But in large manufacturing centers, where the rich
corporation prevailed, they included the employers of only one industry.
To attain their end these associations made liberal use of the lockout,
the blacklist, and armed guards and detectives. Often they treated
agreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress.
The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearly
foreshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gould
railways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886.
As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould
system in March 1885, the employes were assured that the road would
institute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it
is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by
minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated
in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car
shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortly
before passed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over the
entire road on March 1, 1886.
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