elections. It was approved by the President on February 23,
1887.

The Senate also delayed action on the House bill, which proposed
arbitration in labor disputes, until the close of the session; and
then the President, in view of his disregarded suggestion, withheld
his assent. It was not until the following year that the legislation
recommended by the President was enacted. By the Act of June 13, 1888,
the Department of Labor was established, and by the Act of October
1, 1888, in addition to provision for voluntary arbitration between
railroad corporations and their employees, the President was authorized
to appoint a commission to investigate labor conflicts, with power to
act as a board of conciliation. During the ten years in which the act
remained on the statute books, it was actually put to use only in 1894,
when a commission was appointed to investigate the Pullman strike at
Chicago, but this body took no action towards settling the dispute.

Thus far, then, the efforts of the Government to deal with the labor
problem had not been entirely successful. It is true that the labor
conflicts arose over differences which only indirectly involved
constitutional questions. The aims of both the Knights of Labor and of
the American Federation were primarily economic and both organizations
were opposed to agitation of a distinctively political character. But
parallel with the labor agitation, and in communication with it, there
were radical reform movements of a type unknown before. There was now to
arise a socialistic movement opposed to traditional constitutionalism,
and therefore viewed with alarm in many parts of the country. Veneration
of the Constitution of 1787 was practically a national sentiment which
had lasted from the time the Union was successfully established until
the Cleveland era. However violent political differences in regard to
public policy might be, it was the invariable rule that proposals must
claim a constitutional sanction. In the Civil War, both sides felt
themselves to be fighting in defense of the traditional Constitution.

The appeal to antiquity--even such a moderate degree of antiquity as
may be claimed for American institutions--has always been the staple
argument in American political controversy. The views and intentions
of the Fathers of the Constitution are exhibited not so much
for instruction as for imitation, and by means of glosses and
interpretations conclusions may be reached wh