Discuss how the Social Darwinists' view of laissez-faire led to the poor industrial work conditions characteristic of the time period 1875-1905.
Document A
"The Incident" of the 6th of July.
From the July 16, 1892 issue of Illustrated American.
NOTHING more dramatic in the History of Labor and Capital is recorded than the Incident of the 6th of July.
The forces of the Nineteenth Century are Capital and Labor, united they transform the desert into a garden, in collision they convert the garden into a waste.
On the 6th of July, 1892, at Homestead, Penn., the Forces met. The sound of the shock echoed through the labor markets of the world.
In this age we regard the French Revolution with surprise, we wonder at the growth of the power of the mob, we are amazed at the brutality of the people, and we are astonished at the spectacle afforded by the savagery of women.
The Incident of the 6th of July affords a parallel in diminutive form, and is pregnant with meaning.
Let us see!
A certain man, who has risen from the ranks of labor by thrift, cleverness, and lucky transactions, has amassed riches. His name is Andrew Carnegie; his fortune is written in the millions. Much of this fortune is invested in steel rolling mills at Homestead. These works cover one hundred and fifty acres of ground; here work four thousand five hundred men. The smoke of the flumes ascend day and night to the god of commerce, and the high price of bread consumes the day wage of the toilers.
Four years ago Carnegie gave $500,000 to the campaign fund which promised him "protection" or monopoly. Fourteen competing rolling mills have passed away and one hundred acres have been added to the Carnegie plant.
A few weeks since Carnegie's partners decided that men seeking the protection of a union or brotherhood should not be employed at the works. He who sought "protection" denied protection,
As the custom is, the time came when the Employer and Employee should fix the price of wages. The Man asked one dollar more than the Master was willing to pay. "Protection" had poured gold into his strong box, and raised the price of beef, bread, and clothing.
The Wage-giver and the Wage-taker could not agree about the one dollar.
And the works shut down!
Document B
A Defense of Free Enterprise - William Graham Sumner
from The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays
Competition, therefore, is a law of nature. Nature is entirely neutral; she submits to him who most energetically and resolutely assails her. She grants her rewards to the finest, therefore, without regard to other considerations of any kind. We shall favor the survival of the unfittest, and we shall accomplish this by destroying liberty. Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative: liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members.
Document C
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Document D
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Document E
Song sung by the Knights of Labor and other workers
fighting for the eight hour day, 1886.
From W. G. Sumner, What Makes the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer? 1887
We mean to make things over We're tired of toil for naught But bare enough to live on; never An hour for thought. We want to feel the sunshine: we Want to smell the flowers We're sure that God has willed it And we mean to have eight hours. We're summoning our forces from Shipyard, shop and mill Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest Eight hours for what we will!
Document F
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
. . .and so was decided the place in the universe of little Stanislovas, and his destiny till the end of his days. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, it was fated that he should stand upon a certain square of floor from seven in the morning till half-past five, making never a motion and thinking never a thought, save for the setting of lard cans. In summer the stench of the warm lard would be nauseating, and in winter the cans would all but freeze to his naked little fingers in the unheated cellar. Half the year it would be dark as night when he went in to work, and dark as night again when he came out, and so he would never know what the sun looked like on weekdays. And for this, at the end of the week, he would carry home three dollars to his family, being his pay at the rate of five cents per hour--just about the proper share of the total earnings of the million and three-quarters of children who are now engaged in earning their livings in the United States.
Document G
Testimony, U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on
Education and Labor, Aug. 16, 1883
I do say that the Government of the United States ought to be in advance of its people. It is the duty of a legislator, as I understand it, to frame and adopt measures for the welfare of the people. I believe that the duty of the legislature is to propose laws for the benefit of the people. The Constitution of the country, I believe, does not give our National Government the right to adopt a law which would be applicable to private employments; yet for its own employees it ought to be in advance. . . . The selfish, mercenary, or other such motives which govern individuals in their struggles to accumulate wealth ought not to exist in our Government. . . .
Document H
Factory Girl Work Song
No more shall I work in the fact'ry,
Greasy up my clothes;
No more shall I work in the fact'ry
With splinters in my toes.
No more shall I hear the bosses say,
"Boys, you'd better daulf,"
No more shall I hear those bosses say,
"Spinners, you'd
better clean off."
No more shall I hear the drummer wheels
A-rolling over my head,
When factories are hard at work,
I'll be in
my bed.
No more shall I hear the whistle blow,
To call me up so soon;
No more shall I hear the whistle blow,
To call me from my home.
