them again to be policemen. Public feeling became very much aroused. While offers of support came from every quarter the opposition was very active.
Soon, Samuel Gompers began to telegraph me asking the removal of Mr. Curtis and the reinstatement of the union policemen. This required me to make a reply in which I stated among other things that "There is no right to strike against the public safety by any body, any time, any where." This phrase caught the attention of the nation. It was beginning to be clear that if voluntary associations were to be permitted to substitute their will for the authority of public officials the end of our government was at hand. The issue was nothing less than whether the law which the people had made through their duly authorized agencies should be supreme.
This issue I took to the people in my campaign for reelection as Governor. Though I was hampered by an attack of influenza and spoke but three or four times, I was able to make the issue plain even beyond the confines of Massachusetts. Many of the wage earners both organized and unorganized, who knew I had always treated them fairly, must have sup-
