“Only a couple of months.”
“Well, stay till November, and see what they do with the ballot-boxes in these camps!”
“I can imagine, of course—”
“No, you can't. Any more than you could imagine the graft and the misery!”
“But if the men should take to voting together—”
“How can they take to voting together—when any one who mentions the idea goes down the canyon? Why, you can't even get naturalisation papers, unless you're a company man; they won't register you, unless the boss gives you an O. K. How are you going to make a start, unless you have a union?”
It sounded reasonable, Hal had to admit; but he thought of the stories he had heard about “walking delegates,” all the dreadful consequences of “union domination.” He had not meant to go in for unionism!
Olson was continuing. “We've had laws passed, a whole raft of laws about coal-mining—the eight-hour law, the anti-scrip law, the company-store law, the mine-sprinkling law, the check-weighman law. What difference has it made in North Valley that there are such laws on the statute-books? Would you ever even know about them?”
“Ah, now!” said Hal. “If you put it that way—if your movement is to have the law enforced—I'm with you!”
“But how will you get the law enforced, except by a union? No individual man can do it—it's 'down the canyon' with him if he mentions the law. In Western City our union people go to the state officials, but they never do anything—and why? They know we haven't got the men behind us! It's the same with the politicians as it is with the bosses—the union is the thing that counts!”