Who Is W. Z. Foster?

Now that Eugene Debs has been forced into semi-retirement because of ill-health, William Z. Foster is probably the most active and prominent radical leader in the United States.

He was born 42 years ago in Staunton, Mass., and as a boy of ten went to work for a sculptor. His next job was in a fertilizer plant, but, loving outdoor life, he soon beat his way to Oregon, where he worked as a lumberjack until the age of 24.

Unable to conquer his wanderlust, he next went to sea and spent three years before the mast. Then he returned to Oregon and took out a homestead claim in the woods, where he lived until 1909. At this time he became interested in the I. W. W. movement and, selling his land, went abroad to study law, languages and the labor problem.

In two years' time he had become disillusioned with the I. W. W., and, returning to Chicago, worked for a railroad until 1915, when he became business agent for the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, holding this position for a year and a half.

In 1917 he undertook his first important work in labor agitation, that of organizing the workers of the Chicago packing plants. Successful in this enterprise, and having gained a reputation in the labor movement as the father of the "boring within" strategy, he was put in charge of the great Steel Strike of 1919. Almost single-handed he directed the entire work of agitation, publicity and relief for 24 craft unions comprising nearly half a million strikers of all nationalities.

Since the failure of the Steel Strike, Foster has been a director of the Trade Union Educational League, an organization whose aim is to "bore within" conservative unions.