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The Majority Report with Sam Seder
Labor Day Show 2025
00:45:28
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...
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- [00:02]
Emma Vigeland
The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.
- [00:07]
It is Monday, September 1, 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 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 McAlevey who sadly passed away recently, but her work still lives on, including in the campaign of Graham Platner up in Maine, who in our interview recently, right after his campaign launch, he's trying to take on Susan Collins in 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 under undoubtedly. But that's our show. We're gonna play it now. Hope you everybody had a great long weekend and is continuing to do so. We will see you on Tuesday.
- [02:30]
Mario Savio
In September of 1915, Gene Debs gave.
- [02:33]
Emma Vigeland
His views of the war then raging in Europe.
- [02:36]
Eugene Debs
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, Debs 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 capitalists 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 glory 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 class has 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 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 motto. And we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation.
- [05:28]
Emma Vigeland
Two weeks after he gave his Canton, Ohio speech, Gene debs was arrested and.
- [05:33]
Mario Savio
Charged with violating the espionage act.
- [05:35]
Emma Vigeland
Two months later, he was tried, found guilty of the charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
- [05:48]
Narrator/Host
We have a clip from FDR Franklin Dunlop Roosevelt's Four Freedoms 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 is a clip from that speech.
- [06:46]
Emma Vigeland
Now.
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Interjecting Speaker/Assistant
As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armament alone, those who man our defenses and those behind them who build our Defensive must have the stamina and the courage which come from unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. 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 state. In the preservation of democratic life in America, those things have toughened the fiber of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect. Certain 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 others. Jobs for those who can work, security for those who need it, the ending of special privilege for the few, the preservation of civil liberties for all the enjoyment, the enjoyment of the fruits 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 abiding strength of our economic and political system is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations. Many subjects connected with our social economic 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 obtain it. 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 payment 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 secure, we look forward to a 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 and his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms means economic understanding 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 armaments 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 a greater conception, the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike 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 ditch. 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 head and heart 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 there can be no end save victory.
- [15:57]
Narrator/Host
Okay, now this is a speech from John L. Lewis. He was probably one of the most famous labor union leaders in this country ever. He was the head of the United Mine Workers for, gosh, I don't know, 20 some odd years, maybe more. Some of his best features, 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 Adlai 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. So here it is.
- [16:54]
Emma Vigeland
When our most unarmed coal miners, marching together as a symbol 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 Operators association, paid for by our royalty of 10 cents a ton on all coal minedness in that county and paid into a pool from which was drawn the money to buy rifles and ammunition and equipment for 600 mine guards and pay their salary in their keep. The Same operators who level those royalties New Clyde allowed to high heaven when the mine workers union suggested the levying of a royalty of 10 cents a ton come to care for the mine workers whose health was destroyed or whose lives were abused in the coal mines. They said then that the right to levy royalties was merely the right of kings and cool operations. And we said it was also the right of coal miners. And we demonstrated that. That. Yes. And may I say to the miners in northern West Virginia who may be listening tonight. 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 the fight for the right to belong to their union and to mine coal for more than the 20 cents a ton that the operators were paying at that time. 20 cents a ton remaining. A ton of coal underground. And there isn't a man within the sound of my voice. Or in the state of West Virginia, we could pick up a ton of coal and move it 3 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 and in order that West Virginia and West Virginians might have a right to govern themselves and who select honorable men for public office. The same is true in the New river and the winding Gulp. The same is true in all of the Pogonas 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 coal miners in this state in its several districts. They're working when they work under the rules of collective bargaining and under wages and working conditions that American citizens have a right to enjoy and which no other citizen could ask and not prepare. We intend to keep it that way. Can I come to West Virginia tonight to say a word of advice in 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 citizens and who likewise wants to improve his profession or business by participation in the increased 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 in any savings account but a small proportion of his earning 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 outlook. 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 dollar, 75 cents a day for a supposed 10 hour day, but which in reality was a cleanup day. And more often 14 and 15 hours. Almost better. The bedding is man. These 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 whether attorneys or their practitioners in the profession. All of the citizens of West Virginia have shared in this important 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? Then don't elect a hypocrite and 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 it, several local unions which was in session in the queen City of Cincinnati for about eight days. And at that convention I witnessed one of the most dramatic and marvelous exhibitions of enthusiasm and determination that has been my lot to see 2805 elected delegates and the coal mines of this country, from the Cascade mountains of Washington to the warrior field of Alabama, from the andracite jurisdiction of Pennsylvania to the far flung 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 take a great human, humanitarian and public spirited citizen in the person of Adlai E. Stevenson as a recommendation. Surely those men must have represented the sentiment of the man at home. Home. Surely that demonstrates that men 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 to their proper place in the community of citizenship. 2,805 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 want to elect their man in the White House so that he may make the rules for you and I and those similar and situated. 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 Adlai E. Stevenson for President of the United States, but vote for Bill Marlin as Governor of West Virginia and Harvey Kilgore.
