Before midnight the two happy lovers had joined the mother and
Lucille in New York, and at the close of the week all had returned to
Harrisville.
CHAPTER XII
THE STRIKE AT HARRISVILLE
Labor strikes are terribly disagreeable things to encounter whether in
the daily routine of steel mills and railways, or in the kitchen before
breakfast on blue Monday. Especially inconvenient are strikes in steel
mills when the order books are full as were those of the Harrisville Iron
& Steel Co. That the company had large orders could not possibly be
concealed. Vast quantities of ore, limestone, and coke were being
delivered daily at the mills. Never were more men on the pay-roll, and
all the machinery of the gigantic plant was crowded to its utmost night
and day. That business had improved was evident to everybody.
In love and war all things are fair, and the same principle, or lack of
it, seems to control most modern strikes. No doubt what young Alfonso
Harris told his mother on the steamer was true, that the labor agitators
were advised of Reuben Harris's plan to sell the steel plant to an
English syndicate. Souls of corporations decrease as the distance between
labor and capital increases, and naturally American employees oppose
foreign control of every kind.
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