of solidarity. Not only will a rival union never be admitted into the
Federation, but no subordinate body, state or city, may dare to extend
any aid or comfort to a rival union.

The Federation exacted but little from the national and international
unions in exchange for the guarantee of their jurisdiction: A small
annual per capita tax; a willing though a not obligatory support in the
special legislative and industrial campaigns it may undertake; an
adherence to its decisions on general labor policy; an undertaking to
submit to its decision in the case of disputes with other unions, which
however need not in every case be fulfilled; and lastly, an unqualified
acceptance of the principle of "regularity" relative to labor
organization. Obviously, judging from constitutional powers alone, the
Federation was but a weak sort of a government. Yet the weakness was not
the forced weakness of a government which was willing to start with
limited powers hoping to increase its authority as it learned to stand
more firmly on its own feet; it was a self-imposed weakness suggested by
the lessons of labor history.

By contrast the Order of the Knights of Labor, as seen already, was
governed by an all-powerful General Assembly and General Executive
Board. At a first glance a highly centralized form of government would
appear a promise of assured strength and a guarantee of coherence
amongst the several parts of the organization. Perhaps, if America's
wage earners were cemented together by as strong a class consciousness
as the laboring classes of Europe, such might have been the case.

But America's labor movement lacked the unintended aid which the sister
movements in Europe derived from a caste system of society and political
oppression. Where the class lines were not tightly drawn, the