Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/207

 think with your gloved hands you can cure the troubles of the century."

Enid does not know the life of Annie Roberts' class: that it is all a gamble from the "time 'e 's born to the time 'e dies."

Mrs. Roberts. Roberts says workin' folk have always lived from hand to mouth. Sixpence to-day is worth more than a shillin' to-morrow, that's what they say. . . . He says.that when a working man's baby is born, it's a toss-up from breath to breath whether it ever draws another, and so on all 'is life; an' when he comes to be old, it's the workhouse or the grave. He says that without a man is very near, and pinches and stints 'imself and 'is children to save, there can be neither surplus nor security. That's why he wouldn't have no children, not though I wanted them.

The strikers' meeting is a masterly study of mass psychology,-the men swayed hither and thither by the different speakers and not knowing whither to go. It is the smooth-tongued Harness who first weakens their determination to hold out.

Harness. Cut your demands to the right pattern, and we'll see you through; refuse, and don't expect me to waste my time coming down here again. I'm not the sort that speaks at random, as you ought to know by this time. If you're the sound men I take you for-no matter who advises you against it—you'll make up your minds to come in, and trust to us to get your terms.