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 GOMPERSWe 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.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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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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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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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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 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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You can’t do it unless you organize.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
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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 working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
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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 -
The periods of unemployment accompanying depression in the business cycle . . . present a challenge to all our claims to progress, humanity, and civilization.
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No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
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Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
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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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS