CANDIDATE PREACHES PRIVATE WAR WITH FIRE AND SWORD! In the treatment of the strike, Luke fared even worse. He was held up as a hypocrite that championed the People from the platform and sweated the poor in the shops. He was paraded as the real owner of R. H. Forbes & Son. The papers generally most bitter against labor movements published long accounts of the strike, denunciatory interviews with the strike-leaders, and tables showing how badly the wages paid by the Forbes firm compared with the wage-scale already in operation in the factories controlled by the clothing-trust. There was a hurriedly drawn cartoon that depicted Luke wearing a Liberty-cap and hurling a bomb at a figure labeled "Conservative Business": he was addressing a mob from a soap-box that was supported by the bowed shoulders of his oppressed employees. The most respectable newspaper in New York hinted that his political attack was made against his business rivals solely because they were his business rivals, and the least respectable declared that his quarrel with the workers stamped his election doctrines as the gospel of Murder for Profit. As Luke entered the door of the Broadway building in which the Municipal Reform League had its headquarters, he came up with Venable also going in. The old man’s hand trembled as he greeted the candidate. "We seem to have raised a real thunderstorm," said Luke, smiling. "I hope it’ll clear the atmosphere." "Then you know?" asked Venable. "You’ve seen it in the papers?" "How could I help it?" said Luke. "It’s all over them." "Oh, the speech?" "That and this strike at the Forbes factory, yes." "I didn’t mean those things," said Venable. "I meant this." He took from his coat-pocket a folded newspaper open at the financial and real estate page. He pointed a shaking finger at first one and then another obscure paragraph, both printed in small type and far separated. Luke read the paragraphs. Each applied to the same block of an uptown street. The former said that a new branch of an elevated railroad would be run through this street, and the latter curtly announced that two of the apartment houses in the block were about to be converted into tenements for negroes. "My apartment house," said Venable simply, "the one that all my money is invested in, will have those ’L’-tracks running in front of its second-floor windows. It is just between the two houses that are to to be made into tenements." Luke swore softly. "Who’s back of this?" he demanded. "You know what influences control that elevated road," said Venable. "And the tenements?" "They’ve just been bought by Hallett." "It’s ruin?" "It will be very close to it." Luke gripped Venable’s shoulder. "You get out of this," he commanded. "Leave the League and go to them; they’ll change their plans: that’s why they’ve made their plans the way they have."