for children, the prohibition of child labor under fourteen, uniform
apprentice laws, the enforcement of the national eight-hour law, prison
labor reform, abolition of the "truck" and "order" system, mechanics'
lien, abolition of conspiracy laws as applied to labor organizations, a
national bureau of labor statistics, a protective tariff for American
labor, an anti-contract immigrant law, and recommended "all trade and
labor organizations to secure proper representation in all law-making
bodies by means of the ballot, and to use all honorable measures by
which this result can be accomplished." Although closely related to the
present American Federation of Labor in point of time and personnel of
leadership, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the
United States and Canada was in reality the precursor of the present
state federations of labor, which as specialized parts of the national
federation now look after labor legislation.

Two or three years later it became evident that the Federation as a
legislative organization proved a failure.[23] Manifestly the trade
unions felt no great interest in national legislation. The indifference
can be measured by the fact that the annual income of the Federation
never exceeded $700 and that, excepting in 1881, none of its conventions
represented more than one-fourth of the trade union membership of the
country. Under such conditions the legislative influence of the
Federation naturally was infinitesimal. The legislative committee
carried out the instructions of the 1883 convention and communicated to
the national committees of the Republican and Democratic parties the
request that they should define their position upon the enforcement of
the eight-hour law and other measures. The letters were not even
answered. A subcommittee of the legislative committee appeared before
the two political conventions, but received no greater attention.

It was not until the majority of the national trade unions came under
the menace of becoming forcibly absorbed by the Order of the Knights of
Labor that a basis appeared for a vigorous federation.

The Knights of Labor were built on an opposite principle from the
national trade unions. Whereas the latter started with independent
crafts and then with hesitating hands tried, as we saw, to erect some
sort of a common superstructure that should express a higher solidarity
of labor, the former was built from the beginning upon a denial