A year
earlier Gompers had characterized Taft as "the injunction
standard-bearer" and as an impossible candidate. The Democratic
platform, on the other hand, _verbatim_ repeated the Federation plank on
the injunction question and nominated Bryan.
After the party conventions had adjourned the _American Federationist_
entered on a vigorous attack upon the Republican platform and candidate.
President Gompers recognized that this was equivalent to an endorsement
of Bryan, but pleaded that "in performing a solemn duty at this time in
support of a political party, labor does not become partisan to a
political party, but partisan to a principle." Substantially, all
prominent non-Socialist trade-union officials followed Gompers' lead.
That the trade unionists did not vote solidly for Bryan, however, is
apparent from the distribution of the vote. On the other hand, it is
true that the Socialist vote in 1908 in almost all trade-union centers
was not materially above that of 1904, which would seem to warrant the
conclusion that Gompers may have "delivered to Bryan" not a few labor
votes which would otherwise have gone to Debs.
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