tell you there," she fairly shrieked, "that I want the girls
to strike!"
Marrin turned.
"Can't you shut up?"
And then Sally wheeled about and spoke to the two hundred.
"Girls! come on out! We'll tie him up! We're not like the men! _We_
won't stand for such things, will we?"
Then, in the stillness, Jewish girls here and there rose from their
machines. It was like the appearance of apparitions. How did it come
that these girls were more ready than any one could have guessed, and
were but waiting the call? More and more arose, and low murmurs spread,
words, "It's about time! I won't slave any more! He had no right to put
out Izon! The men are afraid! Mr. Blaine is right!"
Marrin tried to shout:
"I order you to get to work!"
But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of
tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about.
Sally marched down the aisle.
"Follow me, girls! We're going to have a union!"
It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the
rats--there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing
about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded
the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and
disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps. The two
hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and
submissive, had risen and gone.
Marrin looked apoplectic. He rushed over to where the forty-four men
were sitting like frightened animals. He spoke to the one nearest him.
"Who was that girl? I've seen her somewhere!"
"She?" the man stammered. "That's Joe Blaine's girl."
"_Joe Blaine_!" cried Marrin.
"Look," said the man, handing Marrin a copy of _The Nine-Tenths_, "the
girls read this this morning. That's why they struck."
Marrin seized the paper. He saw the title:
FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN
and he read beneath it:
Theodore Marrin, and the forty-four who went back to
work for him:
Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship.
Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade.
Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees.
And then farther down:
No decent human being would work for such a man.
He has no right to be an employer--not in such hands
should be placed the sacred welfare of men and women.
If I were one of Marrin's employees I would prefer the
streets to his shop.
Marrin looked up at the forty-four. And he saw t
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