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Show STATE FEDERATION URGES CALLING OF SPECIAL MEETING PKOR1A. HI., Oct. 23. Following the withdrawal of the labor group from the Industrial conference at Washington, the Illinois Federation of Labor, in convention this morning, authorized the sending of a message to Samuel Gompers, president of of the American Federation of Labor, and to members of the executive council, urging the immediate issuance of a call for a special convention of the American Federation of Labor in Washington. The message urges that ihe official representatives of the railway brotherhoods brother-hoods be invited to participate, the object ob-ject of the meeting to be the "perfecting of an offensive and defensive alliance of the international unions of the United States and Canada and tho railway brotherhoods, more effectively to fight out the life and death struggles of the workers now in progress and impending." impend-ing." The message assails the "steel trust" for methods used in the present strike and says: "Too long has labor permitted these tyrants to keep the workers work-ers on the defensive." The message also asks that included in the call as one of the objects of the proposed pro-posed meeting be "the levying of an assessment upon every organ ized worker in tho United States and Canada of not less than one-fourth of his net earnings and upon every officer of organized labor not less than 50 per cent of his sa lary until the objects of the drive be accomplished." accom-plished." WASHINGTON". Oct. 23. Samuel Gompers. Gom-pers. president of the A nu-riean Federation Federa-tion of Labor, declined today to comment com-ment on the action of the Illinois Federation Feder-ation of Labor in urging a special convention con-vention of the national organisation to deal with industrial problems. |