December 8, 1886: The AFL is formed in Columbus, Ohio. Samuel Gompers is the first president.
In October 31, 1932, Hoover quoted Gompers (who died in 1924), on the eve of a landslide defeat to FDR:
“It is a question of whether it shall be government ownership or private ownership under control. If I were a minority of one on this occasion, I would want to cast my vote so that the men of labor shall not willingly enslave themselves to government in their industrial effort.”
In 1933, FDR spoke at the dedication of the Samuel Gompers Memorial Monument in DC:
The overwhelming majority of the workers understand, as do the overwhelming majority of the employers of the country, that this is no time to seek special privilege, undue advantage, or personal gain, because of the fact of a crisis. Like the duly constituted officials of your Government, we must put and we are putting unselfish patriotism first. That would have been the order of Samuel Gompers if he were with us today.
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