When on January 8, 1918, President Wilson enunciated his famous Fourteen
Points, the Federation of course gave them an enthusiastic endorsement.
In the autumn of 1918 Gompers went to Europe and participated in an
Inter-Allied labor conference. He refused, however, to participate in
the first International Labor and Socialist Congress called since the
War, which met at Berne, Switzerland, in March 1919, since he would not
sit with the Germans while their country was not formally at peace with
the United States. The convention of the Federation in June 1919 gave
complete endorsement to the League of Nations Pact worked out at
Versailles,--on general grounds and on the ground of its specific
provisions for an international regulation of labor conditions designed
to equalize labor standards and costs. Contrasting with this was the
position of British labor, which regarded the Pact with a critical eye,
frankly confessing disillusionment, but was willing to accept it for the
sake of its future possibilities, when the Pact might be remodelled by
more liberal and more democratic hands.
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