USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5 > Part 39
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With the electrification of the suburban street-car lines and the wholesale building of the interurban electric railways in the 'nineties, the steam railroads lost traffic in appalling fashion. The electric lines were cheaper to build and cheaper to sustain, and the fares charged were less. There was much useless mileage built and some loose financing, but with build- ing going on steadily and rapidly through the 'nineties and early part of the following decade, there were by 1904 over 2,000 miles of line owned by Massachusetts corporations. The entire industrial regions of northeastern and southeastern Massachusetts were covered with a web of lines even more closely knit than were the steam railroads in the same region, while lines stretched west through Worcester to Springfield, and via Fitchburg and Athol to Orange. In the western part
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MASSACHUSETTS TRANSPORTATION
of the State the main interurbans ran north and south in the Connecticut Valley and in the Berkshire region.
Total mileage continued to grow, although slowly, until the war period; but since that time the overwhelming advance of the private automobile and the motor coach has brought on a steady and widespread disintegration of the interlacing sys- tem of trolley lines. There were by January 1, 1929, only 1,266 miles of lines of street-car companies in operation in the State. This was nearly 1,000 miles less than in 1917.
While the motor coach has tended to displace the interurban trolley and the suburban trolley where the traffic is not ex- tremely heavy, and to take the place of street cars in congested parts of the cities, the street-car companies have through the medium of rapid traction lines held on to the mass of nearby suburban traffic which they took from the steam roads in the early 'nineties. In Boston the elevated-subway-elevated line, which was opened from Dudley Street through Park Street and out to Sullivan Square in 1901, was followed by the Atlantic Avenue elevated loop in the same year ; while the East Boston Tunnel under the harbor, the Washington Street sub- way and, in 1912, the Cambridge subway were some of the largest undertakings in a widespread program of rapid traction service.
The 40-year period has seen the rise, the heyday, and the fall of the interburban electric line, the continued but steadily less lucrative operation of the steam suburban lines, the steady growth both in size and efficiency of the urban street railways in the metropolitan district, and the surrender of the small urban street railways to the motor coach.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
BLISS, GEORGE .- Historical Memoir of the Western Railroad (Springfield, Bowles, 1863).
BRADLEE, FRANCIS BOARDMAN CROWNINSHIELD .- The Boston and Lowell Railroad, the Nashua and Lowell Railroad, and the Salem and Lowell Railroad (Salem, Essex Institute, 1918).
BRADLEE, FRANCIS BOARDMAN CROWNINSHIELD .- The Boston and Maine Railroad (Salem, Essex Institute, 1921)-A history of the main road, with its tributary lines.
BRADLEE, FRANCIS BOARDMAN CROWNINSHIELD .- The Eastern Railroad (Salem, Essex Institute, 1917).
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
COOLIDGE, WILLIAM HENRY .- Argument before the Railroad Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature in Favor of an Act to Authorize a Lease of the Fitchburg Railroad Company to the Boston and Maine Railroad, May 18, 1900 (Boston, Rand Avery Supply Co., 1900).
Electric Railway Journal (N. Y., 1884 and later)-Vols. I-XXXI published with the title Street Railway Journa !.
JOINT NEW ENGLAND RAILROAD COMMITTEE .- Report to the Governors of the New England States: Rehabilitation by Cooperation a Railroad Policy for New England; June, 1923 (Cambridge, University Press, 1923).
JONES, GROSVENOR M .- Ports of the United States (United States-De- partment of Commerce, Miscellaneous Series, No. 33, Washington, 1916)-See especially pp. 39-55 on Boston, pp. 58-61 on Fall River, and pp. 64-67 on New Bedford.
MASSACHUSETTS-BOARD OF RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS .- Annual Report (Boston, 1870-1919)-Including returns of railway companies for 1869 and later.
MASSACHUSETTS-DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITIES .- Annual Report (Boston, 1921, and later).
MASSACHUSETTS-JOINT COMMISSION ON THE NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN, & HARTFORD RAILROAD COMPANY .- Report of the Board of Railroad Com- missioners, the Tax Commissioner, and the Bank Commissioner, Sit- ting as a Commission Relative to the Assets and Liabilities of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, Feb. 15, 1911 (Boston, 1911).
Poor's Manual of Railroads (N. Y., Poor, 1868 and later ).
