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Updated: June 12, 2025
Gompers' group that labor had any representation, and even there, out of 138 persons only 59 were workers or officials of unions, while 34 were business men and 33 professional men, so that among Mr. Gompers' assistants the business and professional men combined considerably outnumbered the labor men. The make-up of some of the sub-committees revealed the forces behind the Defense Council.
This misunderstanding led to an acrid international newspaper controversy, to which Gompers finally replied: "I uttered no sentence or word which by the wildest imagination could be interpreted as advocating the formula 'no annexations, and no indemnities. On the contrary, I have declared, both in the United States and in conferences and public meetings while abroad, that the German forces must be driven back from the invaded territory before even peace terms could be discussed, that Alsace-Lorraine should be returned to France, that the 'Irredente' should be returned to Italy, and that the imperialistic militarist machine which has so outraged the conscience of the world must be made to feel the indignation and righteous wrath of all liberty and peace loving peoples."
But the labor movement resisted. American labor, both during the periods of neglect and of moderate championing by the older generation of intellectuals, has developed a leadership wholly its own. This leadership, of which Samuel Gompers is the most notable example, has given years and years to building up a united fighting morale in the army of labor.
Parkhurst, Thomas A. Edison, Colonel George Harvey, Douglas Robinson, John Hays Hammond, Theodore Shonts, William Dean Howells, Alan R. Hawley, Samuel Gompers, August Belmont, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, Judge E. H. Gary, Emerson McMillin, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and ex-Mayor Mitchel.
Gompers had had, a novel by Harold Bell Wright or anything I would look into, a whole nation would look into it the moment they heard of it at once. The first thing to do in making a start for new brain tracks for America is to pick out persons and brain tracks that set each other off.
This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised the stock of the radical opposition. The opposition developed both in and outside the Federation.
A year earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunction standard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic platform, on the other hand, verbatim repeated the Federation plank on the injunction question and nominated Bryan. After the party conventions had adjourned the American Federationist entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate.
Gompers may have overstated the power of resistance of the unions, but their holding power upon the membership cannot be disputed. The aggregate membership of all unions affiliated with the Federation remained near the mark of 275,000 throughout the period of depression from 1893 to 1897. At last the labor movement had become stabilized. The year 1894 was exceptional for labor disturbances.
The Messenger encouraged blacks to join unions, and it tried hard to persuade the unions to eliminate discrimination. The view they propagated was that unions could not afford to be based on the color line; instead they should be based on a class line. Randolph and Owen attacked Samuel Gompers and the A. F. of L. for failing to be truly biracial.
Whenever a constituent union in the Federation has been the object of attack, he has jumped into the fray and has rarely emerged humiliated from the encounter. This is the more surprising when one recalls that he possesses the limitations of the zealot and the dogmatism of the partisan. One of the most important functions of Gompers has been that of national lobbyist for the Federation.
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