The police, and the strikers also, were determined that there should be no violence; but there was another party interested which was minded to the contrary—­and that was the press.  On the first day of his life as a strikebreaker Jurgis quit work early, and in a spirit of bravado he challenged three men of his acquaintance to go outside and get a drink.  They accepted, and went through the big Halsted Street gate, where several policemen were watching, and also some union pickets, scanning sharply those who passed in and out.  Jurgis and his companions went south on Halsted Street; past the hotel, and then suddenly half a dozen men started across the street toward them and proceeded to argue with them concerning the error of their ways.  As the arguments were not taken in the proper spirit, they went on to threats; and suddenly one of them jerked off the hat of one of the four and flung it over the fence.  The man started after it, and then, as a cry of “Scab!” was raised and a dozen people came running out of saloons and doorways, a second man’s heart failed him and he followed.  Jurgis and the fourth stayed long enough to give themselves the satisfaction of a quick exchange of blows, and then they, too, took to their heels and fled back of the hotel and into the yards again.  Meantime, of course, policemen were coming on a run, and as a crowd gathered other police got excited and sent in a riot call.  Jurgis knew nothing of this, but went back to “Packers’ Avenue,” and in front of the “Central Time Station” he saw one of his companions, breathless and wild with excitement, narrating to an ever growing throng how the four had been attacked and surrounded by a howling mob, and had been nearly torn to pieces.  While he stood listening, smiling cynically, several dapper young men stood by with notebooks in their hands, and it was not more than two hours later that Jurgis saw newsboys running about with armfuls of newspapers, printed in red and black letters six inches high: 

Violence in the yards!  Strikebreakers surrounded by frenzied mob!

If he had been able to buy all of the newspapers of the United States the next morning, he might have discovered that his beer-hunting exploit was being perused by some two score millions of people, and had served as a text for editorials in half the staid and solemn businessmen’s newspapers in the land.

Jurgis was to see more of this as time passed.  For the present, his work being over, he was free to ride into the city, by a railroad direct from the yards, or else to spend the night in a room where cots had been laid in rows.  He chose the latter, but to his regret, for all night long gangs of strikebreakers kept arriving.  As very few of the better class of workingmen could be got for such work, these specimens of the new American hero contained an assortment of the criminals and thugs of the city, besides Negroes and the lowest foreigners-Greeks, Roumanians, Sicilians, and Slovaks.  They had been attracted more by the prospect of disorder than, by the big wages; and they made the night hideous with singing and carousing, and only went to sleep when the time came for them to get up to work.