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.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My parents were laborers so we lived on South Park, which was a low-income region of Seattle. You had a choice - you either joined or formed a gang or you let others bully you.
I had a great job with the railroad, a good salary.
I resist and resent the idea of California as a metaphor. It's something thrust upon us, usually by people in the East.
The first job I ever had was right here in San Francisco with Southern Pacific.
I pledged California to a Northern Republic and to a flag that should have no treacherous threads of cotton in its warp, and the audience came down in thunder.
For 50 years my father worked for the railroad.
Workers organized and fought for worker rights and food safety, Social Security and Medicare - they fought to change government. And they won.
A lot of the stories I was brought up on had to do with extreme actions - leaving everything behind, crossing the trackless wastes, and in those stories the people who stayed behind and had their settled ways - those people were not the people who got the prize. The prize was California.
The strike of the miners in Arizona was one of the most remarkable strikes in the history of the American labor movement. Its peaceful character, its successful outcome, were due to that most remarkable character, Governor Hunt.
I bought a railroad during this period of time.