The Majority Report with Sam Seder - Labor Day Show 2025

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Happy Labor Day! The MR Crew is off today but in the meantime please enjoy our annual audio compilation of labor-themed excerpts from luminaries such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Mario Savio, John L. Lewis, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders reading the words of Eugene Debs.

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday. September 1st, 2025. My name is Emma Vigeland, in for Sam Cedar, and this is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting not live at all. We're broadcasting from the past, but still steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal

in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, we have our famous Labor Day show, where we will have our compilation of audio and speeches from the likes of FDR, John Lewis, Mario Savio, and Senator Bernie Sanders, who is reading from the words of... of Eugene Debs. Hello, everybody. I hope you're having a great Labor Day. Sam will be back on tomorrow, tomorrow on Tuesday. So we will have a full live show for you then. But we do this every year to honor Labor Day. Last year, we showed interviews with the late, great Jane McAlevy,

who sadly passed away recently, but her work still lives on, including in the campaign of of Graham Platner up in Maine, who in our interview recently, right after his campaign launch, he's trying to take on Susan Collins and the general. He said that Jane McAlevy was who he based his politics around and her labor organizing, putting that to the forefront in his campaign, which is amazing. So in addition to this, if you want more wonderful labor interviews and inspiration, You can go back to our episode from last year on Labor Day and listen to our interviews with Jane McAlevy, her incredible work. Some of the most important organizing writing of the 21st century came from Jane McAlevy, undoubtedly. But that's our show.

We're going to play it now. Hope you, everybody had a great long weekend and is continuing to do so. We will see you on Tuesday. In September of 1915, Gene Debs gave his views of the war, then raging in Europe. I am not a capitalist soldier. I am a proletarian revolutionist. I am opposed to every war but one. I am for that war with heart and soul.

And that is the worldwide war of the social revolution. In that war, I am prepared to fight in any way the ruling class may make necessary, even to the barricades. That is where I stand and where I believe the Socialist Party stands or ought to stand on the question of war. In June of 1918, with American troops now fighting in Europe, Deb spoke to a socialist gathering in Canton, Ohio. In this his most famous speech, he outlined the socialist opposition to the war and gave his unqualified support to the Russian Revolution, which had just taken place under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky. This was also the speech for which he was sentenced to jail. In the Middle Ages, the feudal lords and barons,

the economic predecessors of the capitalist of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters. To believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon each other and to cut one another's throats for the profit and gloom. of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell.

It hasn't changed. The master class has always declared the wars, the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject classes had nothing to gain and all to lose, especially their lives. The ruling class has always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty,

patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourself slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world, you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war. And strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. And here let me emphasize the fact, and it cannot be repeated too often, that the working class who fight all the battles, The working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war, and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why, yours but to do or die.

This is their model. object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. Two weeks after he gave his Canton, Ohio speech, Gene Debs was arrested and charged with violating the Espionage Act. Two months later, he was tried, found guilty of the charges, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. We have a clip from FBI. are Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Four Freedom's

speech, which was actually the 1941 State of the Union address. So this is about 10, 11, almost 12 months before we entered World War II. And this is the speech

where he laid out two, I guess, freedoms that go beyond the Constitution and basically said that, you know, we human beings have a right to economic security. And this is a fairly new theme at that point, and look where it got us in a good place, until, of course, the right wing and the money in this country decided they had enough of that.

But here's a clip from that speech now. As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armament alone. Those who man are defenses and those behind them who build our defenses must have the stamina and the courage which come from unshatable belief in the manner of life which they are defences. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all the things worth fighting for. The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual states in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fiber of our people, have renewed that peace, and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect. Certainly, this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems, which are the root cause of the social revolution, which is today a supreme.

factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy, the basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple.

They are equality of opportunity for you and for other. job for those who can work security for those who need it the ending of special privilege for the fuel

the preservation of civil liberties for all the enjoyment the enjoyment of the fruit of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world.

The inner and the biting strength of our economic and political system is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations. Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As example, we should bring more citizens under the coverage of old age pensions and unemployment insurance. We should widen the opportunity for adequate medical care. We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may have taken. I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that cause.

