The U.S. Department of Labor was created after a long campaign by
labor leaders to win Cabinet status for the agency
By Jonathan Grossman
The law creating a U.S. Department of Labor, signed by President William
H. Taft on March 4, 1913, was virtually overlooked among the historic events of
that day. The city of Washington was bursting with goings on of all kinds. It
was Inauguration Day for Woodrow Wilson and there was the usual social whirl
that accompanies such an event. In addition, the 62nd Congress was still in
session on Inauguration morning. The retiring President had a pile of bills
upon which to act, one of them being the Sulzer Bill to create a Department of
Labor headed by a Cabinet officer.
Taft had mixed feelings about the bill and faced a difficult choice: he
could sign it into law, even though he was not pleased with it; he could veto
it outright, even though his objection to the bill might be misinterpreted; or,
by taking no action, he could let the bill die when his term of office ran out
— the so called "pocket veto." That morning the New York Times
reported that the outgoing President might veto the bill, send his reasons to
Congress, and give the advocates of the measure a chance to override his veto,
if they could.
After an early breakfast, with only a few hours before Woodrow Wilson
took office, President Taft went to the executive office in the Senate. The
Department of Labor bill was still unsigned. Following tradition, the
President-elect arrived at the office before being received in the Senate. He
could see the rotund figure of Taft at work in the next room signing bills.
During these closing hours of his Administration, President Taft signed into
law the act giving birth to the Department of Labor.
The gestation period had been a long one. It began after the Civil War
when William Sylvis, the most important labor leader of his day, advocated the
creation of a Department of Labor. He protested that existing government
departments threw their protective arms around every enterprise fostering
wealth, while no department had as its "sole object the care and protection of
labor." He and his followers petitioned President Andrew Johnson for a
Secretary of Labor, chosen from the ranks of workingmen, to be labor's voice in
the Cabinet.
Sylvis' cry for recognition was echoed and reechoed. Between 1864 and
1900, more than 100 bills and resolutions relating to a Department of Labor
were introduced in Congress. In 1867, the House of Representatives created a
standing committee on labor, marking the first Federal recognition of labor's
importance. But the campaign for a national Department of Labor died
[temporarily] with the death of Sylvis in 1869.
Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1869
Meanwhile labor leaders turned to a new strategy: promoting state
bureaus of labor statistics. In 1869, Massachusetts pioneered by creating the
first bureau of labor statistics in the world. This new bureau immediately
became embroiled in a dispute over its purpose: was the bureau a "voice of
labor," or was it to be impartial?
The first Massachusetts bureau started as the voice of labor reformers.
Henry K. Oliver and George McNeil, who were the bureau's first directors,
colored their reports on tenement housing and banks with their own pro-labor
views, drawing charges from businessmen that they were too radical. A partisan
struggle soon paralyzed the bureau.
Protests notwithstanding, the Governor of Massachusetts refused to
abolish the bureau. The answer to false and partial reports, he said, "must be
sought, not in discontinuing the investigation . . . but in lifting it to a
higher and broader level."1 In 1873 he appointed
Carroll Davidson Wright, a young Republican State senator, to head the bureau
and told him to "make it or bust it."
Wright in some senses was unqualified: he had no association with the
labor movement at the time, and he knew very little about either statistics or
labor problems. But he was determined to be impartial. A friend attributed to
him the quotation: "Figures won't lie, but liars will figure." His wide-ranging
investigations changed the direction of the bureau's activities and laid the
foundation for its reputation for objectivity. By 1883, 12 States had followed
Massachusetts' example.2
The Federal Bureau of Labor, 1884
While the State bureaus of labor were being established, labor's
strategy for creating a Federal Labor Department was being reshaped. The
depressions of 1868 and 1873 had shattered the labor movement, completely
destroying, for example, the National Labor Union. In 1874 a meeting of labor
leaders "laid aside a resolution for waging a campaign in favor of a National
Department of Labor."3 Recognizing their weakened
position, these leaders chose the more attainable goal of a Bureau of
Labor.
In the late 1870's and early 1880's, the movement for a Federal bureau
gained strength. The economy was recovering from the depression of 1873 and,
following a typical pattern for the labor movement, the winds of prosperity
fanned the growth of labor organizations. Thus a union like the Knights of
Labor was able to grow rapidly and acquire political muscle. As the
presidential election of 1884 was approaching, Republicans and Democrats alike
courted the labor vote and adopted nearly identical platforms favoring the
creation of a labor bureau.
