heard that Mary Bradley had declared, in court, at the termination of her unsuccessful suit, that she would have revenge. She was having it, that was all. Shrewd, persistent, resourceful, she was using Lamar to turn labor loose on Richard Malleson and his company. And what, then, could be done? If Barry only had brains, thought Westgate, he might be of some service in this crisis. But Barry was as useless now as a baby. The woman herself was unapproachable, and Lamar, who, on former occasions, had been found to be secretly pliable, would hardly be so base now as to sell out both his constituents and his sweetheart. Moreover, it was fairly certain that labor, having taken the bit in its teeth, would be uncontrollable. And an answer must be forthcoming within twenty-four hours. The board decided that there could be but one answer.
When the committee called, on the following day, they received a "categorical no" in reply to their demand. And, after twelve o'clock of the same day, every wheel and lathe and trip-hammer in the Malleson mills was left without its attendant. Only the seven non-union men remained at work, and they, perforce, were given a holiday.
So the oft-repeated struggle between capital and labor, with the strike as labor's weapon, began anew. Capital and the friends of capital in the entire city felt that labor had been unjust in its demand, and that the strike was nothing more nor less than an outrage. Labor and the friends of labor, on the other hand, felt that capital, in attempting to choke the life out of unionism, and set its heel more firmly on the neck of the workingman, had gone too far and must be taught that the dignity of labor and the rights of the individual laborer would, at all hazards, be maintained.
The Reverend Mr. Farrar was one of those who warmly espoused the cause of the striking employees. He saw, in the discharge of Bricky Hoover, and in the company's refusal to reinstate him, only the opening
