National Civic Federation

Easley was thrust into the public spotlight in 1899 when the CCF held a conference in Chicago on problems presented by the various monopolistic Trusts which dominated most of the key sections of the American economy.

Easley believed that such collaboration between the leaders of industry and labor was necessary to mitigate potential dangers associated with a continuation and expansion of the class struggle between these social groups.

[1]: 8–9 Other NCF founding members from trade unions included Daniel Keefe (International Longshoremen's Association), John Mitchell (United Mine Workers) and J. J. Sullivan (Typographers).

In addition to Mark Hanna, leading roles were played by utilities magnates Samuel Insull and George B. Cortelyou, banker Franklin MacVeagh, and industrialist Andrew Carnegie.< By 1903 nearly one-third of the 367 American corporations with a capitalization of more than $10 million were represented in the NCF, as were 16 of the 67 biggest railroads in the country.

[1]: 12 The National Civic Federation was instrumental in expanding and helping make uniform state laws regarding child labor, workmen's compensation, and factory safety.

[2] With the coming of war in Europe and a drive for the armament of America under the slogan of "Preparedness," the National Civic Federation began to take on the character of a patriotic organization, agitating against pacifists, socialists, and sundry others characterized in the words of Theodore Roosevelt as "undesirable citizens.

Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin have written that the miners saw the purpose of the NCF as, ...to housebreak unionism, to confine its growth to those fields where management could use it, and to emasculate it by a united front of labor leaders and captains of industry against all socialistic and insurgent elements.