IT WOULD be impossible to tell in one readable
volume the full story of how labor organizations have
amassed economic and political power during the last
twenty years. Small unions have grown to enormous
size; a huge new federation has developed; and now
the old American Federation of Labor and its late
rival, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, are
merged. There have been thousands of strikes, both
large and comparatively small--some of them of great
importance. There have been political campaigns,
both local and national, in which labor has played a
role, with great effect on local and national politics.

Yet the most significant development in the labor
movement does not lie in its organizational growth,
its conduct of strikes, or its participation in political

-3-