went hourly in dread of similar fate befalling
you, your wife had a hard time to make both ends meet. There was a
time when you could save something every week, but for some time
before the strike there was no saving. Your wife complained; your
comrades said that their wives complained. Finally you all agreed that
you could stand it no longer; that you would send a committee to
interview the manager and tell him that, unless you got better wages
and unless something was done to make your lives safer you would go
out on strike.

When you and the manager were chums together he was a kind,
good-hearted, generous fellow, and you felt certain that when the
Committee explained things it would be all right. But you were
mistaken. He cursed at them as though they were dogs, and you could
scarcely believe your own ears. Do you remember how you spoke to your
wife about it, about "the change in Dick"?

You went out on strike. The manager scoured the country for men to
take your places. Ruffianly men came from all parts of the country;
insolent, strife-provoking thugs. More than once you saw your
fellow-workmen attacked and beaten by thugs, and then the police were
ordered to club and arrest--not the aggressors but your comrades. Then
the manager asked the mayor to send for the troops, and the mayor did
as he was bidden do. What else could he do when the leading
stockholders in the company owned and controlled the Republican
machine? So the Republican mayor wired to the Republican Governor for
soldiers and the soldiers came to intimidate you and break the strike.
One day you heard a rifle's sharp crack, followed by a tumult and they
told you that one of your old friends, who used to go swimming with
you and Richard, the manager, had been shot by a drunken sentry,
though he was doing no harm.

You were a Democrat. Your father had been a Democrat and you "just
naturally growed up to be one." As a Democrat you were very bitter
against the Republican mayor and the Republican Governor. You honestly
thought that if there had been a good Democrat in each of those
offices there would have been no soldiers sent into the city; that
your comrade would not have been murdered. You spoke of little else to
your fellows. You nursed the hope that at the next election they would
turn out the Republicans and put the Democrats in.

But that delusion was shattered like all the rest, Jonathan, when,
soon after, the Democratic President you were so