The Rapids by Alan Sullivan — Read

Bowers went thoughtfully home and; next morning, flung himself into his work with renewed courage. He had need of it -- they all had need of it. There were now thousands who waited for their pay, and daily these ranks were swelled by others who drifted in from the woods. Hundreds of merchants began to refuse credit, though Filmer valiantly used all his resources. St. Marys was, in truth, stupefied, and when the first shock began to smooth itself out, the reality of the thing became grimly apparent, and then arose the first rumor of trouble in Ironville, that straggling settlement of shacks where dwelt the bone and muscle of the works.

To the Swede and Polander there was no suggestion of achievement in the vast buildings in which they labored. It was only the place where they earned their living. They worked amongst giant mechanisms beside which they were puny, but theirs was a life of force and strength which took from them the fear of anything that was merely human. Thus surprise changed to resentment, and resentment began to resolve itself into a slow and consuming anger. The works were dead, but in the main office the accounting staff was bending desperately over statements imperatively demanded by Philadelphia. The black browed Hungarians saw the lights at night, and felt that they were being played with by those more powerful than themselves. If a furnace man was discharged, why keep on these scribblers?