1. SG to Charles Hastings, Jan. 28, 1922, reel 276, vol. 289, p. 34, SG Letterbooks, DLC; AFL, Proceedings, 1922, Report of AFL Executive Council, pp. 24, 56. The AFL's membership dropped from 4,078,740 in 1920 to 3,195,635 in 1922.
2. Robert H. Zieger, Republicans and Labor, 1919-1929 (Lexington, Ky., 1969), p. 172. For examples of criticism, see Earl R. Beckner, "The Trade Union Educational League and the American Labor Movement," Journal of Political Economy 33 (Aug. 1925): 414; David J. Saposs, "After-War A.F. of L. Politics," American Labor Monthly 1 (Mar. 1923): 37-44.
3. Bernard Mandel, Samuel Gompers, A Biography (Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1963), p. 599; James R. Barrett, William Z. Foster and the Tragedy of American Radicalism (Urbana, Ill., 1999), pp. 103-11.
4. William Z. Foster, The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement (Chicago, 1922), pp. 25, 29; Saposs, "What Lies Back of Foster," The Nation (Jan. 17, 1923): 69-70; "The Scare Is Real," translated from the New Yorker Volkszeitung, Jan. 19, 1923, Executive Council Records, Vote Books, reel 17, frames 480-81, AFL Records; Amalgamation or Annihilation: A Practical Plan of Amalgamation for the Metal Trades (Chicago, 1922), AFL Microfilm Jurisdiction File, Textile Workers Records, reel 55, frame 2110, AFL Records.
5. Amalgamation or Annihilation; SG to Charles Stillman, Mar. 2, 1922, reel 277, vol. 290, pp. 328-29, SG Letterbooks, DLC; Mandel, Samuel Gompers, p. 511; Philip Taft, The A.F. of L. in the Time of Gompers (New York, 1957), p. 454; amalgamation campaign figures from Barrett, William Z. Foster, p. 126.
6. Foster is quoted in Barrett, William Z. Foster, p. 126; Saposs, "The American Federation of Labor: Growth and Development," American Labor Monthly 1 (Oct. 1923): 26; John Huber, "Moods, Personalities, Hopes," American Labor Monthly 1 (Sept. 1923): 40-41.
7. For the building trades' difficulty in amalgamating their forces, see Grace Palladino, Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits: A Century of Building Trades History (Ithaca, N.Y., 2005), pp. 46-67, 71-72; Foster, The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement, p. 9; Frank Morrison to Charles Atherton, Jan. 11, 1923, AFL Microfilm National and International Union File, Metal Polishers Records, reel 40, frame 1222, AFL Records; E. H. Fljozdal to E. H. FitzGerald, Dec. 21, 1922, AFL Microfilm National and International Union File, Railway Clerks Records, reel 43, frame 2575.
8. Gompers was referring to five printers' unions. Address before the Convention of the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers of North America, May 5, 1923, Files of the Office of the President, Speeches and Writings, reel 118, frames 171-72, AFL Records; SG to E. C. Warriner, Nov. 14, 1923, reel 295, vol. 308, p. 151, SG Letterbooks, DLC.
9. Foster, The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement, p. 8; SG to William Bryan, June 4, 1923, reel 291, vol. 304, p. 331, SG Letterbooks, DLC.
10. Gompers is cited in Gerald Emanuel Stearn, Gompers (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971), p. 167; TUEL declaration cited in Saposs, "What Lies Back of Foster," p. 70; SG, Address before Convention of United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers, May 5, 1923.
11. AFL, Proceedings, 1923, Report of AFL Executive Council, pp. 37-38; see, for example, SG statement quoted in AFL press release, Apr. 30, 1922, AFL Microfilm Circular and Neostyle File, reel 57, frame 1125, AFL Records.
12. David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925 (New York, 1987), pp. 433-34; according to SG, William Dunne was not duly elected by the Silver Bow (Mont.) Trades and Labor Council but asked for a credential with the understanding that the council would not finance the trip, AFL, Proceedings, 1923, p. 374.
13. Barrett, William Z. Foster, pp. 137-39, 142-48, 152-54; Beckner, "The Trade Union Educational League and the American Labor Movement," pp. 428-31, quotation at p. 431.
14. SG, Address before the Convention of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, May 1, 1922, Report and Proceedings of the Sixteenth Convention of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union . . . (Cleveland, 1922), p. 8.
15. SG to Frank Burch, Nov. 27, 1923, reel 295, vol. 308, p. 731, SG Letterbooks, DLC; AFL, Proceedings, 1922, Report of AFL Executive Council, pp. 17, 40.
16. For a discussion of the 1922 strikes see Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor, pp. 407-9.
17. Executive Council Records, Minutes, Feb. 16, 1923, reel 7, frame 1284, AFL Records; Taft, The A.F. of L. in the Time of Gompers, p. 480; AFL, Proceedings, 1923, Report of AFL Executive Council, pp. 48-49, 53, quotation at pp. 48-49.
