This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Only in so far as we gain economic independence can our political liberty become tangible and important. This may sound like political heresy, but it is economic truth.
Labor |
It is not the organizations of labor which take away from the workers their individual rights or their sovereignty. It is modern industry, modern capitalism, modern corporations, and modern trusts. . . . The workingmen in modern industries lose their individuality as soon as they step into a modern industrial plant, and that individuality which they lose is regained to them by organization--they gain in social and industrial importance by their association with their fellow workmen.
Accomplishment | Labor | Law | Men | Work |
One of the principles for which the American Federation of Labor has declared is the organization of all wage earners irrespective of race, creed, sex, or color. However, realizing the importance of organizing the colored wage earners in every section of the country, not only for their own protection but for the protection of the white wage earners, and realizing still further the feeling which exists in many sections of the country regarding the organization of colored workmen with white workmen, and desirous of avoiding any unnecessary race antagonism, provision was made in the constitution of the A. F. of L. for the organization of unions of colored workmen exclusively wherever such a course might be found to the best interests of the workers themselves and of the movement in general. Not only that, but provision was also made . . . for the organization of Central Labor Unions composed of delegates from local unions of colored workers whenever that might be deemed necessary. Therefore, I would suggest that the word white in . . . your constitution should be omitted. If the question should afterwards arise as to the colored janitors, care takers, and laborers, then if it should be found advisable a separate union of these workers could be organized.
When the Bohemians began to come to New York in large numbers and allowed themselves to be used by the employers to build up the tenement system which threatened to submerge the standards of life and work that we had established, I felt that those tenement workers were foreigners. The first step in Americanizing them was to bring them to conform to American standards of work, which was a stepping stone to American standards of life.
It may be, as you say, the enforced demand for the closed (union) shop is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of industrial peace. But the fact back of this fact . . . is that the trade union is not formed for peace. It is organized for protection -- with peace, of course, where possible. But peace, only, may be death.
I do not care at this late date to enter into a discussion of the question of color. Let me only say this, that there is no doubt but that the colored workmen are a factor in a large territory of our country; and it is equally true that they are not diminishing in number. Unless we give them the opportunity to organize, they certainly will be our unrelenting enemies, and will place themselves upon the side of the opponents to our movement, and the efforts we make to build up will be neutralized or worse. I do not care to discuss the color question or foist them upon your organization; but, when they are organized in a union of their own calling, it is not simply the part of wisdom to turn our backs upon them and force them into a position of antagonism. We have enough to contend against to secure our rights without creating additional obstacles.
Labor | Little | People | Philanthropy | Philosophy | Question | Thought | Time | World | Thought |
In the exercise of great powers often requisite under military control, the right of free meeting, the right of free speech, and free press is endangered. And when the smoke of battle is gone these rights, taken from the masses of the people under often necessary conditions, are seldo freely given back to the people.
As already stated, the negro workers must be organized in order that they may be in a position to protect themselves, and in such way feel an interest with our organized white workmen, or we shall unquestionably have their undying enmity. This is not a question of love or sentiment but is the hardest kind of practicability and common interest. If we do not in some way make friends with the colored workmen, the employer will not be slow to take advantage of our hostility to use the colored workmen to defeat the efforts of the white workmen in every endeavor to either obtain improvement in our condition or to resist deterioration.
The illiteracy and low mentality of our own people, of those born in this country cannot be overcome unless we raise the standard of knowledge among the foreigners. (SG to William Gerber, May 31, 1923)
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.
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.
Doubt | Knowledge | Labor | Opportunity | Truth |
The World War in which we are engaged in is on such a tremendous scale that we must readjust practically the whole nation's social and economic structure from a peace to a war basis. It devolves upon liberty-loving citizens, and particularly the workers of this country, to see to it that the spirit and the methods of democracy are maintained within our own country while we are engaged in a war to establish them in international relations. The fighting and the concrete issues of the war are so removed from our country that not all of our citizens have a full understanding of the principles of autocratic force which the Central Powers desire to substitute for the real principles of freedom.
Collusion | Conduct | Determination | Future | Half-truth | Influence | Labor | Little | Opportunity | People | Policy | Purpose | Purpose | Qualities |
To-day more than ever . . . the capitalist class, or the worst elements in that class, stand as a constant opposition to anything we may demand, and also as a constant force to try and invade the rights we have already secured, and to take away from us the advantages we have achieved.
Better | Faith | Labor | People | Position | Problems | Right | Will | Work |
Bolshevism is a theory, the chief tenet of which is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Leaving out of consideration for the moment the story of murder and devastation that has marched with their theory into practice, we must set down the theory itself as abhorrent to a world that loves democracy. We shall progress by the use of the machinery of democracy, or we shall not progress. There is no group on earth fit to dictate to the rest of the world. It is this central idea of Bolshevism that makes the whole of it outcast in the minds of sane men.
Better | Labor | Regulation | Thinking |
The American Federation of Labor secured the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Law by the Federal Government, and the effective amendments to that law. Our fellow workmen living on the Pacific Coast and Hawaii realized the danger that not only threatened but confronted them from Chinese, Korean, and other Mongolian laborers, and the American Federation of Labor conventions declared that efforts should be made to extend the exclusion laws or to bring about some exclusion of Oriental laborers coming to the United States and its possessions.
It is a fact that trade unionism in America moves on its own set and deliberate way. In so doing, it has outlived wave upon wave of hastily conceived so-called broad movements that were to reconstruct society in a single season. And it has sufficiently good cause for continuing its own reasoned-out course.
There are some men who can never understand political action unless there is a party.
Labor | Nothing | Power | Principles | Will |