Political Quotes

“I rise for a brief period of time to pay tribute to a Pennsylvanian who just passed away this past week, a constituent of mine whose family I have known for many years. I think he is like a lot of people in our communities and in our States who lead lives of service and struggle and achievement, and often their lives are not the subject of big stories and headlines. When I think of Alex George, Sr.--who is the father of Bill George, or William George, who is the president of the AFL-CIO in Pennsylvania--I think of those people who grew up in parts of western Pennsylvania, where over many generations steel was the foundation of the economy, and in places like where Mr. George lived, Aliquippa, PA, which is a very strong community that had a thriving steel industry that is now largely gone from the city and that community. It is not nearly what it was when thousands of people were employed. Alex George, like a lot of Pennsylvanians and, frankly, a lot of Americans, lived a life of triumph where he had to overcome difficulties in his own life, and then he became a union leader of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steelworkers, which was the forerunner, of course, of the modern day Steelworkers Union that his son, Bill George, joined many years later. We think of his life today and what he did for the labor movement of western Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania generally, and also what he did as a law enforcement officer.”