No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
SAMUEL GOMPERSOur movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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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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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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No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
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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.
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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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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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Do I believe in arbitration? I do. But not in arbitration between the lion and the lamb, in which the lamb is in the morning found inside the lion
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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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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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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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The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
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The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
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Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
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You can’t do it unless you organize.
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Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
SAMUEL GOMPERS