In 1877 occurred the first of the great labor struggles in that long series of campaigns which have marked the relations of capitalists and workingmen during the past four decades. In that year, trouble began between the management of the Baltimore and Ohio railway and its employees over a threatened reduction in wages--the fourth within a period of seven years. From this starting point the contest spread throughout the East and Middle West, reaching as far as Texas. Inasmuch as there was already considerable unemployment, the strikers saw that only by violence and intimidation could they hope to prevent the companies from moving their trains. Troops were called out by the governors of several states and Federal assistance was invoked. Pittsburgh fell almost completely into the hands of the strikers; railway buildings were burned and property to the value of more than ten million dollars destroyed. Everywhere the raw militia of the states was found to be inefficient for such a serious purpose, and the superior power of the Federal Government's regular troops was demonstrated. Where railways were in the hands of receivers, Federal courts intervened by the use of injunctions and the first blood in the contest between the judiciary and labor was drawn. The last, but perhaps most significant, result of the industrial revolution above described has been the rise of enormous combinations and corporations in industry as well as in transportation. An increasing proportion of the business of the country has passed steadily into corporate, as contrasted with individual, ownership;[10] and this implies a momentous change in the rights, responsibilities, and economic theories of the owners of capital. Moreover, it involves the creation of a new class of men, not entrepreneurs in the old sense, but organizers of already established concerns into larger units. The industrial revolution had not advanced very far before an intense competition began to force business men to combine to protect themselves against their own weapons. As early as 1879 certain oil interests of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other centers had begun to control competition by making agreements through their officers. Three years later, they devised an excellent scheme for a closer organization in the formation of a "trust." They placed all their stocks in the hands of nine trustees, including John D. Rockefeller, who issued in return certificates representing the proportionate share of each holder in the concern, and managed the entire business in the interests of the holders.