WORD

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Instantly, the noise stopped. The whole room lay in perfect silence. The
tire builders stood in long lines, touching each other, perfectly
motionless, deafened by the silence. A moment ago there had been the
weaving hands, the revolving wheels, the clanking belt, the moving
hooks, the flashing tire tools. Now there was absolute stillness, no
motion anywhere, no sound. Out of the terrifying quiet came the
wondering voice of a big tire builder near the windows: "Jesus Christ,
it's like the end of the world." He broke the spell, the magic moment of
stillness. For now his awed words said the same thing to every man, "We
done it!' We stopped the belt! By God, we done it!"' And men began to
cheer hysterically, to shout and howl in the fresh silence. Men wrapped
long sinewy arms around their neighbors' shoulders, screaming, "We done
it! We done it!" For the first time in history, American mass-production
workers had stopped a conveyor belt and halted the inexorable movement
of factory machinery. - Ruth McKenney, 'Industrial Valley'

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