Social problems -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
Meissner went on to tell how this mysterious stranger had stated to
him that it would be possible to get plenty of money to back the
proposition of a strike in the Empire Shops. The new plant was just
ready to start up, and fresh swarms of men were coming in; what was
wanted was some live fellows to get in with them and agitate for an
eight hour day and a minimum wage scale of sixty cents an hour. Men
who were willing to do that could get good money, and plenty of it;
if the Leesville Worker would advocate such a policy, there was no
reason why it should not start up the very next week, and publish a
big edition and flood the town. The one essential was that
arrangements should be made secretly. Meissner must trust no one
save dyed-in-the-wool “reds”, who would be willing to hustle, and
not say where the pay came from. As earnest of his intentions, the
stranger pulled out a roll of bills, and casually drew off half a
dozen and slipped them into Meissner's hands. They were for ten
dollars each--more money than a petty boss at the glass-works had
ever got into his hands at one time in all his life!
Meissner exhibited the roll, and Jimmie stared with wide-open eyes.
Here indeed was a new development of the war--ten dollar bills for
Socialist propaganda to be picked up in the back rooms of saloons!
What was this fellow's name? And where did he hang out? Meissner
offered to take Jimmie to meet him, and so the two bolted their
suppers and set out at top speed.
V
Jerry Coleman had mentioned several saloons where he was known, and
in one of these they found him, a smooth-faced, smooth-spoken young
fellow whom Jimmie would have taken for a detective or
“spotter”--having had dealings with such in his days “on the road”.
The man wore good clothes, and his finger-nails were cared for,
something which, as we know, is seldom permitted to working-men. But
he did not put on airs, and he bade them call him by his first name.
He talked to Jimmie a while, enough to make sure of his man, and
then he peeled off some more bills, and told Jimmie to find more
fellows who could be trusted. It wouldn't do for any one person to
have too much money, for that would excite suspicion; but if they
would go to work and spend that much for dodgers to be distributed
among the munition-workers, and for street-meetings, and for the
proposed radical paper--well, there was plenty more money in the
place where this had come from.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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