The Labor Movement in the United States of America – Part 10

The Knights of Labor

The origins of the Knights of labor date back to the days of the National Labor Union; established 1866. The organization, however only began to have a broader existence many years later. In 1869, after the break‑up the previous trade‑union, the order was founded in Philadelphia by a small group of Garment workers as the ‘Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor’. At the basis of their organization was the belief that the precious trade-unions had failed because of their lack of secrecy. Thus the structuring of a secret society began, accompanied by extravagant titles for people who had become adept at the heights of the organization, Great Master Worker (general secretary, first filled by Uriah Stephens), Venerable Sage, Unknown Knight, Worthy Foreman, etc.

At the time there were many unions with pompous titles for their leaders and their members conducted elaborate ceremonies. None came close, however, to the rituals of the Knights of Labor. When a candidate was invited to join them (and up to 1878 this person could only be a salaried worker). They would attend a secret meeting in which the person would first have to answer three questions: 1) Do you believe in God, creator and father of us all? 2) Do you obey the universal rule of God, so you will have to earn your bread with the sweat of your brow? 3) Do you wish to make a solemn oath of secrecy, obedience and mutual assistance?

The candidate was then asked to commit himself to the laws and regulations of the order, as well as to «defend the life, interests, reputation and family of all the authentic members of the Order: help and assist the Brothers, employed and unemployed, unfortunate or in disgrace, and procure work, guarantee a just remuneration, relieve discomfort by inviting others to help them, so that all the brothers and their families can receive and enjoy the rightful fruits of work and exercise their art».

After the oath, the new member was taken to the Sanctuary Base, the meeting room, to receive instructions from the Worthy Foreman. Here they were explained that the organization of the workers was made necessary because, in every productive sector, capital «unites and, consciously or not, crushes the many prospects of the workers, trampling into dust the poor of humanity». However, the Knights of Labor did not advocate for «any conflict with the legitimate enterprise of, nor antagonism with capital». They only neglected the rights of others «and sometimes even violated the rights of the defenseless». To prevent such violations, they intended «to create a healthy public opinion of labor (the only creator of value), and how right it was that it received the full, fair share of the value of capital created». They would therefore have supported all the laws aimed at ”harmonizing the interests of labor and capital (…) and also those laws aimed at mitigating the harshness of employment”. Though they did not approve of general strikes, if it were ”rightly necessary to solicit the oppressor, we will protect and help every one of our initiate who could receive harm, and, as far as possible extend our help to all sectors of honest labor”.

After being instructed on the objectives of the Knights of Labor, the candidate was entrusted to a Venerable Sage; who explained to them the secret organization of the Order, controls, passwords, and teach the meeting dates. The meetings, often held in the woods, were called by writings on sidewalks or fences that could only be understood by initiates. Until 1897 the name of the Order was never spoken and was called “Five stars” because they signed with five asterisks.

Utopianism and Religion

To better understand the objective of the Knights of Labor. It will be Useful to follow the thought of U. Stephens, who was among the founders of the Order and a Master Worker until 1878. The word “solidarity” was fundamental; the labor movement had to be powerful and unified to face the strength of organized capital. The only working-class organization capable of dealing with the power of capital would have been the one that had united the workers of all trades, and had universal objectives”.For him, the unions were too narrow, both in composition and scope. Instead of uniting all the workers, they excluded the unskilled, Blacks, and other worker groups. Since, according to him, all workers had common interests, they should logically belong to a single association and be united by bonds of “universal brotherhood”. A unity to be achieved through the application of three principles: secrecy, cooperation and education. Secrecy served three purposes: it would protect the worker from persecution by the master who was hostile to the unions; it would prevent the discovery of the workers’ plans by the masters; and finally, secret rites would emphasize for the adept the importance of the organization he had just joined. In the secret of the meeting rooms, all differences of trade, religion, nationality, race and politics disappeared.

