Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/225

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214
THE ANCIENT GRUDGE

man will be more than made up by the general efficiency that comes from harmony and contentment. No, we're not in business to fight the union; let other firms do that for us if they want to. Why, to go back to that verse,—

'Should banded unions persecute
Opinion and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute,'—

then you could think about restricting them, not till then. That's wisdom and humanity, my boy."

"I only hope we shall never see the time," Floyd remarked. "

"We never shall—at New Rome," his grandfather responded, with a confident, reassuring smile.

Floyd telephoned to Gregg the next morning that he had decided to appoint Jacob Schneider foreman of the rod-mill; he offered the superintendent no explanation. But all that day it galled him to think that the six men whom he had censured for their impertinence were no doubt crediting themselves with a victory and laughing at his rebuke as a "weak bluff."