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Challenge of the Gilded Age: The Myth of Laissez-Faire Economics in American History, Part II

© Michael J. Swogger

On the evening of July 29, 1877 - the immediate wake of the most violent and large-scale labor uprising to date - the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher stood over his congregation at the Plymouth Church in New York. A sense of indignation and disgust emanated from his pulpit as he spoke to his audience about the previous days' events:

We look upon the importation of the communistic and like European notions as abominations. Their notions and theories that the Government should be paternal and take care of the welfare of its subjects and provide them with labor, is un-American. ...The American doctrine is that it is the duty of the Government merely to protect the people while they are taking care of themselves - nothing more than that. "Hands off," we say to the Government; "see to it that we are protected in our rights and in our individuality. No more than that." ...God has intended the great to be great, and the little to be little. ...Persons have the right to work when or where they please, as long as they please, and for what they please, and any attempt to infringe on this right, and to put good workmen on a level with poor workmen - any such attempt to regiment labor is preposterous.¹

That his intimations flew in the face of the most basic Christian teachings seemed of little importance to Beecher, or perhaps he just didn't notice. But his reaction to the events of the Great Railroad Strikes of 1877 was quite typical.

The 1877 railroad uprisings were grounded in a number of grievances among the workers: wage cuts in economic recessions, work days that lasted sometimes 15 hours, mandatory rent to be paid to railroad companies for makeshift houses erected by workers near the work sites, among others. This was a trend not only in Pennsylvania or Maryland but in St. Louis and Chicago as well. And by April 1877 the first strikes against railroad companies were underway, with the main thrust of strikes occurring in July. Strikers tactics comprised picketing and attempting to block freight from transport. State militias were called in to attempt to break up the strikes and keep the trains moving; martial law was declared in Baltimore. In Pittsburgh and other Pennsylvania cities, national guardsmen were called in to disperse the growing crowds of strikers. But this proved ineffective, as many of the troops were railroad workers themselves and sympathized with the strikers. Indeed many laid down their arms and joined the crowds.²

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