sed the dangers in it. The mind of the
meeting was made up. I was talking to the fellow who sat beside me, and
I told him what my father had written me.

"I agree," he said. "A strike at a time like this doesn't seem to be the
right thing to do."

"If you don't think it a wise move," I said, "why don't you get up
and say so. For this meeting is going to vote strike in the next two
minutes, sure as fate."

"I can't make a speech," he said. "You do it."

The men were paid monthly checks and had never heard any complaint from
their landlords and grocerymen who were willing to wait for their pay.
The complaint had been made by a few outsiders who wanted to see money
circulate faster in town and thus boom things up a bit. They had aroused
the strike spirit of the men by speeches like this:

"The bosses own you body and soul. They regard you as slaves. Your work
makes them rich and yet they won't pay for your work. While they are
piling up profits you go around without a nickel in your jeans. At
the end of the week you want your pay. Why don't they give it to you?
Because they would sooner borrow money without interest from you than
go to the bank and pay eight per cent. for it. You men are their bankers
and don't know it. You could have your money in the bank instead of in
their pockets--it would be drawing interest for you instead of drawing
interest for them! The interest on the wages of you men is five hundred
sixty dollars a month. No wonder they hold your pay for a month and put
that five hundred and sixty dollars in their pockets. But those wages
are yours as fast as you earn them. The interest on your money belongs
to you. That five hundred and sixty dollars a month belongs in your
pockets. But it will go into the bosses' pockets as long as you are
willing to be robbed. You have rights, but they trample on them when you
will not fight for your rights. Are you mice or men?"

When it was put that way they answered that they were men. The strike
was "sold" to them before the meeting, without their having had a chance
to state their side of it. I felt that this was wrong. There are lynch
verdicts in this world as well as verdicts of justice. When men have a
chance to make up their own minds their verdict is always just. But here
a little group who knew what they wanted had stampeded the minds of the
men, and a verdict won that way is like a mob verdict.

I decided to get up and speak, although it was really too lat