Samuel Gompers: Barbarian Money
on Tuesday, August 9, 2022Meaning of Samuel Gompers Money Quote: saying nobody is so low as to offer a child for money unless they are barbarous. Samuel Gompers said:
“No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money” — Samuel Gompers
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In this quote, Samuel Gompers seems to be strongly criticizing the practice of child labor. Some key points:
- He states that “no race of barbarians” in history have committed the act of “offering up children for money” in the way that was occurring through child labor.
- Gompers’ use of the word “barbarians” implies that allowing children to work under dangerous conditions for paltry pay is a barbaric, uncivilized act.
- His reference to children essentially being “offered up” for money conveys the perspective that child labor exploited young lives for the sole purpose of corporate and parental monetary gain with no concern for children’s welfare.
Overall, the quote portrays Gompers’ view that child labor represented an inhumane and morally bankrupt system that treated children as commodities to be consumed and discarded in the name of profit, which even supposedly uncivilized groups had not stooped to according to his strong condemnation of the practice from an ethical standpoint.