The hooting and jeering broke with savage, almost bestial fury. Doggedly
Pelham kept to his feet, in spite of the efforts of Serrano and others
to drag him down. "This is terrible, comrade," whispered Serrano. "You'd
better leave----"
At length Bowden got the eye of the chair again. "I move that we give
five minutes to Mr. Judson to 'explain', as he calls it, his scabbing."
In simple language Pelham told of his training in a home dedicated to
the fight against labor; of his acts at New Haven, while a college
student; of his conversion to socialism and the cause of labor. He did
not mention what it had cost him; a few remembered this. When he came to
his New Haven experiences, the hissing began, swelled in volume. All of
the chair's entreaties could not stop it.
"If you think, comrades, that my usefulness on this committee is over, I
hereby resign. But I can assure you that nothing will shake my efforts
in the cause for which I have fought, am fighting, and will continue to
fight."
No eloquence could have moved them. The mass psychology of the meeting
demanded a victim; here was one before them. The shrivelling strike
months of turmoil and undernourishment had thrown them back into a
lower, more barbarous state; their sense of justice was perverted from
ultimate social equality and order into a primitive condemnation of the
accursed thing that had brought them into this predicament. They were
only too ready to throw a Jonah to the deep, as an expiatory sacrifice
to the omnipotent god who doled out bi-weekly pay-envelopes. They were
in a starving panic to get back to the skimpy flesh-pots of a darker
Egypt.
It was moved and seconded that the resignation be accepted. An earburst
of "ayes" were for the proposition; one or two scattering voices
registered weak negatives.
"The motion is carried."
The sudden blow had crushed all opposition. The resolutions to end the
strike were accepted without debate.
Jack Bowden, highly satisfied with the night's work, went over to the
state office with Bob Bivens and John Pooley. "Reckon I better destroy
that?" he grinned, handing a letter out to the big State president.
It was from Henry Tuttle, on the company's legal stationery, enclosing
the affidavits relating to Pelham's activities in the New Haven strike.
The letter was burned, the ashes scattered.
The next afternoon's _Register_ informed Pelham of the company's terms,
which were to take back all except the ringleaders, some twenty in
number--he noticed the names of Jensen and the committeemen heading
it--at the old rate, with an agreement from each man binding him not to
join the union. The strikers under arrest, continued the account, would
be discharged in all probability, except in cases of serious nature.
The same paper contained the sparse outline of another story, which
Pelham read with a growing horror.
At three-thirty the previous afternoon, an old man had entered the
mining company's office, and asked for Paul Judson.
"What name?"
His watery blue eyes danced peculiarly beneath stringy white hair. "He
doesn't know me. It's important."
"We must have your name."
Fumbling first on one foot, then the other, he eyed the uninterested
clerk closely. At length he made up his mind. "My name is
Duckworth--Christopher Duckworth, tell him. I've come about the
settlement of the strike."
She marked down the name, snapping to the drawer. "He's out of town
to-day."
"When does he return?"
"Maybe late this evening ... maybe not until to-morrow."