A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message, I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try or be allowed to get rich out of the program. And the principle of tax payments, in accordance with ability to pay, should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation. If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause. In the future days, which we seek to make the cure, we look forward to a way world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression.

everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from one, which translated into world's term, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world the fourth is freedom from fear which translated into world terms means a worldwide reduction of armament to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position

to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order, we oppose the greater conception. The moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions are late without fear. Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, A revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions

without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the dish. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries working together in a friendly, civilized society. This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and part of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose to that high concept that can be no end, save victory.

okay now this is a speech from john l lewis he was the um probably one of the most famous uh labor union leaders uh in this country ever he was the um head of the united mine workers for gosh i don't know 20 20 some odd years maybe more uh and uh in some of his best speeches i think come from the 30s, but I couldn't find one. I found this one from, I think it was late 1952. He is in Charleston, West Virginia, and he's endorsing Adelaide Stevenson in his run for president. But it's still a great union speech, and you really get a sense of just how powerful a speaker this guy was. here it is.

When almost unarmed coal miners marching together as a symbol of their right to express themselves as free men were opposed on the crest of Blair Mountain by 600 private soldiers maintained by the Logan County coal operas. They tore by a royalty of ten cents a ton on all coal mine in this in that county and paid into a fool from which was wrong the money to buy rifles and ammunition and equipment for 600 mine gods and to pay their salary and their keep. The same operators who level level those royalties new clad allowed to high heaven when

the mine workers' unions suggested the levying of a royalty of ten cents a ton to care for the mine workers whose help were destroyed or whose lives were abused in the coal mons. They said then that the right to levy royalties was merely the right of kings and pull our players. And we said it was also the right of coal miners, and we demonstrated that thought. Yes, and may I say to the miners in Northern West Virginia, who may be listening tonight, Yet I remember when 25,000 men in those northern coal fields were evicted from their homes by the associated coal operators, chief of which was a consolidation coal company, and through long winters and through starvation and disease,

they fought to fight for the right to belong to their union, to mine coal for more than the 20 cents a ton that the operator was paying at that time. 20 cents a tonne. We're mining a ton of coal underground. And there isn't a man within the sound of my voice or in the state of West Virginia as we could pick up a ton of coal and move at three inches for 20 cents. They lived in the barracks They froze in the winter

They did without medicine And medical attention And teachers for their children They buried their dead Unkempt as they might be In order that mountaineers might be free in order that West Virginia

and West Virginia might have a right to govern themselves and to select honorable men for a public office The same is true in the New River

in the winding gulf the same is true in all of the Pogonters in the Tug River. The same is true in the panhandle of West Virginia. The same is true on both banks of Monongahela River. And today, more than 100,000 hudal miners in this state, in its several districts. They're working when they work under the rules.

collective bargaining and under wages and working conditions that American citizens have a right to enjoy and which no other citizens should ask and not to pay we intend to keep it that way to say a word of advice and coal miners a word of advice to coal miners and not alone coal miners

but to every citizen of West Virginia who believes in proper treatment of his fellow citizen and who likewise wants to improve his profession or business by participation

in the increased population is prosperity, which comes to a community or a state, when the people who work are properly compensated. What has become of the increased earnings of the West Virginia mine workers since they were organized at the end of the Republican Depression of 1929, what has become of that money? Like everyone else, the mine worker was only able to retain for himself and any savings account but a small proportion of his earnings. Because he spent it for the necessities of life. He spent it for shoes for the children, for increased education, for improved facilities in the hall, for a broader outlaw. And he spent it in his home community.

And the businessmen of that community, and the professional men of that community, and the churches of that community, and every institution in the state of West Virginia has benefited by its participation in the increased wage standards brought to this state by the United Mine Workers of America. It isn't very long. It isn't very long. As a matter of fact, it's only 18 years. Since the wages in Logan County were a dollar and a half and a $1.75 a day for a supposed 10-hour day, but when true reality was a clean-up day

and more often 14 and 15 hours. Almost better are the businessmen, the farmers, and the professional men of Logan County today. Because the mine workers have money to become their customers, to buy their goods, to buy their motor cars, to receive their professional services, whether they're medical men or what their attorneys or their practitioners in the profession. All of the citizens of West Virginia have shared in its improvement. And what is true in Logan County has been true in every other mining sector of the state. And what is true in the mining sections of West Virginia is likewise true in the chemical industry. in the lumbering industry, in the railroad industry,

in the limestone industry. And it's true of all of West Virginia. Do you want to change it? And don't elect a hypocrite at a fool to be governor. I have just come here from a great international convention of the United Mine Workers of whom I reckon with delegates from its several local unions, which was been session in the Queen City of Cincinnati for about eight days. And at that convention, I am witnessed one of the most dramatic and marvelous.

