An important aspect of the cooperation of the government with the
Federation was the latter's eager self-identification with the
government's foreign policy, which went to the length of choosing to
play a lone hand in the Allied labor world. Labor in America had an
implicit faith in the national government, which was shared by neither
English nor French labor. Whereas the workers in the other Allied
Nations believed that their governments needed to be prodded or forced
into accepting the right road to a democratic peace by an international
labor congress, which would take the entire matter of war and peace out
of the diplomatic chancellories into an open conference of the
representatives of the workers, the American workers were only too eager
to follow the leadership of the head of the American nation. To this
doubtless was added the usual fervor of a new convert to any cause (in
this instance the cause of the War against Germany) and a strong
distrust of German socialism, which American labor leaders have
developed during their drawn-out struggle against the German-trained
socialists inside the Federation who have persistently tried to
"capture" the organization.
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