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Labor Quotes New Additions

Updated November 4, 1996

Quotes that have been added to the site recently...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Many thanks to the people who have sent email in recent months, and special than
ks to the people who have sent quotes for addition to the LaborQuotes collection
! Thanks for your patience if you've been waiting for the next batch of addition
s to be added to the site.

After several months of delay since the last update of the web site, here are th
e newest additions...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------The Following Quotes Were Sent By Gene Lantz
71112.757@Compuserve.Com
(Thank You, Gene!)

"When I rise it will be with the ranks and not from the ranks."
--Eugene V. Debs

"The great appear great to us only because we are on our knees -- let us arise!
--Slogan on newspaper, The Rebel

"If nobody quits until I do, there will be no quitting!"

--UMWA organizer John R. Lawson, in 1915 after being sentenced to life imprisonm
ent for murder in a frame-up trial

"...while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element,

I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
--Eugene V. Debs

"I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I d
on't want, and get it."
--Eugene V. Debs

"Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have
been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduce
d by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. 'Bu
t notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and pote
ntial power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain o
f ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun."
--Eugene V. Debs (1894)

Full opportunity for full development is the unalienable right of all. He who de
nies it is a tyrant; he who does not demand it is a coward; he who is indifferen
t to it is a slave; he who does not desire it is dead. The earth for all the peo
ple! That is the demand.
--Eugene V Debs, Speech made in 1904, ran as an ad in PWW 4/96 by Lydia S Karhu.

"It's no disgrace to be poor, but it's sure a hell of a bother!"

--Pretty Boy Floyd

"Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within. Freedom is never g
ranted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted."
--A. Philip Randolph

"The boss don't listen when one guy squawks/ But he's gotta listen when the unio
n talks."
--An old song

"Industrial contests take on all the attitudes and psychology of war, and both p
arties do many things that they should never dream of doing in times of peace. W
hatever may be said, the fact is that all strikes and all resistance to strikes
take on the psychology of warfare, and all parties in interest must be judged fr
om that standpoint."
--Clarence Darrow

"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's
freedom. You can only be free if I am free."
--Clarence Darrow

"If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize
their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of m
en to capitalize their labor."
--Frank Lloyd Wright

"There will come a time when our silence will be louder than the voices you stra
ngle today."
--Albert Spies

"An injury to one is the concern of all!"

--Knights of Labor slogan

"In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor's own lack
of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly
his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly his st
andard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the w
orld. Slowly the cause of his children becomes the cause of all. His boy is take
n from the breaker, his girl from the mill. slowly those who create the wealth o
f the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough ha
nds."
--Mother Jones

"I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that lea
ders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh
the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back wit
h the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike
for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their chi
ldren's children."
--Mother Jones

"If there ever is another war in this country, it will be between capital and la
bor."
--Frank James (Jesse's Brother)

"The strongest bulwark of the capitalistic system is the ignorance of its victim
s."
--Adolph Fischer (Haymarket martyr)

"Some things you must always be

refusing to bear. Injustice and
ung you are or how old you have
e in the paper nor money in the
--William Faulkner

unable to bear. Some things you must never stop

outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how yo
got. Not for kudos and not for cash, your pictur
bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them."

"We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the hu
man race."
--Cicero

"The American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, call it w

hat you like, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seiz
e it with both hands and make the most of it."
--Al Capone

"The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for no
t by our labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite w
isdom has given control of property interests of the country, and upon the succe
ssful management of which so much remains."
--George F. Baer (Railroad Industrialist)

"They don't suffer. They can't even speak English."

--Baer, answering a reporters' question about the suffering of starving miners

"The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be
no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people a
nd the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. B
etween these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world or
ganize as a class, take possession of the Earth and the machinery of production,
and abolish the wage system."
--Preamble to the IWW Constitution

"When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results."
--Calvin Coolidge

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastie
st of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all."
--Economist John Maynard Keynes

"All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot gain. He
nce that common opinion seems to be very true, 'the rich man is unjust, or the h
eir to an unjust one.' Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed
by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor."
--St. Jerome

"Nothing moves in the city, without our say-so Let the bosses curse, let the pap
ers cry This morning I saw it happen With these ancient eyes of mine Without our
say-so Nothing moves but the tide!"
--Rob Rosenthal (written during Seattle general strike of 1919)

