He told her a little, and as he spoke he became thoroughly at his ease with her, as if she were a man, and in the pleasure of their swift comradeship they could laugh at each other.
"Mr. Blaine," she said, suddenly, "if I got you into this, it's up to me to help you win. I'm going to turn into an agent for you—I'll make 'em subscribe right and left."
Joe laughed at her.
"Lordy, if you knew how good it is to hear this—after tramping up three miles of stairs and more and nabbing a tawdry twenty subscriptions."
"Is that all you got?"
"People don't understand."
"We'll make them!" cried Sally, clenching her fist.
Joe laughed warmly; he was delighted with her.
"Are you working here?" he asked.
"Yes—you know I used to be in Newark—I was the president of the
Newark Hat-Trimmers' Union."
"And now?"
"I'm trying to organize the girls here."
"Well," he muttered, grimly. "I wouldn't like to be your boss, Miss
Heffer."
She laughed in her low voice.
"Let me tell you what sort I am!" And she sat down, crossed her legs, and clasped her hands on her raised knee. "I was working in that Newark factory, and the girls told me to ask the boss, Mr. Plump, for a half holiday. So I went into his office and said: 'Mr. Plump, the girls want a half holiday.' He was very angry. He said: 'You won't get it. Mind your own business.' So I said, quietly: 'All right, Mr. Plump, we'll take a whole holiday. We won't show up Monday.' Then he said to me, 'Sally Heffer, go to hell!' He was the first man to say such a thing to my face. Well, one of the girls found me in the hall drying my eyes, and when she got the facts she went back and told the others, and the bunch walked out, leaving this message: 'Mr. Plump, we won't come back till you apologize to Sally.' Well, we were out a week, and what do you think?" Sally laughed with quiet joy. "Plump took it to the Manufacturers Association, and they—backed him? Not a bit! Made him apologize!"
Joe chuckled.
"Great! Great!"
"Oh, I'm doing things all the time," said Sally. "Organized the Jewish hat-trimmers in Newark, and all my friends went back on me for sticking up for the Jews. Did I care? Ten years ago every time the men got a raise through their union, the girls had their salaries cut. Different now. We've enough sense to give the easy jobs to the old ladies—and there's lots of old ones trimming hats."
"What's trimming hats?"
Sally plucked up Joe's gray hat, and then looked at Joe, her eyes twinkling.
"It's a little hard to show you on this. But see the sweat-band? It has a lot of needle holes in it, and the trimmer has to stitch through those holes and then sew the band on to the hat, and all the odds and ends. It kills eyes. What do you think?" she went on. "The girls used to drink beer—bosses let 'em do it to keep them stimulated—and it's ruined lots. I stopped that."
Joe looked at Sally. And he had a wild impulse then, a crazy thought.
"How much do you get a week?"
"Fifteen."
"Well," said Joe, "I want a woman's department in the paper. Will you handle it for fifteen a week?"
"But you don't know me!"
"Well," said Joe, "I'm willing to gamble on you."
Sally's low voice loosed exultation.
"You're a wonder, Mr. Blaine. I'll do it! But we're both plumb crazy."
"I know it," said Joe, "and I like it!"
They shook hands.
"Come over to-morrow and meet my mother!" He gave her the address.
"Good-by," she said. "And let me tell you, I'm simply primed for woman stuff. It is the women"—she repeated the phrase slowly—"it is the women, as you'll find, who bear the burden of the world! Good-by!"
"Good-by!"
He went down into the open air exulting.
He could not overcome his astonishment. She was so different than he had anticipated, so much more human and simple; so much more easy to fit into the every-day shake-up of life, and full of that divine allowance for other people's shortcomings. It was impossible to act the tragedian before her. And, most wondrous of all, she was a "live wire." He had gone to her abasing himself; he came away as her employer, subtly cheered, encouraged, and lifted to new heights of vivid enterprise.
