od of labor would not mean smaller pay, and to the employer
that it would not mean a diminished output. On the contrary, it would be
mutually beneficial, for the unwearied workman could produce as much in
the shorter day as the wearied workman in the longer. "As long," Steward
wrote, "as tired human hands do most of the world's hard work, the
sentimental pretense of honoring and respecting the horny-handed toiler
is as false and absurd as the idea that a solid foundation for a house
can be made out of soap bubbles."

In 1865 Steward's pamphlet, "A Reduction of Hours and Increase of
Wages," was widely circulated by the Boston Labor Reform Association.
It emphasized the value of leisure and its beneficial reflex effect
upon both production and consumption. Gradually these well reasoned
and conservatively expressed doctrines found champions such as Wendell
Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, and Horace Greeley to give them wider
publicity and to impress them upon the public consciousness. In 1867
Illinois, Missouri, and New York passed eight-hour laws and Wisconsin
declared eight hours a day's work for women and children. In 1868
Congress established an eight-hour day for public work. These were
promising signs, though the battle was still far from being won. The
eight-hour day has at last received "the sanction of society"--to use
the words of President Wilson in his message to Congress in 1916, when
he called for action to avert a great railway strike. But to win that
sanction required over half a century of popular agitation, discussion,
and economic and political evolution.

Such, in brief, were the general business conditions of the country
and the issues which engaged the energies of labor reformers during the
period following the Civil War. Meanwhile great changes were made
in labor organizations. Many of the old unions were reorganized, and
numerous local amalgamations took place. Most of the organizations now
took the form of secret societies whose initiations were marked with
naive formalism and whose routines were directed by a group of officers
with royal titles and fortified by signs, passwords, and ritual. Some
of these orders decorated the faithful with high-sounding degrees. The
societies adopted fantastic names such as "The Supreme Mechanical Order
of the Sun," "The Knights of St. Crispin," and "The Noble Order of the
Knights of Labor," of which more presently.

Meanwhile, too, there was a growing desire to un