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