. While a share of this retrogression
may have been due to the natural reaction of large masses of people who
had been suddenly set in motion without experience, a more immediate
cause came from the employers. Profiting by past lessons, they organized
strong associations. The main object of these employers' associations
was the defeat of the Knights. They were organized sectionally and
nationally. In small localities, where the power of the Knights was
especially great, all employers regardless of industry joined in a
single association. But in large manufacturing centers, where the rich
corporation prevailed, they included the employers of only one industry.
To attain their end these associations made liberal use of the lockout,
the blacklist, and armed guards and detectives. Often they treated
agreements entered into with the Order as contracts signed under duress.
The situation in the latter part of 1886 and in 1887 had been clearly
foreshadowed in the treatment accorded the Knights of Labor on the Gould
railways in the Southwest in the early part of 1886.

As already mentioned, at the settlement of the strike on the Gould
system in March 1885, the employes were assured that the road would
institute no discriminations against the Knights of Labor. However, it
is apparent that a series of petty discriminations was indulged in by
minor officials, which kept the men in a state of unrest. It culminated
in the discharge of a foreman, a member of the Knights, from the car
shop at Marshall, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Road, which had shortly
before passed into the hands of a receiver. A strike broke out over the
entire road on March 1, 1886. It is necessary, however, to note that the
Knights of Labor themselves were meditating aggressive action two months
before the strike. District Assembly 101, the organization embracing the
employes on the Southwest system, held a convention on January 10, and
authorized the officers to call a strike at any time they might find
opportune to enforce the two following demands: first, the formal
"recognition" of the Order; and second, a daily wage of $1.50 for the
unskilled. The latter demand is peculiarly characteristic of the Knights
of Labor and of the feeling of labor solidarity that prevailed in the
movement. But evidently the organization preferred to make the issue
turn on discrimination against members. Another peculiarity which marked
off this strike as the beginning of a new era