Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/103

92 "Understand me,"—the speaker shook his forefinger impressively,—"I'm saying nothing against Mr.—or Colonel—Halket. Maybe he's better than most capitalists; maybe he ain't But, one thing's sure; he's got you men sewed up here in New Rome, that's what he has; and it ain't as if you was in a city where you could keep your home and change your employment; here there's just one thing you can do, and you've got to do it as he says for what he says, or you're uprooted, you and your families, and you've got no place to go. It's the duty of you men to band together for the protection of the individual. Within three months there won't be a mill in all Avalon that ain't organized, and there ain't half the reason for it there that there is here. Labor there is naturally more independent, capital has to make concessions."

"Oh, you make me tired," Farrell interrupted hotly. "You talk like an anarchist,—you work with your mouth. I've got no kick coming; I get good wages—better than any of your union men in Avalon. You run your union in here,—and you limit my output, and you make me pay so much a week to the union, and you call me out when I don't want to go—and then you or some bum like you fixes up the deal for a hundred or two, and I go back to work, and I'm out maybe a month's and maybe two months' pay. To hell with the unions!"

The walking delegate heard him with a bland and scornful sneer. "My young friend," he said, "I ain't going to condescend to resent your remarks. That ain't the part of a missionary—and I am tryin' to do as Christian missionary work as was ever carried to the heathen in Africa, I don't descend to personalities, I don't seek to obscure the issue. I say nothing against you or them that holds views similar to yours, I say nothing against Mr.—or Colonel—Halket. He may be wanting to do more for labor than labor wants to do for itself. But some day he may be no longer with us. There may be a change of