Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
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… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
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… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. That is… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
To be free, the workers must have choice. To have choice they must retain in their own hands the right to determine under what… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service, we have sustained… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
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… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . . There is not a right too… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
The periods of unemployment accompanying depression in the business cycle . . . present a challenge to all our claims to progress, humanity, and civilization. — Samuel Gompers Copy Share Image
