The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-16

we don't win. As soon as I apply for this patent I'm going to show Trement where it will save him thousands and thousands of dollars. I've got to hurry, too, Fremont is bound to do something or other foolish and I want to be out of the way before that time. He'll have a strike on his hands before he quits. It's sure to come, and soon."
 "A striker she gasped, and. went pale and breathless. She was silent for a mo- ment, and then she reached up and kissed him with cold lips. Good night" she said quietly
 A strikel She lay alone in the little bedroom and went over, detail by detail, the horror with which he had threaten C her. God! Could she again go through that monstrous nightmare? Why, in that other long, bitter strike she had reached depths of humiliation so fearful that the hot blood of shame flooded her face at the bare memory of them The cold and the hunger had been nothing-mere hard ships-but the prlde-revolting things that cold and hunger had forced upon them, there was the blight! Why, she had spent days at a time along the railroad track back there, in a dirty gown like other beggars, picking up bits of coal that meant life, quarreling with --Ger wom- en, coarse, ignorant women and even fighting once, for the possession of a par tieuidrty un6 lump tnaI flNal nau striyen to take from her by main force. From the strike fund had come a meagre pittance each week, but there had been rent to pay, installments on the fur niture, insurance, a thousand-and-one things, and no strikers credit was good after a certain period of the long-drawn- out battle. Powell, unable to find tenn porary work, had grown desperate and [ Hen, and once he had brought home a hunk of ufifb an daf1o mt n air that she knew he had stolen 1t. It was the first meat they had eaten for many days, and she remembered yet how good-how goodl-it had tasted, and how like famished animals they devoured it, sitting across the table from each other with bloodshot eyes. She shrank even now to remember these indignities that had so scared her soul. even as she shrank from the memory of that last final blow when the baby lad died. She groaned anew in the anguish of that recollection. A striAe! She could not, would not sur ViVe another one!
 There is no aspect of a continued strike that is not terrible. The Fremont Wells & Fremont plant employed, when at full blast, 800 worl1men. To write the com- plete history of an important strike Tn that concern would involve the writing of 800 tragedies, and the central figure in each one of these pitifully true tales would be a woman-the woman at home.
 If PowelPs wife had good reason to shudder at the thought of a second siege, Powell had grave excuse for his appre- hension. Young Fremont. having inher- tied his late fathers controlling interest in the business, found chaos confronting him. On the one hand be was faced by a powerful labor organization, on the other by a proposed consolidation, the outgrowth of recent unbearable competi- tion, that offered him the alternative of ruinous absorption or, annihilation, and he saw no way but to fight
 His first disquieting act was the erection of the stockade. Strong and high he had it. built surrounding the entire property, and the move was taken by the men as one of open hostility. MT. Wells, always timid was frantic, but young Fremont, by his controlling interest, had the whip hand and used 1t.
 The structure was finished and the grumbling among the men increased. They objected to being imprisoned. The pen meant a cut in wages and protec- tion for "scabs' in case a strike fol- lowed. Fremont had a swelled head and wanted to show that he was boss. He was too young, anyhow It was all dis quieting talk, the more so because based on reasonable premises, and Powell. nat uraly worried, carried 1t home to his wife, little dreaming of how breathlessly she listened to each days report. He did notice, however, that she seemed to take a renewed interest in his working life, and ftp leased him. Meanwhile Powell had los tho time. On the day that the great barred gates first swung upon their hinges to let the sullen workmen In he walked into the office with his big roll of draw ings under his arm and asked to see Fremont alone.
 Certainly" said Fremont cordially, and led the way into his private office. He had a great deal of respect for a work man with drawings under his arm What
 'The parts that cost the most in the output of this plant are the small parts," began Powell, plunging into the business with a drectness that warmed the soul of Fremont within him. More than one half the pieces in every finished article you turn out are handled one at a time, go through a dozen different hands, and cost, in labor, more than three-fourths of the whole assemblage."
 Exactly agreed Fremont with a smile. That's what is keeping me awake nights at this very stime.'