The
anti-contract labor law which was passed by Congress on February 2,
1885, therefore, was due almost entirely to the efforts of the Knights
of Labor. The trade unions gave little active support, for to the
skilled workingmen the importation of contract Italian and Hungarian
laborers was a matter of small importance. On the other hand, to the
Knights of Labor with their vast contingent of unskilled it was a strong
menace. Although the law could not be enforced and had to be amended in
1887 in order to render it effective, its passage nevertheless attests
the political influence already exercised by the Order in 1885.
The outcome of the Gould strike of 1885 and the dramatic exaggeration of
the prowess of the Order by press and even by pulpit were largely
responsible for the psychological setting that called forth and
surrounded the great upheaval of 1886. This upheaval meant more than the
mere quickening of the pace of the movement begun in preceding years and
decades. It signalled the appearance on the scene of a new class which
had not hitherto found a place in the labor movement, namely the
unskilled.
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