History
One of the historical problems in labor disputes was the inability of existing police forces to deploy enough trained personnel to perform necessary responsibilities. Corporations frequently turned to private agencies and guard services to fulfill their security needs. In 1866, a Pennsylvania law gave corporations the privilege of securing from the state government a commission for a watchman or policeman, who had the power to act on the corporation's property. The entity thus established was commonly referred to as the Coal and Iron Police. In 1894, United States Marshals and special guards, together with state and federal troops, assisted in putting down the Pullman Strike. In 1902, during the Anthracite strike, hundreds of commissions for the Coal and Iron Police were issued. But this is also when the concept of a state police force to deal with labor issues first saw fruition. However, for more than a century governors have continued to call out the militia, or the National Guard to deal with labor unrest. The army has also been used during labor disputes, including in situations where use of the National Guard proved inadequate (or disastrous, as in the Ludlow Strike).
Read more about this topic: Union Violence
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)