Howard was out, and when the woman had gone Anthony
ordered his car. Lily, frightened by the look
on his face, made only one protest.
“You mustn’t go alone,” she said.
“Let me go, too. Or take Grayson—anybody.”
But he went alone; in the hall he picked up his hat
and stick, and drew on his gloves.
“What is the house number?”
Lily told him and he went out, moving deliberately,
like a man who has made up his mind to follow a certain
course, but to keep himself well in hand.
Acting on Willy Cameron’s suggestion, Dan Boyd
retained his membership in the union and frequented
the meetings. He learned various things, that
the strike vote had been padded, for instance, and
that the Radicals had taken advantage of the absence
of some of the conservative leaders to secure such
support as they had received. He found the better
class of workmen dissatisfied and unhappy. Some
of them, men who loved their tools, had resented the
order to put them down where they were and walk out,
and this resentment, childish as it seemed, was an
expression of their general dissatisfaction with the
autocracy they had themselves built up.
Finally Dan’s persistent attendance and meek
acquiescence, added to his war record, brought him
reward. He was elected member of a conference
to take to the Central Labor Council the suggestion
for a general strike. It was arranged that the
delegates take the floor one after the other, and
hold it for as long as possible. Then they were
to ask the President of the Council to put the question.
The arguments were carefully prepared. The general
strike was to be urged as the one salvation of the
labor movement. It would prove the solidarity
of labor. And, at the Council meeting a few days
later, the rank and file were impressed by the arguments.
Dan, gnawing his nails and listening, watched anxiously.
The idea was favorably received, and the delegates
went back to their local unions, to urge, coerce and
threaten.
Not once, during the meeting, had there been any suggestion
of violence, but violence was in the air, nevertheless.
The quantity of revolutionary literature increased
greatly during the following ten days, and now it
was no longer furtively distributed. It was
sold or given away at all meetings; it flooded the
various headquarters with its skillful compound of
lies and truth. The leaders notified of the
situation, pretended that it was harmless raving,
a natural and safe outlet for suppressed discontents.
Dan gathered up an armful of it and took it home.
On a Sunday following, there was a mass meeting at
the Colosseum, and a business agent of one of the
unions made an impassioned speech. He recited
old and new grievances, said that the government had
failed to live up to its promises, that the government
boards were always unjust to the workers, and ended
with a statement of the steel makers’ profits.
Dan turned impatiently to a man beside him.