exhibitions of enthusiasm and termination that has been mile off the sea. 2,8005 elected delegates from the coal mines of this country, from the Cascade Mountains of Washington to the warrior field of Alabama, from the anthracite jurisdiction of Pennsylvania to the far-plung mines of New Mexico, And those 2,805 men, after due consideration, adopted a resolution by a rising, standing unanimous vote to urge upon the mine workers of this country and all other members of organized labor that they refuse to take a professional soldier for president of the United States, but that they take a grave human race. and humanitarian and public spirit is citizen in the person of Adlai E. Stevenson as a

recommendation. Surely those men must have represented the sentiment of the man at home. surely that demonstrates that men and who work in coal mines are thinking men surely it makes one believe that they understand the problems of life in America and the burden and the responsibilities of rearing and educating a family through their proper place in the community of citizenship 28005 delegates responsible to nobody but the men in their home community who elected them by unanimous vote instructed the officers of your organization to do everything possible

to urge our membership and all other citizens similarly situated to cast aside and push away the alluring, siren voice of those candidates who represent the concentrated wealth and power of the American industry and financial world, and who walk to elect their man in the White House so that he may make the rules for you and I and those similar situations. So I am here for that purpose, and I come here also to say that in this great state, I would like to have you if the miners of this state will take my counsel and advice because they may believe to some degree in the responsibility of what I say,

I would like to have the mine workers of this great state and other states. Not only vote for Honorable Adler E. Stevenson for President of the United States, but vote for Bill Mullen as governor of West Virginia and Harvey Kilgora as senator. Okay, so next up is a four-minute song by a guy named Uncle George Jones. He was a United Mine Worker, and he was a mine worker back in the late 1800s. He went blind in the around, I guess, the second decade of the 20th century, around like 1915 or something. He went blind. He was working in the Alabama Mines, and he was singing essentially about the,

revival of the United Mind Workers, and as well as singing the praises of unions. He mentions John L. Lewis in this, and obviously, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, so check it out, enjoy it, interesting song, and we still got more. In 1933, when Mr. Roosevelt took his seat, said to President John L. Lewis in Union, we must be. fight together as gone to lead the plan. By this time another year, we'll have the union back again. Hooray, hooray, for the union we must stand. If the only organization protect the living men, boys,

it makes our women happy out should and clap the hand. The city peace stick and the good folks are steaming and old frying fan. And the President and John Lurge had signed a decree To call for Mitch and Rainy Tower off on May to three Go down in Alabama, organized every living man Spread the news all over the land We got the union back again Hooray, hooray, for the union we must stand

Just the only organization Protect the Living Man, boys, makes our women happy Out children clap the hand The city's big stick and the good folks are steaming and old drying fan There's one law president

Rovey pasted many operators' mad Give all the men the right to organize Join the Union of our choice When the President Had passed the law We all did shout for joy When they said no operator's sheriff of all Shouldn't bother the Union boys

Hooray! Hooray! For the union we must stand That the only organization Protect the living men, boys It makes our women happy Out here and clap the hand The city fish stick and the good folk jobs

Steaming in the Orion fan In 1932 We're sometimes sadding blue Travelling round from place to please Trying to find some way to do We're successful to find a job The weight is well so small The scarce to live in the summertime

Almost starving to fall Hooray Hooray! For the union we must stand At the old age, organization Protect the Living Man, boys It makes our women happy Out children clap the hand

There's eating fish take and the good folk jobs Steaming in old frying pan Before we got our union back It's very sad to say Old blue shakes and overall What are the trophies of the day They were so full of patches And so badly torn

Our wife had a soap about our hour Before they could be won Hooray Hooray For the union we must stand It's the old reorganization Protect the living men, boys It makes our women happy

out here and clapped the hand The city's big stick and the good folk-tops Steaming and old frying fan Now when our union men Walked up got the good tools on their back Correct machines and the fine See excite some brand new miller block hand Quine silk stock and the flow shines shoes

They're glitter and gas the sun Got dollars in the foggings won good cigars Boy, this was the union done Hooray Hooray For the Union we must stand. The old

reorganization protect the living men, boys it makes our women happy our children clap the hand. The little fished and the good folk jobs steaming and old frying fan.

