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.
SAMUEL GOMPERSNo race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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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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So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service.
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The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
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Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
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Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
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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.
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Our mission has been the protection of the wage-worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to improve the safety and the sanitary conditions of the workshop.
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To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
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You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
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To free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery.
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The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
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No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
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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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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.
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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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS