In 1885, he proposed the creation of a Department of Labor, which he suggested would find a solution to disputes between labor and management. Labor tensions increased the following year as the Knights of Labor went on strike against Jay Gould's rail empire, and a strike against the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company ended in the bloody Haymarket riot. Weaver believed the nation's hard-money policies were responsible for labor unrest, calling it "purely a question of money, and nothing else" and declaring, "If this Congress will not protect labor, it must protect itself". He saw the triumph of one plank of the Greenback platform when Congress established the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate the railroads. Weaver thought the bill should have given the government more power, including the ability to set rates directly, but he voted for the final bill.