Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-09-09

night, which The Stars correspondent
attended. Mr.. Gompers has been speak
ing elsewhere in Maine in defense of
President Wilson and of democratic ma
tional legislation.
In Friday nights address he declared
! that no party owned him, but that he
would support the party which was
nearest the masses Of the people. He
defended President Wilson's course in
the railway strike. and the legislation
OF Congress, which, he said. was rec
ognition of the principle of eight hours
| of labor.
] He secuted the idea that there was
any coercion by labor. He said all that
LABOR did was to refuse to work for
did not accede to labors demands for
| justice.
He said Mr.. Hughes would be en-.
barrassed by the fact that half of his
Trends In the House and Senate had
voted for the legislation
| Even rock-ribbed, hard-shelled Uncle
Zoe Cannon voted for It," cried Mr..
Gompers.
He defended the President for keeping
the country out of war. He claimed
that Germany had expressed regret
over the Lusitanfa, had offered in
demnity and promised not to repeat
| such an act. and that the President had
accomplished peacefully all that war
would have won.
He said that Mexicans were not alone
guilty in border raiding. but that
| American 1andgrabbers and exploiters
were also to blame: and that the Presi-
| mission. would bring order without re-
course to war. He made an eloquent
plea against war, saying that working
men would bear the brunt Of 1t in agony
| and sacrifice.
Gompers Answers Critic.
local paper had charged that Mr..
| Gompers, as vice president of the
| Cigarmakers' International Union, had
! urged protective tariff for the cigar
makers, but now comes to Maine as q
democrat to urge free trade. 1t fur
! ther alleged that Mr.. Gompers' son
holds government position in Wash
| ington to which he was appointed by
President Wilson.
Mr.. Gompers said one of his sons is
| printer in the government printing
| ONCE and had been promoted on eff
cheney to be chief of division He
| said the promotion was won by merit,
and asked II any one thought that after
all Of his (Mr. GompersD work for
labor he should be laid liable to the
charge of being Influenced by a small
promotion for his son in the govern
| ment service
| AS to the charge that he was a pro-
| tectionist as a cigarmaker and q free
| trader as labor leader, he declared
that the republican party was not a
protecttonist party nor the democratic
party free trade party. Cleveland had
| criticised his partys tariff bill. so had
| Mckinley, and SO had Taft, these re-
publican tariffs.
Then. why pick on me?" asked Mr.
Gompers. who went on to say that the
tariff question was put out Of politics
| by the adoption by both parties Of the
| tariff commission plan.
Mr.. Gompers said the democratic
party platform and its candidates ut
| terances accepted the pleas for legis-
lation. while the utterances of the re-
| publican candidate were no more lucid
| than the republican platform on the
subjects. He praised the seamen's act
and the Clayton anti-injunction act.
! and demanded to know where Mr.
Hughes stood on those laws as well as
on the pending labor proposition in
| Maine for a fifty -four hour state labor
| law.