During the strike of the preceding spring, McCormick had done just what other manufacturers had done in similar cases—introduced new machinery to perform work hitherto done by hand. He had put in new molding apparatus and had found that the new machines in the hands of ordinary laborers, as soon as they learned to handle them, turned out daily far more molds and more reliable ones than the old hand process. On the outbreak of the trouble in February there were fifteen men employed in the foundry,—ten old hands and five non-union men. The services of all of them might thus have been dispensed with, since skilled labor was not necessary, and, with the addition of more machines and a few raw hands, just as much and just as good work, he claimed, might have been produced. But the owners desired to favor the employés, and, having granted a uniformity of wages even to the extent of advancing the pay of ordinary labor to $1.50 per day, a sum greater than that paid by similar industries elsewhere, and having promised to give preference to old employés when additional hands were needed, they resolved not to be dictated to by outside malcontents nor to discharge men who had done efficient work for the company. [Illustration: A STRIKE. THE WALKING DELEGATE SOWING THE SEED OF DISCONTENT.] The grant of such a request would, they held, be virtually placing the management of the concern in the hands of outsiders. When, therefore, the employés, instigated by the Anarchists, resolved to strike for their demand, McCormick took time by the forelock and ordered the works closed on and after nine o’clock on the morning of February 16, to remain closed until the strikers decided to return. [Illustration: GREIF’S HALL.]