"
"No, that wasn't necessary," said Dryfoos. "I succeeded in breaking up
the union. I entered into an agreement with other parties not to employ
any man who would not swear that he was non-union. If they had attempted
violence, of course they could have been shot. But there was no fear of
that. Those fellows can always be depended upon to cut one another's
throats in the long run."
"But sometimes," said Colonel Woodburn, who had been watching throughout.
for a chance to mount his hobby again, "they make a good deal of trouble
first. How was it in the great railroad strike of '77?"
"Well, I guess there was a little trouble that time, colonel," said
Fulkerson. "But the men that undertake to override the laws and paralyze
the industries of a country like this generally get left in the end."
"Yes, sir, generally; and up to a certain point, always. But it's the
exceptional that is apt to happen, as well as the unexpected. And a
little reflection will convince any gentleman here that there is always a
danger of the exceptional in your system. The fact is, those fellows have
the game in their own hands already. A strike of the whole body of the
Brotherhood of Engineers alone would starve out the entire Atlantic
seaboard in a week; labor insurrection could make head at a dozen given
points, and your government couldn't move a man over the roads without
the help of the engineers.
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