end to the suffering of the men and their families.

New York witnessed an even more characteristic Knights of Labor strike
and on a larger scale. This strike began as two insignificant separate
strikes, one by coal-handlers at the Jersey ports supplying New York
with coal and the other by longshoremen on the New York water front;
both starting on January 1, 1887. Eighty-five coal-handlers employed by
the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company, members of the Knights of
Labor, struck against a reduction of 2-1/2 cents an hour in the wages of
the "top-men" and were joined by the trimmers who had grievances of
their own. Soon the strike spread to the other roads and the number of
striking coal-handlers reached 3000. The longshoremen's strike was begun
by 200 men, employed by the Old Dominion Steamship Company, against a
reduction in wages and the hiring of cheap men by the week. The strikers
were not organized, but the Ocean Association, a part of the Knights of
Labor, took up their cause and was assisted by the longshoremen's union.
Both strikes soon widened out through a series of sympathetic strikes of
related trades and finally became united into one. The Ocean Association
declared a boycott on the freight of the Old Dominion Company and this
was strictly obeyed by all of the longshoremen's unions. The
International Boatmen's Union refused to allow their boats to be used
for "scab coal" or to permit their members to steer the companies'
boats. The longshoremen joined the boatmen in refusing to handle coal,
and the shovelers followed. Then the grain handlers on both floating and
stationary elevators refused to load ships with grain on which there was
scab coal, and the bag-sewers stood with them. The longshoremen now
resolved to go out and refused to work on ships which received scab
coal, and finally they decided to stop work altogether on all kinds of
craft in the harbor until the trouble should be settled. The strike
spirit spread to a large number of freight handlers working for