What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.

Rose Schneiderman

Categorized in : Art Giving Fighting

To me, the labor movement was never just a way of getting higher wages. What appealed to me was the spiritual side of a great cause that created fellowship. You wanted the girl or the man who worked beside you to be treated just as well as you were, and an injury to one was the concern of all.

Rose Schneiderman

girl spiritual men

I know from my experience it is up to the working people to

Rose Schneiderman

strong class people

Surely these women won't lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread, let me tell you that.

Rose Schneiderman

bread beauty years

The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.

Rose Schneiderman

littles jobs men

there is nothing more American than the trade-union movement.

Rose Schneiderman

unions trade movement

What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist ... the right to life, and the sun and music and art ... The worker must have bread, but she must have roses too.

Rose Schneiderman

ballots bread rose

... it is the spirit of trade unionism that is most important, the service of fellowship, the feeling that the hurt of one is the concern of all and that the work of the individual benefits all.

Rose Schneiderman

important hurt feelings

We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift.

Rose Schneiderman

sister brother mother

I cannot think of a thing that was better in those good old days.

Rose Schneiderman

nostalgia past thinking

Today, for many people, being a union member simply means paying dues, but in the early days there were so few of us that if a majority of the members were not active, the union ceased to exist.

Rose Schneiderman

majority mean people

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.

Rose Schneiderman

girl men years

You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also.

Rose Schneiderman

reconstruction workers

Then came a big strike. About 100 girls went out. The result was a victory, which netted us - I mean the girls - $2 increase in our wages on the average.

Rose Schneiderman

mean-girls victory average

All the time our union was progressing very nicely. There were lectures to make us understand what trades unionism is and our real position in the labor movement.

Rose Schneiderman

progress movement real

By working hard we could make an average of about $5 a week. We would have made more but had to provide our own machines, which cost us $45, we paying for them on the installment plan. We paid $5 down and $1 a month after that.

Rose Schneiderman

cost work average

Of course, we knew that this meant an attack on the union. The bosses intended gradually to get rid of us, employing in our place child labor and raw immigrant girls who would work for next to nothing.

Rose Schneiderman

nothing place child work

I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship.

Rose Schneiderman

here talk good poor

So we must stand together to resist, for we will get what we can take - just that and no more.

Rose Schneiderman

stand more will together

We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting.

Rose Schneiderman

good you good-people people

The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth.

Rose Schneiderman

old torture teeth iron