No more shall I see the super come,
All dressed up so proud;
For all I know I'll marry a country boy
Before this year is out.
No more shall I wear the old black dress,
Greasy all around;
No more shall I wear the old black bonnet,
With holes all in the crown.
Chorus:
Pity me my darling,
Pity me, I say;
Pity me my darling,
And carry me away.
Document I
Wealth, Andrew Carnegie, 1889
The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. We assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Human society loses homogeneity.
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved condition in its train. But whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
Essay
During the late 19th century the economy was dominated by a handful of wealthy men proliferating at the expense of the majority living at or below the poverty line. The upper class was flourishing from the labor forces who were functioning in sub-par working conditions. The government found itself unable to control the exploding capitalistic economy. The tradition of Social Darwinism and a "Laissez-Faire" attitude government led to poor working conditions in America.
The "laissez-faire" attitude in government was creating a growing problem. Industrial tycoons were fighting to keep the status quo. These men had a booming economy as an incentive. But during Benjamin Harrison administration public outcry couldn't be ignored. In 1890, congress passed the Sherman anti-trust act, but the courts ended up weakening this act greatly. In the United States vs. the E.C. Knight Co., the courts ruled that even thought this company controlled 98% of refined sugar manufacturing, congress could not interfere with it because it was manufacturing and not engaged in interstate commerce. Even faced with such major defeats in legislation, the workers were not about to stand idly by. The unions organized numerous wildcat strikes that the national guard had to be called out to quell on occasion. In a testimony given to the U.S. senate committee on education and labor in 1883 the government was reprimanded for not looking out for the welfare of the people (Doc. 7). In 1900, the house committee on labor noted that when people asked the federal government for help they were told to go to the state legislature, and visa-versa. Quoted: "the working men of our country have learned somewhat of their rights, and they propose to stand by them, and they have the courage to do so, too."
Wealth was poorly distributed during the Guilded Age. Andrew Carnegie wrote that because of the size of the work force, employers and employees didn't know each other. This schism was caused directly by survival of the fittest. And in order to provide goods to the consumer at the rate of demand, this impersonal workplace was integral (Doc. 9). As put by William Graham Sumner, the survival of the fittest carries society forward and favors all its best members (Doc. 2). The survival of the unfittest does the opposite. These ideals brought about poor wages and appalling work conditions. People making five cents a day for a measly three dollars a week; working six days a week from before dawn till after dusk (Doc. 6). All this for so little, to support so much. Men like Vanderbilt, Morgan, and Rockefeller were in charge of wealth, and only a few used it to better society, such as Andrew Carnegie with his ideals embodied in the "Gospel of Wealth."
The working class, forced to prop up a bustling society, with nothing more than a twig, was bound to snap. Snap, it did. Unions such as the Knights of Labor and Samuel Gompers' AFL led strikes against the oppressive employers. Strikes such as the Anthracite Coal strike in 1902, the Pullman strike in 1894, the Homestead Strike of 1892, and the Haymarket Riot of 1886 were the beginning of a trend that gave employees a voice; and the voice was load and clear. Muckraking journalism was great too in the movement. Illustrated American wrote an expose on Andrew Carnegie=s campaign contributions to secure land and monopoly in his steel industry (Dec 1). After squelching the competition, he had the power to pay his workers poorly because they had no where else to go. Working conditions continued to deteriorate as major manufacturers began to implement the theories of Fredrick Winslow Taylor B scientific management. This move by Carnegie was also a demonstration of horizontal and vertical integration; tactics that Carnegie was a master of. Muckrakers had a strong voice through the hand of such journalists as Ida Tarbell, and through vivid storytellers such as Upton Sinclair. Labor unions organized worker from a confused mill of voices into a strong, competent voice. Leaders of unions worked to guarantee seemingly basic demand such as eight-hour work days, minimum wage laws, and child labor laws. "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will (Doc. 5)." Women, who made up a great deal of the labor force, voiced their opinions as well. The WTUL was an organization designed to encourage women to join unions in their trade. Factory girls would make up songs to show their discontent with the lives they led (Doc. 8).
Society viewed men as anything from human commoners all the way to pig tycoons, which was a mockery of the hated idea of Social Darwinism (Doc. 3). It was a grim world where men like Samuel Gompers called men with guns "human nature (Doc. 4); an unbalanced world where the majority of the population was oppressed by an elite group of men, who, by either inheritance or the idea of the "self-made man," wielded the power to decide the fate of so many.