Southwest Washington labor press. [volume] (Hoquiam, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1924-06-13
REPLY OF SAMUEL GOMPERS TO
LETTER OF SAMUEL MCCULLOCH

of view. Our success in the direction
or reducing the length of the work
day is due as much to the education
we have been able to impart as to the
force of our organized demand.
Shorter Work Day
eve shall never be able to reckon
in terms of any tangible value the
worth to the country of the education
al work our movement has done in
establishing the eight-hour day. We
shall never be able to write down in
terms of measurement the great gain
achieved for our country in better
citizenship and more alert, capable,
self-reliant men and women. It used
to be said that workers would not
know what to do with leisure time IL
they had it. On this basis, the 12-
hour day was defended. It was a
weak defense for a bad case. To un-
derstand whether men and women
know what to do with leisure when
they get it, compare the citizenship
and general character and appearance
of the working people in any COM
munity where the eight-hour day OBJ
tains with those of any community
where the 12-hour day obtains, if any
such there still be. It was education
al work, inaugurated by the trade
union movement which so developed
the sentiment Of our people generally
so as to compel abandonment of the
12-hour day by the great United
States Steel Corporation. Here, in
this single achievement, is a gain of
human freedom more sweeping and
more filled with meaning in the lives
of those involved than can ever be
estimated. Great wars and revolu-
tions have been fought to gain much
less than this. Millions of golden
hours of freedom for every year that
passes have been gained for the
thousands of workers in the steel
mills of the United States.
81 ask Mr.. MacCulIoch il such edu-
cational work is not worth while?
Is not the dream that first starts
men and women toward such achieve
ment as noble and worthy as any
dream that has ever led humanity to
great achievement? We are educat-
ing, constantly seeking to teach the
value of human life, the value of hu-
man freedom, the value of human
liberty and justice, the value of ideal
ism in our civic life, and we are striv-
ing to teach the transient and UNI
worthy character of those things
which demean life in its organized
capacity, as well as in its individual
capacity, and of those things which
make for unfaiEDess and special priv
ilege and which lend advantage to
greed and cupidity.
"Far back among the years when
workers first learned to band to-
gether and speak together, they voic-
ed their demand for what we now
know as the free public school. To
a determining degree it was the labor
movement that led to the establish
ment of the free public school in the |
United States. Labor contended |
against all Corners and won over all |
objections in favor of this supreme
bulwark of democracy. Labor was
thinking of education, understanding
the benefits of education and hunger
ing for its fruits long years before
the present generation was born, and
even when the foundation stones of
the Republic were being cemented to-
gether.
81 wonder if these thoughts may
convince Mr.. MacCulloch that his ap-
parent skepticism as to our interest
in education is not entirely justified? |
Similarly, we have devoted great ef-
fort of the most constructive charac- |
ter toward the rectification of either |
or clumsily prepared text |
books. The American Federation of |
Labor's examination and report upon |
American text books in common use,
made public last year, has earned the
approval of leading educators
throughout the country. It stands
today as one of the most helpful cri- |
ticisms available to those having to do |
with either the preparation or the
use VI ISAb OOOhS.
at was the demand of labor, re-
peatedly voiced, in season and out of
season, that led to the establishment
of free evening classes of adult
workers in order that grown men and
women might retrieve to some degree
opportunities denied to them in child
hood.
Fight Against Child Labor
"The long fight for the abolishing
of child labor-in every essential
struggle of an educational character
has been waged under the leader
ship and inspiration of the trade un-
ion movement. Already millions of
children have been released from toll
as result of this effort. With the
adoption and ratification of the con-
stitutional amendment now before the
United States Senate final victory
will be achieved.
Directly in their own organiza-
tions the trade unions have assisted
in safeguarding child life by refus-
ing to accept in apprenticeship those
under Is years Of age. Thus in the
domain Of organized labor, child labor
years ago ceased to exist. II is our