Then morning again.
The official stopped at another page.
There Patrick had recorded names beside a particularly difficult stretch.
Some names belonged to men standing nearby.
Some did not.
The missing men had moved on, been injured, found other work, or simply disappeared from the crew as railroad camps constantly changed.
In an age before modern labor protections, the boundary between dangerous employment and unacceptable risk was often defined by the employer, not the worker.
Men took those risks because refusing dangerous work did not create safer work elsewhere.
It often created hunger.
The foreman reached for the ledger.
“That’s enough.”
The official pulled it back.
“You were about to send these men away?”
“The ceremony isn’t for labor crews.”
Patrick finally smiled, but there was no pleasure in it.
“That’s the point.”
The sentence settled over them.
Several of the visitors looked uncomfortable now.
Patrick recognized that discomfort.
He had seen versions of it in boardinghouses, hiring lines, churches, city streets, and workplaces.
People were willing to praise hard work in the abstract.
It was harder to look directly at the exhausted worker and admit that prosperity had depended on him.
An older Irishman named Michael stepped forward.
He had worked beside Patrick through months of track laying.
“Tell them about the canal,” he said.
Patrick looked at him.
Michael nodded toward the officials.
“They think this began with the railroad.”
Patrick understood.
“Some of us worked canals before we came here,” he said.
“Others had brothers who did.
Same story.
Dig until the water goes where someone wants it.
Carry until the stone sits where someone wants it.
Build the thing, then move along before the people using it arrive.”
One official closed the ledger halfway.
“No one is denying that immigrant labor has been important.”
Patrick’s eyes moved to the foreman.
“He just did.”
The foreman flushed.
“I said you don’t own the railroad.”
“We don’t.”
Patrick’s answer came immediately.
That surprised him.
Patrick continued.
“We didn’t ask to own it.
We asked not to be treated like the sight of us spoils what we built.”
No one spoke.
The simplicity of the demand left little room for argument.
Patrick had not asked for a fortune.
He had not claimed that one crew built an entire nation.
He knew engineers drew plans.
Investors provided capital.
Surveyors found routes.
Manufacturers produced iron.
