The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-12-13
ONWARD By EVOLUTION
Gompers Soothes Impatient
Ones in LaborS Ranks.
REVIEWS YEARS RESULTS
Bitterly Opposed to Expansion
and CoIoniaIiSm.

Kansas City, Mo-. Dec. 12.-The eight
eenth annual convention of the American
Federation OF Labor as called TO order Il
Strope's hall at 10 o'clock this morning
About $50 delegates from all parts or TINS
country and two from acrovss the water,
namely, William Thorne and William IN
skip of London, representing the BRUSH
Trade Union congress. were present Dele
gate Inskip's mission is 70 plead FOR q
closer alliance between the United States
and the mother country along industrial
as Wen as political lines.
The work mapped out for the opening
day included the committee reports, the
seating and rejection of contested dele
gates. of whom there are several and the
annual address of President Samuel Com
pers.
President Evans of the Kansas City
Commercial club welcomed the delegates.
President Gompers responding.
After disposing of the usual preliminary
matters Of organization, President Com
pers delivered his annual address.
I'm the early days of our movement, we
had a declaration in our organization that
defense of trade unions was unnecessary.
In this declaration we were supported by
the historic development Of the labor
movement. justified by all laws of natural
growth, by industrial, economic and social
conditions. Though there is no alteration
requiring a modification of our attitude, in
so far as the unduestionable basis Of the
trade unions is concerned, certain elements
have arisen, and taken our failure to de-
fend the trade unions as a confession of
the untenableness of trade unions and
trade union action. It is true that the
work, the onward march, the progress, the
success attending our movement, are in
themselves a defense; yet our silence has
been interpreted as a confession Of weak
ness.
1.-The trade unions are the legitimate out
growth Of modern society and industrial
conditions. They are not the creation of
any mans brain. They are organization
Of necessity. They were born of the ne
cessity of the workers 10 protect and de-
fend themselves from encroachment, injus-
tice and wrong. They are the organiza-
tons of the working class, for the work
ing class. by the working class.
From hand labor in the home to ma
transition from the trade guilds TO the
trade unions; with the concentration of
wealth and the development of industry,
the growth from the local to the national
and the international unions, and the closer
utilization of al lin a broad and compre-
hensive federation
There are some who, dissatisfied with
what they term the slow progress Of the
labor movement, would have us hasten Il
by what they lead themselves to believe
is a shorter route. No intelligent work
man who has passed years OF his life in
the study of the labor problem expects to
wake up any fine morning to find the
hopes OF these years realized over night,
and the world on the flood tide Of the
millennium.
Spencer has said that it has always been
the remnant in society which has saved
it from the reaction OF barbarism. Today
modern society is beginning to realize that
the trade unions are the only hope of our
civilization, and to regard them as the
only power whose mission is to evolve or
der out OF our social chaos to save us
from reaction brutality and perhaps bar
barism. Our progress may be slow, yet IT
IS the fastest, the safest and best evolved
from the human mind; and even in its
present form. is the germ of a future state
which all win hail with glad acclaim.
ORGANIZATION FOR THE YEAR.
at is a matter for genuine qualification
that. notwithstanding pubic interest dur
ing the past year has been conferred upon
the war with Spain. Organization of the
workers has not Jagged During the year
20S charters were issued directly from the
American Federation of Labor. OF this
number nine were granted to national and
international unions, and ls2 charters to
local trade unions and Federal Labor
unions
There are now in direct aff1liation with
the American Federation Of Labor: Ma
tional and international unions with u.
500 local unions attached. O.; state fedora
tons. 10: city central labor unions and
trades assemblies. 50: local trade unions
(having no nationally, SIS; federal labor
unions, 100
Fifty affiliated nationals report 527 char
ters granted to local unions, and our or
GAMERS report thata they have organized
and secured charters from other national
and International unions for 80 local
unions during the past year. These figures.
which do not complete the field, show $50
local unions organized and chartered dur
ing the year
THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT.
OF the eight-hour movement, Gompers
sad:
1T was expected that the International
| Association OF Machinists would have
made some forward move in the spring @.
this year for the establishment Of the