Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1917-09-03
President Wilson Asks Workers at Home
TasrHelp In Throttling Disloyalty
Ssvhile Armies Battle Reaction
Executive Approves Of Con-
ference of American ALI
anCe for Labor and De-
moCraCy Soon to Open.

Washington, Sept. 2.-Hearty ap-
proval of the conference of the Ameri-
can Alliance for Labor and democracy
to be held at Minneapolis, next Tues
day and the task it will undertake of
suppressing disloyalty has been given
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 isnore
Americas grievance against Germany
and insists That a nation whose clti-
zens have been foully murdered
under their own flag, whose neighbors
have been invited to join ir making
conquest of its territory and whose
patience in pressing the claims OF JUS
tice and humanity has been met with
the most shameful policy of turbulence
and treachery, does not know its own
mind and has no comprehensive rea-
son for defending itself.
Must Fight Disloyalty.
while our soldiers and sailors are
doing their manful work to hold back
reaction in its most brutal and ag-
gressive FORM" the president wrote,
we must oppose at home the organ
lied and individual efforts of those
dangerous elements who hide dis
loyalty behind screen OF specious
,rd eyaeive rhrases"
The letter follows:
my Dear Mr.. Gompers: am sure
that you understand that my inability
to accept the invitation to address
the Minneapolis conference of the
American Alliance for Labor and De-
mocracy is due only to official neces-
sity and not in any degree to lack of
appreciation of the Importance of the
occasion. The cause you and your
fellow patriots uphold is one with the
cause we are defending with arms.
While our soldiers and sailors are
doing their manful work to hold back
reaction in its most brutal and ag-
gressive form, we must oppose at
home the organized and individual eff
forts of those dangerous elements
who hide disloyalty behind screen
of specious and evasive phrases.
II have read with real pride the
names Of the men and women who
are to take part in the Minneapolis
conference. Not one but has record
of devoted service to fundamental
democracy; not one but has fought
the long, hard fight for equal justice,
Drawing every bitterness that the h@n-
blest life might know larger meas
ure of happiness.
Workers Hold Gains.
with all my heart l want them to
feel that their devotion to country is
in no wise a betrayal of principle and
that in serving America today they are
serving the1 cause no less faithfully
than in the past. l. myself have had
sympathy with the fears of the work.
ers of the United States; for the tend
ency of war is toward reaction and
too often military necessities have
| been made an excuse for the destruc-
ton OF labor erected industrial and
social standards. These fears, happily,
have proved to be baseless. With
quickened sympathies and apprecia-
ton, with new sense of the invasive
and insidious dangers of oppression,
our people have not only held every
inch of ground that has been won by
years of struggle, but have added to
the gains of the twentieth century
along every fine of human betterment.
Questions of wages and hours of labor
and Industrial readjustment have
found solution which gives the toll
er a new dignity and a new sense of
social and economic security. | beg
you to feel that my support has not
been lacking and that the government
has not failed at any point in grant
ing every just request advanced by
you and your assistants in the name
OF the American worker.
mo one who is not blind can fail
NO see that the battle line ,of democ-
racy for America stretches today from
the fields of Flanders to every home
and workshop where toiling, upward
striving men and women are count
ing the treasures of right and Justice
and liberty which are being threat
ened by our present enemies.
Specious Arguments of Autocrats.
1T has not been matter of sur
prise, to me that the leaders in GER
tain groups have sought to ignore
our grievances against the men who
have equally misled the German peo-
pie, Their, insistance that a nation
whose rights have been grossly vio-
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