He had a hunch there’d be trouble tonight. Men getting hurt: himself among them, maybe. He advanced on the platform. The hall hummed with an electrical tension he could feel almost physically, like a warning touch. It was something to make you afraid if you were a coward. Or to make you all the more steadfast if you believed in your message, as Shell Macklin did.

His friend Dave Obrowski from the stockroom of the Amalgamated Motors plant was introducing him. Doing a loud job of it. A little too loud:

“Our next speaker is a man we all know and respect. Nobody could call him un-American; his father fought in the war to save democracy. He’s been in the machine tool division of Amalgamated Motors eight loyal years . . .”