27 quotes found
"The skills and productivity of American Workers, not to mention the taxes they pay, are the greatest economic resource our country has. To condemn large numbers of them to unemployment, to deprive the Treasury of their tax contributions and to force them to live on unemployment at public expense is the most expensive luxury any society ever chose to buy."
"The plain truth is that labor is the chief representative force that keeps the real special interests from dominating American political life."
"You want me to defend the riches reaped from the super-exploitation of the darker races of mankind by a few white, rich, super-monopolists who control the most vast empire that has ever existed in man's one million years of History--all in the name of "Freedom"!"
"It is as well to be born in the first chapter as elsewhere, and though I have only secondary evidence as to the fact, believe it happened as related to me afterwards by my mother, who said the doctor found me in an old hollow log and, as our house happened to be nearest to the log in question, he wrapped me up in his cloak, carried me to the house and left me with mother."
"Many men, aware of the treatment I received at the hands of Walter Dawson, have asked me why I did not avenge the wrongs he inflicted on me. I am not aware that he did inflict wrong on me … I did some good through being blacklisted. It made me more than determined to perfect an organization that would render blacklisting impossible; it made me mayor of Scranton where I learned that we are all good and bad instead of good or bad. It taught me how to put myself in the place of the vilest, filthiest, lowest-down tramp that comes to me for help. It taught me when men were brought before me for trial how to pierce the veil between cause and effect, between motive and act; it enabled me to come down from the bench as a magistrate, a representative of the law, and before the bar of my own heart, and conscience, place the prisoner then before me on the bench in my stead."
"You cannot judge all men by the one standard, any more than you can make shoes for all of them on the same last. No law that ever darkened white paper in the printing can lay down a rule of conduct for all men to follow alike."
"If you owe a man a dollar, pay it; if you owe him a grudge, forget it, and always be kind."
"In later life I was charged by many with being an agitator; some of my friends in defending me against assault denied that I was an agitator; they were wrong, I was an agitator and as such did all that lay in my power with voice and pen to agitate against the injustices practices on workingmen and women."
"Revolutions are not manufactured or made to order; they are never successfully planned or deliberately entered upon; they do not come at the bidding of one man or one set of men; they grow and then come"
"That a deep-rooted feeling of discontent pervades the masses, none can deny; that there is a just cause for it, must be admitted. The old cry, “These agitators are stirring up a feeling of dissatisfaction among working men and they should be suppressed,” will not avail now. Every thinking person knows that the agitator did not throw two millions of men out of employment. The man that reads such paragraphs as this will not lay the blame of it at the door of the agitator:"
"That the army of the discontented is gathering fresh recruits day by day is true, and if this army should become so large that, driven to desperation, it should one day arise in its wrath and grapple with its real or fancied enemy, the responsibility for that act must fall upon the head of those who could have averted the blow, but who turned a deaf ear to the supplication of suffering humanity and gave the screw of oppression an extra turn because they had the power."
"Give men shorter hours in which to labor, and you give them more time to study and learn why bread is so scarce while wheat is so plenty."
"Men having capital, the product of labor to invest, form themselves into companies or associations and consolidate their capital that they may reap a greater profit from their investments … The men who labor, taking this action of the men of capital as a criterion to go by, have formed themselves into companies or associations that they reap a greater profit from the investment of their capital, which is labor. That capital of the former is the creation of man; that latter as the creation of God, and of the two is entitled to the most consideration, since no capital could exist unless labor created it."
"Individually, workingmen are weak, and, when separated, each one follows a different course, without accomplishing anything for himself or his fellow man; but when combined in one common bond of brotherhood, they become as the cable, each strand of which, though weak and insignificant enough in itself, is assisted and strengthened by being joined with others, and the work that one could not perform alone is easily accomplished by a combination of strands."
"Not being bound down like the trade union to the routine of organization, dues collection, wage negotiations, and the like, the Knights gave free rein to their revolutionary speculations. They denied all identity of interest between the employer and employee, and proposed no collective bargaining as a means to industrial peace. "To point out a way to utterly destroy the [wage] system would be a pleasure to me," exclaimed Grand Master Workman Powderly, long a leader of the Knights."
"The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 acted as a catalyst for the protracted workers' rights struggles and widespread sociopolitical change that would define much of the twentieth century. Transformative figures like anarchist organizers Emma Goldman and Lucy Parsons, socialist labor leader Eugene V. Debs, Knights of Labor head Terence V. Powderly, and AFL founder Samuel Gompers were all inspired by the massive forty-five-day railroad strike that cost hundreds of millions in damage, resulted in one hundred casualties, and saw a thousand people imprisoned."
"Head of the militant Knights of Labor, he was National Villain No. 1 in the press of the Eighties."
