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
SAMUEL GOMPERSWe 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.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
-
-
Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . .
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
One fact stands out in bold relief in the history of man’s attempts for betterment. That is that when compulsion is used, only resentment is aroused, and the end is not gained. Only through moral suasion and appeal to man’s reason can a movement succeed.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
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 -
No human being is unimportant. My inspiration comes in opening opportunities that all alike may be free to live life to the fullest.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
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 -
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 -
No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
So long as there is one [person] who seeks employment and cannot find it, the hours of work are too long.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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 GOMPERS -
No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
Let social busybodies and professional “public morals experts” in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.
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.
SAMUEL GOMPERS -
You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
SAMUEL GOMPERS