So here we are, 240 years and counting, celebrating "our" Declaration
of Independence. But was it really "our" declaration of independence?
Is it possible that we have been lied to, and tricked into believing
that our Forefathers meant "Us"? A closer look at the evidence from
those long ago times, still available today, tell us that our Rulers
kept quiet many documents and publications that tell a different
story. There is not space enough for them here, but a simple google
or two can bring up more than enough material to make any serious
American Historian cry out in Joy.
Despite having to lie and pressure the common man into taking up arms
against England, the Ruling Class found a way of seemingly including
all White men into thinking in terms of, "We", even though they had no
say in this new government.
A very small percentage of the population were privileged to cast
votes. Only those who were Landed or had a certain level of money
could participate in governmental affairs.
This article describing the plight of the shoemakers is one more
example of how entrenched the Capitalist System was, from the very
beginning. Despite the "give and take" of small gains by the working
class over the centuries, the Masters are still on top. Perhaps it is
past time to stop saying, "We" when speaking of the American Corporate
Empire(formerly the USA). Our only value to this sprawling monster is
to produce and consume. And when we can no longer produce and
consume, we must lie down and die, because the Empire has no place in
its practical(greedy) heart for such thoughts as care for the elderly.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/4/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://socialistaction.org/2016/06/30/200-years-ago-journeymen-shoemakers-strike-in-philadelphia/
200 years ago: Journeymen shoemakers strike in Philadelphia
/ 3 days ago
April 2016 Cordwainer
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER
The autumn of 1805 was unusually mild. Farmers were able to plough their
land almost until Christmas. And in Philadelphia, the balmy
temperatures might have “gone to the head” of a group of journeymen
cordwainers [shoemakers], who had the temerity on Nov. 1, 1805, to
undertake what was one of the earliest labor strikes for wages in U.S.
history.
The journeymen had organized themselves back in 1794 into an elemental
trade union known as the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers.
This came about as a reflection of the fact that a revolution in
production in the shoemaking industry had produced a new workforce. In
colonial times, shoes generally had been made to order for customers by
individual craftsmen, who might have employed merely a few journeymen or
apprentices as helpers. But by the end of the 18th century, custom-made
shoes were constructed only for wealthy customers. More often, shoes
were produced according to pattern for the wholesale as well as retail
trade. Far fewer craftsmen worked alone; now they became employers of
larger groups of journeymen, who were given piecework wages to produce
the commodities.
The wage rate varied according to the quality of the shoe. This formula
might be “justified” partly on the assumption that an average worker
would produce a cheaper shoe in less time than it took to produce a
better one, but it also reflected pricing conditions in the markets.
Thus, men employed in making what were called “market-work” shoes—those
sold to poorer customers by retailers in the public shambles—would
receive wages that were only a third of what they could earn in ordinary
“shop work.” The journeymen grumbled that “market-work” wages were not
enough for them to feed and house their families. Although they often
labored from five in the morning until past midnight, they still could
not make ends meet.
And they also complained that the employers were giving them a lower
wage for producing shoes for retail sale than for custom-made
products—even though the quality of the two articles and the care put
into their manufacture was often the same. “I made some work for Mr.
Ryan,” a journeyman named John Hayes said in court, “and he made a
similar reduction upon me, because they were to go into the shop, when
he used before to give the same price for shop goods as he did for
bespoke work.” The journeymen highlighted the unjustness of the
situation by noting that the employers would still often sell the shoes
for two or three times what they would pay their workers to produce them.
The journeymen had struck before, in 1799, when the masters had
threatened to reduce wages. The employers then advertised for “scab”
workers, but had little success in recruiting enough to break the
strike. In the settlement, the journeymen succeeded in stopping the
wage reduction. In 1804, another strike ensued, and again the employers
agreed to keep the current wage rate—but when business slackened after
Christmas, they began cutting wages again.
The November 1805 walk-out was provoked by an action that had taken
place two days earlier, when an informal organization of employers met
together to consider the demands of the journeymen for higher wages,
and resolved unanimously that “we will not give any more wages than we
have given for some time past.”
As in 1799, the employers advertised for scabs to take the jobs of the
strikers, and several employers attempted to fire men who had gone on
strike. Street battles took place between the scabs and striking
workers, which resulted in the arrest of the leaders of the journeymen’s
union and the collapse of the strike.
Public opinion in Philadelphia was polarized over the strike. William
Duane’s Aurora stood up for the strikers, while the Federalist press,
reflecting the opinion of the wealthier sector of Philadelphia society,
sided with the employers and the scabs. On Nov. 27, the pro-Federalist
United States Gazette polemicized against the Aurora by promoting the
bosses’ view of the events: “Electioneering trick.—The Aurora this
morning has trumped up a pleasant story of certain journeymen
shoemakers, who, he says, were last week committed to jail, ‘for
meditating and proposing to demand an augmentation of the reward for
their manual labor.’—We then hear a good deal of rhodomontade about
English common law, aristocracy, nobility, oppression of the poor, &c. &c.
