The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1918-09-13
GOMPERS' VISIT
TO HIS OLD HOME
Wcighty Affairs Wait for Samuel
Gompers While He Visits Scene
of His BoyhoOd Life

DpIS, DIGSlOGuJ VI JllC E1iiCIiNSi ~
Grafton of Labor put international
affairs to one side on his arrival here
and made his first business visit
to his boyhood home. 1t was an
event of great importance in the
! little section of East London known
as Spittlegate. Mr.. Gompers had
only visited England once before
since he had left England as a boy
to seek his fortune in America. His
previous visit was nine years ago
Mr.. Gompers was accompanied to-
day on the journey to Fort Street
by several members of the American
labor mission. They went down
in two American army automobiles
and got out at the street corner.
Mr.. Gompers stopped when he alight-
ed and standing in the middle of the
street recalled many scenes of his
boyhood.
"The old street has not changed /
much," he said as he stood in
front of the house which had been
his home for many years. "That
old public house on the corner looks
exactly as it did when | used to
listen to the crowd of old cigar
makers discussing politics there in
the evening when | was a mere slip
of boy"
While Mr.. Gompers was talking
an old woman of over eighty years,
wearing a long gray shawl, hobbled
up, looked at the stranger mo-
ment and then broke in:
81 know you, Sam Gompers," she
said. "Many's the time | gave you
piece of my mind when you used
to live there" pointing to the house
where Mr.. Gompers was born. The
old woman had not seen him since
he left London as a youthful ap-
prentice cgarmaker. Mr.. Gompers
himself has wonderful memory
and it was easily a match for
that of the old woman's. He spent
St!llt IfllluJCS lSlhllS ONC1 OlO
with her, asking about various boy
hood playmates most of whom have
been dead long since.
Presently the old woman left to
tell the neighbors and soon the lit
: tie group of labor men were sur
rounded by a great throng of Spittle-
gate people, all of whom were
anxious to see the man who had
risen to great power from the hum
, BILE surroundings of their great
street.
Mr.. Gompers spent very happy
half hour in the midst of the crowd
of the children, grandchildren and
even great grandchildren of per-
sons whom he remembered as neigh
bors of his father and mother. He
particularly enjoyed the children and
got on well with them.
Spittlegate is deep in the interior
of London's East End, which is not
so different from New York's East
Side except that it is greater in eX-
tent and much older Never before
had American army automobiles
been seen in remote Fort Street and
they shared the attention of the
crowd with the visitors. The chill
dren crowded about the automobiles
watching every gesture and motion
of the American chauffeurs in their
strange field service caps. With
open mouths the children accepted
gifts of pennies which the chauffeurs
threw to them, bat declined the eff
forts made by the Americans to be-
come better acquainted.
There was great deal of hand
shaking as Mr.. Gompers babe his
old and new friends farewell after
promising to make the street an
other visit before returning to Amer
lea.
In the afternoon Mr.. Gompers
called at American Army Headquar-
ters to see Major General Biddle
and Surgeon General Winter. At
terward he paid a surprise visit on
Major Endicott, the American Red
Cross Commissioner, at Red Cross
Headquarters. He asked Major En-
dicott if he could arrange to visit
the American Red Cross hospitals to
see the American wounded. Ar
rangements were made Immediately
and Mr.. Gompers went next day to
the hospitals to distribute cigars to
seven hundred Americans, sick or
wounded, who recently have ar
rived in London from the Western
front.