Turning from the applause, he introduced Ben Spence as "a labor lawyer, with a union card in place of a heart." Spence and Jacks were the regular federation attorneys, and Spence was quite close to Pooley and Bivens; but he always professed a near-socialism that captivated his hearers in Labor Day addresses. He passed from a humorous opening into an indictment of the mining corporations that brought the hot crowd clamoring to their feet, with wild shouts of "Go to it, Ben! Eat 'em up!" The next few speeches scattered. Pelham wondered if the mass desire would evaporate without action. Serrano saw the drift, and walked over to where the son of Paul Judson sat drinking in the wild-mouthed denunciation of his father's rapacity and cold-heartedness. "I'm going to call on you, comrade." "You have to?" The chairman nodded. "You give 'em hell. I'll sound 'em out first. These regular unionists--pfui!" He spat in scorn, and went back to his splintered gavel. Jack Bowden, of the Miners', tied up with the Big Pooley gang, finished his inconclusive remarks. At once Serrano's orotund Italian voice shot out into the crowd. "Now you've heard what you're getting. And you've heard what you're entitled to. How many miners are in this crowd? Raise your hands." Amid general neck-stretching, the hands went up--almost a third of the vociferous audience. There was a rattle of applause at the good showing. "Are you going to stand being treated as dirt, or will you act like men? How many of you miners vote strike? Let's hear your voices!" The shout of approval showed how avid they were for some direct expression of their accumulated resentment. Bowden, a worried look on his face, rose to protest; the ecstatic chairman waved him down. "I'm going to do an unusual thing. I'm going to call on one of your employers to tell what he really thinks about you. I call on Comrade Pelham Judson, assistant manager of the Birrell-Florence-Mountain Mining Company." There was no applause. Pelham, tremendously alone, walked down to the front of the big platform. His mind registered random impressions--the faded tawdriness of the cheap bunting below the dirty footlights, the smell of fetid cigars and pipes, bulging necks above dirty unstarched collars, the fierce resentment and shining hunger for better things flaring in the eyes just below him. The irresistible contrast with the suave gray fittings of the directors' room flooded him. He summoned all his knowledge of speaking, and stood silent, his eyes ranging the vast pit and the jammed galleries. "Fellow laborers--comrades----" His voice choked. "Many of you know how I think about this. What happened two days ago on that red mountain I love was murder--definite, systematized murder. The danger has always been known; and when every effort to wipe out that danger by law has been fought, and the deaths occur, I call that deliberate murder!"