Railway Age (Chicago; N. Y., 1870 and later)-Vols. I-XLIV published with the title Railroad Gazette; Vols. XLV-XLVII, Railroad Age Gazette; Vols. XLVIII-LXIII, Railway Age Gazette.
RIPLEY, WILLIAM ZEBINA .- Railroads; Finance and Organization (N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1920)-See especially pages 252-258, 462-473, and 570-572.
TORREY, GEORGE ARNOLD .- Argument before the Railroad Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature in Favor of an Act to Authorize a Lease of the Fitchburg Railroad Company to the Boston and Maine Railroad; April 30 and May 18, 1900 (Boston, Rand Avery Supply Co., 1900).
TUTTLE, LUCIUS .- Statement before the Railroad Committee of the Massa- chusetts Legislature in Favor of an Act to Authorize a Lease of the Fitchburg Railroad Company to the Boston and Maine Railroad; April 23 and 24 and May 15, 1900 (Boston, Rand Avery Supply Co., 1900)- By the president of the Boston and Maine Railroad.
UNITED STATES-INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION .- Evidence Taken before the Interstate Commerce Commission Relative to the Financial Transactions of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Com- pany, together with the Report of the Commission thereon (2 vols., United States-63rd Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document No. 543, Washington, 1914).
UNITED STATES .- INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION .- Reports (Washing- ton, 1888 and later)-See especially reports on the following cases : Port differential case: Vol. XI (1905), p. 13.
Five per cent case: Vol. XXXI, (1911), p. 31. Investigation of New England railroads: Vol. XXVII (1930), p. 27. Financial Transactions of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad: Vol. XXXI (1914), p. 32.
Fifteen per cent case: Vol. XLV (1917), p. 303. Rate increases in New England: Vol. XLIX (1918), p. 421. General rate increases: Vol. LVIII (1920), p. 220.
428 MASSACHUSETTS TRANSPORTATION
New England divisions cases : Vol. LXII (1921), p. 515, Vol. LXVI (1922), p. 196.
Consolidation of railroads: Vol. LXIII (1921), p. 455, Vol. CLIX (1929), p. 522.
OFFICIAL REPORTS OF RAILROADS
The Annual Reports of the Directors of the following railroads are available for reference in the Baker Library of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. (Missing years are shown
in parentheses.)
Boston & Albany RR 1868-1900.
Boston & Worcester RR 1832-67 ('35, '37, '39). Western RR 1836-68.
New York Central RR 1901-
Boston & Maine RR 1843- ('43, '44, '45.)
Boston & Lowell RR 1831-86 ('31, '32.)
Connecticut River RR 1846-92 ('46.)
Eastern RR 1836-89 ('36, '37, '39, '46.)
Fitchburg RR 1843-1918 (1845).
Central Vermont RR (Ry) 1873-1929 ('73 to '86, '88, '89, '91 to '99). New York, New Haven & Hartford RR 1872-
Boston & Providence RR 1833-87 ('37 to '41, '43 to '48, '51, '53.) New York & New England RR 1876-94.
Old Colony RR 1844-54 and 1872- ('44, '45, '46.)
Old Colony & Fall River RR 1855-63.
Old Colony & Newport Ry. 1864-71.
Many reports of and pamphlets about the many small railroads in the State in the 19th century are also available in the Baker Library.
CHAPTER XIV
LABOR AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT (1860-1930)
BY GEORGE W. COLEMAN President of Babson Institute
TRANSFORMATION OF MASSACHUSETTS (1830-1880)
The story of labor in Massachusetts is the story of industry. To understand the position which labor has achieved it is necessary first to understand the background of economic development through which the Commonwealth passed during the first three quarters of the last century. The transforma- tion of Massachusetts from an agrarian and trading common- wealth to a state in which manufacturing industry predominates began well before the Civil War and is de- scribed in a previous volume of this work. The abandoned farms which today one finds scattered through the rural sec- tions of the state are mute witnesses of that desertion of the plow in favor of the spindle, the magnet-like attraction for the youth of the state toward the growing, sprawling mill cities.
