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that socialism would not succeed in the United States. “Bread and butter” unionism was the term given to his philosophies that higher wages and fewer working hours could achieve the goal of a better life for the working people. (www.planetpapers.com/Assets/306.shtml, 2)Laborer?s goals and the unwillingness of capital to grant them resulted in many violent labor conflicts and strikes. The first of these occurred with the Great Rail Strike of 1877. Rail workers all over the United States went on strike due to a ten percent pay reduction. (www.planetpapers.com/Assets/306.shtml, 2) Rioting and destruction of several cities surfaced with the efforts to stop the strike. Federal troops had to be sent in at several locations to end the strike such as Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; and San Francisco, California. (Department of Humanities, 2)The Haymarket Square incident took place nine years later in 1886. On May 1, many workers struck for shorter hours. A group of radicals and anarchists became involved in this campaign. Two days later, a death occurred from shooting during a riot in the McCormick Harvester plant in Chicago when police arrived and tangled in the chaos. On May 4, a bomb exploded in Haymarket Square during a meeting called to discuss the events of the preceding day. (James Connolly Society, 1) Nine people died, including eight police officers, and some sixty were wounded. (Department of Humanities, 2)The next riots came in 1892, at Carnegie?s steel works in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The company hired three hundred Pinkerton detectives to break a strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron. Steel and tin workers were fired upon and ten were killed. The National Guard was called in to resolve the situation. Non-union workers were hired and the strike was broken. Unions were not allowed back into the plant until 1937. (2)Two years later, a strike in the Pullman Palace Car company came about as a result of wage cuts. The American Railway union joined the strike, and much of the country?s rail system was not running. Over three thousand men were trusted by General Richard Olney to keep the rails open. The federal court gave a court order against union interference with the trains since they were an important and necessary vehicle in transportation, and the strike was eventually broken. (2-3)The most militant of the strike-prone unions was the International Workers of the World (IWW), commonly known as “wobblies”. (3) They formed in 1905 in Chicago as a combination of unions fighting for better conditions in the West?s mining industry. The IWW was particularly strong among textile workers, dock workers, migratory farmers, and lumberjacks. Under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs, they gained particular fame from the Colorado mine clashes of 1903 and the brutal manner in which they were put down. (www.planetpapers.com/Assets/306.shtml, 3) The wobblies gained much character after winning the battle and striking against the textile mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 with their peak membership of one hundred thousand. They called for work stoppages in the middle of World War I which led to a government crackdown in 1917, and essentially destroyed them. (Department of Humanities, 3)A powerful reform called Progressivism swept the country in the early years of the twentieth century. The goal of college professors, ministers, journalist, physicians and social workers was to improve conditions for all Americans. They wanted to make the political system and the economic system more democratic. They were appalled at the fact that Americans were either wealthy or lived a life a poverty. Those who owned the nation?s resources should share some of their wealth with the less fortunate was their theory. The movement appealed to farmers, small businessmen, women, and laborers. (www.planetpapers.com/Assets/306.shtml, 3)The progressives were concerned about the country?s labor problems. They disagreed with and were disturbed with the growing use of court rulings to halt strikes. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act which purpose was to punish big business corporations that combined to prevent competition. However, it seemed to be used more as a weapon against unions. Progressives also were irritated by the use of federal troops and state militia against strikers. (3)Factory conditions still had not improved. The Progressives and the AFL pressured state governments for laws to protect wage earners. Almost all the fifty states passed laws to forbid the hiring of children under fourteen years of age. Thirty-seven states forbade children under sixteen to work between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. Nineteen states established the eight-hour day for children under sixteen in factories and stores. Women were also in need of protection for their jobs. Forty-one states wrote new or improved laws to protect women workers, limiting the work day to nine hours or the week to fifty-four hours. (3)Another problem that had to be handled was the industrial accidents that occurred too often to be ignored. Progressives said the cost of insurance to cover medical bills should be paid by the employers. By 1917, thirteen states had passed workers? compensation laws. Many states also passed laws to improve safety regulations. (3)There was an alliance of Progressives and the AFL because they had similar goals in the improvement of American labor. Congress passed laws as a response to the many requests and demands to protect children, railroad workers, and seamen. A Department of Labor in the president?s Cabinet was established. Congress also passed the extremely important Clayton Act in 1914, which ceased the use of antitrust laws and court injunctions against unions. The federal government created the War Labor Board during World War I to settle disputes by arbitration. The board made advances in wage increases, the eight-hour work day, and collective