some sort of legerdemain criminal when done by two or more persons acting in concert, and this upon the theory that the concerted action amounts to a conspiracy.

But with this doctrine we do not agree.

If an individual is clothed with a right when acting alone, he does not lose such right merely by acting with others, each of whom is clothed with the same right.

If the act done is lawful, the combination of action is not an element which gives character to the act.

It is the illegality of the purpose to be accomplished or the illegal means used in the furtherance of the purpose which makes the act illegal.

Since the decision of the United States Supreme Court, in the Hatters' case, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, taking its cue therefrom, and from other federal court injunctions and decisions, has decided that it is illegal for workmen to engage in a strike in support of their fellow-workmen, and that they are thereby liable to fine and imprisonment.

The highest court in Massachusetts has quite recently sustained an injunction against a labor organization (bricklayers' union), enjoining the union from fining two of its members who violated the rules of the union to become strike-breakers.

Bill Amending Sherman Anti-Trust Law. When the Supreme Court decision was rendered, declaring that the labor organizations come under the Sherman anti-trust law, with all the suits, fines, and imprisonment involved, the Executive Council and I prepared a bill and placed it in the hands of the Hon. William B. Wilson, member of the United Mine Workers of America and representing in Congress the Fifteenth District of Pennsylvania, of which the following is a copy:

H. R. 20584.-To amend the act appro ved July 2, 1890 entitled "An act to protect trade and commerce against any unlawful restraints and monopolies."

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the act approved July 2, 1890, entitled "An act to protect trade and commerce against any unlawful restraints and monopolies," be, and the same is hereby, amended by adding at the end of said act the following section:

That nothing in said act is intended nor shall any provision thereof hereafter be enforced so as to apply to organizations or associations not for profit and without capital stock, nor to the members of such organizations or associations.

That nothing in said act is intended nor shall any provision thereof hereafter be enforced so as to apply to any arrangements, agreements, or combinations among persons engaged in agriculture or horticulture made with a view of enhancing the price of their own agricultural or horticultural product.

That bill was smothered in the sub-committee of the House judiciary committee. The Wilson bill would not confer any added privilege upon the organizations of the wage earners. It would only restore to them the rights of which they were shorn by the United States Supreme Court.

Bill to Regulate Injunctions.

The Pearre bill (H. R. 94) for the regulation of the issuance of injunctions, repeatedly, emphatically, and unanimously indorsed by several conventions of the A. F. of L. is as follows:

H. R. 94. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no restraining order or injunction shall be granted by any court of the United States, or a Judge or the judges thereof, in any case between an employer and an employe, or between employers and employes, or between employes, or between persons employed to labor and persons seeking employment as laborers, or between persons seeking employment as laborers, or involving or growing out

of a dispute concerning terms or conditions of employment, unless necessary to prevent irrepar able injury to property or to a property right of the party making the application, for which injury there is no adequate remedy at law, and such property or property right must be particularly described in the application, which must be in writing and sworn to by the applicant or by his, her, or its agent or attorney. And for the purposes of this act no right to continue the relation of employer and employe or to assume or create such relation with any particular person or persons, or at all, or to carry on business of any particular kind, or at any particular place, or at all, shall be construed, held, considered, or treated as property or as constituting a property right.

Sec. 2. That in cases arising in the courts of the United States or coming before said courts, or before any judge or the judges thereof, no agreement between two or more persons concerning the terms or conditions of employment of labor, or the assumption or creation or termination of any relation between employer and employe, or concerning any act or thing to be done or not to be done with reference to or involving or growing out of a labor dispute, shall constitute a conspiracy or other criminal offense or be punished or prosecuted as such unless the act or thing agreed to be done or not to be done would be unlawful if done by a single individual, nor shall the entering into or the carrying out of any such agreement be restrained or enjoined unless such act or thing agreed to be done would be subject to be restrained or enjoined under the provisions, limitations, and definition contained in the first section of this act. Sec. 3. That all acts and parts of acts in conflict with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed.

This bill was also smothered by the House judiciary committee.

Having quoted the features of the Wilson and the Pearre bill, let us consider the provisions of the British trades dispute act passed by the Parliament of monarchical England in December, 1906, less than two years ago. They are as follows:

An act done in pursuance of an agreement or combination by two or more persons shall, if done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, not be actionable unless the act, if done without any such agreement or combination, would be actionable.

