over the country, from groups of socialists
East and West, there were cables from England, Germany, France, from
Russia, Poland, Norway, from Italy, Spain and even Japan. "Greetings to
our comrades!" came pouring in from all over the earth. What measureless
army of labor was this? All at once the dense mass in the rear would
part to let a new body of men march through. These were new strikers to
swell the ranks, and at their coming all business would stop, there
would be wild cheers and stamping of feet, shrill whistles, pandemonium!

Gradually I began to feel what was happening in this hall. That first
"strike feeling"--diffused, shifting and uncertain--was condensing as in
a storm cloud here, swelling, thickening, whirling, attracting swiftly
to itself all these floating forces. Here was the first awakening of
that mass thought and passion, which swelling later into full life was
to give me such flashes of insight into the deep buried resources of the
common herd of mankind, their resources and their power of vision when
they are joined and fused in a mass. Here in a few hours the great
spirit of the crowd was born.

For now the crowd began to question, think and plan. Ideas were thrown
out pell mell. I found that every plan of action, everything felt and
thought and spoken, though it might start from a single man, was at once
transformed by the feeling of all, expressed in fragments of speech, in
applause, or in loud bursts of laughter, or again by a chilling silence
in which an unwelcome thought soon died. The crowd spoke its will
through many voices, through men who sprang up and talked hard a few
moments, then sat down and were lost to sight--some to rise later again
and again and grow in force of thought and expression, others not to be
seen again, they had simply been parts of the crowd, and the crowd had
made them rise and speak.

On the first day of this labor parliament, up rose a stolid Pole. He was
no committeeman but simply a member of the throng.

"Yo' sand a spickair to my dock," he said. "Pier feefty-two--East
Reever. I t'ink he make de boys come out." He sat down breathing
heavily.

"You don't need any speaker, go yourself," an Irishman called from
across the hall.

"I no spick," said the Pole emphatically.

"You're spicking now, ain't you?" There was a burst of laughter, and
the big man's face grew red. "You don't need to talk," the voice went
on. "Just go into your dock and yell 'Strike!' You