The union organizer, Slackbridge, appeals to the emotions of the workers in Coketown in an attempt to garner their support. In his speech, Slackbridge uses pathos to appeal to feelings of camaraderie among the workers and anger at their bosses:
“Oh my friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellow-workers, and fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is come when we must rally around one another as One united power, and crumble into dust the oppressors that too long have battened upon the plunder of our families, upon the sweat of our brows, upon the labor of our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, upon the God-created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon the holy and eternal privileges of brotherhood!”
Notice his repeated use of the word “fellow”: fellow-sufferers, fellow-workers, fellow-men. He is trying to create a sense of brotherhood among the men in the audience, who all, presumably, fall into these categories. At the same time, he is also trying to build a bond between himself and his audience. The categories of people he describes (“sufferers,” “workers,” “men”) are bound together by common life experiences. Slackbridge implies that he lives and works in the same way these men in the audience do (despite his white collar job as a union organizer), to earn the trust and respect of his audience.
Slackbridge’s speech reflects an “us vs. them” mentality. The workers, Slackbridge says, must rally as “one united power” against the “oppressors.” He then lists the crimes of the oppressive millers: they have “battened on” (lived well on) the labor of the workers, while denying them their rights and privileges. He stirs up righteous anger in his audience around their social condition, then aims that anger at a definite target, the factory owners.
Slackbridge raises the stakes of his speech with heightened language. The rights the workers have lost are the “God-created glorious rights of Humanity.” Likewise the privileges lost are “the holy and eternal privileges of Brotherhood.” This language is both vague (of what do these rights and privileges consist, specifically?) and tinged with religiosity, pointing to the value of these concepts in Slackbridge’s eyes
