ington under the auspices of the Department of the Interior. All were agreed that the foreigner should be taught to speak and write the language and understand the government of our country. Congress was urged to lend aid in this vast undertaking. America, as ex-President Roosevelt had said, was to find out "whether it was a nation or a boarding-house."

General References

J. R. Commons and Associates, History of Labor in the United States (2 vols.).

Samuel Gompers, Labor and the Common Welfare.

W. E. Walling, Socialism as It Is.

W. E. Walling (and Others), The Socialism of Today.

R. T. Ely, The Labor Movement in America.

T. S. Adams and H. Sumner, Labor Problems.

J. G. Brooks, American Syndicalism and Social Unrest.

P. F. Hall, Immigration and Its Effects on the United States.

Research Topics

The Rise of Trade Unionism. Mary Beard, Short History of the American Labor Movement, pp. 10-18, 47-53, 62-79; Carlton, Organized Labor in American History, pp. 11–44.

Labor and Politics. Beard, Short History, pp. 33–46, 54–61, 103–112; Carlton, pp. 169-197; Ogg, National Progress (American Nation Series), pp. 76-85.

The Knights of Labor. Beard, Short History, pp. 116-126; Dewey, National Problems (American Nation Series), pp. 40-49.

The American Federation of Labor Beard, Short History, pp. 86–112. Organized Labor and the Socialists.

Organization and Policies.

Beard, Short History, pp. 126–

Carlton, pp. 282-306; Beard, Short

Questions

1. What are the striking features of the new economic age?

2. Give Mr. Rockefeller's view of industrial democracy.

3. Outline the efforts made by employers to establish closer relations with their employees.

4. Sketch the rise and growth of the American Federation of Labor. 5. How far back in our history does the labor movement extend?

6. Describe the purposes and outcome of the National Labor Union and the Knights of Labor.

7. State the chief policies of the American Federation of Labor.

8. How does organized labor become involved with outside forces?

9. Outline the rise of the socialist movement. How did it come into contact with the American Federation?

10. What was the relation of the Federation to the extreme radicals? To national politics? To the public?

11. Explain the injunction.

12. Why are labor and immigration closely related?

13. Outline the history of restrictions on immigration.

14. What problems arise in connection with the assimilation of the alien to American life?

CHAPTER XXV

PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE WORLD WAR

"THE welfare, the happiness, the energy, and the spirit of the men and women who do the daily work in our mines and factories, on our railroads, in our offices and ports of trade, on our farms, and on the sea are the underlying necessity of all prosperity." Thus spoke Woodrow Wilson during his campaign for election. In this spirit, as President, he gave the signal for work by summoning Congress in a special session on April 7, 1913. He invited the coöperation of all "forward-looking men " and indicated that he would assume the rôle of leadership. As an evidence of his resolve, he appeared before Congress in person to read his first message, reviving the old custom of Washington and Adams. Then he let it be known that he would not give his party any rest until it fulfilled its pledges to the country. When Democratic Senators balked at tariff reductions, they were sharply informed that the party had plighted its word and that no excuses or delays would be tolerated.

DOMESTIC LEGISLATION

Financial Measures. Under this spirited leadership Congress went to work, passing first the Underwood tariff act of 1913, which made a downward revision in the rates of duty, fixing them on the average about twenty-six per cent lower than the figures of 1907. The protective principle was retained, but an effort was made to permit a moderate element of foreign competition. As a part of the revenue act Congress levied a tax on incomes as authorized by the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution. The tax which roused such party passions twenty years before was now accepted as a matter of course.

Having disposed of the tariff, Congress took up the old and vexatious currency question and offered a new solution in the form of the federal reserve law of December, 1913. This measure, one of the most interesting in the history of federal finance, embraced four leading features. In the first place, it continued the prohibition on the issuance of notes by state banks and provided for a national currency. In the second place, it put the new banking system under the control of a federal reserve board composed entirely of government officials. To prevent the growth of a "central money power," it provided, in the third place, for the creation of twelve federal reserve banks, one in each of twelve great districts into which the country is divided. All local national banks were required and certain other banks permitted to become members of the new system and share in its control. Finally, with a view to expanding the currency, a step. which the Democrats had long urged upon the country, the issuance of paper money, under definite safeguards, was authorized.

Mindful of the agricultural interest, ever dear to the heart of Jefferson's followers, the Democrats supplemented the reserve law by the Farm Loan Act of 1916, creating federal agencies to lend money on farm mortgages at moderate rates of interest. Within a year $20,000,000 had been lent to farmers, the heaviest borrowing being in nine Western and Southern states, with Texas in the lead.

Anti-trust Legislation. The tariff and currency laws were followed by three significant measures relative to trusts. Rejecting utterly the Progressive doctrine of government regulation, President Wilson announced that it was the purpose of the Democrats "to destroy monopoly and maintain competition as the only effective instrument of business liberty." The first step in this direction, the Clayton Anti-trust Act, carried into great detail the Sherman law of 1890 forbidding and penalizing combinations in restraint of interstate and foreign trade. In every line it revealed a determined effort to tear apart the great trusts and to put all business on a competitive basis. Its

terms were reinforced in the same year by a law creating a Federal Trade Commission empowered to inquire into the methods of corporations and lodge complaints against concerns "tising any unfair method of competition." In only one respect was the severity of the Democratic policy relaxed. An act of 1918 provided that the Sherman law should not apply to companies engaged in export trade, the purpose being to encourage large corporations to enter foreign commerce.

The effect of this whole body of anti-trust legislation, in spite of much labor on it, remained problematical. Very few combinations were dissolved as a result of it. Startling investigations were made into alleged abuses on the part of trusts; but it could hardly be said that huge business concerns had lost any of their predominance in American industry.

Labor Legislation. - By no mere coincidence, the Clayton Anti-trust law of 1914 made many concessions to organized labor. It declared that "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or an article of commerce," and it exempted unions from prosecution as "combinations in restraint of trade." It likewise defined and limited the uses which the federal courts might make of injunctions in labor disputes and guaranteed trial by jury to those guilty of disobedience (see p. 581).

The Clayton law was followed the next year by the Seamen's Act giving greater liberty of contract to American sailors and requiring an improvement of living conditions on shipboard. This was such a drastic law that shipowners declared themselves unable to meet foreign competition under its terms, owing to the low labor standards of other countries.

Still more extraordinary than the Seamen's Act was the Adamson law of 1916 fixing a standard eight-hour work-day for trainmen on railroads a measure wrung from Congress under a threat of a great strike by the four Railway Brotherhoods. This act, viewed by union leaders as a triumph, called forth a bitter denunciation of " trade union domination," but it was easier to criticize than to find another solution of the problem.