The strikes failed in every case but their moral effect was enormous. The general public still retained a fresh memory of the Commune of Paris of 1871 and feared for the foundations of the established order. The wage earners, on the other hand, felt that the strikers had not been fairly dealt with. It was on this intense labor discontent that the greenback agitation fed and grew. Whereas in 1876 the greenback labor vote was negligible, notwithstanding the exhortations by many of the former trade union leaders who turned greenback agitators, now, following the great strikes, greenbackism became primarily a labor movement. Local Greenback-Labor parties were being organized everywhere and a national Greenback-Labor party was not far behind in forming. The continued industrial depression was a decisive factor, the winter of 1877-1878 marking perhaps the point of its greatest intensity. Naturally the greenback movement was growing apace. One of the notable successes in the spring of 1878 was the election of Terence V. Powderly, later Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor, as mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Congressional election in the autumn of 1878 marked the zenith of the movement. The aggregate greenback vote cast in the election exceeded a million, and fourteen Representatives were sent to Congress. In New England the movement was strong enough to poll almost a third of the total vote in Maine, over 8 percent of the total vote in both Connecticut and New Hampshire, and from 4 to 6 percent, in the other States. In Maine the greenbackers elected 32 members of the upper house and 151 members of the lower house and one Congressman, Thompson Murch of Rochland, who was secretary of the National Granite Cutters' Union. However, the bulk of the vote in that State was obviously agricultural. In Massachusetts, the situation was dominated by General Benjamin F. Butler, lifelong Republican politician, who had succeeded in getting the Democratic nomination for governor and was endorsed by the Greenback convention. He received a large vote but was defeated for office. But just as the Greenback-Labor movement was assuming promising proportions a change for the better in the industrial situation cut under the very roots of its existence. In addition, one month after the election of 1878, its principal issue disappeared. January 1, 1879, was the date fixed by the act for resumption of redemption of greenbacks in gold and on December 17, 1878, the premium on gold disappeared. From that day on, the greenback became a dead issue.