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"This is an outrage!" shouted Comrade Smith. "Not another word!" commanded the police official; and two policemen who had followed him grabbed the orator by each arm and started to lead him off the stage. Comrade Gerrity leaped to the front of the platform. "I denounce this proceeding!" he shouted. "We are holding an orderly meeting here " A policeman laid hold of him. "You are under arrest."
The meeting was adjourned, and then Meissner and Jimmie went into conference with Gerrity, the organizer, and Schneider, the brewer, and Comrade Mary Allen, all three of whom happened to be on the committee entrusted with the affairs of the Worker.
"You'll have to stop this!" declared one. "Stop?" cried Gerrity. "What do you mean?" "There's to be no more street-speaking during the strike." "Who says so?" "Orders from the chief." "But we've got a permit." "All permits revoked. Cut it out." "But this is an outrage!" "We don't want any argument, young man " "But we're within our rights here." "Forget it, young feller!"
He turned to Jimmie and said, "Where's the American flag?" The Liederkranz sang the Marseillaise, and after the audience had cheered and waved red handkerchiefs and shouted itself hoarse, Comrade Gerrity, the chairman, made a little speech.
When the meeting adjourned, and the Baskerville creature accepted the invitation of Comrade Gerrity to escort her home, the dismay of Comrade Higgins was so evident as to be ludicrous to the whole room. In the interest of common decency it was necessary for the women of the local to take action on this matter.
As Gerrity was an eligible young bachelor, that was all right. But then, a little later, it began to be suspected that she had designs upon Comrade Claudel, the Belgian jeweller.
Comrade Gerrity led off with an indignant refusal to pay the fine; the rest of them followed suit even Comrade Mabel! This caused evident distress of mind to the judge, for Comrade Mabel with her indignant pink cheeks and her big picture-hat looked more than ever the lady, and it is a fact known even to judges that American jails have not been constructed for ladies.
"Sure, I know," said Stankewitz, "I vorked in both them cities, and I vas every bit so hungry under Rothschild as I vas under the Kaiser." Then Comrade Gerrity, organizer of the local, took his turn.
And then came Comrade Gerrity, the hustling young insurance-agent who was organizer for the local, and whose task it was to make a "collection speech." He had humorous ways of extracting money "Here I am again!" he began, and everybody smiled, knowing his bag of tricks.
But to lay hold of a man who hated war with all his heart and soul, to drag him away from the little business he had painfully built up, and compel him to put on a uniform and obey other men's orders well, when you saw a thing like that, you knew about the atrocities of war! Comrade Meissner went on. Worse than that -they had taken Comrade Gerrity. And Jimmie stared. "But he's married!"
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