Samuel Gompers - Knowledge

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riotous living are rolling about in fine carriages from which they look out on peaceful meetings and call them riots?" Workers were also consumers, he asserted, and cuts to their wages would hurt not only their personal well-being but the economy as a whole. "When workers' wages are reduced, they necessarily use less, consume less, because of their reduced purchasing power", he wrote. "Only those who ignorantly or grabbingly believe in their avarice that business can prosper with wage reductions have yet to learn the lesson of industrial life and progress."

864:, president of the Illinois State Federation of Labor and the Illinois AFL-CIO from 1930 to 1970, cited his 1923 encounter with Gompers as particularly formative. Gompers chided Soderstrom after the latter expressed frustration with the slow pace of progress being made in a local strike, telling him "Young man, you know you can climb the highest mountain if you've got the patience to do it one step at a time." Reuben never forgot those words, stating decades later "that philosophy had a lot to do with guiding the activities I've been engaged in." 868: 498: 156: 33: 2762: 799: 671: 306:

to shave off the unusable to a hairbreadth, to roll so as to cover holes in the leaf and to use both hands so as to make a perfectly shaped and rolled product. These things a good cigarmaker learned to do more or less mechanically, which left us free to think, talk, listen, or sing. I loved the freedom of that work, for I had earned the mind-freedom that accompanied skill as a craftsman. I was eager to learn from discussion and reading or to pour out my feelings in song."

353: 259: 611: 1312: 786: 301:"Any kind of an old loft served as a cigar shop. If there were enough windows, we had sufficient light for our work; if not, it was apparently no concern of the management. ... Cigar shops were always dusty from the tobacco stems and powdered leaves. Benches and work tables were not designed to enable the workmen to adjust bodies and arms comfortably to work surface. Each workman supplied his own cutting board of 713:', it slowly and almost imperceptibly began to proclaim the virtues of class harmony and the possibilities of a more benevolent Capitalism." For example, Alex Heron attributes the following quote to Gompers: "The greatest crime an employer can perpetrate on his employees is to fail to operate at a profit". Gompers began to take a neutral stance in politics after the failure of the efforts to elect 1754: 466:

powerless in an isolated condition, while the capitalists are united; therefore, it is the duty of every Cigar Maker to join the organization". "One of the main objects of the organization", he concluded, "is the elevation of the lowest paid worker to the standard of the highest, and in time we may secure for every person in the trade an existence worthy of human beings."

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meetings. There were often good speakers present and the discussions were stimulating. Time and again, under the lure of new ideas, I went to Laurrell with glowing enthusiasm. Laurrell would gently say, 'Study your union card, Sam, and if the idea doesn't square with that, it ain't true.' My trade union card came to be my standard in all new problems.

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socialist—Gompers came into contact with an array of German-speaking cigar makers—"men of keener mentality and wider thought than any I had met before", he recalled. Gompers learned German and absorbed many of the ideas of his shop mates, developing a particular admiration for the ideas of the former secretary of the

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Gompers and his AFL unions vigorously fought the IWW in the U.S. and in Latin America, viewing them as a disruptive dual union that tried harder to destroy capitalism than to help workers. He cooperated with widespread government arrests of union leaders for the IWW's militant opposition to the World

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I remember asking Laurrell whether in his opinion I ought to keep in touch with the Socialist movement. He replied, 'Go to their meetings by all means, listen to what they have to say and understand them, but do not join the Party.' I never did, though it was my habit to attend their Saturday evening

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He encouraged AFL member unions to take political action to "elect their friends" and "defeat their enemies". In politics he mostly supported Democrats, and occasionally local Republicans. He led the opposition to immigration from China. During World War I, Gompers and the AFL energetically supported

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and knife blade. The tobacco leaf was prepared by strippers who drew the leaves from the heavy stem and put them into pads of about fifty. The leaves had to be handled carefully to prevent tearing. The craftsmanship of the cigarmaker was shown in his ability to utilize wrappers to the best advantage

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in New York City. Gompers's father manufactured cigars at home, assisted for the first year and half by Samuel. In his free time, the young teenager formed a debate club with his friends, gaining practical experience in public speaking and parliamentary procedure. The club drew Gompers into contact

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and contracts between labor and management that remain in use today. In practice, AFL unions were important in industrial cities, where they formed a central labor office to coordinate the actions of different AFL unions. Issues of wages and hours were the usual causes of strikes, but many strikes

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Gompers led the anti-Socialist faction inside the AFL, losing to Socialists only once, in 1894. He argued that socialists believed workers and unions could never co-exist with business interests and wanted to use the labor unions to advance their more radical political causes. By 1920 Gompers had

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on August 31, Gompers inveighed against the controllers of capital and the titans of industry and finance. "Why should the wealth of the country be stored in banks and elevators while the idle workman wanders homeless about the streets and the idle loafers who hoard the gold only to spend it on

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of 1882 that banned the immigration of Chinese, and published a pamphlet entitled "Some reasons for Chinese exclusion. Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood against Asiatic Coolieism. Which shall survive?" in 1901. The AFL was instrumental in passing immigration restriction laws from the 1890s to the

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Valley of Washington D.C. in 1906. In 1920 he wrote, "In my Masonic life, I have visited lodges in many lands, and I have learned that Freemasonry in many countries, particularly in Latin countries, is the principal means whereby freedom of conscience, of thought, and expression is preserved."

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Gompers’ philosophy of labor unions centered on economic ends for workers, such as higher wages, shorter hours, and safe working conditions so that they could enjoy an "American" standard of living—a decent home, decent food and clothing, and money enough to educate their children. He thought

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Gompers told the workers they needed to organize because wage reductions were almost a daily occurrence. He believed that the capitalists were only interested in profits, "and the time has come when we must assert our rights as workingmen. Every one present has the sad experience, that we are

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Gompers, Samuel. "Remarks of Mr. Gompers to Newspaper Men in His Office." April 4, 1923. Reel 118, The American Federation of Labor Records: The Samuel Gompers Era . George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO Archive, Special Collections, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland.

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Gompers, like most labor leaders, opposed unrestricted immigration from Europe because of the fear that it might lower wages of domestic union workers. He strongly opposed all immigration from Asia because it lowered wages and, in his judgement, represented an alien culture that could not be

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In 1873, Gompers moved to the cigar maker David Hirsch & Company, a "high-class shop where only the most skilled workmen were employed". Gompers later called this change of employers "one of the most important changes in my life", for at Hirsch's—a union shop operated by an émigré German

748:(IWW), whose members were known as Wobblies, with the goal of organizing the entire working class. The IWW's long-term goal was to supplant capitalism with a workers' commonwealth. Nonetheless, when government abuses against the leaders of the WFM seemed too egregious, Gompers relented and 693:, to warn that the preponderance of the unemployed would lead to riots that would "shake the country", unless Congress interceded. In late August 1893, Gompers addressed 25,000 unemployed workers who had massed on the shore of Lake Michigan. As reported in the 546:'s plan to annex the Philippines. Mandel (1963) argues that his anti-imperialism was based on opportunistic fears of threats to labor's status from low-paid offshore workers and was founded on a sense of racial superiority to the peoples of the Philippines. 884:

were assertions of jurisdiction, so that the plumbers, for example, used strikes to ensure that all major construction projects in the city used union plumbers. In this goal they were ideally supported by all the other construction unions in the AFL fold.

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assimilated easily into that of the U.S. Gompers bragged that the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU), later renamed the American Federation of Labor (AFL), "was the first national organization which demanded the exclusion of

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that comprised the AFL, trying to minimize jurisdictional battles. He promoted thorough organization and collective bargaining in order to secure shorter hours and higher wages, which he considered the essential first steps to emancipating labor.

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to the Council of National Defense, where he chaired the Labor Advisory Board. He was also elected president of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, which was organized to suppress anti-war propaganda among workers. He attended the

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of 1873–77, in which unemployment skyrocketed and ready availability of desperate workers willing to labor for subsistence wages put pressure upon the gains in wages and the shortening of hours achieved in union shops. Gompers and his friend

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advocates of "political party action" rather than the "militant economic program of Marx". He warned delegates to the 1900 annual convention that when men became enthusiastic about socialism, "they usually lost interest in their union".

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On 27 January 1950, the centennial of Gompers’s birth, the U. S. Post Office Department issued a 3¢ commemorative postage stamp in the Famous Americans series with his picture. Gompers enjoyed listening to the services of the Episcopal

833:. It was recognized that his condition was critical and that he might not survive for long. Gompers expressed the desire to die on American soil and he was placed aboard a special train that sped toward the border. He died in 2737:

edited by Stuart B. Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, and Grace Palladino. (University of Illinois Press, 1986–2013). The definitive edition of all important letters to and from Gompers. Published in 12 volumes; index in vol 13.

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used Local 144 as a base to rebuild the Cigar Makers' Union, introducing a high dues structure and implementing programs to pay out-of-work benefits, sick benefits, and death benefits for union members in good standing.

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to receive a basic education. His education there was brief, however, and a mere three months after his tenth birthday Gompers was sent to work as an apprentice cigar maker and earn money for his impoverished family.