On the other hand, Stephens was not satisfied with the improvements that could be achieved within the wage‑based system; an important goal of the Knights of labor was to achieve ”a complete emancipation of wealth producers from the enslavement and suffering of paid slavery”. Through cooperation, the Knights of Labor could guarantee better living conditions, and gradually replace capitalism.

A deeply religious inspiration was at the base of the Order; in the very words of Stephens: ”The association must base its claims on something higher than participation in profits and wages and the reduction of hours and labor fatigue. These are nothing more than physical effects and goals of a coarser nature and, even if they are fundamental, they are only the starting point for a higher, more noble cause. The ultimate reason, the true reason, must be based on the highest and most divine nature of man, his noble capacity to do good. Excessive effort and limited pay reduce, obtundate and degrade these divine faculties, in the likeness of which man was created so that, according to the plan of his Creator, he could always exhibit them”.

It was for various activities including not so much struggle as education, that the eradication of prejudices and antagonisms that divided the working class was made possible; education also played a key role to ensure the accomplishment of the Knights of Labor’s own goals, both in the short and in the long term. In this sense, the meetings were very active, and political economy a relevant field of discussion and training, also in view of the participation of the members in political life. Stephens’ aim was therefore to unite all the workers in a general mass organization without distinction of creed, sex, or race. ”I don’t pretend to possess prophetic powers – it seems Stephens said – but I see in the future an organization that will cover the world. It will be composed of men and women of every profession, creed and color”.

Surely Stephens’ vision was very progressive compared to the workers’ organizations of the time, as these were the ones that survived, locked in narrow horizons of category or even factory; nor did the topics discussed go beyond the purely trade union ones such as wages and working conditions. The Knights of Labor were a structure that was more suited to the party form, without however having the theoretical and material basis; Stephens’ thought could therefore be ascribed to the rich category of utopianism. The consequences of the birth of the Knights of Labor, especially in the years that followed his retirement, was much greater and different from that prophesied by its theorists.

In the early years, only proven clothing workers, in particular the cutters, were admitted to the sections of the Order. Their meetings resembled in all respects normal trade union meetings. However, employers were also included in these groups of workers. Although the bourgeoise component could not exceed a quarter of the workforce in each section, with the exception of bankers, doctors, coupon cutters and liquor producers, who were considered non‑productive members of a society; which reflects the idea of the founders, that there was a fundamental commonality of interests between employers and workers, even if the bourgeois component could not exceed a quarter of the staff of each section, provided that the bourgeois actually participated. Women were admitted only starting in 1882, while Asians, especially the Chinese, were not accepted. The rules of the working class remained valid until the Order extended to the coal and steel industries of Western Pennsylvania, during the long depression. Only then did the Order begin to take hold of the class.

Aims and Methods

The Knights of Labor remained in the shadows for several years not so much for their secrecy as for their poor penetration into the working class. It was the years of the depression that slowly made them rise in popularity among workers. Between 1873 and 1875 their activity extended from Philadelphia to the neighboring States and towards west of Pennsylvania, an area of iron and steel mines.

It was an irregular growth: Groups of workers joined and then often left when they understood that the Knights of Labor did very little to help them gain better wages. The nature of the organization made it look like a national organization at a time when the traditional trade unions were being put into crisis and vanished because of the depression. However, since until 1878 the Knights of Labor did not have a platform, a statute, or any list of principles to inspire them, their activists (called “preceptors”) could promise the workers concerned that all their problems would be solved by a strong organization; since the accession was often followed by bitter disappointments, departures were as frequent as arrivals.

In any case there was still growth: at the end of 1877, following the great railway strike, the Knights of Labor were present in 8 States, from Illinois to Massachusetts, to West Virginia; by 1880, the number of States concerned had risen to 26. During the strike individual members of the Order acted militantly, while the Order itself had only recommended moderation, peaceful methods and isolation of the most radical elements. The need for rules and an organizational structure worthy of the name was felt as the organization expanded. The abandonment of their secrecy seemed prudent as it was a weak point in the image of the Order and made proselytism and union action difficult.

