It
will be recalled that, at the time of the ten-hour agitation of the
thirties, the Federal government had lagged about five years behind
private employers in granting the demanded concession. That in the
sixties the workingmen chose government employment as the entering wedge
shows a measure of political self-confidence which the preceding
generation of workingmen lacked.
The first bill in Congress was introduced by Senator Gratz Brown of
Missouri in March 1866. In the summer a delegation from the National
Labor Union was received by President Andrew Johnson. The President
pointed to his past record favorable to the workingmen but refrained
from any definite promises. Finally, an eight-hour bill for government
employes was passed by the House in March 1867, and by the Senate in
June 1868. On June 29, 1868, President Johnson signed it and it went
into effect immediately.
The result of the eight-hour law was not all that the friends of the
bill hoped. The various officials in charge of government work put their
own interpretations upon it and there resulted much diversity in its
observance, and consequently great dissatisfaction.
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