"They say the Pharaohs built the pyramids Do you think one Pharaoh dropped one b
ead of sweat? We built the pyramids for the Pharaohs and we're building for them
yet."
--Anna Louise Strong (same period)

"The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the
weak. The strength of a strong man is a prideful thing, but the unfortunate thi
ng in life is that strong men do not remain strong. And it is just as true of un
ions and labor organizations as is true of men and individuals. And whereas toda
y the craft unions of this country may be able to stand upon their own feet and
like mighty oaks stand before the gale, defy the lightning, yet the day may come
when those organizations will not be able to withstand the lightning and the ga
le. Now, prepare yourselves by making a contribution to your less fortunate bret
hren, heed the cry from Macedonia that comes from the hearts of men. Organize th
e unorganized!"
--John L. Lewis

"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who
want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lig
htning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle ma
y be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be
a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never
will. People may not get all they pay for in this world, but they most certainly
pay for all they get."
--Frederick Douglass

"It is a great mistake for any class of laborers to isolate itself and thus weak
en the bond of brotherhood between those on whom the burdens and hardship of lab
or (fall). The fortunate ones of the Earth, who are abundant in land and money a
nd know nothing of the anxious care and pinching poverty of the laboring classes
, may be indifferent to the appeal to justice at this point, but the laboring cl
asses cannot afford to be indifferent. What labor everywhere wants, what it ough
t to have, and will someday demand and receive, is an honest day's pay for an ho
nest day's work. As the laborer becomes more intelligent he will develop what ca
pital he already possesses --that is the power to organize and combine for its o
wn protection."
--Frederick Douglass

"It's the kind of family where the father eats the bacon, the mother eats the gr
avy, and the kids have to lick the skillet!" From Krause, "The Many and the Few"
pg. 266. This took place in 1937 during Flint sit-down strike.
--Homer Martin (on GM being "one big happy family")

Budget cutting can always mean trade-offs, and Representative Ted Kamel remarked
on that process, "If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the sup
port of Paul."

"Jesus Christ was a laborer and He would be a union member now. He would belong
to the Carpenters' Union. The fact that He was a laborer gives dignity to the wo
rking man.
--Billy Graham

'It is interesting to note that fifty million Americans, through family ties, ha
ve labor union connections. This means that the largest number of people in our
churches come from this group.
--Billy Graham

'Labor unions started as a result of a spiritual and moral revival. As a result

of the preaching of John Wesley, Britain passed the first enlightened labor legi
slation. The greatest impact on organized labor in America in the beginning stem
med from Britain and Wesley's social revolt...
--Billy Graham

'As union members you are God's stewards. You have the strength and the power an
d the heritage to lead this country to a new moral and spiritual awakening."
--Billy Graham

What Some Religions Says About Unions

"Labor unions have been instrumental in achieving a higher standard of living an

d in improving working conditions. They have helped to obtain safety and health
measures against occupational risk; to achieve a larger degree of protection aga
inst child labor; to relieve thedisabled, the sick, the unemployed; and to gain
a more equitable share in the value of what they produce. These and other gains
which labor unions have done much to win have reached far beyond their own membe
rship and have benefited those who have not shared in the activity."
--The Presbyterian Church

"We recognize the right of labor to organize and to engage in collective bargain
ing to the end that labor may have a fair and living wage, such as will provide
not only for the necessities of life, but for recreation, pleasure, and culture.
"
--Lutheran Church

"It is the right of every man to organize with his fellow workers for collective
bargaining through representatives of his own free choice."
--Lutheran Church

"Collective bargaining, in its mature phase, is democracy applied to industrial

relations. It is representative government and reasoned compromise taking in the

place of authoritarian rule by force in the economic sphere. In its highest for
m it is the Christian ideal of brotherhood translated into the machinery of dail
y life. It was proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah when he said: 'Come now, and let
us reason together, saith the Lord'."
--Methodist Church

"Whereas, the churches, in the statement of 'The Social Ideals' have stood for '
The right of employees and employers alike to organize for collective bargaining
'. "Resolved: that the National Council record its conviction that not only has
labor a right to organize, but also that it is socially desirable that is do so
because of the need for collective action in the maintenance of standards of liv
ing..."
--National Council of Churches (Representing 33 million Protestants)

"Labor can have no effective voice as long as it is unorganized. To protect its

rights it must be free to bargain collectively through its own chosen representa
tives."
--Catholic Church

"We believe that the denial of the right of workers to organize and to form grou
p associations so that they may treat as economic equals with their employers is
tantamount to a curtailment of human freedom. For that reason, we favor the uni
onization of all who labor."
--Jewish

"The turtle can't get nowhere unless he sticks his neck out."
--Darryl Greer

"All of us are ignorant, but in different fields."

