One big butcher, who was president of the Packing Trades Council, had been passed over five times, and the men were wild with rage; they had appointed a committee of three to go in and see the superintendent, and the committee had made three attempts, and each time the police had clubbed them back from the door. Then there were yells and hoots, continuing until at last the superintendent came to the door. “We all go back or none of us do!” cried a hundred voices. And the other shook his fist at them, and shouted, “You went out of here like cattle, and like cattle you’ll come back!”

Then suddenly the big butcher president leaped upon a pile of stones and yelled: “It’s off, boys. We’ll all of us quit again!” And so the cattle-butchers declared a new strike on the spot; and gathering their members from the other plants, where the same trick had been played, they marched down Packers’ Avenue, which was thronged with a dense mass of workers, cheering wildly. Men who had already got to work on the killing-beds dropped their tools and joined them; some galloped here and there on horseback, shouting the tidings, and within half an hour the whole of Packingtown was on strike again, and beside itself with fury.