"Yes, we were dreamers when we advocated legislation for Unemployment Insurance, for Social Security, for minimum wages. They laughed at our crazy ideas. Although we have not reached perfection, many of our ‘wild dreams' have now become realities of everyday life."
"Once after he was re-elected, he said: I have accepted the presidency again because I am foreign-born, and I am proud of the great service we have performed for America. When we banished the sweatshops, when we reduced the hours of work, when we increased wages, when we provided health centers, when we established Unity House, when we participated in community life, when we eliminated worry, torture, hunger and starvation, we performed a service for the future of America."
"He summed up his view on strikes this way: First you get a whip, and then when everyone knows you have it, you put it in the refrigerator."
"I think that my years in Lodz and the prison days that followed helped me a lot. Even as a child I saw what despotism and dictatorship meant."
"When he announced his retirement on March 16, 1966, he told fellow union officers, I didn't have a life, I had a union life. He went on: You know my nature. If I'm president I can't only be president from morning till night. It has to be from morning until the next morning."
"D.D. reviewed the struggles of the ILGWU through difficult years, as it surmounted great obstacles and fought enemies outside and inside. Sentence by sentence, he built up a compelling picture of the tremendous significance of our organization's achievements. One got a new conception of the International, of the boundless energy, stubborn devotion to an ideal, and stamina it had taken to rebuild the organization out of the wreckage left by the dual union after the disastrous 26-weeks' strike in New York in 1926. That had been our first defeat, he pointed out; it left the ILGWU saddled with a debt exceeding $2,000,000, a shameful monument to the reckless spending orgy which characterized the "left wing" administration then in power. The International had ridden out the storm and cleared the bulk of its obligations, and its 35th anniversary was being celebrated with the greatest convention it had ever held. The ILGWU membership had dropped from 110,000 in 1920, to 40,000 in January 1, 1933. Now height of nearly 200,000. At this 22nd biennial it had climbed to gathering were 369 delegates, 143 locals, and 13 joint boards, located in 73 cities in 16 states and Canada. Our president dwelt on how the union had pioneered in collective bargaining, and in labor education, enlisted the aid of public-spirited citizens and government officials in the fight to eliminate sweatshops, protected the health of the workers, participated in community activities, given aid to charitable institutions, and helped other labor organizations both in this country and abroad in their battles to uphold human rights. The International had reduced working hours in our industry to 35, won high minimum wage scales, and established the right of workers to their jobs, so they could not be discharged without review by a proper impartial tribunal. Dubinsky touched upon the 1930 industrial upheaval, when tens of thousands of our workers lost their jobs, employers forced work conditions down to the lowest possible level, and the sweatshop in its worst forms reappeared. In the three years following, garment makers were close to starvation. When the National Industrial Recovery Act came into being as a part of the New Deal, our workers benefited greatly, Dubinsky recalled, "largely because of the militancy of our union and its readiness not only to threaten to strike, but actually to resort to strikes when the occasion called for it""
"Dubinsky regarded as a mistake the efforts of the Darrow Commission to maintain the small business man's existence at all costs. "From the first day of the depression," he declared, "it was clear that the little man could survive only at the expense of labor. Unwilling to admit that economic forces were working against him, and that he would shortly become a part of the working class himself or starve, the small business man continued a haphazard existence by slashing wages here, chiseling there, lengthening hours. "The little business man ought to realize that as a capitalist he cuts a sorry figure, and that no legislation or other force can turn the clock back for him. In any event, labor does not propose to be exploited by him. We refuse to return to the sweatshop or permit the degradation of our workers to justify or extend the existence of the small business man.""
"Applause rocked the big auditorium as our president finished with these words: "It was an outcry of injustice against miserable conditions that finally prompted the Government to begin thinking and talking and considering social legislation. But it will be the power of organized labor that will make it not only the subject for discussion, but a matter of law, a matter of practice, a matter of relief to the oppressed..."We are serving humanity, fighting for freedom...Our cause is just and our purpose is noble. Our defeats are only temporary setbacks. We are bound to win...United as never before, shoulder to shoulder, let us go marching on to our future battles and more glorious victories.""
"Gavel in one hand and cigar in the other, he conducted the convention sessions masterfully. Much has been said and written, both commendatory and critical, about the president of our International, since that convention. Some observers have compared him to the young David slaying the giant Goliath; others consider him almost a demigod whose wisdom cannot even be questioned. Reactionaries classify him among the hated New Dealers, a connotation damning him in the eyes of profiteers, Tammany politicians, and gangsters."
"I came to know Dubinsky in the following years as a man of tremendous vitality, ready to undertake almost any big task, provided he was sure the huge membership of the International was behind him. An individual of strong feelings, sensitive and impulsive, he could alternately be ruthless or break out in tears of humility."