Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-08-04
UNION LABOR IN POLITICS.

President Gompers' call for dollar
contributions from members of union
organizations and the announcement
politics." has stirred up much COM
ment and speculation, especially in the
east where the labor vote is specifical-
ly strong and easier Of management
than the west The New York Even
ing Post says:
beginning with Speaker Cannon,
who has been charged with more dew
iltry' than any one else in opposing la
Dor legislation, the attack is to be d.
rected at all the republican members
of the judiciary committee. Among
them are Messrs Jenkins of Wiscon-
sin, Parker of New Jersey Palmer. of
Pennsylvania. and Littlefield of Maine.
These audacious gentlement had the
effrontery to set UP their notions of
good law and sound public policy
against those of Mr.. Gompers. In
Guided are Nreeland of New York,
Barthodt of Missouri, and Mccall of
Massachusetts.
To the Boston Transcript "the de-
mands of organized labor are such that
it is difficult to judge whether they
We're formulated by Gompers Or
Hearst" such a conglomerate Of "anti-
injunction law" "eight-hou laboring
day." and municipal Slaughter
houses" appears.
The immediate field in which the
strength of the labor element is to be
tested is the congressional fight in the
second Maine district. Congressman
Littlefield. whom the Philadelphia
Ledger calls lone of the highest
and best type of congressman" has in
Cured the enmity of the federation by
his attitude on the anti-injunction BILL
and the eighthou bill.
The views of the press upon this adj
vent of Gompers in the political field
are largely on the order of this, ex-
pressed by the Detroit Free Press:
ut is a novel experiment that Mr..
Gompers is going to make and he is
going to begin where the test will be
most severe-in Maine, and continue
it where it will be still more severe
in Speaker Cannon's own district and
against Speaker Cannon. Certainly
Mr.. Gompers has courage; he may
have hope, but what are his convic-
tions?"
MANY will admire his courage, but
fo will y 10. in MT "a
opinion of the Toledo Blade, which
paper views the situation thus:
1--WE doubt if the American fedora
ton can be lined up solidly in support
of Gompers. His method is a two
edged sword, and if he should make a
failure of it, as he seems destined to
do. he is likely to do the cause of or
ganiZed labor incalcuable harm. Then,
too, the conversion of the federation
into a political organization is fraught
with grave danger. Union labor has
waxed strong because it has eschewed
politics as an organization. BY it's
course it has avoided the rocks OH
which the knights of Labor foundered
That lesson was we'll learned, and up
to the present time repetition of the
disaster has been made impossible"
OF the danger to Congressman Lit
tlefield himself, there is but little fear
expressed. The special correspondent
of the New York Evening Post
from Rockland, Me-, writes for that pa
per two column summary of the sit
uation there in which, while he ac-
knowledges that Mr.. Littlefield's plur-
ality will doubtless be cut, owing to
other developments in state politics,
he concludes:
ut would not take a very large body
of normally constructed men to fur
nish enough fingers upon which tc
count the votes which will be changed
by the invasion of Mr.. Gompers and
his band of spellbinders. Maine Ia
borers, as rule, will stand by their
party
And the Philadelphia Ledger.
while apparently seeing little cause for
alarm in the threats of labor, con-
cludes, however that eff Gompers sue
ceeds in arraying the hosts of labor
against the soundest and safest men IN
public life, the people will not be slow
to draw conclusions embarrassing to
labor"