WILLIAM DUDLEY HAYWOOD

The Lincoln of Labor

The worker retains no respect for the property “rights” of the profit-takers … He knows that the present laws of property were made by and for the capitalists. Therefore he does not hesitate to break them.

The barbarous gold barons—they did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!

Power? Nine workers out of ten still unorganized, and union dues going to bribe middle class politicians. You call that power?

To the working class there is no foreigner but the capitalist.

Fellow workers, this is the Continental Congress of the working class. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working class in possession of economic power.

We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism. There is no organization, or there seems to be no labor organization, that has for its purpose the same object as that for which you are called together today. The aims and objects of this organization should be to put the working class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters.

These Russians [Communists] attach a hell of a lot to ideological theory ... most of them would sooner talk than work, or even eat.

The worker retains no respect for the property “rights” of the profit-takers … He knows that the present laws of property were made by and for the capitalists. Therefore he does not hesitate to break them.

We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism. There is no organization, or there seems to be no labor organization, that has for its purpose the same object as that for which you are called together today. The aims and objects of this organization should be to put the working class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters.

The barbarous gold barons—they did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!

These Russians [Communists] attach a hell of a lot to ideological theory ... most of them would sooner talk than work, or even eat.

Fellow workers, this is the Continental Congress of the working class. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working class in possession of economic power.

To the working class there is no foreigner but the capitalist.

Power? Nine workers out of ten still unorganized, and union dues going to bribe middle class politicians. You call that power?