Political Quotes

“today I wish to pay tribute to my hometown of Scranton, PA, as it celebrates its 150th anniversary, or sesquicentennial. Ever since William Penn invited carpenters, masons, weavers, and other skilled workers to settle in Pennsylvania, the story of our Commonwealth, and in particular northeastern Pennsylvania, has been the story of working people. At the dawn of the 19th century, what would become known as the city of Scranton became a home to new immigrants who fought desperately to escape the horrors of religious persecution, famine, and poverty in Europe and dreamed of a better life. Many of the new settlers worked in the darkness and danger of the anthracite coal mines in order to provide for their families. My grandfather, Alphonsus Casey, at the age of 11, was one of those workers. He was a ``mule boy'' who was once kicked in the face by a mule, sustaining a deep cut from his forehead, across his face. As my father would recall years later, ``There were no benefits--no worker's compensation, no safety net in place to take care of the adult worker, much less an injured child.'' A 2002 book, ``A History of the Commonwealth,'' described the lives of our region's coal miners as ones of ``danger and economic uncertainty.'' The great novelist Stephen Crane recounted a visit to one mine in the region by describing an ``extraordinary, black puzzle'' in which the ``shouts of mule-boys'' were sometimes the only sounds.…”