lf a
dozen labor leaders, Ernest turned to me and said quietly: "That settles
it. The Iron Heel has won. The end is in sight."

This little conference in our home was unofficial; but Ernest, like the
rest of his comrades, was working for assurances from the labor leaders
that they would call out their men in the next general strike. O'Connor,
the president of the Association of Machinists, had been foremost of the
six leaders present in refusing to give such assurance.

"You have seen that you were beaten soundly at your old tactics of
strike and boycott," Ernest urged.

O'Connor and the others nodded their heads.

"And you saw what a general strike would do," Ernest went on. "We
stopped the war with Germany. Never was there so fine a display of the
solidarity and the power of labor. Labor can and will rule the world.
If you continue to stand with us, we'll put an end to the reign of
capitalism. It is your only hope. And what is more, you know it. There
is no other way out. No matter what you do under your old tactics, you
are doomed to defeat, if for no other reason because the masters control
the courts."*

* As a sample of the decisions of the courts adverse to
labor, the following instances are given. In the coal-
mining regions the employment of children was notorious. In
1905 A.D., labor succeeded in getting a law passed in
Pennsylvania providing that proof of the age of the child
and of certain educational qualifications must accompany the
oath of the parent. This was promptly declared
unconstitutional by the Luzerne County Court, on the ground
that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment in that it
discriminated between individuals of the same class--namely,
children above fourteen years of age and children below.
The state court sustained the decision. The New York Court
of Special Sessions, in 1905 A.D., declared unconstitutional
the law prohibiting minors and women from working in
factories after nine o'clock at night, the ground taken
being that such a law was "class legislation." Again, the
bakers of that time were terribly overworked. The New York
Legislature passed a law restricting work in bakeries to ten
hours a day. In 1906 A.D., the Supreme Court of the United
States declared this law to be unconstitutional. In part
the decision read: "There is no reasonable ground for
interfering