It
seems that many of these "black people" were single men or
vigorous young married people with only themselves to support,
while the old American workers were men with families and little
homes to pay for, and plenty of old grandfathers and mothers, to
say nothing of babies, depending upon them.
"There wasn't a living for a decent family left," he said.
So they struck--and he told me in his dull monotone of the long
bitterness of that strike, the empty cupboards, the approach of
winter with no coal for the stoves and no warm clothing for the
children. He told me that many of the old workers began to leave
the town (some bound for the larger cities, some for the Far
West).
"But," said he with a sudden outburst of emotion, "I couldn't
leave. I had the woman and the children!"
And presently the strike collapsed, and the workers rushed helter
skelter back to the mills to get their old jobs. "Begging like
whipped dogs," he said bitterly.
Many of them found their places taken by the eager "black
people," and many had to go to work at lower wages in poorer
places--punished for the fight they had made.
But he got along somehow, he said--"the woman was a good
manager"-- until one day he had the misfortune to get his hand
caught in the machinery.
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