“If you could do it, of course—” began Jimmie, hesitatingly.
“But we ARE doing it!” cried Emil. “We're doing it day by day. Look at this strike here in Leesville.”
“What strike?”
“Didn't you know there'd been another walk-out in the Empire Shops?”
“No, I didn't.”
“The men went out, and the government sent an arbitration commission, and forced both sides to accept an award. They broke old Granitch down—made him recognize the union and grant the basic eight-hour day.”
“My God!” exclaimed Jimmie. It was the thing for which he had stood up in the Empire yards and been cursed by young Lacey Granitch; it was the thing for which he had been sent to jail and devoured by lice! And now the government had helped the men to win their demand! It was the first time—literally the first in Jimmie's whole life—that he had been led to think of the government as something else than an enemy and a slave-driver.
“How did Granitch take it?” he asked.
“Oh, awful! He threatened to quit, and let the government run his plant; but when he found the government was perfectly willing, he dropped his bluff. And look here—here's something else.” Emil reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a newspaper clipping. “Ashton Chalmers went to a banquet at some bankers' convention the other day and made a speech to them. Read this.”
Jimmie, walking along, read some words that Emil had underlined in pencil: “Whether we will or no, we have to recognize that the old order is dead. We face a new era, when labour is coming into its own. If we do not want to be left behind as derelicts, we shall have to get busy and do our part to bring in this new era, which otherwise will come with bloodshed and destruction.”