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 GOMPERSThe working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers… It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.
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The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
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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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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.
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The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
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You can’t do it unless you organize.
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It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.
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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.
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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.
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Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
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To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
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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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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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No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
SAMUEL GOMPERS