Resolution was adopted by the Chicago Federation of Labor.
Immediately Gompers sounded the alarm. He opened a barrage of abuse and denunciation against Foster and the Trade Union Educational League in his own press, and in the capitalist daily papers. He traveled over the country, rallying the cohorts of the bureaucracy to combat this new "menace." The issue of "Amalgamation" became the most talked of subject thruout the labor movement almost overnight.
But the bureaucrats, unfit for any kind of struggle because of their soft and parasitic existence, could not even struggle effectively against the amalgamation movement. In the four months, June to September, 1922, the left wing had swept thru seven state conventions with the amalgamation program, carrying them by huge majorities. These states were Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, Indiana, Nebraska, Utah and Michigan. Dozens of the most important city central councils, particularly in the West, fell into line. The Moulders, the Typographical Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, with several independent unions, also joined in the demand for amalgamation. The great railway workers' movement was launched, co-incident with the collapse of the shopmen's strike, carrying with it thousands of local unions. By October four more state federations, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and Colorado, also went on record for amalgamation, and shortly after Montana and Pennsylvania. The great convention of the railway maintenance men in Detroit, with over a thousand delegates, overwhelmingly adopted the measure. In all sixteen state federations and fourteen international unions endorsed amalgamation during the campaign. It was a veritable landslide.
The Railroad Amalgamation Movement.
An oustanding achievement of this period was the great movement among the railroad workers. At the convention of the Railway Employes' Department of the
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