CHAPTER XIX

THE STORM BREAKS

The meeting to which the rector of Christ Church went from his interview with Ruth Tracy was a meeting of the Malleson Manufacturing Company's striking workmen. It had been called by the strike committee for the purpose of submitting to the men the question of the advisability of calling off the strike. Many of the workers were in favor of an immediate and unconditional surrender. They felt that the limit of suffering had been reached, and that the only hope of relief lay in a complete abandonment of the fight, now, before new men should be taken into the works, and the bad blood aroused thereby should lead to disorder, and the permanent disbarment of the old men from the company's employ. For, notwithstanding Richard Malleson's declaration that he would not take any of them back no matter how they came, each one of them felt that the president might listen to his individual appeal.

On the other hand there were those who believed that the threatened opening of the plant with imported strike-breakers was but a bluff put forth to break their ranks and to force them into submission, and that, if they could hold out for ten days more, the strike would be won. As for imported labor, if it came it would be given short shrift. Scabs were always cowards, and a proper show of determination on the part of the men would soon send the rats scurrying to their holes. Besides, Richard Malleson needed the old men as much as they needed him. He was on the point of financial