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So there they were, fighting the war again; Peter had to take up her burden, be a hero, and a martyr, and a "Red." That same afternoon, as fate willed it, three "wobblies" out of a job came to call; and oh, how tired Peter was of these wandering agitators insufferable "grouches!" Peter would want to say: "Oh, cut it out!
The deputy force worked for hours in cleaning up the jail, and it took a gang of ironworkers nine working days, at a cost of over $800.00, to repair the damage done in twenty minutes. Twenty of the "hard-boiled Wobblies" were removed to Seattle shortly after this, but it was no trouble for the men to gain their demands from that time on.
In hope that she would be deterred by exaggeration, he dwelt on the subject. "The gunmen and hoss thieves and tinhorn gamblers all come in on the rush. There's a lot of them hobos and wobblies reds and anarchists and such floatin' round the country, and they're sure to be in on it, too. I reckon any of them would cut a throat or down a man for two bits in lead money.
Jimmie could not scream, but his face turned purple and the cords stood out on his forehead and neck; he began to strangle, and this was worst of all; every convulsion of his body stabbed him with ten thousand knives. Jimmie had talked with a number of the "wobblies" who had had this "water-cure", a regular device of police-authorities in small towns and villages.
Peter did not dare go to the place himself, but he coached a couple of young fellows whom McGivney brought to him, teaching them the Red lingo, and how to worm their way into the movement. Before long one of them was secretary of the local; and Peter, directing their activities. received reports twice a week of everything the "wobblies" were planning and doing.
But now Jimmie was out among the "wobblies", the "blanket-stiffs" the unskilled workers who had literally nothing but their muscle-power to sell; here he was in the front-line trenches of the class war. These men wandered about from one job to another, at the mercy of the seasons and the fluctuations of industry.
Even the "wobblies", it appeared, had come to hate the Kaiser; a bunch of them were in France, and more would have come, if the government had not kept them cross by putting their leaders into jail.
"That's a friend of mine I brought along! She's come up to see how us wobblies lives!" Again his coarse laugh, which made her shudder. Then more broken laughs, whispered words. She was obliged to take the arm of her rough captor to descend from the car. "She don't see very well," said Aleck in explanation. "Maybe just as well she don't, heh?" She stood looking about her vaguely, helpless.
They battered in the door, and had pushed their way half thru it when the "wobblies" opened fire from inside, killing several of the paraders. Then, of course, the mob flew into a frenzy of fury.
Every time the "wobblies" succeeded in organizing the workers and calling a big strike, all the agencies of capitalist repression were called in they were beaten by capitalist policemen, shot by capitalist sheriffs, starved and frozen in capitalist jails, and so their strike was crushed and their forces scattered.
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