pations whose hazards and conditions could best be remedied by authorized control from the outside, the A. F. of L. has advocated and secured legislation, both federal and state.

In 1885 the organizations affiliated to the A. F. of L. inaugurated a campaign to reduce their hours of labor to eight by May 1, 1886. The general concerted movement begun then by organizations to establish shorter workdays continues with increasing power and effectiveness. Whatever has been done to decrease the number of hours that the workers must toil daily has been accomplished by the organizations of the workers. No one can deny that the labor movement has made tremendous progress during the past thirty. four years in decreasing the hours of labor. To some this progress may seem slow, but when considered in connection with the complications and difficulties involved, it is a magnificent achievement. Each group of workers that has forced its way up to a vantage ground has been a force to help other fellowworkers upward. Slowly and steadily as this leverage group has grown, so has the chain of workers assisted from the depths of grinding labor through many hours.

Where the eight-hour day has been secured in private establishments as the result of trade union activity, it has been because the workers realized the value of the shorter workday-realized the value so intensely they were willing to fight for it. When as a result of their own economic action a shorter workday is established, the workers stand ready and able to enforce it and they alone are vitally interested in enforcing it. The effect of this method is to foster an independent, aggressive spirit among the workers; to make them able and alert to watch over and to protect their interests. Such a spirit is the best guarantee of progressive development-that each new opportunity will be appreciated and improved. The workers themselves are best able to determine their own interests and to manage their own affairs. Where peculiar conditions or relations with employers exist that make economic activity not the best method, eight hours have been secured for many by legislative action.

In opposition to the established policy of the A. F. of L., founded upon principles of efficiency and human freedom, come those who would lead all workers into the promised land "by a short-cut." Just a little writing upon a ballot and the whole nature and organization of industry is changed in the twinkling of an eye. Let eight-hour laws be enacted for all men and women-that is all we need, prescribe these theorists. Trust all things to the government, for the government is good, wise and all powerful. Let the government tell employers to establish a general eight-hour workday, and straightway it shall be so.

Alas for such trusting, guileless faith! Legislation is effective only when it expresses the will of the people, people able and ready to enforce their will. Until the working people are convinced they must have the eight-hour day, it would not be enforced. In other words, progress depends upon individual development and collective, determined expression.

This experience is substantiated by the following incident, showing English experience: In 1905, when a reception was tendered to us by the trade

union members of the House of Commons in England, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, Mr. D. J. Shackleton, responding to our criticism of subordinating trade union activity to the political, said substantially:

“Mr. Gompers is right; it is a fact, at least in the textile industry, that wherever the greatest activity for the Labor Party prevails among the workers in those districts, trade union organization is weakest, wages are lowest, and general conditions of employment are poorest."

The workers can not be saved; they must save themselves. The shorter workday for the unorganized and for women is a problem of organization. Let us not be beguiled into short-cut methods that lead into the quicksands of lethargy imposed by legislation. Industrial betterment and progress lie in the well-known paths-agitation, education, organization!

Trade union movement now constitutes an economic state within the politica' state, determining and regulating those things that can best be dealt with through economic activity. With splendid independence the A. F. of L. deals its economic problems without asking political favors. Any deviation from this tried and established policy would weaken the militancy and independence of the Federation and its affiliated organizations.

COLORADO
MINERS' STRIKE
COMMISSION

The fact that the mine operators of Colorado rejected the agreement proposed by the federal government did not change President Wilson's conviction that the plan was obviously fair and sensible. A sense of duty forbade that he do nothing. He therefore appointed the commissioners provided for in the proposed plan of adjustment. The men named are to serve as a committee through which the miners may state their case and to which differences are to be referred for decision. The commission constitutes an agency through which the differences of the employers and the miners can be adjusted. The following experienced men compose the board: Seth Low, president of The National Civic Federation, who has served as mediator in several labor disputes; Charles W. Mills, of Philadelphia, a bituminous operator who has acted as mediator for the Department of Labor several times; and Patrick Gilday, president of District No. 2, of the United Mine Workers, who has served as mediator with Mr. Mills on other occasions.

The miners' organization had agreed to the President's plan as conceding many of their contentions. When the President appointed this commission the miners voted to declare the strike off in order not to embarrass or impede the work of the federal commission. Upon that commission now rests the duty to ascertain what is just and to use its good influences for its establishment.

The emphatic condemnation which the mine operators of Colorado have evoked from the American people has not been decreased by their unqualified and unreasonable rejection of all proposals to adjust the mining difficulties that caused the strike.

The arrogance which the mine operators manifested in dealing with the federal government and the nation's interests was a counterpart to the

arrogance with which they treated the miners as employes and as strikers. That arrogance has its roots in the great power which their property holdings give them-power which enabled them to control not only the working conditions, but the home lives of their employes; power which enabled them to declare any act, social, economic or political, not in furtherance of their financial interests, a violation of their property rights. We have asserted again and again that the fundamental problem, not only in Colorado but in West Virginia and in Michigan, is the tremendous power that results from owning large tracts of land which take on the outward semblance of feudal estates, governed and policed by private individuals and under ownership of absolutism. The problem of preventing private property rights from interfering with social welfare can not be solved by the federal commission.

