Elizabeth Warren 2016
Rebuild the Middle Class.
Announcement Speech
I want to tell you a story.
A little over 100 years ago, textile mills in Lawrence like the ones behind us today employed tens of thousands of people, and immigrants flocked here from more than 50 countries for a chance to work at the looms.
Lawrence was one of the centers of American industry. Business was booming. The guys at the top were doing great, but workers made so little money that families were forced to crowd together in dangerous tenements and live on beans and scraps of bread. Inside the mills, working conditions were horrible. Children were forced to operate dangerous equipment. Workers lost hands, arms and legs in the gears of machines. One out of every three adult mill workers died by the time they were 25.
Then, on January 11, 1912, a group of women who worked right here at the Everett Mill discovered that the bosses had cut their pay. And that was it , the women said “enough is enough.” They shut down their looms and walked out. Soon workers walked out at another mill in town. Then another. Then another , until 20,000 textile workers across Lawrence were on strike. These workers , led by women, didn’t have much. Not even a common language.
But despite these odds, they overcame the challenges to make history's most important accomplishments.
They organized. They embraced common goals. They translated the minutes of their meetings into 25 different languages, so that the English and Irish workers who had been here for years and the Slavic and Syrian workers new to America could stand together.
They hammered out their demands: Fair wages, overtime pay, and the right to join a union.
Big business at the time called those demands a threat to the very survival of America , and the bosses tried to shut it down. They spread rumors and fear about the strikers. One factory owner even paid a guy to plant sticks of dynamite around town so he could frame the workers as a violent mob. The mill owners also owned city government, which declared martial law and called in the militia. Some strikers died in violent clashes with the police. It was a hard fight. Families that were already going to bed hungry had to make do with even less.
They were under attack. But they stuck together , and they won!
Stories like these are the heart of America's progress, the story of solidarity between working families of all races, creeds, and origin. Together, we instituted minimum wage and worker safety laws; they fought for good wages and benefits. They built the country we have today, opening new chapters in the book of American history, through hard work, grit, and sacrifice. It's not the triumph of one person that makes us stronger, it's the triumph of all of us.
Together, they unleashed the progressive era of this country.
I've seen the promise of America in my own life. My mom saved my family with a minimum wage job. My parents would have never dreamed that their daughter would be a U.S. Senator, let alone run for president. But for too many of my fellow Americans, the dream of progress and opportunity is being denied by the grind of an economy that funnels all the wealth to the top. Wall Street crooks and predatory corporations enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice of the pie, they stacked the courts to block campaign finance reform and they stifled unions so nobody could stop them.
We see the effects of it now. The price of everything, childcare, health insurance, prescription drugs, is skyrocketing while the paychecks of working families like mine barely budge. Economic mobility is at an all-time low, families just can't get their way out of the cracks that Koch brothers have set for them. They can't vote out corrupt politicians because corporate executives finance Congress to keep them on their side.
But it doesn't have to be this way.
We CAN unleash the next progressive era.
We CAN rebuild the middle class!
I'm proud to officially announce my candidacy for President of the United States!It's a hard journey ahead of us. Corporate executives and corrupt politicians are ready to stop us at every turn. That's no surprise, they've tried to halt every progressive movement in American history. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said a little under a century ago, "I welcome their hatred." Today, we stand here today to rebuild his testament to our nation's unmatched spirit. 'Equality of opportunity… 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… a wider and constantly rising standard of living.' We can live in a country where those principles ring true for every working family.
I ask you today to join me on this journey.
