The  first  fighting  unit  used  by  the  transportation  unions
consisted  simply  of  the  few  workers  in  a  single  trade  em-
ployed in  only  one  town  of  a  railroad  system.  For  exam-
ple, the  conductors  working  out  of  a  certain  division  town
would  negotiate  an  agreement  with  the  company.     Thus


THE  RAILROADERS'  NEXT  STEP  25

there  mio^ht  be  a  dozen  a£2:reements  in  effect  for  this  one
craft  on  the  whole  railroad.  Naturally  such  a  primitive
rnetliod  developed  -  but  little  strens^th  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,  in-
stead 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  de-
feat a  striking  craft.  Hence  the  need  for  a  still  more  ex-
tended 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  Rail^vay  Employes.
