Labor Advocate
Gibbons advocated for the protection of labor, an issue of particular concern because of the many Catholics who were being exploited by the industrial expansion of America's urban East coast at the turn of the century. He was once quoted as saying, "It is the right of laboring classes to protect themselves, and the duty of the whole people to find a remedy against avarice, oppression, and corruption." Gibbons had a key role in the granting of Papal permission for Catholics to join labor unions.
Gibbons successfully defended the Knights of Labor (a union which had a significant Catholic membership) from papal censure, thereby winning a reputation as labor's friend, though in fact he deplored class consciousness and condemned industrial violence.
Read more about this topic: James Gibbons
Famous quotes containing the words labor and/or advocate:
“... continual hard labor deadens the energies of the soul, and benumbs the faculties of the mind; the ideas become confined, the mind barren, and, like the scorching sands of Arabia, produces nothing; or, like the uncultivated soil, brings forth thorns and thistles. Again, continual hard labor irritates our tempers and sours our dispositions; the whole system become worn out with toil and fatigue; nature herself becomes almost exhausted, and we care but little whether we live or die.”
—Maria Stewart (1803–1879)
“We hope the day will soon come when every girl will be a member of a great Union of Unmarried Women, pledged to refuse an offer of marriage from any man who is not an advocate of their emancipation.”
—Tennessee Claflin (1846–1923)