Youth Challenges | Page 5

member for their daily bread.
"Father and I," he said to himself, as the sudden shock of the idea
impacted against his consciousness, "are SUPPORTING that whole
mob."
It gave him a sense of mightiness. It presented itself to him in that
instant that he was not a mere business man, no mere manufacturer, but
a commander of men--more than that, a lord over the destinies of men.
It was overwhelming. This realization of his potency made him gasp.
Bonbright was very young.
He turned, to be carried on by the current. Presently it was choked. A
stagnant pool of humanity formed around some center, pressing toward
it curiously. This center was a tiny park, about which the street divided,
and the center was a man standing on a barrel by the side of a sign
painted on cloth. The man was speaking in a loud, clear voice, which
was able to make itself perfectly audible even to Bonbright on the
extreme edge of the mass.
"You are helpless as individuals," the man was saying. "If one of you
has a grievance, what can he do?... Nothing. You are a flock of sheep. ...
If ALL of you have a grievance, what can you do? You are still a pack
of sheep. ... Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, owns you, body and soul. ...
Suppose this Foote who does you the favor to let you earn millions for
him--suppose he wants to buy his wife a diamond necklace. ... What's
to prevent him lowering your wages next week to pay for it?... YOU

couldn't stop him!... Why can an army beat a mob of double its
numbers? Because the army is ORGANIZED! Because the army fights
as one man for one object! ... You are a mob. Capital is organized
against you. ... How can you hope to defend yourselves? How can you
force a betterment of your conditions, of your wage? ... By becoming
an army--a labor army!... By organizing. ... That's why I'm here, sent by
the National Federation--to organize you. To show you how to resist! ...
To teach you how to make yourselves irresistible!..." There were shouts
and cheers which blotted out the speaker's words. Then Bonbright
heard him again:
"Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, is entitled to fair interest on the money
it has invested in its plant. It is entitled to a fair profit on the raw
materials it uses in manufacture. ... But how much of the final cost of
its axles does raw material represent? A fraction! What gives the axles
the rest of their value?... LABOR! You men are paid two, three, some
of you even four dollars a day--for your labor. Bonbright Foote,
Incorporated, adds a little pig iron to your labor, and gives you a place
to work in, and takes his millions of dollars a year. ... Do you get your
fair share?... You do NOT, and you will never get a respectable fraction
of your fair share till you organize--and seize it."
There was more. Bonbright had never heard the like of it before and it
fascinated him. Here was a point of view that was new to him. What
did it mean? Vaguely he had heard of Socialism, of labor unions, of the
existence of a spirit of suspicion and discord between capital and labor.
Now he saw it, face uncovered starkly.
A moment before he had realized his power over these men; now he
perceived that these men, some of them, realized it even better than
he. ... Realized it and resented it; resented it and fought with all the
strength of their souls to undermine it and make it topple in ruin.
His mind was a caldron into which cross currents of thought poured
and tossed. He had no experience to draw on. Here was a thing he was
being plunged into all unprepared. It had taken him unprepared, and
shaken him as he had never been shaken before. He turned away.

Half a dozen feet away he saw the Girl with the Grin--not grinning now,
but tense, pale, listening with her soul in her eyes, and with the light of
enthusiasm glowing beside it.
He walked to her side, touched her shoulder. ... It was unpremeditated,
something besides his own will had urged him to speak to her.
"I don't understand it," he said, unsteadily.
"Your class never does," she replied, not sharply, not as a retort, but
merely as one states a fact to give enlightenment.
"My father," she said, "was killed leading the strikers at Homestead. ...
The unions educated me."
"What is this man--this speaker--trying to do? Stir up a riot?"
She smiled. "No. He is an organizer sent by the National Federation. ...
They're going to try to unionize our plant."
"Unionize?"
"Bonbright Foote, Incorporated,"