At a convention in 1878 a “Preamble and Declaration of Principles” was drafted. These would remain the only programmatic document of the Order throughout its entire history.

After denouncing the danger and aggressiveness of the great capitalists, for their tendency to impoverish and degrade the working masses. The document states that this unjust accumulation, and the powers that derives from it, must be cured if one wants to fully enjoy the blessings of life. A task that only workers can perform.

The document continues: ”We have established the Order of the Knights of Labor, with the aim of organizing and directing the strength of the workers’ masses not as a political party”, even if when voting support should be given to candidates in favor of measures ”that can only be achieved through legislation”, regardless of which party they belong to.

Among the aims of the order the most significant were: II. To ensure the workers can fully enjoy the wealth they create and sufficient free time to develop their skills.

In order to guarantee these results, the Order asked of the State: III. A statistical Office to know the real conditions of the working masses; IV. That public land is reserved for those who work it; V. The abrogation of all laws that do not bear equally upon capital and labor; VI. Measures for the health and safety of workers; VII. Recognition, by incorporation, of trade unions and the like; VIII. A wage to be paid each week by law; IX. Abolition of the contract system in public entreprises; X. The establishment of compulsory arbitration; XI. The prohibition of the employment of children under 15 years of age; XII. The prohibition of the employment of forced labor; XIII. a progressive taxation; XIV. Creation of a national monetary system; XVI. Prohibition of import of contract workers from abroad; XVII‑XVIII. Nationalization of all important services and a currency valid throughout the country.

The Order pledge commitment to: XIX. Create cooperative institutions that could overcome the system of wages; XX. Guarantee equal salary for equal work for men and women; XXI. Eight hours of work a day; XXII. Persuade the bosses to accept arbitration, so that sympathetic relations can be established and strikes would become superfluous.

At this point it is worth remembering that the term “arbitration” for a long time in the United States had a different meaning from that which is attributed to it today. At that time it meant “employment contract”, any agreement reached by collective bargaining. It was not easy, in those times of trade union battles, really worthy of the name, to force employers to negotiate, something in which the yellow unions then became masters, with very different results from those achieved in those heroic times.

In reality the strike was abhorrent, and the reference to appropriate legislation to improve the living conditions of the working class says a lot about the warlike nature of the Order.

The proposal to organize the whole class remained, as did the program to abolish “gradually” wage slavery, with methods that were not only inadequate, but counter productive.

A governing body was established, the General Assembly, which in theory had total power. Even if the Order appeared to be highly centralized in its statutes, in reality the local assemblies and sections were autonomous and acted as they pleased. This meant that they moved according to the real needs of the trade unions and fighting structures that were present locally, and therefore often along very different theoretical lines from the Order’s leaders. A conflict between the base and leadership of the Order soon became apparent. While the real proletarians did not need to be taught that conquests were only achieved through strikes and other types of direct action, the leadership only repeated how futile strikes were, and that only through self‑employment could lasting victories be achieved. «Strikes could not solve the problems of the working class», the 1879 successor of Stephens, Terence V. Powederly said in 1882, because «strikes cannot change the apprenticeship system, a strike cannot change unfair rules in the administration of justice; nor can a strike regulate the law of supply and demand, because if it blocks supply it also cuts demand, with workers losing their jobs and thus their purchasing power».

