fairly the opinion of labour in the Allied countries. The proposal of American labour for an inter-Allied labour conference at Paris was not accepted. In July 1919, American delegates were present at the International Trade Union Conference in Amsterdam, at which they took issue with the German delegates, and opposed the resolutions passed for the lifting of the Allied blockade of Germany and Russia and those criticizing the labour sections of the League of Nations. Since the United States had not ratified the Peace Treaty, American labour could not be officially represented at the meeting of the Labour Department of the League of Nations held in Washington in the autumn of 1919. The American Federation of Labor Convention of 1919 by a large majority endorsed the labour clauses in the Peace Treaty. The Convention also passed resolutions asking that immigration be stopped for two years, to prevent the underbidding of American labour in the home market.
In 1918 the American Federation of Labor took steps to establish friendly relations with organized labour in Mexico. A conference of trade unionists of the two countries in June urged a conference on the question of the Mexican frontier and a federation of the labour movements of both countries for the protection of workers employed across the border from their homes. In Nov. the conference was held at Laredo, Tex.; 150 delegates were present, representing the United States, Mexico, Central America and Colombia. The U.S. Secretary of Labor was present. A permanent organization was launched. A second conference was held the next year in July in New York.
Reconstruction Programmes.—In July 1919, the national convention of the American Federation of Labor endorsed a programme for reconstruction which advocated first “democracy in industry,” that is, workers to have a voice in determining the conditions under which they work “equivalent to the voice which they have as citizens in determining the legislative enactments which shall govern them.” The corollary is seen as the right to organize in trade unions. The programme urged better wages to prevent “underconsumption” and consequent unemployment, and to make possible the maintenance and improvement of the American standard of life; the 8-hour day and the 44-hour week; equal pay for equal work regardless of sex; special protection of the health of women; prohibition of labour by children under 16, and compulsory part-time school attendance until the age of 18; the elimination of the middleman; curtailment of the power of the U.S. Supreme Court; Federal supervision and control of corporations; Government ownership or regulation of public utilities; development of waterways and waterpower; a graduated land tax; a special tax on idle lands; progressive taxes on incomes and inheritances; assistance to farmers; the development of Government experiment farms; municipal aid to home-building; workmen's compensation with state insurance; better educational advantages for children and adults; establishment of public employment agencies controlled jointly by capital and labour; and the regulation of immigration so as to facilitate Americanization and to prevent flooding of the labour market in periods of unemployment. The Federation reaffirmed its non-partizan political policy, urged the restoration of freedom of speech and assembly and went on record as opposed to a standing army. At the 1919 convention the Federation voted its support to the “Plumb plan” for Government ownership of the railways and their operation by a board representing equally the executives, the other employees, and the public. The United Mine Workers at their convention in 1919 passed a resolution favouring public ownership of the mines.
Since 1917 the general public has had, as never before, a definite conception of “American” labour standards, endorsed by such Government agencies as the wartime labour boards, the Council of National Defense, and by the consensus of opinion of certain groups in the industrial relations conferences, and of leaders in the national life. These standards include, in general, safety and sanitation in the shop and the home, accident, and health insurance, special protection of women and children, abolition of “home work,” the eight-hour day and the six-day week, the “living wage,” industrial training and a public employment service. The majority of American working men and women have as their aim the attainment of these standards: not ownership or control of business. The labour movement is a struggle for power to gain control of the “job” not the business adequate wages, short hours, security of employment, and sufficient responsibility to command respect and sustain interest in the work to be done.
Education in the Labour Movement..—In recent years there has been developed in the United States a movement on the part of working people to further their education, with a double aim: to give to working people a share in the culture which has been largely the possession of the propertied classes, and to fit them to understand and meet the problems of the modern industrial order. The leaders are trade unionists and socialists who resent the control of education by the class that also controls industry, and who wish to teach their own view of society; also impartial educators, idealists, eager to bring to the many the culture of the few, and to extend to adults educational advantages now provided generally for children. The Rand School of Social Science in New York City, established in 1906 by private gifts, is owned by the American Socialist Society. In 1918-9 the enrolment, including correspondence students, was over 5,000. The school has some five or six regularly appointed instructors. Courses are also given by teachers from colleges near by and by trade-union leaders. The Workers' Training Course, from Nov. to May, prepares leaders for the socialist and labour movements. The Department of Labor Research publishes the American Labor Year Book. The school maintains also a reference library and reading rooms and a book store. In 1914 the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union took up educational work for its members, in cooperation with the Rand School. About 150 members attended classes at the school. Later classes were held in public-school buildings under the auspices of the union. More advanced classes were given under the name of the Workers' University of the I.L.G.W., especially for business agents and union officials. In 1918 under the leadership of the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers the United Labor Education Committee was organized in New York City by six labour organizations for the promotion of education among their members, about 200,000 in that city. This committee has conducted weekly courses, in different parts of the city, in art, labour, history, science and elementary English and physical training, and has also provided concerts and motion pictures. It has introduced lectures and musical programmes in connexion with the trade-union shop meetings. The committee planned a workmen's theatre where for popular prices a higher class drama will be presented than can be found in the majority of the theatres of the city. In April 1919 the Trade Union College organized by the Boston Central Labor Union opened with 160 students. Courses, open to all members of the American Federation of Labor and their families, are given in the evening in one of the public schools by members of the faculty of Harvard University and other institutions.
Other labour colleges, under the control of local trade or industrial unions or local federations of unions, are: The Workers' Institute, Chicago; The Workpeople's College, Duluth; The Workers' University, Philadelphia; The People's Lyceum, Philadelphia; Trade Union College, Washington, D.C.; The Women's Trade Union College, Chicago; Hobo College, Chicago; Trade Union College, Minneapolis; People's College, Fort Scott, Kan.; The People's Institute, San Francisco; The Proletarian University, Detroit and other cities; Workers' College, Seattle, Wash.; The Amalgamated Textile Workers' School, Paterson, N. J.; Labor College, Tacoma, Wash. The Trade Union College of Pittsburgh has been organized. The Clothing Workers of Rochester maintain an educational director. The Labor Temple at Los Angeles is under the control of the school-board, and the Community School, Baltimore, has a private management.
All these colleges are financed by small tuition fees, by contributions and by guarantee funds. As a rule the teaching force is not permanent, but the courses depend on volunteers from neighbouring colleges or from the labour movement. Classes are usually in the evening, one hour of lecture followed by one of discussion. The subjects taught are various phases of economics: law, civics, history, English, public speaking, psychology, sociology, biology, hygiene, art, music. In connexion with the colleges plays and motion pictures are shown. The Waistmakers' Union of New York City
