Tom was now in little danger from the entertainment committee, for Foley's disquiet over his influence had been dissipated by his rapid decline. And after the first of May Tom gave Foley even less concern, for he had finally secured work in the shipping department of a wholesale grocer, so could no longer show himself by day among the union men. During April the contractors had prepared for the coming fight by locating non-union ironworkers, and during the first part of May they rushed these into the city and set them to work, guarded by Pinkerton detectives, upon the most pressing jobs. The union, in its turn, picketed every building on which there was an attempt to continue work, and against the scabs the pickets waged a more or less pacific warfare. Foley was of himself as much as all the pickets. He talked to the non-union men as they came up to their work, as they left their work, as they rode away on street cars, as they sat in saloons. Some he reached by his preachment of the principles of trade unionism. And some he reached by such brief speech as this: "This strike'll be settled soon. Our men'll all go back to work. What'll happen to youse about then? The bosses'll kick youse out. If youse're wise youse'll join the union and help us in the strike." This argument was made more effective by the temporary lifting of the initiation fee of twenty-five dollars, by which act scabs were made union men without price. There was also a third method, which Foley called "transmittin' unionism to the brain by the fist," and he reached many this way, for his fist was heavy and had a strong arm behind it. The contractors, in order to retain the non-union men, raised their wages to fifty cents a day more than the union demanded, but even then they were able to hold only enough workers to keep a few jobs going in half-hearted fashion. There were many accidents and delays on these buildings, for the workers were boilermakers, and men who but half knew the trade, and men who did not know the trade at all. As Pete remarked, after watching, from a neighboring roof, the gang finishing up the work on the St. Etienne Hotel, "The shadder of an ironworker would do more'n three o' them snakes." The contractors themselves realized perfectly what poor work they were getting for so extravagant a price, and would have discharged their non-union gangs had this not been a tacit admission of partial defeat.