Clearly questionable considerations, generated by the defeats of the seventies, but on the basis of which the management called for funds to be allocated to create cooperatives rather than in support of trade union struggles. A consultation mechanism was also devised that was so complicated that it was impossible to support a strike. For example, since 1886 no strike could take place if at least two thirds of the votes were not reached in a secret ballot; strikes could only take place after a member of the executive committee had attempted arbitration, and the strike had to be called by the same executive. But all this was not enough to convince the members of the uselessness of the strikes; also because, if in the seventies the struggles were resolved in defeats, the thing began to change in the eighties. Even the bosses understood it, and they did not hesitate to lock themselves up and fire members of the Knights of Labor. No less insecure was the Order’s attitude towards the trade unions. From the beginning Stephens defended the idea of a large general association, considering the trade associations historically outdated; but eventually groups organized by category were admitted within the Order. In the following years, the positions on this subject fluctuated several times, reflecting the contrast between the ideas of the management and the need for organization of the proletariat. In the end, the acceptance of trade union federations prevailed, also thanks to the emergence of a rival organization, in 1881, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, which would become the A.F.L. after a few years.

Shortly after the convention that approved the “Declaration”, in 1882, the Order became public by presenting itself openly to the workers of America and informing them of its objectives. Initiation ceremonies and rituals were abolished. The Order saw its membership grow rapidly: from just over 9,000 members in 1878 to over 28,000 in 1880, jumping to almost 52,000 in 1883; but this was only the beginning.

The Class meets the Knights of Labor

Yet the situation in those years was not entirely favorable. In 1883, a new depression had begun and the class struggle was coming to terms with a series of defeats. The real take‑off would take place following two events that took place in 1885, the success in boycotts and the victorious strikes against three railway companies of Jay Gould, one of the “robber barons”, unscrupulous plutocrats, such as Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, who represented the rapacious and ruthless capitalism of America at the end of the century.

The boycotts consisted in the refusal of the members of the proletarian organizations to buy from companies, newspapers, shops that took positions or acted against their interests. They also worked to keep the workers together when a strike could not be declared or to continue a minimum of mobilization after a strike had failed. It was a wave of activism that managed to force some companies to change their attitude towards workers’ organizations.

The Knights of Labor, however, obtained the great leap in the organization’s membership thanks to their role in the strikes, a weapon that the leaders did not like but that they had to grasp and brandish under the events and pressure of the working class.

Of all the robber barons, Gould was by far the most hated, Marx calls him “the sprawling king of railways and fraudster of finance”. His union philosophy was summed up in the phrase: «I can hire half the working class to kill the other half». He also boasted of his habits of hiring workers on starvation wages, and keeping them at that level as long as he needed them.

In 1883 the Knights of Labor successfully led a telegraph strike, some of whom were employees of Western Union, a railway company controlled by Gould. The trade unions of the company had been brutally repressed and the workers forced to sign demanding oaths. This, however, drew the Orders attention, who focused their attention on a number of categories of railway workers; mainly workers not represented in the strong unions, who protected the drivers, firemen, brakemen and drivers. When in February of 1885, Missouri Pacific Railroad and other companies in the South‑West reduced the wages of the workers in workshops and warehouses by 5%, after having lowered them by 10% in the previous October, the response to the change was immediate and extended to the whole railway systems of Texas, Kansas and Missouri. The local sections of the Knights of Labor, were ready to support the strikers and the support of the unions of the other categories was decisive. Freight traffic in the region came to a complete halt, and all that was left for Gould to do was take back all the wage cuts.

The main consequence of the resounding victory was the rise in the prestige of the Order, which resulted in the joining of thousands of individuals and entire local workers’ societies. Gould did not resign himself, and tried to hit the Order’s members that were more active among the railwaymen, firing them and closing the workshops. The answer was a further mobilization in the whole railway sector that threatened a repeat of the 1877 uprising. Which did not take place because Gould was as smart as to understand that it was time to radically change his attitude: he even claimed to believe in worker unionism and arbitration, and that he had been misunderstood by ill‑intentioned people. The previously dismissed trade union activists returned to their posts, and the company made promises to not use discriminatory tactics against them. For the first time a workers’ organization had been treated on an equal footing to the most powerful of capitalists in the country.

