<P> Starting in the mid-1880s a new group, the Knights of Labor, grew rapidly . Too rapidly, for it spun out of control and failed to handle the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886 . The Knights avoided violence, but their reputation collapsed in the wake of the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago in 1886, when anarchists allegedly bombed the policemen dispersing a meeting . Police then randomly fired into the crowd, killing and wounding a number of people, including other police, and arbitrarily rounded up anarchists, including leaders of the movement . Seven anarchists went on trial; four were hanged even though no evidence directly linked them to the bombing . One had in his possession a Knights of Labor membership card . At its peak, the Knights claimed 700,000 members . By 1890, membership had plummeted to fewer than 100,000, then faded away . </P> <P> Strikes organized by labor unions became routine events by the 1880s as the gap between the rich and the poor widened . There were 37,000 strikes between 1881 and 1905 . By far the largest number were in the building trades, followed far behind by coal miners . The main goal was control of working conditions and settling which rival union was in control . Most were of very short duration . In times of depression strikes were more violent but less successful, because the company was losing money anyway . They were successful in times of prosperity when the company was losing profits and wanted to settle quickly . </P> <P> The largest and most dramatic strike was the 1894 Pullman Strike, a coordinated effort to shut down the national railroad system . The strike was led by the upstart American Railway Union led by Eugene V. Debs and was not supported by the established brotherhoods . The union defied federal court orders to stop blocking the mail trains, so President Cleveland used the U.S. Army to get the trains moving again . The ARU vanished and the traditional railroad brotherhoods survived, but avoided strikes . </P> <P> The new American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers, found the solution . The AFL was a coalition of unions, each based on strong local chapters; the AFL coordinated their work in cities and prevented jurisdictional battles . Gompers repudiated socialism and abandoned the violent nature of the earlier unions . The AFL worked to control the local labor market, thereby empowering its locals to obtain higher wages and more control over hiring . As a result, the AFL unions spread to most cities, reaching a peak membership in 1919 . </P>

Which of the following phrases does not describe the gilded age in america