It shall be lawful for one or more persons, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade union or of an individual employer or firm in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, to attend at or near a house or place where a person resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, if they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working.

An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or his labor as he wills.

An action against a trade union, whether of workmen or masters, or against any members or officials thereof on behalf of themselves and all other members of the trade union in respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the trade union, shall not be entertained by any court.

Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of the trustees of a trade union to be sued in the events provided for by the trades union act, 1871, section nine, except in respect of any tortious act committed by or on behalf of the union in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute.

It will be observed that what the working people of our republic ask at the hands of our Congress is fully within the bounds of the law enacted in the monarchy of Great Britain. Recently some one said that such a law could be enacted by the British Parliament, because special legislation is permissible and even natural, since each dominant class has legislated in and for its own interests, while in our country we have a written constitution forbidding special legislation. The fact of the matter is, that if the Supreme Court of the United States is correct in its interpretation of the Sherman anti-trust law, applying its terms to the

voluntary organizations of labor, then we could say that we have special legislation affecting the voluntary organizations of the working people in the exercise of their natural rights, when it would not apply to any other voluntary organization, and when the law was specially enacted to protect the people from the combinations, trusts, and monopolies Surely the British Parliament, under a monarchy, would not accord special privileges and special rights; to give to the workers of that country a power and a privilege to exercise such activities which were either unjust or harmful to the people or the institutions of that country.

Undaunted by opposition, no matter how keen or malignant, I recommend that we renew our efforts with greater energy and insistence upon the passage of the principles contained in the Wilson and Pearre bills.

The aim of our unions is to improve the standard of life; to foster education and instill character, manhood and an independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man upon his fellow-man. We aim to establish a normal workday, to take the children from the factory and workshop; to give them the opportunity of the school, the home, and the playground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate the workers, make their homes more cheerful, and in every way contribute the earnest effort to make life the better worth living. To achieve these praiseworthy ends, we believe that all honorable and lawful means are both justifiable and commendable, and will receive the sympathetic support of every liberty-loving, right-thinking American.

Can labor's opponents imagine themselves in a "fool's paradise," where they can succeed in crushing out the organizations of labor from our public life and body politic, the unions which have done so much to bring light and hope into the workshop and the home, to protect the rights and interest and well-being of the American workers?

Our labor organizations are a necessary and inevitable outgrowth of modern industrial conditions. To deny the unions of labor the exercise of their normal activities for the protection and advancement of the workers and the advancement of society in general, is to do a great injury to all our people. Does any one imagine that America's workers will submit to the injustice, the greed and rapacity of unchecked corporate wealth without some form of resistance?

Suppose the trade and labor unions of America could be crushed and driven out of existence by legislation and court decrees; what then? Is it not true that each worker will become an irre.sponsible man without association with his fellows, without opportunity for consultation, and without the restraining as well as the constructive influence which open and voluntary organization gives? Then would the workers seek their own redress in their own individual way. Is such a condition desirable, or tolerable to the normal, rational, intelligent. peaceful organizations of labor of our day? I opine not. Such a condition must not and will not transpire.

The American labor movement is founded upon the inherent principles of justice and right. Its men are loyal, as loyal to the institutions of our republic as can be found in any walk of life. The

unions of labor and our Federation have done so much for the material, moral, and social uplift of the toilers that they will be indelibly impressed upon the hearts and minds, not only of the workers themselves, but of every earnest, intelligent, liberty-loving, fair-minded citizen of our country.

The unions of labor will live. They can not be, they must not be, they will not be driven out of existence. They will demand relief at the hands of Congress, not in some dim, distant future time, but now.

Legislation.

Congress passed a law to compensate employes in the government service who may meet with accident while in that service. We have urged the application of the principle in a general employers' liability law, but without avail.

Congress passed a law forbidding the labor of children under 14 years of age in the District of Columbia. It required great effort to secure the passage of this law. The committee of Congress having the bill in charge reported one with the age limit of children for 12 years. When this bill was reported by the chairman, I addressed a letter to the Hon. J. Van Vechten Olcott, from which I quote the following:

I see that the committee on the District of Columbia has reported a bill to the House upon the subject-matter dealing with the question of child labor in the District of Columbia. I note also that the bill provides the 12year age limit; that is, the labor of children in manufactories, etc., under the age of 12 years is prohibited.

