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 GOMPERSTo make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
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The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
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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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You can’t do it unless you organize.
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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 free him from the tyrannies, petty or otherwise, which served to make his existence a slavery.
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No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
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To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
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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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Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.
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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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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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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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It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.
SAMUEL GOMPERS






