CHAPTER XXXI. UNACCUSTOMED AS I AM TO PUBLIC SPEAKING

With father's warning on my mind I went to the meeting where the strike

was to be voted. Nobody had opposed the strike, for the cause was

plainly a just one. The men wanted their pay to be issued to them every

week, and they were entitled to it. The only question in my mind was one

of expediency. Could we hope to win a strike at a time like that when

the mills were on the verge of closing because of bad business?

While the speakers were presenting the reasons for the strike I noticed

that not a man examined or discussed the dangers in it. The mind of the

meeting was made up. I was talking to the fellow who sat beside me, and

I told him what my father had written me.

“I agree,” he said. “A strike at a time like this doesn't seem to be the

right thing to do.”

“If you don't think it a wise move,” I said, “why don't you get up

and say so. For this meeting is going to vote strike in the next two

minutes, sure as fate.”

“I can't make a speech,” he said. “You do it.”

The men were paid monthly checks and had never heard any complaint from

their landlords and grocerymen who were willing to wait for their pay.

The complaint had been made by a few outsiders who wanted to see money

circulate faster in town and thus boom things up a bit. They had aroused

the strike spirit of the men by speeches like this:

“The bosses own you body and soul. They regard you as slaves. Your work

makes them rich and yet they won't pay for your work. While they are

piling up profits you go around without a nickel in your jeans. At

the end of the week you want your pay. Why don't they give it to you?

Because they would sooner borrow money without interest from you than

go to the bank and pay eight per cent. for it. You men are their bankers

and don't know it. You could have your money in the bank instead of in

their pockets--it would be drawing interest for you instead of drawing

interest for them! The interest on the wages of you men is five hundred

sixty dollars a month. No wonder they hold your pay for a month and put

that five hundred and sixty dollars in their pockets. But those wages

are yours as fast as you earn them. The interest on your money belongs

to you. That five hundred and sixty dollars a month belongs in your

pockets. But it will go into the bosses' pockets as long as you are

willing to be robbed. You have rights, but they trample on them when you

will not fight for your rights. Are you mice or men?”

When it was put that way they answered that they were men. The strike

was “sold” to them before the meeting, without their having had a chance

to state their side of it. I felt that this was wrong. There are lynch

verdicts in this world as well as verdicts of justice. When men have a

chance to make up their own minds their verdict is always just. But here

a little group who knew what they wanted had stampeded the minds of the

men, and a verdict won that way is like a mob verdict.

I decided to get up and speak, although it was really too late. It

seemed to me like calling a doctor after the patient is dead. “Men,”

I said, “I'm a newcomer here and I never made a speech in my life. I

wouldn't try to now, only I've been asked to by others--by somebody

that's been here a long time. He thinks there ought to be a little more

said before we ballot. It's a hot day and I don't want to keep you here

if you don't want to listen to me. What I've got to say probably don't

amount to much.”

“Go ahead,” somebody said.

“We've decided to strike, and I don't know how it will turn out. I've

been out of work for several months and you fellows haven't, so I can

tell you what it's like. The country is thronging with idle men. If we

lose this strike we can roam all over the country before we find another

job. I came all the way here from Alabama, where they drove a bunch of

iron workers into the peonage camps, and I was glad to get out alive.

Conditions are awful bad in this country and I have been trying to study

'em. Money is scarcer now than it's ever been before. They tell us that

the bosses are keeping our wages in their pockets. That's a mistake.

They haven't got anything in their pockets. They've mortgaged their

homes and pledged everything they own. They're having a devil of a time

to rake up the money every month to meet the pay-roll when it's due.

They aren't taking in the money as fast as they're paying it out. Their

salesmen are on the road trying to sell tin plate, but the tinners are

so hard up that few of them can buy.

“I believe we ought to get our pay every week, but how can we get it if

the boss hasn't got it? We've got to look at this thing in the light of

facts. The facts are that we have our jobs and are sure of our pay once

a month. There are a million men who would like to have what we have.

Those men will swarm in and take our jobs. You can't stop them. A hungry

man can't be stopped by the cry of 'scab.' You all know that there are

so many union men now idle that we have to pass around our jobs to keep

the men in this town from starving. When word goes out that we have

struck, you'll see the workers swarm in here like locusts. They'll be

glad to take their pay by the month. What's the use of a strike that

hasn't got a chance to win? We joined the union to make our jobs secure

and to get good pay. We're getting good pay. Our jobs are secure unless

we lose them in this strike.

“I don't believe we've looked at both sides of the case. I don't believe

the boys really want this strike. The demand for it originated outside

our ranks. Who started it? Wasn't it started by fellows who want us to

get our pay quicker so they can get it quicker? They're the ones that

worked up this strike. They tell us that the bosses are robbing us

because they hold our pay till the end of the month. They say we ought

to have it in the bank. They know we wouldn't put it in the bank. You

know we wouldn't put it in the bank. We don't want to put it in the

bank, and you bet your boots they don't want us to put it in the bank.

They're liars when they say they're boosting for the banks. They're

boosting for their own pockets.

“But we've really got our money in a bank--or what's good as a bank. The

mill keeps our money for us just the way a bank would. No bank in town

pays interest on checking accounts, you know that. Then why take our

money out of the mill office and put it in a bank? It's just as safe in

the mill office. And you've got the right to draw on it if you really

need money in the middle of the month. Only in case of death or accident

does a man need money in the middle of the month. And he can go to the

pay window and get it when he needs it. The doctor doesn't send his bill

till the end of the month. The landlord doesn't collect the rent till

the end of the month. The grocer and butcher let you run a bill till the

end of the month. Some of us are really better off getting our pay at

the end of the month. For it's all there for us and we can pay our bills

promptly and hold up our heads as men. If we didn't leave our money in

the office until the end of the month, we might blow it in at a bar, and

when the wife wanted money to pay the rent and food bill we would have

to tell her we were broke and she would have to hang her head. When the

landlord and butcher came for the money she would have to try to stand

them off. Do we want to let the rent go unpaid until the landlord cusses

us out? Is that what we are striking for? If the landlord and butcher

are willing to wait till we draw our pay, we ought to be willing too.

Isn't it better to wait a month for pay than to wait a year? I'm right

here to tell you that after this strike we'll wait for our pay until

hell freezes over and the devil goes skating.

“Let us make no mistake. We are calling this strike not of our own free

will, but were shoved into it by a lot of slick talkers that are in

business and are not workers. They have hoodwinked us. They have made

fools of us. A speaker asked are we mice or men. I ask them are they

rats or men. I want these rats to come out of their holes and stand upon

this floor. Who was the first man that suggested this strike? I want to

see the color of his hair. Stand up, if he's in the hall. If he isn't

here, why isn't he?”

No one answered.

“If this strike was called by outsiders,” I cried, “why don't the

outsiders do the striking? Whose jobs will be lost in this strike--our

jobs or the outsiders' jobs? If the man who started this strike has a

job that won't be lost in the strike, then I claim that we have made a

bad mistake. And if we're making a mistake, men, what are we going to do

about it?”

I sat down, exhausted by the first attempt at public pleading I had ever

made. Everything grew dark about me, and I knew that I had done my best

and that I was through. I was quite young, and I went to pieces like an

untrained runner who had overdone himself.

The men were talking to one another, and somebody moved that the meeting

take a recess until after supper. It would give time to think it over

and find out what the men really thought about the strike proposition.