SAMUEL GOMPERS

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 28, 1 February 1919, Page 12

SAMUEL GOMPERS

A MAN WHOSE WORD IS LAW

AMERICA'S LABOUR LEADER.

It is no ordinary man whose word has for 30 years been law to the working millions of the United States. In all but name Sam Gompers •is a Cabinet Minister; a moulder of American policy; a tower of strength to Labour all the way from Arctic Yukon to the Mexican Gulf. I consider Woodrow .Wilson the most aristocratic and unapproachable Chief Executive who has ever "reigned" at the -White House in a national crisis. Yet Wilson himself (writes W. E. Fitzgerald in the Pall MaJl Gazette) travelled 300 miles to Buffalo in order to extol the "Old Man" (Gompers is now 69), and set forth "his patriotic courage, his la^gie vision, his statesmanship, and genius for team work on a vast scale."

I can see the Old Man deprecating the chief's eulogium with characteristic murmur: "Go—go—go." In no country on earth—it is, of course, a, continentis Labour bo difficult to handle as in the United States. Millions of the workers speak no English at all, and the clash of State and Federal laws makes organisation and protection extremely difficult. In this enormous welter the haggard and sturdy little figure of Old Man Gompers stands out like a luminous buoy in a furious sea. "Life is a struggle," he tells American Labour. "But remember that impatience to win all may lose us everything." Sa.ni is the apostle of sanity and moderation; this is the secret of his abiding hold. He represents the aristocracy of American workers—perhaps three millions oat of thirty millions or more. AN INCORRUPTIBLE. "Everything for the nation/ » GSompers's war-time motto, "but nothing for private profit." This thick-set, jerky little man, with big glasses and forthright speech, is Rssuredly one of the incorruptibks. When he was earning £4 a w«ek Governor Hill, of New York, offered Sam the post of Commissioner of Arbitration at 3000 dollars a year. He "talked it over with the wife" and declined. He also reftiisod a nomination to Congress. The biggest plum ever offered to the Old Han was from a great manufacturing concern. This was a cash douceur of 45,000 dollars, and the Kfe tenure of a sinecure job: But Sam is a man with a mission, and to that mission he has clung ever since 1882. "I will not pretend that Gompers it not comfortably "fixed," as our new Allies put it. His salary as president is £1200 a year; bnt the workers know that the Tsar of Labour is assuredly worthy of his hire. Ha had no schooling, this Dutch-British Jew, beyond four casual child-years in a primary, school over here. That child was a cigarmaker in our own East End. He was a pacifist in America's neutral-time; but as the German plot thickened, the sagacious Wilson called Sam to Washington, and made Mm a member of the National Defence Committee. "In. the name of American Labour," says this rugged veteran of a thousand "wars" to the German, people, " J say you cannot talk peace with us now. Nor shall you talk of International Conference. Either you smash your autocracy, or we will smash it for you." That is "plain United States" and "open diplomacy" with a vengeance! This man's power is enormous. He has no objection to miraculous new machinery. He scouts the idea of restricting output, he welcomes the dilution of skilled labour; but: "We will not have it at the call of hysteria, or at the demand of greedy and profiteering employers who see in the world-war the chance they axe always looking for-—to dilute ' and destroy the standards and safeguards of Labour." MASTER OF THREE LANGUAGES. It is safe to say- that if Tsar Gompers were not "behind the President like a stone Wall,'' America's avalanche of | aid would be halted, or even dissolved. His robust voice rings out above the; anarchy of the I.W.W. leaders and extreme Socialists of the" W-est. "It shall be our task," he ordains, "to interpret America's democratic spirit and purpose in this conflict to our fellow workers—especially to those of foreign s birth—ancLto combat every form of propaganda which tends to weaken the loyalty and devotion of the masses and their willingness to strive and sacrifice for the nation, at this critical hour." As a lad in America, young Gompers educated himself. There were books propped up on his work bench, so that —as he recalls: "T used to forget whether I'd eaten my lunch!" He is now the master of three languages, and his Washington ■war-woKkj begins before dawn. ' America has profound respect for Samuel Gompers. Universities like Harvard and Cornell invite him to lecture ; the Secretaries of War, the Navy, and (Labour consult him, so do the bureaucratic chiefs of shipping and aircraft, ordnance, munitions, and transportation. He has no desire to convert non-union workers, like those of the motor shops, the steel mills, and shipyards. Nor does Mr. Gompers concern himßelf wiih coloured labgur. If men like to join, the great federation, well and good; if not, let them go their own way outsicle the central fold. His ideal is a laddsr of betterment for the wage-earner. "Tts plan," as he says himself of the American Federation, "is to make to-day a •better day for the masses of the^ people than yesterday was."