ing, when the twenty thousand men thronged into the
yards, with their dinner-pails and working-clothes, Jurgis
stood near the door of the hog-trimming room, where he
had worked before the strike, and saw a throng of eager
men, with a score or two of policemen watching them; and
he saw a superintendent come out and walk down the line,
and pick out man after man that pleased him; and one
after another came, and there were some men up near the
head of the line who were never picked -- they being the
union stewards and delegates, and the men Jurgis had
heard making speeches at the meetings. Each time, of
course, there were louder murmurings and angrier looks.
Over where the cattle-butchers were waiting, Jurgis heard
shouts and saw a crowd, and he hurried there. One big
butcher, who was president of the Packing Trades Council,
had been passed over five times, and the men were wild
with rage; they had appointed a committee of three to
go in and see the superintendent, and the committee had
made three attempts, and each time the police had clubbed
them back from the door. Then there were yells and hoots,
continuing until at last the superintendent came to the
door. "We all go back or none of us do!" cried a hun~
dred voices. And the other shook his fist at them, and
shouted, "You went out of here like cattle, and like
cattle you'll come back!"

Then suddenly the big butcher president leaped upon
a pile of stones and yelled: "It's off, boys. We'll all of
us quit again!" And so the cattle-butchers declared a new
strike on the spot; and gathering their members from the
other plants, where the same trick had been played, they
marched down Packers' Avenue, which was thronged with
a dense mass of workers, cheering wildly. Men who had
already got to work on the killing-beds dropped their
tools and joined them; some galloped here and there on
horseback, shouting the tidings, and within half an hour
the whole of Packingtown was on strike again, and beside
itself with fury.

There was quite a different tone in Packingtown after

[[325]]

p324 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p325w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p326

v?