- [29:45]
Narrator/Host
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 Mine Workers as well as singing the praises of unions. He mentions John L. Lewis in this and obviously Frank Lloyd Delano Roosevelt. So check it out. Enjoy it. Interesting song.
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Emma Vigeland
Interesting.
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Narrator/Host
And we still got more.
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Uncle George Jones
In 1933 when Mr. Roosevelt took his seat said to President John Elliott in union we must be come let us fight together Ask God 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 the women happy out soon and clap their hand the CCP stick and the good folk jobs teaming in those frying pan when the President and John Ellis had signed a decree to call permits and rainy tower up on mate three Go down in Alabama Organize every living man Spread the news all over the land we got the union back again Hooray, hooray for the union we must stand this is all the organization protect the living men boys it makes our women happy out here and clap the hand the sealy beefsteak and the good folk out steaming and dual frying pan there's one law President Roe refers as 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 shape or ball shouldn't bother the union boys Hooray, hooray for the union we must stand at the only organization Protect the living men boys it makes the women happy out here and clap the hand the city fish take and the good pork chops steaming in the drying pan in 1932 we're sometimes sat in blue Traveling round from place to place Trying to find some work to do we're successful to find a job the wages was too small Scarcity of any summertime Almost starving to fall Hooray, hooray for the union we must stand at the older organization Protect the living men boys it makes the women happy Our children clap their hands the seedy beef steak and the good pork chop Steaming indoor frying pans before we got our union back Tis very sad to say Old blue shirts and overalls were the toppies of the day they were so full of patches and so badly torn Our wives had to sew for about an hour before they could be worn Hooray, hooray for the union we must stand it's the older organization Protect the laboring men boys it makes the women happy out here and clap and the city fish take and the good folk job Steaming and old frying pan now when our union man walks out Got the good tools on their back Correct machines and the fancy side Some brand new miller block hand Fine silk stock and the flow Shine shoes they're glittering against the sun Got dollars in the pockets One good cigars boy this one for the union done Hooray, hooray for the union we must stand to the oldie organization Protect the leaving men boys it makes the women happy out here and clap the hand the zig and the good folk job Steaming and old frying pan before we got our union back Our wives were going mad when they went out to the church A princess was all they had but since we got our union back they're happy all the while Circumcising of every kind to meet with every style Hoorain, hoorain for the union we must stand they're the only organization Protect the living men boys it makes our women Happy out here and clap the hand. The city beefsteak and the good pork job Steaming and old Brian pan.
- [35:05]
Narrator/Host
Okay, and now we have a. It's a seven minute clip of a speech that Mario Savio gave in December of 1964 at Sproul 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 putting your body upon the gears of the machine that was quoted in Battlestar Galactica during a labor scene.
- [35:47]
Emma Vigeland
And.
- [35:50]
Narrator/Host
Tim DeChristopher's going to prison 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 if you recall that piece, Kevin Drum, which talked about the cleave between union and many of these 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 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. But. And we've also talked on the show about hopefully how that cleave is closing.
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Interjecting Speaker/Assistant
But.
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Narrator/Host
So here is this clip from Mario Savio. Have a great Labor Day, folks.
- [37:16]
Mario Savio
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 the. He's the nominal head of an organization supposedly representative of the undergraduates, whereas in fact, under the current directors, it derives its authority as delegated power from the administration. It's totally unrepresentative of the graduate students and 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 TA shortage problem, I would encourage you to offer your services to department chairman and advisors. That has two things, a strike breaker and a fink. I'd like to say. 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 Sproul 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. They're as bureaucratized as the administration. It's difficult to get 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, 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. At least two major ways in which it can occur. One, when a law exists, is promulgated which is totally unacceptable to people and they violate it again and again and again till it's rescinded appeal. 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 repealed. Sometimes the grievances of people are more. Extend more 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. 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 regents are the board of directors and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, and I 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 have any process upon us, don't mean to be made into any product, don't mean, don't mean, 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. We're human beings.
- [41:33]
Emma Vigeland
I'M that.
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Mario Savio
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, 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, anything happen 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 Sproul hall and we're going to conduct our lives for a while in the second floor of Sproul Hall. We'll show movies. For example, we tried to get Enchant Amour. Unfortunately, that's tied up in. 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.
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Interjecting Speaker/Assistant
Sad.
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Mario Savio
But Mr. Landau. Mr. Landau has gotten us 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 first and 14th 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.
- [44:17]
Interjecting Speaker/Assistant
Just one moment.
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Mario Savio
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 Sproul Hall. Yeah. And the person is Joan Baez, SA.