Bill Haywood Quotes

If one man has a dollar he didn’t work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn’t get.

The mine owners 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!

Ten thousand people wrote letters to the governor of Utah, protesting the verdict, but Joe Hill was executed by a firing squad. Before he died he wrote to Bill Haywood, another IWW leader, “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.” Socialism,

Many of her male friends in the labor movement or politics found the crusade either strange or irritating. One night, Sanger and Bill Haywood, the famous labor leader, addressed a group of women strikers. An observer remembered that Sanger spoke of women’s right to limit the size of their families and “received a hearty response” from the audience. Haywood then followed, promising the women that in the glorious economy built by union labor in the future, they would be able to have “all the babies they pleased.” He was greeted by dead silence.

You don’t represent the working men,” Haywood charged. “I do,” the congressman replied in a huff. “You are an employer, are you not?” “Yes.” “Then you do not represent the working people. You represent the employers. There is nothing in common between the two classes so you - couldn’t possibly represent them both.” Despite Haywood’s belligerence, the congressman warmed to the verbal jousting. Laughing at the charge that he had never done an honest day’s work, Ames said he worked longer hours than anyone Haywood knew. This caused Big Bill to snap to attention. “Do you think six dollars too little pay for a man to work a week for?” Haywood demanded. “Don’t you think $7,500 a year too much to pay a man for making laws when only six dollars a week is paid a man for making cloth? Don’t you believe that it is more essential to mankind to make cloth than it is to make laws?” The congressman replied that his federal salary was not his chief income and that he gave it, and more, to charity. Haywood said charity would not be needed if workers were given living wages.