The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1908-09-08
DEBs SCORES GoMPERs
The Labor Leader Incompetent an,
InSincere, He Says.

luOluCoIOS h0 66yDs
Denver, Sept. "Gompers never
has won victory and never has
been In a fight worth mentioning, . .
said, Eugene Debs, Socialist candidate
for president in a statement made
public last night. Some days ago Mr..
Gompers charged that the "Red Spe-
cial," In which DeDs is touring the
country, was being paid for by the
Republicans. This Debs denied In his
speeches and as further proof made
public the names Of workingmen who
paid ror the trip with gifts of from
twenty 1--we cents up. The statement
made public tonight assails the integ-
rity of Gompers. It follows:
"A few weeks ago ventured the
opinion that the so-called anti-injunc-
tinnssnlanE OF the Democratic. party
war a false pretense to catch the votes
ekthssi siSh0f ant, and in effect meaning
less. This seems to have given a At
to Mr.. Gompers, president Of the
American Federation Of Labor. In the
September issue of his personal organ,
THE American Federationist," he has
covered several pages with TRADE
of Misrepresentation and falsehoods.
/ have little time to waste upon Mr..
GOmpers, but what have to say will
be to the point.
After twenty-five years of his brill
liant leadership, the trades union
movement is stripped of It's power, by
court decision and otherwise, and
practically is paralyzed and helpless.
In Alabama 5000 miners, who have
been helping to pay his salary, have
been crushed by the iron heel of the
Democratic administration, to which
he has pledged his support in the
present campaign. In all his official
career Gompers not only never has
won a victory, but he never has been
in fight worth mentioning except at
a safe distance from the battlefield.
In all this time he has been violently
opposed to any political activity on
the part OF trades unions, and when
he was finally, forced from his atti-
tude of pure and simple" unionism,
1t was to negotiate with capitalist par
ties for the support of his benighted
followers. In other words, when he
was at last driven into politics he
used, all his influence TO steer men
into the shambles of capitalist party.
1t was only short time after Aug
ust Belmont, the agent of the Roth
childs, had crushed the strike OF the
subway employees in New York, with
the aid OF Farley and his army OF
strike breakers, that Belmont and
Gompers sat together as boon COM
panions at the same sumptuous festal
board. Every essential statement re-
specting me In his trade is either q
fragrant Misrepresentation or an un-f
qualified falFehood, and Gompers, the
labor header who has always led
backward, knows it.
ITO test his sincerity, l challenge
him to meet me before his followers.
and the. general public anywhere in
the United States, Washington, the
headquarters OF the federation, pre-
5ferred. 1 know the gentlemen 8 record.
He has charged me with being fall
3ure, but venture the opinion that
if he viii meet me which he will not,
for he will have to catch a train'fa-
he will agree that am not a failure
at exposing q cowardly falsifier and
in making his own deluded followers
repudiate him with indignation and
contempt. s3j5
q IL. Gompers stood before his last
convention and told how he had
spurned q bribe offered him by wicked
capitalists, and was franticaliy cheer
% by hts followers for what was q
blot upon his honor and an insult to-
their intelligence. :.s