Once again, the success resulted in a wave of enrollments into the Order: sections were born everywhere, and the number of members increased. Between July 1885 and October 1886, membership increased from 110 000 to 700 000 (some estimates say one million). At last the humiliations received by the class during the past depression were canceled by that imposed on Gould by the KL. The Knights of Labor summarily forgot its series of failures, even important ones, dealt in the previous two years. A mere increase in numbers negated the humiliations experienced by the working class during the last depression due to the Orders unconvincingly combative attitude.

Sections of the Order were established in other parts of the world as well; Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland and even in non‑Anglo‑saxon countries such as France, Belgium, Italy, and of course Canada.

The Attitude Towards Minorities Within the Working Class

Although the Knights of Labor had as characteristic the attitude to accept all workers, without distinction of sex, race or nationality, the attitude towards Asians, and in particular the Chinese, was quite different. Grandmaster Workman Powderly stated that Asians could not become members of the Order, and that they should not even reside in the United States. Representatives of the Order even dared to argue before Congress that the Chinese should be expelled from the country. These Representatives however claimed credit for passing an anti‑Chinese law in 1882. Some of the Order’s membership on the west coast even boasted of fomenting xenophobic terrorism. Claiming responsibility for the Rock Spring Wyoming attack on a Chinese community by white miners, killing dozens and setting houses ablaze. Instead of denouncing them, Powderly attacked the Chinese workers, and blamed them for causing the violence, while deploring violence in general.

A reaction came from workers within the Order who did not admit that, under the banner of the Knights of Labor, such atrocities were committed against proletarians with whom they shared struggles, roil and misery. A minority within the Order’s Executive committee tried to pass a resolution that allowed the organization of Chinese sections (they had already been organized to fight in New York, and Philadelphia). A majority of the membership did not allow it, while admitting the existence of mixed sections. On the other hand, the Chinese had shown that they were capable of expressing combativeness, as in the case of the strike that resulted in higher wages by hop‑gatherers in California; the strike was successful because, when the bosses tried to replace the Chinese with blacks, they refused to become scabs.

Taking up a position of the National Labor Union, dating back to 1868, point XX of the 1878 Order’s Declaration of Principles stated: ”Guarantee equal pay for equal work for both genders”. However, at the same time there was no provision for women to join the Order. The solution to the problem dragged on until in 1881 a completely female section was established. The question was concluded in 1882 with an amendment to the Statute. The influx of women soon became significant, largely due to women being excluded from all other unions. In 1886 women were estimated to make up 8‑9% of the members. Women soon provided significant contributions to the Order: as well as being determined in the struggle, they actively participated in pickets, humiliated scabs and gave moral and labor support to other strikers. Women were so significant that Powderly had to admit they were “the best men in the Order”. Despite their uncertain beginnings, the Order soon began inviting women to meetings, where their input had the same weight as the men, and much like them were listened to.

There was just as much resistance towards Black workers as there had been for Chinese and women workers from within the Order. So much so, many of the leaders were opposed to organizing them. This attitude betrayed the Order, as black and white workers held common interests within the workplace. Both groups of workers had to defend themselves from the arrogance of their employer. The Order’s attitude towards black workers worsened considerably in the years of its decline.

The Knights of Labor in Action

The sheer size of the human mass that put their trust in the Order, was a never before counted number of proletarians, and would be one of the characteristics of the epic of the Knights of Labor. It was not a fully unfolded potential, as the leadership of the organization used this mass almost always unwillingly. The leadership was never in tune with the real needs of the class, and always found itself for some reason in conflict with its own base. Often the Order was in conflict with officials closest to it. This is because, as we have seen, the ideology of the Knights of Labor did not appreciate the trade union struggle. Rather preferring to hope for cooperation as a model of a future society, and education as a means to achieve it.

