Formed in 1901 as the brainchild of Chicago newspaperman Ralph Easley, the National Civic Federation had as its purpose creating more harmonious relationships between employers and workers. Taking on issues of labor conflict, employers’ liability, workers’ compensation, and WEL-EARE capitalism, the NCF became a leading influence in employee relations and social policy. The NCF had its origins in the Chicago Civic Federation, which had formed in response to the Pullman Strike of 1894. Easley, however, had a broader national vision, and he recruited some of the major business, financial, and political leaders of the day to support the NCF in its mission. Such men as Marcus Hanna, the Republican politician; August Belmont, the railroad magnate; and banker J. P Morgan were all members of the NCF. A third party in the creation of the NCF was organized labor. Beginning with the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, the NCF sought the participation and support of major labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation oe Labor, and John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers oe America.
Labor, too, saw the advantages of working in coalition with corporate leaders. Faced with the open hostility of organizations like the National Association oe Manu-EActurers and the American Anti-Boycott Association, it had to contend with the constant threat of labor injunctions, expensive court cases, and employer resistance. In order to pass employer liability and workers’ compensation laws, the labor movement needed allies. It was in the interest of corporate leaders to find common cause with labor on these issues. They, too, sought protection from civil suits in court, and organized labor, ever pragmatic, wanted to find a compromise solution. Finally, the conservative AFL faced the threat of militancy among the working class, including new organizations such as the Industrial Workers oe the World (IWW) and the Socialist Party of America, which served as voices of the New Unionism.
Not all labor leaders were supportive. Socialist labor leader Eugene V. Debs described the NCF as “a beast of prey, which always tells its victims, ‘our interests are one,’ and then devours them.” Still, the Civic Federation gave labor leaders Samuel Gompers and John Mitchell unprecedented access to the attention and support of corporate leaders. The attorney who defended Gompers in the Buck’s Stove case, Alton B. Parker, was a corporate lawyer. State legislatures passed workers’ compensation laws that were in part the result of the NCF’s work. The NCF also supported mediation between the skilled trades and employers, although most of its business members resisted unionism in their own factories.
The relatively harmonious relations between labor and business in the NCF were short-lived. By World War I, founder and NCF secretary Ralph Easley and NCF president Seth Low had moved away from seeing organized labor as a sympathetic ally. The massive strike wave during and after the war prompted many business leaders, including Easley, to greater hostility toward, and opposition to, the organized labor movement. They saw little difference between skilled workers in the AFL and the mass of factory workers who did not belong. Organized workers of any sort constituted a threat. The NCF joined other employer organizations in supporting the suppression of labor in the Red Scare of 1919-20.
Further reading: Gerald Kurland, Seth Low; The Reformer in an Urban and Industrial Age (New York: Twayne, 1971); James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, 1900-1915 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968).
National Consumers League See Goldmark, Josephine Clara; Kelley, Florence.
World History
