So long as there is one [person] who seeks employment and cannot find it, the hours of work are too long.
SAMUEL GOMPERSThere is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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One fact stands out in bold relief in the history of man’s attempts for betterment. That is that when compulsion is used, only resentment is aroused, and the end is not gained. Only through moral suasion and appeal to man’s reason can a movement succeed.
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The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
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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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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 -
You can’t do it unless you organize.
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Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 -
To be free, the workers must have choice. To have choice they must retain in their own hands the right to determine under what conditions they will work.
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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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
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The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
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Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
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Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty.
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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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS






