aire_.
The political program initiated in 1906 seemed to be bearing fruit.

The drift into politics, since 1906, has differed essentially from that
of earlier periods. It has been a movement coming from "on top," not
from the masses of the laborers themselves. Hard times and defeats in
strikes have not very prominently figured. Instead of a movement led by
local unions and by city centrals as had been the case practically in
all preceding political attempts, the Executive Council of the American
Federation of Labor now became the directing force. The rank and file
seem to have been much less stirred than the leaders; for the member who
held no union office felt less intensely the menace from injunctions
than the officials who might face a prison sentence for contempt of
court. Probably for this reason the "delivery" of the labor vote by the
Federation has ever been so largely problematical. That the Federation
leaders were able to force the desired concessions from one of the
political parties by holding out a _quid pro quo_ of such an uncertain
value is at once a tribute to their political sagacity as well as a mark
of the instability of the general political alignment in the country.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] The bricklayers became affiliated in 1917.

[45] "The Growth of Labor Organizations in the United States,
1897-1914," in _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, Aug., 1916, p. 780.

[46] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.

[47] _Ibid._

[48] "The Extent of Trade Unionism," in _Annals of American Academy of
Political Science_, Vol. 69, p. 118.

[49] The "federal labor unions" (mixed unions) and the directly
affiliated local trade unions (in trades in which a national union does
not yet exist) are forms of organization which the Federation designed
for bringing in the more miscellaneous classes of labor. The membership
in these has seldom reached over 100,000.

[50] A small but immensely rich area in Eastern Pennsylvania where the
only anthracite coal deposits in the United States are found.

[51] At a conference at Columbus, Ohio, in January, 1886, coal operators
from Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois met the organized
miners and drew up an agreement covering the wages which were to prevail
throughout the central competitive field from May 1, 1886, to April 30,
1887. The scale established would seem to have been dictated by the wish