Personally, I looked upon developments with gravest misgivings, for the Ventilation Brotherhood, composed of fifty thousand workers, had issued the following ultimatum:
"To the Directors of the Ventilation Company of Wu, Unlimited, we pay our respects, and submit that:
"Within three wakes, they must grant all our demands, or we will turn off the country's air-supply.
"Not a ventilation wheel will turn, not a breath of fresh air will blow until our terms are complied with.
"If thousands of citizens, including many First Class men and women, should be suffocated as a result, we shall profoundly regret their fate, but sentimental considerations, naturally, cannot deter us."
The demands of the strikers—who were mostly Third Class citizens, of the kind that did a maximum of work for a minimum of returns—were as follows:
1. That wages be high enough to permit the men to eat every other "wake."
2. That hours be short enough to permit them to sleep every other night.
3. That the Company supply free air to the homes of all its employees.
These demands—which were variously branded by officials of the Company as "Inordinate," "Preposterous," and "Impossible"—were condemned in no uncertain terms by all First Class citizens, who upbraided the unpatriotic attitude of the strikers and pointed out that, should their terms be met, the Ventilation Company could not guarantee to pay its stockholders more than eleven per cent a year.