The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-09-20
GOMPERS WORKING
FOR DEMOCRATS
Wants To Deliver Laber Vote
To Bryan
NAY WIN IN THE HOUSE
Democrats Have the Best Chance to
Get Majority In the Lower House
They Have Had for IS Years.
New York Gossip.
MAY WIN IN THE HOUSE

New York, September 19-Samuel
Gompers is making the fight of his life
to deliver the labor vote to the democratic
candidate in the Forthcoming election. The
September issue of the American Fedora
ZIONIST, of which he is editor, is filled with
letters from officers of trades unions
who are opposed to the republican ticket.
Represented in this symposium are the
metal employees, painters, decorators and
paperhangers, coast seamen, musicians,
blacksmiths, molders. textile workers,
meat-cutters, paper-makers, potters,
dredgers and many other trades. John
Mitchell, in a letter which is given the
most prominent position, advises his fol-
lowers to reward labors friends and re-
Duke it's foes" For several weeks l.. r.
Thomas secretary of the Metal Trades
Federation of Uorth America, has been
circulating among union men all over the
country in an effort to ascertain the senti-
ments of the rank and file. He reports:
My inquiries have been made in the
shop and the factory, among the busy
workers, at the lathe and bench, in the
foundry, and at the furnace, among work
of the republican party, men whose af-
fliation with the iron industry has i'm
pregnated them with the doctrine of the
protective tariff, and who have loyalty
supported the party in the past, and to
whose votes the republican party owes Its
triumphs. I have found deep feeling
of resentment at the treatment accorded
labors representatives by the republican
party in the Chicago convention. In every
instance the attitude Of President Comp
ers and his colleagues is commended and
all declare that a rebuke will be admin
istered to the republican party in Novem-
Der that will be remembered for all time
to come.
That it might not be charged that this
article is the effusion of an enthusiastic
democratic partisan who sees only what
pleases his eyes, or hears only what is
pleasant to his ears the writer would
say that since casting his first vote for
James A Garfield he has loyalty support
ed the republican party in every national
campaign, and 1t is with reluctance that
he now sewers his connection with it; but,
in common with the great body of organ
lied labor of which he is part, he feels
keenly the sighting, .contemptuous treat
by the party which, under Abraham Lin
coin, was the party of the oppressed and
lowly.'
The argument is the same in all the
letters; Taft's injunction record is at
tackled and the attitude of the republican
Congress to labor is can arrogant and
defiant. One of the best of the letters
ends:
His (the laboring mans future is in
do 10 81 n
own savior or his own executioner No
one can, nor will any one attempt to de-
liver his vote to any candidate or any
party. They will only bring to him the
facts. Let him think well, then act as
his conscience dictates, with a full under
standing of what it portends for his flu
ture"
1t will be interesting to watch the out
come of this fight and by comparing
the vote of the industrial centers with
the vote of previous years 1t will be easy
to tell just how much effect Mr.. Gomper
arguments have had with the union man.
New York has S57 200 wage-earners, Penn
sylvania has 1000 Massachusetts has
600 900, Illinois has 3S0OOO Ohio has 100000
New Jersey has 265,00O, and several other
important states have over 100000 each.
OF course all are not voters, but enough
are to turn the tide in close election.
The democrats seem mighty confident
when you ask them If they are going to
win the House, and it must be conceded,
even by the republicans, that they have
the best chance they've had in Is years.
Two years az the democrats cut down
the republican majority from well over
100 to 81, and with these figures staring
them in the face there's no denying that
the G. o. p. congressional campaign COM
mittee is frightened. The reason Is two
fold. To begin with there are "a districts
scattered through the northern and west
ern states which are now represented by
republicans every one of whom was elect
ed by a plurality of less than 1000. Fiji
teen of these men were elected by plural
tiles of less than 1000. Now, it requires
change of only 1000 votes to alter a
plurality not exceeding 1000 into a victory
for the other fellow, and in a season of
political chaos such as marks the pres
ent campaign changes no greater than
that are easily made.
-Four years ago the enormous vote for
President Roosevelt carried to victory a
good many republicans in districts which
normally are solidly democratic. The nat
ural reaction in an Off year took a
number of these districts back into the