THE CALL OF AMERICA'S LABOUR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 278, 13 August 1918, Page 6

THE CALL OF AMERICA'S LABOUR

ITS WIN-THE-WAR PLEDGE,

At the thirty-eighth annual convention of tho American Federation of Labour tho Lxecutive Council of (ho throe million organised workers comprised in tho federation adopted a report which literally puts the industrial services of every workman in the country at tho service of tho Government. The federation has taken this step because of its conviction that 'tho present Administration under tho leadership of President Wilson lias interpreted by word and act tho spirit of democracy and humanity an a way that has made him the spokesman for world democracy." The federation therefore, while "recognising that industrial wrongs still exist," nevertheless finds that while "the Allied armies hnvo their backs to the wall lighting the minions of autocracy," the Labour movement of America' can think only in torms of war and victory. The proposal was put before the convention in tho- report of the Executive Council and was adopted without amendment. It reads in part as follows:—

"Tho workers in war production are practically a. part of the fighting force, the Army and Navy. They cannot stop work without interfering with the whole programme. The whole campaign from production to where munitions are used in the,field must be so precise, so well articulated, that nothing shall interfere with any forward movement if we are, to check and defeat the best organised war machine tho world has ever seen. No action should be taken in the shops or on (the field not in harmony with tho purposes of the war. "Organised Labour, true to its traditions, has proffered its full and comprehensive support to the Commander-in-Chief, and if; will not now bo paralysed by infirmity of purpose or action. Deeply in-pressed by the events upon the Western batjlefronts, we are constrained to place before our fellow-workmen a definite course, of action. No strike should bo inaugurated "which cannot be justified to tho man risking his life on the firingline in Franco. ■ The American soldiers on tho battle-line must pay in large numbers the supreme saerifico, which must exercise a dominating and inspiring influence upon the people of this nntion. Let it not be said that the organised American workmen engaged in tho production of the necessary accoutrements of war shall be found unwilling to make fhe sacrifice demanded of them in this hour."