Five Congressmen introduced bills in the 48th Congress to establish a
Bureau of Labor. With some debate, and a little opposition, the House passed
such a bill sponsored by Representative James Hopkins of Pennsylvania by a vote
of 182 to 19. The Bureau was to collect information on the subject of working
people and the "means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and
moral prosperity." The Senate approved; President Chester Arthur signed the
bill on June 27, 1884; and the new Bureau was placed in the Department of the
Interior.
Trade unionists expected President Arthur to appoint a labor leader as
Commissioner of the new Bureau. Terence Powderly of the Knights of Labor was
the leading candidate. When he met with the President he had with him 2,567
petitions from labor organizations, 37 clippings from labor papers, and 115
from other newspapers supporting his selection. But President Arthur, reacting
to manufacturers' fears that Powderly was too radical, refused to nominate him.
Instead, he sent the name of another labor leader, John Jarrett, to the Senate,
but withdrew it when he learned that Jarrett had criticized his
Administration.
After long delay, President Arthur finally invited Carroll D. Wright of
the Massachusetts bureau to become first U.S. Commissioner of Labor. Because
Arthur, a Republican, had become a "lame duck" President, Wright also sought
the assurance of Democratic President-elect Grover Cleveland that he could keep
the job. Wright, in seeking to protect his position and safeguard the Bureau
from partisan politics, was perhaps also establishing a tradition -- the
impartiality of statistical information.
The infant Bureau of Labor was an instant success. Organized labor
supported it and called for larger appropriations. Wright's objective idealism
was in tune with the times and won wide support. Most early reports of the
Bureau, ranging in topic from "Industrial Depressions" to "Convict Labor," were
well received. President Cleveland recommended that the Bureau be enlarged to
investigate the causes of labor disputes and eventually act as an
arbitrator.
A department without Cabinet rank, 1888
Labor leaders were pleased but not completely satisfied. A Bureau of
Labor was better than nothing, Terence Powderly told a Knights of Labor
Convention, but labor was "entitled to far more at the seat of government than
a mere bureau."4 Labor leaders' fear that some
"time-serving" political hack might become Commissioner of Labor was allayed
with Wright's appointment. They considered him a sensitive humanitarian who
would not let his sympathies color his statistics. But he was no spokesman for
labor, and his powers were limited.
The Knights of Labor, as they reached their zenith, sparked the drive
for an influential "National Department of Labor." President Grover Cleveland,
at the start of his campaign for reelection, invited Powderly to lunch and
offered him the position of Commissioner. Four years earlier Powderly had been
hungry for the job. (Many years later, when he was down and out, he was to take
a relatively minor position in the Department.) But in 1888 he was at the peak
of his career and told the President he could not give up his work with the
Knights of Labor. Cleveland asked him if he could not do both jobs at the same
time and Powderly told him that the day was not long enough "by about 36
hours." Besides he had enemies. "While your friends will go to bed early," he
told the President, "you may depend on your enemies to stay up all night to get
even with you. . . . You are in the midst of a bitter campaign, and these men
might be able to do you harm. You can serve labor interests far better by
recommending that the present Labor Bureau be changed to a real department of
the Federal Government with a secretary as its chief, sitting in your Cabinet."
At Cleveland's request, Powderly presented a memorandum on the scope of the new
Department, which in addition to its statistical role would conciliate labor
disputes and sponsor an employment service "to direct workmen from where they
crowd each other idle to where they may help each other work."5
A bill sponsored by the Knights of Labor was introduced in 1888. The
committee to which the bill was referred dropped the idea of Cabinet rank
because, in spite of its popularity, the Bureau of Labor did not have enough
support in Congress to gain Cabinet status. To substitute for the loss of
Cabinet prestige, the Department of Labor would be independent of the
Department of Interior. The bill passed with only perfunctory opposition, and
on March 21, 1888, Cleveland signed the bill into law.
Cleveland chose Carroll Wright to head the new Department. Wright held
the post for many years, impartially reporting his findings directly to the
President. The new Department of Labor, even without Cabinet status, gained
personnel and prestige. Its reports covered railroad labor, industrial
education, working women, economics of the liquor traffic, the effect of
machinery on labor, labor legislation, compulsory insurance, housing for
working people, and other subjects. In addition, in 1895 the Department
inaugurated the Bulletin of Labor, which under different titles has
been published to this day and is now the Monthly Labor Review. The
Department's devotion to objective facts made it the most important statistical
agency of its period. President Cleveland recognized this preeminence by
designating Carroll Wright to supervise the completion of the 1890 census.
