THE PAPER CAP

A Story Of Love And Labor

By Amelia E. Barr

“A king may wear a golden crown,

A Paper Cap is lighter;

And when the crown comes tumbling down

The Paper Cap sits tighter

Frontispiece By Stockton Mulford

D. Appleton And Company New York

1918.

TO SAMUEL GOMPERS

THE WORKER’S FRIEND THIS STORY OF LABOR’S FORTY YEARS’ STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

This is the Gospel of Labor,

Ring it, ye bells of the Kirk,

The Lord of Love came down from above

To live with the people who work.

Henry Van Dyke

The headdress of nationalities, and of public and private societies, has been in all ages a remarkable point of interest. Religion, Poetry, Politics, superstitions, and so forth, have all found expression by the way they dressed or covered their heads. Priests, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, traders, professions of all kinds are known by some peculiar covering of the head which they assume. None of these symbols are without interest, and most of them typify the character or intents of their wearers.

The Paper Cap has added to its evident story a certain amount of mystery, favorable in so far as it permits us to exercise our ingenuity in devising a probable reason for its selection as the symbol of Labor. A very industrious search has not yet positively revealed it. No public or private collection of old prints of the seventeenth century that I have seen or heard from has any representation of an English working man wearing a Paper Cap. There is nothing of the kind in any Hone’s four large volumes of curious matters; nor does Notes and Queries mention it. Not until the agitation and the political disturbance attending the Reform Bill, is it seen or mentioned. Then it may be found in the rude woodcuts and chap books of the time while in every town and village it soon became as familiar as the men who wore it.

Now, if the working man was looking for a symbol, there are many reasons why the Paper Cap would appeal to him. It is square, straight, upright; it has no brim. It permits the wearer to have full

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