At first, when water power was the source of energy for the mills, these industrial cities clustered on the banks of our rivers. Trace the course of the Connecticut and the Merri- mac Rivers and their many tributaries as they pass through Massachusetts and you will find the answer to the abandoned farms in such cities as Lawrence, Lowell, Haverhill, Holyoke, Springfield and others. Later, when steam power came to rival the harnessed strength of our rivers, the coastal cities such as New Bedford and Fall River began to absorb still other thousands of native workers, together with the stream of immigrant labor which soon after the Civil War period began to assume significant proportions.
The period covered by this chapter begins in the middle part of the '80s when it may be said that Massachusetts was hold- ing an unchallenged supremacy in industrial leadership. In
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LABOR MOVEMENT
order that the reader may have a proper perspective on the status of labor at that time it is necessary to trace back briefly into the decades which preceded the '80s and '90s and observe the steady flow of labor from varying sources into the main stream of industrial activity which absorbed it with the advent of the factory system.
FOUR BASAL INDUSTRIES
During the first thirty years of the last century commerce and agriculture were the chief concerns of our citizens. Salem was the next city to Boston, and the clipper ship was the sym- bol of one of our principal claims to economic leadership in those days. Then began America's age of the machine and with it the scene changed. Textile mills began to rear their walls along the Merrimac and from the South began to pour in that increasing flow of raw cotton, which was soon moving swiftly away from Massachusetts to all corners of the globe in the form of the finished product.
Meanwhile, another industry which had begun in the most humble of ways in little shops throughout Essex County com- menced to assume increased proportions. This was the boot and shoe industry, which, drawing its workers at first from the country districts, soon began to employ thousands in the cities, until Massachusetts not only claimed leadership in tex- tiles but also became the largest manufacturer of boots and shoes. Tillage had yielded definitely to the factory.
The history of our paper industry ranks third in importance ; and for sixty years, from 1830 to 1890, Massachusetts was in the van of the states in paper manufacturing. Here was an industry, created by cheap water power and making use of the by-products of the textile mills, which seemed to have a peculiarly strong and permanent position. And yet the intro- duction of wood pulp overturned this industry, so that today, while still a leading product, paper has drawn to itself a diminishing proportion of workers.
When to these three industries are added rubber, the four principal lines of activity characterizing the industrial growth of the years before 1890 have been included. Of course Mas- sachusetts, true to its Yankee heritage of ingenuity and ver- satility, has always been a highly diversified workshop. And
Courtesy of the Author
ORIGINAL KEITH PLANT, WALKOVER CRADLE (1843)
Courtesy of the Author
COMPOSITE PICTURE OF THE WALK-OVER SHOE FACTORIES, BROCTON
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DEMAND FOR LABOR
this diversity soon found expression during the growth of the factory system.
As the mill cities of Massachusetts began to drain the agri- cultural districts for labor, farming became more and more a precarious occupation and there was soon very little native- born agricultural labor available. The older generations stayed on the farm and worked it; but as time passed and the older people died, it fell more and more into disuse, until today in many parts of rural Massachusetts one finds cellar holes where once were thriving farm buildings. The only ex- ception to this is where elements of the foreign-born popula- tion have taken over some of these rural sections and made a reasonable success of them. One example of this is on Cape Cod where the Brava Portuguese group has succeeded in making that section profitable from an agrarian viewpoint. But the real reason for the decrease in farming is the stony and rocky soil of Massachusetts, which has to be so carefully nurtured for the small amount of return secured from it. Furthermore, unlike the West, it is impossible to farm on a large scale in Massachusetts, and consequently, as modern agricultural machinery developed, it was comparatively of little use in the cramped areas available for it.
DEMAND FOR LABOR (1830-1930)
Still the great current of labor flowed mainly into these four industrial channels-channels which widened and deep- ened until at the turn of the century a total of nearly 400,000 workers found employment in industrial activities alone, receiving wages that totaled nearly $175,000,000 a year. In 1913, the year before the World War diverted and pyramided the normal development of industrial affairs, Massachusetts had within her borders 8,045 manufacturing establishments; and this total had passed the ten-thousand mark by 1924.
What an industrial army this represents-mobilized and in action every day, turning raw materials into finished products, creating a flow of new wealth so great that Massachusetts has for years been considered a "billion dollar state." An army of workers of such magnitude-the present total is close to a million-must of necessity include "many men of many
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LABOR MOVEMENT
kinds." First, and up until 1840, there was the native Amer- ican, schooled to feel a pride in certain New England qualities -qualities of superior workmanship, of efficiency and of skill. For more than a decade before the Civil War the Irish im- migrants were coming in increasing numbers into Massachu- setts. Then in the great industrial upsurge that marked the years from 1870 until in 1914 the war shut off immigration, there came workers from every corner of Europe. For a while the more skilled of those who entered this country turned naturally toward Massachusetts. The less skilled were absorbed in the newer industries, and in the newer sections of the country where muscle and brawn counted more than craftsmanship and skill.
