Pooley ended with lame vehemence; and the voice of the Italian chairman thundered another plea for labor's unity, introducing a black man to show that no boundaries of nation or race counted in the centuries' long battle. "I'm going to call on Will Cole to speak to you. Will is a black man, who was in Number Eight entry when the dynamite murder took place. His dead comrades talk to you through his living lips. Come on, Will, tell us why you don't look for a pay check this week." They laughed at the rude jesting at the invariable boomerang effect of their sole weapon of protest--a laugh that quieted to respect, as the grimy overalled negro was urged up the side steps and to the center of the stage. His eyes blinked at the dazzle of the lighting until the whites showed; his shoulders hunched deprecatingly. He could not speak to them as man to man, that he knew; the difference in color was ever in his mind, and in his audience's. "Ah'm only a nigger," he began diffidently. "You-all white folks don't want niggers in yo' unions, you-all don't want us to wu'k whar you do. Some er you don't lak us havin' our own union. An' niggers is crazy too; Ah kaint make dat wu'thless gang in number two come out, nohow. "But Ah come out. You-all know Jim Cole was in Number Six when de mine oxploded; you-all know he's dead now. Ah live on dat mountain, same as Mister Judson. Dere ain't no more reason why me 'n' mah brudder should a got killed in dem mines dan why he should'a. Ah done jined dis union, an' Ah'll die befo' Ah'll scab. An' any scab dat comes mah way had better have his ears all aroun' his haid!" They chuckled at the conclusion, but it made its effect. "When you all unite, white and black, you can snap your fingers at all the Paul Judsons in the world!" Serrano never lost a chance to drive home a point. Next afternoon's headlines promised the arrival of a trainload of workers during the night. This lent an added air of uncertainty to the meeting following. Dawson's pleas to the men to hold fast, to convert the scabs with arguments, not bricks, were as strong as ever; but despite the ample audience, even he was a little upset by the fact that the whole Bowden-Pooley crowd were absent from their stage seats. When he got around to Machinists' Hall later in the same evening, for the conference over the next day's activities, he found the state labor organization present in full force. The ornate double rows of mahogany-stained chairs, arranged in a hollow diamond shape, to accommodate the fraternities that met in the hall, with raised seats at the four points of the diamond for the officers, were half filled with the Pooley followers. Dawson called the meeting to order.