"Sally Heffer!" he kept repeating. "Isn't she a marvel! And, miracle of miracles, she is going to swing the great work with me!"
And so the Stove Circle was founded with Sally Heffer, Michael Dunan, Oscar Heming, Nathan Latsky, Salvatore Giotto, and Jacob Izon. Its members met together a fortnight later on a cold wintry night. The stove was red-hot, the circle drew about it on their kitchen chairs, and Joe spent the first meeting in going over his plans for the paper. There were many invaluable practical comments—especially on how to get news and what news to get—and each member was delegated to see to one department. Latsky and Giotto took immigration, Dunan took politics and the Irish, Heming took the East Side, Izon, foreign news, and Sally Heffer took workwomen. Thereafter each one in his way visited labor unions, clubs, and societies and got each group to pledge itself to send in news. They helped, too, to get subscriptions—both among their friends and in the unions. In this way Joe founded his paper. He never repeated the personal struggle of that first week, for he now had an enthusiastic following to spread the work for him—men and a woman, every one of whom had access to large bodies of people and was an authority in his own world.
But that wonderful week was never forgotten by Joe. Each day he had risen early and gone forth and worked till late at night, making a canvass in good earnest. House after house he penetrated, knocking at doors, inquiring for a mythical Mrs. (or Mr.) Parsons (this to hush the almost universal fear that he had come to collect the rent or the instalment on the furniture or clothes of the family). In this way he started conversation. He found first that the immediate neighborhood knew him already. And he found many other things. He found rooms tidy, exquisite in their cleanliness and good taste of arrangement; and then other rooms slovenly and filthy. He found young wives just risen from bed, chewing gum and reading the department-store advertisements in the paper, their hair in curl-papers. He found fat women hanging out of windows, their dishes unwashed, their beds unmade, their floors unswept. He found men sick in bed, and managed to sit down at their side and give them an interesting twenty minutes. He found other men, out of work, smoking and reading. He found one Italian family making "willow plumes" in two narrow rooms—one a bedroom, the other a kitchen—every one at work, twisting the strands of feathers to make a swaying plume—every one, including the grandmother and little dirty tots of four and six—and every one of them cross-eyed as a result of the terrific work. He found one dark cellar full of girls twisting flowers; and one attic where, in foul, steaming air, a Jewish family were "finishing" garments—the whole place stacked with huge bundles which had been given out to them by the manufacturer. He found one home where an Italian "count" was the husband of an Irish girl, and the girl told him how she had been led into the marriage by the man's promise of title and castle in Venice, only to bring her from Chicago to New York and confess that he was a poor laborer.
"But I made the best of it," she cried. "I put down my foot, hustled him out to work, and we've done well ever since. I've been knocking the dago out of him as hard as I can hit!"
"You're ambitious," said Joe.
"My! I'd give my hands for education!"
Joe prescribed The Nine-Tenths.
Everywhere he invited people to call—"drop over"—and see his plant and meet his mother. Even the strange specimen of white woman who had married a negro and was proud of it.
"Daniel's black outside, but there's many stuck-up women I know whose white man is black inside."
Absorbingly interesting was the quest—opening up one vista of life after another. Joe gained a moving-picture knowledge of life—saw flashed before him dramatic scene after scene, destiny after destiny—squalor, ignorance, crime, neatness, ambition, thrift, respectability. He never forgot the shabby dark back room where under gas-light a frail, fine woman was sewing ceaselessly, one child sick in a tumble-down bed, and two others playing on the floor.
"I'm all alone in the world," she said. "And all I make is two hundred and fifty dollars a year—less than five dollars a week—to keep four people."
Joe put her on the free list.
He learned many facts, vital elements in his history.
