All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Dayis devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.
SAMUEL GOMPERSThe labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
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The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.
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Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
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No human being is unimportant. My inspiration comes in opening opportunities that all alike may be free to live life to the fullest.
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What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.
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Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
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Let social busybodies and professional “public morals experts” in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.
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To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
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Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
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Show me that product of human endeavor in the making of which the workingman has had no share, and I will show you something that society can well dispense with.
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The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have not been granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease.
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W.Z. Foster {head of the American Communist Party}, who had no money, went to Moscow and came back and announced that he was building a great secret machine to undermine the American labor movement and turn it over to the Red International, owned by Lenin.
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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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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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS