rally succeeded in enlisting
the respect and cooperation of employers. This union has been the
kindergarten and preparatory school of Samuel Gompers, who, during all
the years of his wide activities as the head of the Federation of Labor,
has retained his membership in his old local and has acted as first
vice-president of the Cigar-makers' International. These early
experiences, precedents, and enthusiasms Gompers carried with him into
the Federation of Labor. He was one of the original group of trade union
representatives who organized the Federation in 1881. In the following
year he was its President. Since 1885 he has, with the exception of a
single year, been annually chosen as President. During the first
years the Federation was very weak, and it was even doubtful if the
organization could survive the bitter hostility of the powerful Knights
of Labor. It could pay its President no salary and could barely meet
his expense account. * Gompers played a large part in the complete
reorganization of the Federation in 1886. He subsequently received a
yearly salary of $1000 so that he could devote all of his time to the
cause. From this year forward the growth of the Federation was steady
and healthy. In the last decade it has been phenomenal. The earlier
policy of caution has, however, not been discarded--for caution is the
word that most aptly describes the methods of Gompers. From the first,
he tested every step carefully, like a wary mountaineer, before he urged
his organization to follow. From the beginning Gompers has followed
three general lines of policy. First, he has built the imposing
structure of his Federation upon the autonomy of the constituent unions.
This is the secret of the united enthusiasm of the Federation. It is the
Anglo-Saxon instinct for home rule applied to trade union politics. In
the tentative years of its early struggles, the Federation could hope
for survival only upon the suffrance of the trade union, and today, when
the Federation has become powerful, its potencies rest upon the same
foundation.

* In one of the early years this was $13.

Secondly, Gompers has always advocated frugality in money matters. His
Federation is powerful but not rich. Its demands upon the resources of
the trade unions have always been moderate, and the salaries paid
have been modest. * When the Federation erected a new building for
its headquarters in Washington a few years ago, it symbolized in its
archi