TSAR OF AMERICAN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 110, 3 February 1919, Page 6

TSAR OF AMERICAN

LABOUR SAMUEL GOMPERS A PEN SKETCH It is no ordinary man whoso word has lor 30 years bcon law to the working millions of the United States. In all but name Sam Gompox.s 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 Wuodrow Wilson the most aristocratic and, unapproachable Chief Executive who lias ever "reigned" at the, White House in a national crisis. Yet Wilson himself (writes W. E. Fitzgerald in the "Pall Mall Gazette") travelled three hundred miles to Buffalo in order to extol tho "Old Man" (Gompcrs is now 69), and set forth "his patriotic courage, his lajge' vision, his statesmanship, and genius for team work on a vast scale." I can see the Old Man deprecating tho chief's eulogium with characteristic murmur; "Go—go—go." In no country on earth—it is, of course, a continent—is Labour so difficult to handle as in the United States. Millions of tho 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 Gompors 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 ns everything." Sam is tlie apostle of sanity and moderation; this is the secret of his abiding hold. He represents the aristocracy of American workers —perhaps three millions out of thirty millions or more. An Incorruptible. "Everything for the nation," is Gompers's war-time motto, "but nothing■tor private profit." This thick-set, jerky little man with big glasses and forthright speech, is assuredly one of the incorruotibles. When he was earning £4 a week, 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 decliued. He also refused a nomination to Congress. The biggest plum over offered to the Old Man was from a great manufacturing concern. This was a cash douceur of 45,000d01., and the life tenure of a sinecure job. But Sam is a man with a mission, and to that missian he has clung ever since 1882. I will liffU pretend that Gompers is not comfortably "fixed," as our new Allies put it. His salary as president is £120*0 a year; but the workers know that the Tsar of Labour is assuredly worthy of his hire. Ho had no schooling, this Dutch-British Jew, beyond four casual child years in a primary school over here. That cfiilti wa* cigar-maker 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 V/nshington, and made him a member of the National Defence Committee. "lii the name of American Labonr,"i says this rugged veteran of a thousand "wars" to the Gorman people, "I 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. Ho .has no objection to miraculous now machinery. He scouts the idea of restricting output, he welcomes the dilution of stilled labour; but: "We will not have it at tlie call of hysteria, or at the demand of greedy and profiteering employers who see in the world-war the chance they are 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 tho I.W.W. leaders and extrtmie Socialists of the West. "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 birth—and to 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; '.'I used to forget whether I'd. eaten my lunch I" He is now the master .of three languages, and his Washington war work begins before dawn. America has profound respect for Samuel Gompers. Universities like Harvard and Cornell invito him to lecture; tho 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 nonunion workers, like those of the motor shops, the steel mills, and shipyards. Nor does Mr. Gompers concern himself with coloured labour. If men like to joint tho great federation, well and good; if not, yet them go their own way outside the central fold. His ideal is a ladder of betterment for the wageearner. "Its 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." .