the League also convinced labor men that this was no dilettante welfare society, but absolutely fair and square with the labor movement.  The Chicago League, after helping in the same way in the garment-workers’ strike which is now in its fifth year, contributed towards bringing about the agreement between the firm of Hart, Schaffner and Marx, Chicago, and their employes, an agreement controlling the wages and the working conditions of between 7,000 and 10,000 men and women, the number varying with the season and the state of trade.  The plan of preference to unionists, which gives to this form of contract the name of the “Preferential Shop,” had its origin in Australia, where it is embodied in arbitration acts, but in no single trade there had it been applied on such a huge scale.  The Protocol of Peace, which is a trade agreement similar to that of the Hart, Schaffner and Marx employes, and which came into force first in the cloak and suit industry in New York after the strike of 1913, affects, it is stated, the enormous number of 300,000 workers.[A]

[Footnote A:  In May, 1915, the Protocol was set aside by the cloak and suit manufacturers.  A strike impended.  Mayor Mitchel called a Council of Conciliation, Dr. Felix Adler as chairman.  Their report was accepted by the union and finally by the employers, and industrial peace was restored.]

Just as sound and important work is being done all the time with many smaller groups.  For instance, the straw-and panama-hat-makers of New York tried to organize and were met by a number of the manufacturers with a black list.  A general strike was declared on February 14, 1913.  The League members were able to give very valuable aid to the strikers by assisting in picketing and by attending the courts when the pickets were arrested.  This strike had to be called off, and was apparently lost, but the union remains and is far stronger than before the strike took place.

But better results even than this were gained in the strike in the potteries in Trenton, New Jersey.  The Central Labor Union of Trenton and all the trade-union men in the city gave splendid cooeperation to the strikers.  They handed over the girls to the care of Miss Melinda Scott, the League organizer, and under her directions the inexperienced unionists did fine work and helped to bring about a satisfactory settlement.  This success gave heart of grace to the girls in certain woolen and silk mills of Trenton.  Wages there were appalling.  They varied from two dollars and fifty cents to eleven dollars.  Many children, nominally fourteen, but looking very young, were employed.  The owner of the factory at length consented to meet the workers with the League organizer in conference at the New York headquarters, and after several weeks the strike was settled on the workers’ terms.

The New York organizer also helped the Boston League in the strike of the paper factories of Holyoke, Massachusetts.  The cause of the strike here was an arrangement under which eight girls could be got to do the work of twelve.  Here the workers actually stood up for a share of the profits under the new arrangement, or else that the discharged girls should be reinstated.  The manufacturers chose the latter alternative.