t is absurd to imagine that we here in Blackwater could
smash a single union."

Fiercely McGinnis made reply. "I want to tell you right here and now
that I am prepared to close down and go out of business but I will have
no outside committee tell me how to run my job."

But no one took this threat seriously, and no one but knew that a
shut-down for any of them might mean disaster. They all recalled those
unfilled orders which they were straining every nerve to complete before
the market should break, or cancellation should come. It added not a
little to their rage that they knew themselves to be held in the grip of
circumstances over which they had little control.

After much angry deliberation it was finally agreed that they should
appoint a committee to consider the whole situation and to prepare a
plan of action. Meantime the committee were instructed to temporise with
the enemy.

The evening papers announced the imminence of a strike the extent
and magnitude of which had never been experienced in the history
of Blackwater. Everywhere the citizens of the industrial town were
discussing the disturbing news anxiously, angrily, indifferently,
according as they were variously affected. But there was a general
agreement among all classes of citizens that a strike in the present
industrial and financial situation which was already serious enough,
would be nothing short of a calamity, because no matter what the issue
would be, no matter which of the parties won in the conflict, a fight
meant serious loss not only to the two parties immediately concerned,
but to the whole community as well. With the rank and file of the
working people there was little heart for a fight. More especially, men
upon whom lay the responsibility for the support of homes shrank from
the pain and the suffering, as well as from the loss which experience
taught them a strike must entail. It is safe to say that in every
working man's home in Blackwater that night there was to be found a
woman who, as she put her children to bed, prayed that trouble might
be averted, for she knew that in every war it is upon the women and
children that in the last analysis the sorest burden must fall. To
them even victory would mean for many months a loss of luxuries for the
family, it might be of comforts; and defeat, which would come not until
after long conflict, would mean not only straitened means but actual
poverty, with all the attendant humiliation and bitte