The Executive Committee appointed a delegation to wait on Mr. Lorin French and inform him that unless the employment of the ten non-union men was discontinued, the resolution of the Federated Trades would be enforced, and all Trade Union members working for him, or for any member of the Manufacturers’ and Builders’ Union, would quit work. Mr. French received the committee very curtly. “Those ten men,” said he, “will continue their labors though they shall be the only ten men at work in the city of San Francisco. If one, or one thousand, or ten thousand of you are fools enough to quit work at the high wages you have yourselves fixed, simply because I have given work at the same wages to men who don’t choose to join one of your bullying unions, why, you can quit. You can’t hurt me by quitting as much as you will hurt yourselves. My money will keep and your work won’t. But take notice that every man who does quit work will be blacklisted, and he can never get another job in this city from me, or any of the gentlemen who are members of the association of which I am president, and we include about all the large employers of labor in this city.” “You know, Mr. French,” said the Chairman of the committee, “that if you insist on keeping these ten non-union men at work we can order a general strike.” “Yes, I know it,” replied French. “I know that you can bite off your own noses to spite your own faces. I feel sorry for you workingmen at times, you are such unreasoning and unreasonable and everlasting fools. When you order a strike, you order the absolute destruction of the only property you have—your labor—and you do this in order to prevent a few men from selling their labor; a few men whose only offense is that they don’t believe with you in the wisdom of harassing and plundering capitalists.” “Well, I suppose we have a right to strike, haven’t we?” said the Chairman angrily. “No,” said French, “you have not. The worker who joins a strike faces at least the possibility of capital closing its works and retiring from the field, and the men who have been extravagant, idle, unthrifty, or unfortunate, and most of you have been one or the other, have no moral right to bring upon themselves or those dependent upon them, either suffering or mendicancy.” “Mr. French,” said the Chairman, “you know a good many things, but you don’t know the power of the labor organizations of the land. If we willed it, we could in one day stop production and transportation all over the United States.”