On August 7, 1882 the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the Committee on Education and Labor is hereby authorized and directed to take into consideration the subject of the relations between labor and capital, the wages and hours of labor, the condition of the laboring classes in the United States, and their relative condition and wages as compared with similar classes abroad, and to inquire into the division of labor and capital of their joint productions in the United States; also, the subject of labor strikes, and to inquire into the causes thereof and the agencies producing the same; and to report what legislation should be adopted to modify or remove such causes and provide against their continuance or recurrence, as well as any other legislation calculated to promote harmonious relations between capitalists and laborers, and the interests of both, by the improvement of the condition of the industrial classes of the United States.

Second. Said committee shall have leave to sit in vacation, and by sub-committee to visit such places in the United States as they may deem proper, to obtain necessary information under these resolutions; and said committee or sub-committee shall have power to send for persons and papers, to administer oaths, and to examine persons under oath or otherwise, and to cause depositions to be taken and certified under such regulations as they may adopt.

Third. Said committee shall have power to appoint a clerk, at a salary of $6 a day, and to employ such stenographic aid as may be necessary, and to appoint a sergeant-at-arms from the officers or employes of the Senate; and the actual and necessary expenses of said committees, properly incurred in the execution of these resolutions, shall be paid out of the contingent fund of the Senate

[John A. Garraty, ed., Labor and Capital in the Gilded Age (Boston, 1968), p. xi)