CH  AFTER      NINE


The  Building  of  Bridges


IT  WAS  the  defense's  turn  to  ask  questions  of  Harry  Bridges,  and  Carol
King  drew  from  him  the  personal  picture  of  himself — his  family  back-
ground, his  early  life,  the  reasons  which  lay  behind  the  man's  ideas  and
his  acts.  And  this  questioning  did  more.  It  brought  out  into  the  sharpest
possible  focus  the  motives,  the  strategy,  and  the  actors  in  the  great
drama  of  the  general  strike  of  1934.
Bridges  was  born  of  a  conservative  fatEer,  a  real  estate  agent,  and  a
tempestuous  Irish  mother.  The  entire  family,  including  three  sisters  and
a  brother,  are  all  living.
There  were  uncles  and  aunts,  and  all  the  usual  surroundings  of  a
large  and  reasonably  prosperous  family.  One  of  the  uncles  was  Charles
Bridges,  elected  to  the  Australian  Legislature  in  1936.  Another  was
Harry  Renton,  a  rancher,  who  had  fought  in  the  World  War  for  the
British.  Harry  Renton  had  been  a  sailor,  a  miner  and  a  pearler.
"I  used  to  see  him  every  chance  I  had,"  the  nephew  reminisced.  "I
was  rather  close  to  him.  I  used  to  go  up  to  his  ranch,  and  he  used
to  come  down  pretty  often,  too.  He  had  knocked  around  quite  a  bit.  He
was  a  colorful  person,  and  as  a  kid  I  thought  a  lot  of  him."

This  favorite  uncle,  it  turned  out,  was  the  person  who  had  given
young  Bridges  the  name  of  "Harry."  The  uncle,  it  seemed,  made  a
family  joke  of  the  fact  that  there  were  two  "Rentons,"  for  that  is
what  the  family  called  the  youngster.  So  he  gave  the  boy  his  own  first
name — and  it  stuck.
