by awarding a reduction in the wages of fifteen crafts while the issue as originally submitted turned on a demand by these crafts for a raise in wages, had gone outside its legitimate scope.  In New York City an investigation by a special legislative committee uncovered a state of reeking corruption among the leadership in the building trades’ council and among an element in the employing group in connection with a successful attempt to establish a virtual local monopoly in building.  Some of the leading corruptionists on both sides were given court sentences and the building trades’ council accepted modifications in the “working rules” formulated by the counsel for the investigating committee.  In Chicago a situation developed in many respects similar to the one in San Francisco.  In a wage dispute, which was submitted by both sides to Federal Judge K.M.  Landis for arbitration, the award authorized not only a wage reduction but a revision of the “working rules” as well.  Most of the unionists refused to abide by the award and the situation developed into literal warfare.  In Chicago the employers’ side was aggressively upheld by a “citizens’ committee” formed to enforce the Landis award.  The committee claimed to have imported over 10,000 out-of-town building mechanics to take the places of the strikers.

In the autumn of 1921 the employers in the packing industry discontinued the arrangement whereby industrial relations were administered by an “administrator,"[94] Judge Alschuler of Chicago, whose rulings had materially restricted the employers’ control in the shop.  Some of the employers put into effect company union plans.  This led to a strike, but in the end the unions lost their foothold in the industry, which the War had enabled them to acquire.  By that time, however, the open-shop movement seemed already passing its peak, without having caused an irreparable breach in the position of organized labor.  Evidently, the long years of preparation before the War and the great opportunity during the War itself, if they have failed to give trade unionism the position of a recognized national institution, have at least made it immune from destruction by employers, however general or skillfully managed the attack.  In 1920 the total organized union membership, including the 871,000 in unions unaffiliated with the American Federation of Labor, was slightly short of 5,000,000, or over four million in the Federation itself.  In 1921 the membership of the Federation declined slightly to 3,906,000, and the total organized membership probably in proportion.  In 1922 the membership of the Federation declined to about 3,200,000, showing a loss of about 850,000 since the high mark of 1920.