In connection with the subject-matter, may I submit to you the fact that the enactment of a bill containing the age limit of 12 years can do naught but work mischief and great injury to the movement which seeks to eliminate the worst elements of child labor in the industrial affairs of our country. No one in our time undertakes to defend the exploitation of the young and the innocent children for profit in industry. The heart and the conscience and the good sense of our people have been aroused against the great wrong and injury resulting from the labor of young and innocent children. So far as this reform movement has gone, in 35 of our states the law upon the statute books provides the 14-year age limit and in only nine is there a law providing for the 12-year age limit.

If the Congress of the United States were to enact a law by which the age limit of the labor of children would be set at 12 years, it would be the severest blow which this humane movement could receive. Here in the capital of the United States, with Congress legislating upon this subject, it would seem that even a fair conception of right and duty would permit the enactment of a law that shall set the age permitting children to work in the industries of Washington at not less than 14 years.

The fac that there is no law upon the statute books regulating or limiting the labor of children in the District of Columbia is a severe reflection in itself. To now enact a law that would set the permissive age at 12 years for children to labor would not only be a serious mistake and contribute to retard the progressive movement toward eliminating child labor, but, as already stated, would be regarded as reactionary in the extreme. It were far better that Congre-8 would not enact a law upon the subject at all than to pass the bill reported by your committee to the House.

I am sure that I but reflect the sentiment, and the deep-seated sentiment, of the demands of all the people of our country, when I urge that your committee and Congress will ch nge the proposed bill so as to raise the age limit to 14 years.

The protest had its effect and the age limit was raised to 14 years. Congress failed to make any provision for inspectors or other officers to enforce the law. The government of the District of Columbia is, however, making an effort to enforce it.

I recommend that we urge upon Congress the appropriation of sufficient funds for the passage of

a supplementary law providing for permanent annual appropriations and for the designation of inspectors and officers for the rigid enforcement of the District of Columbia child labor law.

The law passed by Congress prescribing the limit of hours for telegraphers and other railway employes, has been declared unconstitutional by one of the federal courts, as has also been declared unconstitutional the law providing for the liability of common carriers engaged in interstate commerce for accidents to their employes.

Some Supreme Court Decisions.

It may be well to recite acts recently declared unconstitutional by our federal courts:

The law of the state of New York limiting the hours of workmen in bake shops to 10 per day;

The law prohibiting common carriers engaged in interstate commerce from discharging employes because of membership in a labor organization, or discharging them for any reason;

The law limiting the hours of telegraphers and other railway employes of common carriers engaged in interstate commerce;

The eight hour law so far as it applies to dredge men in government employ.

The Supreme Court has decided in the Arago case, Robertson vs. Barry Baldwin, that seamen may be forcibly brought to their vessels and forced to work against their will, notwithstanding the vessels may be in safe harbor, thereby imposing involuntary servitude upon them.

Litigation Harassing Labor.

Since the United States Supreme Court decision the executive officers of the A. F. of L. and others have been made defendants in a suit brought by the W. R. Thompson Marble Co., a corporation of Denver, Colo. In this case the Executive Council and myself had neither individual nor official information that any controversy existed between the complaining firm and the union of the trade, and yet it is obligatory for us to retain counsel for defense.

It is quite evident that it is the purpose of Labor's opponents to entangle us in constant litigation before the courts, involving not only our time and attention, but enormous expense for legal counsel, printing, and court fees. The expenditures of time and money have been enormously increased in recent times, since the further abuse of the injunction writ and the Hatters' decision of the Supreme Court, all of which have been taken advantage of by all union haters, conspicuous among whom are the National Association of Manufacturers, of which Mr. Van Cleave is president.

It is a matter of great concern how we shall be enabled to meet these legal expenses. The moneys received by the assessment and authorized by the last convention, and contributed voluntarily by the men of labor upon the appeal issued to them, have been almost entirely exhausted. The appeal case in the injunction suit of the Bucks' Stove and Range Co. against the A. F. of L. has not yet been argued.

