The act was ratified April, 1889, by a vote of 7002 for to 4199 against--"a vote," say the trustees, "in which the heavy taxpayers were largely acting with the majority."[514] Organized labor took an enthusiastic part in the work of this election. The Central Labor Union held a special meeting which filled the largest public hall. Men paraded the streets with banners favoring the policy of independence. The Knights of Labor held meetings to discuss the project, and the Central Council, representing all the assemblies in the city, passed unanimously resolutions appealing to all members of the order and all working-men to support no candidate who would not pledge himself to the city pipe line. At a meeting of the glassworkers it was resolved to be "the duty of every working-man to vote 'Yes' for the pipe line next Monday." "Many of us glassworkers," said the resolutions adopted, "have been employed in factories in the Ohio Valley, receiving their natural-gas fuel from a gigantic corporation similar to that which now supplies Toledo. We have seen our employers unfairly dealt with, and arbitrarily treated in the matter of making rates. Some of them were forced to go into the courts, to prevent the extortion of the piratical company who were bent on assessing each citizen and industry at the highest rate possible, irrespective of its effect on the industries or the wages of the employés. Many manufacturers were compelled to move their plants to the cheap gas-fields of Ohio and Indiana. The employés were compelled to break up their homes and emigrate, in order to follow their trade for a livelihood." The question came before the people again the next spring, when both the Republican and Democratic parties by acclamation renominated a natural-gas trustee, whose term was expiring, to succeed himself. At the election the vote was 8958 for, and only 58 against--a practically unanimous indorsement of the project by the people.