The growth of prosperity in this country has always been in ratio to increased production, and until a recent period such increased production has been the direct result of the co-operation of the wage-earner and the wage-payer. In the beginning of our commercial history it was only necessary for one man to exchange the product of his own industry for that of other men to obtain the necessities of life, and then the results of labor were not measured by a unit of value or wage, but by the amount of energy expended in production. When the rapid growth of the country required greater productiveness, and the enlargement of territory made necessary a change in the distribution of the products of labor, the factory system was introduced, whereby capital, or unproductive labor, was joined with productive labor to accomplish greater results than had heretofore been attained by individual labor. This brought with it the employment of a number of wage-earners under the direction of one or more employers, or wage-payers, and made it necessary to determine the relation of one to the other, or rather the share each should have in the division of profits. All conflicts which have ever arisen between men upon any subject, whether social, political or religious, have been based, not upon difference in conditions really existing, but upon difference of opinion as to the relation which existed between the parties to the conflict; and strife, to a greater or less extent, has been brought into use to determine such position. An excess of power on one side or the other succeeded in establishing for a time the opinion of the victor, but never removed the cause of dispute; and so the organization of wage-earners into associations or unions enabled them to establish from time to time, by power which they never hesitated to exercise, such wages and conditions as in their opinion were fair to them, but not always in accord with the condition of supply and demand. From their struggle arose the continual change of wages in ratio to the power of either party, the employer lowering wages when by reason of limited demand he could limit production, and the employee raising wages when his services were in sufficient demand to enable him to do so. The union was able in many cases,—I may say in all cases,—to enforce its demands because of the combined power it could exercise against the individual employer, and, as is usual in such cases, soon began to exercise a power which was unnatural and unwarranted. The result of this was the necessity of forming an organized opposition to their force by creating an opposing force in the organization of the employer class, and this brings me to the history of two organizations of this character with which I have been closely identified during the past fifteen years, and which have been successful in establishing a new basis of relation between the employer and employee.