agitation. A circular was sent to the ward committees instructing them to have, where necessary, watchers and challengers at the polls to see "that no infraction of the election law be permitted, and that the votes on the civil service law be properly counted and returned."
A special committee was appointed to devise measures for the instruction of voters upon the merits of the Civil Service Bill. This committee not only circulated leaflets and posters containing the substance of the bill, but they organized a small army of speakers, who attended specially arranged meetings in all quarters of the city. Large numbers of these meetings were arranged at the lunch hour of the operatives in factories, and the provisions of the proposed law were carefully explained and discussed, and the questions of the men were answered. The result of this work appeared in the size of the popular majority in favor of the bill.
The industrial committee reported:
During the strike last summer, a board of conciliation was organized, composed of fifteen members representing labor organizations, employers and the professional lines. This board sought to bring about the peaceful solution of the trouble, consulting almost daily with all sides of the controversy ; but while little was accomplished on that line, the board learned the necessity for legal action and at once set about, after the strike was over, to secure a sentiment in favor of an arbitration law, to which end a conference on arbitration and conciliation was called that was participated in by the ablest and best known writers and thinkers on this subject in the country. The proceedings of this conference were published at the expense of the Federation in a pamphlet of ninety-six pages.
The industrial committee prepared a bill similar to the Massachusetts law, which at the time of writing appears likely to be enacted. The conference above referred to also provided for the appointment by the president of the Civic Federation of a national committee of twenty-five or more who should be invited to carry on the work of agitation for arbitration and conciliation in all labor disputes. The sub-committees of the industrial
