"You craft unionists have won your house and lot and 'benefits.' But I tell you that the Revolution is coming from the unskilled who can't pay your fees. If you don't get out of the way, you'll get run over with the rest of the aristocrats and grafters.
"Your graft is no good, anyhow. It won't last. It depends on your skill, and machines are killing skill every day. Look at the glass-blowers. That was a fine craft—wasn't it? You couldn't blow glass unless you had served a long apprenticeship. And when you once knew the trade, it was a cinch—a graft for the rest of your life. Sweet, wasn't it? Just the thing 'Old Sell-'em-out' Sam Gompers dreams about. All of a sudden somebody invented a machine. Now the glass-blowers are yelling about the Child Labor Law—a kid of twelve can do more work with a machine than a dozen men by hand.
"You craft unionists ought to go out and look at a machine—an automatic that's knocked Hell out of some other trade. You'd see what's coming to you and your A. F. of L.
"My father was a 'grainer,' painted the graining on wainscoting and bureaus—fine trade it was, too. He had a nice little house with a garden to it; the old woman had a servant. Some aristocrats we were. He was going to send me to college—he was. Then they invented a machine. He hit the trail to Colorado, and I went down in the mine when I was thirteen.
"Just think about that machine a minute. It could do the work better than men, so it put the 'grainers' out of business. It ain't got no feet, so it don't use shoes. Kind of hard on the cobblers. It ain't got no head, so it don't wear out three hats a year like my old man did. Kind of hard on the hat makers. The machine ain't got no belly, it don't eat nothing. That's a jolt for the butcher and baker—and the farmer too. The machine don't get sick. No use for a doctor. The machine"—he paused for his climax—"the machine has no soul—it don't even need a minister.
"The machine is killing the craft unions. It's bringing about the day of the unskilled. The answer is—Industrial Unionism."
The audience was too angry at his attack to applaud. The collection, when it was taken up, was not half what had been expected.
"Perfectly insane," was Mabel's comment as they walked home.
"But what he said sounded true to me," Yetta protested.
"True?" Mabel demanded. "What was the true reason he came? To raise money for the striking miners—who need it. He didn't even come here at his own expense. They sent him—to raise funds. He spouts a lot of his crazy ideas and spoils it all. I don't believe we collected enough to pay his railroad fare. Is that your idea of truth?"