ers for controlling government; this was because one branch of the
government, namely the judicial one, would not let it alone.

A growing impatience with Congress was manifested in resolutions adopted
by successive conventions. In 1902 the convention authorized the
Executive Council to take "such further steps as will secure the
nomination--and the election--of only such men as are fully and
satisfactorily pledged to the support of the bills" championed by the
Federation. Accordingly, the Executive Council prepared a series of
questions to be submitted to all candidates for Congress in 1904 by the
local unions of each district.

The Federation was more active in the Congressional election of 1906.
Early in the year the Executive Council urged affiliated unions to use
their influence to prevent the nomination in party primaries or
conventions of candidates for Congress who refused to endorse labor's
demands, and where both parties nominated refractory candidates to run
independent labor candidates. The labor campaign was placed in the hands
of a Labor Representation Committee, which made use of press publicity
and other standard means. Trade union speakers were sent into the
districts of the most conspicuous enemies of labor's demands to urge
their defeat. The battle royal was waged against Congressman Littlefield
of Maine. A dozen union officials, headed by President Gompers, invaded
his district to tell the electorate of his insults to organized labor.
However, he was reelected, although with a reduced plurality over the
preceding election. The only positive success was the election of
McDermott of the commercial telegraphers' union in Chicago. President
Gompers, however, insisted that the cutting down of the majorities of
the conspicuous enemies of labor's demands gave "more than a hint" of
what organized labor "can and may do when thoroughly prepared to
exercise its political strength." Nevertheless the next Congress was
even more hostile than the preceding one. The convention of the
Federation following the election approved the new tactics, but was
careful at the same time to declare that the Federation was neither
allied with any political party nor had any intention of forming an
independent labor party.

In the Presidential election of 1908, however, the Federation virtually
entered into an alliance with the Democrats. At a "Protest Conference"
in March, 1908, attended by the executive officers of most of the