The Armies of Labor

The Armies of Labor, by Samuel Peter Orth, is a chronicle of the organized wage-earners. The book is Volume 40 of the Chronicles of America Series. Chapter I, The Background, begins with three momentous things that symbolize the era whose cycle begins with the year 1776: the Declaration of Independence, the steam engine, and Adam Smith’s book, The Wealth of Nations. The text recalls the Statute of Laborers of 1562, which regulated the relations of wage-earner and employer and empowered justices of the peace to fix the wages in their districts.

The text says that when the factory system was substituted for the handicraft system and workers with common interests were thrown together in the towns, they had every impulsion towards organization. The text quotes a statement accepting without question the conclusion of a board appointed to pass upon the matter at issue, and says that a comparison of these statements shows how the balance of power had shifted from the corporation to the union. The contents list includes chapters called The Trade Union, The Railway Brotherhoods and Labor and Politics.