They knew they were right, and
that they ought to have stood up for their rights; but they had to lie
down and lick the hand that fed them. Yes, we are all Americans, but I
guess we haven't all got the same country, Mrs. Makely. What sort of a
country has a blacklisted man got?"
"A blacklisted man?" she repeated. "I don't know what you mean."
"Well, a kind of man I've seen in the mill towns, that the bosses have all
got on their books as a man that isn't to be given work on any account;
that's to be punished with hunger and cold, and turned into the street,
for having offended them; and that's to be made to suffer through his
helpless family for having offended them."
"Excuse me, Mr. Camp," I interposed, "but isn't a blacklisted man usually
a man who has made himself prominent in some labor trouble?"
"Yes," the young fellow answered, without seeming sensible of the point I
had made.
"Ah!" I returned. "Then you can hardly blame the employers for taking it
out of him in any way they can. That's human nature."
"Good heavens!" the Altrurian cried out. "Is it possible that in America
it is human nature to take away the bread of a man's family because he has
gone counter to your interest or pleasure on some economical question?"
"Well, Mr.
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