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He was elected second vice president of the Cigar Makers' International Union in 1886 when he was 36 and first vice president in 1896. Despite the commitment of time and energy entailed by his place as head of the

322:. Laurrell took Gompers under his wing, challenging his more simplistic ideas and urging Gompers to put his faith in the organized economic movement of trade unionism rather than the socialist political movement. 895:

is in Gompers Square on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. On September 3, 2007, a life-size statue of Gompers was unveiled at Gompers Park, named after the labor leader in 1929, on the northwest side of

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Gompers, who had ties with the Cuban cigar workers in the U.S., called for American intervention in Cuba; he supported the resulting war with Spain in 1898. After the war, however, he joined the

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economic organization was the most direct way to achieve these improvements, but he did encourage union members to participate in politics and to vote with their economic interests in mind.

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During a severe period of national economic recession in the early 1890s, labor unrest was at its height. A volatile situation in Chicago in August 1893 caused the city's then mayor,

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Labor in Europe and America: Personal Observations from an American Viewpoint of Life and Conditions of Working Men in Great Britain, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, ... [etc.]

996:. American Federation of Labor printed as Senate document 137 (1902); reprinted with intro. and appendices by Asiatic Exclusion League, 1908 – via HathiTrust Digital Library. 586:. Other scholars have seriously questioned this conclusion, arguing it oversimplifies the politics and unity of labor leaders and the major parties. As one reviewer argued in 2267: 549:

By the 1890s, Gompers was planning an international federation of labor, starting with the expansion of AFL affiliates in Canada, especially Ontario. He helped the Canadian

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the war effort, attempting to avert strikes and boost morale while raising wage rates and expanding membership. He strongly opposed the antiwar labor groups, especially the

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Letters to a Bishop: Correspondence between Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, and Bishop William A. Quayle, of the Methodist Episcopal Church

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In his posthumously-published memoirs, Gompers notes, "I was taught Hebrew—not the mongrel language spoken and written by many Jews of the present age." See: Gompers,

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Address of Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor: Before the Convention of the United Hatters of North America, New York City, April 16, 1923

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Preparedness for National Defense: An Address Delivered before the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the National Civic Federation on January 18, 1916, at Washington...

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War. He said, "the IWW's ... are exactly what the Bolsheviki are in Russia, and we have seen what the IWW Bolsheviki in Russia have done for the working people."

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The day after his seventeenth birthday he married his co-worker, sixteen-year-old Sophia Julian. Together they had many children, but only six survived infancy.

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Correspondence between Mr. Newton D. Baker, President of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor

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Address by Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor: Under the Auspices of the National Security League at Chicago, September 14, 1917

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Address of Samuel Gompers, Before the Arbitration Conference, Held at Chicago, Ill. Dec. 17, 1900, Under the Auspices of the National Civic Federation

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sent him to the hospital, sidelining him from work for six weeks. No sooner had he recovered from the influenza, than he was stricken by a case of

193:(AFL) and served as the organization's president from 1886 to 1894, and from 1895 until his death in 1924. He promoted harmony among the different 1102:

America's Fight for the Preservation of Democracy: An Address Delivered by Samuel Gompers at Minneapolis, Minn.: And the Declaration of Principles

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rested in large part on immigration issues, as the owners of large corporations wanted more immigration for cheaper labor and thus supported the

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Labour and the War: Speeches Delivered in the Canadian House of Commons, April 26, 1918, and Before the Canadian Club, Ottawa, April 27, 1918

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The Double Edge of Labor's Sword: Discussion and Testimony on socialism and Trade-Unionism before the Commission on Industrial Relations

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Should a Political Labor Party be Formed? An address by Samuel Gompers... to a labor conference held at New York city, December 9, 1918

973:. Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, and Grace Palladino (eds.) In twelve volumes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989–2010. 643:

In addition to his work with the Commission on International Labour Legislation, Gompers was chairman of the US labor delegates at the

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Collective Bargaining: Labor's Proposal to Insure Greater Industrial Peace: With Questions and Answers Explaining the Principle

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Currarino, Rosanne, "The Politics of 'More': The Labor Question and the Idea of Economic Liberty in Industrial America".

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Under Gompers's tutelage, the AFL coalition gradually gained strength, undermining the position previously held by the

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Samuel Gompers on the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations Law: "Laws to make strikes unlawful will not prevent them."

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The Fundamental Issues: Present Industrial Controversies an Expression of Vital Conflict between Industry and Finance

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Kennedy, Kathleen (January 2000). "In the Shadow of Gompers: Lucy Robins and the Politics of Amnesty, 1918–1922".

