History was making fast. The fall elections were soon to occur, and
Ernest was nominated by the socialist party to run for Congress. His
chance for election was most favorable. The street-car strike in San
Francisco had been broken. And following upon it the teamsters' strike
had been broken. These two defeats had been very disastrous to organized
labor. The whole Water Front Federation, along with its allies in the
structural trades, had backed up the teamsters, and all had smashed
down ingloriously. It had been a bloody strike. The police had broken
countless heads with their riot clubs; and the death list had been
augmented by the turning loose of a machine-gun on the strikers from the
barns of the Marsden Special Delivery Company.

In consequence, the men were sullen and vindictive. They wanted blood,
and revenge. Beaten on their chosen field, they were ripe to seek
revenge by means of political action. They still maintained their labor
organization, and this gave them strength in the political struggle that
was on. Ernest's chance for election grew stronger and stronger. Day by
day unions and more unions voted their support to the socialists, until
even Ernest laughed when the Undertakers' Assistants and the Chicken
Pickers fell into line. Labor became mulish. While it packed the
socialist meetings with mad enthusiasm, it was impervious to the wiles
of the old-party politicians. The old-party orators were usually greeted
with empty halls, though occasionally they encountered full halls where
they were so roughly handled that more than once it was necessary to
call out the police reserves.

History was making fast. The air was vibrant with things happening and
impending. The country was on the verge of hard times,* caused by a
series of prosperous years wherein the difficulty of disposing abroad
of the unconsumed surplus had become increasingly difficult. Industries