sometimes sought against new machinery that displaced hand labor.
In June, 1835, a New York paper remarked that "it is well known
that many of the most obstinate turn-outs among workingmen and
many of the most violent and lawless proceedings have been
excited for the purpose of destroying newly invented machinery."
Such acts of wantonness, however, were few, even in those first
tumultuous days of the thirties. Striking became in those days a
sort of mania, and not a town that had a mill or shop was exempt.
Men struck for "grog or death," for "Liberty, Equality, and the
Rights of Man," and even for the right to smoke their pipes at
work.

Strike benefits, too, were known in this early period. Strikers
in New York received assistance from Philadelphia, and Boston
strikers were similarly aided by both New York and Philadelphia.
When the high cost of living threatened to deprive the
wage-earner of half his income, bread riots occurred in the
cities, and handbills circulated in New York bore the legend:

BREAD, MEAT, RENT, FUEL
THEIR PRICES MUST COME DOWN


CHAPTER III. TRANSITION YEARS

With the panic of 1837 the mills were closed, thousands of
unemployed workers were thrown upon private charity, and, in the
long years of depression which followed, trade unionism suffered
a temporary eclipse. It was a period of social unrest in which
all sorts of philanthropic reforms were suggested and tried out.