Editorial note — Chapter XL · BOSTON IN BONDAGE

I. My account of the Boston police strike in “The Goose-step” was ridiculed by the Boston newspapers, and a Cambridge professor wrote me that he knew it was not true, because he had been on the ground—meaning that he had read what the Boston newspapers published concerning it, and had talked with other people who had read the same. I take this occasion to state that my account of what went on during this strike in the private offices of the Black Hand of Boston was furnished by one of Boston’s leading bankers. This old gentleman wrote it out for me with his own hand, and sent it to me—under the pledge that when I had read it and made notes concerning it, I would send it back. I am not sure that I would have had the nerve to publish what I did about Cal Coolidge and his black eye, if I had known that this strike-breaking hero was to become the next President of the United States. But I have published it now, and can’t unpublish it!