Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; Coal mines and mining -- Pennsylvania -- Fiction; Labor leaders -- Fiction
Jumping out of his seat the excited man had walked up and down before
his companions. A group of men standing before the bar listened, their
glasses held half way to their lips.
“I tell you there is already a song of labour. It has not got itself
expressed and understood but it is in every shop, in every field where
men work. In a dim way the men who work are conscious of the song
although if you talk of the matter they only laugh. The song is low
harsh rhythmical. I tell you it comes out of the very soul of labour.
It is akin to the thing that artists understand and that is called form.
This McGregor understands something of that. He is the first leader of
labour that has understood. The world shall hear from him. One of these
days the world shall ring with his name.”
In the bicycle factory John Van Moore looked at the pad of paper before
him and thought of the words of the half drunken man in the saloon. In
the great shop at his back there was the steady grinding roar of many
machines. The fat man, hypnotised by his own words, continued to walk up
and down telling of the hardship that had once confronted the imaginary
young workman and above which he had risen triumphant. “We hear much of
the power of labour but there has been a mistake made,” he said. “Such
men as myself--we are the power. Do you see we have come out of the
mass? We stand forth.”
Stopping before the advertising man and looking down the fat man winked.
“You do not need to say that in the book. There is no need of quoting
me there. Our bicycles are being bought by workingmen and it would be
foolish to offend them but what I say is nevertheless true. Do not such
men as I, with our cunning brains and our power of patience build these
great modern organisations?”
The fat man waved his arm toward the shops from which the roar of
machinery came. The advertising man absentmindedly nodded his head. He
was trying to hear the song of labour talked of by the drunken man. It
was quitting time and there was the sound of many feet moving about the
floor of the factory. The roar of the machinery stopped.
Again the fat man walked up and down talking of the career of the
labourer who had come forth from the ranks of labour. From the factory
the men began filing out into the open. There was the sound of feet
scuffling along the wide cement sidewalk past the flowerbeds.
Of a sudden the fat man stopped. The advertising man sat with pencil
suspended above the paper. From the walk below sharp commands rang out.
Again the sound of men moving about came in through the windows.
The president of the bicycle company and the advertising man ran to the
window. There on the cement sidewalk stood the men of the company formed
into columns of fours and separated into companies. At the head of each
company stood a captain. The captains swung the men about. “Forward!
March!” they shouted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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