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.
SAMUEL GOMPERSThe 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.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
-
-
Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 -
The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 GOMPERS -
Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
[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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
So long as there is one [person] who seeks employment and cannot find it, the hours of work are too long.
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 -
The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 -
To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
The periods of unemployment accompanying depression in the business cycle . . . present a challenge to all our claims to progress, humanity, and civilization.
SAMUEL GOMPERS