For instance, that on less than eight hundred dollars a year no family of five (the average family) could live decently, and that nearly half the people he met had less, and the rest not much more. That, as a rule, there were three rooms for five people; and many of the families gathered their fuel on the street; that many had no gas—used oil and wood; that many families spent about twenty-five cents a day for food; that few clothes were bought, and these mainly from the instalment man and second hand at that; that many were recipients of help; and that recreation and education were everywhere reduced to the lowest terms. That is, boys and girls were hustled to work at twelve by giving their age as fourteen, and recreation meant an outing a year to Coney Island, and beer, and, once in a while, the nickel theater; that there were practically no savings. And there was one conclusion he could not evade—namely, that while overcrowding, improvidence, extravagance, and vice explained the misery of some families, yet there were limits. For instance:
On Manhattan Island no adequate housing can be obtained at less than twelve or fourteen dollars a month.
That there is no health in a diet of bread and tea.
That—curious facts!—coal burns up, coats and shoes wear out in spite of mending.
That the average housewife cannot take time to go bargain-hunting or experimenting with new food combinations, or in making or mending garments, and neither has she the ability nor training to do so.
That, in fact, the poor, largely speaking, were between the upper and nether millstones of low wages and high prices.
Of course there was the vice, but while drink causes poverty, poverty causes drink. Joe found intemperance among women; he found little children running to the saloon for cans of beer; he found plenty of men drunkards. But what things to offset these! The woman who bought three bushels of coal a week for seventy-five cents, watched her fires, picked out the half-burned pieces, reused them, and wasted no heat; the children foraging the streets for kindling-wood; the family in bed to keep warm; the wife whose husband had pawned her wedding-ring for drink, and who had bought a ten-cent brass one, "to keep the respect of her children"; the man working for ten dollars a week, who once had owned his own saloon, but, so he said, "it was impossible to make money out of a saloon unless I put in gambling-machines or women, and I wouldn't stand for it"; the woman whose husband was a drunkard, and who, therefore, went to the Battery 5 A.M. to 10, then 5 P.M. to 7, every day to do scrubbing for twenty dollars a month; the wonderful Jewish family whose income was seven hundred and ninety-seven dollars and who yet contrived to save one hundred and twenty-three dollars a year to later send their two boys to Columbia University.
And everywhere he found the miracle of miracles: the spirit of charity and mutual helpfulness—the poor aiding the poorer; the exquisite devotion of mothers to children; the courage that braved a terrible life.
For a week the canvass went on. Joe worked feverishly, and came home late at night too tired almost to undress himself. Again and again he exclaimed to his mother:
"I never dreamed of such things! I never dreamed of such poverty! I never dreamed of such human nature!"
Greenwich Village, hitherto a shabby red clutter of streets, uninviting, forbidding, dull, squalid, became for Joe the very swarm and drama and warm-blooded life of humanity. He began to sense the fact that he was in the center of a human whirlpool, in the center of beauty and ugliness, love and bitterness, misery and joy. The whole neighborhood began to palpitate for him; the stone walls seemed bloody with struggling souls; the pavements stamped with the steps of a battle.
"What can I do," he kept thinking, "with these people?"
And to his amazement he began to see that just as up-town offered the rivals of luxury, pleasure, and ease, so down-town offered the rivals of intemperance, grinding poverty, ignorance. His theories were beginning to meet the shock of facts.
"How move them? How touch them off?" he asked himself.
But the absorbing interest—the faces—the shadowy scenes—the gas-lit interiors—everywhere human beings, everywhere life, packed, crowded, evolving.
