The AFL was organized in 1886, with the purpose of organizing workers into a union so they could address the issues of the workers poor pay, hours, and conditions. Samuel Gompers served as the AFL president until 1925. During Gompers presidency, he was able to raise the AFL member count to over four million. Gompers goal for the AFL was to change the political, economical, and social status of the common working man. He had three basic principles to help him and his union to help achieve these goals. First, he advocated crafts or trades unionism, second, he believed in a pure-and-simple unionism that focused primarily on economic rather than political reform as the best way of securing workers rights and welfare, third Gompers urged labor