The demands from the textile and the shoe industries were for skilled workers. The quality of our products became a trade term of commendation in the markets of the world. With the further perfecting of machinery and the steady diversification of industry, however, the demand for semi- skilled labor increased. Mass production brought in its train the type of workman who, lacking the creative artisanship and skill of the older school of workers, brought to his task the steady, more passive qualities generated by the machine. This condition today is presenting, not only to Massachusetts but to every industrial community in the entire country a new kind of labor problem.
RACE ELEMENTS
Massachusetts has played the melting pot to Europe. The leaven of native American labor with which the industrial growth of the state began has stood us in good stead during these long years of influx of labor from other countries. We have not had so much of the severe maladjustments between capital and labor as other sections of the country have passed through. That does not mean that we have not found the problem of labor a difficult and highly sensitive one. Wherever two or more people work together in the physical creation of some needed commodity there will be a labor problem. Massa- chusetts has confronted many labor problems of various sorts. They have been, on the whole, the expression of the normal development of labor as an integral factor in the industrial
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KNIGHTS OF LABOR
life of the country, the "growing pains" of a group which has properly become a more important part of the community- and one which has made, and will continue to make, increas- ing demands for a greater and ever greater share in the profits from the industries which it helps to maintain.
ERA OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR (1880-1885)
As we look back on the industrial period which was gather- ing impetus throughout the United States in the '80s we find that Massachusetts was the very focus of these events. Never before had organized labor reached out so widely and so deeply. New areas of competition, new races and nation- alities, new masses of the unskilled, new recruits from the skilled and semi-skilled, were lifted up temporarily into what appeared to be an organization, but was in fact more like a procession, so rapidly did its membership change. An inter- esting phenomenon of American labor activities, which had an important influence on organized labor in Massachusetts, was the Knights of Labor.
American labor movements have never experienced such a rush of organization as in the latter part of 1885 and during 1886. In a remarkably short time, in a few months in fact, more than 600,000 people, living in practically every state in the Union, united in one organization. The Knights grew from 989 local assemblies with 104,000 members in the middle of 1885 to 5,892 assemblies, with slightly over 500,000 members, a year later.
DECLINE OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR (1885-1900)
This movement had all the hot enthusiasm and zeal that sometimes marks an evangelistic revival. It resembled a revival in the quick jet of inspired flame flashing for its brief moment and then subsiding. The reasons for the deflation and disappearance of the Knights of Labor are not hard to find; and since the consequence affected the development of labor unions in Massachusetts they are relevant and should be here considered.
In the first place the Knights of Labor had one similarity to the later I. W. W. The organization stood for "one big
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LABOR MOVEMENT
union." Into it were poured the strength of skilled and semi-skilled workers, and along with them unskilled laborers of every description. For a brief time the zeal of a united holy cause kept the ranks together. The period into which the Knights stepped was a time when a flaming indignation against capital had seized great masses of the workers. But the time was not ripe then, any more than it is today, for the sort of highly organized activity in behalf of labor for which the Knights stood.
What the times needed and what swiftly began to form out of the crude mass of weakly organized labor thus hurled to- gether during the middle '80s was the development of trade unions among the skilled workers, each an independent and self-integrated factor. Then these organizations were linked together in a general federation: and thus came about the American Federation of Labor. In this development Massa- chusetts labor was particularly active. The skilled trades were quickly organized and the unions soon secured a firm foothold in the boot and shoe industry.
BOOT AND SHOE WORKERS UNION (1900-1930)
One reason for labor's success in organizing this particular industry may be found in the fact that here labor and not ma- chinery was a dominant factor. Even after improved labor- saving machinery began to be introduced, the individual plant unit was still kept rather small; and it is even today an indus- try in which mass production has made little headway. Where textile plants employ thousands, shoe factories in Massachu- setts employ scores, or at the most hundreds. Wherever, therefore, the capital investment was not on too large a scale, shoe labor was in a more favorable position. Consequently, the growth of the union in the shoe industry was steady and certain.
