STRIKES AS A LAST RESORT.
Strikes are not favored by Mr. Gompers except under certain circumstances and as a last resort. During the great Chicago strike, the most intense pressure was brought to bear upon him to issue an order calling out all the workingmen in the country. It took high moral courage to resist the many strenuous appeals, but Samuel Gompers possessed this courage and the country was saved from an experience which might have proved most calamitous.
“I firmly believe in arbitration,” said Mr. Gompers, “but to arbitrate, the power must be equal, or nearly so, on both sides; therefore labor must be strongly organized.”
I asked him to what he attributed his success in his life-work.
“Well,” he answered slowly, “I learned both to think and to act, and to feel strongly enough on these great questions of labor to be willing to sacrifice my personal convenience for my aims. I have felt great devotion to the common cause of the manual workers, and I can say nothing better to young men than,—‘Be devoted to your work.’”
When I asked a very intelligent workingman why Samuel Gompers is so highly respected by the workers, he replied:—
“Why, because,—because he’s Sam Gompers,—but that doesn’t explain much, does it? Well, I will say because he has done more for labor than any other man in this country, because we can trust him down to the ground, and because he’s in his work heart and soul.”