The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-12-12
GOmpers Is DeGd-The Revolution
Lives

Samuel Gompers has gone and no matter what
temporary arrangements are made to keep peace
in the official family of the American Federation
of Labor, there will ensue bitter struggle for the
throne he occupied so long.
Forty-fve years of experience in the game of in
ternal trade union politics, fortyve years of play
ing union against another in jurisdictional
disputes fortyve years of dividing the support of
political opponents and mastering a majority for
his machine at every convention made Gompers
an artist of rare skill in this field,
He played on the ambitions preiudices and pas
sions of the lower strata. of offcialdom like a
violinist plays on his strings. He far ADLER
and much better informed than any of his i'm
mediate associates and he was regarded by many
an ignorant international union official with al
most superstitious awe.
He dominated the American Federation of Labor
and it bears his mark today. He made no pretense
of leading the labor movement, but fought always
for the fetishes of craft and calling was against
industrial unionism, working class political action,
against anything that smacked of criticism of
American capitalism, acted always on the theory
that employers and workers were parts of happy
family and that bad conditions were due to bad
employers-not to a bad social system.
He delivered the labor movement to the House
Of Morgan in 1917. He waged war on every work
ing class foe of Imperialism, was the most bitter
and outspoken enemy of Soviet Russia in America
and crowned his labors, a few days before his
death by handing over the Mexican labor move
ment tied hand and foot to American imperialism.
He fought against the socialist party before it
betrayed the working class during and after the
world war, and when the Workers (Communist)
Party became the revolutionary vanguard in the
United States he formed a united front with every
agency of capitalism against it. sss
The capitalist, yellow socialist and reactionary
labor press will mourn Gompers. They will praise
his leadership his strategy and his organizing
ability, but the record of history can be read by
all and it says in unmistakable terms that Samuel
Gompers left the American labor movement weaker,
in proportion to the strength Of the capitalist class
than it was when he came upon the scene He left
the American Federation of Labor an organization
that has forgotten how to fight and that glories
in its subservience to American capitalism at home
and prides itself on the aid given by it in sub
iugating workers of other nations.
The record of the Ell Paso convention of the
American Federation of Labor--its endorsement
of military training camps its request for more
battleships its plea for official representatives in
the war department, its enunciatiOn of the Monroe
doctrine in accordance with the imperialist policies
of the Coolidge Morgan-Dawes government, its be-
trayal of the Mexican workers-is the epitaph of
Samuel Gompers5 eae.s,eoa. .Le.
He lived servant of American capitalism and
he died as such. The labor, bureaucrats have lost
their leader and American capitalism an efficient
ally.
The Workers (Communist) Party of America
and the Trade Union Educational League live and
will carry on the same struggle to win the masses
for the revolution that they waged before Com
pers death and which served to show to hundreds
of thousands of workers the true character of
Gompers the mouthpiece of capitalist reaction
in the ranks of labor.
His successor cannot fool for long the workers
into following the bloody trail that Gompers
blazed for them-the trail that leads straight to
deafh ON imnerialistn's haft1afalds