Editorial Paragraphs.

The first week of the annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor in Atlantic City would seem to have demonstrated once more the backwardness of American organized labor and the inadequacy of American labor leadership as exemplified by the so-called "Gompers machine." This backwardness and inadequacy, obvious enough and disastrous enough in the piping times of peace, stand out with startling clearness against the world's present social unrest and are well-nigh fatal to the chances of an intelligent American movement toward reconstruction.