I want to call your attention to the significance of that explanation, that is, that the trade union movement of Great Britain was represented at these former conferences, but at this conference the importance of Labor was regarded as so insignificant that everybody took it for granted that it was perfectly all right to have the credential card read "Inter-Allied Socialist Conference" and with the omission of this more important term, "Labor." ¹ ¹ American Federationist, January, 1919, pp. 40-41. As one looks back upon the history of the workingman, one finds something impressive, even majestic, in the rise of the fourth estate from a humble place to one of power in this democratic nation. In this rise of fortune the laborer's union has unquestionably been a moving force, perhaps even the leading cause. At least this homogeneous mass of workingmen, guided by self-developed leadership, has aroused society to safeguard more carefully the individual needs of all its parts. Labor has awakened the state to a sense of responsibility for its great sins of neglect and has made it conscious of its social duties. Labor, like other elements of society, has often been selfish, narrow, vindictive; but it has also shown itself earnest and constructive. The conservative trades union, at the hour of this writing, stands as a bulwark between that amorphous, inefficient, irresponsible Socialism which has made Russia a lurid warning and Prussia a word of scorn, and that rational social ideal which is founded upon the conviction that society is ultimately an organic spiritual unity, the blending of a thousand diverse interests whose justly combined labors and harmonized talents create civilization and develop culture. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE While there is a vast amount of writing on the labor problem, there are very few works on the history of labor organizations in the United States. The main reliance for the earlier period, in the foregoing pages, has been the Documentary History of American Industrial Society, edited by John R. Commons, 10 vols. (1910). The History of Labour in the United States, 2 vols. (1918), which he published with associates, is the most convenient and complete compilation that has yet appeared and contains a large mass of historical material on the labor question. The following works are devoted to discussions of various phases of the history of American labor and industry: T. S. Adams and Helen L. Sumner, Labor Problems (1905). Contains several refreshing chapters on labor organizations. F. T. Carlton, The History and Problem of Organized Labor (1911). A succinct discussion of union problems. R. T. Ely, The Labor Movement in America (1886). Though one of the earliest American works on the subject, it remains indispensable. G. G. Groat, An Introduction to the Study of Organized Labor in America (1916). A useful and up-to-date compendium.