Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement (1922).djvu/20

 Rh to develop a comprehensive plan to organize the masses of the workers. Opportunity after opportunity he has allowed to slip by unused, to the sad detriment of the labor movement.

Consider the war situation for example: That was a marvelous chance to organize the great body of the working class and to unshakably intrench the trade unions. The workers were most strategically situated and enjoyed wonderful political and industrial power. Had there been even a mediocre organizer, instead of a "labor statesman," at the head of our movement, great armies of toilers could have been drawn into the labor organizations. A general national organization campaign should have been mapped out and intensive, systematic drives for members started in all the industries. Given even ordinarily competent direction, such a movement would have achieved tremendous success. But of course, nothing of the kind was done. The intellectually sterile Mr. Gompers failed utterly to perceive the needs and opportunities of the situation. He was too busy winning the war and making the world safe for democracy. Flattered by great capitalists and basking in the sunshine of a fickle public opinion, he completely neglected the vital business of organizing the workers and spent his time with such questionable affairs of state as putting across the Versailles Treaty. He worked out no general strategy, no unified campaign of organization for the labor movement. And no one else was in a position to do so, Consequently the various organizations had to go ahead as best they could. Everybody started whatever he pleased. While Mr. Gompers dallied with his capitalist friends, the Chicago Federation of Labor was compelled to launch the great drives in the packing and steel industries. To organize such movements was clearly the duty of Mr. Gompers' office, and if it failed to do so he alone was to blame. The situation, from an organizing standpoint, was chaotic. Little substantial was accomplished. With the general result that, because of Mr. Gompers' inefficiency, because he had no inkling of what should have been done, the great masses of the workers were not organized during the golden opportunity presented by the war time. And now we are paying the penalty in the great "open shop" drive that is smashing the unions. Had the workers been organized during the war, and they easily could have been, the "open shop" drive would never have started against the deeply rooted trade unions. Had Mr. Gompers been even a third rate organizer it would have changed the whole face of industrial America.