The Colorado coal strike has not failed; the miners step aside that the federal commission may have an open field. The Colorado strike has done more to burn the cause of unionism into the hearts and habits of the coal miners than decades of agitation could have done. It has demonstrated that the only power that stands between them and ruthless exploitation by their employers is the trade union organization. The lawlessness, the cynical brutality and disregard for human life have furnished unanswerable arguments for the necessity of organization. Unionism born of such desperate struggles is unionism that endures.

The Colorado strike has given wide publicity to the wrongs and injustice which have been inflicted on the miners. Benefits will come to them because they have demonstrated their power, because employers will no longer dare to continue all the former abuses, since they have been made to understand and feel that financially it is too costly, and their course stands condemned before the judgment of the people.

The work of organization will go steadily on in Colorado. Collective action is the only defense the miners have against private aggression and exploitation-the only instrumentality of justice upon which the workers can rely.

An appeal has been issued to the members of organized labor for aid for fellow

A CALL
FOR HELP

workers whose efforts to advance the cause of Labor have brought them to a condition of great need. The textile workers of Atlanta, Georgia, have been waging the first big strike of organized labor in the cotton mills of the South. A year ago last October the textile workers began to organize. Seventy-two were discharged because of their union activity-they were guilty of forming a union. This was a declaration that they would be denied an opportunity to better their condition by peaceful methods. A strike followed. The principal conditions which the workers wished to abolish or to remedy were a vicious contract system, a system of unfair fines and extremely low wages.

They have been struggling determinedly to enforce those demands. As wages were extremely low, they had little, if anything, for maintenance during the strike. Evictions forced the strikers and their families from their rented

CONVENTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL UNIONS, 1915

January 11, Kansas City, Mo., Journeymen Stone Cutters' Association of North America.

January 11, Anacortes, Wash., International Union of Timberworkers.

April 24, New York, N. Y., National Print Cutters' Association of America.

May 1, New York, N. Y., United Cloth, Hat and Cap Makers of North America.

May 4, Louisville, Ky., Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers of North America.

May 10, New York, N. Y., United Hatters of North America.

May 10, St. Louis, Mo., Order of Railroad Telegraphers.

May 10, San Francisco, Cal, American Federation of Musicians.

May 19, Buffalo, N. Y., Switchmen's Union of North America.

May 29, Washington, D. C., Steel Plate Transferrers' Association of America.

Buffalo, N. Y., International Union of Journeymen Horseshoers of United States and Canada.

June 7, Philadelphia, Pa., International Fur Workers' Union of United States and Canada.

June 7, San Francisco, Cal., International Association of Marble Workers.

June 14, Washington, D. C., International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers' Union of North America.

June 14, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America.

June 14, San Francisco, Cal., Hotel and Restaurant Employes' International Alliance and Bartenders' International League of America.

June 17, New York, N. Y., White Rats Actors' Union of America.

June 21, Chicago, Ill., Amalgamated Glass Workers' International Association.

June 21, Buffalo, N. Y., Boot and Shoe Workers' Union.

July, Atlantic City, N. J., National Brotherhood of Operative Potters.

July 5, New York, N. Y., Piano, Organ, and Musical Instrument Workers' International Union of America.

July 5, Chicago, Ill., International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes of America.

July 19,

of America.

Upholsterers' International Union

July 20, Milwaukee, Wis., Retail Clerks' International Protective Association.

August, San Francisco, Cal., International Brotherhood of Roofers, Composition, Damp and Waterproof Workers of the United States and Canada.

August 2, Detroit, Mich., Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance.

August 2, San Francisco, Cal., International Seamen's Union of America.

August 2, East St. Louis, Ill., Glass Bottle Blowers' Association of the United States and Canada.

August 2, Cincinnati, Ohio, International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen.

August 3, Detroit, Mich., International Glove Workers' Union of America.

August 9, Los Angeles, Cal., International Typographical Union.

August 16, San Francisco, Cal., International Photo-Engravers' Union of North America.

September

-, International Union of Carriage, Wagon and Automobile Workers of North America.

September -
San Francisco, Cal., American
Brotherhood of Cement Workers.

September 6, San Francisco, Cal., National
Federation of Post-office Clerks.

September 9, Boston, Mass., Spinners' International Union.

September 13, Rochester, N. Y., Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes of America.

September 15, Minneapolis, Minn., Brotherhood of Railroad Freight Handlers.

September 20, San Francisco, Cal., International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. September 20, San Francisco, Cal., Coopers' International Union of North America.

September, St. Paul, Minn., International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers of America.

October 4, San Francisco, Cal., International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen, and Helpers of America.

October 18, New York, N. Y., United Textile Workers of America.

November 8, San Francisco, Cal., American Federation of Labor.