PEACE TERMS

It is an imperative duty from which there is no escape that wage-earners as well as all other citizens of this Republic support our government in its righteous effort to defend principles of humanity and to establish democracy in international relations. Because we desire permanent peace it is our duty to fight and sacrifice until these purposes can be achieved.

When nations can send representatives to negotiate peace terms in accord with this concept, we maintain that the basic provisions of the peace treaty should be formulated with regard to the rights and welfare of the men, women and children constituting the nations rather than the governments of the nations. The government should be only an instrumentality of the people instead of dominating and actuating their lives. This terrific war must wipe out all vestiges of the old concept that the nation belongs to the ruler or government.

We hold that the same principles should apply to relations between nations and that secret diplomacy should be replaced by diplomatic representatives responsible to the people of their own people and received by either the Parliament of the country to which they are accredited or by a representative of the people, responsible to them.

We made recommendation in our report to the Baltimore Convention for the organization of international relations. Existing international anarchy has invited imperialism on the part of strong governments and has furnished opportunity and occasion for war. Militarism finds its justification in international anarchy and can be abolished only when international relations are organized.

There is no element in all nations more concerned in the achievement of conditions making for permanent peace between nations than the working people, who constitute the majority of every nation. Working people have never been properly represented in diplomatic affairs. The future must be constructed upon broader lines than the past. We insist, therefore, that the government of the United States provide adequate and direct representatives of wage-earners among the plenipotentiaries sent to the Peace Congress, and urge upon the labor movements of other countries to take like action.

We urge the adoption of the following declarations as the basis upon which peace must be negotiated:

1. The combination of the free peoples of the world in a common covenant for genuine and practical co-operation to secure justice and therefore peace in relations between nations.

2. Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. 3. No political or economic restrictions meant to benefit some nations and to cripple or embarrass others.

4. No indemnities or reprisals based upon vindictive purposes or deliberate desire to injure, but to right manifest wrongs.

5. Recognition of the rights of small nations and of the principle “No people must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live."

6. No territorial changes or adjustment of power except in furtherance of the welfare of the peoples affected and in furtherance of world peace.

In addition to these basic principles which are based upon declarations of our President of these United States, there should be incorporated in the treaty that shall constitute the guide of nations in the new period and conditions into which we enter at the close of the war the following declarations, fundamental to the best interests of all nations and of vital importance to wage-earners:

1. No article or commodity shall be shipped or delivered in international commerce in the production of which children under the age of 16 have been employed or permitted to work.

2. It shall be declared that the basic workday in industry and commerce shall not exceed eight hours.

3. Involuntary servitude shall not exist except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.

4. Establishment of trial by jury.

The war has swept away the ante bellum world and has rendered antiquated and useless many institutions. Others have broken down under the difficulties and problems of war needs. We can benefit from our experiences by retaining that which has demonstrated its efficiency and rejecting that which has failed. Many of the problems of reconstruction can not be worked out during the war while feeling is so intense. With the coming of peace will come a different attitude of mind on the part of all. The situation and opportunities which peace will bring will be without precedent. It is of paramount importance that Labor shall be free and unembarrassed in helping to shape the principles and agencies for the future.

We suggest, therefore, all prejudice and partisan spirit can best be eliminated by reconstructing international labor relations and thus bring to new problems and a new era, activity and co-operation unhampered and unperverted by former alliances or old feuds.

The basis of reconstruction should be the trade union movements of the various countries. We recommend that an international labor conference of representatives of the trade union movements of all countries be held at the same time and place as the World Peace Congress that Labor may be in touch with plans under consideration and may have the benefit of information and counsel of those participating in the Congress.

PAN-AMERICAN LABOR RELATIONS

As authorized by the convention of the American Federation of Labor, held in Baltimore November 13, 1916, and in pursuance of the directions of the Executive Council, the first Pan-American Federation of Labor conference was held in the A F. of L. Building in Washington, D. C., on January 31, 1917, at which were present: Samuel Gompers, representing the A. F. of L.; Santiago Iglesias, representing the organized workers of Porto Rico; Carlos Loviera, representing the organized workers of Yucatan, Mexico, and John Murray, member of the International Typographical Union.

Permanent organization of the Pan-American Federation of Labor Conference Committee was effected, the committee electing Samuel Gompers chairman, and John Murray secretary.

The first public act of the committee was to draw up and mail to secretaries of the labor unions throughout Latin-America a manifesto in Spanish and English, sending greetings to the workers of Latin-America and suggesting an outline of the international work necessary to the establishment of a Pan-American Federation of Labor. The manifesto urged that representatives from the organized labor movements of all Latin-American countries select and send delegates to Washington to join in the work of the committee. The manifesto was published in the March 1917,American Federationist, page 196.

A mass of correspondence has been received and answered by the committee, correspondence containing data of infinite value in making public to the labor movement of the United States of North America the vast growth of the labor movement within the last few years, not only in Mexico but throughout South and Central America, Cuba, Porto Rico, and Santo Domingo.

Mexico alone has within the last two years organized nearly half a million workers in her various trades unions. The Carranza decree declaring strikes illegal and threatening those promoting strikes with death penalties was reported to the Baltimore Convention. This situation caused grave anxiety both to the labor movement in this country and in Mexico. Assurances were at that time given through the Mexican representatives on the United States-Mexico Com

mission, that the decree was only temporary in character and would not be used to destroy the labor movement.

The new constitution adopted by the Congress at Queratero contained a provision expressly recognizing the legality of the right to strike. That portion of the Mexican constitution is quoted in an editorial entitled "Freedom Gives National Virility," published in the March, 1917, American Federationist.

Particular attention is drawn to the first actual and practical contact between the Mexican and American workers in the state of Arizona, where it has been demonstrated throughout the strikes of the past two years that Mexican and American miners stand shoulder to shoulder when oppressed by organized capital seeking to lower standards of living and to disrupt labor unions. Fourteen thousand Mexican miners work in the copper, silver and gold mines of Arizona. Over half of the membership of the Arizona State Federation of Labor is either of Mexican blood or birth. At its last annual convention in Clifton, the State Federation elected a committee of five to hold an international conference with representatives of the Sonora Workingmen's Congress of Mexico for the purpose of devising practical plans for mutual aid in industrial action. In the United States today there are between one and two million Mexican workers concentrated particularly in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, California, Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, Louisiana, and Kansas. One-fourth of the coal miners in the Southern Colorado fields are Mexicans, and a much larger proportion are at work in the mines of New Mexico. Organizers in both the United Mine Workers of America and the Mine, Mill, and Smeltermen agree that the Mexican is as quick to organize and maintain the solidarity of the labor movement as the American worker.

Cuba was the first to respond to the invitation of the committee to send a resident delegate to Washington; Antonio Correa Gonzales, who presented his credentials from thirty-four Cuban unions to the committee was regularly seated as a member of the committee on August 20, 1917.

On the same day Edmundo Martinez, representing the Federated Syndicates of Mexico, was also seated as a member of the committee.

The representative of Cuba and the representative from Yucatan, as well as the representative of Chili, have made reports upon the labor movement in their respective states and we recommend that these reports be published in an early issue of the American Federationist.

Communications received from Pan-American countries in regard to the holding of a Pan-American Congress show that the sentiment in the following countries, as expressed by labor organizations, is favorable : Cuba, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, St. Kitts Island, British West Indies, and Porto Rico.

Individual representatives of organized labor from Chili, United States of Columbia, Uruguay, and Panama have expressed their personal approval of the plan. In practically none of the South American states is there a general labor organization authorized to speak for all the workers of the country.

It is difficult to interpret sentiment in the various countries even with the replies that have been received. Many of the labor organizations are numerically and financially weak. The work of disseminating information about the proposed Pan-American conference and answering inquiries as to methods and policies is necessarily slow in development.

The conference committee has under consideration the advisability of calling a congress of the labor movements of Pan-American countries at an early date, possibly the early part of 1918.

LABOR AND THE WAR

It was not long after the Baltimore Convention of the American Federation of Labor that it became plain that our country could not long avoid taking part in the European war. The war had become world-wide in scope and involved issues of such a nature that our Republic could not much longer remain neutral.

The Imperial German Government flagrantly imposed upon the neutrality of this country and the unbroken relations of good-will and friendship that had existed between the people of the United States and the German people since the formation of our Republic. When it became plain that the German government intended to trifle ruthlessly with its pledges to our government and with the lives and rights of our citizens, self-respect and appreciation of the rights of our citizens demanded that there should be no receding from our definition of rights and principles.

Under all circumstances it is the duty of any government to protect its people against willful and wholesale murder. A government unable or unwilling to make every sacrifice in maintaining that principle is unworthy the respect and support of the people and should be overthrown.

A people unwilling to make the supreme sacrifice in support of the government which undertakes to make that principle good are undeserving to live and enjoy the privilege of free, democratic government.

The situation in which our country found itself is best set forth in that masterly address which President Wilson made to the Congress of the United States in joint session on that memorable April 2, 1917. In addition to the value of the address because of the information it contains we wish to aid in immortalizing it by reproducing it in our report:

Address by the President

On the third of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.

On the third of February last I officially laid before your the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the prescribed areas by the German government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion and of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of

the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

It is a warfare against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and the people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of rights, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of February last I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the ineffectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we can not make, we are incapable of making; we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut at the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise