EIGHT-HOUR THEORY IN THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR 241 
plexities of the later struggles. These influences, combined with 
the growing alienation of the “intellectuals” and the intellectually 
“progressive” younger element in the Federation itself, serve 
perhaps to explain, at least in part, the intellectual sterility 
of the years down to the beginning of the war. 
As already indicated, this dark age in Federation thought 
brings us definitely to the end of the early eight-hour movement, 
marking, as it does, the collapse of any distinctive labor theory 
of wages, and the actual, though not nominal, acceptance of a 
large part of the intellectual stock in trade of the academic 
economists. The eight-hour day, indeed, does not disappear from 
view. Mr. Gompers in 1906 called for the appointment of a spe- 
cial eight-hour committee, saying: “There can be neither justifica- 
tion nor excuse in our time for longer deferring the ideal and 
practical universal workday of eight hours.” * The committee 
on the last day of the convention dutifully brought in a report 
recommending that the secretary collect information and that 
affiliated organizations try to get shorter hours rather than 
increased wages *—a pedestrian recommendation in striking con- 
trast with the dithyrambic periods of the earlier eight-hour 
reports. The convention adopted the recommendation without 
a word of debate. The next year the Eight-Hour Committee 
piously reported: “We regard the reduction of the hours of labor 
as paramount to all other considerations, even to an increase in 
wages, except in such trades and callings, where the earnings are 
so meagre as to make it difficult to maintain a fair standard of 
living.” * What has become of the old consuming fire of a faith 
in shorter hours as the only means of raising wages? It seems 
to have been snuffed cut by the breath of the productivity dragon. 
The committee urges on affiliated organizations persistent agita- 
tion and effort, but never at too great cost and always on the 
basis of a well-filled treasury. Verily the glory is departed from 
[srael! 
This fall in the theoretical temperature does not indicate any 
setback in the actual eight-hour movement. Eight-hours has 
simply ceased to have theoretical significance, and has become one 
desirable end among many, to be attempted after a sober count- 
* Proceedings, 1906, p. 18. 
* Ibid., pp. 251, 252. 
2 Ibid., 1907, p. 286.