"You couldn't keep us away."
They arrived early, but the crowd had come earlier. Only by taking stage seats were they able to get in at all. When the son of the owner of the mine was recognized, there was slight hissing, and scattered handclapping from a few Socialists. Jensen came over quietly to Pelham, his eyes dancing. "Your application's gone through, my boy; Hernandez has your red card in his pocket."
They shook hands silently. Now, Pelham realized, he was a recognized member of the red-bannered army, who were leading man into his promised earthly heritage.
Michael Serrano, who presided, plunged into the thing that had brought them there. "I'm a bricklayer by trade, as you all know. The bricklayers have made me president of their local four times. I'm called the 'reddest of the red.' If this murderous mine accident doesn't make all of you reds too, then you aren't fit for anything but to be murdered!"
The crowd stamped approval. They had come in fighting spirit; the proper key had been hit from the start.
"Now, if ever, is your chance to win your rights. The papers have been slobbering of wartime profits on ore; the reckless haste to line their pockets was the real cause of this explosion for which the worthy directors of your mines are responsible. They can't afford a shutdown now; this is your hour to win!"
Turning from the applause, he introduced Ben Spence as "a labor lawyer, with a union card in place of a heart." Spence and Jacks were the regular federation attorneys, and Spence was quite close to Pooley and Bivens; but he always professed a near-socialism that captivated his hearers in Labor Day addresses. He passed from a humorous opening into an indictment of the mining corporations that brought the hot crowd clamoring to their feet, with wild shouts of "Go to it, Ben! Eat 'em up!"
The next few speeches scattered. Pelham wondered if the mass desire would evaporate without action. Serrano saw the drift, and walked over to where the son of Paul Judson sat drinking in the wild-mouthed denunciation of his father's rapacity and cold-heartedness. "I'm going to call on you, comrade."
"You have to?"
The chairman nodded. "You give 'em hell. I'll sound 'em out first. These regular unionists—pfui!" He spat in scorn, and went back to his splintered gavel.