labor trust and against two personages, both symbols of colossal
economic unrest--the promoter, or the stalking horse of financial
enterprise, and the walking delegate, or the labor union
representative and only too frequently the advance agent of
bitterness and revenge.

In response to the call of the hour there appeared the American
Federation of Labor, frequently called in these later days the
labor trust. The Federation was first suggested at Terre Haute,
Indiana, on August 2, 1881, at a convention called by the Knights
of Industry and the Amalgamated Labor Union, two secret societies
patterned after the model common at that period. The Amalgamated
Union was composed largely of disaffected Knights of Labor, and
the avowed purpose of the Convention was to organize a new secret
society to supplant the Knights. But the trades union element
predominated and held up the British Trades Union and its
powerful annual congress as a model. At this meeting the needs of
intensive local organization, of trades autonomy, and of
comprehensive team work were foreseen, and from the discussion
there grew a plan for a second convention. With this meeting,
which was held at Pittsburgh in November, 1881, the actual work
of the new association began under the name, "The Federation of
Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States of America
and Canada."

When this Federation learned that a convention representing
independent trade unions was called to meet in Columbus, Ohio, in
December, 1886, it promptly altered its arrangements for its own
annual session so that it, too, met at the same time and place.
Thereupon the Federation effected a union with this independent