THE STOLEN STRIKE
Tom mounted the stairs of Potomac Hall early the next evening. During
the day he had told a few friends the story of the encounter of the
night before. The story had spread in versions more or less vague and
distorted, and now on his entry of the hall he was beset by a crowd who
demanded a true and detailed account of the affair. This he gave.
"Oh, come now, Tom! This's hot air you're handin' us out about Babe!"
expostulated one of the men.
"It's the truth."
"Get out! I saw Kid Morgan chase him a block. He can't fight."
"You think not? Well, there's one way you can convince yourself."
"How's that?"
"Try it with him for about a minute," answered Tom.
There was a laugh, in which the man joined. "I tell you what, boys," he
said, after it had subsided. "I hit Babe on the back o' the neck with a
glove the day Kid chased him. If what Tom says is straight, I'm goin' to
beg Babe's pardon in open meetin'."
"Me, too," chimed in another.
"It's so," said Tom, thinking with a smile of what was in store for
Petersen.
For some reason, perhaps one having to do with their personal pride,
Jake and his fellows did not appear that night, though several hundred
men waited their coming with impatient greetings. But just before Tom
opened the session Petersen entered the hall and slipped into an obscure
seat near the door.
He was immediately recognized. "Petersen!" someone announced.
Straightway men arose all over the hall and turned about to face him.
"Petersen!" "Petersen!" "What's the matter with Petersen!" the cries
went up, and there was a great clapping of hands.
Petersen sprang to his feet in wild consternation. Yes, they were
looking at him. Yes, that was his name. He didn't know what it meant----
But the next instant he had bolted out of the hall.
When the shouting had died away Tom called the union to order. He was
filled with an exultant sense of certain triumph; he had kept an
estimating eye on the members as they had filed in; an easy majority of
the men were with him, and as their decision would be by open vote there
would be no chance for Foley to stuff a ballot-box.
Pete, the instructed spokesman for Tom's party, was the first man on his
feet. "Mr. President," he said, "I move we drop the reg'lar order o'
business an' proceed at once to new business."
Tom put the motion to rising vote. His confidence grew as he looked
about the hall, for the rising vote on the motion showed how strong his
majority really was.
"Motion carried!" he shouted, and brought down his gavel.
The next instant a dozen men were on their feet waving their right hands
and crying, "Mr. Chairman." One was Pete, ten were good-intentioned but
uninformed friends, and one was Foley. Tom's eyes fastened upon Foley,
and his mind worked quickly.
"Mr. Foley," he said.
A murmur of surprise ran among Tom's friends. But he had his reason for
this slight deviation from his set plan. He knew that Foley was opposed
to a strike; if he let Foley go on record against it in a public speech,
then his coming victory over the walking delegate would be all the more
decisive.
Foley looked slowly about upon the men, and for a moment did not speak.
Then he said suddenly, in a conversational tone: "Boys, how much youse
gettin'?"
"Three seventy-five," several voices answered.
"How long youse been gettin' it?"
"Two years."
"Yes," he said, his voice rising and ringing with intensity. "Two years
youse've been workin' for three seventy-five. The bosses' profits have
been growin' bigger an' bigger. But not a cent's raise have youse had.
Not a cent, boys! Now here's what I say."
He paused, and thrust out his right arm impressively. Tom regarded him
in sickened, half-comprehending amazement.
"Here's what I say, boys! I say it's time we had more money. I say we
ought to make the blood-suckin' bosses give up a part o' what's comin'
to us. That's what I say!" And he swung his doubled fist before his face
in a great semi-circle.
He turned to Tom, with a leer in his eyes that was for Tom alone. "Mr.
President, I move we demand a ten per cent. increase o' wages, an' if
the bosses won't give it, strike for it!"
Tom sank stupefied back in his chair. Foley's own men were bewildered
utterly. A dead silence of a minute or more reigned in the hall, while
all but the walking delegate strove to recover their bearing.
It was Connelly who broke the general trance. Connelly did not
understand, but there was Foley's standing order, "Watch me, an' do the
same." "I second the motion," he said.
