"
The use of the militia during strikes presented the same
difficulties then as now. During the general strike in
Philadelphia in 1835 there was considerable rowdyism, and Michel
Chevalier, a keen observer of American life, wrote that "the
militia looks on; the sheriff stands with folded hands." Nor was
there any difference in the attitude of the laboring man towards
unfavorable court decisions. In the tailors' strike in New York
in 1836, for instance, twenty-seven thousand sympathizers
assembled with bands and banners to protest against the jury's
verdict, and after sentence had been imposed upon the defendants,
the lusty throng burned the judge in effigy.
Sabotage is a new word, but the practice itself is old. In 1835
the striking cabinet-makers in New York smashed thousands of
dollars' worth of chairs, tables, and sofas that had been
imported from France, and the newspapers observed the significant
fact that the destroyers boasted in a foreign language that only
American-made furniture should be sold in America. Houses were
burned in Philadelphia because the contractors erecting them
refused to grant the wages that were demanded. Vengeance was
sometimes sought against new machinery that displaced hand labor.
In June, 1835, a New York paper remarked that "it is well known
that many of the most obstinate turn-outs among workingmen and
many of the most violent and lawless proceedings have been
excited for the purpose of destroying newly invented machinery.
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