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 GOMPERSThere 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.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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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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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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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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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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Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
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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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To make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
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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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So long as there is one [person] who seeks employment and cannot find it, the hours of work are too long.
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Workingmen are at the foundation of society.
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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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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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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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The periods of unemployment accompanying depression in the business cycle . . . present a challenge to all our claims to progress, humanity, and civilization.
SAMUEL GOMPERS