At the end of the week he stopped, though the fever was still on him. He had gained two hundred and fifty subscribers; he had distributed twelve hundred copies of the paper. He now felt that he could delay no longer in bringing out the next number. So he sat down, and, with Sally Heffer's words ringing in his mind, he wrote his famous editorial, "It is the Women":
It is the women who bear the burden of this world—the poor women. Perhaps they have beauty when they marry. Then they plunge into drudgery. All day and night they are in dark and damp rooms, scrubbing, washing, cooking, cleaning, sewing. They wear the cheapest clothes—thin calico wrappers. They take their husbands' thin pay-envelopes, and manage the finances. They stint and save—they buy one carrot at a time, one egg. When rent-week comes—and it comes twice a month—they cut the food by half to pay for housing. They are underfed, they are denied everything but toil—save love. Child after child they bear. The toil increases, the stint is sharper, the worry infinite. Now they must clothe their children, feed them, dress them, wash them, amuse them. They must endure the heart-sickness of seeing a child underfed. They must fight the demons of disease. Possibly they must stop a moment in the speed of their labor and face death. Only for a moment! Need calls them: mouths ask for food, floors for the broom, and the pay-envelope for keen reckonings. Possibly then the husband will begin to drink—possibly he will come home and beat his wife, drag her about the floor, blacken her eyes, break a rib. The next day the task is taken up again—the man is fed, the children clothed, the food marketed, the floor scrubbed, the dress sewn. And then as the family grows there come hard times. The man is out of work—he wants to work but cannot. Rent and the butcher and grocer must be paid, but there are no wages brought home. The woman takes in washing. She goes through the streets to the more prosperous and drags home a basket of soiled clothes. The burden of life grows heavier—the husband becomes accustomed to the changed relationships. Very often he ceases to be a wage-earner and loafs about saloons. From then on the woman wrestles with worlds of trouble—unimaginable difficulties. Truly, running a state may be easier than running a family. And yet the woman toils on; she does not complain; she sets three meals each day before husband and children; she sees that they have clothes; she gives the man his drink money; she endures his cruelty; she plans ambitiously for her children. Or possibly the man begins to work again, and then one day is killed in an accident. There is danger of the family breaking up. But the woman rises to the crisis and works miracles. She keeps her head; she takes charge; she toils late into the night; she goes without food, without sleep. Somehow she manages. There was a seamstress in Greenwich Village who pulled her family of three and herself along on two hundred and fifty dollars a year—less than five dollars a week! If luck is with the woman the children grow up, go to work, and for a time ease the burden. But then, what is left? The woman is prematurely old—her hair is gray, her face drawn and wrinkled, or flabby and soiled, her back bent, her hands raw and red and big. Beauty has gone, and with the years of drudgery, much of the over-glory, much of the finer elements of love and joy, have vanished. Her mind is absorbed by little things—details of the day. She has ceased to attend church, she has not stepped beyond the street corner for years, she has not read or played or rested. Much is dead in her. Love only is left. Love of a man, love of children. She is a fierce mother and wife, as of old. And she knows the depth of sorrow and the truth of pain.
He repeated his programme. Perhaps—he afterward thought so himself—this editorial was a bit too pessimistic. But he had to write it—had to ease his soul. He set it off, however, by a lovely little paragraph which he printed boxed. Here it is:
Possibly much of the laughter heard on this planet comes from the mothers and fathers who are thinking or talking of the children.
In this way, then, Joe entered into the life of the people.
IV
OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN
Joe became a familiar figure in Greenwich Village. As time went on, and issue after issue of The Nine-Tenths appeared, he became known to the whole district. Whenever he went out people nodded right and left, passed the time of day with him, or stopped him for a hand-shake and a question. He would, when matters were not pressing, pause at a stoop to speak with mothers, and people in trouble soon began to acquire a habit of dropping in at his office to talk things over with the "Old Man."
If it was a matter of employment, he turned the case over to some member of the Stove Circle; if it was a question of honest want, he drew on the "sinking-fund" and took a note payable in sixty days—a most elastic note, always secretly renewable; if it was an idle beggar, a vagrant, he made short work of his visitor. Such a visitor was Lady Hickory. Billy was at his little table next the door; over in the corner the still-despondent Slate was still collapsing; at the east window sat Editor Sally Heffer, digging into a mass of notes; and near the west, at the roll-top desk, a visitor's chair set out invitingly beside him, Joe was writing—weird exercise of muttering softly, so as not to disturb the rest, and then scratching down a sentence.
Billy leaped up to receive her ladyship, who fatly rolled in, her tarnished hat askew, her torn thrice-dingy silks clutched up in one fat hand.
