Work will be started soon in Washington on the monument to the late Samuel Gompers, the London-born Jew who was for many years President of the American Federation of Labour, and the work will be completed within a year, Mr. William Green, his successor in the Presidency of the American Federation of Labour, has reported to the Executive Committee of the Federation. The plans for the memorial which have been submitted by Mr. Robert Aiken, the well known New York architect, have been approved, Mr. Green said. The site, which is situated in Massachusetts Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh Streets, has been given by Congress.
Samuel Gompers died in December 1924, and his funeral was a national event in the United States. President Taft sent a message and members of the Government, and Governor Smith of New York State were among those present. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets as the funeral cortege passed. Rabbi Dr. Stephen S. Wise, who conducted the funeral service said that knowing Gompers as he did, he felt that his idealism, his unfaltering courage, and love of his fellow-men were nurtured by his Jewish past. Samuel Gompers was a man, he went on, such as America knew how to remake. America remade this immigrant lad even as she has remade multitudes of immigrant sons and daughters. His career was an American epic. Gompers died a poor man, but he had left a great cause. He was the pioneer of the American Labour movement and he played a great and honourable part in liberating men from bondage.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.