movement of 1917–21, the whole thing centered around the foreigners, mostly Slavs. They organized the unions in the first place (the Americans quite generally refusing to come in until after a settlement had been secured), and they are the ones who made the final desperate fight. The same experience was had in the great 1918–19 organizing campaign and strike in the steel industry. Although in some mills there were as many as 54 nationalities, they joined hands readily and formed trade unions. There was much more difficulty in organizing the minority of Americans than the big majority of heterogenuous foreigners. And when the historic struggle with the steel trust came the foreign workers covered themselves with undying glory. They displayed the very highest type of labor union qualities.
The majority of the membership of the United Mine Workers of America are foreigners. Yet that is one of the very best labor organizations in this country. Indeed, one can search the world's labor movement in vain to find a union with a more valiant record. But the best illustration of the organizability of the foreigners is to be found in the clothing trades. In that industry the unions are made up of a general conglomeration of nationalities, principally Jews, Poles, Italians, and Lithuanians. The Americans form but a small minority of the membership and almost nothing of the administration. Yet the unions, all of them, are miles in advance of the ordinary American trade union. In fact, they will compare with the average European labor bodies. Most of the criticisms of the American labor movement, outlined in Chapter I, do not apply to these organizations, made up chiefly of immigrants. They are the one bright spot in a generally dismal movement.
Again it must be said that, although somewhat complicating the problems of the labor movement, the immigrant workers cannot be seriously blamed for its present deplorable condition. Intellectually they are radical and receptive of the most advanced social programs. If they, making up the bulk of the working forces in the great industries, have not been organized industrially and politically before now it is immediately because of the utter sterility and incompetence of the Gompers regime.
Prosperity Not a Deterrent
To urge the comparative prosperity of the American working class as an explanation of the backwardness of our labor movement is just as futile as to blame it upon the foreigners. The fact is that excep-
