the life of the entire labor movement, is the most eloquent testimonial to the weakness of American Labor.
International Relations, Journalism. Co-operatives
In no other phase does the unparalled conservatism and backwardness of the American Labor movement come to light more strikingly than in the latter’s relations to the labor organizations of other countries. At present there are two great world labor movements; one, the International Federation of Trade Unions, with headquarters in Amsterdam, and the other, the Red International of Labor Unions, with headquarters in Moscow. The former is passive and reformist, the latter is militant and revolutionary. All the important labor movements of the world are affiliated to one or the other of these two—that is all except ours. The American trade union movement stands aloof altogether, on the ground that both are too revolutionary. According to Mr. Gompers, who pulled the A. F. of L. out of the Amsterdam International a couple of years ago, even that yellow organization, whose leaders undoubtedly stopped the world revolution and saved capitalism during the big labor upheavals in Germany, France, Italy, etc., after the war, is much too radical for American workingmen to associate with. This withdrawal from Amsterdam has made us the laughing stock of the international labor world, reformist and revolutionary alike. To the militant unionists of other countries it is a profound mystery how, in this land of advanced and aggressive capitalistm, the labor movement can be so spineless intellectually as to fear affiliation with even the timid Amsterdam International.
In the matter of a labor press the American working class is particularly weak. As for the A. F. of L. itself, its journalistic efforts are deplorable. On the one hand it gets out the hard-boiled American Federationist, with its news and editorial columns filled with reactionary attacks upon everything even mildly progressive, and its advertising space littered up with scab advertisements; and on the other hand, the anaemic A. F. of L. News Letter, with its poor attempt at being a news service for the labor press generally. Likewise the international journals, with rare exceptions are dry as dust and reactionary. Rigidly censored by the controlling officials, there is no freedom of discussion in their columns. They sound no real proletarian note, nor do they carry on vital educational work. Their technical trade education and constant repetition of stereotyped petty
