The Noble and Sacred Order of the Knights of Labor represented the largest and one of the most important workers' organizations in the United States in the 1880s.
Its principal leader was Terence V. Powderly. The Knights actively contributed to the social and cultural progress of American workers, rejecting socialism and radicalism, while advocating for the eight-hour workday and promoting the republican ideology of the United States. Although they acted as a union in some cases, engaging in negotiations with employers, the organization was never stably structured. After rapid expansion in the mid-1880s, it experienced a swift decline in membership, returning to a more modest size.
Founded in 1869, the organization had 28,000 members in 1880, a number that grew to 100,000 in 1885. However, its fragile organizational structure could not withstand setbacks and government repression. The majority of members left the organization during the years 1886-87, reducing its membership to 100,000 by 1890. The remnants of the Knights of Labor persisted until 1949, when the last members decided to dissolve the organization.
The case of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor attracted the attention of the Roman court. The Order of the Knights of Labor claimed to unite the working masses of the United States into a formidable group.
It did not bring peace, but war. Its president, Mr. Powderly, declared at the Richmond Convention on October 4, 1885:
“This war must determine who will reign: monopoly or the American people, gold or man… When the reign of monopoly is closed, not a single anarchist will be born on our soil; for anarchy is its legitimate child.”
It engaged in combat against any capitalist who did not use his wealth to alleviate suffering. It demanded, among other requirements, that the worker's day be limited to eight hours, that the same work, regardless of who performed it, be rewarded with the same wage, that a dismissed worker be allowed to leave his employer only after thirty days, and that the reasons for dismissal be subject to an investigation, then arbitration, and finally that a tax be levied on uncultivated land when its area exceeded one hundred and sixty acres.
In all regions of the United States, the Noble Order existed with its skillfully hierarchical assemblies; it held a general convention each year. This immense force repudiated any use of brute force; even half-violence, strikes or boycotts, were to be employed only as a last resort. The Knights of Labor dreamed of a kind of industrial revolution, and did not want to realize this dream through any revolution.
They were not against the Church, they were not for it. The Canadian episcopate was against them; they possessed, in the Dominion, a special organization, which exposed them to the ecclesiastical condemnations that secret societies are subject to. Almost the entire episcopate of the United States was for them. In October 1886, twelve archbishops met; only two voted for the condemnation of the Knights. And such is the respect of American Christendom for any association, that a bishop cannot condemn in the province entrusted to his care a group that branches into neighboring dioceses: it is indispensable that the unanimous consent of his colleagues authorize such severity.
Now, the majority of American prelates did not want to take any preventive measures against the Knights, and begged Leo XIII, to whom the matter was referred, not to order any coercive measures. Cardinal Gibbons wrote a memorandum to Cardinal Simeoni, prefect of Propaganda, which was soon made public. With an imperious generosity, he pleaded for the attacked knights. He justified the reason for the Noble Order's existence:
“One cannot plausibly deny the existence of evils, the right of legitimate resistance, and the necessity of a remedy.”
He enumerated the deplorable effects that would result from a condemnation.
“To speak frankly,” he wrote, “this would be regarded by the American people as both ridiculous and bold.”
Thus he spoke, “frankly,” throughout his memorandum.
“The condemnation would be powerless to force our Catholic workers to obedience, who would regard it as false and unjust… It would push the sons of the Church to revolt against their mother, and to join the condemned societies, which they have so far avoided… It would be almost ruinous for the financial support of the Church among us, and for Peter's Pence… It would turn the insignificant devotion of our people towards the Holy See into suspicion and hostility… The only serious danger would come from a cooling between the Church and her children, which nothing would more surely occasion than imprudent condemnations.”
These reasons had weight, and this tone had meaning. When Cardinal Gibbons wrote thus, he had behind him almost the entire episcopate of the United States, that is, the natural leaders of ten million Catholics. These bishops asked Rome not to overturn their judgment; these Catholics asked Rome not to oppose their wishes, and the judgment of the ones satisfied the wishes of the others.
In favor of the popular masses, the American bishops had, so to speak, compromised their authority: by acquiescence, Rome would consolidate this authority; by an anathema, it would destroy it.
Was Pope Leo XIII going to corner the prelates in a dead end, from which they would emerge diminished, and place the faithful in an alternative where rebellion would be one of the terms? In his archdiocese of Westminster, the old Cardinal Manning became alarmed: he wrote a letter to Cardinal Simeoni in favor of the Knights, and an article in the Tablet.
Manning was a veteran of ultramontanism: he was known as such in Rome. In 1860, leaving that England whose official religion has the motto: “No popery,” he had come to the Vatican Council to defend the rights of the pope with a fierce vigor. He was in the front rank among those who consummated the greatness of Pius IX by proclaiming infallibility.
In 1887, he turned to this papacy, which he had powerfully helped to make great, and asked it to allow itself, in a way, to be compelled by the humble and the lowly. Manning would not have tolerated that a sovereign of old Europe speak to the Vatican as the Knights spoke through the voice of Gibbons, with instances that had the effect of a summons.
But he wrote to Cardinal Simeoni:
“I have read, with complete assent, the document of Cardinal Gibbons on the question of the Knights of Labor. The Holy See will, I am sure, be convinced of its correctness.”
Behind Mr. Powderly, president of the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, stood Gibbons, Manning, all of Anglo-Saxon Christendom. This Christendom was satisfied, no condemnation struck the Noble Order.
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In the history of the current pontificate, this episode was decisive. It was the loudest mark of what Mr. Paul Desjardins recently called “the conversion of the Church.” It displeased all reactions, monarchist, aristocratic, or bourgeois. It prepared public opinion to understand the spirit that was to inspire the Encyclical.
It also hastened the appearance of that Encyclical. On both sides of the ocean, humanity suffered: the pilgrimages of French workers, the pilgrimage of the American Gibbons attested to the pope these miseries. A new expression of the Church's social doctrine, appropriate to the needs of new times, was demanded. Ketteler, de Mun, Vogelsang and the modest disputants of Fribourg had prepared and matured this work.
The times were fulfilled: it was important, as soon as possible, that above these fragmented and dislocated societies, in the presence of this international misery, the Church of Rome should raise its strong voice. Is it not the only voice that propagates easily from one end of the world to the other, the only one also whose echo prolongs, without ever dying, into the infinity of duration?
Source: The Pope, Catholics and the Social Question – Georges Goyau – 1893