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Organized Labor in Texas
Digital History ID 3686


Date:1889

Annotation: In 1889, a group of wage earners held a convention in Dallas and formed the Texas Federation of Labor. The convention issued the following list of demands.


Document: We favor eight hours as a working day, and demand the passage of a law so declaring.

We favor a single tax, or a tax upon land values, and the repeal of all other taxes whatsoever.

We favor the repeal of the national bank law, and all other class laws.

The only equitable solution of the transportation question is in the Government ownership of the railways, telegraphs and telephones.

We favor the abolition of the United States Senate and all State senators, because of the corruption practiced; the abolition of the grand jury system, because it is used by designing men to crush, ostracize, and persecute in some instances those who oppose existing systems, and the supremacy of either the Democratic or Republic factions, and to the end that our votes may be counted when cast and all corruption…be obliterated.

We favor the Australian system of holding elections; the election of all officers by the direct vote of the people.

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