Out of this group came the men who started the present American Federation of Labor, and gave their viewpoint and policy to its management. The American labor movement owes its success very largely to this policy-the fact that its leaders, with very few exceptions, remained within the class of workers and fought their battles. It has been impossible to buy them away; their opponents know that they can not cajole or bend or frighten them. And the attack against them has been especially bitter on this account. The fight against organized labor in America became savage in 1902, when the Manufacturers' Association, a group of the manufacturers of this country, a body organized for general trade purposes, began to turn its attention to the relentless purpose of wresting from the workers' organizations every right they had under the law. The Attack on Labor's Primary Rights. The men and women who work with their hands have two primary rights-the right to control the one thing they have to sell, their own physical labor; and the right to buy, with their own money, where they choose. Their only chance of survival, especially in the face of the combination and concentration of modern capital, is to exercise these rights in voluntary associations. As organizations, they claim the right to withhold their labor-that is, to strike; or to withhold their patronagethat is, to boycott. These are, and have been, the weapons of American labor; not violence, but peaceful weapons, based upon guaranties of personal rights-personal liberty, without which freedom, free economic society, can not exist. What organized labor wants is not the right to violent action; it neither wants nor condones violence. It asks the simple right to do nothing; to stop work and fold its hands, when it deems it for its best interests to do so. What our opponents really want is just the opposite to tie the workman to his work, so that he can not possibly break away. When that is accomplished-slavery begins. Starting in 1902, the Manufacturers' Association began its campaign to deprive organized labor of its primary rights-the right to work or to withhold their labor power (work), and the right to buy from whom they choose; the right of free speech and a free press. These manufacturers have endless means to conduct litigation. By securing a process of judicial legislation, by the perversion of the rightful purposes of injunctions and of contempt proceedings (under which last I am liable myself to be put into prison), they have worked toward the accomplishment of their purpose, and the denial to the workingpeople of their primary and common rights, rights enjoyed by every other citizen of our country. The lawyer and the courts have been two of the chief weapons of this band of men organized to destroy labor organizations. A third has been the private detective agencies. The Federation of Labor has protested against the use of the hired detective since its beginning in the '80's. But never has the private detective been used to such an extent, or with such unscrupulousness, as since the campaign of the Manufacturers' Association began. They have been not only private soldiers, hired by capital, to commit violence, and spies in the ranks of labor; they have been and are being used in the capacity of agents provocateurs-that is, in disguise as union men, to provoke ill-advised action, or even violence, among workmen. And they have been employed to create evidence, to "frame up" cases against labor, to be used by the lawyers of our enemies in court, and by their publicity agents in creating public opinion. The Los Angeles Explosion. In October, 1910, the Los Angeles Times Building was blown up and a score of human lives destroyed. It was a terrible disaster, and a great shock to the country. By no one was it more promptly or strongly deplored than by the leaders of labor, including myself. The Los Angeles Times, as everybody knows, was and is an active and vindictive opponent of organized labor. On the morning of the explosion its owner, General Otis, was out of town. Without the slightest opportunity of investigation, or even viewing the wreck, he immediately came out with one of his usual bitter and bellicose attacks on organized labor, and attributed the explosion to its agents. At once the lawyers and detectives and press agents of the Manufacturers' Association took up the outcry. There was no convincing proof whatever, at that time, that the destruction of the Times Building was the work of a dynamiter, or of dynamite. There was excellent reason to believe it was caused by an accidental explosion of gas. It is now admitted that the secondary cause was a gas explosion. I, in common with all other officers and men of labor, resented the imputation that the explosion was caused by organized labor. But I purposely abstained from expressing a final judgment. All we asked was that judgment be suspended. Matters went along in this way for months. Then suddenly, in the first part of April, the McNamaras were arrested. The Secretary-Treasurer of the International Bridge and Structural Iron Workers was dragged out of a council meeting; the members of the council, without any warrant of law, were held prisoners for two hours in their own council chamber; the Secretary-Treasurer was hurried before a police judge, who had no jurisdiction in the case, and, without being allowed to see an attorney, he was hurried out of the State to the Pacific Coast, on