Samuel Gompers to Woodrow Wilson

There was introduced in the United States Senate and passed by that body a bill known as S. 2356. This bill deals with Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and clothes the President of the United States with large powers in the conduct or movement of Interstate and Foreign Commerce in any part of the United States, or of any train, locomotive, car or other vehicle upon any railroad in the United States engaged in Interstate or Foreign Commerce.

This bill was so phrased that in the event it became a law and the provisions thereof strictly enforced, it would be a repeal of the labor provisions of the Clayton Law.

In view of the announced policy of yourself and Council of National Defense, to maintain existing law until such time as a great emergency made necessary the suspension of any law relating to workers in industry, the representatives of the four great Railroad Brotherhoods requested those in charge of the bill in the United States Senate to incorporate an amendment. Agreeable to the request, the following amendmend was adopted by the Senate, unanimously, as part of S. 2356:

"Provided that nothing in this section shall be construed to repeal, modify or affect either Section 6 or Section 20 of an act entitled An Act to Supplement Existing laws against Unlawful Restraints and Monopolies and for other purposes. Approved October 15, 1914."

Upon the unanimous passage by the Senate of the bill referred to with the amendment attached, it went to the House of Representatives where it was referred to the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. This committee, on Monday, June 25, met to consider S. 2356. A majority of the members of the committee present eliminated from the Senate bill the provision that nothing in section one of the bill should be construed to repeal, modify or affect section 6 or section 20 of the Clayton Law. The striking out of this provision from the bill is clearly an effort to repeal the salient sections of the Clayton Law.

Your attention is respectfully called to the fact that during the period when the Sherman Antitrust Law was in the making by Congress, assurances of the most positive character were given that under no strained construction of the provisions of the proposed legislation could the normal activities of the wage-workers of our country regulating hours, wages and conditions of employment be construed by the courts as applicable to such activities. And yet, despite that assurance, the Sherman Antitrust Law, as you well know, has been so construed, much to the injury of a large number of workers, and relief was only secured after twenty-four years of hard work, sacrifice and suffering, by the enactment of the Clayton Law, to which you gave your approval.

Having in mind your clear and concise declaration with reference to the repeal of labor laws, especially a sentence included in your letter to Governor Brumbaugh of Pennsylvania relative to the repeal of the Full Crew Law of that state, I quote one of your forceful statements.

"I take pleasure in replying to your letter of June 1. I think it would be most unfortunate for any of the states to relax laws by which safeguards have been thrown about labor. I feel that there is no necessity for such action and that it would lead to a slackening of the energy of the nation rather than to an increase of it, besides being very unfair to the laboring people themselves."

And, Sir, while addressing you upon this subject your attention is also respectfully called to the fact that the Lever Bill as introduced in the House contained provisions which in effect would repeal the protective features of the Clayton Law by declaring that the ordinary organized activities of the workers engaged in an effort to maintain standards of work and life could be construed and stigmatized as conspiracies, thus laying the workers liable to the charge of treason. To overcome this feature of the bill, Representative Keating of Colorado prepared the following amendment:

"Provided that nothing in this section shall be construed to repeal, modify or affect either Section 6 or Section 20 of an act entitled An Act to Supplement Existing Laws Against Unlawful Restraints and Monopolies and for other purposes, approved October 15, 1914."

Under the spur of zeal or mistaken patriotism, the amendment was defeated.

Now that the House of Representatives has rejected an amendment that would guarantee to all of the workers the right to carry on their necessary organized activities, and the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce has rejected an amendment that would guarantee the same right to railroad employes, despite the fact that attention was called to the danger that this course would impose upon the workers of the country, there is no assurance that every right which the millions of workers of our country now possess will not be taken from them by Congressional action and by judicial interpretation. The courts of our country will have the right to take cognizance in any case before them that the House of Representatives put their seal of disapproval of the proposed amendments and to place the workers of our country in a position of hazard so far as their rights and their freedom are concerned.

The people of our country are giving and will give wholehearted support to the great enterprise upon which our republic has entered to make the world safe for democracy. Surely in the prosecution of the contest for the establishment of that great principle the toilers of America should not be permitted to lose their rights and their freedom.

It may be additionally interesting to say that there has been no element or group of people in all our country who have done more to clarify the minds of all of the immediate necessity for the enactment of the fundamental principles of the Lever Bill than the organized wage-earners.

We are exceedingly concerned with the present status of these bills, and while we shall made an earnest endeavor to prevent the repeal of the labor provisions of the Clayton Law by indirection, we feel justified in seeking whatever assistance you may be able to render to keep intact and in full force the Clayton Law which you approved on October 15, 1914.

Respectfully,
Samuel Gompers
President,
American Federation of Labor.


Honorable Woodrow Wilson,President of the United States,Washington, D. C.