THE OLD GRAY MARE

The present session of the American Federation of Labor is a visible manifestation of the change of the spirit of the working man. The fiery contempt for all things smacking of privilege, the desire to tear down the established order of things, so notable in the resolutions of past Conventions, have all subsided and in their place has arisen a tendency toward, thoughtful study of labor and national problems. Labor is becoming civilized.

Labor has always meant to the public an organization which was striving to promote the lower classes at the expenses of the middle and upper class. Such perverted offspring of the American Federation as was the I. W. W., strengthened this brief. Labor, to the world, meant a force moving steadily coward toward communism.

Whether or not the labor leaders perceived the futility of this course is a question. At any rate, the whole tone of labor has changed. With its increasing power, manifested by such an organization as the Federation, with the increasing modification of its radical conceptions, Labor has seen the danger of communism and has opposed it. "We regard the Soviet political regime as the most unscrupulous, most anti-social and most menacing institution in the world today" is the unanimous declaration of the American Federation, voiced in the same document which contains a pledge of unswerving loyalty to American principles.

The fiery steed has lost his old snoring manners; he has become a docile old gray mare. Mr. Mencken will have to add the American Federation of Labor to his list of American Inanities.