a zigzag course planned to prevent the use of the constitutionally guaranteed writ of habeas corpus. All this was done under the management of the usual private detective agency, working in connection with the National Erectors' Association, part of the Manufacturers' Association. apolis. This I also declined to do. They then asked me to come personally for conference with them, and I did so, early in May the Hon. Frank L. Mulholland, of Toledo, Ohio, one of our attorneys, and William J. Spencer, Secretary of the American Federation of Labor Building Trades Department, both in compliance with my request, accompanying me to Indianapolis and participating in the conference. By telegraph I requested several representative labor men of Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana to be at the conference and give it the benefit of their advice. I met in this conference perhaps thirty or forty of the leaders of labor, with headquarters in or about Indianapolis, men who should be in a position to understand the situation. They assured me that there was absolutely no case against the McNamara brothers, and they asked me to take over the matter of the raising of money into the hands of the American Federation of Labor. I said I would place the matter before my colleagues of the Executive Council of the Federation. I communicated with them by telegraph, and, while still at Indianapolis, received their reply that it was their judgment that the American Federation should undertake the matter of gathering funds for the defense, as well as for the kidnapping prosecution. The Surprisingly Large Sum Required. In accordance with our decision, the officials of the Federation and its depart Federation Undertakes Raising of Defense ments came together early in June, in Fund. There are eight international unions that have headquarters in Indianapolis; as soon as possible after this event, their officers came together in conference to see what could be done to defend the McNamara brothers and to prosecute the men who had illegally taken J. J. McNamara from the State. They saw that they had no authority to make any general appeal to organized labor for the funds needed, and they asked me, as President of the American Federation of Labor, to call a conference of labor union officials of the country in Indianapolis to take up the matter. I declined, because I did not approve of that method. They then asked me to call a meeting of our Executive Council at Indian Washington, in conference with Attorney Clarence Darrow of Chicago, who had previously been engaged to conduct the defense. He informed us that a great sum of money would be required for the defense, some $300,000. The trial or trials, he explained, would take a year or a year and a half; the attorneys' fees would be large, for the attorneys would be obliged to give up their own business and move themselves and their families from their own cities to Los Angeles. A similar great expense would come with the high-priced experts and the host of witnesses. I confess that I, as well as my colleagues, was astounded by the amount of money required, and I was very dubious as to whether we could raise any such sum, and so expressed myself. But we went to work, and we raised by contribution, entirely voluntary with organized labor, a sum approximating $225,000. This money, like all of our own funds, was received by our Secretary, Frank Morrison. I myself have never undertaken financial management of any kind in the Federation since 1889, when I gave the Federation convention the choice of electing a Secretary to take this work out of my hands or the selection of a new President. I have no gift or liking for financial affairs. The McNamara defense money, when received, was forwarded by Mr. Morrison to Mr. Darrow, the attorney, who was already preparing the defense when we undertook the work of collecting funds for it. We publish monthly in our official magazine, the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST, an account of the Federation's income and ex penditures, detailed to the last cent. Mr. Morrison has his detailed accounts of our collections for this special fund. When we appealed for contributions, we assured all that we would publish an account of all our receipts and expenditures. This assurance we will fulfi1. Through the summer we went on with our work, conducting the uplift purposes of the Federation. We are very busy men here. Personally, I have never had a vacation; there has not been one day in the past year, Sundays and holidays included, when I was not working. "You Can Rely on Us; We're Innocent." In the late summer I took an exhausting two months' trip to the Pacific Coast. While I was in Los Angeles, I naturally went to see the McNamara brothers. I saw them twice. To the best of my remembrance, I then saw J. B. McNamara for the first time. J. J. McNamara, the Bridge Workers' officer, I knew fairly well-that is, as I had met him at conventions, or at conferences in jurisdictional disputes, when he seemed always a quiet, modest, intelligent young man. When I visited them at the jail in Los Angeles, my conversation was almost entirely with him. He and every one else assured me that he was absolutely guiltless. McNamara said to me over and over again: "It's all right; you can rely on us. When I left him the last time, he took my hand-he is a tall, broad-shouldered young fellow-and looked me in the eyes and said: "Sam" (everybody