--Will Rogers via Darryl Greer

"It is illegal for companies to even give the impression that they have surveyed
our union meetings."
-- Darryl Greer
------------------------------------------------------------------------

What Some U.S. Presidents Have Said About Labor

Quotes From Abraham Lincoln:

"All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms is treason... If a man
tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar ... There is no Americ
a without labor, and to fleece one is to rob the other."

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles

-- right and wrong
-- throughout the world... The one is the common right of humanity, and the othe
r the "Divine right of Kings."

The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one u
niting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.

To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor or as nearly as possibl
e, is a worthy object of any good government.

There has never been but one question in all civilization

-- how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we
will eat it.

I thank God that we have a system of labor where there can be a strike.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of lab
or, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the su
perior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under a just
God cannot long retain it.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of

democracy.

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own conditio
n but to assist in ameliorating mankind's.

"I would guarantee by every means in my power the right of laboring men to join
a union, and their right to work as union en without illegal interference from e
ither capitalists or nonunion men."
--Theodore Roosevelt

"While we are fighting for freedom, we must see, among other things, that labor
is free."
--Woodrow Wilson

"I believe now, as I have all my life, in the right of workers to join unions an
d to protect their unions."
--F.D. Roosevelt (from radio address, May 2, 1943)

"If I were an employee, a working man ... or a wage- earner of any sort, I undou
btedly would join a union of my trade... I believe in the union and I believe th
at all men are morally bound to help to the extent of their powers in the common
interests advanced by the union."
--Theodore Roosevelt

"If I were a worker in a factory, the first thing I would do would be to join a
union."
--F.D. Roosevelt

"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its
workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more
than a bare subsistence level --I mean the wages of decent living."
--F.D. Roosevelt

"Trade unionism has helped to give everyone who toils the position of dignity wh
ich is his due."
--F.D. Roosevelt

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those w
ho have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
--F.D. Roosevelt

"The right to join a union of one's choice is unquestioned today, and it is sanc
tioned and protected by law."
--Harry S. Truman

"Today in America unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a hand
ful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and of depriving
working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no
use for those -- regardless of their political party -- who hold some vain and
foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddle
d, almost as a helpless mass.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the
union of their choice."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Long ago we stated the reason for labor organizations. We said that they were o
rganized out of the necessities of the situation; that a single employee was hel
pless in dealing with an employer; that he was... unable to ... resist arbitrary
and unfair treatment; that union was essential to give laborers opportunity to
deal on an equality with their employer."
--Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1935

"The American Labor Movement has consistently demonstrated its devotion to the p
ublic interest. It is, and has been, good for all America."
--John F. Kennedy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Economist Predicts Bad Future For Unions

"American trade unionism is slowly being limited in influence by changes which d

estroy the basis on which it is erected. It is probable that changes in the law
have adversely affected unionism. Certainly the growth of large corporations has
done so. But... over and above these influences, the relative decline in the po
wer of trade unionism is due to occupational changes and to technological revolu
tion....
'The changes -- occupational and technological -- which checked the advance of t
rade unionism in the last decade appear likely to continue in the same direction
. It is hazardous to prophesy, but I see no reason to believe that American trad
e unionism will so revolutionize itself within a short period of time as to beco
me in the next decade a more potent social influence than it has been in the pas
t decade.
--George Barnett said this in his Presidential Address to the American Economics

Association: Doesn't sound good does it? Barnett said all this in 1932 -- just
three years before the creation of the CIO and labor's giant leap forward.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by f
alse slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its pu
rpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We
demand this fraud be stopped." (copied from booklet "The big Lie and the truth a
bout right-to-work" AFL-CIO.
--M.L. King Jr.

"The right to join a union of one's choice is unquestioned today, and is sanctio
ned and protected by law."
--Harry S. Truman

"Republicans can hear the whispers of business, but not the yells and screams of
working people."
--Harry Truman

"Republicans believe in the minimum wage -- as minimum as possible!"

