The labor market must expand with the trader's market. In 1860
there were about one and a third million wage-earners in the
United States; in 1870 well over two million; in 1880 nearly two
and three-quarters million; and in 1890 over four and a quarter
million. The city sucked them in from the country; but by far the
larger augmentation came from Europe; and the immigrant, normally
optimistic, often untaught, sometimes sullen and filled with a
destructive resentment, and always accustomed to low standards of
living, added to the armies of labor his vast and complex bulk.

There were two paramount issues--wages and the hours of labor--
to which all other issues were and always have been secondary.
Wages tend constantly to become inadequate when the standard of
living is steadily rising, and they consequently require
periodical readjustment. Hours of labor, of course, are not
subject in the same degree to external conditions. But the
tendency has always been toward a shorter day. In a previous
chapter, the inception of the ten-hour movement was outlined.
Presently there began the eight-hour movement. As early as 1842
the carpenters and caulkers of the Charleston Navy Yard achieved
an eight-hour day; but 1863 may more properly be taken as the
beginning of the movement. In this year societies were organized
in Boston and its vicinity for the precise purpose of winning the
eight-hour day, and soon afterwards a national Eight-Hour League
was established with local leagues extending from New England to
San Francisco and New Orleans.

This movement received an intelligible philosophy, and so a new
vitality, from Ira Steward, a member of the Boston Machinists'