Arizona republican., 1911-09-21

Publishing Coz
Martins chest rose and fell with a
sigh. He thought of his own dis
mantled home, OF his family scattered,
of Little Wiggler, his baby boy, done to
death by impoverished milk which was
yet the best that strike benefits could
buy.
DE more trouble We make" Holtz-
man continued. de quicker dey come
TO settle, and de slower dey come to a
lockoudt next time"
1 After the shade of emotion that
swept over them, Martins features
settled themselves in a black taciturn-
ity, and he sat speachless for a quarter
Of an hour, cutting the piece of fuse
into tiny bits with his jackknife, and all
the while Hoffman was buzzing in his
I ear in low, insistent tones. When the
German had finished, he stopped and
/ lifted a loose bit of planking at his
feet, revealing a hole in the ground
! that Martin saw was exactly filed by
box labeled Nitro
Hoffman let the board drop gently
| back into place, and ii looked like
every other bit of planking about it.
We shoot him tonight" he COM
mented.
Martin had been looking down at the
plank. He shifted his gaze TO the face
of Hoffman, in a look that was cold
and hard.
Hoffman" he said, in steady
tones, but with 4 certain ominous quail
ity in them, If you shoot off as much
IS a fireCracker in this town or round
those works before this strikes lost
or won I'll wiring your neck like
chickens"
He walked away and left Hoffman
standing
Looking about to see there was no
one in sight in the lanes between lum-
Der piles through which Martin was
going. the German ran after him. His
face was working in an insane rage.
Tonight" he Kissed in the mans
ear, tonight"
But Martin did not even glance at
him. He had listened, he had pom
dered, and ne had had his word. That,
therefore, was all for him. lie had
decided, not from the boss's stand
point, not from society's standpoint,
but from the point of view of the
union, and more Immediately of the
strike, for 1t was in the strike that he
lived and moved and had his being.
Through it he had become class con
scious. Above the crowd OF his fellow
battlers he loo,1cd, 4 great, sad LIN
coin.
Once he forgot his role. II was after
his baby died, and when so.-.c fresh
despair entered his soll at sight OF a
crowd OF strike-breakers leaving the
train. lie ragged through them, 4
jungle beast, swinging his great arms
Ike fails. and wherever his mighty
fist impacted man crumplel Up on
the pave. But presently he mastered
himself. lie held bacl. his hand from
murder that day, and after it more
than ever he held back his fellows
from deeds OF violence.
Our cause is just" he would say.
VIZ GO wrong in the name of the
just?"
But there was, for all that, conflict
in the breast Of Martin himself. lie
was a man VINO could live MS life il
the life Of others. When q strikers
wife was sick, when another's baby
died, .or when Strunskey's house
burned out to 4 shell, the bis man car
ried all this On his heart He found
a way, too, to show his sympathy, and
do his little share in this common
burden-bearing.
And If there was no violence among
the strikers, there was violence in the
heart OF this giant shepherd OF the
flock. He had tran5planted the con-
flicL to his own breast, ana fought ii
out there daily. In that heart was
agony, and tears, and hunger, and
wrestling against ODDS and trampling
on things tender and sore. His mind,
too, was a battle-ground. There were
reasonings and wraa9linGS, combats of
ideals and conflicts OF ideals, wrest-
lings with sayings that were hard and
conclusions that seemed at once IN
eyitable and impossible,
And here now was this crazy Dutch
man secreting dynamite TO blow up
the Rockport Foundry and Machine
Shop where John Martin and four OF
the twelve hundred strikers had been
employed. John was against IL on prin-
ciple, and he was against il on policy,
There might be short-sigated, priva-
tion-crazed men among the strikers
to aid and abet him. there might
ba those who theoriged that anything
that made trouble for the bosses WAS
good for the sirikersi but john Mar
tin could see beyond all this-te the
right
At least, he Thought ne could.
And then came Denny Welch to NEE.
81