--Harry Truman

"Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourage
s the tormentor, never the tormented."
--Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner and survivor of a Nazi concentration cam
p
-----------------------------------------------------------------------"Cheap Labor" Compiled by John E. Cerullo
71363,3374 AFL-CIO Labornet

While cleaning up my hard drive I came across the following notice that I posted
a few years ago. The quote comes from "History of the American Labor Movement"
by Philip Foner, the addendum is mine.

"To slavery in the abstract, slavery in the concrete, to slavery absolute, slave
ry feudal, and the slavery of wages; to slavery where it is, and where it is not
; from the first Israelite who leaned his ear against the door, and was pierced
with his master's awl to the last son of Adam who shall wear the badge of servit
ude; to Slavery we are utterly opposed under every phase and modification, and s
o with firm and solemn purpose will remain until our lives end." -Adopted at a m
eeting of 25000 New York workingmen, January, 1845.

Cheap Labor is a form of slavery.

Every time any one of us purchases a product made with cheap labor, that person
is jeopardizing our jobs.

Every dollar we spend is a vote for or against cheap labor.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sent By John R. McCarthy" Mccarthy@Mi.Net:

"Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and bruised itsel
f, and risen again; been seized by the throat and choked into insensibility; enj
oined by courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, shot down by regula
rs, traduced by the press, frowned upon by public opinion, deceived by politicia
ns, threatened by priests, repudiated by renegades, preyed upon by grafters, inf
ested by spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and
sold out by leaders, but, notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is today t
he most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic m
ission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thralldom of the ages i
s as certain of ultimate realization as the setting of the sun."
--Eugene V. Debs
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Shelley Hilton Pace, WLDPRAIRIE@Aol.Com:

I recently heard this quotation (the Discovery channel probably, on in the backg
round) ... "All good work is done in defiance of management." (Autobiography)
--We THINK this was said by Albert Einstein. Confirmation, anyone?.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sent By Steve Whitworth - Aviation: Swhitworth@Library.Ci.Sat.Tx.Us:

The Right To Organize And Withhold Ones Labor To Insure Justice Is Inherent With
A Free Society.
Anyone know who said it?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------"I come from everywhere and I'm going everywhere."
--Jose Marti (On the subject of internationalism)

"The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you ar
e throttling today." Jose Marti
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Sent by Pavlicj@Uniserve.Com (Mark And Jan):

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppress
ion.
--Thomas Paine

Oppressed people are frequently oppressive when first liberated...They know best
two positions. Somebody's foot on their neck or their foot on somebody's neck.
--Florynce Kennedy

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility"
-- Dietrich Bonhoffer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------"My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life th
ere."
-- Charles F. Kettering

"When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion."

-- Ethiopian Proverb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------New Additions As Of January 9, 1995:

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
Thomas Jefferson, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.

The Clayton Anti-Trust Act, VI, 1914

This is a great victory for all unions in the United States of America - and we'
ve only started!
Bill Johnson, president, IAM District Lodge 751, upon victory of his union's str
ike against Boeing

As labor is the common burden of our race so the effort of some to shift their s
hare of the burden on to the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of t
he race.
Abraham Lincoln, Fragment written about July 1, 1854

Nature recompenses men for their sufferings; it renders them laborious, because
to the greatest toils it attaches the greatest rewards. But if arbitrary power t
ake away the rewards of nature, man resumes his disgust for labor, and inactivit
y appears to be the only good.
C.L. DeMontesquiu, The Spirit of the Laws XIII, 1748

There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.

David Ricardo, On Protection in Agriculture, 1820

The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I.

Karl Liebknecht, from a speech delivered in 1907

Capital is dead labor that, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, an
d lives the more, the more labor it suck.
Karl Marx, Capital, 1867

"Downsizing" is when your neighbor gets laid off.

Annonomous

The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capitalists and corporation

s, unless unchecked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hopeless degr
adation of the toiling masses. It is imperative, if we desire to enjoy the full
blessings of life, that a check be placed upon unjust accumulation and the power
for evil of aggregated wealth

Constitution of the Knights of Labor, 1869

One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and the other with a wooden la
dle.
Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, 1762

The Labor Movement; the folks who brought you the weekend.
From a bumper sticker, 1995

It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to f
orce society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extrem
e.
W. G. Sumner, What Makes the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer? 1887

Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor,
the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.
Plato, The Republic, 370 BC

What the proletariat needs is a bath of blood.

Benito Mussolini, speech in Milan, July 22, 1919

If you are poor today, you will always be poor. Only the rich now acquired riche
s.
Martial, Epigrams
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