"THE RICH AGAINST THE POOR!

"Twenty of your brethren have been found guilty for presuming to
resist a reduction in their wages!.... Judge Edwards has
charged...the Rich are the only judges of the wants of the
poor. On Monday, June 6, 1836, the Freemen are to receive their
sentence, to gratify the hellish appetites of aristocracy!....
Go! Go! Go! Every Freeman, every Workingman, and hear the
melancholy sound of the earth on the Coffin of Equality. Let the
Court Room, the City-hall--yea, the whole Park, be filled with
mourners! But remember, offer no violence to Judge Edwards! Bend
meekly and receive the chains wherewith you are to be bound! Keep
the peace! Above all things, keep the peace!"

The "Evening Post" concludes a long account of the affair by
calling attention to the fact that the Trades' Union was not
composed of "only foreigners." "It is a low calculation when we
estimate that two-thirds of the workingmen of the city, numbering
several thousand persons, belong to it," and that "it is
controlled and supported by the great majority of our native
born."

The Boston Trades' Union was organized in 1834 and started out
with a great labor parade on the Fourth of July, followed by a
dinner served to a thousand persons in Faneuil Hall. This union
was formed primarily to fight for the ten-hour day, and the
leading crusaders were the house carpenters, the ship carpenters,
and the masons. Similar unions presently sprang up in other
cities, including Baltimore, Albany, Troy, Washington, Newark,