ne hundred and forty homes belonging to union men in the
towns of Danbury, Norwalk, and Bethel. The union boasted that this sale
would prove only an incubus to the purchasers, for no one would dare
occupy the houses sold under such circumstances. In the meantime the
American Federation, which had financed the litigation, undertook to
raise the needed sum by voluntary collection and made Gompers's birthday
the occasion for a gift to the Danbury local. The Federation insisted
that the houses be sold on foreclosure and that the collected money be
used not as a prior settlement but as an indemnity to the individuals
thus deprived of their homes. Rancor gave way to reason, however,
and just before the day fixed for the foreclosure sale the matter
was settled. In all, $235,000 was paid in damages by the union to the
company. In the fourteen years during which this contest was waged,
about forty defendants, one of the plaintiffs, and eight judges who had
passed on the controversy, died. The outcome served as a spur to the
Federation in hastening through Congress the Clayton bill of 1914,
designed to place labor unions beyond the reach of the anti-trust laws.

The union label has in more recent years achieved importance as a
weapon in union warfare. This is a mark or device denoting a union-made
article. It might be termed a sort of labor union trademark. Union
men are admonished to favor the goods so marked, but it was not until
national organizations were highly perfected that the label could become
of much practical value. It is a device of American invention and was
first used by the cigar makers in 1874. In 1880 their national
body adopted the now familiar blue label and, with great skill and
perseverance and at a considerable outlay of money, has pushed
its union-made ware, in the face of sweat-shop competition, of the
introduction of cigar making machinery, and of fraudulent imitation.
Gradually other unions making products of common consumption adopted
labels. Conspicuous among these were the garment makers, the hat makers,
the shoe makers, and the brewery workers. As the value of the label
manifestly depends upon the trade it entices, the unions are careful
to emphasize the sanitary conditions and good workmanship which a label
represents.

The application of the label is being rapidly extended. Building
materials are now in many large cities under label domination. In
Chicago the bricklayers have for over fifteen yea