The contempt proceedings against Messrs. Mitchell, Morrison, and myself have just closed. The Executive Council or I may again be cited for contempt of court, because I have undertaken to report the status of the case to this convention; and no one can foretell to what limits the contempt proceedings, injunction cases and other

suits may extend. For one, I am free to say that I shall not recommend the levying of additional assessments or making appeals for voluntary contributions in legal defense of these cases. If it is the intention of those who are hostile to the interests of the toilers of our country to take advantage of the trend of court decisions for the usurpation of the toilers' rights by the injunctions, let them proceed as they will without our assuming to do the impossib e; that is, to be represented by competent legal counsel. If the situation is to become so acute, let us personally, as best we can, defend our rights before the courts, taking whatever consequences may ensue. For one, I can see no remedy for these outrageous proceedings, unless there shall be a quickening of the conscience of our judges or the relief which the Congress of our country can and should afford.

Legislation and Political Action.

For years the toilers have asked legislation of Congress and the state legislatures, which these law-making bodies can grant, and which can be obtained in no other way. The workers have not sought to secure by legislation, or at the hands of government, what they could accomplish by their own initiative and activities.

We have presented legislative measures justified by the development of industrial needs and the conditions of our people, founded upon the essentials of justice and equality before the law, which have for their object the restoration and perpetuation of individual liberty and human freedom. We have asked Congress for the following legislation:

Amendment of the eight hour law, so as to extend its provisions to all government employes and to the employes of contractors and sub-contractors doing work for or on behalf of the government.

A law to regulate the labor of convicts, that the states may protect their free citizens from the unfair competition of the products of convict labor. General employers' liability law.

A law to protect American work men from the wholesale and unrestricted immigration of foreign workmen who are brought to our country to lower the American standard of life.

A law that shall safeguard not only American workers, but American civilization from all Asiatic immigration.

A law creating a department of labor independent of any other department of the government, with a secretary at its head who shall have a seat in the President's cabinet, on an equality with the secretaries of all other departments, and who, in the President's councils, may have the opportunity to advise a rightful course and to say the right word at the right time for the men and women of labor of our country, the men and women who are performing so great a service to society.

A law that shall accord to the seamen employed on privately owned vessels the rights conceded to all other workmen, when their vessels are in safe harbor.

Laws promotive of the protection and advancement of material interests of the workers, in such instances only where the object sought could not be secured through the initiative and the activities of the workers themselves.

Each and all of these laws have been denied at the hands of Congress.

But in the recent past, questions of more transcendent importance have arisen. The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Danbury Hatters' case has, as already reported to you, placed our voluntary organizations of labor in the category of monopolies, trusts, and combinations in illegal restraint of trade. As that law now stands, it outlaws and makes civilly liable in threefold damages and in prosecution by the federal government by fine and imprisonment the members of labor organizations who collectively exercise their normal, natural functions and activities of organized existence in furtherance of their natural and personal rights.

Abuse and perversion of the injunction writ have grown to alarming proportions. Recent injunctions forbid the exercise of free speech, free press, freedom of assembly, and the right of petition. Indeed, the abuse of the injunction writ has revolutionized our Anglo-Saxon judicial system and sense of justice.

Under the present abuse of the injunction there is no longer a necessity for anyone to be charged with crime and proven guilty in order to be punished. The presumption of innocence of the accused is no longer a truism. By the injunction process as now issued against men of labor engaged in a dispute with employers the accused must prove his innocence and must "show cause" why he should not be fined and imprisoned. That cherished institution, trial by jury, the safeguard of the people against tyranny, has been dispensed with by the perversion of the injunction writ, and instead of this safeguard of human liberty, a single judge, sitting in a court of equity, may disregard all accepted rules of procedure and of evidence and substitute his own opinion of what may appear to him to be just and right.

To meet and overcome this great fundamental wrong, repugnant to our constitution and to the history and the traditions of our republic and our civilization, the Pearre bill (H. R. 94) was presented to Congress for enactment. At every meeting of workmen in the entire country at any time when the subject of the abuse of the injunc tion writ was discussed they have been united in protest and denunciation against the abuse of injunction and have demanded legal enactment that would restore them to equality before the law with all other citizens of our common country.

Every city central body, every convention of international unions and of the A. F. of L., in equally emphatic terms has attacked the injunction wrong and demanded legal redress.

