nd workingmen. He was the
first man to take his seat in Washington as the avowed representative of
labor.

The movement for a ten-hour day was now in full swing, and the years
1834-7 were full of strikes. The most spectacular of these struggles was
the strike of the tailors of New York in 1836, in the course of which
twenty strikers were arrested for conspiracy. After a spirited trial
attended by throngs of spectators, the men were found guilty by a jury
which took only thirty minutes for deliberation. The strikers were fined
$50 each, except the president of the society, who was fined $150. After
the trial there was held a mass meeting which was attended, according to
the "Evening Post," by twenty-seven thousand persons. Resolutions were
passed declaring that "to all acts of tyranny and injustice, resistance
is just and therefore necessary," and "that the construction given to
the law in the case of the journeymen tailors is not only ridiculous and
weak in practice but unjust in principle and subversive of the rights
and liberties of American citizens." The town was placarded with
"coffin" handbills, a practice not uncommon in those days.

Enclosed in a device representing a coffin were these words:

"THE RICH AGAINST THE POOR!

"Twenty of your brethren have been found guilty for presuming to resist
a reduction in their wages!.... Judge Edwards has charged...the Rich are
the only judges of the wants of the poor. On Monday, June 6, 1836, the
Freemen are to receive their sentence, to gratify the hellish appetites
of aristocracy!.... Go! Go! Go! Every Freeman, every Workingman, and
hear the melancholy sound of the earth on the Coffin of Equality. Let
the Court Room, the City-hall--yea, the whole Park, be filled with
mourners! But remember, offer no violence to Judge Edwards! Bend meekly
and receive the chains wherewith you are to be bound! Keep the peace!
Above all things, keep the peace!"

The "Evening Post" concludes a long account of the affair by calling
attention to the fact that the Trades' Union was not composed of "only
foreigners." "It is a low calculation when we estimate that two-thirds
of the workingmen of the city, numbering several thousand persons,
belong to it," and that "it is controlled and supported by the great
majority of our native born."

The Boston Trades' Union was organized in 1834 and started out with a
great labor parade on the Fourth of July, followed by a dinner served to
a thousand pe