During this period, other special groups were clamoring for
representation in the President's Cabinet. Business interests pressed their
claim for a Department of Commerce and Industry. Farmers, who had had a Bureau
of Agriculture since the Civil War, tried to raise it to Cabinet rank. Among
the more interesting efforts was an attempt to satisfy two interest groups with
one department. In 1887, both the House and Senate passed bills creating a
Department of Agriculture and Labor. But farm spokesmen objected to including
labor, and the bill died in conference. A year later, the more powerful farm
interests achieved their own department with a Secretary of Agriculture in the
President's Cabinet.
Paradoxically, pressure to have labor represented in the Cabinet was
diminishing. The nonpartisan Carroll Wright opposed a situation where the head
of a Department of Labor would change with every Administration. The labor
movement had been badly hurt by disastrous strikes and by public resentment
over labor's alleged role in the Haymarket riot, in which seven policemen died.
The Knights of Labor, torn by external problems, internal dissension, and the
rivalry of the new American Federation of Labor, lost strength. Samuel Gompers,
the rising leader of the Federation, was too deeply involved shoring up the
newly created organizations of craft unions to be politically oriented. While
perfunctory support was given from time to time to supporting a labor
department, most union leaders had their hands too full to get involved in a
campaign for Cabinet rank.
The Department of Commerce and Labor, 1903-13
Beginning in the 1890's, Congressmen introduced bills in session after
session to establish a Department of Commerce in which the existing Department
of Labor again would be reduced to a subordinate bureau. Labor leaders reacted
in self-defense. Samuel Gompers charged that business and commerce already "had
absolute and exclusive representation in the Cabinet." Instead, Gompers revived
labor's demand for its own "direct representative in the councils of the
President."6 With the growing power of business and
industry and the political victories of conservatives in the 1890's, Gompers'
proposal had little chance of success.
When Theodore Roosevelt became President, he called for a "Cabinet
officer, to be known as Secretary of Commerce and Industries. . . . It should
be his province to deal with commerce in its broadest sense; including among
many other things whatever concerns labor and all matters affecting the great
business corporations. . . ."7 Senator William P.
Frye of Maine translated these ideas into a bill he introduced in the 57th
Congress.
A Democratic minority fought the bill stubbornly. They claimed that the
independent Department of Labor would be submerged; that labor organizations
opposed the bill; and that the distrust between labor and business would
destroy the usefulness of the Department.
President Roosevelt did not agree that labor and capital were in
conflict. He himself tried to be impartial, and he saw no reason why labor and
commerce could not have a great deal in common. The Republican majority argued
that what was good for business was good for labor, and that prosperous labor
helped create good business. Since most ambitious workingmen wanted to become
capitalists, they asserted, the community of interests far outweighed
differences. Also, proponents claimed that a Bureau of Labor would gain a great
deal in association with other bureaus, such as immigration, shipping, and
manufacturing. They believed the new Department would be more efficient:
various information and statistical bureaus in the Federal Government would be
brought together, including the Bureau of Statistics in the Treasury
[Department] and the Census Bureau.
To make the bill more palatable to labor, the name was changed from a
Department of Commerce and Industries to a Department of Commerce and Labor.
The opposition of labor notwithstanding, the bill passed easily, and President
Roosevelt signed it in February 1903.
President Roosevelt appointed his private secretary, George B.
Cortelyou, the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Cortelyou reflected
President Roosevelt's view on impartiality. He even seemed to have gained
temporarily the grudging support of Samuel Gompers by assuring him that the
Department would serve not only business, but labor as well.
In 1906, Oscar S. Straus became Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Straus
proclaimed that "Labor and capital were two arms of industry, the proper
functioning of which could best be secured by cooperation, which in turn could
best be promoted by administering their interests together."8 But Gompers soon broke with Straus over the problem of
immigration. The American Federation of Labor opposed immigration because the
influx of millions of immigrants needing work held down American wages. Straus,
who had a distinguished career in business, foreign service, philanthropy, and
public administration, was against harsh restrictions and rigid exclusion tests
for immigrants.