A little later Foley's strike measure was carried without a single
dissenting vote. Foley, Connelly, Brown, Pete, and Tom, with Foley as
chairman, were elected the committee to negotiate with the employers for
higher wages, and, if there should be a strike, to manage it.
The adoption of the strike measure meant to Foley that the income
derived from Mr. Baxter, and two or three others with whom he maintained
somewhat similar relations, was to be cut off. But before he reached
home that night he had discovered a compensation for this loss, and he
smiled with grim satisfaction. The next morning he presented himself in
the office of Mr. Baxter, and this same grim smile was on his face.
"Hello, Baxter! How youse stackin' up this mornin'?" And he clapped a
hand on Mr. Baxter's artistically padded shoulder.
The contractor started at this familiarity, and a slight frown showed
itself on his brow. "Very well," he said shortly.
"Really, now. Why, youse look like youse slept alongside a bad dream."
Foley drew forth his cigar-case and held it out. He knew Mr. Baxter did
not smoke cigars and hated their smell.
"No, thank you."
The walking delegate put one in his mouth and scratched a match under
the edge of the cherry table. "I don't s'pose youse know there was
doin's at the union last night?"
"I understand the union decided to strike."
"Wonderful, ain't it, how quick news travels?"
Mr. Baxter disregarded Foley's look of mock surprise. "You seem to have
failed utterly to keep your promise that there would be no strike," he
said coldly.
"It was Keating stirred it up," Foley returned, calmly biting a bit off
his cigar and blowing it out upon the deep red rug.
"You also failed to stop Mr. Keating," Mr. Baxter pursued.
"Mr. Baxter, even the best of us makes our mistakes. I bet even youse
ain't cheated every man youse've counted on cheatin'."
Mr. Baxter gave another little start, as when Foley had slapped his
shoulder. "Furthermore, I understand you, yourself, made the motion to
strike."
"The way youse talk sometimes, Baxter, makes me think youse must 'a'
been born about minute before last," Foley returned blandly. "As an
amachure diplomat, youse've got Mayor Low skinned to death. Sure I made
the motion. An' why did I make the motion? If I hadn't 'a' made it, but
had opposed it, where'd I 'a' been? About a thousand miles outside the
outskirts o' nowhere,--nobody in the union, an' consequently worth about
as much to youse as a hair in a bowl o' soup. I stood to lose both. I
still got the union."
"What do you propose that we do?" Mr. Baxter held himself in, for the
reason that he supposed the old relation would merely give place to a
new.
"Well, there's goin' to be strike. The union'll make a demand, an' I
rather guess youse'll not give up without a fight."
"We shall certainly fight," Mr. Baxter assured him.
"Well," he drawled, "since I've got to lead the union in a strike an'
youse're goin' to fight the strike, it seems like everything'd have to
be off between us, don't it?"
Mr. Baxter did not reply at once, and then did not answer the question.
"What are you going to do?"
"To tell youse, that is just what I came here for." In a flash Foley's
manner changed from the playful to the vindictive, and he leaned slowly
forward in his chair. "I'm goin' to fight youse, Baxter, an' fight youse
like hell!" he said, between barely parted teeth. And his gray eyes,
suddenly hard, gazed maliciously into Mr. Baxter's face.
"I'm goin' to fight like hell!" he went on. "For two years I've been
standin' your damned manicured manners. Youse've acted like I wasn't fit
to touch. Why d'youse s'pose I've stood it? Because it was money to me.
Now that there's no money in it, d'youse s'pose I'm goin' to stand it
any longer? Not much, by God! And d'youse think I've forgotten the
past--your high-nosed, aristocratic ways? Well, youse'll remember 'em
too! My chance's come, an' I'm goin' to fight youse like hell!"
At the last Foley's clenched fist was under Mr. Baxter's nose. The
contractor did not stir the breadth of a hair. "Mr. Foley," he said in
his cold, even voice, "I think you know the shortest way out of this
office."
"I do," said Foley. "An' it's a damned sight too long!"
He gave Mr. Baxter a long look, full of defiant hate, contemptuously
flipped his half-smoked cigar on Mr. Baxter's spotless desk, and strode
out.