“Now the story as we have heard it is thus: For a considerable time
past, ever since the inclement season commenced, a great proportion of
the journeymen shoemakers of this city have been conspiring to raise the
price of their labour; and for the purpose of accomplishing this end
have refused to work for the usual wages. Some few, however, finding
honest industry to be more profitable than idleness and caballing,
returned to their work. This exasperated those who chose to stand out,
and it is said they appointed a certain number of sturdy individuals of
their fraternity, to be dominated [nominated?] ‘The Hammering
Committee,’ whose duty it sho[u]ld be to find out and flog all such as
should return to their work at the customary wages.
“It is said that some of the members of this committee in the execution
of their duty, have been unkindly seized and thrown into prison. This
circumstance is caught by the Aurora as proof that the object is to
deprive these worthy hammering citizens of a vote at the senatorial
election tomorrow.”
The following day, the Aurora let the journeymen speak for themselves
by printing their “Address of the Working Shoemakers of the City of
Philadelphia to the Public.” At the beginning, the document took a
defensive tact by citing the guarantees of the Pennsylvania state
constitution “that the citizens have a right in a peaceable manner to
assemble together for the common good.” And in accord with that
proposition, it asserted that, “for the past fifteen years and
upwards,” the journeymen had been assembling “in a peaceful manner”
for such constitutionally protected purposes. Now they wished “to
shew to the industrious of all trades, what danger threatens them, and
what wrong has been done to us.”
Then the Address went on the attack against the master cordwainers,
“who are only the retailers of our labor, and who in truth live upon the
work of our hands”: “As they are rich and we are poor—they seem to think
that we are not protected by the constitution in meeting peaceably
together and pursuing our own happiness—They suppose that they have a
right to limit us at all times, and whatever may be the misfortunes of
society, the changes in the value of necessaries, the encrease or the
decrease of trade, they think they have a right to determine for us the
value of our labor; but that we have no right to determine for
ourselves, what we will or what we will not take in exchange for our
labor.”
Unfortunately, the master craftsmen, with the support of the wealthier
echelons of the business community, decided to retaliate in the courts
against the strikers and their union. They brought charges against the
union and eight elected officers for “conspiracy.” A major charge
against the union was that they had used various methods of
compulsion—even violence—to force journeymen workers to not scab
against their fellows who were on strike. In effect, the bosses
professed that in prosecuting the union, they were merely standing up
for the democratic rights of their workers.
The trial was put on the docket of the Philadelphia Mayor’s Court for
January 1806. The twelve men on the jury could hardly be considered
peers of the defendants. The jury included three master craftsmen—a
hatter, a tailor, and a watchmaker. And the nine others were
employers, such as innkeepers, merchants, etc.
In final arguments, defense attorney Walter Franklin reiterated the
strikers’ insistence that they had been exercising their just right to
assembly. But more to the point, he asked, since the master cordwainers
had assumed the right to set the level of wages, did not journeymen also
have a right to bargain the price of their labor power? And since the
employers had taken action to join forces in order to fix prices and
wages, did not the journeymen also have the right to seek collective
action “to determine for themselves the value of their own labor?”
In summary, Franklin appealed to the jury: “If you are contented with
the blessings enjoyed under our free constitution, which secures to the
citizens and equality of rights, and recognizes no distinction of
classes … I shall look for the result of these feelings and these
sentiments in a verdict of acquittal.”
But such arguments failed to deflect the bias of the jury. They retired
at 9 p.m. and came to a decision soon afterward. The court then asked
the jury to wait until morning before pronouncing the verdict—“guilty.”
The eight defendants were each fined $8, and required to pay court costs.
Just months after conclusion of the journeymen’s conspiracy trial, the
transcript of the proceedings, taken in shorthand by Thomas Lloyd, was
published in book form. An advertisement for the volume noted: “This
trial is deeply interesting, and shews to men of all professions, that
by the English common-law (now for the first time introduced into
Pennsylvania, since its first settlement as a province under William
Penn) they are not at liberty to associate together, for the purpose of
fixing the price of their labor, in the way attempted by the society of
Journeymen Cordwainers.”
It was a strong setback for labor’s cause. Three decades later, however,
the labor movement rose again in Philadelphia, with a general strike and
the formation of the first U.S. workingman’s party. By that time,
machine-driven factories had increasingly supplanted handicrafts, and
the system of masters and journeymen had developed into a new system,
with a clear division between capitalists and proletarians.
This is an excerpt from a new book by Michael Schreiber, “Unsinkable
Patriot: The Life and Times of Thomas Cave in Revolutionary America.”
The book can be ordered from the author’s website:
http://www.philahistory.org.
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June 30, 2016 in Arts & Culture, Books, Labor, Marxist Theory & History,
Philadelphia.
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