IWW War Trials in Chicago, 95 go to prison for up to 20 years - 1918

The worst rail accident in U.S. history occurred when two trains pulled by 80-ton locomotives collided head-on at Dutchman’s curve in west Nashville, Tenn. 101 people died, another 171 were injured - 1918

Eighty-six passengers on a train carrying members of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus are killed, another 127 injured in a wreck near Hammond, Indiana. Five days later the dead are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Ill., in an area set aside as Showmen’s Rest, purchased only a few months earlier by the Showmen’s League of America - 1918

Railroad union leader and socialist Eugene V. Debs speaks in Canton, Ohio on the relation between capitalism and war. Ten days later he is arrested under the Espionage Act, eventually sentenced to 10 years in jail - 1918

A Federal child labor law, enacted two years earlier, was declared unconstitutional – 1918

President Wilson establishes the War Labor Board, composed of representatives from business and labor, to arbitrate disputes between workers and employers during World War I - 1918

Chicago stockyard workers win 8-hour day - 1918

Sam Walton, founder of the huge and bitterly anti-union Wal-Mart empire, born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He once said that his priority was to “Buy American,” but Wal-Mart is now the largest U.S. importer of foreign-made goods—often produced under sweatshop conditions - 1918

Trial of 101 Wobblies, charged with opposing the draft and hindering the war effort, begins in Chicago - 1918

Int't'l Ass'n of Fire Fighter - 1918

Faced with 84 hour workweeks, 24 hour shifts and pay of 29 cents an hour, fire fighters form The International Association of Fire Fighters. Some individual locals had affiliated with the AFL beginning in 1903 - 1918

A Mediation Commission appointed by President Woodrow Wilson finds that "industry’s failure to deal with unions" is the prime reason for labor strife in war industries - 1918