Evening star., 1923-11-25
AS A UNION MAN SEES TT

of persons employed in any profes-
sion. trade or handicraft. for the pur-
pose of securing an advance in the
rates of wages or compensation, III
for the maintenance of such rate =
the latter clause fully legalizing the
acts OF unions in ordering strikes
and conducting them.
In 1889 bill passed making Labor
day a legal holiday. The same year
il was made unlawful to require as
a condition of employment that a
worker should not belong u ii labor
union, and employment agencies were
brought under state regulation. BY
compelled to pay wages in cash and
the custom of requiring employees to
trade only in company stores, which
usually left them without cent of
real money, was abolished.
Union labels were legalized this
same year. Regulation OF the hours
of work on elevated, street and steam
surface railroads was secured in 1887,
and in 1890 railroads were made re.
sponSible for wages of employees of
contractors with railroads in an ef-
fort to protect laborers from the
padrone system.
Other Great Projects.
Meanwhile two other great prof.
ects Of organized labor had also
been steadily pushed forward from
the beginning by the State Working
mems Assembly and it's successors
while these foundations of our pres
ont code of labor laws were being
laid. These were the development
of free public education>and abolition
of contract prison labor. Free pub
lie schools, which had been originally
demanded in a mass meeting of or
ganized wage-earners during 1926 in
New York city. were finally brought
into some semblance Of reality after
the civil war and under the admin
istration of Gov. Hill, who had en-
tered public life as a Knights OF
Labor candidate.
In co-operation with demands of
the workers. a law was enacted pro-
wiling for compulsory education or
the youth of the state in free public
schools, the effect Of which was to
remove many children from grinding
factory toll and restore to them their
heritage of equality of opportunity
to seek the rutliments of knowledge
and an open door to better life
The principle of compulsory attenu-
ance of minors at school was con-
tanned in the apprenticeship law of
1871 secured by the exertionS of the
State Workingmens Assembly, and
that law may therefore be said to be
the base upon which our present sys-
tenn of compulsory school attendance
to the eighteenth year is erected.
Convict Labor Issue.
The effort to abolish the evils of
contract employment of convicts in
competition with free workers and
private industry involved a long
struggle with the benefciaries OF
that system, the contractors, who en-
joyed an easy and large profit from
! such debasement of industry. 1t in
/ vaded every important industry
of the state, and 1T was
| the subject of numerous investiga-
| tions by legislative committees. Or
ganized labor advocated from the
beginning the state use plan of en-
ploying of prison labor. and in 1882
the workmen's assembly established
q state political branch, which ex-
listed until 1888. whose principal ef-
| forts were directed toward electing
| Legislators favorable to the abolition
| of contract convict labor as the chler
plank in it's legislative program.
At one time there was in the legls-
| lature group of eight legislators
whose nomination and election hao
| been accomplished by the political
| branch. But 1t was not until the con-
stitutional convention of 1894 that all
this campaigning brought any ap-
preciable result The state labor or