Before we got our union back, our wives was always mad. When they went out to the church of princess was all they had, but since we got our union back, they're happy all the wives. Silk and salern of every kind

To be with every style Hooray Hooray For the union we must stand That the only organization Protect the living men Boys It makes our women happy

Out here and clap the hand The city's big stick And a good folk job steaming in old frying pan Okay And now we have it's a seven-minute clip of a speech that Mario Savio gave

in December of 1964 at Sprow Hall in University of California, Berkeley and this is a pretty famous speech now, it's getting a lot more attention

these days. Actually part of this notion of this notion of putting your body upon the gears in the machine. That was quoted in Battlestar Galactica during a labor scene. And Tim de Christopher's going to prison, you know, a speech that he gave after his conviction sort of evoked this moment from Mario Savio. And it's interesting. People are talking about it these days, and it's in the consciousness.

so I thought you'd be interested. What's also particularly interesting is he addresses what's going on on the campus with some of the union workers. And, you know, this, if you recall, that piece by Kevin Drum, which talked about the cleave between union and many of like the student leaders. This guy was, Savio was from the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. and this cleave ended up really hurting the democratic movement and the progressive, the Democratic Party and the progressive liberal movement because people were split into sort of two camps, social liberalism and economic liberalism. And we've talked about that on the show. It's interesting, so he just, in passing, mentions what's going on with the union workers there.

and we've also talked on the show about hopefully how that cleave is closing. So here is this clip from Mario Savio. Have a great Labor Day, folks. You know, I just want to say one brief thing about something the previous speaker said. I didn't want to spend too much time on that because I don't think it's important enough, but one thing is worth considering. He's a nominal head. An organization supposedly representative of the undergraduates,

whereas in fact, under the cur-directors that derives its authority has delegated power from the administration, it's totally unrepresentative of the graduate students in TAs. But he made the following statement, I quote, I would ask all those who are not definitely committed to the FSM cause to stay away from demonstration. All right, now listen to this. For all upper division students who are interested in alleviating the T.A. shortage problem, I would encourage you to offer your services to department chairman and advisors. That has two things, a strike breaker and a faint.

I'd like to say one other thing. about a union problem. Upstairs, you may have noticed already on the second floor of Sproul Hall. Locals 40 and 127 of the Painters Union are painting the inside of the second floor of Sprow Hall. Now, apparently that action had been planned sometime in the past. I've tried to contact those unions, unfortunately, and tears my heart out, there is bureaucratized as the administration. It's difficult to get through to anyone in authority there.

Very sad. We're still making an attempt. Those people up there have no desire to interfere with what we're doing. I would ask that they be considered and that they not be heckled in any way. And I think that, you know, while there's unfortunately no sense of solidarity at this point between unions and students, there at least need be no, you know, excessively hard feelings between the two groups. Now, there are at least. Two ways in which sit-ins and civil disobedience and whatever,

these two major ways in which you can occur. One, when a law exists, is promulgated, which is totally unacceptable to people, and they violate it again and again and again until it's rescinded. Appealed. All right. But there's another way. There's another way.

Sometimes the form of the law is such to render impossible, its effective violation as a method to have it repeal sometimes the grievances of people extend to more than just the law extend to a whole mode of arbitrary power

a whole mode of arbitrary exercise of arbitrary power and that's what we have here we have an autocracy which runs this university it's managed we were told the following if President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regents

in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received from a well-meaning liberal was the following. He said, would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors? That's the answer. I ask you to consider if this is a firm, and if the board of regions are the board of directors, and if President Kerr, in fact, is the manager, and I'd tell you something, the faculty are a bunch of employees and we're the raw materials but we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be have any process upon us don't mean to be made

into any product don't mean don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the university be they the government be they industry be they organized labor be they anyone for human beings And that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,

upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop and you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all. That doesn't mean, and it will be interpreted to mean,

unfortunately, by the bigots who run the examiner, for example. That doesn't mean that you have to break anything. 1,000 people sitting down someplace, not letting anybody buy, nothing happening can stop any machine, including this machine, and it will stop. We're going to do the following. And the greater the number of people,

the safer they'll be, and the more effective it will be. We're going, once again, to march up to the second floor of Sprow Hall. And we're going to conduct our lives for a while in the second floor of Sprow Hall. We'll show movies, for example. We tried to get enchant amour. Unfortunately, that's tied up in the court because of a lot of squeamish moral mothers for a moral America and other people on the outside. the same people who get all their ideas out of the San Francisco Examiner. Sad, sad, but Mr. Landau, Mr. Landau has gotten to some other films.

Likewise, we'll do something, we'll do something which hasn't occurred at this university in a good long time. We're going to have real classes up there. There are going to be freedom schools conducted up there. We're going to have classes on the First and Fourteenth Amendment. We're going to spend our time learning about the things this university is afraid that we know. We're going to learn about freedom up there, and we're going to learn by doing. Now, we've had some good long rallies. Just one moment.

We've had some good long rallies, and I think I'm sicker of rallies than anyone else here. this is not going to be long I'd like to introduce one last person one last person before we enter sprawl hall yeah and the person is Joan Baez

thank you thank you thank you no go ahead you're too Thank you, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and he said no, no no, and he said no no, and he said no no no, and he's down for money. Thank you.