es we saw the national trade
unions join with other local and miscellaneous labor organizations in
the National Labor Union upon a political platform of eight-hours and
greenbackism. In 1873 the same national unions asserted their rejection
of "panaceas" and politics by attempting to create in the National Labor
Congress a federation of trades of a strictly economic character. The
panic and depression nipped that in the bud. When trade unionism revived
in 1879 the national trade unions returned to the idea of a national
federation of labor, but this time they followed the model of the
British Trades Union Congress, the organization which cares for the
legislative interests of British labor. This was the "Federation of
Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada,"
which was set up in 1881.

It is easy to understand why the unions of the early eighties did not
feel the need of a federation on economic lines. The trade unions of
today look to the American Federation of Labor for the discharge of
important economic functions, therefore it is primarily an economic
organization. These functions are the assistance of national trade
unions in organizing their trades, the adjustment of disputes between
unions claiming the same "jurisdiction," and concerted action in matters
of especial importance such as shorter hours, the "open-shop," or
boycotts. None of these functions would have been of material importance
to the trade unions of the early eighties. Existing in well-defined
trades, which were not affected by technical changes, they had no
"jurisdictional" disputes; operating at a period of prosperity with
full employment and rising wages, they did not realize a necessity for
concerted action; the era of the boycotts had not yet begun. As for
having a common agency to do the work of organizing, the trade unions of
the early eighties had no keen desire to organize any but the skilled
workmen; and, since the competition of workmen in small towns had not
yet made itself felt, each national trade union strove to organize
primarily the workmen of its trade in the larger cities, a function for
which its own means were adequate.

The new organization of 1881 was a loose federation of trade and labor
unions with a legislative committee at the head, with Samuel Gompers of
the cigar makers as a member. The platform was purely legislative and
demanded legal incorporation for trade unions,[22] compulsory education