Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Quotes

The political, industrial and social conditions under capitalism which created our ideas remain. They will produce similar ideas in the minds of countless others and further strengthen them in ours. Never did prison affect resolute people who live and work and die if necessary by their ideas. We Communists are such people. I have faith in the ultimate justice of the American people once the fog of lies, hysteria, prejudice and, worst of all, fear is swept away. It is a terrible thing to see one's country in the grip of fear-needless, stupid, foolish fear; fear of imaginary enemies, fear of our allies and friends; fear of the accusing fingers of stool pigeons, fear of losing one's job or one's citizenship or one's place in a community. The whole governmental bureaucracy, wasting billions of dollars, boasting, bragging, bullying, is whistling in the dark of fear, trying to make the whole world afraid of us.

Our work was to educate and stimulate. Education is not a conversion, it is a process. One speech to a body of workers does not overcome their prejudices of a lifetime. We had prejudices on the national issues, prejudices between crafts, prejudices between competing men and women, all these to overcome.

This spirit of mob violence was one of the most dangerous and shameful manifestations in our country, all in the name of making the world "Safe for Democracy."

The Industrial Workers of the World is a new form of labor organization, one that stands for the industrial working class and that class alone.

we certainly never heard of such a thing and we never thought it would be possible, that there would be social security or unemployment insurance. Those were the results of the 30's. The great struggle hat came out after the decline of the IWW. Also, we never heard of vacations with pay. We never heard of vacations, let alone vacations with pay. We never heard of seniority as it is understood today. There were no pensions for retirement of workers. There were no welfare funds of unions. There were no health centers of unions, and there were no trade union schools such as there are today. All of these things have come with the unions that have come into existence since the period of the IWW.

a labor victory must be twofold, but if it can only be one it is better to gain in spirit than to gain economic advantage.

Once the right to vote was achieved, women did not remain united as women, but divided into the existing political parties and other organizations as their views and interests dictated. The one common denominator of peace could, I believe, unite women once again, with a few exceptions.

World War I made many radical changes in the lives of American women. It brought to an end the "lady" type. The labor shortage was great, the need of trained workers acute. At the end of 1918, nearly three million women were employed in food, textile and war industries. Occupations hitherto regarded as "men's work" were open to woman. They worked as conductors on street cars. For the first time they were trained as radio operators. Women volunteered for the motor corps in the army and wore uniforms for the first time. "Farmerettes," wearing bloomers, went from the cities to farms. Women did relief work, sold war bonds, organized canteens for the armed forces, joined nursing units. Thousands emerged from their homes into public life. Many remained in industry, either from necessity or choice, when the war ended.

in the period of World War I a tremendous onslaught was made against the IWW, the Socialists, all Progressives in our country. There was a very strong peace movement at that time. It was not like World War II, which was an anti-Fascist war.

(The IWW} was not only the inheritor of many of the traditions of the 1880's but personalities who were identified with the 1880's were present at the early conventions of the IWW. The names may not be known to you unless you are students of labor history but included were such figures as Eugene Debs, Daniel DeLeon and Mrs. Lucy Parsons

I feel that many of our critics are people who stayed at home in bed while we were doing the hard work of the strike.

In 1907, During the campaign to free Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, I was invited to speak at a meeting, in Newark, New Jersey, arranged by the Socialist Labor Party...This meeting is an unforgettable event in my life because it was here I first met James Connolly, the Irish Socialist speaker, writer and labor organizer who gave his life for Irish freedom nine years later in the Easter Week Uprising of 1916 in Dublin...He was short, rather stout, a plain-looking man with a large black moustache, a very high forehead and dark sad eyes, a man who rarely smiled. A scholar and an excellent writer, his speech was marred for American audiences by his thick, North of Ireland accent, with a Scotch burr from his long residence in Glasgow...Connolly worked for the IWW and had an office at Cooper Square. He was a splendid organizer, as his later work for the Irish Transport Workers, with James Larkin, demonstrated...He felt keenly that not enough understanding and sympathy was shown by American Socialists for the cause of Ireland's national liberation, that the Irish workers here were too readily abandoned by the Socialists as "reactionaries" and that there was not sufficient effort made to bring the message of socialism to the Irish-American workers...He published a monthly magazine, The Harp. Many poems from his own pen appeared. It was a pathetic sight to see him standing, poorly clad, at the door of Cooper Union or some other East Side hall, selling his little paper. None of the prosperous professional Irish, who shouted their admiration for him after his death, lent him a helping hand at that time. Jim Connolly was anathema to them because he was a "So'-cialist." He had no false pride and encouraged others to do these Jimmy Higgins tasks by setting an example. At the street meetings he persuaded those who had no experience in speaking to "chair the meeting" as a method of training them. Connolly had a rare skill, born of vast knowledge, in approaching the Irish workers. He spoke the truth sharply and forcefully when necessary

I asked you a question on Friday, Your Honor, which I now repeat: If the Communist Party is not illegal, its membership and officership is not illegal, if advocating socialism is not illegal, if advocating a day-to-day program of "good deeds," as the government cynically calls it, is not illegal, what in all conscience is illegal here? Of what are we guilty?

the IWW also differed from the AFL in that it stood for Socialism. Although it differed from the Socialist Party in that it rejected political parties and political action, and this might have been a reflection of is composition...they had this very peculiar attitude that the real struggle was in the industries, in the shops, what they call at the point of production.

What is a labor victory? I maintain that it is a twofold thing. Workers must gain economic advantage, but they must also gain revolutionary spirit, in order to achieve a complete victory. For workers to gain a few cents more a day, a few minutes less a day, and go back to work with the same psychology, the same attitude toward society is to have achieved a temporary gain and not a lasting victory. For workers to go back with a class-conscious spirit, with an organized and a determined attitude toward society means that even if they have made no economic gain they the possibility of gaining in the future. In other words, a labor victory must be economic must be revolutionizing. Otherwise it is not complete.