A History of Trade Unionism in the United States | Page 6

first suffragist, with whom he formed an intimate friendship lasting through many years. The failure at New Harmony convinced him that his father had overlooked the importance of the anti-social habits which the members had formed before they joined; and he concluded that those could be prevented only by applying a rational system of education to the young. These conclusions, together with the recollections of his experience at Hofwyl, led him to advocate a new system of education, which came to be called "state guardianship."
State guardianship was a demand for the establishment by the state of boarding schools where children should receive, not only equal instruction, general as well as industrial, but equal food and equal clothing at the public expense. Under this system, it was asserted, public schools would become "not schools of charity, but schools of the nation, to the support of which all would contribute; and instead of being almost a disgrace, it would become an honor to have been educated there." It was urged as an especial advantage that, as children would be clothed and cared for at all times, the fact that poor parents could not afford to dress their children "as decently as their neighbors" would not prevent their attendance.
State guardianship became the battle cry of an important faction in the Workingmen's party in New York. Elsewhere a less radical program was advocated. In Philadelphia the workingmen demanded only that high schools be on the Hofwyl model, whereas in the smaller cities and towns in both Pennsylvania and New York the demand was for "literary" day schools. Yet the underlying principle was the same everywhere. A labor candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District of Philadelphia in 1830 expressed it succinctly during his campaign. He made his plea on the ground that "he is the friend and indefatigable defender of a system of general education, which will place the citizens of this extensive Republic on an equality; a system that will fit the children of the poor, as well as the rich, to become our future legislators; a system that will bring the children of the poor and the rich to mix together as a band of Republican brethren."
In New England the workingmen's movement for equal citizenship was simultaneously a reaction against the factory system. To the cry for a Republican system of education was added an anti-child labor crusade. One who did more than any other to call attention to the evils of the factory system of that day was a lawyer by the name of Seth Luther, who, according to his own account, had "for years lived among cotton mills, worked in them, travelled among them." His "Address to the Working Men of New England on the State of Education, and on the Condition of the Producing Classes in Europe and America, with Particular Reference to the Effect of Manufacturing (as now conducted) on the Health and Happiness of the Poor, and on the Safety of our Republic" was delivered widely and undoubtedly had considerable influence over the labor movement of the period. The average working day in the best factories at that time was nearly thirteen hours. For the children who were sent into the factories at an early age these hours precluded, of course, any possibility of obtaining even the most rudimentary education.
The New England movement was an effort to unite producers of all kinds, including not only farmers but factory workers with mechanics and city workingmen. In many parts of the State of New York the workingmen's parties included the three classes--"farmers, mechanics, and working men,"--but New England added a fourth class, the factory operatives. It was early found, however, that the movement could expect little or no help from the factory operatives, who were for the most part women and children.
The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor movements and labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first workingmen's party, then came New York and Boston, and finally state-wide movements and political organizations in each of the three States. In New York the workingmen scored their most striking single success, when in 1829 they cast 6000 votes out of a total of 21,000. In Philadelphia the labor ticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance of power in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupled with machinations on the part of "designing men" of both older parties soon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany made the demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that it became enacted into law. In New York, also, the situation became complicated by factional strife between the Skidmorian "agrarians," the Owenite state guardianship faction, and a third faction which eschewed either "panacea." Then, too, the opposition