But those who
responded were not interested in trade unionism and, mirroring the
prevailing labor sentiment during the long years of depressions, had
only politics on their mind, greenback or socialist. As neither
greenbacker nor socialist would meet the other half-way, the attempt
naturally came to naught.
Greenbackism was popular with the working people during the depressed
seventies because it now meant to them primarily currency inflation and
a rise of prices and, consequently, industrial prosperity--not the
phantastic scheme of the National Labor Union. Yet in the Presidential
election of 1876 the Greenback party candidate, Peter Cooper, the well
known manufacturer and philanthropist, drew only a poor 100,000, which
came practically from the rural districts only. It was not until the
great strikes of 1877 had brought in their train a political labor
upheaval that the greenback movement assumed a formidable form.
The strikes of 1877, which on account of the wide area affected, the
degree of violence displayed, and the amount of life and property lost,
impressed contemporaries as being nothing short of social revolution,
were precipitated by a general ten percent reduction in wages on the
three trunk lines running West, the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio,
and the New York Central, in June and July 1877.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95