Samuel Gompers

“The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.”

“Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.”

“We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.”

“Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens.”

“Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.”

“No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money.”

“Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.”

“It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.”

“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.”

“The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers... It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.”

“The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.”

“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.”