ABSTRACT
American labor believes, with Samuel Gompers, that there was a period in this country when we had a near approach to "class government". It is true that American labor strives for power and in this struggle it meets with resistance. But the struggle is in no sense a class war. It is a struggle neither for survival nor for power over others, but for self-development of the group and for recognition and increased influence in the body politic. The political ideal of American labor is self-government, or, as it has recently been called, self-determination, for each social group. Labor does not expect or desire advancement through the altruism of other social groups. Labor has expressed the belief that this conception of the social struggle is that of the masses of American producers of whatever category. The purely educational activities of organized labor might also be imagined as freed from preoccupation with the social struggle.
