The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-12-17

IT'S tale they used to tell in the
/ days before prohibition. 1t was in
California that l heard it-California
when P. H. Mccarthy was still labor
king. "Old Tviet" was working for
drink money under the whip Of
"P. H." who in turn was working for
the chamber of commerce and hadn't
yet been caught with the ten thousand
dollar bribe.
They were trying to hang Tom
Mooney; the chamber of commerce
was, and Hiram johnson and Arch
bishop Hanna and Mccarthy, presi-
dent Of the Building Trades, together
with Tom Finn, the labor" sheriff,
and Brouillet, president of the Labor
Council, were greasing the rope for
Tom so as to carry out their agree
ment with the traction gang that the
stree car men should not be organized.
/ had been sent to the state con-
vention of the Building Trades by the
workers defense league to make an
attempt to halt the hangmen's drive.
We were in a desperate fix; Mooney
was facing the gallows; Gompers and
HIS California agents were holding
labor down; lady socialist leader of
California was writing poison pen"
letters telling socialists to lay off the
Mooney case-and among the social
lists only ]. e. Snyder, now a member
of our party. and old Gene Debs, who
was not yet a red-baiter, could be
heard in MONEYS defense.
compers, the Anarchist"
1t was the good old time when
whisky capacity lin the open bar, not
yet the bootleg joint was the only
talent required of the second and third
ranks of labor leaders. All business
of the convention was transacted in
the saloon of the headquarters hotel.
All who wanted the floor of the con-
vention had to beg for it, and drink
for it, with "Old Tviet," McCarthy's
fixer. 1t was there, also, that all the
resolutions were written, all the tricks
were pulled and all the tales were
told. 1t was there I heard the tale:
Sam Gompers! He'll, god-dammit;
Sam? Why Sans all right. Give him
time, and don't criticize him, and he'll
get Mooney out. Why, hell, god-damit,
you don't know Sam. I'll tell you a
story: I've sat and had my drinks
right by the side of Sam, and god
dammit, don't you tell anybody, but
Sam, when he drinks, he tells the
boys, god-dammit: This is the
straight goods, boys-Im an anar-
archstI' He'll. you don't know Sam;
he's as radical as anybody. only he's
got his own way of doing things. He'll.
he says to me when he's drinking, he
says right out that he's an anarchist.
And he is; god-dammit, he's a real
anarchist; he stands for individual
freedom and all that"
For those whose acquaintance with
Gompers is confined to modern times.
this has a strangely homogeneous
sound. But when it is recalled that
the American labor movement a half
or three-quarters of century ago. in
which period Gompers began his climb
to the saddle, was vastly different
from now, and was strongly tinctured
here and there with groups to whom
the terms Socialist" anarchist" and
revolution" were held dear, this story
told by an old-timer, is easily
credible.
"Old Tviet," the 'radicaP'-"a sort
OF an anarchist''-steered the conven-
ton thru for p. H." not succeeding
in keeping the subject off the floor.
but easing it down so that no action
was taken, and the convention broke
up, drunk and happy; and Tom
Mooney remained in the death cell.
The Old Game.
So the game was played in the old
days. Sam was secretly, over the
drinks, an anarchist" "Tviet" was
AN anarchist at heart" "P. H." was
sympathetic" Paul Scharrenberg.
president Of the State Federation Of
Labor, tiptoed into the Jail one night
after the death sentence came. To
whisper to Tom that he was only
I
waiting for the proper time to speak
out and Andy Furuseth made a
speech in the Labor Council lust in
time, not to save Mooney, but to save
his own reputation as a radical"
And only an uproar in faraway Russia
snatched Mooney, the strike leader
from the moose, and left him a a lifer's
cell, where he remains, and rots to
death.
But Sam was "a good anarchist"
over the drinks, and good demo
crat" at the Civic League.
compers, the sociaI-Demoerat.
Many time have heard yellow
socialists in America-and even some
naive Communists express their
wonder at the fact that the Commun.
ist International. in summing up in
ternational situations, always classi.
ned Samuel Gompers as among the
worlds Embellishments" whereas
sam always Numbered against $50.