Arizona republican., 1917-09-03
WILSON TELLS GOMPERS| LABOR ALLIANCE HAS ASSUMED WORTHY TASK
GRepubIican A. p. Leased Wire1

WASHINGTON Sept. 2.-Hearty approval of the conference of the American Alliance for Labor and De- mocracy to be held at Minneapolis next Tuesday and the task it will undertake of suppressing disloyalty, has been giv- en by President Wilson in a letter to Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor and chairman of the alliance.
 The letter made public here today, denounces those who seek to ignore Americas grievance against Germany and insist that nation whose citizens have been foully murdered under their | own flag, whose neighbors have been invited to join in making conquest of it's territory and whose patience in pressing the claims of justice and hu- manity has been met with the most shameful policy of truculence and treachery, does not know it's own mind and has no comprehensible reason for defending itself."'
 While our soldiers and sailors are l doing their manful work to hold back reaction in it's most brutal and aggres- sive form" the president wrote, i've must oppose at home the organized and 1 individual efforts of those dangerous 1 clements who hide disloyalty behind a
  1 phrases"
 The letter follows:
 My Dear MT. Gompers:
 T am sure you understand that my inability to accept the invitation to ad- dress the Minneapolis conference of the American Alliance for Labor and De- mocracy is due only to official neces- l sity and not in any degree to lack of appreciation of the importance of the | occasion. The cause you and your fel l low patriots uphold is one with the 1 cause we are defending with army. | While our soldiers and sailors are do- l ing their manful work to hold back reaction in it's most brutal and ag gressive form we must oppose at home the organized and individual efforts of those dangerous elements who hide disloyalty behind a screen of spacious ! and evasive phrases.
 q have read with real pride the names of the men and women who are | to take part in the Minneapolis con- 1 ference Not one but has a record of devoted service to fundamental democ- racy; not one but has fought the long hard fight for equal justice braving every bitterness that the humblest life might know a larger measure of hap l piness.
 With all my heart l want them to l feel that their devotion to country is in tno wise a betrayal of principle and that in serving America today, they are serving their cause no less faith | fully than in the past 1 myself have had sympathy with the fears of the l workers of the United States; for the 1 tendency of war is toward reaction and too often military necessities have been made an excuse for the destruc- tion of laboriously erected industrial
 and social standards. These fears 1 happily. have proved to be baseless l With quickened sympathies and appre- l clatiOn with new sense of the in
 vasive and insidious dangers of op- | pression, your people have not only
 held every inch of ground that has
 been won by years of struggle, bu
 have added to the gains of the twen.
 tieth century along every line of hu-
 man betterment. Question of wage.
 and hours of labor and industrial re
 adjustment have found a solution ] which gives to the toiler a new dignit, and a new sense of social and economi, security. 1 beg you to feel that m,
 support has rot been lacking and tha
 the government has not failed at any point in granting every just reques | I
 in the name of the American worker
 NO one who is not blind can fail t, see that the battle line of democrac, for America stretches today from tn
 fields of Flanders to every home an,
 workshop where toiling, upward
 striving men and women are countin,
 the treasures of right and justice an,
 liberty which are being threatened b.
 our present enemies.
 "It has not been matter of surpris
 to me that the leaders in certain group
 have sought to ignore our grievance
 against the men who have equally mis
 led the German people. Their insist
 ance that a nation whose rights hay
 been grossly violated. whose citizen
 have been foully murdered under thei
 own flag, whose neighbors have bee invited to join in making conquest c it's territory, whose patience in press ing the claims of justice and humanit , has been met with the most shamefu
 policy of truculence and treacherN , their insistence that a nation so out
 ragged does not know it's own mint that it has no comprehensible reaso for defending itself, or for joining wit
 all it's might in maintaining a free flu ture for itself and it's ideal, is of , piece with their deafness to the oft re
 peated statement of our national pur
 poses.
 Tt is, perhaps, that these forces C
 antagOnism have not yet learned t
 know the voice of that America W 1. love and serve. It may well be ths those among us who stand ready t forward the plans of aggression bre in secret, do not understand th language of democracy when it pro claims the purpose of war in terms : peace for the people that shall | untroubled by those to whom men al l Continued on Page Two)