Kalarhythms - Georhythms, History Timelines, 1902-1910

The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers tried to organize U.S. Steel by staging a recognition strike. U.S. Steel executives pressured American Sheet Steel executives into recognizing the AA at most Sheet Steel plants on July 13, 1901. But AA president T.J. Shaffer rejected the deal because it did not cover all American Sheet Steel plants.

U.S. Steel president J.P. Morgan then backed out of the deal.

The strike failed. U.S. Steel and American Sheet Steel workers refused to leave work, both companies hired thousands of strikebreakers, and the AFL refused to support the AA financially or organizationally. The strike against U.S. Steel ended on September 14.

Aftermath of the U.S. Steel strike

The AA never recovered from the U.S. Steel strike. It turned strongly conservative, hoping through submissiveness and cooperation to maintain its few remaining contracts. U.S. Steel slowly dismantled AA unions in its plants. Roosevelt became very popular and was re-elected in 1904 with a mandate for reform.

BUSINESS REFORM

Northern Securities Case; Expedition Act; Bureau of Corporations; Elkins Act; Hepburn Act; - Newlands Act; Internal Waterways Commission; National Conservation Commission;- Pure Food and Drug Act; The Meat Inspections Act; were some of Roosevelt's groovy reforms.

Federal Prosecutions. During the almost eight years of the Roosevelt presidency, the Justice Department obtained twenty-four indictments against the trusts. The most significant of the judicial decisions, some rendered during the succeeding Taft administration, were (1) the injunction, in 1905, forbidding the member firms of the beef trust to engage in certain practices designed to restrain competition; (2) the suite, in 1911, that resulted in the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, a holding company with a monopoly in the oil-refining business; and (3) the order, in 1911, requiring the reorganization of the American Tobacco Company, found to be an illegal combination. In the course of deliberating alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Supreme Court formulated what became known as the "rule of reason"-only "unreasonable" combination is restraint of trade should be prohibited.

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THE MUCKRAKERS

The muckrakers. The term muckrakers was applied to a group of writers who stirred public opinion to the point of action by exposing abuses in business and corruption in politics.

Influential practitioners. Some of the best-known muckrakers were Frank Norris, whose novels "The Octopus" (1901) and "The Pit" (1903) attacked the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Chicago grain market, respectively; Ida M. Tarbell, whose "History of the Standard Oil Company" (1904) condemned the practices of that monopolistic corporation; Lincoln Steffens, whose "Shame of the Cities" (1904) exposed corruption in various municipal governments across the nation; and Upton Sinclair, whose novel "The Jungle (1906) decried conditions in the Chicago meat-packing plants. Several popular magazines of the period, including "Collier's," "Cosmopolitan," "Everybody's," and "McClure's," provided the muckrakers with a forum for some of their most sensational disclosures.

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The president, who had declared that the most powerful corporation, like the humblest citizen, should be compelled to obey the law, was pleased that the government won its case in the lower federal courts and that the Supreme Court, in 1904, upheld th decision.

1903 Beginning of effective state legislation limiting hours of labor of children and establishing state departments of labor or industrial boards. By 1930, 37 states had established the 48-hour week for children in factories.

3/14/04 The Northern Securities Case decided. The efforts of Edward H. Harriman to gain control, first of the Burlington system and then of the Northern Pacific stock was bid up to fabulous prices, producing the so-called "Northern Pacific Panic" (1901). This was followed by an agreement between the rival groups for the merging of the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Burlington systems through the Northern Securities Company. this the supreme court declared to be a violation of the Anti-Trust Act and its dissolution was ordered.

1902 May 12 - Oct 13, Strike of anthracite coal miners, demanding union recognition, a nine-hour day, and wage increase. In the face of a threatened coal famine, Roosevelt intervened and threatened to work the mines with federal troops, whereupon the owners accepted his suggestion of a commission to investigate. The miners returned to work, but when the commission made its award, union recognition was withheld. Not until 1916 did the miners receive union recognition, with an eight-hour day.

5/12/02 Under the leadership of John Mitchell,140,000 United Mine Workers go on strike. Mitchell is willing to arbitrate, but the owners have refused. At this point, the railroad companies own most of the mines. Evading the law, the railroads have successfully eliminated all competition, mainly by their policy of selective rebates, and freight charges are excessively high, causing untold regional hardships. To the general complaint, the ill-paid miners have added grievances of their own: miner are compelled to live in company houses, at company rents, to buy only at company stores; they are often paid only in supplies from these stores, and are what has come to be called economic slaves. The owners refuse to recognize the UMW and refuse to negotiate. The strike will continue well into the fall, and by October the general public, particularly in the Northeast, becomes directly involved as the price of coal rises from $5.00 to $30.00 a ton. The owners complacently wait for the government to intervene on their behalf as it has so often in major strikes of the past. On July 17 George F. Baer, President of the Reading Coal and Iron Company, expresses their position in a famous message: "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of his country, and upon the successful management of which so much depends." Although the strike is more peaceful than usual, violence occasionally erupts. Without constitutional authority to intervene, Roosevelt waits out the summer, but by October the public is putting considerable pressure upon him to provide a settlement. Unsure of how to proceed, he summons the opposing groups to the White House for consultations; the owners retire in anger. Impatient with their recalcitrance, Roosevelt arranges to have the Army take over the mines and run them in the "public interest." Seeing that he is serious, J. P. Morgan agrees to negotiate. He meets with Secretary of War Elihu Root. On October 16 a Commission of Arbitration is formed to investigate the miners' grievances; in the meantime the men return to work. In March 1903 the Commission will recommend most of the provisions for which the miners had struck, including a permanent board of arbitration, at least token recognition of their union, higher wages, shorter hours and greater independence from the owners. Roosevelt's successful handling of the situation brings him great national popularity...

