyas 1909,Professor Mary Roberts Coolidge of Stanford Universitywrote: “ For morethan Žftyyears the word‘ coolie’has beenused in the UnitedStates to designatea Chineselaborer, the termfrom long misuse having takenon the colorof vague discredit oropprobrium. Inits largersense it isemployed to designatesome sortof contract laborer, but it isoftener usedto conveythe ideaof servitude, slavery or peonage. Yet the history ofthe termgives no sanction for such usage,and the mannerin which theselaborers came to Americashows that they wereall perfectly freeimmigrants, at the veryworst coming on money borrowedat ahigh rateof interest.” Mary Roberts Coolidge, Chinese Immigration (NewYork: H.Holt &Co., 1909),41. 69SeeMesser-Kruse, The Yankee International , passim. 70American Workman ,June 12,1869. 71Ibid. 154 T.Messer-Kruse setts.His speech that day coveredmany topics,labor issues,current politics, temper- ance,corruption in government,none of it particularly novel for Phillips exceptfor his newtwist on Chinese immigration. Beforehis labor audience,Phillips chosehis words well:“ Letthe Chinaman come—bring him by themillions …[but] let noChinese shoescome into the North Adamsmarket dutyfree any more than intothe city ofNew York.”Though someof his friendsworried that Phillips wasbacksliding onthe issue (theradically egalitarian spiritualist journal Banner ofLight expressedconcern that he had chosento keep the Chinese question an “ unaccentedsyllable” ), it wasclear that what hewas attempting todo wasto misdirect labor’s attentionaway from theChinese workersand to the goods they producedand the employers whohired them. 72 In a follow-upletter tothe editor ofthe elite BostonAdvertiser ,Phillips madethis clear: “Whatever Idowith thosegoods will have noeffect on the immigrant. Hiswages are Žxedby contract.My tax will affectonly his employer.”73 It wasa clever move,even if Phillips’slogan of“ nocheap goods”had little chanceof catching onwith alabor movementby nowwell plied with theslogan of“ nocheap men.” Phillips’speech to the Crispins profoundly upset his eight-hour allies. Later that sameday, the Boston Eight HourLeague voted not to invite Phillips tospeak at its upcoming conventionas they had customarily donefor many years,because “ heno longer representedits views.”Phillips had paid theprice for refusingto reduce his platform toshort hours alone or tobend his egalitarian principles todiscriminate against agroup ofworkers because of their race. 74 Ira Stewardput his Žnger squarely onthese differences when he later defendedthe League’ s censureof Phillips onthe groundsthat they couldnot tolerate his viewsof the Chinese: Whenwe say tocertain organizations, Please allow Labor ahearing onyour platform, wereceivethe reply, “Oh, yes,Labor isrepresented; we have invited Mr.Phillips” ; andin dueseason we mustanswer for theabsurdity ofa “little custom-housearound Mr. Sampson’ s Chineseshoe-factory” as a seriousand practicable remedy,or someother expedientnot so easily described. 75 Clearly, theChinese issue goes further in explaining theideological cleavages be- tweenSteward and Phillips than doesthe Greenback issue. But even beyond this divisive issue,there existed a deeperand more irreconcilable conict that framed each side’s vision ofreform sodifferently that further disagreementswere almost assured. The great divide betweenthe eight-hour menand Boston’ s larger reform community wasnot the issue of greenbacks, banks, or Chineseworkers, but was the irresolvable collision ofuniversal andreductionist philosophies. Like the Marxist factionin theFirst International with whomthey wereallied, Stewardand his eight-hour men’s emphasis ontheir fundamentaldemand had movedthem beyondthe realm ofideals andinto the worldof hard-nosed tactical calculations.To Phillips andthose who guided their actionsby arigid moral yardstick, therewas never a questionof allowing expediencyto compromise aprinciple. Sincethese universalistic reformers viewedthe world as a place whereeach principle motivated itsown category ofreform therewas little sensein

