I have read the 14 points which have been formulated for the proposed labor party here. Is there one of them of an essential character to the interests and welfare of the working people of the United States which is not contained in the curriculum, the work and the principles of the bona fide labor movement of our country?

Which movement, economic or political, in any country on the face of the globe has brought more hope and encouragement, more real advantage, to the working people than the trade-union movement of America has brought to the wage earning masses of our country?

The organization of a political labor party would simply mean the dividing of the activities and allegiance of the men and women of labor between two bodies, such as would often come in conflict.

In the British Trade-Union Congress at Derby there were divergent views. There were four different points of view upon one subject before the congress. In order to try to unite the thought a committee of four was appointed for the purpose of trying to bring in some agreed proposition and recommendation for adoption by the congress. In the course of a few days the committee reported a resolution. For the purpose of conserving time the four members of the committee representing the divergent views were called upon in turn to express their views. Each in turn expressed his own view and placed his own construction upon the resolution recommended. Then each declared that he was going out to fight for his own view.

In our movement we have done some things. We have brought together more than 3,000,000 workers, organized into our trade-unions and belonging to the American Federation of Labor. In addition there are between four and five hundred thousand workmen in the railroad brotherhoods not affiliated with us but yet in accord with our work and our policies. In other words, there are nearly 4,000,000 of organized tradeunionists in the United States. There is not always harmony; there is disagreement; there is opposition, all of it important, all of it tending to crystallize the sentiment of unity and devotion to the cause of labor. The American labor movement occupies the field of activity without yielding one inch to any other body.

Mr. Longuet, representing the majority Socialists of France at the interallied labor conference in London, expressed his regret that what he called the American Socialist Party was not represented in the conference. He proposed that the votes of the American Federation of Labor delegates should be reduced because the American Socialist Party was not represented. Who are we going to have as the leaders of this new political labor party? I understand that there is impatience among our fellows. It is creditable to them that they are impatient. There is not any man in all America, or in all the world, more impatient than I with the progress that has been made, with the position we occupy. I want more, more, more for labor. I think I have tried and am trying to do my share. My associates of the executive council have tried to do their share, but there is such a thing as attempting to overrun, and by overrunning to defeat the object we would gain for the wage earners and to throw them into the hands of those who do not know the honest aspirations of labor or who would direct them for personal aggrandizement.

I ask that the trade-union movement be given its fullest opportunity for growth and development so that it may be the instrumentality to secure better and better and better and constantly better conditions for the workers of our country.

Here we are in this transition period from war into peace, with all that it may mean. A week ago last evening-that is, on Sunday evening, December 1-at the Century Theater, I delivered an address. I am proud of the address I delivered there on that night. I do not think that anyone realizes all the dangers which I felt and tried to express as to the situation now and which may arise in the near future. I ask you whether the creation of a political labor party, and particularly at this time, would help to solve these problems and meet these dangerous conditions? If ever unity was needed for the toilers it is now.

It is not true, as some carping critics allege, that the American Federation of Labor is a nonpolitical organization. As a matter of fact, the workers of the United States and the organized labor movement act voluntarily in the exercise of their political right and power. We have changed the control of our government from the old-time interests of corporate power and judicial usurpation. We have secured from the

Government of the United States the labor provision of the Clayton antitrust law, the declaration in the law that the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. In that law we have secured the right of our men to exercise functions for which, under the old régime our men were brought before the bar of justice and fined or imprisoned. We have secured the eight-hour workday, not only as a basic principal but as a fact. We have secured the seamen's law, giving to the seamen the freedom to leave their vessels when in safe harbor. The seamen of America are now free men and own themselves. We have secured a child-labor law, and although it has been declared unconstitutional, we are again at work to secure a law for the protection of our children. Better than all, we have established the concept in law and in administration that the interest and welfare of the workers are paramount, and this not only in the laws of our Republic but in the laws of our States and municipalities.

There are other laws in the interest of labor which we have secured, more than I can mention offhand, but far above these are the improvements brought into the lives and work of the toilers by their own actions as organized workers. We have established unity of spirit; we have brought about the extension of organization among the formerly unorganized, and our organized free existence to function and to express ourselves is now practically unquestioned.

