've got chest enough,
you Pollock."

The big Pole made his way out of the hall. In the rear I saw him light
his pipe and puff and scowl in a puzzled way. Then he disappeared. The
next day, in the midst of some discussion, he rose from another part of
the hall.

"I want to say I strike my dock," he shouted. Nobody seemed to hear him,
it had nothing whatever to do with the subject, but he sat down with a
glow of pride.

A Norwegian had arisen and was speaking earnestly, but his English was
so wonderful that no one could understand.

"Shut up, you big Swede, go and learn English," somebody said.

"He don't have to shut up." The voice of Marsh cut in, and the mass
backed up his curt rebuke by a murmur of approval. He had risen and come
forward, and now waited till there was absolute silence. "Everyone gets
a hearing here," he said. "We've got nine nationalities, but each one
checks his race at the door. Every man is to have a fair show. What we
need is an interpreter. Where's someone who can help this Swede?"

There was a quick stirring in the mass and then a man was shoved out of
it. He went over to the speaker, who at once began talking intensely.

"The first thing he wants to say," said the interpreter at the end of
the torrent, "is that he'd rather be dead than a Swede. He says he's a
Norwegian. His second point is that all bad feeling between
nationalities ought to be stopped if the strike's to be won. He says
he's seen fights already between Irish and Eyetalians."

Up leaped an enormous negro docker who sounded as though he preached
often on Sundays.

"Yes, brothers," he boomed, "let us stop our fights. Let us desist--let
us refrain. We are men from all countries, black and white. The last
speaker came from Norway--he came from way up there in the North. My
father came from Africa----"

"He must have come last Monday," said a dry, thin voice from the back of
the hall, and there was a laugh.

"Brothers," cried the black man, "I come here from the colored race. At
my dock I got over sixty negroes to walk out. Is there no place for us
in this strike? If my father was a slave, is my color so against me?"

"It ain't your color, it's your scabbing," a sharp voice interrupted.
"They broke the last strike with coons like you. They brought you up in
boats from the South. And you scabbed--you scabbed yourself! Didn't you?
You did! You ---- of a nigger!"

A little Italian sprang up in reply. He did not look like