My mind was full of my books and my college dreams. All I
wanted was to start the "season" as soon as possible, to save up
the expected sum, and to reach the next period of freedom from
physical toil, when I should be able to spend day and night on my
studies again. But going to work as a strike-breaker was out of the
question. A new kind of Public Opinion had suddenly sprung up
among the cloak-makers: a man who did not belong to the union
was a traitor, worse than an apostate, worse than the worst of
criminals
And so, feeling like a school-boy in Antomir when he is made to
furnish the very rod with which he is to be chastised, I went to the
headquarters of the union, paid my initiation fee, and became a
member. It was on a Friday afternoon. The secretaries of the
organization were seated at a long table in the basement of a
meeting-room building on Rivington Street. The basement and the
street outside were swarming with cloak-makers. A number of
mass meetings had been arranged to take place in several halls,
with well-known Socialists for speakers, but I had not even the
curiosity to attend them.
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