the
conclusion that Gompers may have "delivered to Bryan" not a few labor
votes which would otherwise have gone to Debs.

In the Congressional election of 1910 the Federation repeated the policy
of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies." However, it avoided
more successfully the appearance of partisanship. Many progressive
Republicans received as strong support as did Democratic candidates.
Nevertheless the Democratic majority in the new House meant that the
Federation was at last "on the inside" of one branch of the government.
In addition, fifteen men holding cards of membership in unions, were
elected to Congress, which was the largest number on record. Furthermore
William B. Wilson, Ex-Secretary of the United Mine Workers, was
appointed chairman of the important House Committee on Labor.

The Congress of 1911-1913 with its Democratic House of Representatives
passed a large portion of the legislation which the Federation had been
urging for fifteen years. It passed an eight-hour law on government
contract work, as already noted, and a seaman's bill, which went far to
grant to the sailors the freedom of contract enjoyed by other wage
earners. It created a Department of Labor with a seat in the Cabinet. It
also attached a "rider" to the appropriation bill for the Department of
Justice enjoining the use of any of the funds for purposes of
prosecuting labor organizations under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and
other Federal laws. In the presidential campaign of 1912 Gompers pointed
to the legislation favorable to labor initiated by the Democratic House
of Representatives and let the workers draw their own conclusions. The
corner stone of the Federation's legislative program, the legal
exemption of trade unions from the operation of anti-trust legislation
and from court interference in disputes by means of injunctions, was yet
to be laid. By inference, therefore, the election of a Democratic
administration was the logical means to that end.

At last, with the election of Woodrow Wilson as President and of a
Democratic Congress in 1912, the political friends of the Federation
controlled all branches of government. William B. Wilson was given the
place of Secretary of Labor. Hereafter, for at least seven years, the
Federation was an "insider" in the national government. The road now
seemed clear to the attainment by trade unions of freedom from court
interference in struggles against employers--a judicial _laissez-f