informed of the vote of the members from their districts upon each individual question. Before election every representative in the United States Congress should be presented with a list of questions concerning his attitude toward the specific demands formulated by the American Federation of Labor, and through the city central bodies and the constituent locals, this statement should be submitted to the workingmen of his particular district. Thus, in a Congressional election in any district, the replies of all candidates for the office should be placed in the hands of every workingman in the particular district, so that he could judge of the attitude of both candidates towards each of the demands formulated by the organized workPamphlets should be issued upon the various demands of the American Federation, and these pamphlets should be circulated by the state federations and the city central bodies, so that each of the two million trade unionists of the country would have in his possession a statement of the demands of the Federation, the reasons therefor, the progress already made toward their attainment, and the votes of various congressmen, senators, or members of legislatures upon the questions brought up. The Federation should devote a considerable sum of money to the sole purpose of political propaganda, and the national unions should strengthen it and hold up its hands in this work.

men.

To accomplish political reforms, however, more is necessary than mere machinery. The trade unionists of the country must realize that little can be accomplished by political activities unless every man takes an interest. The men must go to the polls and vote. I would not desire to see and would strongly deprecate the slightest compulsion or the least exercise of undue influence upon the individual voter. Every unionist must retain the right to vote absolutely according to the dictates of his conscience and intelligence, even though his vote be directly in opposition to the political inclinations and political aspirations of the trade union world. While, however, every unionist should be at perfect liberty to vote as he will, the trade union ideas and the trade union program, simple, precise, and unified, should be perfectly known to every unionist. The men should not only go

to the polls, but should also go to the primaries. Politics can only be reformed by real interest on the part of all well-intentioned members of the community. A man who is now willing to go on a six months' strike and make heroic sacrifices for the good of his class will frequently not take the trouble to attend the primaries of the political party, to which he belongs, in order to help shape the policy of that party in a manner calculated to advance the best interests of his class and of society.

At the present time trade unions, and the labor movement in general, are stronger and have a greater influence in the legislative than in the judicial sphere of governmental activity. The present tendency of the political parties seems to a certain extent to be to allow the corporate interests to nominate the elective judges. Trade unions should attempt, as far as possible, to exert such influence and control upon political parties as will preclude the nomination for the judgeship of men who are notoriously opposed to the interests of organized labor.

In conclusion, trade unionists can effect much by political action. Such political power, however, cannot at the present time be best secured by the formation of a separate labor party, and no good, but much harm may result from committing the labor movement to any particular political party. The unions must avoid the danger of allowing their political activity to degenerate into mere position-grabbing, although the policy of choosing qualified men for elective or appointive positions in which they can be of real and obvious assistance to the movement should be encouraged. To accomplish political reforms the workingmen must be organized in an efficient and thorough manner, in a system which will concentrate the entire voting power of all unionists; and the individual men, while retaining fully their own initiative, must be encouraged to vote at all elections and to attend the primaries of their respective parties.

CHAPTER XXV

TRADE UNIONS, THE STATE AND THE LAW

Protection Under the Law and Protection From the Law. Prosecution and Persecution. The Right to Form Unions. The Right Not to Work. Trade Unionists and the Courts. The Question of the Militia. Attitude of Unionists toward Militarism. Labor Reform through Legislation. The Difficulties of American Legislation.

THE

'HE efforts of workingmen to assert their rights and better their conditions have been met from the beginning by the invocation of the law and the adoption of repressive measures. In England, as on the continent of Europe, the slightest indications of unrest called forth harsh laws, cruelly enforced; and only gradually, as the result of continued strife and effort, were the workingmen enabled to secure even a portion of their just dues. In this repression of labor, the law was not infrequently diverted from its original intent, so that often the need of labor became less protection under the law than protection from the law.

Long before the rise of trade unions, the law was used to depress the conditions of workingmen. When, in the fourteenth century, the Black Plague cut off hundreds of thousands of toilers and the survivors demanded higher wages, the English government answered the demand with the socalled Statutes of Laborers. These laws fixed the maximum rate of wages and made it a penal offense to offer or accept more.

During several centuries there appeared to be a conspiracy on the part of the governing classes in England to reduce wages and to retard the advancement of the workingmen. During the eighteenth century, especially at its close, oppressive measures were enacted against trade unionists, and even after the unions were legalized, their members were prosecuted for conspiracy, for picketing, for administering oaths, for not finishing work, and on many other pretexts.

Since the Revolution, there has never been in the United States a law fixing wages, but the inferior courts have held that combinations of workingmen were illegal, have punished laborers for striking, and for other justifiable actions. At a later period, however, certain legal decisions affirmed the right of workingmen to combine into unions and to strike for higher wages or better conditions, but it was not until after the Civil War that this right was finally and definitely guaranteed.

At the present time the right of workingmen to strike is perfectly clear. The common law, as it now exists, is summarized as follows by the Department of Labor in its Bulletin dated November, 1895.

"Every one has the right to work or to refuse to work for whom and on what terms he pleases, or to refuse to deal with whom he pleases; and a number of persons, if they have no unlawful object in view, have the right to agree that they will not work under a fixed price or without certain conditions. The right of employees to refuse to work either singly or in combination is balanced by the right of employers to refuse to engage the services of any one for any reason they may deem proper."

Even the most uncompromising opponents of unionism now recognize the legal right to strike. In its issue of May 14th, 1903, the New York Sun, in reply to this question from a well-known multi-millionaire, “Shall employers be permitted to conduct a lawful business in a lawful way without the dictation of walking delegates from irresponsible and lawless unions?" replied in an unqualified negative: "If unions prefer to conduct their business through walking delegates and become strong enough to dictate the conditions on which they will trade their labor for the employers' cash, their legal right so to dictate is no more questionable than is the right of each individual member to decide how much he is willing to pay for his hat. If they will work but an hour a day, at $10 an hour, prescribing at the same time that their employers shall wear green caps and drink no beer, no one can say them nay."

While the right to strike has now been conceded, the courts have, in many cases, declared illegal various actions necessary to the successful con