320 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL. 



in our common schools, and it created a demand on their part for better 

 surroundings ; and when they began to demand the wages that would 

 secure them, these same capitalists refused on the same plea as before, 

 that the business did not warrant the advance. Then the employing 

 class made another flank movement, and went over to Canada and 

 imported the Canadian Frenchman, who could neither read, speak, nor 

 write the English language, and who, from his habits of living, was con- 

 tented to eat lard instead of butter on his bread, and put him to work 

 in the place of the Irishman and his children. It has now reached the 

 point when these Frenchmen have raised a generation of children, who, 

 after having been brought up in our civilization and educated in our 

 common schools, are demanding at the hands of these capitalists those 

 improved methods of living that are the product of our civilization. 

 The capitalists are now substituting Italians and Hungarians for them. 

 It would seem that system and business methods demand that there 

 should be a class of workmen who are of a lower order of intelligence. 



This system of substituting the ignorant workman in the place of the 

 intelligent one has taught the intelligent ones that it is necessary for 

 them to combine together to resist this process of despoliation. Because 

 of this conviction, labor organizations sprang into existence. 



There have existed in this country, since the close of the war, two 

 different schools of labor reformers. One school was in favor of reform 

 by political methods. The other was composed of those who ,were in 

 favor of gaining the reform upon the line of what is termed the wage 

 question. They accepted the capitalistic idea of economics, which was 

 in substance that labor was a commodity, and that the law of supply and 

 demand regulated the matter of wages. The political school insisted 

 that, under an industrial republic like ours, it was more a question of 

 legislation, and that by special enactments some were getting more of 

 the products of human effort than they were- entitled to. Those who 

 adhered to the capitalistic idea proceeded to organize upon what is 

 termed the " trades-union " principle, and to fight the "battle upon that 

 line, and there are a goodly number that adhere to that method to-day. 

 Among the trades that first assumed a national character during the 

 war were : "The Iron Moulders' International Union," of which William 

 H. Sylvis of Philadelphia was the president ; " The International Cigar- 

 makers' Union," of which John J. Junio of Syracuse, New York, was the 

 president ; " The Machinists and Blacksmiths' International Union," of 

 which John Fearinbach of Ohio was the president ; " The International 

 Typographical Union," of which John Farqhuar was president. Mr. 

 Farqhuar in after years represented the city of Buffalo in Congress, and 



