f the inevitable national
labor readjustment after the war. Through a committee appointed for that
purpose, it prepared an ample programme of reconstruction in which the
basic features are the greater participation of labor in shaping its
environment, both in the factory and in the community, the development
of cooperative enterprise, public ownership or regulation of public
utilities, strict supervision of corporations, restriction of
immigration, and the development of public education. The programme
ends by declaring that "the trade union movement is unalterably and
emphatically opposed...to a large standing army."

During the entire period of the war, both at home and abroad, Gompers
fought the pacifist and the socialist elements in the labor movement.
At the same time he was ever vigilant in pushing forward the claims of
trade unionism and was always beforehand in constructive suggestions.
His life has spanned the period of great industrial expansion in
America. He has had the satisfaction of seeing his Federation grow under
his leadership at first into a national and then into an international
force. Gompers is an orthodox trade unionist of the British School.
Bolshevism is to him a synonym for social ruin. He believes that capital
and labor should cooperate but that capital should cease to be the
predominant factor in the equation. In order to secure this balance
he believes labor must unite and fight, and to this end he has devoted
himself to the federation of American trade unions and to their battle.
He has steadfastly refused political preferment and has declined
many alluring offers to enter private business. In action he is an
opportunist--a shrewd, calculating captain, whose knowledge of human
frailties stands him in good stead, and whose personal acquaintance with
hundreds of leaders of labor, of finance, and of politics, all over the
country, has given him an unusual opportunity to use his influence for
the advancement of the cause of labor in the turbulent field of economic
warfare.

The American Federation of Labor has been forced by the increasing
complexity of modern industrial life to recede somewhat from its early
trade union isolation. This broadening point of view is shown first in
the recognition of the man of no trade, the unskilled worker. For years
the skilled trades monopolized the Federation and would not condescend
to interest themselves in their humble brethren. The whole mechanism of
t