TbB swing to politics again. — The almost com-
plete destruction of the unions left the labor field
once more to the reformers, politicians, and "intel-
lectuals" who had other cures for the evils that beset
labor. Although many labor men, in this period,
tamed to plans for forming co-operative societies of
workmen and to futile experiments with the com-
munist land colonies, it was politics and reform that
occupied the center of the stage. Suffering from the
ravages of a panic, the workers sought a remedy for
that disease. Th^ foimd that hundreds of railway,



56 AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT

gas, coal, banking, turnpike, and bridge companies

had been chartered in recent years, and so they con-

V eluded that such monopolies were the chief cause of

^^ .' ^>their troubles. They declared that the monopolies
^^5 drove employers, master mechanics, and small trades-

'" men out of business. As many of these companies

made a practice of paying their employees in notes
that had to be cashed at banks at a considerable dis--
count, all the corporations and the banks came in for
a full share of denunciation on the part of labor*
Thus the courts, corporations, and banks fell under
the displeasure of the leaders in the industrial world.
The old political feeling kindled by the events of the
late twenties flamed up again.