72The Golden Age (NewYork), Apr. 27,1872; Boston Advertiser ,Apr. 19,1872; Banner ofLight (Boston), May 11,1872. 73Boston Advertiser ,Apr. 22,1872. 74Accordingto Steward, the EightHour League censured Phillips on April 18,1872 ( Commonwealth , June 29,1872). Phillips gavehis addressto the Crispins on the same day ( Weekly American Workman , Apr. 27,1872). According to pressreports, the Boston EightHour League’ s meetingswere held in the evenings and Phillips’speech was in the afternoon( Boston Advertiser ,Apr. 19,1872). 75Commonwealth ,June 29,1872. LaborReform in Massachusetts 155 compromising aprinciple in theshort run in order tofulŽ ll it in thelong term. AsF.A. Hinckley,a labor reformer whopresided at oneof theearly MLUmeetingswrote, “ The questionto be asked concerning any proposedmeasure is not, is it goodpolicy, isit prudent,will it get votes,are thepeople ready for it—but is it right, isit just,is it true?”76 Butfor theeight-hour men,whose ends were inŽ nite but whose means were uniŽed, that moral compassno longer guidedaction, politics did. 77 Phillips wasnot the only party tothis controversywhose views had evolved sincethe labor reform coalition had beenfounded half adozenyears before.While Phillips tackedhis sails onthe Chinese issue and borrowed a page or twofrom his socialist friendsin theYankee sections of the International Workingmen’s Association,Steward andthe other eight-hour menhad beensteadily reŽning their view ofthe eight-hour demandin sucha way asto place them outsideof thephilosophical framework ofthe American reform tradition. Whenthe eight-hour menbegan their crusadethey claimed aparticular importance for theeight-hour demandalongside apanoply ofkindred reforms.George McNeill recalled that in its Žrstyears, “ regular meetingsof the League discussionsupon Poverty, thecause and cure of Intemperance, Wages, Co-operation, Women’s Work,Suffrage, Finance, etc. followed each other interspersedby essaysand poemsby themembers.” 78 Over time, however,the eight-hour menmoved to limit discussionof other reforms andcame toargue that theeight-hour demandwas not a “kindred”reform butwas fundamental to all others.By thespring of1872, Ira Steward condemnedthose “ whopropose[d] abroad andcomprehensive view ofthe [labor] problem.”In aheateddebate over thequestion of how inclusive of other reforms,such astemperance and women’ s suffrage,the Eight HourLeague should be, George McNeill statedthat “notruelabor reformer couldhave more than oneidea. The man ofone idea had all therest; the man ofmany ideashad really none.The demandof the timesin grappling with theLabor questionwas for menof one idea.” 79 Afterthe breakup ofthe Eight HourLeague, Steward’ s thinking becameincreasingly rigid, dividing theworld between “ Žnancial or political andeconomical or industrial labor reform”or between“ goodies”and those few who had “arrived at theright theory ofthe philosophy ofthe labor movement.”So exacting wereSteward’ s ideological standardsthat by thelate 1870s hecould count only threeother men(McNeill, Gunton,and Sorge) whohad “arrived tothe right theory ofthe philosophy ofthe labor movement.”80 In this his thinking andmovement strategies closely paralleled that ofthe GermanMarxists in NewYork whowere at that very sametime struggling tooust their ownbroad-minded Yankee radicals. Sorge justiŽed his ownfactionalism by arguing that ideological purity wasmore important than building alarge coalition: “Fellow- workmen!Keep our standard pure & ourranks clean!Never mind thesmall number! Nogreat workwas ever begunby amajority!”81 This justiŽcation for Marxist orthodoxy wasthe same logic that undergirdedSteward’ s eight-hour “monomania”. It isonly

76FrederickA. Hinckley, The Just Demandof Labor: A MoreEqual Distribution ofWealth (Boston: n.p., 1871), 1. 77For moreon the characterand philosophy ofuniversal reform, see David Brion Davis, ed., Antebellum Reform (NewYork: Harper& Row, 1967),1– 3; C.S. GrifŽn, The Ferment ofReform, 1830± 1860 (New York: Thomas Y.Crowell,1967), 2– 5; Walters, American Reformers , passim. 78GeorgeMcNeill, “ To the Membersof the Boston EightHour League” (n.p., 1872). 79Weekly American Workman (Boston), Dec.31, 1870. 80Stewardto Sorge,Mar. 1, 1877,Ira Steward Papers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin. 81Sorgeto the British Federation,May 9, 1873,in Samuel Bernstein,ed., Papersof the General Council ofthe International Workingmen’sAssociation, New York,1872± 1876 ,(Milano: FelltrinelliEditore, 1961), 74. 156 T.Messer-Kruse

