I passed a huge, dark, silent box of a mill, and I saw what I never saw before in a city, armed men guarding the streets.
Although it was growing late--it was after nine o'clock--crowds of people were still parading the streets, and there was something intangibly restless, something tense, in the very atmosphere of the neighbourhood.

It was very plain that I had reached the strike district.
I was about to make some further inquiries for the headquarters of the mill men or for Bill Hahn personally, when I saw, not far ahead of me, a black crowd of people reaching out into the street.

Drawing nearer I saw that an open space or block between two rows of houses was literally black with human beings, and in the centre on a raised platform, under a gasolene flare, I beheld my friend of the road, Bill Hahn.

The overcoat and the hat with the furry ears had disappeared, and the little man stood there bare-headed, before that great audience.
My experience in the world is limited, but I have never heard anything like that speech for sheer power.

It was as unruly and powerful and resistless as life itself.