"You're talking sense now. How do you propose to help it?"
Morrison felt solid ground beneath his feet.
"Do as I said. Learn from the rich. Unite. If the men are not getting fair wages, the union can demand more."
"One word there. You want to organise a union?"
"That's it. That's the stuff." Morrison was flatteringly acquiescent. "A company can turn down one man, but the union will shove it up to them hard."
"If one man breaks five tons of ore a day, and another man breaks only one, will the union see that both get the same pay?"
"A workingman is a workingman." Morrison spoke less enthusiastically. "A man that puts in his time earns all that he gets."
Bennie looked musingly at the toes of his boots.
"They'll make the company ventilate the mines and keep bad ground timbered?"
"They'll look after these things sharp, and anything else that comes up."
"The union will run the company, but who'll run the union?"
"We'll take our turn at bossing all right. Every man in the union stands on the same floor, and when any of the boys have a grievance the president will see them through. The president and the executive committee can tie up the whole camp if the company bucks."
"Not yet. It's like this." Morrison's voice had a tinge of patronage. "You see, I want to get a few of the level-headed men in the camp worked up to the idea; the rest will come in, hands down."
"Luna's a crowd by himself. He's got more faces than a town-clock telling time to ten streets. Who else?"
"Jim Thompson? Don't I know him now? He'll throw more stunts than a small boy with a bellyful of green apples. Who else?"
"Well, how about yourself. That's what I'm here to find out."
"You'll take away no doubts about me, if my tongue isn't struck by a palsy till it can't bore the wax of your ears. When it comes to bosses, I'll choose my own. I'm American and American born. I'd rather be bossed by a silk tile and kid gloves than by a Tipperary hat and a shillalah, with a damned three-cornered shamrock riding the necks of both. It's a pretty pass we've come to if we've got to go to Irish peat-bogs and Russian snow-banks to find them as will tell us our rights and how to get them, and then import dagoes with rings in their ears and Hungarians with spikes in their shoes to back us up. Let me talk a bit! I get my seventy-five dollars a month for knowing my business and attending to it, because my grub goes down the necks of the men instead of out on the dump; because I give more time to a side of bacon than I do to organising unions. And I'll tell you some more facts. The rich are growing richer for using what they have, and the poor are growing poorer because they don't know enough to handle what they've got. Organise a union for keeping damned fools out of the Blue Goose, and from going home and lamming hell out of their wives and children, and I'll talk with you. As it is, the sooner you light out the more respect I'll have for the sense of you that I haven't seen."