FOREWORD
It will remain for history to furnish an adequate evaluation of the services rendered to the cause of world democracy by Samuel Gompers during the great war. But we need not await history's verdict to know that this service has been of the most vital importance. The profound impress Samuel Gompers has made upon the current of world affairs during the most crucial period in modern history is apparent to all who are informed even in a casual way about day-to-day events.
The labors of Mr. Gompers have been prodigious. In normal times his task was difficult enough. But when the United States entered the war his work was at once doubled and trebled and quadrupled. To his duties as president of the American Federation of Labor were added a multitude of duties in connection with war work—the great war work of the Federation itself, the post of chairman of the Committee on Labor, Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, president of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, and membership on committees almost without end.
No man in America has more literally poured out the vital reserve of his spirit and physique than the leader of America's working men and women. His feeling toward the war is perhaps best expressed in one of his own sentences: "This is no longer a war; it is a crusade for human Freedom!" In that spirit of devoted abandon, he has driven on with his work in a manner that has amazed those closest to him—a silent drama of human effort and endurance.
Thus burdened with work—work which he loved because it was work for the common cause of humanity—he was of necessity also the voice of the cause for which he worked. America has known no firmer voice in the trying months that have passed. It has been a voice for democracy, a voice for freedom, and a voice stern and harsh in combating those insidious forces of pacifism and pro-Germanism that cropped up here and there in our midst as we struggled against the common enemy.
There are collected in this volume the principal addresses delivered by Mr. Gompers during the period of the great war, including the address delivered in the Chicago Auditorium before a magnificent audience representative of the whole nation upon his return from his remarkably successful tour of the Allied nations as chairman of an American Federation of Labor mission.
President Gompers is an extemporaneous speaker. He goes before his audiences with a message and he pours this message out in response to the inspiration of his audience. It is likely that this habit of speaking what comes to his mind on the platform, more than anything else, gives to his utterances that striking character that has made him a figure listened to with deepest attention wherever he appears in public. There is no man in America possessed of firmer conviction, and this deep conviction, molded into speech as he proceeds with his talk, makes these utterances the true reflection of the innermost thought.
It would not be possible to include between the covers of any one or two volumes all of the speeches and addresses and papers produced during the war by Mr. Gompers. They would fill a shelf—and yet he has spoken only when the occasion demanded; he has not had time to speak without necessity. But here are gathered those utterances that best show his trend of thought during the war. They have been compiled for this volume by his assistants, who prefer to remain anonymous, since they were merely the assemblers of the sheaves.
It has been thought wise to include in this volume a sufficient number of official American Federation of Labor documents to give the reader a complete story of the American labor position during the war. To that end, the pronouncements of the American Federation of Labor conventions, held during the great war, have been included as an appendix.