"
Another early instance of a strike occurred in New York City in
1809, when the cordwainers struck for higher wages and were
hauled before the mayor's court on the charge of conspiracy. The
trial was postponed by Mayor DeWitt Clinton until after the
pending municipal elections to avoid the risk of offending either
side. When at length the strikers were brought to trial, the
court-house was crowded with spectators, showing how keen was the
public interest in the case. The jury's verdict of "guilty," and
the imposition of a fine of one dollar each and costs upon the
defendants served but as a stimulus to the friends of the
strikers to gather in a great mass meeting and protest against
the verdict and the law that made it possible.
In 1821 the New York Typographical Society, which had been
organized four years earlier by Peter Force, a labor leader of
unusual energy, set a precedent for the vigorous and fearless
career of its modern successor by calling a strike in the
printing office of Thurlow Weed, the powerful politician, himself
a member of the society, because he employed a "rat," as a
nonunion worker was called. It should be noted, however, that the
organizations of this early period were of a loose structure and
scarcely comparable to the labor unions of today.
Sidney Smith, the brilliant contributor to the "Edinburgh
Review," propounded in 1820 certain questions which sum up the
general conditions of American industry and art after nearly a
half century of independence: "In the four quarters of the
globe," he asked, "who reads an American book? or goes to an
American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What
does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What
new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones
have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered
by the telescopes of Americans? What have they done in
mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses? or eats from
American plates? or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in
American blankets?"
These questions, which were quite pertinent, though conceived in
an impertinent spirit, were being answered in America even while
the witty Englishman was framing them.
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