Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
“During the French Revolution, the noble principles that constituted the Rights of Man and the Citizen were accepted in a moment of clear awareness; in the same way, at the time of the Armistice [of 1918] and at the urging of the labor movement, principles of justice were written into part XIII of the Peace Treaty, in order to bring about social justice, which is the basis for lasting peace.”
Albert Thomas, Conference of the International Federation of Trade Unions, Rome, April 20–26, 1922“I well remember that in those days the ILO was still a dream. To many it was a wild dream. Who had ever heard of Governments getting together to raise the standards of labor on an international plane? Wilder still was the idea that the people themselves who were directly affected—the workers and the employers of the various countries—should have a hand with Government in determining these labor standards.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Address to the ILO,” November 6, 1941“If it had been within any man's power to halt the march of destiny from 1931 towards the economic crisis, the attacks on human dignity, and the aggression which gave rise to a Second World War, Albert Thomas would have been that man. Never would he have stood inert and silent in the face of the growing dangers to peace. Never would he have gone along with those who anesthetized public opinion at a time when it was necessary to open people's eyes and enlighten them against dictatorships, in order to encourage the attitudes necessary to save peace.” When René Cassin paid tribute to Albert Thomas, who had died in 1932, in this speech delivered before the Consultative Assembly of Algiers on May 12, 1944, he saw himself standing at the juncture of two world wars: the Great War, bearer of hopes for peace, hopes betrayed during the 1930s, and the fight of the French Resistance, which kept alive the quest for justice begun by veterans of World War I.
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