The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1924-07-11
Labor In The 1924 Campaign
By SAMUEL GOMPERS
(FrOm the American Federationist for July)

With national political campaign
already fell under way many eyes are
| turned in the direction of labor's
efforts in that struggle
Various so-called third party move,
,'ments are under way, none of them of
any particular promise, but all more
or less confusing in their locality.
| Those who turn to these so-called
third party movements proclaim their
profound disgust with what they term
the reactionary policy of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor. They are
impatient. And they fail to see that
their impatience is leading them to
the kind of haste which makes only
for delay.
The political policy of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor will bear
examination at all times. An exami-
some who do not fully comprehend its
meaning, or who have been beguiled
by the phrases of the experimenters
and dreamers.
1t is the belief of the American
Federation of Labor that the great
est results are to be achieved in poll
tics by a devotion to principles rather
than to parties an dthat the surest
way to advanve principles is to sup
port those candidates who accept the
principles and to oppose those who re-
ject them.
There is nothing involved about
this belief; nothing complicated about
the practice. And it is the only way
by which labor can avoid the dis
sensions and schisms that inevitably
must come from party partisanship.
Parties must take positions on mat
ters that are not in any sense purely
labor questions. For example, they
must deal with the tariff, a matter on
which labor has taken no position for
a great many years for obvious rea-
sons.
The American Federation of Labor
is labor organization. Its principal
object is to protect and promote the
must, in the field of politics, press
for those men and measures that ad-
vance the interests of the toiling
masses. Labor has it's broad interests
of citizenship and general progress,
but its first concern is solely with the
welfare of the great masses of wage
earners.
Principles for which labor contends
cannot be the private property of any
other political party. These princi-
Piles have to do with humanitarian and
libertarian issues. They are neither
republican nor democratic, neither
socialistic nor populistic. Not any
more than they are Presbyterian OF
Baptist.
These principles must be considered
by men and either accepted or re-
jected by men. If whole poltica
party organization wishes to support
any or all of labor's principles, thai
is entirely agreeable to labor, bur
such an act could not put the party
. label on the principles to the exclu
sion of any other support.
Principles which labor support:
may, on the other hand, be rejected
entirely by an entire party organiza
ton, but that cannot signify tha
: there has been any change in th'
principles. Politically, they remain
as non-partisan as ever.
Representatives of all parties have
espoused measures for which labo,
has contended. Witness such meas
ures as the seamen,sa act, the eight
a hour act, the Clayton act, the suf
3 frage amendment, the recent immi
Il grafton act, and the still more not
. able child labor amendment to tn
United States constitution.