the garment-workers'
strike which is now in its fifth year, contributed towards bringing
about the agreement between the firm of Hart, Schaffner and Marx,
Chicago, and their employes, an agreement controlling the wages and
the working conditions of between 7,000 and 10,000 men and women, the
number varying with the season and the state of trade. The plan of
preference to unionists, which gives to this form of contract the name
of the "Preferential Shop," had its origin in Australia, where it is
embodied in arbitration acts, but in no single trade there had it been
applied on such a huge scale. The Protocol of Peace, which is a trade
agreement similar to that of the Hart, Schaffner and Marx employes,
and which came into force first in the cloak and suit industry in New
York after the strike of 1913, affects, it is stated, the enormous
number of 300,000 workers.[A]

[Footnote A: In May, 1915, the Protocol was set aside by the cloak and
suit manufacturers. A strike impended. Mayor Mitchel called a Council
of Conciliation, Dr. Felix Adler as chairman. Their report was
accepted by the union and finally by the employers, and industrial
peace was restored.]

Just as sound and important work is being done all the time with many
smaller groups. For instance, the straw-and panama-hat-makers of New
York tried to organize and were met by a number of the manufacturers
with a black list. A general strike was declared on February 14, 1913.
The League members were able to give very valuable aid to the strikers
by assisting in picketing and by attending the courts when the pickets
were arrested. This strike had to be called off, and was apparently
lost, but the union remains and is far stronger than before the strike
took place.

But better results even than this were gained in the strike in the
potteries in Trenton, New Jersey. The Central Labor Union of Trenton
and all the trade-union men in the city gave splendid cooeperation to
the strikers. They handed over the girls to the care of Miss
Melinda Scott, the League organizer, and under her directions the
inexperienced unionists did fine work and helped to bring about a
satisfactory settlement. This success gave heart of grace to the
girls in certain woolen and silk mills of Trenton. Wages there were
appalling. They varied from two dollars and fifty cents to eleven
dollars. Many children, nominally fourteen, but looking very young,
were employed. The owner of the factory at length