This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I believe with the most advanced thinkers as to ultimate ends, including the abolition of the wage system. But I hold it as a self-evident proposition that no successful attempt can be made to reach those ends without first improving present conditions.
Improvement | Will | Think |
It is a material fact that the working people of our country ask no special favors at the hands of a State Legislature or the Congress of the United States. We present to you the conditions which exist, and call your attention to the fact that there are some things which the working people of America are unable to do for themselves of their own initiative, and in so far as these conditions exist, that which we cannot do for ourselves, the people collectively in their legislative bodies must necessarily do for us.
The principle that organization is the most potent means for a shorter workday, and for a higher standard of wages, applies to women workers equally as to men. But the fact must be recognized that the organization of women workers constitutes a separate and more difficult problem. Women do not organize as readily or as stably as men. They are, therefore, more easily exploited. They certainly are in a greater measure than are men entitled to the concern of society. A fair standard of wages--a living wage, for all employed in an industry, should be the first consideration in production. None are more entitled to that standard than are the women and minors.
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.
Most people who start out with the idea of organizing women desire to do it wholesale, and my experience is that while a number of them may be organized, the elements of permanency and success are lacking for the same reason that many organizations fail among men . . . namely, the failure . . . to recognize the absolute necessity of making each Union protective in its character. In other words, that the members of the Union should be required to pay higher dues into the Union, to receive a considerable benefit from it and thus enlist the material interests of the members in the Union; not so much for the sake of this material interest but for the sake of keeping them in the Union. When that is once secured progress can be made in any direction to the interests of labor.
Capitalism | Children | Government | Government |
Sam Walton, fully Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton
A computer can tell you down the dime what you’ve sold. But it can never tell you how much you could have sold.
Science | Service | Understand |
The trades unions are by no means an outgrowth of socialistic or communistic ideas or principles, but the socialistic and communistic notions are evolved from some of the trades unions' movements.
We want eight hours and nothing less. We have been accused of being selfish, and it has been said that we will want more . . . . We do want more. You will find that a man generally wants more. . . . You ask a workingman, who is getting two dollars a day, and he will say he wants ten cents more. Ask a man who gets five dollars a day and he will want fifty cents more. The man who receives five thousand a year wants six thousand . . . while 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 day. . . . We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.
You are mistaken in asserting that I am embittered against everybody or anything that savors of socialism. What I resent and what I have persistently opposed is any effort that will mislead the wage-earners and delude them with vain hope. There have been so many burdens and so much suffering and so much misery heaped upon those who are called the wage-earners, that I resent with every particle of force within me anything that would perpetuate their suffering or lead them into greater depths. Because I am firmly convinced that socialism is founded upon principles that will not lead out into broader liberty, independence and opportunity, I have done what I could to show men the fallacies of the doctrine of socialism.
I know that there may be several men who have charged the American Federation of Labor . . . to be against what they are pleased to call industrial unionism or the one big union, and I would venture to say that when they . . . consider this proposition outside of our union [Cigar Makers International Union] then they are industrialists; but when there is a proposal to open our doors and go into the highways and byways and organize these men and women against whom literally we are closing our doors, it is opposed.
Censure | Man | Organization | Theories |
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.
Wherever the people enjoy liberty the most, Trade Unions are most formidable.
Do I believe in arbitration? I do. But not in arbitration between the lion and the lamb, in which the lamb is in the morning found inside the lion. I believe in arbitration between two lions or two lambs. When a man puts a pistol to my head and tells me to deliver, there is no arbitration. There can be arbitration only between equals. Let us organize: then we will stand on an equal footing with the employers.
Freedom of speech is the safety valve of society; if it is obstructed, there will be an explosion somewhere. It is dangerous to tamper with this right of ours.
Consequences | Knowledge | Right | Will |
To strengthen the state, as Frederick Howe says, is to devitalize the individual. . . . I believe in people. I believe in the working people. I believe in their growing intelligence. I believe in their growing and persistent demand for better conditions, for a more rightful situation in the industrial, political, and social affairs of this country and of the world. I have faith that the working people will better their condition far beyond what it is today. The position of the organized labor movement is not based upon misery and poverty, but upon the right of workers to a larger and constantly growing share of the production, and they will work out these problems for themselves.
Good |
We have been asked, or advised, to go for all the laws we can get. Save the workingmen of America from such a proposition! There are numbers of laws we can get, but prudence and defense of the rights and the liberties of the toilers are much more important than the effort to secure all the laws we can get.
World |
I was always puzzled by the fact that people have a great deal of trouble and pain when and if they are forced or feel forced to change a belief or circumstance which they hold dear. I found what I believe is the answer when I read that a Canadian neurosurgeon discovered some truths about the human mind which revealed the intensity of this problem. He conducted some experiments which proved that when a person is forced to change a basic belief or viewpoint, the brain undergoes a series of nervous sensations equivalent to the most agonizing torture.
Change | Life | Life | Means | Need | People | Will | Value |
Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.
Capitalism | Guilty |