Wilson's labor policy focused on using the Labor Department to mediate conflicts between labor and management. In 1914, Wilson dispatched soldiers to help bring an end to the Colorado Coalfield War, one of the deadliest labor disputes in U.S. history. In mid-1916, after a major railroad strike endangered the nation's economy, Wilson called the parties to a White House summit. Wilson convinced both sides to put the strike on hold while he pushed Congress to pass a law providing for an eight-hour work day for railroad workers. After Congress passed the Adamson Act, which incorporated the president's proposed eight-hour work day, the strike was cancelled. Wilson was widely praised for averting a national economic disaster, but conservatives denounced the law as a sellout to the unions and a surrender by Congress to an imperious president. The Adamson Act was the first federal law that regulated hours worked by private employees.