nays 149,
not voting 14. Randall, Snowden, and two other Democrats joined the
Republicans in voting against the bill.

CHAPTER VII. THE PUBLIC DISCONTENTS

While President and Congress were passing the time in mutual
obstruction, the public discontents were becoming hot and bitter to
a degree unknown before. A marked feature of the situation was the
disturbance of public convenience involving loss, trouble, and distress
which were vast in extent but not easily expressed in statistical form.
The first three months of 1886 saw an outbreak of labor troubles far
beyond any previous record in their variety and extent. In 1885, the
number of strikes reported was 645 affecting 2284 establishments, a
marked increase over preceding years. In 1886, the number of strikes
rose to 1411, affecting 9861 establishments and directly involving
499,489 persons. The most numerous strikes were in the building trades,
but there were severe struggles in many other industries. There was, for
example, an interruption of business on the New York elevated railway
and on the street railways of New York, Brooklyn, and other cities.

But the greatest public anxiety was caused by the behavior of the
Knights of Labor, an organization then growing so rapidly that it gave
promise of uniting under one control the active and energetic elements
of the working classes of the country. It started in a humble way, in
December, 1869, among certain garment cutters in Philadelphia, and for
some years spread slowly from that center. The organization remained
strictly secret until 1878, in which year it held a national convention
of its fifteen district assemblies at Reading, Pennsylvania. The object
and principles of the order were now made public and, thereafter, it
spread with startling rapidity, so that in 1886 it pitted its strength
against public authority with a membership estimated at from, 500,000
to 800,000. Had this body been an army obedient to its leaders, it
would have wielded great power; but it turned out to be only a mob. Its
members took part in demonstrations which were as much mutinies against
the authority of their own executive board as they were strikes against
their employers. The result of lack of organization soon began to be
evident. In March 1886, the receiver of the Texas Pacific Railroad
discharged an employee prominent in the Knights of Labor and thus
precipitated a strike which was promptly extended to the Missouri
Pacific. Th