Žtting, then,that in 1876 Stewardproposed to Sorge that they organize aconvention of“ wewho are for economical or industrial labor reform pure& simple …”82 Though neither factionsurvived for long asan independententity, in their separate recordscan be measured the breadth ofthis philosophical gulf. Phillips, uponhearing ofhis censure,revived amoribund labor reform group, theMassachusetts Labor Union,that had helda fewpublic meetingsyears earlier. Modeledon theInternational Workingmen’s Association(Phillips gave theFirst International his highest praise in his recentspeech before the Crispins, “ Isay Godspeed, God speed to that or any similar movement”), it followeda traditional reform modelof universal scope. 83 It was, the organizers boasted,a labor reform association“ sobroad,so comprehensive, so catholic asto be capable ofincluding all workmenand their friendsand of reaching all difŽculties in thecontroversy of labor versuscapital.” So inclusive was the plan of organization that theorganizers decidednot to electa presidentbut to call achairman from the oor at eachmeeting soas to give toas many participants aspossible the experienceof conducting a meeting.As in thesuccessful labor coalitions ofprevious years,invitations weresent out to the pillars ofRadical Republicanism, SenatorCharles Sumner,Representative George Frisbee Hoar,and General Benjamin Butler,as well as tothe leaders of theantebellum reform movement,as well asAaron M.Powell,editor ofthe National Standard(successor to the NationalAnti-Slavery Standard ).Though the MLU’sfounderswere mostly professionals—the Ž rstmeetings were presided over by EdwardM. Chamberlain, agraduate ofYale whowent on to practice law whennot agitating in thecause of labor, andF.A. Hinckley, an economistof somerenown who theyear beforehad argued with Stewardand McNeill over themerits ofwomen’ s suffrage—the organization courtedthe representatives of bona Ždelabor unionsby offering them seatsas vice-presidents. On its Žrstday ofproceedings the MLU had 15 suchvice-presidents, a remarkable demonstrationof trade unionsupport for Phillips’ coalition. Notably absentfrom therostrum at thefounding convention were Boston’ s leading greenbackers,Col. William B.Greeneand Ezra Heywood. 84 In contrast,the cleansed Eight HourLeague Ž rmly controlledits agenda and energetically limited discussionto the eight-hour demand,tactical meansof obtaining it, andthe Stewardian economics behind it. The Eight HourLeague’ s convention followedthat oftheMassachusetts Labor Unionby oneday. George McNeill, whoheld thechairmanship, andSteward, who headed the resolutions committee, maintained a Žrm grip onthe reins. One of the chief orders of business of its fewdelegates was the public denunciationof Wendell Phillips. Ira Stewardmust have spenta busyand sleeplessnight working outhis plan, for whenthe convention opened and he was namedchair oftheresolutions committee, it tookabout “oneminute” before Steward read outa long seriesof resolutions. A fewdelegates were not so easily driven,however, andstood to raise other issues.A small-townminister called attentionto the evils of opium,tobacco, and alcohol butSteward cut him offand told him that this wasan

82Stewardto Sorge,Dec. 4, 1876;Steward to Sorge,Mar. 1, 1877,Steward Papers, State Historical Societyof Wisconsin. So focusedwere the eight-hourmen that Stewardeven criticized Sorge’ s “Declarationof Principles” for being “ defective,”labelling half ofit as “ummery”(Steward to Sorge, Mar.14, n.d.). 83The Golden Age (NewYork), Apr. 27,1872; Boston Advertiser ,Apr. 19,1872; Banner ofLight (Boston), May 11,1872. By Decemberof 1872, Phillips was still closeto the YankeeInternationals. Phillips sent aletterof support to ameetingraising funds for the widows and orphans ofthe ParisCommune presided overby TheodoreBanks, oneof the leadersof Yankee Section 9 ( The New YorkTimes ,Dec.15, 1872). 84Commonwealth ,May 11,1872; Boston Globe ,May 30,1872; New YorkWorld ,May 30,1872. LaborReform in Massachusetts 157 eight-hour conventionand not an anti-tobaccoconvention. J. H.Coker,a black man, interjectedthe issue of race andcondemned the group for inviting him tocome to the conventionbut then excluding him from their trade unionsand “ secretleagues.” Coker’s objectionwas ignored andthe convention quickly marched on.Except for the land reformist lyrics ofa songsung by theHutchinson family, notopics but the eight-hour questionand the heresy of Wendell Phillips wereallowed toair that day. Likewise,after themore universalistic reformers left their eight-hour coalition, Stewardand his menlost interest in sponsoringthe construction of a “Free Hall for Working Menand Women” which, according tothe plans they had laid outmonths beforethe split, wasto be “ aplace wherethe Labor Problem couldbe discussed with freedom… ”Beforea year had passedsince the breakup, theproject had passed completely intothe hands of universalistic labor reformers oftheMassachusetts Labor Unionand the New England Labor Reform Leaguewho carried forward theplan to openthe hall to“ othersupon any reform subject.”85 The labor reform movementin Massachusettsmay have failed toestablish aperma- nentlabor voice in thestatehouse or wineffective eight-hour