There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. That is his right. It is his legal right, no matter how morally wrong he may be. It is his legal right, and no one can or dare question his exercise of that legal right.
SAMUEL GOMPERSThe worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
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Do I believe in arbitration? I do. But not in arbitration between the lion and the lamb, in which the lamb is in the morning found inside the lion
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The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers… It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.
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Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
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The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
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[The labor movement is] a movement of the working people, for the working people, by the working people, governed by ourselves, with its policies determined by ourselves.
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In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers.
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No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
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We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.
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So long as there is one [person] who seeks employment and cannot find it, the hours of work are too long.
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The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
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Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
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Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
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You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
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The right to say the things which convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, the right to say things, even though they do a wrong.
SAMUEL GOMPERS