Never has there been one voice raised or one vote cast by any man in the labor organizations of our country in dissent from or in opposition to this position and this demand. The most careful search through the archives and records of the labor movement discloses a unanimity of opinion among liberty-loving citizens upon this grave question, and particularly among the workers, unparalleled by the feeling on any other question which ever has engaged their attention.

The opposition is well defined, and comes from that source which would arrogate to itself the power which wealth possesses in order that tyranny may be wielded over the men of labor and over masses of our people.

It was because the injunction took new form in the writ issued by the Supreme Court of the Dis

trict of Columbia last December, denying to the officers and to the rank and file of the American labor movement the right of free speech and free press, and because of the decision of the Supreme Court declaring the voluntary organizations of labor, trusts, corporations, monopolies, conspiracies and combinations in illegal restraint of trade, with all the penalties involved, that the Executive Council directed me to call the responsible officers of the international unions of America in a great conference, which was held at Washington, D. C., March 18th.

That conference was held simultaneously with a meeting of the Executive Council, and aimed to accomplish the following purpose: First, to impress upon Congress the necessity of enacting a law restoring to the workers the rights of which they were shorn by the Supreme Court's decision in the Hatter's case; and second, a law to correct the injunction abuse; or, upon the failure of Congress to grant the essential relief demanded, to appeal to the two great political parties and urge them to pledge themselves to the enactment of these necessary laws.

The Washington conference in March was practically in the nature of a special convention of the A. F. of L., with the addition that the representatives of some of the railway brotherhoods and of the farmers' organizations participated. The conference formulated and presented a protest to Congress, and prepared an address to the workers of our country, calling upon them to hold meetings upon the 18th and 19th of April, there to pass resolutions declaratory of their insistence that Congress should enact these laws or declaring for such alternative action, to which I shall make reference later in this report.

Congress adjourned, the majority party in Congress boastfully declaring its indifference to Labor's appeal and demand for justice.

The Executive Council thereupon decided to hold meetings at Chicago and at Denver, respectively, at the same time when the Republican and Democratic party conventions would be held, not only for the transaction of the ordinary business which would come before the Executive Council, but also to appeal to these conventions to incorporate in their platforms the demands which Labor makes upon Congress and the government for equal rights of all our people, whether they be workers or citizens in any walk of life.

The Executive Council presented identical demands to both political parties.

In order that the subsequent action may be more clearly set forth, not only to you, but to those who may follow us in our movement, and for the future historian of our cause, it is necessary here to present some matters in their chronological order.

One of the earliest declarations of our Federation upon the subject of the use of Labor's political power was that adopted in 1886 at Columbus, Ohio, expressing encouragement of the political activity of the workers in several parts of the country. Quoting the resolution, it declared:

Resolved, That the convention urges the most generous support to the independent political movement of the workingmen.

In 1895 the New York convention declared:

That the A. F. of L. most firmly and unequivocally favors the independent use of the ballot by the trade unionists and workingmen, united regardless of party,

that we may elect men from our own ranks to make new laws and administer them along the lines laid down in the legislative demand of the A. F. of L., and at the same time secure an impartial judiciary that will not govern us by arbitrary injunctions of the courts, nor act as the pliant tools of corporate wealth.

That as our efforts are centered against all forms of industrial slavery and economic wrong, we must also direct our utmost energies to remove all forms of political servitude and party slavery to the end that the working people may act as a unit at the polls at every election.

In 1896 the Cincinnati convention reaffirmed that declaration.

At the 1899 Detroit convention the following was adopted:

Resolved, That this Federation recommend that the various central and local bodies of labor in the United States take steps to use their ballots, their political power, on independent lines, as enunciated in the declaration of principles of the A. F. of L.

