nes and workshops;
abolition of the sweating system; employers' liability laws; abolition
of the contract system upon public work; municipal ownership of electric
light, gas, street railway, and water systems; the nationalization of
telegraphs, telephones, railroads, and mines; "the collective ownership
by the people of all means of production and distribution"; and the
referendum upon all legislation.

Immediately after the convention of 1893 affiliated unions began to give
their endorsement to the political program. Not until comparatively late
did any opposition make itself manifest. Then it took the form of a
demand by such conservative leaders as Gompers, McGuire, and Strasser,
that plank 10, with its pledge in favor of "the collective ownership by
the people of all means of production and distribution," be stricken
out. Notwithstanding this, the majority of national trade unions
endorsed the program.

During 1894 the trade unions were active participants in politics. In
November, 1894, the _Federationist_ gave a list of more than 300 union
members candidates for some elective office. Only a half dozen of these,
however, were elected. It was mainly to these local failures that
Gompers pointed in his presidential address at the convention of 1894 as
an argument against the adoption of the political program by the
Federation. His attitude clearly foreshadowed the destiny of the program
at the convention. The first attack was made upon the preamble, on the
ground that the statement therein that the English trade unions had
declared for independent political action was false. By a vote of 1345
to 861 the convention struck out the preamble. Upon motion of the
typographical union, a substitute was adopted calling for the
"abolition of the monopoly system of land holding and the substitution
therefor of a title of occupancy and use only." Some of the delegates
seem to have interpreted this substitute as a declaration for the single
tax; but the majority of those who voted in its favor probably acted
upon the principle "anything to beat socialism." Later the entire
program was voted down. That sealed the fate of the move for an
independent labor party.

The American Federation of Labor was almost drawn into the whirlpool of
partisan politics during the Presidential campaign of 1896. Three
successive conventions had declared in favor of the free coinage of
silver; and now the Democratic party had come out for free coinag