Michael J. Quill Quotes

“I make you free,” so speak the Rights of Man to the laborer, “free to earn a wretched living and turn your employer into a millionaire; free to sell him your liberty for a mouthful of bread. He will imprison you ten hours or twelve hours in his workshops; he will not let you go till you are wearied to the marrow of your bones, till you have just enough strength left to gulp down pour soup and sink into a heavy sleep. You have but one of your rights that you may not sell, and that is the right to pay taxes.

Southern attempts to deny blacks equal rights were turning the Constitution into a sublime and beautiful scripture—into a horrid charter of wrong.

Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratification.

The wealthy have never liked to pay for the labor that enriches them. Ever since slavery was eliminated, they have been trying to keep it as close to slavery as they can without violating the slave laws.

Everything is produced by the workers, and the minute they try to get something by their unions they meet all the opposition that can be mustered by those who now get what they produce.

After I had been working as a cap maker for three years it began to dawn on me that we girls needed an organization. The men had organized already, and had gained some advantages, but the bosses had lost nothing, as they took it out on us.

I am not ... in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them ... to intermarry with white people.

With the laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave?

We were no experts in the field of labor organization, but we had something in common with our fellow workers -- we were all poor -- we were all overworked -- we were all victims of the 84 hour week. In fact, we were all so low down on the economic and social ladder that we had nowhere to go but up

Your Irish railways employ thousands of men, whose working hours average twelve per day. Were they restricted to a forty-eight-hour week of labor, employment would he provided for thousands of Irishmen who at present are driven exiles from their native land.

Limitation of the working day to eight hours for all hired workers. ... A complete ban on overtime work. The prohibition of the employment of children of school age.... A ban on the use of female labour in occupations which are harmful to the health of women The provision of nurseries for infants and young children in all ...enterprises employing women. State insurance for workers against old age and partial or complete disability The establishment of properly organized health inspection in all enterprises...free medical services for workers at the employer's expense, with wages to be paid during time of illness

With the coming of peace, the workers are no longer needed as soldiers; they are no longer comrades, defenders of the fatherland, heroes. Once more they become beasts of burden, objects of exploitation.

The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions.

The workingmen have been exploited all the way up and down the line by employers, landlords, everybody.

Why can a Communist eat at a lunch counter in Selma, Alabama while a Black American veteran cannot?

There are no limits to which powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery.

The toilers are more greedily exploited in them [government run nationalized services] than in private enterprise; they are bent beneath an authority that is more powerfully hierarchic; they can neither combine nor strike.

Is it not rather our duty to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories…. Negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave niggers.

The working classes may be injuriously degraded and oppressed in three ways: 1st — When they are neglected in infancy. 2nd — When they are overworked by their employer, and are thus rendered incompetent from ignorance to make a good use of high wages when they can procure them. 3rd — When they are paid low wages for their labor

The Negro wants a revision of the concept of race and of racism. Discriminations in industry, labor unions, education, the Jim Crow pattern for the Army and Navy are based upon fascist racism …. There will have to be education on the subject of race. We shall have to learn that the doctrine of racism has no scientific foundations ...

… the struggle of men to outvie one another in production is beneficial to the community; their struggle over the division of the joint produce is not. The stronger side will dictate its own terms; and as a matter of fact, in the early days of competition, the capitalists used all their power to oppress the laborers, and drove down wages to starvation point. This kind of competition has to be checked; there is no historical instance of its having lasted long without being modified either by combination or legislation, or both. In England both remedies are in operation, the former through Trades Unions, the latter through factory legislation.

Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us.

Labor: a man coins himself into his labor,—turns his day, his strength, his thought, his affection into some product which remains as the visible sign of his power; and to protect that, to secure that to him, to secure his past self to his future self, is the object of all government. There is no interest in any country so imperative as that of labor; it covers all, and constitutions and governments exist for that,—to protect and insure it to the laborer.

Who is looking out for the working class? The answer is, Nobody!

The workers who harvest our food have been systematically denied the basic rights that are granted to all other American workers. They can be fired for trying to form a union or for attempting to improve their working conditions. They are not eligible for overtime pay, disability, or even unemployment insurance.