At the 1902, New Orleans, convention the following resolution was adopted:

Resolved, That the legislative committee of the A. F. of L. is instructed to prepare bills concerning such legislation by Congress as is desired, and especially concerning the subjects of Oriental immigration, government by injunction, eight hour workday, and the involuntary servitude of children; that copies of these bills, when prepared, shall be sent to the executive officers of each of the state federations of labor, where such federations exist, and in other cases to such persons or organizations as may be selected, with instructions in each case providing that the bills for the desired legislation shall be submitted to the county conventions of all political parties, with the request for an endorsement of same by such conventions, and instructions from them to their delegates and nominees to act in accordance with such endorsement; that such further steps will be taken as will secure the nomination by state conventions, and the election by state legislatures, of only such men for the House of Representatives and the United States Senate as are fully and satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills prepared by the legislative committee of the A. F. of L.; that it shall be the duty of the officers upon whom the responsibility of promoting the proposed legislation shall devolve, to give the results of their work, as shown by the actions of conventions and the pledges of candidates, the greatest publicity, to the end that all trade unionists may know who their friends are.

The New Orleans convention also declared:

That no efforts be spared to induce the legislative power to curtail the abuse of injunction indulged in by the judicial branch of our government, by the enactment of an anti-injunction bill.

The Boston convention, 1903, reaffirmed that statement.

The Minneapolis convention, 1906, adopted the following:

We regard with pleasure the recent political action of the organized workingmen of the country, by which they have demonstrated they are determined to exhibit their political power. We are in full accord therewith and recommend to organized labor throughout the country that they persist in their efforts to organize as an independent political force, to the end that labor may achieve its just rights through exercise of the ballot. And further on by the same convention:

Let the principle be proclaimed in every community, that associated labor will hold hostile individuals and parties responsible for the defeat of labor measures.

The Minneapolis convention also declared that candidates be investigated as to their past acts, and interrogated as to their position on the abuse of the injunction writ, "and that those who from their actions or expressions are deemed unsound be, regardless of any other question, repudiated."

The Norfolk convention, 1907, reiterated and emphasized the declarations made at Minneapolis.

By common consent of all labor and by direction of our organized labor movement, the officers of our Federation "are directed to watch legisla

tive measures directly affecting the interests of working people, and to initiate, whenever necessary, such legislative action as the convention may direct." (Art. 9, Sec. 1, Constitution A. F. of L.)

Through the members of the Executive Council and the legislative committees of the Federation, no effort has been left untried to press home upon Congress the necessity for the enactment of laws in the furtherance of the interests and for the protection of the rights and liberties of our fellowworkers and fellow-citizens.

With the imposition of the specific instructions of our conventions and the constitutional commands, when it became apparent, aye, when it was flaunted in our faces, that the committees of Congress were constituted and made up from those who were specifically and avowedly antagonistic to Labor's reasonable measures; when the very committee, the committee on labor, created upon the demand of the workers so that it might give its earnest and sympathetic support to the necessary labor measures when that committee, like all other committees, was constituted and made up of Representatives in Congress specifically antagonistic to Labor's interests, what was the duty of your officers in the premises?

Under the circumstances I found it a pleasurable duty to say that unless the rights to which Labor is entitled were accorded by legislation, we should appeal from the Representatives in Congress to their constituents.

The Executive Council called a conference at Washington in 1906, where the historic "Bill of Grievances" was adopted, which was presented to the President of the United States, to the presiding officer of the Senate, and to the Speaker of the House Congress continued indifferent, aye, became still more hostile, for it annulled part of the eight hour law, so far as it applied to the construction of the Panama Canal, but our demonstration had the effect of the President issuing an order for the enforcement of the existing eight hour law, which upon various occasions for more than two years previous I had vainly urged him to act.

That bill of grievances, signed by the members of the Executive Council, and by the officers and representatives of international unions, declared to the President of the United States, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, that:

Labor brings these grievances to your attention because you are the representatives responsible for legislation and for the failure of legislation. The toilers come to you as your fellow-citizens who, by reason of their position in life, have not only with all other citizens an equal interest in our country, but the further interest of being the burden-bearers, the wage-earners of America. As Labor's representatives we ask you to redress these grievances, for it is in your power to do so. Labor now appeals to you, and we trust that it may not be in vain. But if perchance you may not heed us, we shall appeal to the conscience and the support of our fellow-citizens

Finding the majority in Congress indifferent and inimical to our grievances, the campaign was undertaken to secure the election of men true to Labor, and the defeat of our most conspicuous opponents. Several of those hostile to Labor's interests were defeated, the majority in Congress in 1906 was reduced fully one-half and the majority of those of our opponents elected heavily cat down.

The campaign inaugurated by Labor in 1906, being the first conspicuous effort to punish Labor's