The Connecticut labor news., 1925-01-24


 Unable to do evil, thinking it?"
 Again between the living and the dead the impenetrable veil has fallen that mysterious veil which all of sci ence cannot lift, before which faith, abashed, can only kneel, beyond which religion may not step. All paths end here. Whether Dives or Lazarus, none may escape these dread portals. From that pilgrimage beyond no trav- eler has ever yet returned, out of that profound silence no smallest word has ever yet been spoken.
 king or serf. The relentIessness of his chisel fashions alike in frozen marble the lips of age and those of youth.
 Samuel Gompers is dead. He has set sail upon that tideless sea whose ships drift out never to return. He has gone into that tremendous vista of silence where dwell the unnumbered hosts.
 The bell that tolls above his bier is heard "On Greenland's icy mountain and India's coral strand, for they who hew the worlds wood and mine its coal, who build it's bridges and sail its ships, who drive it's engines and har- ness its electricity, mourn his passing. He was their friend; there was none greater, none more true. He under stood the men of toll, for he lived their) lives, he spoke their language. With them he toiled at the shoemaker's bench, the cigar makers table. Their sorrows were his sorrows, their strug- Sles his struggles. Unfinchingiy he pfought their battles; untiringly he builded for their veal. He went hun gry with them. His wife and children with theirs knew what it was breath 1essly to watch for the ravens visit.
 His ,birth-star arose above the slums of a great city. His childish feet knew not the feel of gren-swathed turf. The song of birds the perfume of flowers, the magic of water purling over peb bles where the willows bend were not for him. The bitter needs of life too early clasped his boyish fingers to the shoemaker's awl, the cigar makers blade. The stitching of leather, the monotonous rolling of brown leaves, mercilessly pressed downward the wondering, eager eyes of childhood. Not for him the dazzling silence of starry skies, the shimmer of sunlight on pink and white masses of apple trees in springtime, the stately march of towering mountains beneath the flaming red and gold of sunset skies.
 Drab streets and feaden walls that encircle "the sad and simple annals of the poor" hold little of storied song or picture, yet the young lad, bent above his daily task, dreamed dreams and caught the shining radiance of vision that led him afar, even unto the gates and into the presence of the high and mighty ones of earth.
 Statesman and 1awmaker, fnancier and philanthropist, president and king, soldier and sailor, musician and artist. the writer of books and the singer of songs, the healer of bodies and the doctor of souls, all were his friends, all paid tribute to the greatness of his soul, the brilliancy of his mind, the ten derness of his heart.
 He was not the Columbus of the la bor movement, but that he would have been its Casabianca had the need arisn, no one who knew him could doubt.
 He voiced the cry of the inarticulate multitude-the human cry for better homes, better food; for opportunity for leisure to inhale the perfume of flow CTS and gave upon their beauty; to back in the sunlight to study the stars and muse in the moonlight; to loiter by the limit1ess ocean; to thrill to the music of the worlds greatest artists 1; to drink in the beauty of the painted canvas, the sculptured marble; to make friends with the great minds of all ages.
 To break the. shack1es of the toiling giant Labor, to lead him from his belching furnace, from the dust and grine of his factory, from the black ness of his mine, step by step into the glory of understanding the >ethereal beauty of Raphael, the exquisiteness of Michael Angelo, is a concrete demonstration of scientific principle of industrial life underlying the safety of government.
 To transform despair into courage,