NO COMPROMISE

Evening Post, Volume 91, Issue 91, 15 October 1923, Page 6

NO COMPROMISE

The casual reader of cable news associates the American Federation of Labour with its President, Sampel Gompers. The association is a natural one, for Mr. Gompers, with one year's intermission, has been President of the Federation since 1882. This year's Conference has re-elected him to the office, so that he will have a total service of 40 years. There are few men in high positions who can claim a similar record. The record is all the more remarkable when one considers the close and critical examination to which a Labour leader is required to submit. The "fierce light which beats upon a throne" is no more thorough a test than the spotlight in which the Labour leader moves, and from which he can by no means escape if he wishes to remain a. leader. For forty years Mr. Gompei's has stood in the light and worked in it. He has been a leader, not a mere figurehead, and he yet retains the confidence of his fellows. His last re-election hats additional significance because it has been made by a Convention which has ranged the Federation of Labour unmistakably upon the side of constitutional progress, and proclaimed as enemies those men who seek to overthrow the existing order of society.

By 27,838 votes to 130 the Con-" vention has expelled William Dunne because of his affiliation with the Third Internationale. For years there has been a fight raging in America with the men who are there termed "Radicals," but whom we should class as Communists. The fight has not all been in the open, for the Badicals, following the tactics dictated by Moscow, have sought to postpone a trial of strength till they could bore into the heart of trade unionism, leaving only a shell which would collapse at the first blow. The Portland Convention has decided that such tactics must not be allowed to continue. A report presented to the Convention, the cable messages stated, "set the Federation apart as denying any possibility for compromise with Communist propaganda, organisations, of spokesmen." The resolution expelling Dunne was' intended as notice to Moscow not to send delegates to the Federation of Labour Conventions. There is a lesson in this for those people who would, in the name of tolerance, permit the apostles of destruction full freedom to spread their gospel. The people who would change the order of society by gradual process can never compromise with those whose aim is to destroy everything^ before an efficient substitute state is even planned. Reformers of varying views may possibly agree upon a moderate course, but when destruction is the programme there is no place for anything but destruction.