healthy. In the last decade it has been phenomenal. The earlier
policy of caution has, however, not been discarded--for caution
is the word that most aptly describes the methods of Gompers.
From the first, he tested every step carefully, like a wary
mountaineer, before he urged his organization to follow. From the
beginning Gompers has followed three general lines of policy.
First, he has built the imposing structure of his Federation upon
the autonomy of the constituent unions. This is the secret of the
united enthusiasm of the Federation. It is the Anglo-Saxon
instinct for home rule applied to trade union politics. In the
tentative years of its early struggles, the Federation could hope
for survival only upon the suffrance of the trade union, and
today, when the Federation has become powerful, its potencies
rest upon the same foundation.

* In one of the early years this was $13.


Secondly, Gompers has always advocated frugality in money
matters. His Federation is powerful but not rich. Its demands
upon the resources of the trade unions have always been moderate,
and the salaries paid have been modest.* When the Federation
erected a new building for its headquarters in Washington a few
years ago, it symbolized in its architecture and equipment this
modest yet adequate and substantial financial policy. American
labor unions have not yet achieved the opulence, ambitions, and
splendors of the guilds of the Middle Ages and do not yet direct
their activities from splendid guild halls.

* Before 1899 the annual income of the Federation was less than