...In March 1903, the board decided to grant a 10-percent wage increase and a nine-hour workday, but it failed to recognize the union. the decision became the basis of peace between management and labor in the anthracite coal districts for the next fifteen years.

1902 Maryland enacted the first state workmen's compensation law.

2/11/03 Reflecting popular support for Roosevelt's active campaign for social justice, C adopts the Expedition Act, which gives priority to the Attorney General's antitrust cases in the circuit courts.

The Expedition Act of 1903 gave precedence on federal court calendars to cases arising from alleged on observance of the Sherman Antitrust Act of the Interstate Commerce Act.

1903 Railroad legislation. In 1903 the Elkins Act was passed to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which had proved so ineffective. The Elkins Act forbade railroads to deviate from published schedules of rates and made railway officers as well as the companies liable in cases of rebating.

The Elkins Act passed in 1903, struck at the practice of secret rebates, which had been declared illegal by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1877. According to the Elkins Act, the recipient, as well as the grantor of the rebate, was made liable to prosecution. Further, the agent or official of the railroad was held legally responsible for any deviation from regular published rates.

2/19/03 The Elkins Act is passed by C. The Act carves out new ground by declaring illegal all rebates on published freight rates. However, staying within the powers granted under the Sherman Anti-trust Act, the new Act does not extend to regulation of rates. Not until the Hepburn Act of 1906, enacted after more railroad scandals come to light, will the Federal Government be empowered to regulate most interstate transportation. Evading the law, the railroads had successfully eliminated all competition, mainly by their policy of selective rebates, and freight charges are excessively high, causing untold regional hardships.

3/22/03 The special commission set up by Roosevelt to settle the anthracite coal dispute recommends shorter hours, a 10 percent wage increase and an "open shop" will later be used against organized labor, but in this instance, when the owners adamantly refuse to recognize the United Mine Workers union, the decision precludes discrimination against union members.

In 1903, Roosevelt persuaded congress to establish the Bureau of Corporations with strong power to investigate business practices, its major target was antitrust cases. He battled with congress for the Hepburn Act of 1906 which greatly enlarged the Interstate Commerce commission's jurisdiction and forbade the railroads to raise rates without its approval. That same year, he obtained passage of the Meat Inspection Act and a Pure Food and Drug Act. Also that same year, Upton Sinclair's famous novel, "The Jungle" revealed unsanitary conditions of the Chicago stockyards and packing plants.

Within the Department of Commerce and Labor, established in 1903, was the Bureau of Corporations, which was authorized to investigate possible violations of antitrust prohibitions. Congress appropriated a special fund of $500,000 for bringing suit against illegal business combinations.

7/5/04 The long and bitter textile strike of some 25,000 workers in the mills of Massachusetts begins in Fall River. The struggle brings to national attention reprehensible conditions in the mills. The National Child Labor Committee is formed this year in order to bring some protection to children who, as young as 10 years old, are working long adult hours under the most difficult circumstances.

after 1904 (*when) Roosevelt had gotten passed, pure food law, a meat inspection law, and the Hepburn law that conferred on the Interstate Commerce Commission the power of the railroad making. all part of the "Square Deal".

1/20/05 In "Swift & Co. v United States," the Supreme Court rules unanimously in favor of the government in its attempt to break up the ill-famed "Beef Trust": however the ruling fails to affect the strongly entrenched meat monopoly.

6/27/05 The industrial Workers of the World, a union, is organized in Chicago, as a more militant attempt to restore balance to the social structure of the nation. William D. Haywood is the active proponent of industrial unionism to offset the temperate craft unionism of the venerable American Federation of Labor. The IWW distinguishes the industrial laborer as a separate entity from other workers in the struggle for a more equitable share of American wealth. However the working segment of society, increasingly tipped into poverty, aware of the vast wealth consolidating into a few hands, is beset by unrest, inevitably feeling that resort to violence may be the only solution to Big Business practices unrestrained by social justice. But the voices for balance are becoming stronger, and side by side with militant unionism is a roused electorate which is experimenting with new forms to make government more responsive to the will of the people. The Senate, now the most blatant body resisting ongoing social adjustments to newly rising situations, will come under peaceful but effective attack through new experiments in initiative referendum and recall which are being adopted in Western States.