Lady Hickory gave one cry:
"There he is!"
She pushed Billy aside and rolled over into the visitor's chair.
"Oh, Mr. Joe!"
Joe turned.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Everything's up—I'm dying, Mr. Joe—I need help—I must get to the hospital—"
"Sick?"
"Gallopin' consumption!"
Joe sniffed.
"It doesn't smell like consumption," he said with a sigh. "It smells like rum!"
He hustled her out rather roughly, Nathan Slate regarding him with mournful round eyes. Twenty minutes later Nathan came over and sat down.
"Mr. Joe."
"Yes, Nathan."
"There's something troubles my conscience, Mr. Joe."
"Let her rip!"
"Mr. Joe—"
"I'm waiting!"
Nathan cleared his throat.
"You say you're a democrat, Mr. Joe, and you're always saying, 'Love thy neighbor,' Mr. Joe."
"Has that hit you, Nathan?"
Nathan unburdened, evading this thrust.
"Why, then, Mr. Joe, did you turn that woman away?"
Joe was delighted.
"Why? I'll tell you! Suppose that I know that the cucumber is inherently as good as any other vegetable, does that say I can digest it? Cucumbers aren't for me, Nathan—especially decayed ones."
Nathan stared at him disconsolately, shook his head, and went back to puzzle it out. It is doubtful, however, that he ever did so.
Besides such visitors, there were still others who came to him to arbitrate family disputes—which constituted him a sort of Domestic Relations Court—and gave him an insight into a condition that surprised him. Namely, the not uncommon cases of secret polygamy and polyandry.
In short, Joe was busy. His work was established in a flexible routine—mornings for writing; afternoons for callers, for circulation work, and for special trips to centers of labor trouble; evenings for going about with Giotto to see the Italians, or paying a visit, say, to the Ranns, or some others, or meeting at Latsky's cigar store with a group of revolutionists who filled the air with their war of the classes, their socialist state, their dreams of millennium.
He gave time, too, to his mother—evening walks, evening talks, and old-fashioned quiet hours in the kitchen, his mother at her needlework, and he reading beside her. One such night, when his mother seemed somewhat fatigued, he said to her:
"Don't sew any more, mother."
"But it soothes me, Joe."
"Mother!"
"Yes."
Joe spoke awkwardly.
"Are you perfectly satisfied down here? Did we do the right thing?"
His mother's eyes flashed, as of old.
"We did," she cried in her youthful voice. "It's real—it's absorbing.
And I'm very proud of myself."
"Proud? You?"
"Yes, proud!" she laughed. "Joe, when a woman reaches my age she has a right to be proud if young folks seek her out and talk with her and make her their confidante. It shows she's not a useless incumbrance, but young!"
Joe sat up.
"Have they found you out? Do they come to you?"
"They do—especially the young wives with their troubles. All of them troubled over their husbands and their children. We have the finest talks together. They're a splendid lot!"
"Who's come, in particular?"
"Well, there's one who isn't married—one of the best of them."
"Not Sally Heffer!"
"The same!"
"I'm dinged!"
"That girl," said Joe's mother, "has all sorts of possibilities—and she's brave and strong and true. Sally's a wonder! a new kind of woman!"
A new kind of woman! Joe remembered the phrase, and in the end admitted that it was true. Sally was of the new breed; she represented the new emancipation; the exodus of woman from the home to the battle-fields of the world; the willingness to fight in the open, shoulder to shoulder with men; the advance of a sex that now demanded a broader, freer life, a new health, a home built up on comradeship and economic freedom. In all of these things she contrasted sharply with Myra, and Joe always thought of the two together.
