"Rot," said Frank, going out at the door.
It was snowing when the meeting ended, and Sam and the Jewish girl
finished their talk in the hallway leading to her room.
"I don't know what Harrigan, the union leader from Pittsburgh, will say to
this," she told him. "He appointed Frank to lead and direct the strike
here. He doesn't like interference and he may not like your plan. But we
working women need men, men like you who can plan and do things. There are
too many men living on us. We need men who will work for all of us as the
men work for the women in the carriages and automobiles." She laughed and
put out a hand to him. "See what you have got yourself into? I want you to
be a husband to our entire union."
The next morning four girl stenographers went to work in Sam's strike
headquarters, and he wrote his first strike letter, a letter telling the
story of a striking girl named Hadaway, whose young brother was sick with
tuberculosis. Sam did not put any flourishes in the letter; he felt that
he did not need to. He thought that with twenty or thirty such letters,
each telling briefly and truthfully the story of one of the striking
girls, he should be able to show one American town how its other half
lived.
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