Labor Quote: Mother Jones

"The labor movement was not originated by man. The labor movement, my friends, was a command from God Almighty. He commanded the prophets thousands of years ago to go down and redeem the Israelites that were in bondage, and he organized the men into a union and went to work. And they said, 'The masters have made us gather straw; they have been more cruel than they were before.' 'What are we going to do?' The prophet said, 'A voice from heaven has come to get you together.' They got together and the prophet led them out of the land of bondage and robbery and plunder into the land of freedom. And when the army of the pirates followed them the Dead Sea opened and swallowed them up, and for the first time the workers were free."
From a speech Mother Jones made on the front steps of the capital in Charleston, South Carolina on August 15, 1912

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