"I believe we ought to get our pay every week, but how can we get it if the boss hasn't got it? We've got to look at this thing in the light of facts. The facts are that we have our jobs and are sure of our pay once a month. There are a million men who would like to have what we have. Those men will swarm in and take our jobs. You can't stop them. A hungry man can't be stopped by the cry of 'scab.' You all know that there are so many union men now idle that we have to pass around our jobs to keep the men in this town from starving. When word goes out that we have struck, you'll see the workers swarm in here like locusts. They'll be glad to take their pay by the month. What's the use of a strike that hasn't got a chance to win? We joined the union to make our jobs secure and to get good pay. We're getting good pay. Our jobs are secure unless we lose them in this strike.
"I don't believe we've looked at both sides of the case. Idon't believe the boys really want this strike. The demand for it originated outside our ranks. Who started it? Wasn't it started by fellows who want us to get our pay quicker so they can get it quicker? They're the ones that worked up this strike. They tell us that the bosses are robbing us because they hold our pay till the end of the month. They say we ought to have it in the bank.
They know we wouldn't put it in the bank. You know we wouldn't put it in the bank. We don't want to put it in the bank, and you bet your boots they don't want us to put it in the bank. They're liars when they say they're boosting for the banks. They're boosting for their own pockets.
"But we've really got our money in a bank--or what's good as a bank. The mill keeps our money for us just the way a bank would.
No bank in town pays interest on checking accounts, you know that. Then why take our money out of the mill office and put it in a bank? It's just as safe in the mill office. And you've got the right to draw on it if you really need money in the middle of the month. Only in case of death or accident does a man need money in the middle of the month. And he can go to the pay window and get it when he needs it. The doctor doesn't send his bill till the end of the month. The landlord doesn't collect the rent till the end of the month. The grocer and butcher let you run a bill till the end of the month. Some of us are really better off getting our pay at the end of the month. For it's all there for us and we can pay our bills promptly and hold up our heads as men. If we didn't leave our money in the office until the end of the month, we might blow it in at a bar, and when the wife wanted money to pay the rent and food bill we would have to tell her we were broke and she would have to hang her head. When the landlord and butcher came for the money she would have to try to stand them off. Do we want to let the rent go unpaid until the landlord cusses us out? Is that what we are striking for? If the landlord and butcher are willing to wait till we draw our pay, we ought to be willing too. Isn't it better to wait a month for pay than to wait a year? I'm right here to tell you that after this strike we'll wait for our pay until hell freezes over and the devil goes skating.
"Let us make no mistake. We are calling this strike not of our own free will, but were shoved into it by a lot of slick talkers that are in business and are not workers. They have hoodwinked us. They have made fools of us. A speaker asked are we mice or men. I ask them are they rats or men. I want these rats to come out of their holes and stand upon this floor. Who was the first man that suggested this strike? I want to see the color of his hair. Stand up, if he's in the hall. If he isn't here, why isn't he?"No one answered.
"If this strike was called by outsiders," I cried, "why don't the outsiders do the striking? Whose jobs will be lost in this strike--our jobs or the outsiders' jobs? If the man who started this strike has a job that won't be lost in the strike, then Iclaim that we have made a bad mistake. And if we're ****** a mistake, men, what are we going to do about it?"I sat down, exhausted by the first attempt at public pleading Ihad ever made. Everything grew dark about me, and I knew that Ihad done my best and that I was through. I was quite young, and Iwent to pieces like an untrained runner who had overdone himself.
The men were talking to one another, and somebody moved that the meeting take a recess until after supper. It would give time to think it over and find out what the men really thought about the strike proposition.
