ip came from the "munitions towns," such as Bridgeport,
Connecticut, where, in response to the insatiable demand from the Allied
nations, new enormous plants were erected during 1915 and shipment of
munitions in mass began early the next year. Bridgeport and surrounding
towns became a center of a successful eight-hour movement, in which the
women workers newly brought into the industry took the initiative. The
Federation as a whole lost three percent of its membership in 1915 and
gained seven percent during 1916.

On its War policy the Federation took its cue completely from the
national government. During the greater part of the period of American
neutrality its attitude was that of a shocked lover of peace who is
desirous to maintain the strictest neutrality if the belligerents will
persist in refusing to lend an ear to reason. To prevent a repetition
of a similar catastrophe, the Federation did the obvious thing,
pronouncing for open and democratized diplomacy; and proposed to the
several national trade union federations that an international labor
congress meet at the close of the war to determine the conditions of
peace. However, both the British and Germans declined. The convention in
1915 condemned the German-inspired propaganda for an embargo on
shipments to all belligerents and the fomenting of strikes in
munitions-making plants by German agents. The Federation refused to
interpret neutrality to mean that the American wage earner was to be
thrown back into the dumps of depression and unemployment, from which he
was just delivered by the extensive war orders from the Allied
governments.

By the second half of 1916 the war prosperity was in full swing. Cost of
living was rising rapidly and movements for higher wages became general.
The practical stoppage of immigration enabled common labor to get a
larger share than usual of the prosperity. Many employers granted
increases voluntarily. Simultaneously, a movement for the eight-hour day
was spreading from strictly munitions-making trades into others and was
meeting with remarkable success. But 1916 witnessed what was doubtless
the most spectacular move for the eight-hour day in American
history--the joint eight-hour demand by the four railway brotherhoods,
the engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen. The effectiveness
acquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkable
success with which these four organizations, with the full support of
the