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couldn't make it out this fancy way and weren't going to stand for it. So they just sat there and folded their arms.

Well, it was the most extraordinary sight and the most unusual situation, because the workers in Akron were peculiarly solid, sensible, old-fashioned Americans. There was a minimum of immigrant stock among them. They had old Virginia, Kentucky, Midwestern and New England names. They looked like it. They had hawk faces, intelligent faces. They were on the whole slightly older in their average age than you find in some of the modern factories. That is, they were the type of steady workmen you don't think of as striking. I think I was told, though I'm not sure, that there had never been a strike there before - at least, there had never been a strike of any proportions. There may have been a small flare-up of one group that demanded something or other, but there had never been a real strike in Akron. Nobody was prepared for it. Nobody knew what to do about it. Everybody was alarmed. They just sat there in front of their machines with their arms folded.

I seemed to be the only person who recognized that as peculiar. Curiously none of the employers seemed to have resented it very much. There wasn't that wild hitting