llion dollars. What of it? You forget that it has been making millions
annually for the past ten years. What have we been making? Lots of
money, I'll admit, but none of it has been saved. The company is rich,
the brotherhoods are bankrupt. From the remotest corners of the country
comes the cry of men weary of paying assessments to support us in
idleness. To-day some sort of settlement might be made--to-morrow it may
be too late."

At this juncture the mob howled the speaker down again. Men climbed over
benches to get at the "traitor." A man who had been persuaded to leave
the company, and who had been taken into the order only the day before,
tried to strike the engineer in the face. In the midst of the
excitement, George Cowels of the Fireman's Brotherhood leaped upon the
platform and at sight of him and the sound of his powerful voice the
rioters became quiet.

"I think," he began slowly to show how easy it was for a truly great
leader to keep cool in the hottest of the fight, "I think I can explain
the action of the last speaker."

Here he paused and looked down into the frank face of Dan Moran and
continued:

"Mr. Moran, as many of you know, has one of the best runs on the road.
He has had it for a good many years and he loathes to leave it. By
denying himself the luxury of a cigar and never taking a drink he has
managed to save up some money. He is a money-getter--a money-saver and
it hurts him to be idle. I have been firing for him for five years and
in all that time he has never been the man to say: 'Come, George, let's
have a drink or a cigar.' Now I propose that we chip in and pay Mr. Dan
Moran his little four dollars a day. Let us fight this fight to a
finish. Let there be no retreat until the proud banner of our
Brotherhood waves above the blackened ruins of the once powerful
Burlington route. Down with all traitors: on with the fight."

At the conclusion of this speech the audience went wild. When order had
been partially restored a vote was taken, when it was shown that
seven-eighths of the men were in favor of continuing the strike.

The engineers had really been spoiled by success. At the last annual
convention they had voted to exterminate the classification system, and
had passed a law making it impossible for the head of the organization
to make any settlement that included a continuation of classification.
The scalps of the Atchison, the Alton, the Louisville and Nashville, and
a number of othe