cy.

"It is easy to see how much strength such a party, if
formed, would possess. According to the reports of the
Interstate Commerce Commission there were in the immediate
employ of the railways of the United States a year and a
half ago 749,301 men, all or nearly all voters, which number
has now, it may be assumed, been increased to about 800,000.
There are, in addition, about one million and a quarter
shareholders in the railway properties of the country; and
in other trades and industries immediately dependent upon
the railways for their support there are estimated to be
engaged, as principals or employes, over one million voters
more. These three classes united would give at once a massed
voting strength of some three millions of voters. There are
also, in the smaller towns especially, and at points where
railway shops are located, all over the country, a number of
persons, small tradesmen, boarding-house keepers, etc., who
are dependent for their livelihood on the patronage of
railway employes, and whose vote could unquestionably be
cast in harmony with any concerted employes' movement.
Moreover, unlike most new parties, this party would be at no
loss for the sinews of war or for the means of organization.
The men whom it would include form even now almost a
disciplined army. With them co-operation is already a habit.
While the financial backing and the commercial and physical
strength of which the party would find itself possessed from
its birth would be practically unlimited....

"For the present it seems to them better to believe that the
people--those people who are not railway men--are acting now
only in ignorance, and that as soon as they see the truth
they will, by their own instinctive sense of justice,
re-mould their opinions and their policy without political
coercion.

"At the same time there has already come into existence in
some of the Western States a movement which has its
significance and its practical influence. This is what is
called the Railway Employes' Club movement. It started in
Minnesota, at a small meeting of railway employes held in
Minneapolis in 1888. From that meeting the movement grew,
and made a certain feeble effort, not entirely unsuccessful,