It was difficult to organize certain Black workers, because, being only half a century removed from slavery, they did not have the same conception of their rights and duties as did the white workers and were unprepared for fully exercising and enjoying the possibilities existing in trade unionism.
Mandel, "Samuel Gompers and the Negro Workers," 56. Mandel points out (pp.56–57 n58) that Gompers believed in 1915 that "there are now two great groups of exploited workers in the United States—immigrants and women", ignoring Blacks altogether. More significant is the fact that Gompers devoted only two sentences to the subject in his 1,100-page autobiography, in which he blithely affirms the right of Blacks to organize. Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor: An Autobiography, vol. 1 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1925), 364. See also Karson and Radosh, The American Federation of Labor and the Negro Worker, 160.
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, even though wise and right, we have impeded if not interrupted the realization of our own aims.
The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
Quoted in Rothschild, Michael. Bionomics: Economy as Business Ecosystem. Washington, D.C.: BeardBooks, 1990, p. 115.
There are about 8,000,000 negroes in the United States, and, my friends, I not only have not the power to put the negro out of the labor movement, but I would not, even if I did have the power. Why should I do such a thing? I would have nothing to gain, but the movement would have much to lose. Under our policies and principles we seek to build up the labor movement, instead of injuring it, and we want all the negroes we can possibly get who will join hands with organized labor.
The Samuel Gompers Papers: Progress and Reaction in the Age of Reform, 1909-13 (2000), p. 137.
And what have our unions done? What do they aim to do? To improve the standard of life, to uproot ignorance and foster education, to instill character, manhood and independent spirit among our people; to bring about a recognition of the interdependence of man upon his fellow man. We aim to establish a normal work-day, to take the children from the factory and workshop and give them the opportunity of the school and the play-ground. In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate their members, make their homes more cheerful, and in every way contribute an earnest effort toward making life the better worth living.
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 are to be petted and coddled and given special consideration and special privilege. Of course that can't be done.
Gompers, Samuel. The Samuel Gompers Papers: The American Federation of Labor and the Great War, 1917–18. Stuart Bruce Kaufman, Peter J. Albert, and Grace Palladino, eds. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2006, p. 348.
[The labor movement is] a movement of the working people, for the working people, by the working people, governed by ourselves, with its policies determined by ourselves...
Gompers, Samuel. Proceedings of the Convention. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1923, p. 37.
The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers. Through the development, the organization and the exercise of this economic power the workers themselves establish higher standards of living and work. Although this economic power from the superficial standpoint appears indirect, it is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.
Yes, accept his library, organize the workers, secure better conditions, and particularly reduction in hours of labor, and then workers will have some chance and leisure in which to read books.
Murray, Stuart A. P. The Library: An Illustrated History. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012, p. 186.
