there might be a dozen agreements in effect for this one craft on the whole railroad. Naturally such a primitive method developed but little strength for the workers. Fighting as they did in such small detachments it was easy for the expanding companies to defeat them. So eventually they came to learn that they would have to operate on a broader scale. Then came the enlargement of the fighting unit until it included all the workers in a given craft upon a whole railroad system. Thereafter, the conductors, instead of acting together only in each division point, moved in concert all over the many divisions comprising the road. This type of one craft on one system became general quite early in the history of railroad unionism.
But it was only a step. The companies, waxing rapidly rich and powerful, found that with all the departments of a system in operation, save one, it was not difficult to defeat a striking craft. Hence the need for a still more extended battlefront pressed heavily upon the workers, and in 1889 an effort was made to finally solve the problem by federating the several transportation unions together on a national scale in the United Order of Railway Employes. But this federation was premature, and it fell to pieces in 1891 because of internal strife. Out of its ruins, however, grew one of the most important types of organization yet produced in this country. This is what is called the system federation.
System federations are alliances of several crafts on individual railroad systems. They operated to extend the fighting unit from one craft on one system to several crafts on one system. In the transportation department they brought about active offensive and defensive co-operation between the four brotherhoods[1] on all matters relating to single railroads. This type of organization was proposed by the Engineers in 1890. It was adapted in 1892,
- ↑ The bitter jurisdictional warfare between the Trainmen and Switchmen resulted, among its many other evil effects, in keeping the latter organization out of the many federations mentioned in this section, and in having them practically isolated until quite recently.
