By the second half of 1916 the war prosperity was in full swing. Cost of living was rising rapidly and movements for higher wages became general. The practical stoppage of immigration enabled common labor to get a larger share than usual of the prosperity. Many employers granted increases voluntarily. Simultaneously, a movement for the eight-hour day was spreading from strictly munitions-making trades into others and was meeting with remarkable success. But 1916 witnessed what was doubtless the most spectacular move for the eight-hour day in American history--the joint eight-hour demand by the four railway brotherhoods, the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. The effectiveness acquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkable success with which these four organizations, with the full support of the whole labor movement at their back and aided by a not unfriendly attitude on the part of the national Administration, brought to bay the greatest single industry of the country and overcame the opposition of the entire business class. The four brotherhoods made a joint demand for an eight-hour day early in 1916.[84] The railway officials claimed that the demand for the reduction of the work-day from ten to eight hours with ten hours' pay and a time and a half rate for overtime was not made in good faith. Since, they said, the employes ought to have known that the railways could not be run on an eight-hour day, the demand was but a covert attempt to gain a substantial increase in their wages, which were already in advance of any of the other skilled workers. On the other hand, the brotherhoods stoutly maintained during their direct negotiations with the railway companies and in the public press that their demand was a _bona fide_ demand and that they believed that the railway business did admit of a reorganization substantially on an eight-hour basis. The railway officials offered to submit to arbitration the demand of the men together with counter demands of their own. The brotherhoods, however, fearing prejudice and recalling to mind past disappointments, declined the proposal and threatened to tie up the whole transportation system of the country by a strike on Labor Day.