Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends upon their own initiative. Whatever is done under the guise of philanthropy or social morality which in any way lessens initiative is the greatest crime that can be committed against the toilers. Let social busybodies and professional "public morals experts" in their fads reflect upon the perils they rashly invite under this pretense of social welfare.
There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. That is his right. It is his legal right, no matter how morally wrong he may be. It is his legal right, and no one can or dare question his exercise of that legal right.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of individual rights in the context of labor unions, regardless of moral considerations.
Samuel Gompers highlights the significance of personal freedom and the legal right of individuals to decide whether or not to join a labor union. This perspective underscores the complexity of moral versus legal rights, suggesting that while one may question the morality of an individual’s choice, the law protects that choice. The statement serves as a reminder that in a democratic society, personal liberty must be upheld even when it clashes with collective beliefs.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about workers' rights, this quote can illustrate the importance of respecting individual choices in union participation.
More from Samuel Gompers
All quotes →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.
One fact stands out in bold relief in the history of man's attempts for betterment. That is that when compulsion is used, only resentment is aroused, and the end is not gained. Only through moral suasion and appeal to man's reason can a movement succeed.
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.
Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll show you the country in which there is no liberty.
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Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.
You say somebody’s guilty, everybody believes you. You say they’re innocent, nobody cares.
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
The Americans say that we are ungrateful-but I ask them for heaven's sake, what should we be grateful to them for-for murdering our fathers and mothers?-Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite to death to make us work in ignorance and miseries, to support them and their families. They certainly think we are a gang of fools.
Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear--civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power's fear of powerlessness. Man's subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify.