Harry Hopkins Quotes

What the labor movement did in this country is to make sure that capitalism worked.

I think unionization is good public policy. I think when families secure their economic future, that's good for everyone.

The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government.

What I care about is whether or not a leader will work with America's working people, whether or not a leader cares about responsibility and honest work and whether or not a leader will fight to keep the American Dream alive.

The so-called second New Deal of 1935 - including the Works Progress Administration, Social Security and the Wagner Act legalizing union labor - represented an effort to meet the rising voices demanding a more aggressive government approach to the collapse of national prosperity.

Give the working-man the right to work as long as he is healthy; assure him care when he is sick; assure him maintenance when he is old.

There's a direct relationship between the bread box and the ballot box, and what the union fights for and wins at the bargaining table can be taken away in the legislative halls.

I have got to lay a foundation of personal security for the working people of this country and their families in order to succeed as your president.

There can be no distress, there can be no hard times, when labor is well paid. The man who raises his hand against the progress of the workingman raises his hand against prosperity.

Should any party try and eliminate social security, … and labor laws, you would not hear from that party much again.

Labor is marching toward the goal of industrial democracy and contributing constructively toward a more rational arrangement of our domestic economy.

The labor union in enforcing a high scale of wages brings about the distribution of wealth throughout the entire community.

We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man— for that has to a certain extent been attained already— but how to secure his complete material independence.

Labor: a man coins himself into his labor,—turns his day, his strength, his thought, his affection into some product which remains as the visible sign of his power; and to protect that, to secure that to him, to secure his past self to his future self, is the object of all government. There is no interest in any country so imperative as that of labor; it covers all, and constitutions and governments exist for that,—to protect and insure it to the laborer.

Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie. Labor is fighting for a larger pie.

Roosevelt's New Deal regulated business, protected social welfare and promoted national infrastructure on the principle that the role of government was not simply to protect the property of the wealthy, but rather was to promote equality of opportunity for all.

As we say we fight for working people, we have to make sure our policies reflect that.

I'm willing to fight for Social Security, Medicare, student loans, U.S. jobs, equal pay, progressive taxation and full employment.

I believe in capitalism for everybody, not necessarily high finance but capitalism that works for the working men and women of this country who are out there paddling alone in America right now.

America's workers deserve a clean vote on a $7.25 increase, with no strings attached. Such an increase helps everyone and hurts no one.

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.

I want a society that provides decent jobs for those who can work and decent security for those can't.

If we turn our back on the people of this country who need to work for a living, we shouldn't be here, to be honest, because that has to be an essential part of what we do to protect the country, from the standpoint of defense, protect workers and make sure they have jobs.

We have to get very militant with some of these employers to say there's no shortcuts, our people have a right to a fair day's wage for a fair day's pay, and we've got to get that done. And that's going to happen.

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.