But unconsciously Sally was always the fellow-worker—Myra—what Myra meant he could feel but not explain; yet these crowded days left little time for thoughts sweet but often intense with pain. He wrote to her rarely—mere jottings of business and health; he rarely heard from her. Her message was invariably the same—the richness and quiet of country life, the depth and peace of rest, the hope that he was well and happy. She never mentioned his paper—though she received every number—and when Joe inquired once whether it came, she answered in a postscript: "The paper? It's in every Monday's mail." This neglect irritated Joe, and he would doubly enjoy Sally's heart-and-soul passion for The Nine-Tenths.
Sally was growing into his working life, day by day. Her presence was stimulating, refreshing. If he felt blue and discouraged, or dried up and in want of inspiration, he merely called her over, and her quiet talk, her sane views, her quick thinking, her never-failing good humor and faith, acted upon him as a tonic.
"Miss Sally," he said once, "what would I ever do without you?"
Sally looked at him with her clear eyes.
"Oh," she said, "I guess you'd manage to stagger along somehow."
But after that she hovered about him like a guardian angel. What bothered her chiefly, when she thought of Joe's work, was her lack of education, and she set about to make this up by good reading, and by attending lectures at night, and by hard study in such time as she could snatch from her work. She and Joe were comrades in the best sense. They could always depend upon each other. It was in some ways as if they were in partnership. And then there was that old tie of the fire to draw them together.
She was of great help in setting him right about the poor.
"People are happy," she would say—"most people are happy. Human nature is bigger than environment—it bubbles up through mud. That's almost the trouble with it. If the poor were only thoroughly unhappy, they'd change things to-morrow. No, Mr. Joe, it's not a question of happiness; it's a question of justice, of right, of progress, of developing people's possibilities. It's all the question of a better life, a richer life. People are sacred—they mustn't be reduced to animals."
And with her aid he gained a truer perspective of the life about him—learned better how to touch it, how to "work" it. The paper became more and more adapted to its audience, and began to spread rapidly. Here and there a labor union would subscribe for it in bulk for all its members, and the Stove Circle soon had many a raw recruit drumming up trade, making house-to-house canvasses. In this way, the circulation finally reached the five-thousand mark. There were certain unions, such as that of the cloak-makers, that regarded the paper as their special oracle—swore by it, used it in their arguments, made it a vital part of their mental life.
This enlarged circulation brought some curious and unlooked-for results. Some of the magazine writers in the district got hold of a copy, had a peep at Joe, heard of his fame, and then took copies up-town to the respectable editors and others, and spread a rumor of "that idiot, Joe Blaine, who runs an underground paper down on Tenth Street." As a passion of the day was slumming, and as nothing could be more piquant than the West Tenth Street establishment, Joe was amused to find automobiles drawing up at his door, and the whole neighborhood watching breathlessly the attack of some flouncy woman or some tailor-made man.
"How perfectly lovely!" one fair visitor announced, while the office force watched her pose in the center of the room. "Mr. Blaine, how dreadful it must be to live with the poor!"
"It's pretty hard," said Joe, "to live with any human being for any length of time."
"Oh, but the poor! They aren't clean, you know; and such manners!"
Sally spoke coldly.
"I guess bad manners aren't monopolized by any particular class."
The flouncy one flounced out.
These visits finally became very obnoxious, though they could not be stopped. Even a sign, over the door-bell, "No begging; no slumming," was quite ineffective in shutting out either class.
There were, however, other visitors of a more interesting type—professional men, even business men, who were drawn by curiosity, or by social unrest, or by an ardent desire to be convinced. Professor Harraman, the sociologist, came, and made quite a dispassionate study of Joe, put him (so he told his mother) on the dissecting-table and vivisected his social organs. Then there was Blakesly, the corporation lawyer, who enjoyed the discussion that arose so thoroughly that he stayed for supper and behaved like a gentleman in the little kitchen, even insisting on throwing off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and helping to dry the dishes.
"You're all wrong," he told Joe when he left, "and some day possibly we'll hang you or electrocute you; but it's refreshing to rub one's mind against a going dynamo. I'm coming again. And don't forget that your mother is the First Lady of the Island! Good-by!"
