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Testimony of a Machinist, 1883

Senate Hearing: John Morrison, a machinist from New York, testifies about the recent strikes.

Q. Is there any difference between the conditions under which machinery is made now and
those which existed ten years ago?—A. A great deal of difference.

Q. State the differences as well as you can.—A. Well, the trade has been subdivided and
those subdivisions have been again subdivided, so that a man never learns the machinist’s
trade now. Ten years ago he learned, not the whole of the trade, but a fair portion of it. Also,
there is more machinery used in the business, which again makes machinery. In the case of
making the sewing-machine, for instance, you find that the trade is so subdivided that a man is
not considered a machinist at all. Hence it is merely laborers’ work and it is laborers that work
at that branch of our trade. The different branches of the trade are divided and subdivided so
that one man may make just a particular part of a machine and may not know anything
whatever about another part of the same machine. In that way machinery is produced a great
deal cheaper than it used to be formerly, and in fact, through this system of work, 100 men are
able to do now what it took 300 or 400 men to do fifteen years ago. By the use of machinery
and the subdivision of the trade they so simplify the work that it is made a great deal easier and
put together a great deal faster. There is no system of apprenticeship, I may say, in the
business. You simply go in and learn whatever branch you are put at, and you stay at that
unless you are changed to another.

Q, Does a man learn his branch very rapidly?—A. Yes, sir; he can learn his portion of the
business very rapidly. Of course he becomes very expert at it, doing that all the time and
nothing else, and therefore he is able to do a great deal more work in that particular branch
than if he were a general hand and expected to do everything in the business as it came
along....

Q. Do you know from reading the papers or from your general knowledge of the business
whether there are other places in other cities or other parts of the country that those men
could have gone and got work?—A. I know from general reports of the condition of our trade
that the same condition existed throughout the country generally.

Q. Then those men could not have bettered themselves by going to any other place, you
think?—A. Not in a body.

Q. I am requested to ask you this question: Dividing the public, as is commonly done, into the
upper, middle, and lower classes, to which class would you assign the average workingman of
your trade at the time when you entered it, and to which class you would assign him now?—A. I
now assign them to the lower class. At the time I entered the trade I should assign them as
merely hanging on to the middle class; ready to drop out at any time.

Q. What is the character of the social intercourse of those workingmen? Answer first with
reference to their intercourse with other people outside of their own trade— merchants,
employers, and others—A. Are you asking what sort of social intercourse exists between the
machinists and the merchants? If you are, there is none whatever, or very little if any.

SOURCE: Report of the Committee of the Senate Upon the Relations Between Labor and
Capital, 48th Congress [1885] pg. 755-759
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Q. What sort of social intercourse exists among the machinists themselves and their families,
as to visiting, entertaining one another, and having little parties and other forms of sociability,
those little things that go to make up the social pleasures of life?—A. In fact with the married
folks that has died out—such things as birthday parties, picnics, and so on. The machinists to-
day are on such small pay, and the cost of living is so high, that they have very little, if anything,
to spend for recreation, and the machinist has to content himself with enjoying himself at
home, either fighting with his wife or licking his children.

Q. I hope that is not a common amusement in the trade. Was it so ten years ago?—A. It was
not; from the fact that they then sought enjoyment in other places, and had a little more
money to spend. But since they have had no organization worth speaking of, of course their pay
has gone down. At that time they had a form of organization in some way or other which
seemed to keep up the wages, and there was more life left in the machinist then; he had more
ambition, he felt more like seeking enjoyment outside, and in reading and such things, but now
it is changed to the opposite; the machinist has no such desires.

Q. What is the social air about the ordinary machinist’s house? Are there evidences of
happiness, and joy, and hilarity, or is the general atmosphere solemn, and somber, and
gloomy?—A. To explain that fully, I would state first of all, that machinists have got to work ten
hours a day in New York, and that they are compelled to work very hard. In fact the machinists
of America are compelled to do about one-third more work than the machinists do in England
in a day. Therefore, when they come home they are naturally played out from shoving the file,
or using the hammer or the chisel, or whatever it may be, such long hours. They are pretty well
played out when they come home, and the first thing they think of is having something to eat
and sitting down, and resting, and then of striking a bed. Of course when a man is dragged out
in that way he is naturally cranky, and he makes all around him cranky; so, instead of a pleasant
house it is every day expecting to lose his job by competition from his fellow-workman, there
being so many out of employment, and no places for them, and his wages being pulled down
through their competition, looking at all times to be thrown out of work in that way, and staring
starvation in the face makes him feel sad, and the head of the house being sad, of course the
whole family is the same, so the house looks like a dull prison instead of a home.

Q. Do you mean to say that that is the general condition of the machinists in New York and in
this vicinity?—A. That is their general condition, with, of course, a good many exceptions. That
is the general condition to the best of my knowledge.

Q. Where do you work?—A. I would rather not have it in print. Perhaps I would have to go
Monday morning if I did. We are so situated in the machinist’s trade that we daren’t let them
know much about us. If they know that we open our mouths on the labor question, and try to
form organizations, we are quietly told that “business is slack,” and we have got to go.

Q. Do you know of anybody being discharged for making speeches on the labor question?—
A. Yes; I do know of several. A little less than a year ago several members of the organization
that I belong to were discharged because it was discovered that they were members of the
organization.

Q. Do you say those men were members of the same organization that you belong to’?—A.
Yes, sir; but not working in the same place where I work. And in fact many of my trade have
been on the “black list,” and have had to leave town to find work.

Q. Are the machinists here generally contented, or are they in a state of discontent and

SOURCE: Report of the Committee of the Senate Upon the Relations Between Labor and
Capital, 48th Congress [1885] pg. 755-759
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unrest?—A. There is mostly a general feeling of discontent, and you will find among the
machinists the most radical workingmen, with the most revolutionary ideas. You will find that
they don’t so much give their thoughts simply to trades unions and other efforts of that kind,
but they go far beyond that; they only look for relief through the ballot or through a revolution,
a forcible revolution....

Q. You say they look for relief through a forcible revolution. In the alternative of a forcible
revolution have they considered what form of government they would establish?—A. Yes; some
of them have and some of them have not.

Q. What kind of government would they establish?—A. Yes. They want to form a government
such as this was intended to be, a government “of the people, for the people, and by the
people”—different entirely from the present form of government.

Questions:

1) Mr. Morrison reported to Congress, that the United States' workers needed to complete
their apprenticeships in order to earn more money in the 1880s. (True/False)
2) The new production system made American workers less efficient than 15 years
ago. (T/F)
3) The increasing specialization allowed workers to better themselves by moving from the
working class to the middle class. (T/F)
4) In the 1880s, American workers earned so little money that they could not afford to go
to a picnic. (T/F)
5) The new economic situation for American workers in the 1880s contributed to many
domestic conflicts. (T/F)
6) According to Mr. Morrison, it was common for American workers to read for pleasure
after work before the 1880s. (T/F)
7) According to Mr. Morrison, how many hours does a worker have to work in New York?
8) Why did workers like Mr. Morrison not address their plight publicly?
9) Based on the last answers, Mr. Morrison did not believe that political action can help
workers. (T/F)
10) Obviously, workers during the Gilded Age were not happy about their working
conditions. Why did politicians not help workers? Formulate a short thesis statement
before supporting your thesis with two to four sentences.

SOURCE: Report of the Committee of the Senate Upon the Relations Between Labor and
Capital, 48th Congress [1885] pg. 755-759