Clearly
then the survival of the craft union was a survival of the fittest; and
the Federation's attachment to the principle of craft autonomy was, to
say the least, a product of an evolutionary past, whatever one may hold
with reference to its fitness in our own time.
Whatever reasons moved the trade unions of the skilled to battle with
the Order for their separate and autonomous existence were bound sooner
or later to induce those craftsmen who were in the Order to seek a
similar autonomy. From the very beginning the more skilled and better
organized trades in the Knights sought to separate from the mixed
"district assemblies" and to create within the framework of the Order
"national trade assemblies."[26] However, the national officers, who
looked upon such a move as a betrayal of the great principle of the
solidarity of all labor, were able to stem the tide excepting in the
case of the window glass blowers, who were granted their autonomy in
1880.
The obvious superiority of the trade union form of organization over the
mixed organization, as revealed by events in 1886 and 1887, strengthened
the separatist tendency.
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