The Persistent Echo of Industrial Unrest
A century-old editorial reflects on the cyclical nature of labor disputes, trade unions, and the recurring arguments over the relationship between capital and labor.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Between 1834 and 1837, there were the same labor troubles that are now vexing the body politic. In the year 1835, there were twenty-one trade unions in this country, having the same purposes and using the same methods as now. Strikes were just as common then and even more dangerous. There was a labor party which elected a workman's candidate to Congress who had been president of the New York Trades Union. These societies published lists of 'rats' or 'scabs' and detailed 'pickets' then as now to keep off non-union men. The panic of 1837 caused strikes in the shops and factories of New England. There were railroad riots that compelled the calling out of the militia. The striking cabinet-makers of New York city in 1835 attended a sale of imported French furniture, which they mutilated on the ground that Americans had no right to import furniture. There was the same insurrection against convict labor, and the same coincident boycott, which was called 'nullifying' then. The facts will convince any candid man that labor troubles are a perennial disturbance.
“There is nothing new under the sun; not even in the matter of labor riots and 'People's parties.'”
This editorial argues that labor unrest is a 'perennial disturbance,' a sentiment that resonates deeply as contemporary Seattle navigates modern cycles of unionization, strike actions, and heated debates over economic inequality and the 'rules of the game' for employers.
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