appreciate the true dignity of labor and the importance to the state of fair conditions for workingmen. The older I grew, the more essential seemed the strong organization of labor. I felt what Wendell Phillips expressed in these words: ‘I rejoice at every effort workingmen make to organize. I hail the labor movement. It is my only hope for democracy. Organize and stand together. Let the nation hear a united demand from the laboring voice.’
THE NEED OF ORGANIZED LABOR.
“Of course the idea of organized labor is a very old one. Trade unions have been in existence since the Middle Ages, but what they needed in this country was more cohesive strength. There were a great number of separate unions and some general organizations, but they were not strong enough. A new plan was needed, and we published a call which resulted in a convention at Pittsburg, in 1881, at which the American Federation of Labor was formed. Most of the delegates to that convention were strongly opposed to our project for an organization on broader lines than had been before attempted, but we carried the point, and at present the Federation has six hundred and fifty thousand members.”
It is a matter of history that Samuel Gompers was the founder of the American Federation of Labor. The first impulse came from him. While sitting at his bench in New York rolling cigars, he conceived the plan that has made the Federation the largest and most important and useful labor organization that has ever existed.
HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERATION.
Mr. Gompers declined the presidency at the first convention, but he was obliged to accept it at the second great gathering, held in Cleveland, in 1882. For some time after his election he remained at work at his trade, but the growing number and importance of his duties at length made it necessary for him to devote all his time to the Federation, which he does for a salary that many clerks would scoff at. Mr. Gompers has received offers for nominations to congress from both the Republican and Democratic parties in his New York district, and has been asked by several presidents of the United States to accept important and highly salaried offices, but he has declined them all, feeling that his present position gives him greater opportunities of usefulness to the workingman.
The laws whose place on the statute books are due to the efforts of Mr. Gompers make a long list. They include sanitary inspection for factories, mills, mines, etc., the age limit law, employers’ liabilities for damages to life and limb, wage-lien laws, uniform car-coupling laws, anti-sweatshop legislation, the anti-conspiracy law, the state-board-of-arbitration law, laws restricting the hours of labor, and the enactment making the first Monday in September a holiday.
FOR THE EIGHT-HOUR WORKDAY.
“At present,” said Mr. Gompers, “one of our chief slogans is—‘An Eight-Hour Workday!’ There is more in this than one might think at a first glance. With a little leisure, the workingman has an opportunity to read and cultivate his mind and devote himself to his home and family. It makes him expand intellectually and think more, and with this new life come new desires. He wants to have his home more comfortable than it has been. He wants a few books, a few pictures, a little recreation for himself and family, and for these things he makes outlays of money which are very modest in individual cases, but which, in the aggregate, amount to vast sums and have a stimulating effect on all trades. This makes an increased demand for labor. It has a tendency to raise wages and diminish the number of the unemployed. These important benefits to be derived from shorter hours of labor constitute the reason why I am making an issue of the eight-hour workday. We have already done much and expect to do more. Yet you have no idea how hard it sometimes is to procure the passage of a measure. When the uniform car-coupling bill was before the senate, the senators would run into the coat-room to avoid voting, and I stood at the door in a half frantic condition, sending my card to this senator and that senator, and telling each that he simply must support the measure. It was hard work, but we carried it through.”
STRIKES AS A LAST RESORT.
Strikes are not favored by Mr. Gompers except under certain circumstances and as a last resort. During the great Chicago strike, the most intense pressure was brought to bear upon him to issue an order calling out all the workingmen in the country. It took high moral courage to resist the many strenuous appeals, but Samuel Gompers possessed this courage and the country was saved from an experience which might have proved most calamitous.
“I firmly believe in arbitration,” said Mr. Gompers, “but to arbitrate, the power must be equal, or nearly so, on both sides; therefore labor must be strongly organized.”
I asked him to what he attributed his success in his life-work.
“Well,” he answered slowly, “I learned both to think and to act, and to feel strongly enough on these great questions of labor to be willing to sacrifice my personal convenience for my aims. I have felt great devotion to the common cause of the manual workers, and I can say nothing better to young men than—‘Be devoted to your work.’ ”
When I asked a very intelligent workingman why Samuel Gompers is so highly respected by the workers, he replied:—
“Why, because—because he’s Sam Gompers—but that doesn’t explain much, does it? Well, I will say because he has done more for labor than any other man in this country, because we can trust him down to the ground, and because he’s in his work heart and soul.”
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