What Does the Working Man Want? (1890)

As Congress worked in the 1920s to draft immigration legislation, Samuel Gompers, president of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor voiced the concerns of the American working population. Samuel Gompers, (born January 27, 1850, London, England—died December 13, 1924, San Antonio, Texas, U.S.), American labour leader and first president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Gompers emigrated in 1863 from England to New York City, where he took up his father’s trade of cigar making and in 1872 became a naturalized citizen. Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) was born in London of Jewish working-class parents. With his family, he emigrated to New York City in 1863. Gompers helped his father make cigars in their home, and later joined and contributed to the revival of the Cigar Makers Union.

• An American labor leader. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) which organized skilled workers into national unions consisting of others with the same trade. This was to have shorter working hours, higher wages, and better conditions at work.
• Partially blind, diabetic, and heedless of his doctors' advice, Samuel Gompers fully expected to work as hard as he always had. 'I am seventy-two years of age,' he wrote in January 1922, 'and have never even thought of. After all, at this critical moment in AFL history, there was too much work to do.

SAMUEL GOMPERS

My friends, we have met here today to celebrate the ideathat has prompted thousands of working-people of Louisville and New Albany toparade the streets...; that prompts the toilers of Chicago to turn out by theirfifty or hundred thousand of men; that prompts the vast army of wage-workers inNew York to demonstrate their enthusiasm and appreciation of the importance ofthis idea; that prompts the toilers of England, Ireland, Germany, France,Italy, Spain, and Austria to defy the manifestos of the autocrats of the worldand say that on May the first, 1890, the wage-workers of the world will laydown their tools in sympathy with the wage-workers of America, to establish aprinciple of limitations of hours of labor to eight hours for sleep, eight hoursfor work, and eight hours for what we will.

It has been charged time and again that were we to have morehours of leisure we would merely devote it to debaucher to the cultivation ofvicious habits—in other words, that we would get drunk. I desire to say this inanswer to that charge: As a rule, there are two classes in society who getdrunk. One is the class who has no work to do in consequence of too much money;the other class, who also has no work to do, because it can’t get any, and getsdrunk on its face. I maintain that that class in our social life that exhibitsthe greatest degree of sobriety is that class who are able, by a fair number ofhours of day’s work to earn fair wages—not overworked….

They tell us that the eight-hour movement can not be enforced, for the reason that it must checkindustrial and commercial progress. I say that the history of this country inits industrial and commercial relations, shows thereverse. I say that is the plane on which this question ought to bediscussed—that is the social question. As long as they make this questioneconomic one, I am willing to discuss it with them. I would retrace every step Ihave taken to advance this movement did it mean industrial and commercialstagnation. But it does not mean that. It means greater prosperity it means a greaterdegree of progress for the whole people; it means more advancement andintelligence, and a nobler race of people....

They say they can’t afford it. Is that true? Let us see forone moment. If a reduction in the hours of labor causes industrial andcommercial ruination, it would naturally follow increased hours of labor wouldincrease the prosperity, commercial and industrial. If that were true, Englandand America ought to be at the tail end, and China atthe head of civilization.

Samuel Gompers Fun Facts

Is it not a fact that we find laborers in England and theUnited States, where the hours are eight, nine and ten hours a day—do we notfind that the employers and laborers are more successful? Don’t we find themselling articles cheaper? We do not need to trust the modern moralist to tellus those things. In all industries where the hours of labor are long, there youwill find the least development of the power of invention. Where the hours oflabor are long, men are cheap, and where men are cheap there is no necessityfor invention. How can you expect a man to work ten or twelve or fourteen hoursat his calling and then devote any time to the invention of a machine ordiscovery of a new principle or force? If he be so fortunate as to be able toread a paper he will fall asleep before he has read through the second or thirdline.

Why, when you reduce the hours of labor, say an hour a day,just think what it means. Suppose men who work ten hours a day had the timelessened to nine, or men who work nine hours a day have it reduced to eighthours; what does it mean? It means millions of golden hours and opportunitiesfor thought. Some men might say you will go to sleep.Well, some men might sleep sixteen hours aday; the ordinary man might try that, but he would soon find he could not do itlong. He would have to do something. He would probably go to the theater onenight, to a concert another night, but he could not do that every night. Hewould probably become interested in some study and the hours that have beentaken from manual labor are devoted to mental labor, and the mental labor ofone hour produce for him more wealth than the physical labor of a dozen hours.

I maintain that this is a true proposition—that men underthe short-hour system not only have opportunity to improve themselves, but tomake a greater degree of prosperity for their employers. Why, my friends, howis it in China, how is it in Spain, how is it in India and Russia, how is it inItaly? Cast your eye throughout the universe and observe the industry thatforces nature to yield up its fruits to man’s necessities, and you will findthat where the hours of labor are the shortest the progress of invention inmachinery and the prosperity of the people are the greatest. It is the greatestimpediment to progress to hire men cheaply. Wherever men are cheap, there youfind the least degree of progress. It has only been under the great influenceof our great republic, were our people have exhibited their great senses, thatwe can move forward, upward and onward, and are watched with interest in ourmovements of progress and reform.

The man who works the long hours has no necessities exceptthe barest to keep body and soul together, so he can work. He goes to sleep anddreams of work; he rises in the morning to go to work; he takes his frugallunch to work; he comes home again to throw himself down on a miserable apologyfor a bed so that he can get that little rest that he may be able to go to workagain. He is nothing but a veritable machine. He lives to work instead of workingto live….

Samuel Gompers History

My friends, you will find that it has been ascertained thatthere is more than a million of our brothers and sisters—able-bodied men andwomen—on the streets, and on the highways and byways of our country willing towork but who cannot find it. You know that it is the theory of our governmentthat we can work or cease to work at will. It is only a theory. You know thatit is only a theory and not a fact. It is true that we can cease to work whenwe want to, but I deny that we can work when we will, so long as there are amillion idle men and women tramping the streets of our cities, searching forwork. The theory that we can work or cease to work when we will is a delusionand a snare. It is a lie.

Samuel Gompers Biography

What we want to consider is, first, to make our employmentmore secure, and, secondly, to make wages more permanent, and, thirdly, to givethese poor people a chance to work. The laborer has been regarded as a mereproducing machine ... but back of labor is the soul of man and honesty ofpurpose and aspiration. Now you cannot, as the political economists and collegeprofessors, say that labor is a commodity to be bought and sold. I say we areAmerican citizens with the heritage of all the great men who have stood beforeus; men who have sacrificed all in the cause except honor. . . . I say thelabor movement is a fixed fact. It has grown out of the necessities of thepeople, and, although some may desire to see it fail, still the labor movementwill be found to have a strong lodgment in the hearts of the people, and wewill go on until success has been achieved!