good many. Two other trades noted for their enthusiasm for cooperation
at this time were the shoemakers and the coopers. The former, organized
in the Order of St. Crispin, then the largest trade union in the
country, advocated cooperation even when their success in strikes was at
its height. "The present demand of the Crispin is steady employment and
fair wages, but his future is self-employment" was one of their mottoes.
During the seventies they repeatedly attempted to carry this motto into
effect. The seventies also saw the beginning of the most successful
single venture in productive cooperation ever undertaken in this
country, namely, the eight cooperative cooperage shops in Minneapolis,
which were established at varying intervals from 1874 to 1886. The
coopers took care to enforce true cooperation by providing for equal
holding of stock and for a division of ordinary profits and losses in
proportion to wages. The cooper shops prospered, but already ten years
later four out of the eight existing in 1886 had passed into private
hands.

In 1866 when the eight-hour demand was as yet uppermost, the National
Labor Union resolved for an independent labor party. The espousal of
greenbackism in 1867 only reenforced that resolution. The leaders
realized only too well that neither the Republican nor Democratic party
would voluntarily make an issue of a scheme purporting to assist the
wage earner to become an independent producer. Accordingly, the history
of the National Labor Union became largely the history of labor's first
attempt to play a lone political hand on a national scale.

Each annual session of the National Labor Union faithfully reaffirmed
the decision to "cut loose" from the old parties. But such a vast
undertaking demanded time. It was not until 1872 that the National Labor
Union met as a political convention to nominate a national ticket. From