Hence it was that
the aspiration toward equal citizenship became the keynote of labor's
earliest political movement. The issue was drawn primarily between the
rich and the poor, not between the functional classes, employers and
employes. While the workmen took good care to exclude from their ranks
"persons not living by some useful occupation, such as bankers, brokers,
rich men, etc.," they did not draw the line on employers as such, master
workmen and independent "producers."
The workingmen's bill of complaints, as set forth in the Philadelphia
_Mechanic's Free Press_ and other labor papers, clearly marks off the
movement as a rebellion by the class of newly enfranchised wage earners
against conditions which made them feel degraded in their own eyes as
full fledged citizens of the commonwealth.
The complaints were of different sorts but revolved around the charge
of the usurpation of government by an "aristocracy." Incontrovertible
proof of this charge was found in special legislation chartering banks
and other corporations. The banks were indicted upon two counts. First,
the unstable bank paper money defrauded the wage earner of a
considerable portion of the purchasing power of his wages.
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