The Right to Strike

摘要

The employees of a small railway that furnishes the sole access to a town at the head of a valley go on a strike and demand an absolute acceptance of their terms. As this shuts off all supplies from the local hospital, its directors institute a motor truck service to meet the needs of the institution. On the first day of this arrangement, a car is overturned by a steel wire stretched across the road, and the newly wedded doctor, son of the local practitioner, is killed on the spot. Under the leadership of the chief surgeon of the hospital, an agreement is made by which all medical service is withheld from the strikers and their families. The wife of the leader of the railway strike has an obstructed labor which the physician in attendance (who has declined to side with his professional colleagues) is unable to handle. The surgeon, who is a close friend of the young physician who is killed, declines to aid in caring for the woman who is in labor until he is appealed to by the widow of his dead friend, when he accedes to her importunities and goes to the assistance of the wife of the leader of the railway strike.