Suppose in 1912 we had had a labor party in existence; do you think for a moment that we could have gone as the American labor movement to the other political parties and said: "We want you to inaugurate in your platform this and this declaration." If one of the parties had refused and the other party consented and took its chance, would the American Federation of Labor have been permitted to exercise that independent political and economic course if the labor party had been in existence? How long would we have had to wait for the passage of a law by Congress declaring law, in practice and in principle that the labor of a human being is not a commodity or an article of commerce-the most far-reaching declaration ever made by any government in the history of the world.

I say this to you. I am sixty-eight years of age. I have been tried and seared as few men have. I have almost had my very soui

burned in the trials of life. With my two associates, Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Morrison, I have suffered the indignity of being brought before the courts of our country and adjudged guilty and sentenced to imprisonment. Our eyes were wide open. I do not think that it is improper for me to say that I led in the thought and activity of that work, of that willingness to suffer, but it was not a very nice thing to have the endeavor made to besmirch our honor by a sentence of imprisonment Mr. Morrison six months, Mr. Mitchell nine months, and I twelve months. We fought that sentence, fought it and fought it, supported by the activity of the organized labor movement in all the states and towns of our country, until the principle for which we were contending through that action brought about the incorporation of those provisions in the Clayton antitrust law which confirmed and legalized the very things for which we were sentenced to imprisonment. They were legalized not for us alone but for labor.

I repeat, we have secured the enactment of the seamen's law, the right of a seaman to quit his vessel whenever his vessel is in safe harbor in any part of the world, a law which does not exist in any other country-secured it by our political activity and by our economic powers. Has anything like that been accomplished in any country of the world? Our delegates proposed it at the interallied labor conference in September, and there was not a hearty agreement to stand for it as an international demand.

I know I feel and understand and apprehend the danger which is involved in the project which is now being so very actively agitated in some quarters of the labor movement of our country. I fear no danger, I am just as good a follower, perhaps a better follower, than I am a leader, and I am perfectly willing to occupy either position. I would be recreant to the great labor movement and all it portends now and for the future if I did not take you into my confidence, men and women of labor, and tell you what I have told you. I am apprehensive, justly so, justified by every event in the whole history of labor, that a great mistake may be made, a great injury inflicted upon our fellows, not for a day, not for a year, not for a decade, but perhaps for many, many, many years to come. I want to present that view to you so that you may understand the situation clearly.

THE BRITISH LABOUR PARTY1

(Formerly Labour Representation Committee)

With the adoption of its new constitution the Labour Party has been transformed from a Federation, consisting of Trade Unions, Socialist Societies, Co-operative Societies, Trades Councils, local labour Parties, and the Women's Labour League, into a national political party, membership in which is open to every man and woman who accept the Party's programme and agree with its aims. In view of the large number of voters added to the register under the Representation of the People Act, it was felt to be necessary that the basis of membership in the Labour Party should be broadened so as to include the large body of people who were, for various reasons, neither members of a Trade Union nor of a Socialist Society. Under the old constitution it was possible for individual men and women to become associated with the Party by joining a local Labour Party, but in general the principle of individual membership in the local organizations had been practically ignored. The new constitution makes individual membership a cardinal point of the scheme. It also affords special facilities to women electors to join the Party. The Women's Labour League, which was the only political organization of women affiliated to the Labour Party, has ceased to exist as a separate body, and its members have become merged in the local Labour organizations.

The revised constitution put forward by the National Executive at the Annual Conference in Nottingham in January, 1918, and adopted with practical unanimity at the adjourned Conference held in London a month later, preserves the character of the Party as a federation of national societies and local organizations, but establishes the principle of individual membership in the latter bodies. These constituent organizations will henceforth be composed of affiliated Trade Union branches, the local Trades Council, the Socialist Societies, and the Co-operative Societies having members within the area, and of individual men and women who are willing to work for the objects and subscribe to the constitution of the National Labour Party. In places where the local Labour Parties and Trades Councils have amalgamated, or where no Trades Coun1 From Labour Year Book, 1919. P. 3-4.