who cares a cent about me calls me Sam; I never cared for "Mr. Gompers" or "President Gompers"), "I want to send a message by you to organized labor and all you may meet. Tell them we're innocent-that we are the victims of an outrageous plot." I believed him—I had no reason not to at that time—and I delivered his message. If he had told me in confidence that he was guilty, I will say this: I don't believe I would have betrayed him. I'm willing to stand by that—I don't believe I would have betrayed him. But I certainly wouldn't have declared my confidence in his innocence; and I certainly would not have gone out and helped to collect money for him. But no one, at any time, gave me the slightest reason to believe these men were guilty. I returned East and went through the arduous work of preparing for the annual Federation convention at Atlanta. It was the most progressive, harmonious, and constructive gathering ever held by labor in America. Upon my return I was met with this awful thing. These two misguided men were guilty-they confessed that they were guilty. I was horror struck and amazed. I have no intention of adding to the bur den and misery of these two wretched men by any statement of mine. What concerns me is the effect of this matter upon the welfare of labor. In my opinion it will not be serious in any way. No former or present enemy can be placated; no true friend of labor will be alienated. Federation's Great Recent Growth. The last year, to October 1st, has seen the greatest growth in a decade of the international unions in the Federation, a growth. of about 200,000 members. It has now practically 2,000,000 workers associated with it. Its growth has continued through October and November at even a higher rate of increase, and there has been no falling off since the guilt of the McNamaras was known. We have been bitterly attacked since the confession of the McNamaras. The newspapers have, with a few exceptions, assailed us. That is nothing more than we expect; we never look for an even break with the newspapers of America. Their managements are employers of labor, in many cases quite large employers, and, with some most honorable exceptions, they seem to believe that their interests as employers must line them up against organized labor, in policy if not in practice. But the laboring people of this country are not in any way deceived or estranged by this outcry against the organization of labor. They know that the American Federation of Labor has a right, like any other organization, to ask that it be judged by two things-what it has done, and what it aims to do. The workers know what it has done for them in the past, and what they can do under its organization in the future. And what have our unions done? What do they aim to do? To improve the standard of life, to uproot ignorance, and foster education, to instill character, manhood, and independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man upon his fellow-man. We aim to establish a normal workday, to take the children from the factory and workshop and give them the opportunity of the school and the playground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate their members, make their homes more cheerful, and in every way contribute an earnest effort toward making life the better worth living. To achieve these praiseworthy ends we believe that all honorable and lawful means are both justifiable and commendable, and should receive the sympathetic support of every right-thinking American. Personally I have never received so many words of encouragement and approbation in my career as during these attacks. The men of labor know me. I have worked for long, long years with them. I am one of them. They know that it has been my life's ambition to serve them to the fullest limits of whatever power or ability there is in me. And they know I am neither a dynamiter nor a law-breaker. The American Federation of Labor and its unions will not be weakened by this event. They will continue on the course they have held for thirty years, not of violence, but of protection of the workingpeople, and the achievement to the fullest extent of their rights under the law. One of our purposes is to prevent the repetition of the illegal arrest and kidnapping of men, because they are poor men, either by private detective agencies hired by enemies of labor or by any other source of assumed unlawful authority. We intend to push the case against the kidnappers to its last conclusion in court. In general we shall continue our fight for the rights of labor, and to defend ourseives in the courts and in the Legislatures and against the assault on our legal rights made by the Manufacturers' Association and agencies of that kind. The determination of organized labor on this point was never so strong as now. The work of the American Federation of Labor has never been so active or so definitely directed to this aim as it will be in the future. Its appropriation for the work under it will be increased a third, from 6 to 8 cents a year for every active member of its unions, beginning January 1, 1912. The Coming Presidential Election. In addition, by unanimous vote, the Atlanta Convention directed that the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor urge upon the President and the Congress of the United States the legislation which will secure the legal status of the wage-workers from unjust discrimination in the exercise of their natural