The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-18
BY REX E. BEACH.

line. If 1 amt keepin' you up, I'd be
glad of your company
% I'm your assistant lunch buster,
says he, and in the course of things
he further explained that he was a
tugbOat fireman out on strike, givin'
me the follerin' information about the
tie-up:
ut all come up over a dose of dys-
pepsia-"
Back up" interrupted "Kink, -
squirming; ARE you plumb bug? Get
togetheri You're certainly the Raving
Kid. Ye must have stone bruised your
heel and got concession of the brain. "
Yes, sir! Indigestion" Billings con-
tinued. "Old man Badrich of the Bad
rich Transportation company has it
terrible. 1t lands on his solar every
morning about o'clock, gettin' worse
steady, and reaches perihelion along
about IL. He can tell the time of day
by taste. One morning when his mouth
felt like about 1O:45 in comes a COM
mittee from Firemen and Engineers
Local No. p, with a demand for more
wages, ~prOddin' him with the intima-
lions that if he didn't ante they'd tie
up all his boats"
4 s'pose a teaSpOOnful of bak'n'
soda, assimilated internally around the
environments Of his appendix would
have spared the strike and cheated me
out of bein' a hero. AS the poet might
have said-'Upon such slender pegs is
this our greatness hung"
"Oh Gawdr' exclaimed Mullins,
piously.
Anyhow, the bitterness in the old
mans inner tubes showed in the bile
of his answer, and he told 'em if they
wanted more money he'd give 'em a
chance to earn it-they would work
nights as well as days. He intimated
further that they'd ought to be salts
fled with their wages al they'd un-
dOubtedly fOller the same line of bust
ness in the next world, and wouldn't
get a cent for feedin' the fires neither.
Next mOrnin' the strike was called,
and the guy tibet breathed treachery
and walkOuts was one Oily Heegan,
further submerged under the titles of
president of the Federation of Fresh
Water Firemen; also chairman of the
United Waterfront Workmen. which
last takes in everything dOin' business
along the river except the wharf rats
and typhoid germs, and it's with the
disreputableness of this party that l
infected myself to the detriment of
labor and the triumph of the law.
ID. O'Hara Heegen is an able man.
you bet, and inside of a week he'd
est, dirtiest tie-up ever known. The
hospitals and the mOrgues was full of
nOn-union men, but TIE river was
empty all right. Yes. he had a per-
suadin' method of arbitration quite
convincing to the most callo1sed, in
vOlving the layin' on of the lead pipe
Things got to be pretty fierce by
and by, for they had the police buff
falOed, and disturbances got plentyer
than the casualties at a butchers pic
mic. The strikers got hungry, too.
finally, because the principles of union
ism is like rash on your mechanic.
skin deep-inside his gastrics works
three shifts a day, even If his outsides
is idle and steaming with Socialism.
Oily fed 'em drayloads of elo-
quence, but it didn't seem to be real
film. They'd leave the lectures and
rob a bakery.
He was a wonder, though; Just sat
in his office, and kept the shipowners
waitin' in line, swearin' bitter and re-
fined cuss words about ignorant fiend'
and 'cussed pedagogue,' which last. for
Kinks enlightenment, means a kind
Of meetin' house.
These here details my new friend
give me, ending with a eulogy on
Oily Heegan, the idol of the idle.
If be says starve, we starve,' saws
he, and if he says work, we work.
Seei oh, he's the goods, he isl Let's
go down by the river-mebbe we'll see
him. So me and Murdoch liked down
Water street, where they keen blue
mosquito netting over the bar fixtures
and spit at the stove.
I'VE found him, a big-moutbed
shifty kind of man, bout as cynical
lookin' In the face as a black bass.
and full of wind as a toadfish. I ex
changed drinks for principles of So
cialism, and doin' so happened to dis
play my roll. Murdoch slipped away
and made talk with a friend. then.
when Heegan had left, he steers me
out the back way into an alley Short
cut, says he, to another and a better
place..
81 folders through a back room: then
as I steps on the door I'm grabbed by
this new friend, while Murdoch battles
my head with gas pipe billy, one of
the regulation, strike promotin' kind.
like they use for decoyin' members into
the glorious ranks of labor
Il saw a Burning of Rome that
was a dream, and whole cloudbursts
Of shootin' stars. but 1 yanked Mr.
Enthusiastic Stranger away from nv
surcingle and throwed him ag'in the
wall In the shuttle Murdoch shifts
my ballast through and steams up the
alley with my greenbacks. conveyed by
his friend.
Z" 'WOw-ow,' says l, givin' the dis
tress signal so that the windows rat
tied, and reachin' for my holster I'd
"a got them both, only the gun caught
in my suspender. You see, not an
ticipatin' any live bird shoot I'd put