110 FARMERS' UNION AND FEDERATION 



"NEW YORK. A meeting which may be destined to fuse into one 

 body the workingmen's organizations of the United States and Central 

 and South America is to be held on the Rio Grande on November 13. 

 It is the Pan-American Federation of Labor conference, to be held in 

 Laredo, Tex. Delegates from Mexico and a large number of the South 

 American countries will meet to discuss problems of mutual interest 

 to workers in the two Americas, especially those growing out of the 

 war and to come up in the reconstruction period. A number of dele- 

 gates accredited by the labor movements of South America have ar- 

 rived in New York, in preparation for the conference. Represented 

 among them are delegates from Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba and Ar- 

 gentina. The Mexican Federation of Labor will be represented by a 

 delegation of 20 unionists. An international eight-hour work day and 

 an international child labor law are two of the results organized labor 

 wishes to see come out of the war, the latter to be effected by denial of 

 shipping facilities to goods manufactured by children under 16 years. 

 . . . One result looked for by labor men is the formation of a Pan- 

 American federation of labor that will draw into close relationship or- 

 ganized labor in the American republics, in preparation for meeting 

 after-the-war problems. . . . Samuel Gompers spoke for labor in 

 saying at Laredo that it will fight to hold what it has obtained in war- 

 time." 



" BLOOMINGTON, ILL., Dec. 5. Ranking in importance as a conven- 

 tion issue with the formation of an independent labor party, is the 

 action to be taken by the Illinois State Federation of Labor today on 

 the question of reconstruction and the wage problems arising there- 

 from. In a supplement to his annual report, President John H. Walker 

 undertakes a presentation of the situation that faces organized labor 

 -not only in Illinois but the country at large. This report in part is as 

 follows : 



" 'The labor movement must deal with this problem in such a way 

 as to avoid terrible injury being perpetrated upon our people, and, too, 

 that the cessation of war and the reintroduction of these men and 

 women into the productive work of our nation may instead be a bless- 

 ing and help to every human being in our land. To do this, the vitally 

 important necessity, the thing of more value than all other things 

 combined, is to organize all the workers into the bo na fide American 

 labor movement and to educate them so they can understand these 

 problems, and act upon them intelligently and unitedly. And as our 

 overs upply of labor will be our greatest problem, surely we can at 

 this time make the eight-hour day the maximum which any man or 

 woman should work in our country, and enact laws which will keep 



