To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
SAMUEL GOMPERSNo race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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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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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.
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Workingmen are at the foundation of society.
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The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
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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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Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
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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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[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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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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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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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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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.
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You can’t do it unless you organize.
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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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No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
SAMUEL GOMPERS