"Yes, 'twas him, all right, that thought up most of those tricky moves when we was tryin' to get our Nine-Hour Bill before," reflected a wiry, quick-motioned girl during a second's pause.
"Don't it just make you boil," began another, "when you think how he riled 'em up at every four corners in Missouri! He had every old country storekeeper standin' on end about that Nine-Hour Bill. He had 'em puttin' on their specs and callin' to mother to come and listen to this information the manufacturers had sent him:—how the labor unions was tryin' to get a Nine-Hour Bill for women passed; how it would keep their youngest girl, Bessie, from helping in the store when the farmers drove in of a Saturday night; and how it was a blow at American freedom."
"E.J. Troy's got to be squenched at the primaries," said a third, quietly and decisively.
"But how?" asked a more timid officer.
Bing! Mrs. Knefler got into action. There never was a woman for whom a difficult situation offered a more bracing tonic quality. The business meeting that followed fairly bristled with plans.
The girls' first move was to go before the Central Labor Body and ask them to indorse their objections to E.J. Troy. Definite action beyond indorsement the girls did not ask or expect. This much they got.
One day a little later, when Mrs. Knefler's campaign was beginning to take form, a representative of E.J. Troy called Mrs. Knefler on the telephone. The voice was bland, smooth, and very friendly. Wouldn't she—that is—ah—er—wouldn't her organization confer with Mr. E.J. Troy? He felt sure they would come to a pleasant and mutually helpful understanding.
Mrs. Knefler explained to the mouthpiece (take it either way) that it would be quite useless; that the stand of the League was taken on Mr. Troy's previous record and on the "interests" he represented; that while they had nothing against him in his private capacity, as a public servant they must oppose him. All this in Mrs. Knefler's suavest fashion. She feels intensely, but she never loses her self-possession. That's why she is such a formidable antagonist.
It was the last week in June—they had just a month before the primaries in which to rouse public opinion. The newspapers must help, of course.
Mrs. Knefler went to the editors. They were polite, they admitted the justice of her stand, but they were evasive. Mrs. Knefler opened her paper the next morning after she had made the rounds, to find not a single word about the danger to the working woman's interests.