“Now, we’ve got to strike the first blow!  The men over at Pittsfield and at the Woodward mines will join the strikers if the Harleigh and Hazleton men go out.  We must get an injunction to prevent the committee from the affected mines from visiting the other men.  If they come it is for the sole purpose of inducing the men to strike.  Isn’t that sufficient grounds for an injunction?”

“You can get your injunction, Mr. Purdy,” Trueman replies, “but what effect will it have if you haven’t a regiment to back it up?”

“We have the regiment!  The Coal and Iron Police have been drilling in the Hazleton armory.  We can put three hundred men in the field from the offices of the several works, armed with riot guns.”

“You may rely on me to get the injunction, Mr. Purdy,” the younger man says, after a moment’s pause, “but I would not advise calling out the Coal and Iron Police until some act of violence is committed by the miners themselves.  It may lead to bloodshed, may it not?”

“Lead to bloodshed?  Why not?  For what have we been training the Coal and Iron Police?  The miners of the Pennsylvania coal region need a wholesome lesson.  They have no respect for property rights.  Let them be incited to a strike by the walking delegates and their battle cry is ’Burn!  Destroy!’

“We want no repetition of the Homestead and Latimer riots.  They were too costly to the employers!  Coal breakers and company stores are no playthings for the whimsical notions of so-called labor leaders who do not know the conditions prevailing in this region.  They are too expensive to be made the food of the strikers’ torch.

“Stop the strikers before they have a chance to blacken Luzerne County with the charred ruins of the breakers!  They’ll be sacking our homes next.  Already their attitude is almost insufferable.  People beyond these hills do not understand the reign of terror under which these foreign-born men hold the Wyoming Valley!

“It has come a time when we must shoot first, if there is to be any shooting!  I’ve had a talk to-day with Sheriff Marlin.  It is fortunate that we have a sheriff who has the grit to stand his ground.  He says a telegram or telephone message will summon him to Harleigh or Hazleton at a moment’s notice, and he will swear our Coal and Iron Policemen in as deputies.

“Whatever they do then will be legal—­Understand?”

Trueman looks straight at Purdy several seconds before he replies.

“No,” he says, flushing, “not every thing they do.  I do not set my judgment against yours, but I do counsel great caution in placing Sheriff Marlin in command of the Coal and Iron Police.  While you may be correct in saying we must administer a quick and salutary lesson to the miners, as deputy sheriffs your men might be tempted to shoot too soon.”

“Shoot too soon?  If these men gather on mischief bent, we can’t shoot too soon!”