Ridgway was flung at once upon the defensive. His allies, the working men,
demanded of him that his legislature pass the bill wanted by Harley, in
order that work might recommence. He evaded their demands by proposing to
arbitrate his difficulties with the Consolidated, by offering to pay into
the union treasury hall a million dollars to help carry its members through
the winter. He argued to the committee that Harley was bluffing, that
within a few weeks the mines and smelters would again be running at their
full capacity; but when the pressure on the legislators he had elected
became so great that he feared they would be swept from their allegiance to
him, he was forced to yield to the clamor.
It was a great victory for Harley. Nobody recognized how great a one more
accurately than Waring Ridgway. The leader of the octopus had dogged him
over the shoulders of the people, had destroyed at a single blow one of his
two principal sources of power. He could no longer rely on the courts to
support him, regardless of justice.
Very well. If he could not play with cogged dice, he was gambler enough to
take the honest chances of the game without flinching.
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