List of Samuel Gompers Quotes

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. He Began Publication Of An Expensive Magazine And Proclaimed 'a Thousand Secret Agents In A Thousand Communities.'

Labor Day Is Devoted To No Man, Living Or Dead, To No Sect, Race Or Nation.

So Long As We Have Held Fast To Voluntary Principles And Have Been Actuated And Inspired By The Spirit Of Service, We Have Sustained Our Forward Progress, And We Have Made Our Labor Movement Something To Be Respected And Accorded A Place In The Councils Of The Republic. Where We Have Blundered Into Trying To Force A Policy Or Decision, Even Though Wise And Right, We Have Impeded If Not Interrupted The Realization Of Our Own Aims.

In Many Instances The Conduct Of Colored Workmen, And Those Who Have Spoken For Them, Has Not Been In Asking Or Demanding That Equal Rights Be Accorded To Them As To White Workmen, But Somehow Conveying The Idea That They Are To Be Petted And Coddled And Given Special Consideration And Special Privilege. Of Course That Can't Be Done.

The Periods Of Unemployment Accompanying Depression In The Business Cycle . . . Present A Challenge To All Our Claims To Progress, Humanity, And Civilization.

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.

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

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.

So Long As There Is One [person] Who Seeks Employment And Cannot Find It, The Hours Of Work Are Too Long.

You Can't Weigh The Soul Of A Man With A Bar Of Pig-iron.

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.

[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.