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496 part representative trade unionists." The Congress of 1870 also authorized the appointment of a committee to issue a call for a national convention. It was issued soon after a meeting of the committee, held January 17, 1871.

This call is worthy of brief notice. It confidently asserted that capital was master in the United States. The instrumentalities which gave capital its favorable and dominating position were enumerated under five heads:

 1. Banking and moneyed monopolies. 2. Consolidated railways and other traction monopolies. 3. Manufacturing monopolies which crushed the small operators and determined the wages of the workers. 4. Land monopolies—the result of the absorption of the public domain by a few corporations. 5. Commercial and grain monopolies which indulge in speculation. The first and fourth points were not new or especially significant. The outcry against banks dates back to the time of Jackson or before that era. During the forties and fifties much opposition was manifested against land monopoly. This call was, however, directed specifically against the policy of giving land to railways. But the remaining three points are of more significance; new foes are now feared by the wage earners of the country. Consolidated railways, manufacturing, commercial and grain monopolies are represented as inimical to the interests of the wage earners; and the call favored the regulation or abolishment of corporate monopolies. The editor of The Workingman's Advocate asserted that "centralization and labor" are two antagonistic elements.

A labor-reform party was organized in Massachusetts in 1869; and in that year it elected twenty-one representatives to the State Assembly and one state senator. The state ticket polled 13,000 votes. In the following year, Wendell Phillips was nominated for governor. The party advocated the separation of industrial from political questions. Two new and significant demands are found in the platform: the regulation of railway rates and the abolition of the importation of laborers, particularly from China, under contract. In 1871, the resolutions presented by Phillips and adopted by the labor-reform party were tinged with socialism. It was affirmed that labor is the creator of all wealth; the abolition of special privileges was demanded; and it was asserted that the capitalistic system was making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

An attempt was made, in 1872, to put a national ticket in the field.