related
or subsidiary industries as well.

The first three months after the Armistice the general expectation was
for a set-back in business conditions due to the withdrawal of the
enormous government War-time demand. Employers and trade unions stood
equally undecided. When, however, instead of the expected slump, there
came a prosperity unknown even during the War, the trade unions resumed
their offensive, now unrestrained by any other but the strictly economic
consideration. As a matter of fact, the trade unions were not at all
free agents, since their demands, frequent and considerable though they
were, barely sufficed to keep wages abreast of the soaring cost of
living. Through 1919 and the first half of 1920 profits and wages were
going up by leaps and bounds; and the forty-four hour week,--no longer
the mere eight-hour day,--became a general slogan and a partial reality.
Success was especially notable in clothing, building, printing, and the
metal trades. One cannot say the same, however, of the three basic
industries, steel, coal, and railways. In steel the twelve-hour day and
the seven-day week continued as before for approximately one-half of the
workers and the unions were preparing for a battle with the "Steel
Trust." While on the railways and in coal mining the unions now began to
encounter opposition from an unexpected quarter, namely, the government.

When in the summer of 1919 the railway shopmen demanded an increase in
their wages, which had not been raised since the summer of 1918,
President Wilson practically refused the demand, urging the need of a
general deflation but binding himself to use all the powers of the
government immediately to reduce the cost of living. A significant
incident in this situation was a spontaneous strike of shopmen on many
roads unauthorized by international union officials, which disarranged
the movement of trains for a short time but ended with the men returning
to work under the combined pressure of their leaders' threats and the
President's plea.

In September 1919, the United States Railroad Administration and the
shopmen's unions entered into national agreements, which embodied the
practices under the Administration as well as those in vogue on the more
liberal roads before 1918, including recognition and a large number of
"working rules." These "national agreements" became an important issue
one year later, when their abolition began to be pressed by the railway
ex