Only for a night and a day did the rebellion lack both a leader and a philosophy.  Meanwhile, in obedience to the unerring instinct for drama peculiar to great metropolitan dailies, newspaper correspondents were alighting from every train, interviewing officials and members of labour unions and mill agents:  interviewing Claude Ditmar, the strongest man in Hampton that day.  He at least knew what ought to be done, and even before his siren broke the silence of the morning hours in vigorous and emphatic terms he had informed the Mayor and Council of their obvious duty.  These strikers were helots, unorganized scum; the regular unions—­by comparison respectable—­held aloof from them.  Here, in effect, was his argument:  a strong show of force was imperative; if the police and deputies were inadequate, request the Governor to call out the local militia; but above all, waste no time, arrest the ringleaders, the plotters, break up all gatherings, keep the streets clear.  He demanded from the law protection of his property, protection for those whose right to continue at work was inalienable.  He was listened to with sympathy and respect—­but nothing was done!  The world had turned upside down indeed if the City Government of Hampton refused to take the advice of the agent of the Chippering Mill!  American institutions were a failure!  But such was the fact.  Some unnamed fear, outweighing their dread of the retributions of Capital, possessed these men, made them supine, derelict in the face of their obvious duty.

By the faint grey light of that bitter January morning Ditmar made his way to the mill.  In Faber Street dark figures flitted silently across the ghostly whiteness of the snow, and gathered in groups on the corners; seeking to avoid these, other figures hurried along the sidewalks close to the buildings, to be halted, accosted, pleaded with—­threatened, perhaps.  Picketing had already begun!  The effect of this pantomime of the eternal struggle for survivals which he at first beheld from a distance, was to exaggerate appallingly the emptiness of the wide street, to emphasize the absence of shoppers and vehicles; and a bluish darkness lurked in the stores, whose plate glass windows were frosted in quaint designs.  Where were the police?  It was not fear that Ditmar felt, he was galvanized and dominated by anger, by an overwhelming desire for action; physical combat would have brought him relief, and as he quickened his steps he itched to seize with his own hands these foreigners who had dared to interfere with his cherished plans, who had had the audacity to challenge the principles of his government which welcomed them to its shores.  He would have liked to wring their necks.  His philosophy, too, was environmental.  And beneath this wrath, stimulating and energizing it the more, was the ache in his soul from the loss for which he held these enemies responsible.  Two days ago happiness and achievement had both been within his grasp.  The only woman—­so now it seemed—­he