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Through all this, the Mill workers' union still refused to accept the leadership of this man whose every interest was anti-American and foreign to the principles of the loyal citizen workman. But the fire of Jake Vodell's oratory and argument was not without kindling power, even among John Ward's employees.
Upon the answer of John Ward's employees to the demands of the agitator for a sympathetic strike depended the success or failure of Jake Vodell's Millsburgh campaign. It was evening. The Interpreter was sitting in his wheel chair on the balcony porch with silent Billy not far away. Beyond the hills on the west the sky was faintly glowing in the last of the sun's light.
The owners had no more at stake in the situation than did their workmen, for the lives of all were equally dependent upon the industries that were threatened with destruction. In the revolution that Jake Vodell's brotherhood was fomenting the American employers could lose no more than would the American employees.
Are you not as human as any McIver or Adam Ward of the very class you condemn? Would you not be subject to the same temptations of power the same human passions? Would you not, given the same opportunity, be all that you say they are or worse?" Jake Vodell's countenance was black with rage. He started to rise, but a movement of Billy Rand made him hesitate.
And, what was of more vital importance to McIver, perhaps, if the truth was not soon revealed, Jake Vodell's charges that the murder was inspired by McIver himself would become, in the minds of many, an established fact.
But that was expected by everybody, for Sam Whaley had identified himself from the day of Vodell's arrival in Millsburgh as the agitator's devoted follower and right-hand man. But this unstable, whining weakling and his fellows from the Flats carried little influence with the majority of the sturdy, clearer-visioned workmen.
The successful operation of the Mill was a demonstration to the public that Vodell's campaign against the employers was not endorsed by the better and stronger element of employees. To the mind of the strike leader a counter demonstration was imperative. To that immediate end the man now bent every effort. All day the members of the agitator's inner circle were active.
And it was his ability as an organizer and manager, together with his capacity for hard work, that enabled him to realize his vision. It is easily probable that not one of his fellow workmen could have developed and made use of the discovery as he has." Jake Vodell's black brows were raised with quickened interest. "This new process was a discovery then?
In all that maddened crowd there was not a soul in ignorance of John Ward's comradeship with his fellow workmen. In spite of Jake Vodell's careful teaching in spite of his devilish skill in using McIver as an example in his appeals and arguments inciting their hatred against all employers as a class, they were checked in their madness by the presence of Captain Charlie's friend.
Quietly and carefully John drove through the outskirts of the crowd to a point close to the wall and not far from the main door of the building, nearly opposite the speaker. Stopping the motor the two men sat in the car listening to Vodell's address.
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