rights, through their voluntary associations. The instructions of that convention conclude: "And the Executive Council is further authorized and directed, in the event of a failure on the part of Congress to enact the legislation which we herein seek at the hands of the Congress and the President, to take such action as in its judgment the situation may warrant in the presidential and congressional election of 1912." The American Federation of Labor is not a partisan political body. It is partisan to the principle of the common uplift. Its officers have never before received such definite instructions as these. But, in giving them, the convention is merely carrying out the life policy of the Federation-the securing of its aims, not by violence, but by action under the Constitution and laws of the Republic. The American labor movement is the outgrowth of the necessity of the workers in modern industrial society and environment. It will not be crushed out of exist ence. It must and will live and grow; it has grown into the hearts and minds of earnest, thinking Americans, has done so much to bring light and life and hope into the homes, the workshops, and the school< room that the hosts of labor, scholars, and real humanitarians look to the American labor movement as the haven of industrial and social safety, the harbinger of rational evolution of America's future greatness, founded upon the intelligence and sovereignty of her yeomanry, her masses, her workers. It is founded upon justice and right. Its men are loyal, as loyal to the institutions of our Republic as can be found in any walk of life. The unions of labor have done much for the material, moral, and social uplift of the men and women of labor-have taken the children out of the factories, the workshops, the mills, and the mines, so that the organized labor movement is indelibly impressed on the hearts and minds, not only of the workers themselves, but of every earnest, broad-minded, liberty-loving citizen of our country. Burns' Frenzy Running to Seed. "B URNS' Story" in February McClure's, so widely advertised beforehand, turned out to be a mere loose collection of the detective's assumptions and insinuations. McClure's editor, on reading its manuscript, saw he could not publish, as he had promised in the January issue, "the Higher-Ups! an arraignment of the men behind the dynamiters,' so the February article was given the non-committal title, "On the Trail of the Men Higher Up." Burns gave the public no evidence that there was any one "higher up" behind the dynamiters. Notice can be given only to some of the statements he directed at the American Federation of Labor headquarters. After saying: "We had had our eyes on the 'higher-ups' in the International Bridge Workers' for some time. But just as soon as we made these first two arrests, we began to hear about something higher up still," Burns tells his readers that J. B. McNamara, while being taken from Detroit to Chicago, after trying to bribe his custodian, said: "You're making the mistake of your life. The American Federation is back of us." And Burns tries to make his argument out of such cheap and empty bluff. After giving in several pages a repetition of details in his oft-told story of the arrests and the subsequent proceeding at Indianapolis, Burns has this to say: "About a week after the arrests Gompers came on to Indianapolis and then up to Chicago to see about the case. I knew just what we had, and I knew any fair-minded man would see it; so I said publicly that, now he had made an investigation, Gompers would probably say there wasn't any detectives' frame-up, because there couldn't be. But Gompers came back and said I was a liar, and had been all through the case. He had come down on the ground, talked with the men who had appro priated the money which J. J. McNamara paid for the dynamiting, and had every possible opportunity to know that our evidence couldn't be manufactured; yet he took the position that the whole thing was a 'frame up.' "Then Gompers took matters over into the hands of the Federation of Labor. They got together a McNamara ways and means committee; and they asked every union member in the country for twenty-five cents a head for the trial; and Gompers and the rest of them went around the country and worked the labor people into a fury. Every Socialist haranguing from the tail of a cart was talking about Burns' 'frame-up.' I went around now and then and listened to them. All their talk was well calculated to incite some crank to take a shot at me." The silliness of it all! Compare Burns' utterances, denunciations, and attacks upon us and see whether, indeed, the personal perilous situation is not really reversed. But mark you, reader, this incoherency is the best the man could do when brought to describe the course of events at a critical stage in the story of organized labor's proceedings in this case. We have fully and carefully stated in this magazine and elsewhere the steps that were taken, both by ourselves and the joint committee of international and other labor officials at Indianapolis. Every man at the meetings of that committee shared the views expressed in the statement to the public, made at the close of its sittings. So far as the members could see, in the light of the facts known to them, the McNamara arrests were carried out in a high-handed and illegal manner, the known evidence was only circumstantial and seemed far-fetched and untrustworthy; |