A Cabinet-level department
Gompers intensified his efforts to end the bureaucratic union of
commerce and labor. Unlike President Roosevelt, Gompers refused to accept any
longer the view of a community of interests. Frank Morrison, Secretary of the
Federation, explained to a Congressional committee that the purposes of a
Secretary of Commerce and a Secretary of Labor were contradictory. The
Secretary of Commerce would promote the interests of trade and industry, while
the Secretary of Labor would support higher pay and better working conditions
for the worker. A Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Morrison said, was like a
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
In 1903, the American Federation of Labor persuaded the Democratic Party
to adopt a plank in its platform that pledged "the enactment of a law creating
a Department of Labor, represented separately in the President's Cabinet."
However, since Democrats controlled neither the White House nor Congress, their
powers were limited. Democratic Congressmen regularly introduced bills for a
separate Department of Labor, but none gained sufficient support to pass. In
1910 the Democrats won control of the House, and 15 union members were elected
to Congress. Congressman William B. Wilson, formerly an officer of the United
Mine Workers, became chairman of the House Committee on Labor. He championed
creating an independent department. Representative William Sulzer of New York
introduced a Department of Labor bill in 1912, which passed the House with
little opposition. For a time it seemed that the bill might die in the Senate
Committee on Education and Labor, but Senator Borah rescued it. The Senate
passed the bill without a record being kept of the votes.
President Taft did not like the bill; he felt the new Department would
hinder efficient administration. But Taft, who had been overwhelmingly defeated
for reelection, was in a poor position to oppose the bill. A veto would
probably have been a futile gesture. The incoming Democratic administration of
Woodrow Wilson had already selected William B. Wilson as the proposed Secretary
of Labor and would probably have enough support to reenact a similar measure,
despite Taft's veto.
However, Taft at least wanted to gain something in return for signing
the bill. The President felt there might be an opportunity to bargain for what
he considered the burning labor issue of the day -- the use of antitrust laws
against unions. Organized labor had lobbied through Congress a "rider" to the
Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill, which Taft opposed. The rider provided that
money for the Department of Justice could not be used to prosecute
organizations or individuals who combined for the purpose of bettering
conditions of labor. When Samuel Gompers visited Taft the day before Wilson's
inauguration, Taft greeted Gompers saying, "I want you to do something for me,
but I know you will not do it. . . . If you will take that labor proviso out of
the Sundry Civil Bill, I will sign the Department of Labor Bill."
"I can't do it and I won't do it," he answered.
"Well," Taft replied, "I suppose the situation is such that I shall have
to sign the Department of Labor Bill anyway."9
Thus, among his last acts in Office, President Taft signed the
Department of Labor bill. In his message to Congress on March 4, 1913, he
wrote, "I sign this bill with considerable hesitation. . . . I forbear,
however, to veto this bill, because my motive in doing so would be
misunderstood. . . ." In the waning hours of his administration President Taft
became the reluctant mid-wife who delivered the infant Department of Labor.
Jonathan Grossman was the Historian for the
U.S. Department of Labor. Judson MacLaury assisted. This article originally
appeared in the Monthly Labor Review of March 1973. The final paragraph,
titled "60 years later" and containing dated material, has been omitted in the
electronic version.
Notes
1. "History of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor and of
Labor Legislation in Massachusetts," Seventh Annual Report of the Massachusetts
Bureau of Statistics of Labor (Boston, April 1876), p. 287.
2. Horace Wadlin, "Carroll Davidson Wright: A Memorial,"
Fortieth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor
(Boston, 1909), pp. 357-400.
3. John Lombardi, Labor's Voice in the Cabinet (New
York, Columbia University Press, 1942), p. 29.
4. Terrence V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor, rev. ed.
(Cleveland, Ohio, Excelsior Presss, 1890), p. 165.
5. H.J. Carman and others, eds., The Path I Trod (New
York, Columbia University Press, 1940), pp. 230-234. (Papers of T.V.
Powderly.)
6. American Federation of Labor, Proceedings, 1897, p.
22.
7. Theodore Roosevelt, "Message . . . to the Two Houses
of Congress . . . First Session of the 57th Congress, January 1901,"
in Addresses and Presidential Messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 (New
York, G.P. Putnam, 1904), p. 298.
8. Lombardi, Labor's Voice, p. 60.
9. Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor (New
York, Dutton & Co., 1925), pp. 292-293.
| |
|