Then there was, one important day, the great ex-trust man, whose name is inscribed on granite buildings over half the earth. This man—so the legend runs—is on the lookout for unusual personalities. The first hint of a new one puts him on the trail, and he sends out a detective to gather facts, all of which are card-indexed under the personality's name. Then, if the report is attractive, this man goes out himself and meets the oddity face to face. He came in on Joe jovial, happy, sparkling, and fired a broadside of well-chosen questions. Joe was delighted, and said anything he pleased, and his visitor shrewdly went on. In the end Joe was stunned to hear this comment:
"Mr. Blaine, you're on the right track, though you don't know it. You think you want one thing, but you're after another. Still—keep it up. The world is coming to wonderful things."
"That's queer talk," said Joe, "coming from a multimillionaire."
The multimillionaire laughed.
"But I'm getting rid of the multi, Mr. Blaine. What more would you have me do? Each his own way. Besides"—he screwed up his eye shrewdly—"come now, aren't you hanging on to some capital?"
"Yes—in a way!"
"So are we all! You're a wise man! Keep free, and then you can help others!"
The most interesting caller, however, judged from the standpoint of Joe's life, was Theodore Marrin, Izon's boss, manufacturer of high-class shirtwaists, whose Fifth Avenue store is one of the most luxurious in New York. He came to Joe while the great cloak-makers' strike was still on, at a time when families were reduced almost to starvation, and when the cause seemed quite hopeless.
Theodore Marrin came in a beautiful heavy automobile. He was a short man, with a stout stomach; his face was a deep red, with large, slightly bulging black eyes, tiny mustache over his full lips; and he was dressed immaculately and in good taste—a sort of Parisian-New Yorker, hail-fellow-well-met, a mixer, a cynic, a man about town. He swung his cane lightly as he tripped up the steps, sniffed the air, and knocked on the door of the editorial office.
Billy opened.
"Yes, sir."
"Mr. Blaine in?"
"He's busy."
"I should hope he was! There, my boy." He deftly waved Billy aside and stepped in. "Well! well! Mr. Blaine!"
Joe turned about, and arose, and accepted Mr. Marrin's extended hand.
"Who do you think I am?"
Joe smiled.
"I'm ready for anything."
"Well, Mr. Blaine, I'm the employer of one of your men. You know Jacob
Izon?"
"Oh, you're Mr. Marrin! Sit down."
Marrin gazed about.
"Unique! unique!" He sat down, and pulled off his gloves. "I've been wanting to meet you for a long time. Izon's been talking, handing me your paper. It's a delightful little sheet—I enjoy it immensely."
"You agree with its views?"
"Oh no, no, no! I read it the way I read fiction! It's damned interesting!"
Joe laughed.
"Well, what can I do for you?"
"What can I do for you!" corrected Marrin.
"See here, Mr. Blaine, I'm interested. How about taking a little ad. from me, just for fun, to help the game along?"
"We don't accept ads."
"Oh, I know! But if I contribute handsomely! I'd like to show it around to my friends a bit. Come, come, don't be unreasonable, Mr. Blaine."
Sally shuffled about, coughed, arose, sat down again, and Joe laughed.
"Can't do it. Not even Rockefeller could buy a line of my paper."
"Do you mean it?"
"Absolutely—flatly."
"Well, what a shame! But never mind. Some other time. Tell me, Mr. Blaine"—he leaned forward—"what are you? One of these bloody socialists?"
"No, I'm not a socialist."
"What d'ye call yourself, then—Republican?"
"No."
"Democrat?"
"No."
"Insurgent?"
"No."
Marrin was horror-stricken.
"Not a blooming anarchist?"
Joe laughed.
"No, not an anarchist."
"What are you, then? Nothing?"
"I can tell you what I'm not," said Joe.
"What?"
"I'm not any kind of an ist."
"A fine fellow!" cried Marrin. "Why, a man's got to stand for something."
"I do," said Joe, "I stand for human beings—and sometimes," he chuckled, "I stand for a whole lot!"
