The Harbor by Ernest Poole

At the heart of the story is Billy, an aspiring writer who struggles to reconcile his sympathy for workers with his middle-class allegiance to capitalist progress. As Billy comes of age on the New York waterfront, an eyewitness to explosive tensions between labor and capital that culminate in a violent strike, he learns to embrace socialism as the solution to the harbor’s seething injustices. This novel, one of the most direct literary treatments of class warfare, is a valuable social history and a powerful testament to Poole’s legendary talent.