Political Quotes

“I just have to say that we cannot think of Charlie without that big smile and the gentleness that he had, the love that he had for this body, and the reflection that he had on the long road it took to get here from a very humble beginning; a person who came, as was said before, from southern Illinois, from rural southern Illinois, came to the big city, the city that Carl Sandburg talked about, the stacker of wheat and the layer of railroads and the hog butcher of the world. That is where Charlie found his beginning, his real economic start in life where he did work in those stockyards in the hog butcher center of the world, that is what he did, something that was not the most wonderful beginning, was not the top job on the economic platform, but Charlie did that. He was proud of it. He was proud of his heritage, proud of what he did. He was proud of his union movement. The role that he played in the union movement in Chicago in the meat cutters union, he would talk about it. He believed in it, and he served that way. And through that service came to this body through a circuitous route. He was certainly a good man. He was a gentle man.”