affiliated national unions as well as by the representatives of several
farmers' organizations, the threat was uttered that organized labor
would make a determined effort in the coming campaign to defeat its
enemies, whether "candidates for President, for Congress, or other
offices." The next step was the presentation of the demands of the
Federation to the platform committees of the conventions of both
parties. The wording of the proposed anti-injunction plank suggests that
it had been framed after consultation with the Democratic leaders, since
it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of malicious
conspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protect
business rights, which had regularly been asked by the American
Federation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted an
indefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labor
disputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed and a
declaration in favor of jury trial on the charge of contempt of court.

The Republicans paid scant attention to the planks of the Federation.
Their platform merely reiterated the recognized law upon the allowance
of equity relief; and as if to leave no further doubt in the minds of
the labor leaders, proceeded to nominate for President, William H. Taft,
who as a Federal judge in the early nineties was responsible for some of
the most sweeping injunctions ever issued in labor disputes. A year
earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunction
standard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic
platform, on the other hand, _verbatim_ repeated the Federation plank on
the injunction question and nominated Bryan.

After the party conventions had adjourned the _American Federationist_
entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate.
President Gompers recognized that this was equivalent to an endorsement
of Bryan, but pleaded that "in performing a solemn duty at this time in
support of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a
political party, but partisan to a principle." Substantially, all
prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead.
That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is
apparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it is
true that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centers
was not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant