John A. Johnston, International vice-president of the Iron Workers' Union, and J.J. Keppler, vice-president of the Machinists', were on hand to inaugurate the big strike. All of Bridgeport's available policemen were on duty at the plant. As the whistle blew the crowd surged about the gates, where barbed wire and guards held them back. Five minutes passed, ten, twenty, and 12.30 saw Keppler and Johnston pacing up and down before the plant awaiting their men. At 1 o'clock not a machinist had issued from the portals. The hoarse whistle blew, calling back the two thousand workers to their task, and Keppler and Johnston and the rest were left in wonder. A cog had slipped in this way: Before the noon whistle blew, Major Walter G. Penfield, works manager of the plant, placed guards at all the exits to ask the machinists to wait a few minutes. They did. The foreman told them that, on behalf of the Remington Company, Major Penfield desired to assure them a permanent eight-hour day, beginning August 1, and to guarantee a dollar a day increase in pay. The Power of the Purse How "Silver Bullets" Are Made in Britain By Prime Minister Asquith For the first time in the financial history of Great Britain, Prime Minister Asquith declared in his Guildhall speech of June 29, an unlimited and democratic war loan was popularized, appealing to all classes, including the poorest, and advertising the sale through the Post Office of vouchers for as low as 5 shillings to be turned into stock. His speech was intended also to initiate a movement for saving and thrift among the people as the only secure means against national impoverishment by the war. A statement by Reginald McKenna, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on July 13, showed that approximately L600,000,000, or $3,000,000,000, had been subscribed, making this the greatest war loan raised in the history of any nation. The total number of subscribers through the Bank of England was 550,000, aggregating L570,000,000, or $2,850,000,000, while 547,000 persons had subscribed $75,000,000 through the Post Office. Besides this no estimate of the small vouchers taken out had been made, and the Post Office subscriptions had not been closed. The gigantic total, Mr. McKenna said, represented only new money, and not any stock which will be issued for purposes of conversion. Prime Minister Asquith's speech appears in full below. _In his speech in the Guildhall, London, on June 29, 1915, Mr. Asquith said:_