You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday March 10, 1905
From the American Federationist: Mr. Gompers Disapproves of Upcoming Convention
In the current edition of the
American Federationist, Mr. Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, makes plain his disapproval of the upcoming convention of industrial unionist. Of those who signed the Convention Call, he has this to say:
Scanning the list, one will look in vain to find the name of one man who has not for years been engaged in the delectable work of trying to divert, pervert and disrupt the labor movement of the country.
Of the nation's most beloved Socialist, Mr. Gompers states:
Conscious of the frequency with which Mr. Eugene V. Debs has periodically inaugurated a new movement, we were somewhat surprised to notice that his name was conspicuous by its absence from the call, but “comrade.” Trautman explained later in a newspaper item that “comrade Debs was unable to sign the document owing to nervous prostration.” Of course, some physical disability was the only cause for the absence of Mr. Debs' name from the call, for surely another of his new movements was due about this time.
While the signature of Mr. Debs was not on the Manifesto and Convention Call as originally released in January, we are pleased to report that Mr. Debs is now included on the list of those who endorse the formation of an organization of labor based on industrial unionism.
From Washington, D. C., Evening Star of March 9, 1905:
ON SOCIALISTIC LINES.
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Estimate by Labor Leader of Proposed
Chicago Gathering.
Eugene Debs
Now listed as a signer of the call.
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Washington workingmen are discussing the forthcoming socialistic national meeting to be held in Chicago. Referring to this matter, a local labor leader said to a Star reporter today:
The call for a convention to meet at Chicago June 27 next for the purpose of forming an "economic organization of the working class" is being widely circulated, and all local, national and international organizations are invited to send representatives. The scheme is regarded by the officials of the American Federation of Labor and trades unionists generally as a movement to form a national labor organization based upon the principles of socialism, antagonistic to the federation.
This is plainly stated in the manifesto of the promoters, which is a denunciation of the prevailing system of trades organizations as fostered and maintained by the American Federation of Labor, and which is declared to be "a worn-out and corrupt system which promises no improvement and adaptation." The system, it is stated, "offers only a perpetual struggle for slight relief within wage slavery. It is blind to the possibility of establishing an industrial democracy wherein there shall be no wage slavery, but where the workers shall own the tools they operate, and the products of which they alone will enjoy."
It is said that in the past several similar attempts have been made to form a national trades organization which would be an auxiliary to socialism. In 1894 a congress was called at Chicago for the purpose of extending the jurisdiction of the American Railway Union, as the American Labor Union, to all organizations of labor. In 1896 those prominent in the socialist party organized the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, which, it is said, has persistently opposed trades unionism, or as they derisively termed it, "pure and simple trades unionism."
Then followed the organization of the Western Federation of Labor [Western Labor Union], which was confined exclusively to the farther western states. This organization was the output of the Western Federation of Miners, which had withdraw from the American Federation of Labor, and declared its hostility to that body. But a short time after the formation of the Western Federation of Labor that body was reorganized as the American Labor Union , which two years ago, in convention at Denver, indorsed the socialist propaganda [the platform of the Socialist Party of America].
Mother Jones,
a diverter, perverter and disrupter
of the nation's labor movement?
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The signers of the call are: Eugene V. Debs, W. J. Pinkerton, A. M. Simons, Thomas J. Hagerty, William E. Trautman, Charles H. Moyer, George Estes, William D. Haywood, W. Shurtleff, M. E. White, Thomas J. Young, C. O. Sherman, Fred D. Hennion, Mother Jones, Frank M. McCabe, John M. O'Neill, Frank Bohn, Daniel McDonald, John Build, Joseph Schmidt, W. I., Hall, Ernest Untermann, W. J. Bradley, Frank Kraft, A. J. Swing, J. E. Fitzgerald, Clarence Smith.
Mr. Samuel Gompers, in the current issue of the American Federationist, says of the signers:
Scanning the list, one will look in vain to find the name of one man who has not for years been engaged in the delectable work of trying to divert, pervert and disrupt the labor movement of the country.
[paragraph breaks and photographs added]
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SOURCES
The American Federationist
American Federation, Jan 1905-Dec 1905
https://books.google.com/...
From AF of March 1905: Gompers on June Convention of Industrial Unionists
https://books.google.com/...
Evening Star
(Washington, D.C.)
-Mar 9, 1905
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
See also:
National Labor Federations in the United States
-by William Kirk
Johns Hopkins Press, 1906
https://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
Samuel Gompers
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Eugene Debs
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Mother Jones
http://www.biography.com/...
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Workers of the World Awaken
If the workers take a notion,
They can stop all speeding trains;
Every ship upon the ocean
They can tie with mighty chains.
Every wheel in the creation,
Every mine and every mill,
Fleets and armies of the nation,
Will at their command stand still.
-Joe Hill (words and music)
https://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.folkarchive.de/...
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