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 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.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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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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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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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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W.Z. Foster {head of the American Communist Party}, who had no money, went to Moscow and came back and announced that he was building a great secret machine to undermine the American labor movement and turn it over to the Red International, owned by Lenin.
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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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To free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery.
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There 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.
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Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
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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 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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Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
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Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
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You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
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The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
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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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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.
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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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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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All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Dayis devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.
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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 worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
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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 human being is unimportant. My inspiration comes in opening opportunities that all alike may be free to live life to the fullest.
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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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To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
SAMUEL GOMPERS