No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.

- Samuel Gompers

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,…

- Samuel Gompers

The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have not been granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are …

- Samuel Gompers

Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . . There is not a right too long denied to which we do not a…

- Samuel Gompers

Workingmen are at the foundation of society. Show me that product of human endeavor in the making of which the workingman has had no share, and I wil…

- 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 …

- Samuel Gompers

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

- Samuel Gompers

Our mission has been the protection of the wage-worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to impr…

- Samuel Gompers

[The labor movement is] a movement of the working people, for the working people, by the working people, governed by ourselves, with its policies det…

- Samuel Gompers