Labor wants fairness: workers expect less cynicism and more empathy.

• Author: Dr. Freeman, Everette J.,
• Position: Last Word - American Federation of Labor history

One hundred years ago, the American Federation of Labor stood at a crossroads, facing the choice of an all-out assault against the free market system or making peace with capitalism.

During two fateful weeks in November 1903, the AFL, meeting in convention in Boston, struggled mightily over its course. Many within this worker federation believed the best course, the only course, was to fully embrace socialism and abandon American free enterprise. No fewer than 11 resolutions were brought before the AFL union delegates calling for such things as the outright abolition of capitalism, collective ownership of the means of production, and the adoption of May 1 as Labor Day in line with the European socialists' international day of agitation against capitalism. Indeed, there was a strongly held belief by scores of AFL delegates that if Terre Haute native Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party standard-bearer, could garner more than 100,000 votes in the 1900 presidential election, capitalism could be abolished.

One sees why workers were losing faith in capitalism then. The dawning 20th century gave them little to cheer. Corporate greed gripped America on an unparalleled scale. Monopolies dominated the economic landscape, choking competition and creating income inequality and widespread hardship. In oil, steel, railways, and other key industries, monopolies manipulated supply and prices, including wages, in a vicious cycle of greed, speculation, collusion and exploitation. Aside from President Teddy Roosevelt's gallant efforts to curb the power of corporate trusts, virtually nothing stood in the way of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and the other "robber barons," as they were called, but the solidity and resolve of organized labor--and labor was squarely under attack. This was the backdrop to the 23rd AFL convention that met in the fall of 1903. A choice had to be made.

Samuel Gompers, the AFL's president, understood the stakes: a long and perhaps bloody battle for a new economic order, or...