"Isadore," Walter said, as the door shut behind the girls, "come on over to the Lafayette and have a drink."
Braun looked at his watch.
"Oh, damn the time. Come on. I want somebody to talk to me."
BOOK IV
CHAPTER XIX YETTA'S WORK
In the next few months Yetta learned a new meaning for the word "work." In the sweat-shop, day after day, she had sat before the machine, her mind a blank, three-quarters of her muscles lifeless, the rest speeding through a dizzying routine. Only when a thread broke had there been any thought to it. In the new work there was no repetition, none of this dead monotony. Every act, every word she spoke, was the result of a consciousness vividly alive. In the keen, exhilarating thrill of it she had little time to mope over Walter's absence.
It is a strange paradox of our life that, while no other social phenomenon touches us at so many intimate points as the organization of labor, while very few are of more importance, most of us know nothing at all about the details of this great industrial struggle. Our clothes bear the "union label" or are "scab." In either case they are an issue in the conflict. Heads have been broken over the question of whether this page, from which you are reading, should be printed in a "closed" or "open shop." Around our cigarettes, the boxes in which they are packed, the matches with which we light them, the easy-chairs in which we smoke them, and the carpets on which we carelessly spill the ashes, a tragic battle is raging. Nine out of every ten people we meet are concerned in it. The man who takes our nickel in the Subway, the waiter who serves our lunch, the guests at dinner, the unseen person who pulls up the curtain at the theatre, the taxicab chauffeur who takes us home, are all fighting for or against "unionism."
From the human point of view there is no vaster, more passionate drama. Intense convictions, bitter, senseless prejudices, the dogged heroism of hunger, comfort-loving cynicism, black treachery, and wholehearted idealism are among the motives which inspire the actors. The stage—which is our Fatherland—is crossed by hired thugs from the "detective agencies" and by dynamiters. In the troupe are such people as Jane Addams and Mr. Pinkerton, shedders of blood and preachers of peace. There are hardly any of us who do not at some time step upon the stage and act our parts.