“As I am acquainted with the methods of the iron trade I have been able to give the trade Union many valuable points.  It was upon my suggestion that the amalgamation of the unions was effected.

“From my intimate knowledge of the manufacture of iron I know that the item of wage is less than fifteen per cent. of the cost of the completed casting, yet the tariff on manufactured iron is on the average thirty per cent.  Where does the additional fifteen per cent. go?  To fatten the pockets of the favored manufacturer.  But that is only half the story.  The fifteen per cent. that is supposed to protect the American laborer, does it go for this end?  Not at all.  All of you are familiar with the wage schedules in the iron industry.  They have not been advanced five per cent. since the imposition of the high tariff.  So the manufacturer gobbles more than ninety per cent. of the tariff bounty.

“It is because I keep telling the iron workers this truth that I am hounded by the minions of the Trusts.

“We have allowed ourselves to be robbed long enough.  I am an American to the back-bone, and I propose to fight the men who have disputed this country till I die.

“Let me say that to whatever Nevins may propose I am willing to lend my support, provided the ends he seeks to obtain are honorable and the means reasonable.

“As I am talking I cannot keep out of my mind the home which the Iron Masters destroyed.  I had a wife and two children who loved me and were the idols of my heart.  I saw this home destroyed.  I saw my children turned adrift and their mother forced to work to support them; for during the first three years after the strike I could get nothing to do.

“With these memories which had as a climax the deaths of two nearest and dearest to me, I have nothing left to live for but the fulfillment of my resolve to break the power of the Monopolists who have control of this country.”

“This meeting will be protracted to the middle of next week if we all take a half hour or more to tell our tale of woe,” observes one of the committee who cannot foresee the end of the discussion.

The chairman asks if the members wish to limit the time of the speakers to five minutes, and this proposition meets with the approval of all.

So the remaining stories are told in short intensive sentences which describe the heart-breaking history of men who have been trodden down under the heel of monopoly.

There are examples of every type that can be imagined.  Men who have been defrauded of their ideas and patents; others who have been the victims of unjust legislation, the dupes of the speculator, the betrayed friends of men who have ridden to fortune on the backs of those who gave them their first start.

Under the new ruling, the first man to be recognized is Herman Nettinger, a man known to all the assemblage as an anarchist.  He had been admitted to the councils on the supposition that the best way to pacify and placate the Anarchistic element was to offer them full representation in the work of regenerating the government.