Olson was eager to win Hal, and went on to tell all the secrets of his work. He sought men who believed in unions, and were willing to take the risk of trying to convert others. In each place he visited he would get a group together, and would arrange some way to communicate with them after he left, smuggling in propaganda literature for distribution. So there would be the nucleus of an organisation. In a year or two they would have such a nucleus in every camp, and then they would be ready to come into the open, calling meetings in the towns, and in places in the canyons to which the miners would flock. So the flame of revolt would leap up; men would join the movement faster than the companies could get rid of them, and they would make a demand for their rights, backed with the threat of a strike throughout the entire district. “You understand,” added Olson, “we have a legal right to organise—even though the bosses disapprove. You need not stand back on that score.”
“Yes,” said Hal; “but it occurs to me that as a matter of tactics, it would be better here in North Valley if you chose some issue there's less controversy about; if, for instance, you'd concentrate on getting a check-weighman.”
The other smiled. “We'd have to have a union to back the demand; so what's the difference?”
“Well,” argued Hal, “there are prejudices to be reckoned with. Some people don't like the idea of a union—they think it means tyranny and violence—”
The organiser laughed. “You aren't convinced but that it does yourself, are you! Well, all I can tell you is, if you want to tackle the job of getting a check-weighman in North Valley, I'll not stand in your way!”
Here was an idea—a real idea! Life had grown dull for Hal since he had become a buddy, working in a place five feet high. This would promise livelier times!
But was it a thing he wanted to do? So far he had been an observer of conditions in this coal-camp. He had convinced himself that conditions were cruel, and he had pretty well convinced himself that the cruelty was needless and deliberate. But when it came to a question of an action to be taken—then he hesitated, and old prejudices and fears made themselves heard. He had been told that labour was “turbulent” and “lazy,” that it had to be “ruled with a strong hand”; now, was he willing to weaken the strong hand, to ally himself with those who “fomented labour troubles”?
But this would not be the same thing, he told himself. This suggestion of Olson's was different from trade unionism, which might be a demoralising force, leading the workers from o............