74 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



they were wholly traceable to economic factors which carried 

 both seamen and employers in their wake. 



The failure of the whalemen themselves to make any ef- 

 fective demands for the amelioration of their lot was due to 

 utter lack of bargaining power. This, in turn, resulted from 

 a long series of disabilities which included economic, social, 

 racial, national, political, and legal factors. These drawbacks, 

 together with the intense individualism of mid-century Amer- 

 ica, prevented even the thought of collective bargaining. And 

 in individual bargaining the average whaleman was hopelessly 

 handicapped by ignorance, inexperience, poverty, dissipation, 

 and that peculiar spirit of reckless abandon which so often 

 characterized the seaman ashore. 



The character, composition, and environment of the whal- 

 ing crews provided an inevitable guarantee that they would 

 suffer from many obvious economic and social handicaps. Nor 

 could these be remedied by a show of political strength. Vot- 

 ing power was reduced to a minimum by long absences from 

 home, wide geographical dispersion, lack of residence re- 

 quirements, racial and national obstacles to the acquisition of 

 citizenship, and ignorance and indifference to political parties 

 and issues. And even if the manpower of the industry could 

 have been organized into a whaling bloc, the number of votes 

 mustered would have formed only an unimportant element 

 in American politics. 



As a result of such combined political and economic weak- 

 ness, both the legislative consideration and the legal status 

 given to whalemen were inadequate. The first legislative 

 attempt to attack the evils of sea life in a comprehensive, 

 thoroughgoing manner came only in the form of the Ship- 

 ping Commissioners' Act of June 7, 1872. This inclusive act 

 virtually codified all important previous legislation applying 

 to seamen in the merchant services, created the office of Ship- 

 ping Commissioner, and added a number of other much- 

 needed regulations. Had it not come too late in the century 

 to be of any real service in the rapidly-declining whaling in- 

 dustry, and had it not been emasculated two years later by 

 exempting from its provisions "any case where the seamen are 

 by custom or agreement entitled to participate in the profits or 



