“What trouble?”
“The trouble you started some time ago; it's your trouble now. The men have decided to strike to-morrow. You'll have to make peace, or I'm defeated and you lose your money.”
Mr. Bulger rose with a worried look.
“Don't say a word to them,” he whispered; “let me do the talking.”
Without further reply, Mr. Bulger hurried into the factory. For the first time in his life this wily, easy-going gentleman had work to do, and it gave him no rest. Gaffney helped him, and he kept-the men with us, although they had gone so far in the way of discontent, upon which he himself had led them, that Mr. Bulger was in sore trouble.
Old and new forces had begun a conflict which was to last for half a century. Hand labor versus machines became an issue in the campaign of James Henry McCarthy, and nearly defeated him. He went to New York and remained there until Bulger had struggled up to the convention with a majority of two. When the nomination was secure he told us about one of the winning votes.
It had been a stubborn fight in the town of Edgewood. The night before the caucus he knew that he needed one vote to secure his delegate. A politician of the name of Barber had worked against him, and spent a good deal of money. Late in the evening he hired a horse and drove to the house of a certain farmer who lived about a mile from the village. He had learned that Barber had bought the vote of this man. The farmer let him in.
“I want to talk with you and your wife about an important matter,” said he.
Soon they both sat beside him.
“You are supposed to be respectable people,” said Bulger. “You have some property and two children, and of course you'd like to have a good name.”