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… — 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 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,… — Samuel Gompers Copy Share
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