18. AFL, Proceedings, 1923, Report of AFL Executive Council, pp. 50-54, quotation at p. 54; Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor, p. 435. The Executive Council reported that the 1922 campaign elected 23 friendly senators (18 Democrats and 5 Republicans) and defeated 11 unfriendly ones; 170 congressman elected were either supported by the campaign or their opponents were opposed by the campaign (105 Democrats, 63 Republicans, one Farmer-Labor and one independent), AFL, Proceedings, 1923, p. 50.
19. AFL, Proceedings, 1924, Report of AFL Executive Council, p. 66. Emphasis in the original.
20. Executive Council Records, Minutes, Sept. 16, 1922, reel 7, frames 1184-87, AFL Records; Feb. 19, 1923, ibid., frame 1290.
21. Executive Council Records, Minutes, Feb. 19, 1923, ibid., frame 1290; May 9, 1923, ibid., frames 1323-26; May 11, 1923, ibid., frame 1336. The statement is published in AFL, Proceedings, 1923, Report of AFL Executive Council, pp. 31-34.
22. "The Minimum Wage Decision," Washington Post, Apr. 10, 1923; AFL, Proceedings, 1923, Report of AFL Executive Council, p. 55; Minimum Wage Conference, Minutes, Apr. 25, 1923, Files of the Office of the President, Conferences, reel 122, frame 615, AFL Records.
23. "An Excerpt from the Minutes of a Meeting on Organizing Women in Industry," Mar. 9, 1924, in The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 12.
24. William Clarke to SG, Apr. 3, 1924, American Flint Glass Workers' Union of North America Records, reel 3, frame 537, AFL and the Unions; "To James Shanessy," July 19, 1924, in The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 12; SG to Shanessy, Sept. 14, 1924, reel 300, vol 315, p. 237, SG Letterbooks, DLC.
25. SG to George Wickersham, Mar. 17, 1924, reel 297, vol. 311, p. 529, SG Letterbooks, DLC; R. Lee Guard to Louis LeBosse, Jan. 28, 1925, Files of the Office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 109, frames 154-55, AFL Records; W. C. Roberts, Brief Memorandum of the Last Six Months of Samuel Gompers' Life, n.d., Files of the Office of the President, Reference Material, reel 134, frames 441-45, AFL Records; "A Memorandum by Lee Rice," Dec. 13, 1924, in The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 12.
26. Roberts, Memorandum; Guard to Thomas Rickert, June 28, 1924, reel 299, vol. 314, p. 108, SG Letterbooks, DLC; "To the Executive Council of the AFL," July 8, 1924, in The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 12.
27. "Gompers Presents Union Labor Planks," New York Times, June 26 1924; Lucy Robins Lang, Tomorrow Is Beautiful (New York, 1948), p. 223.
28. Morrison to W. D. Mahon, n.d. [c. Aug. 27, 1924], AFL Microfilm Jurisdiction File, Street and Electric Railway Employees Records, reel 54, frame 1206, AFL Records; R. Lee Guard, Memorandum, Aug. 7, 1924, Files of the Office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 108, frame 104, AFL Records.
29. Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1994), p. 97; Rowland Hill Harvey, Samuel Gompers, Champion of the Toiling Masses (New York, 1935; reprint ed., 1975), p. 337; Louis Schultz Reed, The Labor Philosophy of Samuel Gompers (New York, 1930; reprint ed., 1966).
30. "Excerpts from the Minutes of a Meeting with Santiago Iglesias," Jan. 25, 1923, in The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 12.
31. SG's appointment records reveal a busy schedule during these years (Files of the Office of the President, Appointment Records, reel 137, AFL Records); AFL, Proceedings, 1924, Report of AFL Executive Council, pp. 39, 60-61.
32. See for example, SG to John Hays Hammond, Jr., Sept. 11, 1923, reel 293, vol. 306, pp. 664-65, SG Letterbooks, DLC; SG to Herbert Hoover, Nov. 5, 1923, ibid., reel 294, vol. 307, p. 674; SG to Hugh Frayne, Apr. 18, 1924, ibid., reel 298, vol. 312, p. 453; "To J. McKeen Cattell," Jan. 9, 1923, in The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 12.
33. Lang, Tomorrow Is Beautiful, p. 221; William Green to Franklin Webster, Aug. 7, 1925, Files of the Office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 109, frame 400, AFL Records; "Gompers in Disagreement with Wife, Will Indicates," Washington Post, Dec. 21, 1924; Guard to Charles Jones, Mar. 14, 1925, Files of the Office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 109, frames 254-55, AFL Records.
34. AFL, Proceedings, 1924, pp. 4-5.
35. "An Article in the New York Times," Dec. 19, 1924, in The Samuel Gompers Papers, Vol. 12; "End Comes on Home Soil," New York Times, Dec. 14, 1924; Jere Sullivan to Guard, Jan. 24, 1925, Files of the Office of the President, General Correspondence, reel 109, p. 124, AFL Records.