hall be extended after next
Saturday. This means that, for the men who are laid off, there is
nothing left but starvation."

Trueman is troubled at this statement. He has always been an opponent of
the "Company Store" system; now he sees that it is likely to be the
potent factor in exciting the miners to revolt.

"All I can promise you, is that I shall work in your interests and get
as speedy a reply as possible," he repeats. "By the by," he adds, "will
you come with me to my office now, I want you to go over some of the
details of the 'Homestead Strike' with me. I want to see what lessons I
can gather from it which will help me to advise Purdy in the present
trouble. You were in the Homestead strike, were you not?"

By a nod of his head, Metz answers in the affirmative.

They are seated in the office of the young attorney for the next hour,
during which period they review the events of the great iron strike of
'92; the reasons that led to it, and the similarity of the conditions
that exist in Wilkes-Barre.

Having given Trueman the details of the Homestead affair, Metz explains
the existing grievances of the miners of Wilkes-Barre as follows:

"The question raised by the miners is not one for advanced wages; it is
not one of reduced hours; it is not a demand for proper protection for
themselves in the mines. These things they have asked for time and
again--little enough for men who wear out their lives in the darkness
and damp of the mines. But these things they have never been able to
obtain.

"A bare living is all that the mine owners would concede to the miners.
This living, meagre as it was, sufficed to keep life in the miners and
their families.

"Now the miners are to be deprived of the crust of bread. You cannot
snatch the bone from a hungry dog, without danger. Do you imagine that a
man has less spirit than a beast?

"The whole trouble, Mr. Trueman, arises from the formation of the Coal
Trust. I have all the facts in regard to this matter. And so far as that
goes, there is not a man in the labor organizations of this country who
does not keep in touch with the events of the day. The education of the
masses is a dangerous thing in a land that is ruled by force, fraud and
finesse, as the United States is to-day.

"It is the Coal Trust that has brought on this threatened strike.

"When there were independent coal companies, the condition of the miners
was better by far than it is to-day. The unrestric