The correct answer to this open question is the following.
Although there are no options attached or not references or context mentioned, we can say the following.
The "suicidal policy" of employers that Powderly wants to end is the isolation movements of associations such as the International Working People Association(IWPA), trying to minimize the worker's struggles to improve the economic conditions. What Terence Powderly tried to resolve but he couldn't, was the labor struggles with techniques he advocated to minimize the inequities of capitalism. Workers wanted to control the cooperatives. But he, as the leader of the Knights of Labour at the end of the 1880s, could not have the capacity and skills to support the labor movement that wanted to go on strike, but he did not support this method either back the labor unions that wanted to go on strike. He was a feeble leader.
