And so it happened, one morning in January, that the men coming to work found in conspicuous places around the yards and through the mills, a notice calling for a floor meeting at one o'clock the next day (you will note that Cowder and Mulligan were not taking the time for the gathering out of the men's noon hour), to discuss a question which concerned both the executive and laboring ends of the mill, preparatory to taking a vote.
There was not an inkling in the broadside of what the question to be discussed was; and when one o'clock of the day set came there was not a man of all the 1800 in the wire mill that could be spared from his post, who did not appear on the floor of the main building of the plant. They were a sight for sculptors and painters, gathered there around the great machines in the dusky light which filled the immense building--labor in all of its virile strength, men from a dozen nations, in greasy, daubed garb lifted their strong, set faces to Jake Mulligan, who, from a cage dropped to a proper level by a great crane, addressed them.
He put it direct. "Boys," he said, "you know as well as I do that there's a lot of talk going up and down this mill about the wickedness of making things for war. Now, I never did, and never will, ask a man to do a thing that is against his conscience; and Mr. Cowder and I have concluded that we would like to know whether this is just talk or whether there is some of you fellows that really are doing something that you think is wrong. We have decided to take a vote on it, to find out how many of you think we ought to give up this contract.
"Of course you know--or you ought to know--that giving it up means shutting down the mill. There are no contracts for barbed wire to be had at present, except for war. I don't say that we will shut down even if you vote against it, but what we will do is to give you boys a chance to get another job somewhere else and we will get a new set of men. Or, if the most of you want to go on with the jobs that you are in, and a few of you really feel hurt about this thing, we will do the very best we can to find you something else to do. I don't say we will give you as good wages as we are giving you here. You know there is nothing else around this country that is paying like this mill, can't afford to.