Conferences and libraries were favored, even in the most important centers, there was often a “Temple of Work”. where much of the social and cultural life of the community took place. Though nothing bad, cultural activity tended to replace direct action in defense of the proletariat’s conditions. ”Basically ours is an educational organization. Our holiest mission, to which we should devote our efforts in the years to come, is to propagate sound economic doctrine… We ask nothing more [of our members] than to study the truths of social and economic science. And when they have studied the lesson well, then action”.

The workers’ base, however, did not see education as a function of a distant future, but as a guide for action in the struggles that they had to support on a daily basis. Powderly considered the struggles for wages “a short-sighted job”, which aimed to “earn a few extra cents a day”. ”Talking about reducing working hours is also a waste of time. What you earn by reducing working hours will be recovered by the bosses in another way”. The immediate and sure way had to be cooperation, even if it had long proved to be a utopia in various experiences, even on American soil, as we have seen. And talking about it during the era of the development of large corporations was either madness or betrayal.

The energies invested in the cooperative programs took away precious energy from the real struggle. Anti‑union prejudice was widespread, theorised by elements linked to Lassallian socialism. Despite this fact, trade unions had to be permitted admission into the Order. The trade unions, it was said, would be made obsolete by the widespread introduction of machines; they were therefore incapable of effectively fighting the then nascent monopolistic capitalism. The industrial revolution would have reduced, thanks to the specialization and simplification of the process, the number of workers needed. And because of this also a need for the trade unions. Moreover, the strictly economic, categorical and local horizon of the trade unions would have also made the struggle ineffective. Since the members of other trade unions could have continued to work, carrying out the tasks of the strikers. The unions were only interested in immediate improvements; higher wages, shorter hours and better working conditions. As was said at a General Assembly in 1884: ”Our Order foresees a radical change, while the unions (…) accept the industrial system as it is, and try to adapt to it. Our attitude is instead of war on the current system”.

The outdated trade unions were to be replaced by territorial bodies, with indefinite class boundaries. Within which everyone would receive the necessary education to put an end to the ailments of wage servitude. Such incorrect conclusions, but consistent with the bourgeois nature of the leadership within the Knights of Labor. Who were intolerant of the realities and needs of the proletariat, represented by the semi‑skilled and unskilled, black, women and immigrant working masses.

The confusion of the union form with the party form was already historically outdated. Although there were few trade unions in the 1880s, thanks to Marxist propaganda, they contemplated in the future of the class “radical changes in the current system”, and worked for “bringing about change”. Clearly it was a question of framing the workers’ vanguards around the communist political program, without renouncing to unite all workers into economic struggles. On the contrary, every time the Order would succeed in imposing their utopian and inter-class convictions, they would damage the solidarity within the struggles of the class. Only Marxism had succeeded in correctly set up the dialectical relationship between the levels of class consciousness and action, at the political and trade union levels. We can already anticipate that this connection, achieved through glorious events in Europe, was never able to take place across the Atlantic.

Very significantly, while the leaders insisted on minimizing the importance of the trade union struggle, and that lasting solutions could only come from political action, in section meetings it was forbidden to talk about politics, a subject that clearly was reserved for the leadership: an anticipation of Stalin’s “Bolshevization”. Of course, the prohibition had little effect, often where the Order was strongest, delegates would be elected to various positions as representatives of the State. Contrary to the bombastic statements on principle, the political action of the Knights of Labor as a unified organization was almost non‑existent.

Start of decline

The beginning of the end of the Knights of Labor can be dated to 1886, the year in which they reached peak membership. Boss Gould was not at all resigned to surrendering to the workers, despite the promises of the previous year. Wages were not brought back to the levels before the strikes, and trade unionists were discriminated against and persecuted. So the workers of the South‑West Railway went on strike again; but the more specialized labor (drivers, conductors, etc.) did not join as they had done the year before. This was a weakness from the beginning. But the strike was not lost yet. That is, until Powderly came on stage in person: while he acted as great negotiator, Gould continued his anti‑worker action, with all means at his disposal. In the cities where the strike took place, the struggle was very fierce. Each side lead with their typical instruments: the workers with boycotts and picketing, and the bosses with a large deployment of public and private armed forces, trained judges, and scabs.

