The morning journal-courier., 1908-02-11
SUBMIT OR STARYE
Gompers Answers an Alleged Statement on Labor's
 Alternative.
MORGAN REPUDIATES IT
President of Labor Federation De clares That Spread of Such DOC
 trines is Treason.

Washington. Feb. 10.-Sevepty-hVe delegates met to-day to inaugurate d movement for the organization oi department of building trades or the American federation of labor, Ill ac- cordance with a resolution adopted at the last annual convention Of the iea- eration. President Gompers or the American Federation of Labor weieoh- ed the delegates.
 In his address to-day President Gompers said. among other things. Yesterday there appeared m the newspapers an interview with J. Fer pont Morgan, the greatest iinancler or our country. as follows:
 Tn an interview published to-day J. Pierpont Morgan declares lapor must learn that it cannot control in- dustry. Renewals of employment are not wanted now He declares federa- tions will be powerless to prevent wage reductions because work is part ly stopped Workingmen cannot strike because they have got no jobs now
 "There are no stocks on hand, you know" says Morgan, and we do not want to take up work now. So what can they do? They will have to submit or they will starve. The question Is to be settled. They are to learn that they cannot control industry. We want wages that will make honest and prof. itable business possible.
 I Morgans repudiation of that interview
 "Of course Mir Morgan is multi millionaire and l am not, but, not withstanding the very opposite posi- tions occupied by him and by myself, I am free 10 say that when MT. Mor- gan says he did not give utterance to that statement l believe him. But it Is the thought Itself to which I want to call attention-that notwithstand- ing MT. Morgan may not have said what is attributed to him, l know that that thought is in the minds of q large number of employers for a consider able time And that is the thing.
 Tn the same paper in which that interview is published, is statement that in New York city thousands of children go hungry to schools and as result are not only incapable of learning the lessons satisfactorily but that they cry for food and sometimes faint at their benches because of hun ger.
 "ln the newspaper is statement ot an interview with a gentlemen who has made study of conditions in New of every three men in New York Is idle Idle for what2 The material Is there. the machinery Is there. the brain is there, the brawn Is there and the hands and the intelligence are there and the needs of the people are there, and yet men are idle and children in the schools cry for food.
 "It Is not only inhuman and brutal, but 1t is treason to our country and to the human race for anyone to think much less give expression 10 the idea. that the working people must submit further or starve,
 The American workingmen have come to the conclusion, If I have any conception of their thoughts. their hopes and their expressions, that the condition that obtains In other coun- tries where there are large armies of the unemployed will not obtain in the United States; it will not be toler- ated.
 "If We permit it, it will be our own fault and we will have failed In our duty to each other, to our fellow citi- zens of to-day gnd the days to come"