One of his associates, too, invoked the
spirit of chivalry, of true knighthood, when he said that the old
trade union had failed because "it had failed to recognize the
rights of man and looked only to the rights of tradesmen," that
the labor movement needed "something that will develop more of
charity, less of selfishness, more of generosity, less of
stinginess and nearness, than the average society has yet
disclosed to its members." Nor were these ideas and principles
betrayed by Stephens's successor, Terence V. Powderly, who became
Grand Master in 1879 and served during the years when the order
attained its greatest power. Powderly, also, was a conservative
idealist. His career may be regarded as a good example of the
rise of many an American labor leader. He had been a poor boy. At
thirteen he began work as a switch-tender; at seventeen he was
apprenticed as machinist; at nineteen he was active in a
machinists' and blacksmiths' union. After working at his trade in
various places, he at length settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania,
and became one of the organizers of the Greenback Labor party. He
was twice elected mayor of Scranton, and might have been elected
for a third term had he not declined to serve, preferring to
devote all his time to the society of which he was Grand Master.
The obligations laid upon every member of the Knights of Labor
were impressive: Labor is noble and holy. To defend it from
degradation; to divest it of the evils to body, mind and estate
which ignorance and greed have imposed; to rescue the toiler from
the grasp of the selfish--is a work worthy of the noblest and
best of our race.
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