Not long after this we find Foster a member of the Federation, ostensibly converted from his I. W. W. leanings, enjoying the confidence of Gompers and his co-workers, and high in their councils. His “boring” process had met with eminent success. Meanwhile, the World War was approaching its end, leaving in its wake a world-wide wave of industrial unrest. Russia was being misgoverned by its most radical element, who held their power in the midst of a sea of blood. Communistic doctrines were being preached, openly or _sub rosa_, in every land and clime. American labor was restless, and the foreign element, particularly, showed that it had been infected with the fever of anarchism that was rampant in parts of Europe. The time had come for the radicals to strike, for the “boring-from-within” process to bear fruit. In the early summer of 1918, only a few months before the war ended, the American Federation of Labor held its annual convention at St. Paul, Minn., and there passed a resolution offered by Foster for the organization of the steel industry. A committee was appointed to take charge of the work and the converted radical, Foster, was made a member of this committee. For a full year the committee’s work was carried on quietly. At the next annual convention of the Federation, this time at Atlantic City, N. J., John Fitzpatrick, one of Foster’s associates, reporting to the Federation, claimed that 100,000 steel workers had affiliated themselves with one or other of the unions belonging to the Federation. Fitzpatrick was a man of an entirely different type from Foster. Mr. Piez thus describes him: “He has in the ten years I have known him never to my knowledge advanced or even advocated any constructive piece of legislation, and he has held his position with the Chicago Federation (Fitzpatrick is president of this Federation) because he is honest and because he is a skilled labor politician. John Fitzpatrick hasn’t the slightest idea of the problems of industry, he can’t conceive of overhead expense as anything more than graft, and lacks all knowledge of the problems of production, distribution, and the sale of the products of industry. His horizon begins and ends with the wrongs that labor has suffered, and he usually refers to wrongs that wise legislation and a changed relationship have remedied years ago.” But while the labor leaders had been busy collecting dues from and enlisting sympathy for the “oppressed” steel workers there had, strange to say, come no call for help from the steel workers themselves. They made no claim of being down-trodden; rather did many of them resent, as a slur on their manhood, the insinuation that they were. The union chiefs have since claimed that they were appealed to by the workers, but not one iota of evidence has ever been adduced to support this claim.