While the bosses were much better organized than in 1877, and intervened with greater unity and effectiveness, the workers did not find in the Knights of Labor the support they could, and should have had: while the sheriffs, the militia and the private troops beat, imprisoned and killed dozens of workers, the Order could do no better than to preach peace. Waiting messianically for the Great Master Worker to convince Gould to negotiate. In the end, betrayed by privileged labor, abandoned by the leadership (obviously those of the lower ranks took to the streets with the workers), persecuted by the forces of law and order and masterly reaction, the workers gave in; the strike was defeated, and the workers also had to endure the revenge of Gould. He did not rehire most of the strikers (all registered with the Knights of Labor), putting them on blacklists that made them undesirable to other employers. The only one who felt relieved was Powderly.

A few months later the same Grand Master Worker performed another betrayal against the striking workers of the Chicago slaughterhouses. Perhaps worse because he intervened with all his pomp just when the bosses were about to give in. Suddenly he ordered the workers to abandon their eight‑hour request and return to work. After an initial loss, the workers refused to obey, and Powderly threatened them with expulsion from the Order. Of course, the bosses learned, and their attitude changed from resigned to bellicose as they interrupted negotiations with representatives of the struggling workers. In short, the strike was defeated, and the bosses took advantage of it to ask the workers to resign from the union if they wanted to continue working. Which at the time, to tell the truth, many wanted to, at least as far as the Knights of Labor was concerned. At a meeting the workers adopted a resolution in which they explicitly accused Powderly of having played the bosses’ game in full. To which the interested party replied: «You can’t play lightly with the laws of business», and «the men who have accumulated capital are not our enemies. Otherwise, a worker today, could become the enemy of his companion tomorrow. After all, what we all try to learn is how to acquire capital and use it in the right way». Evidently, Powderly expressed the thought of the overwhelming majority of the General Executive Board in the Knights of Labor, which always rejected his resignation.

End of Working Class support

The anti‑union attitude of the Order’s leadership did not change during the years of rapid growth of the movement, and this attitude would be the main cause in their decline, as the trade unions strengthened and united in a strong Federation.

The occasion for an irreparable split in the Order with the working class, rather than with the Unions, was the tolerance of an attitude of betrayal on the part of a structure within the Order towards the Cigar-makers union: while these (6,000 workers) were on strike, the union linked to the Knights of Labor offered labor at lower salary compared to the demands of the strikers; all when the struggle seemed to have defeated the resistance of the employers.

This behavior of a section of the Order was only the last of a long series, and served to alienate many who were sympathetic to the Knights of Labor, both from the member unions and individual workers: both began to leave the Order, especially after a Richmond General Assembly in October 1886. By July 1887 the number of members had already fallen from 700,000 to just over 500,000, falling to about 220,000 by mid 1888.

Historians sum up the reason for the decline of the Order essentially:

  1) The harsh opposition of the bosses, especially when the organization, as the case was with the Order, tended to unite all workers, without distinction of trade, qualification, race, sex, religion and nationality.

  2) The difficulty of keeping together an organization so heterogeneous in composition, purpose and meaning.

  3) The type of organizational structure the order utilized. While it was suitable to move many workers from different locations in mass actions, the Order was unable to follow adequately the particular daily problems of specific trades and cities. 

The inevitable conflict between the Leadership and the base membership over the minutiae of every action the Knights of Labor undertook, resulted in tactics and strategies almost always contrary to the true interests of the struggling proletarians. Moreover, more and more non‑worker elements were taking their place at the highest levels of the organization, which, as we have seen were admitted freely into the Order.

