Quote of the Day: Samuel Gompers

The trade unions are the legitimate outgrowth of modern society and industrial conditions. … They were born of the necessity of workers to protect and defend themselves from encroachment, injustice and wrong. … To protect the workers in their inalienable rights to a higher and better life; to protect them, not only as equals before the law, but also in their health, their homes, their firesides, their liberties as men, as workers, and as citizens; to overcome and conquer prejudices and antagonism; to secure to them the fight to life; the right to be full sharers in the abundance which is the result of their brain and brawn, and the civilization of which they are the founders and the mainstay; to this the workers are entitled. … The attainment of these is the glorious mission of the trade unions.”

---