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:
“Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.”
—Henry George (1839–1897)
“I would rather be known as an advocate of equal suffrage than to speak every night on the best-paying platforms in the United States and ignore it.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)