President Gompers took up the cudgels for the American Federation of Labor. The new movement was inaugurated, he said, "under the pretext that the American Federation of Labor refuses to recognize the changes which are constantly taking place in industry. That it is a pretext inexcusably ignorant and maliciously false any observer must know." He goes on to say that "the permanency of the trade-union movement depends upon the recognition ... of the principle of [craft] autonomy consistent with the varying phase and transitions in industry."[136] Mr. Gompers cited, among others, the case of the Boot and Shoe Workers' International Union. The workers in Lynn, Massachusetts, in a branch of the shoe trade—they were makers of "counters"—applied for a charter in the American Federation of Labor. The Federation authorities advised them first to join the industrial union of their trade, viz., the Boot and Shoe Workers' International Union. This they declined to do, and being refused by the American Federation of Labor, joined the American Labor Union.
The first five days of the convention were taken up with the adjustment of credentials, the explanation of the manifesto, and the indictment of the American Federation of Labor—"the consummate flower of craft unionism." On the sixth day the principal piece of constructive work confronting the convention—the shaping-up of some sort of a workable constitution—was taken out of the hands of the committee and made the order of the day. Though Simons intimates[137] that the first days of the convention were too much given over to the reign of the "jaw-smith," yet mixed with all the chaff—unquestionably in evidence—was much intellectual grain. The ideas and suggestions brought out in all these discussions, the resolutions proposed, all these, after a crude but critical sifting at the hands of the committee and the speakers on the floor of the convention, became crystallized in the preamble and constitution. The following resolutions, selected and condensed from the report of the committee on resolutions, are fairly typical:[138]
1. To provide for the establishment and maintenance of an Educational Bureau comprising a Literature Bureau and a Lecture Bureau.
3. Resolved, that it be the sense of this convention that the labor of each individual unit of society is necessary to the welfare of society, and that all are entitled to equal compensation.
4. Resolved, that the first day of May of each year ... be designated as the Labor Day of this organization.
6. Resolved, that the seceding workers and seceding organizations in the A. F. of L. be required to make a public statement of the reason for their secession....
8. Resolved, that we recommend as a final solution of the class struggle the Social General Strike....
9. Resolved, that it is the sense of this convention to endorse and provide a perfect system of commercial coöperation.
13. Resolved, that it be the sense of this convention that only those who are wage-workers be eligible to membership in this organization.
16. Whereas, there is already established an International Bureau of those industrial unions which are based upon the class struggle, with headquarters at Berlin, therefore be it