can not obtain separately, and thus have arisen organizations of the working-men in different lines of industry, and as they have increased in number and complexity, they have tended toward more extensive combination, with greater centralization of control—witness the Knights of Labor, the Sovereigns of Industry, and the American Federation of Labor. But as the representatives of the people, charged with the administration of the political government, have, times without number, because of ignorance of the working of economic law, because of cowardice in following their convictions, because of personal greed, because of a truckling to popular prejudice, enacted laws, sanctioned executive action, or indulged executive neglect, that have inured to the injury of the people as a whole, so also have the representatives of workingmen, charged with the administration of labor organizations, from like causes, enacted regulations, permitted action, or neglected to restrain action, that has worked to the direct injury of their constituents, and tended to bring labor organizations, as a class, into widespread obloquy. As the demagogue has often obtained political preferment, so also have the palavering hypocrite and the sordid bully but too frequently been made the representative and spokesman of labor; and then, again, it has often happened that well-meaning representatives of labor, after conferences with employers in which they have been clearly shown the conditions that necessitate reduction of wages, or that render impossible an increase of wages, have been repudiated and condemned by their constituents when endeavoring to make such conditions clear to them. All too often have workingmen of the best intentions been overruled by the headstrong, who have worked upon their credulity and prejudice until they have met appeals to reason with unreasoning sullenness, and when minds credulous and prejudiced have been inflamed by liquor there have been deplorable and disastrous results. In years past the conferences between the representatives of capital and the representatives of labor have too often been marked on both sides by aggressiveness, rapacity, and greed, by the absence of good faith and calm, considerate, thorough discussion. Strikes have inured to the injury of both capital and labor, but as strike after strike is fought and ended the reasons for the conflicts come more clearly to the light of publicity, and popular opinion, the basis of all law, seizing upon the points of dispute and perceiving the attitude of the combatants, visits with condemnation or approval the one side or the other; and this light of publicity, searching out that which is unjust in the action of labor and that which is unjust in the action of capital, can not but bring, and may now be seen to be bringing, a healthier tone to the proceeding of one and a greater honesty of consideration to the attitude of the
