eming foreign quarters, jamming into barrooms, voicing
wildest rumors, talking, shouting, pounding tables with huge fists. And
to me there was nothing inspiring but only something terrible here, an
appalling force turned loose, sightless and unguided. What a fool I had
been to hope. The harbor held no miracles.

The strike leaders seemed to have little control. Headquarters were in
the wildest disorder. Into the big bare meeting hall and through the
rooms adjoining drifted multitudes of men. There were no inner private
rooms and Marsh saw everyone who came. He was constantly shaking hands
or drawling casual orders, more like suggestions than commands. I caught
sight of Joe Kramer's face at his desk, where he was signing and giving
out union cards to a changing throng that kept pressing around him.
Joe's face was set and haggard. He had been at that desk all night.

"It's hopeless. They can do nothing," I thought.

But when I came back the next morning I felt a sudden shock of
surprise. For in some mysterious fashion a crude order had appeared. The
striker throng had poured into the hall, filled all the seats and then
wedged in around the walls. They were silent and attentive now. On the
stage sat Marsh and his fellow leaders. Before them in the first three
rows of seats was the Central Committee, a rough parliament sprung up
over night. Each member, I found, had been elected the night before by
his "district committee." These district bodies had somehow formed in
the last two days and in them leaders had arisen. The leaders were here
to plan together, the mass was here to make sure they planned right. And
watching the deep rough eagerness on all those silent faces, that vague
hope stirred again in my breast.

Presently I caught Joe's eye. At once he left his platform seat and came
to me in the rear of the hall.

"Come on, Bill," he said. "We want you up here." And we made our way up
to the platform. There Marsh reached over and gripped my hand.

"Hello, Bill, glad you're with us," he said. I tingled slightly at his
tone and at a thousand friendly eyes that met mine for an instant. Then
it was over. The work went on.

What they did at first seemed haphazard enough. Reports from the
districts were being read with frequent interruptions, petty corrections
and useless discussions that strayed from the point and made me
impatient. And yet wide vistas opened here. Telegrams by the dozen were
read from labor unions all