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 GOMPERSSo long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 -
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 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 -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 GOMPERS -
No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 -
You can’t do it unless you organize.
SAMUEL GOMPERS