Labor unions are performing an important educational function
when they drive into the heads of these would-be superiors the
fact that this nation is becoming actually a republic in which
the workingmen shall decide for themselves questions affecting
themselves, and in which they shall no longer be guided by the
whims or financial interests of would-be "superiors."
CATCHING A RED-HOT BOLT
Men were working on the roof of a Pennsylvania ferryhouse,
overhanging the North River on the Jersey side.
The passengers on one of the big ferryboats watched with
admiration the work of the fearless young mechanics.
The men stood on a board not more than a foot wide. They had
nothing to hold to. Sixty feet below them was a mass of rough
piles. A misstep would have meant death.
One of the men, standing perfectly at ease on his narrow ledge,
swung a heavy sledge-hammer, while the other held in place the
bolt to be driven home in the iron-work. ----
The work on that bolt was finished, and one of the young men, a
wiry giant over six feet tall, picked up in his arms a small
wooden keg which stood on the board beside him. It was a keg
such as nails are packed in. About forty feet away from the
bridge, up among the iron beams, a smith was at work heating the
bolts red-hot.
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