Both employers and labor leaders recognize the importance of securing the moral support of the general public, for the side which secures it almost always wins. The public, however, usually has little concern in a strike unless it is directly affected. The machinists on a well-known railroad went on a strike a few years ago and remained out for several years. Few people gave it any attention. Even those residing in the same city where the shops of the road were located scarcely noticed it. While the strike of the machinists was dragging itself out, the street-car men of the same city quit work because their demands for higher wages had been refused. Within an hour the whole city was aroused. Meetings of prominent citizens were called. Committees were appointed to try to arbitrate the differences between the car company and its striking employees. Even the mayor brought the influence of his office to bear on the struggle. Within twenty-four hours the matter was settled, the strikers getting the wage increases which they had demanded. We may ask why the people took such an active interest in one strike and practically none whatever in the other. One compelled them to walk to their work; the other, as far as they could see, did not concern them. In one, the people sympathized with the strikers; in the other, their sympathies were not enlisted.