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Owing to dire financial straits, the Gompers family immigrated to the United States in 1863, settling in the

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Labor and the left: a study of socialist and radical influences in the American labor movement, 1881–1924

588: 226:. He was the son of Sarah (Root) and Solomon Gumpertz, a cigar maker. At age six, Samuel was sent to the 2588:

Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor

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largely marginalized Socialist influence to a few unions, notably coal miners and the needle trades.

662:, who became the executive secretary of the amnesty committee. Lang and Gompers also became friends. 1976: 516:, which as a result, had almost vanished by 1900. He was nearly jailed in 1911 for publishing, with 3135: 1897:

Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920,

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During World War I Gompers was a strong supporter of the war effort. He was appointed by President

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Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920

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Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875–1920

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The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865–1925

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As was the case with other unions of the day, the Cigar Maker's Union nearly collapsed in the

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History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Vol. 7: Labor and World War I, 1914–1918.

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Gompers's health went into serious decline starting in February 1923, when a serious bout of

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Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881–1917

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He collapsed in Mexico City on Saturday, December 6, 1924, while attending a meeting of the

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Debate between Samuel Gompers and Henry J. Allen at Carnegie Hall, New York, May 28, 1920

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Charles W. Toth, "Samuel Gompers, Communism, and the Pan American Federation of Labor",

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Gompers’ trade union philosophy and his devotion to collective bargaining with business

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Gompers poses with American officers for a photograph in front of an Italian villa, 1918

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From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States

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with money and organizers, and by 1902, the AFL dominated the Canadian union movement.

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The Struggle for Labor Loyalty: Gompers, the A. F. of L., and the Pacifists, 1917–1920

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The Struggle for Labor Loyalty: Gompers, the A. F. of L., and the Pacifists, 1917–1920

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Gompers was elected president of Cigar Makers' International Union Local 144 in 1875.

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The Making of the Labor Bureaucrat: Union Leadership in the United States, 1870–1920

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Laslett, John H.M. "Samuel Gompers and the Rise of American Business Unionism." in

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Labor and Antitrust Legislation: The Facts, Theory and Argument: A Brief and Appeal

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The McNamara Case; Also, an Appeal for Funds to Secure a Fair and Impartial Trial

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in 1919 as an official advisor on labor issues. He was appointed chairman of the

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Gompers in Canada: A Study in American Continentalism before the First World War

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Gompers in Canada: A Study in American Continentalism before the First World War

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The Workers and the Eight-Hour Workday; And, the Shorter Workday: Its Philosophy

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Meat vs. rice; American manhhod against Asiatic coolieism, which shall survive?

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in 1881 as a coalition of like-minded unions. In 1886 it reorganized into the

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The Attitude of the American Federation of Labor toward Industrial Education

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Soderstrom, Robert; Soderstrom, Carl; Stevens, Chris; Burt, Andrew (2018).

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of New York, is named in his honor. There are schools named for Gompers in

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The Samuel Gompers Papers: The making of a union leader, 1850–86, Volume 1

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The indispensable enemy: Labor and the anti-Chinese movement in California

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Gompers is the subject of statuary in several major American cities. A

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Larson, Erik, "Devil In The White City, Crown Publishers, 2003, p. 315

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The American Labor Movement: Its Makeup, Achievements and Aspirations

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Investigation of Taylor System of Shop Management: Hearings before...

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Forty Gavels: The Life of Reuben Soderstrom and the Illinois AFL-CIO

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A Pictorial History of American Labor, William Cahn, 1972, page 139.

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Out of Their Own Mouths: A Revelation and an Indictment of Sovietism

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Gompers complained that the socialist movement had been captured by

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Gompers began his labor career familiar with, and sympathetic to,

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with other upwardly mobile young men of the city, including young

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We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World

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that laid him low again. By June 1924 Gompers, who suffered from

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gradually adopted a more conservative approach to labor relations

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Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert and Grace Palladino, eds.

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who were convicted under Wartime Emergency Acts. He worked with

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Despite his support for the war, he later supported amnesty for

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from the United States". He and the AFL strongly supported the

2607:. In 10 volumes. New York: International Publishers, 1947–1991. 2311: 2019: 2017: 1257:"Attitude of Labor towards Government Regulation of Industry", 823: 607:), and unity within the AFL was never so extensive as claimed. 558: 243: 239: 235: 2318:. Vol. 1. Peoria, Illinois: CWS Publishing. p. 174. 2313: 2257:"End Comes On Home Soil", Associated Press, December 14, 1924. 1311: 1299: