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Alexander, a cigarmaker and member of the Cigarmakers' International Union; Henry, a granite cutter and a member of the Granite Cutters' Union, and a daughter, Sadie, who lives with her father and mother on First street in Washington.

His life work has been to aid the working people by increasing wages, reducing hours of labor, bringing about better conditions of employment in all occupations and aiding in improving the standard of living.

In June, 1887, by action of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, he established the publication called "The Union Advocate." This publication appeared for a short time, but when the convention of 1887 met, it ordered the publication to be discontinued. Later the American Federationist, official magazine of the American Federation of Labor, was founded. The first issue appeared March, 1894.

He is the author of "The Eight-Hour Day," "No Compulsory Arbitration," "What Does Labor Want?" and "Organized Labor, Its Struggles, Its Enemies and Fool Friends." He has edited the American Federationist from 1894 up to the present, and contributed many articles to newspapers and magazines.

He has been a delegate to every convention of the International Union of Cigarmakers and to conventions of the American Federation of Labor since the latter's existence. He was the first delegate elected to represent the American Federation of Labor at the British Trades Union Congress. He has also been honored by the American Federation of Labor in having been given a commission to visit foreign countries in 1909 for the purpose of conferring with the officials of labor organizations; also to attend the International Secretariat as a fraternal delegate from the American Federation of Labor, the latter organization not having been affiliated at that time with the Secretariat, which is now known as the International Federation of Trade Unions.

His trip through England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland had the effect of creating intense interest in social problems and he was invited in all these countries to hold conferences with high government officials as well as leaders of labor. Upon his return to Washington, organized labor of that city, aided by the citizens of the District, tendered to him the greatest ovation ever tendered anyone, save, of course, the incoming presidents on inauguration day.

Since returning from the foreign trip Mr. Gompers has written a book entitled "Labor in Europe and America," which has had quite an extensive sale. The Saturday half-holiday, now so general, virtually originated in the bill drafted by him and enacted by the New York legislature.

His first helpful reading was the tracts and pamphlets issued by the Anti-Slavery Society; then he read Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Burns, Shelley, Hood and Shakespeare, followed by history and books on economics. For years his opportunities have been limitless to enter the business or political world, or upon the public platform.

His capacity with the knowledge which he has gained to make money for himself is almost beyond computation. Recognizing his ability on the platform, many Chautauqua societies and organizers of Chautauquas, booking concerns, etc., have each year presented him with flattering offers for the platform, but he has steadfastly refused to accept any of the offers proferred.

The year 1894, following his only defeat for president of the American Federation of Labor, innumerable offers were made to him to enter a mercantile and political life, and, while he was practically without a dollar, he refused to accept any of them.

His greatest desire is to be employed in the great work of uplift, as exemplified in the activities of the American Federation of Labor.-Rochester Labor Herald.

High Tribute to Trade Unionism

Russel Sage Foundation Survey, of Springfield, Ill., Puts Unions First as Benefactors of Workmen.

That trade unionism is a first line of defense against long hours and low wages is the testimony of the survey report on industrial conditions in Springfield, Ill., made by the Department of Surveys and Exhibits of the Russell Sage Foundation. The evidence is offered in the calm language of a non-partisan statement of fact. Investigators from the New York headquarters of the Foundation collected the original data and half a score of experts collaborated in checking the results and preparing the recommendations.

The full report will say, among other things, that the investigation revealed "shorter hours as the rule in union shops. Among employees in these shops, for example, 54 per cent. had an eight-hour day while in the unorganized establishments only 7 per cent. worked eight hours or less. Only 13 per cent. of the men in the union shops, moreover, worked ten hours, as compared with 37 per cent. in the nonunion work places. These figures tend strongly to support the trade unionists' point that organized workers are able to gain, and do gain, for themselves advantages which workers acting individually do not enjoy, and they refute the claim of many employers who oppose organization of their workers that they voluntarily grant all of the benefits which employees might, secure through the union.

Hours of Work.

"The long list of trades in the eighthour column indicates something of what labor organizations have been able to accomplish in reducing hours; for in the not distant past all of these

groups were working nine hours per day or more. Moreover, even in the case of some trades shown in the tenhour column, the union had reduced hours. The teamsters, for instance, whose ten-hour day still seems long, can look back to the time when they were required to complete their rounds regardless of time. Likewise the ice drivers at the time of the survey were required to work from ten to twelve hours per day, depending on the weather, whereas formerly their hours extended from daylight even into the night.

"The strongest labor union group in Springfield undoubtedly is the miners, who have ten local unions, with a total membership of about 2,500. The mines of the vicinity are run on a strictly closed shop basis, and since 1898, when the unions won a great victory in this industry, the eight-hour day has prevailed.

"Some of the other trades represented in the table, however, were not thoroughly organized; and while the hours given are those of members of the union, other workers in the trade were working longer hours.

Unionism and Wages.

"Among skilled and semi-skilled workers in factories, the building trades and on railroads, as we have seen, labor unions have had an effective influence in increasing wages. In fact, wage conditions among all union workers were generally better than among non-union workers in Springfield.

"Judging from the data supplied by over half of the various local unions, these organizations had been effective in increasing wages for their members. Most of the unions reported increases in the five years prior to the survey

"Similarly, as to hours, many of the locals reported reductions in hours per day or per week in the last five years. The building trades, for example, with an eight-hour day five years before, had recently reduced their hours per week from forty-eight to forty-four. In a number of cases where there had been no reduction in hours, the eighthour day had been gained five years before. In the majority of cases the improvements both as to hours and wages had been brought about without strikes.

