Bolshevism is to him a synonym for social ruin. He believes that
capital and labor should cooperate but that capital should cease
to be the predominant factor in the equation. In order to secure
this balance he believes labor must unite and fight, and to this
end he has devoted himself to the federation of American trade
unions and to their battle. He has steadfastly refused political
preferment and has declined many alluring offers to enter private
business. In action he is an opportunist--a shrewd, calculating
captain, whose knowledge of human frailties stands him in good
stead, and whose personal acquaintance with hundreds of leaders
of labor, of finance, and of politics, all over the country, has
given him an unusual opportunity to use his influence for the
advancement of the cause of labor in the turbulent field of
economic warfare.

The American Federation of Labor has been forced by the
increasing complexity of modern industrial life to recede
somewhat from its early trade union isolation. This broadening
point of view is shown first in the recognition of the man of no
trade, the unskilled worker. For years the skilled trades
monopolized the Federation and would not condescend to interest
themselves in their humble brethren. The whole mechanism of the
Federation in the earlier period revolved around the organization
of the skilled laborers. In England the great dockers' strike of
1889 and in America the lurid flare of the I.W.W. activities
forced the labor aristocrat to abandon his pharisaic attitude and
to take an interest in the welfare of the unskilled. The future
will test the stability of the Federation, for it is among the
unskilled that radical and revolutionary movements find their
first recruits.