Pine Bluff Daily Graphic

THE EIGHT HOUR DAY
GOMPERS
PREDICTS
SHORTENED
TIME FOR 500,000 MEN.
Can't Foresee Any Great Strikes as the Result of the Demand, but There May Be Some-Says There Will Be No Peace Until the Eight Hour Day Comes.

Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, who has been visiting the larger cities in the east in the interest of the eight hour workday movement, was asked by a reporter what would happen on May 1, that being the day set for the enforcement of the eight hour day by the labor unions.

He replied:

"I will venture to say that more than 500,000 workmen will, beginning some time in May, work an hour or more a day less than they work at the present time."

"Will there be great strikes to enforce the eight hour rule?" asked the reporter.

"Most of these 500,000 will get the eight hour day without striking for it," was the reply. "I do not want to predict that there will or will not be strikes. Once movements of this kind are started, there is no telling where they will end. I do not know at the present time that any great strikes are contemplated or will be necessary."

"What branches of trade will lead in the movement?"

"I cannot say that at present. The data are at the headquarters of the federation, and I cannot speak certainly without them. The building trades generally have the eight hour day in the larger cities. Some of them, though, still work nine hours, and these men very generally will demand and will get without strike the eight hour day. There are some local unions in this trade unattached to any national organization. These unions will make the demand, and I think that they will get it."

"Are these unions in the cities you have visited?"

"Some of them are. There have been many conferences lately in all the cities between the representatives of the trades unions and the employers in reference to the eight hour rule. The men have been met in a spirit of fairness. The result of these conferences will be seen in the large industrial centers about May 4, which is the first Monday in the month. The day's work will be lessened, but there will be no decrease of pay."

"Does it extend to all trades?"

"Oh, no; it does not. In many trades the hours of labor have been ten or eleven a day. In many of these the hours will be cut down to nine. The eight hour day will not be asked for in these trades. However, I do not want to predict. At this time, as I told you, it is extremely difficult to say what dimensions this movement will take. The reduction in the hours of labor is due to several causes. The great advance in machinery, the discovery and application of new forces to industry, the improvements in the tools of labor, the divisions and subdivisions in various departments of labor, all tend to increase the productivity of the laborer.

"At the same time the capacity to consume has not increased. With this increase in the production capacity of the workers the army of the unemployed has become more vast. These unemployed are always a menace both to the employer and the employed. The support and control of these men and the lessening of their numbers are a great social problem, to the working out of which thousands have devoted their energies. Federation men claim that the reduction in the hours of labor is the most rational of all the plans. Everybody agrees that something must be done to relieve the abnormal conditions of our industrial and commercial affairs and to make the existence of those now unemployed somewhat more consistent with humane conditions. The disagreement is as to the methods. Some advocate revolution. The trades unions advocate evolution. We believe that there has been no proposition which is so thoroughly calculated to bring about a better and more consistent and advantageous solution of the question than the one offered by the American Federation of Labor in the movement to reduce the hours of labor. I have found this to be the opinion of the employers and the employed in the cities I have visited. I have found, too, in these cities a greater tendency on the part of the employers to meet the men and to grant their just demands. The tendency is to meet them in a spirit of fairness—to meet them half way, in fact. I have found that a large number of employers have learned to respect the trades unions and to recognize that concession is better for all concerned than conflict. I find they have also learned that the agreements with the representatives of trades unions are more generally lived up to in every way than are agreements with individuals. I am certain that the limiting of the hours of labor to eight will come. There can be no industrial peace until it does come, and the inauguration of the day in the United States will be celebrated as it is in Australia now. I believe that the workmen of America will get it at an earlier day than the workmen of European countries."

"Why is May selected as the month in which to inaugurate the day?"

"Merely because it is the beginning of spring, and it is the season of the year that the unions usually make their agreements with the employers." -New York Sun.