boss don't like it he can fire us all!"

"Ain't he the right? He pays us. But sure he won't fire us if we stand
by him. My father's worked for thirty years with the same house. You bet
he don't get fired, and he don't belong to no union either."

Annie was very much in earnest. In her heart she felt intense disdain
for these foreigners who came to her country and tried to lead her and
other girls into a betrayal of their employer's trust.

Sophie had no idea of being worsted, but her position was difficult. She
must try to convert the ignorant mind that felt itself superior to her,
and she must do it with an imperfect knowledge of the tongue in which
she spoke.

She made a brave attempt. In a torrent of broken English she explained
the class struggle and the necessity for organization. She put before
the girls the helplessness of the individual worker and her inability to
bargain. The whim of a foreman or forelady, a day's sickness, a
slackening in the trade, and she might be thrown out on the street. She
made them all remember the uncertainty of obtaining work, the days of
going from shop to shop, the long hours waiting on the chance of being
taken on, only at last to return home disconsolate! She pictured the
boss living in luxury while the girls who created his wealth were
without proper clothes or food; and yet when they demanded a further
share in his prosperity, that but for them could never have existed, he
sneered as though they came for charity. Then came her picture of
organization: the individual impotent, the mass of individuals, each
helping one another, a mighty power that could grapple with the employer
and force from him a generous wage. She told them of their trade as it
had been in the past, of the battles that the workers had fought to
secure for them their present measure of freedom. She decried Annie's
free America. If America were free it was because there had been brave
men who had overthrown England's tyranny and other brave men who had
fought to free the slaves. And with her queer little accent she quoted,
"Who would be free, himself must strike the blow."

Unquestionably she overawed her audience. Annie and her companions found
her knowledge embarrassing and a little humiliating. They had all been
to grammar school, Annie herself had recited a poem once before her
class, but she had never looked upon knowledge with much zest and she
found it difficult to follow Sophie's arguments. But when