eight-hour work-day; governmental inspection of mines 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 coinage.  In this situation very many prominent trade union leaders declared publicly for Bryan.  President Gompers, however, issued a warning to all affiliated unions to keep out of partisan politics.  Notwithstanding this Secretary McGraith, at the next convention of the Federation, charged President Gompers with acting in collusion with the Democratic headquarters throughout the campaign in aid of Bryan’s candidacy.  After a lengthy secret session the convention approved the conduct of Gompers.  Free silver continued to be endorsed annually down to the convention of 1898, when the return of industrial prosperity and rising prices put an end to it as a demand advocated by labor.