bor which has
recently developed into a cabinet secretariat. His legal bete noire,
however, was the Sherman Anti-Trust Law as applied to labor unions.
For many years he fought vehemently for an amending act exempting
the laboring class from the rigors of that famous statute. President
Roosevelt with characteristic candor told a delegation of Federation
officials who called on him to enlist his sympathy in their attempt,
that he would enforce the law impartially against lawbreakers, rich
and poor alike. Roosevelt recommended to Congress the passage of an
amendment exempting "combinations existing for and engaged in the
promotion of innocent and proper purposes." An exempting bill was passed
by Congress but was vetoed by President Taft on the ground that it was
class legislation. Finally, during President Wilson's administration,
the Federation accomplished its purpose, first indirectly by a rider
on an appropriation bill, then directly by the Clayton Act, which
specifically declared labor combinations, instituted for the "purpose of
mutual help and...not conducted for profit," not to be in restraint of
trade. Both measures were signed by the President. Encouraged by their
success, the Federation leaders have moved with a renewed energy against
the other legal citadel of their antagonists, the use of the injunction
in strike cases.

Gompers has thus been the political watchman of the labor interests.
Nothing pertaining, even remotely, to labor conditions escapes
the vigilance of his Washington office. During President Wilson's
administration, Gompers's influence achieved a power second to none in
the political field, owing partly to the political power of the labor
vote which he ingeniously marshalled, partly to the natural inclination
of the dominant political party, and partly to the strategic position of
labor in the war industries.

The Great War put an unprecedented strain upon the American Federation
of Labor. In every center of industry laborers of foreign birth early
showed their racial sympathies, and under the stimuli of the intriguing
German and Austrian ambassadors sinister plots for crippling munitions
plants and the shipping industries were hatched everywhere. Moreover,
workingmen became restive under the burden of increasing prices, and
strikes for higher wages occurred almost daily.

At the beginning of the War, the officers of the Federation maintained
a calm and neutral attitude which increased in vig