Hours of Women Workers.

"It was clear from our investigations that a much larger proportion of male and female workers in Springfield were enjoying an eight-hour day. The building trades, the miners, the printers, the cigarmakers and many other male workers through the strength of their unions had been able to make this gain. But their wives and sisters and daughters, whose physical resistance to the strain of industrial occupation is less than theirs, and who besides generaly have home tasks after their exhausting day outside, for the most part were working in Springfield factories, stores and laundries from nine to ten hours per day. One reason for this undoubtedly was the fact that women workers were almost entirely unorganized.

Hope in Organization.

"To some extent, doubtless, reductions in hours of work may be looked for from employers who see in their industries an avenue for social service, but the best hope, judging from past accomplishments, appears to be offered in labor organization under intelligent and conscientious leadership.

"Among skilled male workers the unions will undoubtedly continue to maintain their strength and perhaps increase it; but among unskilled men and among women workers, labor organization, though it should be striven for, nevertheless does not look so hopeful. In the skilled trades, therefore, male workers acting through their unions, may be counted on to

play a part in industrial betterment, but among unskilled men and among women workers-where conditions are farthest from satisfactory-employers and the public must be relied upon chiefly for improvement measures."

WILL ORGANIZE TEACHERS.

San Francisco.-The Labor Council has instructed its organizing committee to give all possible aid to the public school teachers in this city in their effort to form a union and affiliate with the American Federation of Teachers.

Members of the municipal fire department are awakening to the advantages of unionism and the Labor Council's committee will assist them, also.

Mayor Lloyd

DEFENDS UNION ORGANIZERS. Menominee, Mich. draws a sharp distinction between a person employing a lawyer residing in another city and a body of unionists asking an organizer from another city to assist them.

At a meeting of the common council Mayor Lloyd insisted that these organizers should be driven from the city because Menominee workers, who are now on strike, can receive sufficient advice from the professional and business interests located here. In reply to a query, the mayor replied that he had employed attorneys from outside the city.

“That is just what the workers have done," answered the councilman. "They want the advice of men who have made a study of labor conditions and therefore have sent for these organizers."

When council adjourned Mayor Lloyd had failed to see any similarity between the two positions.

Do all the work you can; there are lots of lazy men who will do the rest.

The big apples would never stay at the top of the measure if there were no little ones below to hold them up.

From Committee on Industrial Relations

Southern Building, Washington

By Dante Barton.

Washington.-With the street railway workers of New York trying to exercise their legal right to organize, Theodore P. Shonts, president of the New York Railways Company, is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of the nickel-payers' money in buying page advertisements in the New York newspapers to misinform and consequently to prejudice the public against the men, and to attempt to bribe the newspapers against fairness to the street railway workers.

Leaders of the street railway union and executives of the Railroad Brotherhoods who are now assembled in New York denounce as astounding effrontery the statement of this corporation's president, Mr. Shonts, that the union is an "alien organization." These leaders in the labor movement say that it is supreme nerve coming from a man and a corporation who have been notorious for importing to New York and employing subway workers and others who are new to the New York situation, and who cannot even speak the languages that the union organizers and workers speak.

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whom corporations like that of which Shonts is president exploit and starve and overwork.

It

In a report to the Committee of Industrial Relations, Dante Barton, who, with George P. West, of the staff of the committee, investigated the causes of the strike, says that it is a fight for the right to organize and the right to recognition of organization. grows out of the usual background of low wages, long and broken hours of labor and the arbitrary discharge, which are the conditions always imposed upon workers who are not organized into effective unions. The great effort of the union and the strikers is to organize all the street railway transportation employees into an effective union. Instead of making their appeal chiefly to the sympathies and the humanity of the public, they are making a straight-out business appeal to the public to support them in their rights to self-respecting, selfcontrolling organization. In the light of this fact the statement of Theodore P. Shonts, in his newspaper campaign, that "we are not fighting labor unions or the principle of organization" is characterized by all the labor leaders as the old cheap and flat falsehood.

Mr. Shonts' corporation is doing everything legal and illegal within its power to prevent the organization of its employees into effective unions. It is employing guards. It is making it necessary for union organizers to go together in squads of eight or ten in order to protect one another from being beaten up. It is using its political and financial power to have the militia and the police at its disposal, in addition to its privately employed guards and detectives. It is spend

ing vast sums of money, as has been pointed out, to subsidize the newspapers and mislead the public. It has even, in some cases, given small increases in wages to some of its employees.

"This whole fight, in other words," says the report to the Committee on Industrial Relations, "is a part of that evident, nation-wide fight now being waged with greatest viciousness by corporate financial interests, by the National Association of Manufacturers, and by kindred private interests to break up union organization and to keep individual employees entirely at the mercy of the great impersonal corporations which make their profits out of labor."

There no such thing as a good man gone wrong; it is only a bad man found out.

CITY RECOGNIZES UNIONISM.

Waco, Tex.-Teamsters and Helpers' Union has signed an agreement with the mayor and city commissioners that only members of that organization shall be employed on city work. Eight hours shall constitute a day's work, and ice will be furnished the men from April 15 to October 15. Time and one-half shall be paid, and men will be promoted according to merit, ability and seniority.

THEORY VS. PRACTICE.

Los Angeles, Cal.-The president of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, who unceasingly declares that every man "has the right to run his own business," makes public announcement that local business interests will not countenance the employment of union longshoremen by Los Angeles vessel owners.

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