The imposition of a non‑proletarian orientation of the struggles lead to workers fighting simultaneously against the bosses as well as the leadership of the Order. Each time Powderly invited the strikers to get rid of the “radical elements”, and to reassure the bosses of their willingness to live in perpetual peace with capital. The defeated workers, in addition to returning to work under the hard conditions they had fought against (provided they had not been blacklisted, which was often the case for militants in the Knights of Labor.), were also forced to leave the organization.

This attitude of renunciation reinforced the arrogance of employers. Which provoked fierce outburst of anti‑worker sentiment, particularly in the southern States, where class struggle concealed itself under racism, which regained in its vigour: There were many attacks, murders and lynchings. All culminating in an assault of hundreds of armed whites on a community of striking blacks, leading to the massacre of at least 30. Powderly, who never denounced the massacres in the South, boasted that «the labor movement has never been respected as at this time».

What mattered most was “harmonious relations” with the bosses and the Catholic Church, thanks to a relentless struggle against radical elements in the Order. At the 1887 Convention in Minneapolis, Powderly dedicated his intervention to the question of “anarchy within the Order”. Attacking the sections that had taken a stand in favor of the Haymarket martyrs he also accused them of endangering the entire Order, only because they demanded the commuting of death penalty sentences in favor of imprisonment. This attitude earned him open accusations of “moral cowardice” from a large number of sections, as well as applause from the bourgeois press. By now, Powderly’s only political line was the hunt for anarchists, and purging the Order of unfaithful elements; that is, the officials who, at any level, adopted class union initiatives.

This sparked an exodus of trade unions and territorial sections towards the only existing alternative, the American Federation of Labor. This emptied the Knights of Labor of their proletarian component, leaving behind only a miserably small bourgeois section, increasingly focused on their educationist and conciliatory vision. Gradually the Order was reduced to mostly small rural centers, and a majority of the membership was self‑owning farmers. By 1893, the number of members was 73,000. The Order scraped along in an agony that came to an end towards the end of the century.

A Balance Sheet

Certainly the first thing that can be said is that the Order of the Knights of Labor was prominent during a given period in the history of the American labor movement. This is in spite of the Order’s leadership and ideology of false emancipation. Its end was determined by the conflict between this bourgeois approach and the defense of the real needs of the working class.

The Knights of Labor, despite their own actions, succeeded in channeling the natural tendency towards brotherhood between the exploited and the need for a single organization during a time of great growth in the militancy of the working class. One of the reasons, perhaps the main reason for the success of the Knights of Labor in organizing so many workers and creating so many sections, compared to the unions that preceded them, was that previously it had been difficult to put together a sufficient number of proletarians of the same trade locally, due to the intrinsic characteristics of North American society and its capitalism. The Order overcame the problem by creating inter‑branch sections accepting semi‑specialized, non‑specialized and day labor, as well as being open to women and blacks. The word “He who strikes one, strikes all” ignited large masses of the working class throughout the country. When the Order was at its height the rapacious monopolistic capital of the USA, in those years in full development, found itself for the first time successfully challenged with strikes, boycotts and a minimum of political action.

However, the leadership of the Knights of Labor succeed in a very short time in destroying both a vast national structure that had no precedent, as well as the morale and hope of a generation of proletarians; who had nevertheless succeeded in expressing the need for a general organization of the class. The negative experience the Order led to the search for ways different and more straight from those preached by politicians, bourgeois trade-unionists, priests and intellectuals. The class was now ready to accept the socialist verb, which in those years was coming to America from Europe.

Together with the organisation of the Knights of Labor, vanished forever its search for praise from the masters and the intolerance never sufficiently hidden towards the workers’ struggle. But with that left, to return only after several decades, the positive aspects of the movement, which did not find acceptance in the A.F.L., first of all the opening to all proletarians. The trade jealousies, which put groups of workers in contrast, and above all the exclusion of large proletarian masses, returned to be common. Conditions which would have given the bourgeoisie a divided proletariat which, in the following years, would have been easily tied to the necessities of the national economy, of the bourgeois wars, of deprivations in the greatest capitalist crisis in history.