Читать книгу The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools онлайн

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There came a great strike at the harbor. “San Pedro” is a part of our city, where the ships come in laden with lumber and pipe and cement for the endless new streets of homes. Our army of real estate speculators and contractors and bankers are reaping their golden harvest, while several thousand longshoremen slave, literally fourteen and sixteen hours a day of back-breaking toil, handling these heavy materials. They clamor at the docks, bidding against one another, fighting and trampling one another for a chance of life. And here is a ring of grafting employment agencies, secretly maintained by the Shipyard Owners’ Association, draining the last drops of energy from these wretched wage-slaves. The old-line respectable unions are out of business, and everything is serene for the masters; but suddenly comes a flare-up—three thousand men on strike, and one or two hundred I. W. W. organizers spreading the flames of revolt—and just when we thought we had sent the last of them to San Quentin for twenty-eight years!