With this sagacity of leadership Gompers has combined a
fearlessness that sometimes verges on brazenness. He has never
hesitated to enter a contest when it seemed prudent to him to do
so. He crossed swords with Theodore Roosevelt on more than one
occasion and with President Eliot of Harvard in a historic
newspaper controversy over trade union exclusiveness. He has not
been daunted by conventions, commissions, courts, congresses, or
public opinion. During the long term of his Federation
presidency, which is unparalleled in labor history and alone is
conclusive evidence of his executive skill, scarcely a year has
passed without some dramatic incident to cast the searchlight of
publicity upon him--a court decision, a congressional inquiry, a
grand jury inquisition, a great strike, a nation-wide boycott, a
debate with noted public men, a political maneuver, or a foreign
pilgrimage. Whenever a constituent union in the Federation has
been the object of attack, he has jumped into the fray and has
rarely emerged humiliated from the encounter. This is the more
surprising when one recalls that he possesses the limitations of
the zealot and the dogmatism of the partisan.
One of the most important functions of Gompers has been that of
national lobbyist for the Federation. He was one of the earliest
champions of the eight-hour day and the Saturday half-holiday. He
has energetically espoused Federal child labor legislation, the
restriction of immigration, alien contract labor laws, and
employers' liability laws.
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