What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union.

I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.

It was by one Union that we achieved our independence and liberties, and by it alone can they be maintained.

Sometimes it seemed to me I could not look at those silent little figures; that I must go north, to the grim coal fields, to the Rocky Mountain camps, where the labor fight is at least fought by grown men.

We've come a long, long way. We haven't killed a coal miner in a state of Illinois coal mine for two consecutive years.

I come from a coal-mining, working-class background. My father was a coal miner.