For nine years the Order remained a secret organization and showed but a
slow growth. In 1878 it was forced to abolish secrecy. The public mind
was rendered uneasy by the revolutionary uprising of workingmen of Paris
who set up the famous "Commune of Paris" of 1871, by the destructive
great railway strikes in this country in 1877 and, lastly, by a wave of
criminal disorders in the anthracite coal mining region in Eastern
Pennsylvania,[13] and became only too prone to attribute revolutionary
and criminal intents to any labor organization that cloaked itself in
secrecy. Simultaneously with coming out into the open, the Knights
adopted a new program, called the Preamble of the Knights of Labor, in
place of the vague Secret Ritual which hitherto served as the
authoritative expression of aims.

This Preamble recites how "wealth," with its development, has become so
aggressive that "unless checked" it "will inevitably lead to the
pauperisation and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses." Hence, if
the toilers are "to enjoy the blessings of life," they must organize
"every department of productive industry" in order to "check" the power
of wealth and to put a stop to "unjust accumulation." The battle cry in
this fight must be "moral worth not wealth, the true standard of
individual and national greatness." As the "action" of the toilers ought
to be guided by "knowledge," it is necessary to know "the true condition
of the producing masses"; therefore, the Order demands "from the various
governments the establishment of bureaus of labor statistics." Next in
order comes the "establishment of cooperative institutions productive
and distributive." Union of all trades, "education," and producers'
cooperation remained forever after the cardinal points in the Knights of
Labor philosophy and were steadily referred to as "First Principles,"
namely principles bequeathed to the Order by Uriah Stephens and the