Upton Sinclair

“ Some of these people, to be sure, were stunted and dulled to a sordid ugliness of soul and body--but on the other hand, some of them were young, and had the light of hope in their hearts, and the spark of rebellion.
There was "Andy," a boy of Greek parentage; Androkulos was his right name--but it was too much to expect any one to get that straight in a coal-camp. Hal noticed him at the store, and was struck by his beautiful features, and the mournful look in his big black eyes. ”

“ Hal was coming to know these people; to see them no longer as a mass, to be despised or pitied in bulk, but as individuals, with individual temperaments and problems, exactly like people in the world of the sunlight. Mary Burke and Tim Rafferty, Cho the Korean and Madvik the Croatian--one by one these individualities etched themselves into the foreground of Hal's picture, making it a thing of life, moving him to sympathy and fellowship. ”

“ So they became too good for their lot in life; and then a wandering agitator would get in, and all of a sudden there would be hell. Therefore in every coal-camp had to be another kind of "fire-boss," whose duty it was to guard against another kind of explosions--not of carbon monoxide, but of the human soul. ”