Part 24 (1/2)
The energetic bricklayer told of the recent convert, and the Arlington Hall meeting.
”He can talk? We'll use him. But you can't trust them fellows too far.
I'm not a socialist, you know; don't believe in voting worth a d.a.m.n.
Never got nowhere, never will get nowhere. But in a strike, they help.”
They went over the morning paper. ”Mmm--only a few hundred out----What's the straight goods?”
”Over five hundred from the Judson mines, six fifty from the Birrell-Florence, and about four hundred others from the mines on either side. We haven't touched West Adamsville yet, or Irondale. If only the furnaces could be called out....”
”Won't come. We can try; but mine strikes don't get 'em. No organization. These men all joined?”
”Joined or joining.”
”This says scabs from Pittsburgh.... No law to stop 'em?”
”Ben Spence, our lawyer, says there isn't. In the last street-car strike we tried the law; the courts wouldn't enforce it.”
”How do the boys feel?”
”They want to fight like h.e.l.l. They'll stop the scabs.”
”Got to be careful there. That sort of thing is dynamite; it blows both ways. Company won't hear the committee?”
”Young Judson's father's the reason. Says he won't allow a union man in his shop hereafter. No committees, nor nothing.”
”Let's see the place.”
They walked from the end of the car line. The roads through the property had been made city streets, when Hillcrest Addition was thrown open to the public, and the party could not be stopped. Dawson paused to shake hands with the groups of pickets on the various cross roads. He had a personal word for each, and a concentrated way of getting the details he needed out of the incoherent members of the working body.
Joined by Ben Wilson and several of the pickets, they pa.s.sed into the company estate, and by the entrances to the gap drifts and the second ramp. Only a few negroes were at work in the gap; it was not until the second big slope that the white workers appeared. Dawson looked a question at stocky Wilson, hardly up to his vest pocket.
”Convicts. Almost three hundred of them.”
”Any n.i.g.g.e.rs go out?”
”Half a dozen. You met one, Ed Cole, picketing by Thirtieth Street.”
A red-faced Irishman walked out of a knot of workers and greeted the tall organizer. ”h.e.l.lo, Dawson. Remember me?”
”Your mug's familiar. Lemme see--your name's Hewin, ain't it?”
The superintendent grinned. ”You ought to remember it. You beat h.e.l.l out of me in the Coalstock strike for staying on as foreman.”
”Scab then, eh, and still at it.” Dawson's tolerance had a touch promising danger.
”That's what you'd call it. I'm in charge here. Mind your own business, or I'm not the one who'll get beat up this time.” He turned with grinning ugliness and climbed back to the opening.
They cut over to the railroad track, and entered Hewintown by the back way. Dawson studied the land carefully. ”That's the way they'd bring the train from Pittsburgh, of course. And that's a pretty narrow cut beyond that d.i.n.ky little house. Who lives there?”
”Mr. Judson, the vice-president.”