Statement by the President Announcing Plans To Build a Destroyer Tender To Be Named After Samuel Gompers.

IT IS fitting that a U.S. Naval vessel bear the name Samuel Gompers. A man who believed in and worked for peace, he knew its best guarantee is "the power of self protection."

Few men represented more effectively the American idea of individual right and responsibility. A leader in the struggle for recognition of workers' rights, including the right to organize and bargain collectively, Gompers set the course for American labor by rejecting outright the concept of the "class struggle" so prevalent at the time. He determined that working men and women would achieve social justice within the free enterprise system and under the shelter of democratic institutions--not by throwing them down but by improving them.

The social and economic position of American workers today is to a large extent attributable to the efforts of Samuel Gompers. This ship will bear his name and our Nation's flag well.