on had failed because "it had failed to recognize
the rights of man and looked only to the rights of tradesmen," that the
labor movement needed "something that will develop more of charity, less
of selfishness, more of generosity, less of stinginess and nearness,
than the average society has yet disclosed to its members." Nor were
these ideas and principles betrayed by Stephens's successor, Terence V.
Powderly, who became Grand Master in 1879 and served during the years
when the order attained its greatest power. Powderly, also, was a
conservative idealist. His career may be regarded as a good example of
the rise of many an American labor leader. He had been a poor boy.
At thirteen he began work as a switch-tender; at seventeen he was
apprenticed as machinist; at nineteen he was active in a machinists' and
blacksmiths' union. After working at his trade in various places, he
at length settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and became one of the
organizers of the Greenback Labor party. He was twice elected mayor
of Scranton, and might have been elected for a third term had he not
declined to serve, preferring to devote all his time to the society of
which he was Grand Master. The obligations laid upon every member of the
Knights of Labor were impressive: Labor is noble and holy. To defend
it from degradation; to divest it of the evils to body, mind and estate
which ignorance and greed have imposed; to rescue the toiler from the
grasp of the selfish--is a work worthy of the noblest and best of
our race. In all the multifarious branches of trade capital has its
combinations; and, whether intended or not, it crushes the manly hopes
of labor and tramples poor humanity in the dust. We mean no conflict
with legitimate enterprise, no antagonism to necessary capital; but
men in their haste and greed, blinded by self-interests, overlook the
interests of others and sometimes violate the rights of those they deem
helpless. We mean to uphold the dignity of labor, to affirm the nobility
of all who earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. We mean to
create a healthy public opinion on the subject of labor (the only
creator of values or capital) and the justice of its receiving a full,
just share of the values or capital it has created. We shall, with all
our strength, support laws made to harmonize the interests of labor and
capital, for labor alone gives life and value to capital, and also those
laws which tend to lighten the exhaustive