Incidentally, the Boot and Shoe Workers Union, which now practically stands alone in the field of shoe labor unions in Massachusetts, is an example of organized labor functioning at its best. Only a few years ago this union established itself firmly in the shoe industry of Massachusetts, following a los- ing battle which the Amalgamated Shoe Workers Union had
19
Courtesy of the Author
No. 11 FACTORY, GEORGE F. KEITH COMPANY, BOSTON
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UNIONS IN TEXTILE INDUSTRIES
fought in the cities of Haverhill and Lynn. At the same time, south of Boston, in the city of Brockton and in the shoe dis- tricts surrounding that city, the Boot and Shoe Workers Union had been carrying on a most commendable working arrangement between the shoe workers and the employers. Wages were fair, working agreements amicably arranged and disputes peacefully adjusted by arbitration.
In one noteworthy instance the union even fought, in behalf of the employers, an outlaw strike against certain workers who had violated their agreement and gone on strike. This was in 1924 at Brockton where the Boot and Shoe Union long remained dominant. The union emerged victorious in this encounter and demonstrated to the employers that when the union made an agreement it was able to enforce its terms upon its own members. Following the disintegration of the Amal- gamated in the shoe cities north of Boston, the Boot and Shoe Workers stepped in; and at present they are rapidly aiding in restoring the prestige of such cities as Lynn and Haverhill, that for a few years after the World War suffered severely from internal labor troubles.
UNIONS IN TEXTILE INDUSTRIES (1889-1910)
By the same influence which made organized labor strong in the boot and shoe industry, the textile industry was not easily organized by the unions. Capital investment in a tex- tile mill called for a huge outlay; and machinery, rather than the worker, was the first necessity. With the machinery at hand, the type of worker needed was not even of the grade of the semi-skilled. As the machinery in the textile industry became more and more perfected, it made possible the employ- ment of less and less skilled labor. Of course, unskilled labor is difficult to weld successfully into an organized unit, because there is constantly a larger available supply outside the ranks of the unions available to employers whenever needed. Here the fundamental law of supply and demand has a precise ex- pression.
Under these circumstances, the struggle of organized labor to unionize the Massachusetts textile industry was from the very beginning a difficult one. In 1889 the National Cotton Mule Spinners union was formed and for a short time it
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LABOR MOVEMENT
loomed as a potential power in the textile labor world. Prac- tically all the mule spinners in Massachusetts joined this or- ganization, but within a short time the introduction of ring spinning simply swept the ground from under the mule spinners; and unskilled labor was substituted in their places.
THE UNITED TEXTILE WORKERS (1901-1920)
Spasmodic attempts during the 'nineties in Fall River and other textile cities to form unions resulted in no permanent concessions from the employers. In 1901, however, the United Textile Workers came into existence, covering in its membership all textile workers. This organization has been able to make some headway but it has never flourished. One of the elements of weakness, so far as union organization is concerned, is the fact that the textile industry has always em- ployed more women and children than men. Women have never been the best material for unionization.
Another element which militated against unionization of the textile industry was the influx through immigration of various nationalities into the ranks of the textile workers. Alien to each other as well as to America in tongue and cus- toms, it was a well-nigh impossible task to organize such dis- similar groups. Meanwhile, the textile industry became larger and thrived more and more. Conditions were satisfactory for the employers, and for the stockholders of these many textile plants throughout Massachusetts. But it must be admitted, in any accurate record of the history of labor in Massachu- setts, that working conditions in some of the mills were bad. Wages were low and no attempt was made by the employers to do more, in too many instances, than get all they could from the workers and give in return as little as possible.
LAWRENCE TEXTILE STRIKE (1912)
The logical outcome of this policy of grinding labor under the heel of an arbitrary control may be found in the Lawrence strike of 1912. In the history of Massachusetts, no labor trouble stands out as distressing or as far-reaching in its im- plications as does this long and bitter struggle. It was a struggle in which thousands of underpaid foreign-born work-
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LAWRENCE STRIKE AND THE I. W. W.
ers rebelled against a smug and complacent management, which had for years disregarded the fundamental rights of labor. It was a strike which could not today take place in Massachusetts, because in a great measure the injustices which provoked it have been discontinued.
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