ver the piles of brick
and sand and of crates and barrels dumped by the trucks, and out over
the water they covered the barges and the tugs, and there were even
hundreds upon the roofs of docksheds. The yelp of a dog was heard now
and then and the faint cries of children. But the mass as a whole stood
motionless, without a sound. They had stood thus since two o'clock, and
now the sun was setting. To the west the harbor was empty, no smoke from
ships obscured the sun, and it shone with radiant clearness upon eleven
races of men, upon Italians, Germans, French, on English, Poles and
Russians, on Negroes and Norwegians, Lascars, Malays, Coolies, on
figures burly, figures puny, faces white and faces swarthy, yellow,
brown and black. The sun shone upon all alike--except where that Morgan
liner, still lying unloaded at her dock, threw a long dark creeping
shadow out across the throng.

Thirty thousand people were here. Thirty thousand intensely alive. As I
eagerly watched their faces it was not their poverty now but their
boundless fresh vitality that took hold of me so hard. I had read many
radical books of late, in my groping for a foothold, and I had found
most of them dry affairs. But now the crowd through its leaders had laid
hold upon the thoughts in these books, had made them its own and so
given them life. In the process the thoughts had been twisted and bent,
some parts ignored and others brought out of all their nice proportions.
Exaggeration, sentiment, all kinds of crudity were here. But it was
crudity alive, a creed was here in action. Out of all the turmoil, the
take and give, the jar and clash back there in the meeting hall, had
come certain thoughts and passions, hopes and plans, that the multitude
had not ignored or hooted but had caught up and cheered into life. And
these ideas that they had cheered were now being pounded back into their
minds. Monotonous repetition, you say? Yes, monotonous repetition--slow
sledgehammer blows upon something red hot--pounding, pounding,
pounding--that when it cooled its shape might be changed.

Nora Ganey was speaking.

"Look at those ocean liners!" she cried. Her voice was sharp and
strident. "They're paralyzed now, and because they are they're costing
the big companies millions of dollars every day. That's what their time
is worth to their owners. But what are those ships worth to you? Ten
dollars a week and a broken arm--or a leg or a skull, you can take your
choice. S