destroyed solely because it went into politics, but chiefly because the industrial development of the country was not sufficient to weld the workingmen of the nation into a strong and permanent federation. They could see no excellent reasons for paying dues to such an organization—except during a time of stress. The National Labor Union and its successor, the National Industrial Congress, died of financial weakness and the apathy of their members.
In 1876, another attempt was made to form a national federation. A call was issued by an "executive committee" from Pittsburgh, January 5, 1876, "To all Labor Orders, Unions and Associations of the United States." Delegates were asked to be "prepared to take such steps as will place our now scattered forces under one organized movement, for immediate action, to get and to hold, and use the balance of power. . . . The issue is a labor issue, an issue of the right of men to 1876. The social democrats tried in vain to commit it to the policy of organizing a distinct labor party. A substitute plan was adopted which is quite similar to the more recent plan fathered by President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor.
Resolved: That independent political action is extremely hazardous and detrimental to the labor interests; that the workingmen of the country should organize into trades unions and labor leagues to educate the people first,
and endeavor to elect men in both parties favorable to the interests of the wage earners.
The editor of a labor paper complained in 1877:
All our national organizations for the unification of labor are dead. Labor is divided in a thousand unions and factions.[1]
He declared that employers and employers' associations were bitterly fighting labor and that the next necessary step in the struggle against combinations of capital was a "National Federation of Trades' Unions." During the last years of the seventies, such national unions as the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers of the United States, the International Typographical Union, and the Cigar Makers' International Union were agitating the matter of a national federation. In 1881, the President of the Typographical Union wrote in his annual report:
The subject is of such importance that we can afford to suffer in patience numerous failures if as an ultimate result the mechanics of the United States and Canada can be brought into a closer and common organization for the common good.
There is much evidence indicating that the far-sighted labor leaders of the seventies saw the need of a permanent national federation of trade unions. On November 15, 1881, at Pittsburgh, was formed the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States
- ↑ National Labor Tribune, April 7, 1877.
