European socialists watching the sudden growth of the Knights were impressed, confused, and amused. Friedrich Engels, the coauthor with Karl Marx of The Communist Manifesto, regarded the organization, beliefs, and actions of the Knights of Labor as an “American paradox.” Their “immense association” represented “all shades of individual and local opinion within the working class.” Their constitution was authoritarian but “impracticable.” What united them was “the instinctive feeling that the very fact of clubbing together for their common cause makes them a very great power in the country; a
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