9/6/05 Continuing his campaign to restore social justice to the economic life of the nation, Roosevelt turns his big gins onto the insurance companies whose scandalous behavior has shocked the nation. Fifty-seven hearings will be conducted under the able direction of Charles Evans Hughes, whom Roosevelt has charged with the investigation. Many of the nation's riches men are found to be involved in penny-ante schemes to defraud small-policy holders. Exposure of the corrupt manner in which the companies operate will lead to many reforms.

The Hepburn Act of 1906 extended the control of the commission to express companies, sleeping-car companies, pipeline, ferry, and terminal facilities. The commission was given power to reduce a rate found to be unreasonable. Passes were abolished and a commodity clause included. The Mann-Elkins Act (1910) extended the commission's jurisdiction to telephone and telegraph lines, cable and wireless companies. The long-and-short-haul clause was made effective. On March 1, 1913, Taft signed the Physical Valuation Act, requiring the commission to evaluate the properties of the railways as the basis for fixing of rates which would enable the companies to earn a fair return on their investments.

1906 Revelations of conditions in Chicago stockyard contained in Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle" lead to the U.S. Pure Food and Drugs Act.

6/29/06 C passes the Hepburn Act, which Roosevelt has strongly endorsed. It will give teeth to the Interstate Commerce Act by permitting regulation of rates charged by railroads, pipelines and terminals. The number of members on the Interstate Commission is raised from five to seven, and new accounting methods are introduced. In his persuasive way, Roosevelt ably creates a climate of opinion whereby the Hepburn Act passes through the usually unresponsive Senate, and by-passes the unlikely coalition of liberal Robert La Follette and rabble-rousing Ben Tillman who are demanding appraisal of railroad property in order to determine fair rates.

1906 The Hepburn Act made regulation for the first time possible, and extended its field from interstate railways to steamships, express and sleeping-car companies. This was further enlarged in 1910 by adding telephone and telegraph companies. The Hepburn Act authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission, upon complaint, to determine and prescribe maximum rates. Owing to respect for the ancient principle of judicial review, appeals to federal courts had to be admitted; but the burden of proof was now on the carrier, not the commission. Railways were forced to disgorge most of the steamship lines and coal mines with which they had been wont to stifle competition.

The Hepburn Act, by increasing the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Hepburn Act, passed in 1906, made a great advance toward government regulation of the railroads. The act (1) raised the membership of the commission from five to seven; (2) the commission authority over express companies and pipelines; (3) granted the commission power to reduce unreasonably high and discriminatory rates, subject to judicial review; (4) placed the burdens of proof in all legal disputes upon the carrier rather than the commission; (5) forbade the railroads to transport commodities in the production of which they were themselves interested; and (6) established a uniform system of accounting to be used by the carriers. Although the Hepburn Act fell short of conferring upon the Interstate commerce Commission the absolute power to fix rates, it made the commission an effective agency for the first time since its creation twenty years earlier.

6/30/06 C passes the Meat Inspection Act. Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," a lurid expose of the disgusting procedures in the meat-packing industry of the time, has roused the wrath of the nation, Roosevelt included. The president has tried to reach as agreement with the meat packers to allow government inspection. Their adamant refusal and arrogant assumption that there is nothing he can so about it goads him to release a government report on the meat industry's practices, a report which has been ordered by Roosevelt after reading Sinclair's book. Overnight meat sales drop in half and the suddenly repentant meat packers plead for government inspection in order to restore public confidence. C quickly enacts the needed legislation.

6/30/06 the Pure Food and Drug Act prohibiting the misbranding and adulteration of foods.

5/28/08 C enacts a bill which will regulate child labor in the District of Columbia. It is hoped that the law will set an example for the states.

Beginning of effective state legislation limiting hours of labor of children and establishing state departments of labor or industrial boards. By 1930, 37 states had established the 48-hour week for children in factories.

4/17/05 In "Lochner v New York," the Supreme Court finds unconstitutional a state law which limits maximum working hours for bakers. The Court holds that such a law interferes with the right to free contract and is an improper use of police powers. In his famous dissent Justice Holmes holds that the Constitution "is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism...or of "laissez-faire." The need for some legislative protection for the single worker in the face of the enormous power wielded by employers is becoming increasingly obvious.

1908 In "Muller v Oregon" the Supreme Court rules that an Oregon law limiting the maximum hours a woman can work is constitutional and denies that it curtails the liberty of contract guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

1908 Oregon adopted the principle of the recall of all executive officials. The supreme court, in the case of Muller v. Oregon, upheld the Oregon ten-hour law for women in industry. by 1930 all but five states had laws limiting hours of work of women.