legislation, butits legacy proved lasting andpowerful in unexpectedways. Steward’ s eight-hour economics proved tobe an enduring contribution to labor thought,but not in theways Steward wouldhave expected.While Steward’s writings onpolitical economicswere quickly forgottenhis theoriesof the relationship betweenrace andwages became the primary justiŽcation for thelabor movement’s nativism. Both TerencePowderly, leader ofthe Knights ofLabor,and Samuel Gompers,head of the AFL, expressed their opposition toChinese immigration in theStewardian language ofthe inherent “ cheapness”of Chineseworkers. Even into the 20th century,these ideas were still prominent in the American labor movement.In 1905 Samuel Gomperstook the lead, publishing his pamphlet, “SomeReasons for ChineseExclusion: Meat vs. Rice, American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism,Which Shall Survive?”Asked Gompers rhetorically: “Are thehundreds of thousands of ourcitizens to bedeprived ofemployment tomake room for this Asiatic coolie,and the standard of living ofour entire laboring classto be so reducedas to meet his murderouscompetition?” 86 WhenSteward died in 1883 his ideological batonwas picked up by his fellow eight-hour men,George McNeill andGeorge Gunton, two men who kept alive notonly theeight-hour crusade,but carried forward thelessons they had learnedin thefactional inŽghting within theBoston labor reform community.Both meneventually became advocatesfor theAFL’ s brand ofexclusionary andapolitical trade unionism.McNeill serveda shortstint as president of the Marxist International Labor Union,edited a

85Noneof the names ofthe foureight-hour men whose names appeared on the letterof appeal forfunds forthe hall in 1871appear on the list ofsponsors ororganizers for the same hall in 1873.By 1873,of the 19sponsors listedin the pamphlet, fourwere members ofBoston’ s InternationalWorkingmen’ s Association, Žvewere dismissed by Stewardas “goodies,”and fourwere organizers of the MLU.Seethe pamphlets entitled,“ HeadQuarters Labor Movementin Massachusetts,”May 30,1872; “ FreeHall for Working-Menand Working-Women,”n.d., both in the Boston Public Library(9331– 8574– a2 to a4). Also, “Boston EightHour League: Its Object and Work, Annual Report ofthe President,”Boston, 1872, in Joseph P.McDonnellPapers, State HistoricalSociety of Wisconsin. 86Samuel Gompersand Frank Morrison,“ Some Reasons forChinese Exclusion: Meat vs. Rice; AmericanManhood Against Asiatic Coolieism; Which Shall Survive?”(Washington, DC, 1902—also published in SenateDocument No. 137,57th Congress,1st Session (Washington, DC, 1902),23– 24; seealso A.Furuseth and Thomas F.Tracy,“ TheNew Chinese Exclusion Law,” American Federationist , vol. 9, no. 6(1902)275– 296; Machinists Monthly Journal (Washington, DC), Jan. 1902,1– 3; Gompers, Seventy Years ofLife and Labor ,vol. 1, 216–217. 158 T.Messer-Kruse short-lived labor paper in Boston,the LaborLeader ,andplayed arole in leading the trade unionmovement out of the Knights ofLabor. He spent his last years asa paid ofŽcial ofthe AFL. 87 GeorgeGunton went on to be an in uential labor newspaper editor,a pamphleteer for theAFL’ s eight-hour campaigns in the1880s, andŽ nally abandonedthe labor movementcompletely, ŽndingŽ nancial successas an author and corporate shill in his oldage. 88 Ultimately, Phillips wasostracized not for any onething hesaid, or any one differencehe had with Steward,but because he refused to narrow his vision ofreform. Phillips’record through thespring of1872 wasnot of a man abandoning onereform idea for another,but of aman heaping ever more reforms ontoan already overowing plate. Stewardand his eight-hour menmoved in theopposite direction and transformed aneight-hour demandthat had pulled together abroad coalition ofreformers intoa narrow economisticjustiŽ cation for “pureand simple” trade unionism.In theend, Ira Stewardand his eight-hour compatriots didnot accomplish their original goal ofleading reformers “beyondequality” and toward class emancipation becausethe reductionistmeans they adoptedto do so ultimately setthese principles against one another.

87GaryM. Fink, BiographicalDictionary ofAmerican Labor (Westport, CT: GreenwoodPress, 1984), 384;Montgomery, “ ‘To Fight This Thing Till IDie’: TheCareer of George Edwin McNeill,” 3– 23. 88GeorgeGunton, The Economic andSocial Importance ofthe Eight-Hour Movement ,“AFL Eight-Hour Series,”No. 2(Washington DC, 1889);Mark Koerner, “ TheMenace of Labor: Anti-Union Thought in the ProgressiveEra, 1901– 1917” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Universityof Wisconsin, 1995).