“Times were bad in London when I was a child there. Gangs of workmen
used to parade the streets, singing mournfully, ‘We have no work to
do!’ This condition led my father to immigrate to this country, in
1863, when I was thirteen. I continued my trade of cigarmaker in New
York, and joined the ‘Cigarmakers’ International Union’ when it was
organized, in 1864. It now has thirty thousand members, but mine is
the longest continued membership; my due card is No. 1. This was the
first labor organization I belonged to. I attended its meetings and got
into the habit of studying and thinking about labor matters and the
many changes in the workingman’s condition that would be beneficial to
himself and to the commonwealth.
“I began to realize that, in the struggles of the ages, lords and
nobles have lost their gold lace and velvet, but that they survive as
the economic lords of the means of life, and that their aggressions
must be opposed by combinations of labor—by trade unions. I began to
appreciate the true dignity of labor and the importance to the state of
fair conditions for workingmen. The older I grew, the more essential
seemed the strong organization of labor. I felt what Wendell Phillips
expressed in these words: ‘I rejoice at every effort workingmen make to
organize. I hail the labor movement. It is my only hope for democracy.
Organize and stand together. Let the nation hear a united demand from
the laboring voice.’