“Oh, I don't know,” Tom, who had been smoking his pipe gravely, began to counsel. “Organized labor's gettin' stronger every day. Why, I can remember when there wasn't any unions in California. Look at us now—wages, an' hours, an' everything.”
“You talk like an organizer,” Bert sneered, “shovin' the bull con on the boneheads. But we know different. Organized wages won't buy as much now as unorganized wages used to buy. They've got us whipsawed. Look at Frisco, the labor leaders doin' dirtier politics than the old parties, pawin' an' squabblin' over graft, an' goin' to San Quentin, while—what are the Frisco carpenters doin'? Let me tell you one thing, Tom Brown, if you listen to all you hear you'll hear that every Frisco carpenter is union an' gettin' full union wages. Do you believe it? It's a damn lie. There ain't a carpenter that don't rebate his wages Saturday night to the contractor. An' that's your buildin' trades in San Francisco, while the leaders are makin' trips to Europe on the earnings of the tenderloin—when they ain't coughing it up to the lawyers to get out of wearin' stripes.”
“That's all right,” Tom concurred. “Nobody's denyin' it. The trouble is labor ain't quite got its eyes open. It ought to play politics, but the politics ought to be the right kind.”
“Socialism, eh?” Bert caught him up with scorn. “Wouldn't they sell us out just as the Ruefs and Schmidts have?”
“Get men that are honest,” Billy said. “That's the whole trouble. Not that I stand for socialism. I don't. All our folks was a long time in America, an' I for one won't stand for a lot of fat Germans an' greasy Russian Jews tellin' me how to run my country when they can't speak English yet.”
“Your country!” Bert cried. “Why, you bonehead, you ain't got a country. That's a fairy story the grafters shove at you every time they want to rob you some more.”
“But don't vote for the grafters,” Billy contended. “If we selected honest men we'd get honest treatment.”
“I wish you'd come to some of our meetings, Billy,” Tom said wistfully. “If you would, you'd get your eyes open an' vote the socialist ticket next election.”
“Not on your life,” Billy declined. “When you catch me in a socialist meeting'll be when they can talk like white men.”
Bert was humming: