He branched into a technical discussion of the flaws of the law, emphasizing what labor would lose in every case if the proposed changes were made. There were growls of dissent from some quarters--even Pelham, sick at heart, hissed one of his statements; but the applause overwhelmed the disagreement. Benignant John Pooley, seated at the speaker's right, led the handclapping at every pause. "It's up to you," Paul's tones sharpened, grew crisper. "You have it in your power to go on record against it, or for it. If against it, you assure a continuation of the present helpful and hopeful laws--not perfect, by any means, but laws which will be constantly bettered by an intelligent legislature, representative of the whole people. Or you can favor it--and thereby favor, instead of prosperity and progress, bankruptcy for the owners, spiritual bankruptcy for its supporters, and, worse than all, a wide-spread business depression, which will force capital elsewhere, slow down and stop the wheels of industry, drive the storekeepers out of business, and drag your own wives and families into want, poverty, ultimate degradation and death. "The smoke from those mining settlements and furnace stacks upon the mountain above our iron city is the symbol of life--life for all of us. It is the pillar of smoke by day, the cloud of fire by night. This bill"--and he pointed an imperative finger first at the chairman, and then over the audience--"this bill will clear the sky of that smoke, and leave those mines and furnaces to rot and rust into scrap-iron. Take your choice. I believe that you cannot fail to take the wise, the sane, the brotherly, the prosperous way, for all of us, for Adamsville and the nation." Before he could settle into his chair, and while the applause thundered at its fullest, Jensen was on his feet, shouting a demand that the chair recognize him. Pooley blandly motioned him again and again into his seat. The applause persisted. "A question, Mr. Chairman! A question, Mr. Chairman!" The president could ignore him no longer. "Delegate Jensen." "Will the speaker answer a question?" Paul, suave and collected, smilingly consented. "Isn't it a fact that"--Jensen's voice choked in his throat, in his mad eagerness to make his point--"that the mine safeguards here are behind every state in the union? That the men are paid less, and suffer more accidents? How can there be harmony between capital and labor? Don't we both want the same thing?" His words crowded over each other; his growing incoherence was unintelligible to most of the audience. He waved a pamphlet at the speaker. "I have in my hand the latest federal mining report----" "Aw, hire a hall, Swedey!" an ugly-faced satellite of Pooley's cut in. The audience laughed, releasing tense feelings.