of the country. They were expected, just as pay days and legal
holidays are expected. Now for the first time came strikes that
can only be characterized as stupendous. They were not mere
slight economic disturbances; they were veritable industrial
earthquakes. In 1873 the coal miners of Pennsylvania, resenting
the truck system and the miserable housing which the mine owners
forced upon them, struck by the tens of thousands. In Illinois,
Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Ohio, and New York strikes occurred
in all sorts of industries. There were the usual parades and
banners, some appealing, some insulting, and all the while the
militia guarded property. In July, 1877, the men of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad refused to submit to a fourth reduction in
wages in seven years and struck. From Baltimore the resentment
spread to Pennsylvania and culminated with riots in Pittsburgh.
All the anthracite coal miners struck, followed by most of the
bituminous miners of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The militia
were impotent to subdue the mobs; Federal troops had to be sent
by President Hayes into many of the States; and a proclamation by
the President commanded all citizens to keep the peace. Thus was
Federal authority introduced to bolster up the administrative
weakness of the States, and the first step was taken on the road
to industrial nationalization.

The turmoil had hardly subsided when, in 1880, new strikes broke
out. In the long catalogue of the strikers of that year are found
the ribbon weavers of Philadelphia, Paterson, and New York, the
stablemen of New York, New Jersey, and San Francisco, the cotton
yard workers of New Orleans, the cotton weavers of New England
and New York, the stockyard employees of Chicago and Omaha, the
potters of Green Point, Long Island, the puddlers of Johnstown