ABSTRACT
In 1899, with the help of Jeremiah Jenks and Edwin R. A. Seligman of Columbia University, Ralph Easley organized a conference on trusts. At that conference a committee was organized to design a National Civic Federation (NCF). John R. Common had served as the secretary for the NCF's Conference on Taxation and Public Ownership in 1901. The labor leaders in the NCF tended toward the conservative end of the movement, and the president of the NCF, Mark Hanna, had masterminded the financing of William McKinley's campaign. The campaign that used massive funding and public relations tricks to defeat William Jennings Bryan. After the Anthracite strike and the report of the Arbitration Commission, Easley sent John R. to mediate a number of disputes—street railways, subways building trades, steel factories. John R. claimed that his experiences as a mediator led him to his "Malthusian" view of human nature—applied to both workers and employers—pigheaded, stubborn, "stupid and passionate".
