56 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
A large section composed of the less foresighted mem- 
bers of the capitalistic and managerial groups desired to 
eliminate all wartime restrictions, especially in connection 
with industrial relations. They looked upon the growth 
of government regulation during the war as a menace. 
They advocated freedom in fixing prices of commodities 
and answered the popular post-war criticism against high 
prices and profiteering by the claim that excessive prices 
were due to high wages. To increase still more the rates 
of pay of industrial workers was to their minds only 
adding another link to the “vicious circle” of higher wages 
and, in turn, higher prices. 
Organized labor, on the other hand, was discontented 
and impatient because rates of pay had not kept pace with 
the rapid rise of living costs prior to the Armistice. After 
the cessation of conflict and the gradual removal of gov- 
ernment control of prices, this tendency became even more 
pronounced. Real wages rapidly declined, and urgent 
demands were made for higher rates of pay. Delays in 
adjusting these demands led to a nation-wide strike of 
bituminous coal miners in the autumn of 1919, and of a 
so-called “outlaw” railroad strike of switchmen and other 
employees in the early part of 1920. Railroad workers, 
against the instructions of their own union officials, stopped 
work and for several months caused serious dislocations 
and breakdowns in the transportation systems. 
There was, in addition, widespread dissatisfaction in 
other basic industries, accompanied by many strikes. Indi- 
vidual workmen were restive under trade-union discipline. 
The great majority claimed that they had borne a loss of 
real wages during the war. Since the Armistice, they 
further declared, the removal of price-control agencies had 
resulted in such a skyrocketing of living costs, and in 
such further decreases in real wages, that they had no