That opinion was vindicated later on. The House of Representatives rejected Kennedy-Ervin, and substituted in its place a much better measure, the Landrum-Griffin bill. The ensuing conference between representatives of the two houses made only minor changes in the House version; I would guess that 90% of the original Landrum-Griffin bill survived in the conferees’ report. The Senate adopted the report with only two dissenting votes--proof to me that my initial protest had been wise. But the protest still holds: though the Landrum-Griffin Bill was an improvement over the Kennedy measure, Congress has still to come to grips with the real evil in the Labor field. Graft and corruption are symptoms of the illness that besets the labor movement, not the cause of it. _The cause is the enormous economic and political power now concentrated in the hands of union leaders._ Such power hurts the nation’s economy by forcing on employers contract terms that encourage inefficiency, lower production and high prices--all of which result in a lower standard of living for the American people. It corrupts the nation’s political life by exerting undue influence on the selection of public officials. It gravely compromises the freedom of millions of individual workers who are able to register a dissent against the practice of union leaders only at the risk of losing their jobs. All of us have heard the charge that to thus criticize the power of Big Labor is to be anti-labor and anti-union. This is an argument that serves the interest of union leaders, but it does not usually fit the facts, and it certainly does not do justice to my views. I believe that unionism, kept within its proper and natural bounds, accomplishes a positive good for the country. Unions _can_ be an instrument for achieving economic justice for the working man. Moreover, they are an alternative to, and thus discourage State Socialism. Most important of all, they are an expression of freedom. Trade unions properly conceived, are an expression of man’s inalienable right to associate with other men for the achievement of legitimate objectives. _The natural function of a trade union and the one for which it was historically conceived is to represent those employees who want collective representation in bargaining with their employers over terms of employment._ But note that this function is perverted the moment a union claims the right to represent employees who do not want representation, _or_ conducts activities that have nothing to do with terms of employment (e.g. political activities), _or_ tries to deal with an industry as a whole instead of with individual employers.