Goons Quotes

He had squads of thugs that he would “rent” out to other gangsters for their enforcement activities and to unions to protect themselves from goons and intimidate non union workers. However, he would not let his men work as goons and strike busters or for companies—despite huge pay offers—to keep their workers in line, a common practice at the time.

There was much similarity between the methods of the Nazis in Germany and the IRA in Ireland at that time. However, their objectives and philosophies were totally different. Like the Nazis, political opponents were “traitors”.

The Congressman was not even chastised by the House of Representatives.

The mine owners had hired goons as "guards" who had shot some of the protesting mine workers. Unlike most labor leaders, Mother Jones advocated retaliatory violence which was against her female, motherly stereotype. She was one of the very few female labor leaders, and one of the most militant.

It was fairly common at the time for the management of a company undergoing a strike to hire goons and gunmen to beat up and even murdering strikers to intimidate the strikers. But some state and locall governments supporting private companies began to do that as well. Sometimes they even used the police and the state national guard.