"Sure," Casey said. "You can have the charter. That ain't no trouble. But don't ask me nothing else now. The Devil himself won't be no more busy on the Resurrection Day than I be."
"We're all busy," Mabel replied. "And I really want you to come round at four and help them organize."
Casey waved his hands and pounded the table and swore—occasionally asking pardon for his "damned profanity"—but Mabel hung on. She had already won the other men in the room, and they laughingly urged him to go.
Having gained his promise to come, Mabel did not waste a minute more of his time. She rushed Yetta over to the Woman's Trade Union League and plunged into her morning's correspondence.
All those things which had seemed to Yetta of overwhelming importance began to look very small. There were some of the "skirt-finishers" in the office. Their strike involved several hundred women. There were only twelve in Goldfogle's shop. While Mabel was busy at other things Yetta picked up a copy of The American Federationist, the monthly organ of the national federation of labor unions. How infinitesimal was her part in this great industrial conflict! She read of thousands of miners striking in the anthracite fields, of a hundred woollen mills which had locked out their operatives. The street-car men were out in a Western city. A strike referendum was being taken by the printers of half a dozen Southern States. A great revolt had tied up the Chicago stock-yards. And here in New York there were five different strikes in progress. At one moment her pride swelled at the thought that she was a part of this vast army of workers who were fighting for a larger share of sunshine and Freedom. At the next it was borne in on her with a rush how insignificant was the case of the vest-makers.
She had read almost every word in that month's issue of The Federationist before Mabel called her and they went downstairs to the working-girls' restaurant for lunch. They found an empty table, and Yetta had just commenced on her long list of questions, when two excited "skirt-finishers" came in, and seeing Mabel, rushed up to their table. Once more Yetta felt herself pushed back into a second place. That morning the strike had reached its crisis, the women of two shops had gone back to work on a compromise which ignored the union; a general stampede was imminent.
About two o'clock, the women of Goldfogle's shop began to appear, and sharp at four, Mabel tore herself away from the "skirt-finishers" and came into the back room where the vest-makers were assembled. The Forwaertz had come off the press an hour before, and the women who could read Yiddish had read aloud Braun's glowing account of their exploits. It had given them a new sense of importance, the feeling that there was sympathy and power back of them. And this feeling was strengthened by Mr. Casey's jovial and inspiring speech. When they had elected officers,—Mrs. Weinstein, president; "the girl who knew all about unions," treasurer, and Yetta, secretary and business agent,—he handed them over a charter printed in three colors which seemed to them a sort of magic promise of victory. They agreed as a matter of course on the set of demands which Braun had already printed in the Forwaertz.
Mabel pulled them down from their enthusiasm to talk details. She explained that their one hope of success lay in persuading the other vest shops to join the strike. Alone they were helpless. Each one of them was to think of all the vest workers she knew and persuade them to start a strike in their shop. She read the list of vest shops and checked off every one where some of the women had acquaintances. Then she gave them great sheaves of the Forwaertz and assigned them two by two to the principal vest shops. They were to stand at the door and distribute papers to every one who came out. In the evening they were to call on their friends in the trade and be on the job again in the morning with copies of the Forwaertz at other factory doors. She and Yetta, their business agent, would go down and interview Goldfogle. Of course he would not give in at once, but it was best to show him they were not afraid. And then with some words of encouragement about how the Forwaertz was helping them, and the Central Federated Union and the Socialists, and of course the Woman's Trade Union League, she dismissed them.
Without Mabel beside her, Yetta would hardly have found the courage to perform her first duty as business agent of the union. Some of the old terror of a boss's arbitrary power still clung about Jake Goldfogle. In a moment of excitement she had dared to defy him. But it was a different thing to seek an interview with him in cold blood. But to Mabel it was all in the day's work. And she did most of the talking.
Jake received them nervously. He could not, like the big employers, afford to sit back cynically and wait for his workers to starve. A week's tie-up meant certain ruin for him, and with equal certainty it meant ruin for him to grant his women anything like decent conditions. Sorely exploited by bigger capitalists, his one hope of success lay in a miracle of more cruel exploitation. He had been busy all day with employment agencies. They could furnish him with plenty of raw hands, but he needed skilled labor. It would be much better if he could get his old force back. And so he greeted them with some decency. But the sight of Mabel, this unknown businesslike American woman, disconcerted him. He had expected to have dealings only with his employees. He saw at once that he could not fool nor browbeat this stranger.