The Connecticut labor press., 1920-04-10
Despite His Enemies, Reelection
of 1.-THE Old Man" as A. f.. of
L. Head Is Practically Certain.
Foster Fitzgerald Scheme to
Capture Organization Died
With Their Steel Strike.

| another effort on the part of the
enemies of Samuel Gompers, to GUST
| him from the Office he so ably fills, is
being made, says the National Labor
| Journal
Getting down to brass tacks, those
who would like to see Gompers deposed
and there are such-are compelled to
/ face the fact that you cannot beat
somebody with nobody. They have no
candidate. They do not seem likely
| to have candidate. An additional
| didate-they have been able to do this
in the past on at least two occasions
| they are not at all sure that they could
| keep him in line long enough to get a
vote.
Twice in the past it has happened that
| the candidate was secured to beat Com
pers and the votes pledged as we'll Let
an old-timer, now retired from labor
work, tell it.
eve had,"> said this man, in discuss
! ing labor politics, 1--WE had Sam licked
| to a fare-you-well in New Orleans.
| John Mitchell was to be his successor.
| We had the votes and Mitchell had
agreed to stand for the place. It look
ed pretty soft when the conference
broke up the night before the conven-
ton was to VOTE It looked pretty soft
the next day when the convention met.
| Then hurry-up call came for eau
| Gus. When we went into the caucus
Mitchell told us he would not stand,
| that he had changed his mind and was
going to support Sam. That ended it,
but we made UP our mind we'd do
better another year.
| "We had him licked again in San
Francisco. James Duncan was to have
been the man to do the trick. Gompers
| was not in very good trim in San
Francisco and could not put in much
| time on other than actual convention
work 1t seemed easy. Again, at the
| last moment there came change. I'm
der no circumstances would Duncan
fight his lifetime friend. And we were
up in the air again. I'm out of the
active game now. I am only a hooker
on in Vienna as it were; but it looks
like the same old game. Gompers
| should worry
This does not mean that there are
none in the Federation that have am
bition to occupy the front suite of offices
| on the top floor of the Federation
building. There are. But the strong
men in the Federation, the men who, if
they really wished the place. would
stand a chance of getting it, are not
| candidates, nor likely to be. For one
thing they are, as rule, fairly busy in
looking after the affairs of their various
trades. For another, those who have
| been close enough to the center of
| things to know what is going on hesi-
tate to attack the task that whoever
succeeds Gompers must attack.
Gompers, as is well known, is ter
rife worker, who never has enjoyed the
1 1. hi 1o1
| day he has worked so hard to secure
| for others. This, however, IS not the
real reason why his successor, when
there is one, will have his work cut out
| for him. The real reason Is that Com
pers, though holding Office practically
from the birth of the Federation, and
seeing it grow from an organization one
could put into an ordinary dance hall
to one Of over 100000 members, has
grown with the work.
Yet another reason is a belief in the
minds of the shrewder of the men in
the labor movement that troublesome
times are ahead for the entire labor
movement. They are not at all sure
that in the reconstruction days yet
ahead, labor will not have to fight, and
fight hard to hold what it has secured.
In one way or another they see the
forces of reaction at work, and there
is no general desire to swap horses or
go through a process of reorganization
until things are more promising; for
the change would in all probability in
volve splitting up the work now done
by Gompers, and until the new machine
got into good working order there
would be friction and lost motion.
The chances of Gompers being un-
seated were much greater last year than
they are now It is now generally
known that part of the Foster-Fitz-
gerald program, which included the
forcing of the steel strike was, when
the steel strike was won, to take posses
sion of the Federation. In Gompers'
place Fitzpatrick was to sit, and Foster
was to replace Frank Morrison as sec
rotary The house-cleaning was not to
have stopped here; it was to have ex-
tended down to the organizers.
One of these, veteran of many
years service, and at times inclined to
criticise Gompers, uncovered this pro-
gram. Because of his criticisms of
"the old man" >he was taken into the
inner circle when he landed in Pitts
burgh to help handle the strike, and
shown a mass of correspondence.
What he saw convinced him that Pitts
burgh was not the place for him to re-
n1d11l. Tic StOppCu IOilS SiiOuSH " pay
for a hotel room he had not slept in
and dashed for west-bound train.
When it came to the showdown, he was
not nearly as much opposed to Gompers
as he had given folks to think he was.
Gompers and his associates In the
high councils of the Federation knew all
this. They may have known-all Of the
program from the start. But they gave
no outward sign of their knowledge.
They went along with the strike just as
though there were nothing concealed
under the table, gave the strike leaders
all the help they could and several hum
bred thousands of dollars contributed
from subordinate unions.
Now that the strike failure is mat
ter of history, there is no damage to be
done anybody by saying that in going
through with the strike Gompers took
the only course consistent with the safe
ty of the organization. To have op-
posed it, with the radical wave yet at
or near its crest, would have been to in
vite defeat.
Inasmuch as this threat against Com
pers' supremacy came from Chicago