183] JURISDICTION 51 



In 1882 the finishers were dissatisfied because they were 

 outnumbered by the puddlers and not adequately repre- 

 sented in the annual meetings, and there was agitation for 

 a reorganization and some discussion of a new union.^^ 

 Similarly, in 1883, a local union of Terre Haute, Indiana, 

 issued a circular which urged the withdrawal of the boilers 

 and a reorganization of the old " Sons of Vulcan." The 

 president of the national union threatened to revoke its 

 charter unless the local union retracted the action, and the 

 Terre Haute organization renounced the circular by a small 

 majority. President Jarrett had urged the organization of 

 separate lodges for the crafts as a means of lessening the 

 friction between the finishers and the boilers. This plan 

 was put into effect a little later and the dissension was tem- 

 porarily stopped. 



The nailers seceded from the union in 1885. The nailer 

 had been accustomed to good wages. Due to the introduc- 

 tion of machinery, there was so considerable an increase in 

 productive capacity that nail manufacturers restricted the 

 output. Nail mills were not infrequently idle six months 

 in a year, yet new machines were constantly being added to 

 old plants, and occasionally a new factor}' was built. Ma- 

 chines were multiplied to such an extent that even the 

 demand of a very prosperous year could not have kept the 

 nailers in work much over half time. The nailers had two 

 other grievances. First, the law provided that the number 

 of apprentices to be taken on should " not exceed two per 

 cent (outside of nailers' sons) of the machines per annum. "^^ 

 Some years the nailers would not admit the legal quota, and 

 in that case the Association granted the employer the privi- 

 lege of hiring "green hands " up to the two per cent mark. 

 To this the nailers objected. Again, there was dispute as 

 to the price for cutting steel nails. The scale convention 

 held in Pittsburgh, April 5, 1884, made the price for cutting 

 nails out of steel "when harder tiian iron" twenty per cent 



87 Proceedings, 1882, p. 967; 1883, pp. 1113-1114. 

 "** Constitution, 1884, p. 36. 