Marrin laughed, so did Sally.
"Clever!" cried Marrin. "Damned clever! You're cleverer than I thought—hide your scheme up, don't you? Well! well! Let me see your plant!"
Joe showed him about, and Marrin kept patting him on the back: "Delightful! Fine! You're my style, Mr. Blaine—everything done to a nicety, no frills and feathers. Isn't New York a great town? There are things happening in it you'd never dream of."
And when he left he said:
"Now, if there's anything I can do for you, Mr. Blaine, don't hesitate to call on me. And say, step up and see my shop. It's the finest this side of Paris. I'll show you something you've never seen yet! Good-by!"
And he was whisked away, a quite self-satisfied human being.
That very evening Marrin's name came up again. It was closing-up time, Billy and Slate had already gone, and the room was dark save for the shaded lights over Joe's desk and Sally's table. The two were working quietly, and outside a soft fall of snow was muffling the noise of the city. There only arose the mellowed thunder of a passing car, the far blowing of a boat-whistle, the thin pulse of voices. Otherwise the city was lost in the beautiful storm, which went over the gas-lamps like a black-dotted halo. In the rear room there was a soft clatter of dishes. The silence was rich and full of thought. Joe scratched on, Sally puzzled over reports.
Then softly the door opened, and a hoarse voice said:
"Joe? You there?"
Sally and Joe turned around. It was Izon, dark, handsome, fiery, muffled up to his neck, his hat drawn low on his face, and the thin snow scattering from his shoulders and sleeves.
"Yes, I'm here," Joe said in a low voice. "What is it?"
Izon came over.
"Joe!"—his voice was passionate—"there's trouble brewing at Marrin's."
"Marrin? Why, he was here only to-day!"
Izon clutched the back of a chair and leaned over.
"Marrin is a dirty scoundrel!"
His voice was hoarse with helplessness and passion.
Joe rose.
"Tell me about this! Put it in a word!"
Tears sprang to Izon's eyes.
"You know the cloak-makers' strike—well! Some manufacturer has asked
Marrin to help him out—to fill an order of cloaks for him."
"And Marrin—" Joe felt himself getting hot.
"Has given the job to us men."
"How many are there?"
"Forty-five."
"And the women?"
"They're busy on shirtwaists."
"And what did the men do?"
"As they were told."
"So you fellows are cutting under the strikers—you're scabs."
Izon clutched the chair harder.
"I told them so—I said, 'For God's sake, be men—strike, if this isn't stopped.'"
"And what did they say?"
"They'd think it over!"
Sally arose and spoke quietly.
"Make them meet here. I'll talk to them!"
Izon muttered darkly:
"Marrin's a dirty scoundrel!"
Joe smote his hands together.
"We'll fix him. You get the men down here! You just get the men!"
And then Joe understood that his work was not child's play; that the fight was man-size; that it had its dangers, its perils, its fierce struggles. He felt a new power rise within him—a warrior strength. He was ready to plunge in and give battle—ready for a hand-to-hand conflict. Now he was to be tested in the fires; now he was to meet and make or be broken by a great moment. An electricity of conflict filled the air, a foreboding of disaster. His theories at last were to meet the crucial test of reality, and he realized that up to that moment he had been hardly more than a dreamer.
V
FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN
Out of the white, frosty street the next night, when every lamp up and down shone like a starry jewel beneath the tingling stars, forty-five men emerged, crowding, pushing in the hall, wedging through the doorway, and filling the not-too-large editorial office. Joe had provided camp-stools, and the room was soon packed with sitting and standing men, circles of shadowy beings, carelessly clothed, with rough black cheeks and dark eyes—a bunch of jabbering aliens, excited, unfriendly, curious, absorbed in their problem—an ill-kempt lot and quite unlovely.
At the center stove, a little way off from its red heart, sat Joe and Sally and Izon. The men began to smoke cigarettes and little cigars, and with the rank tobacco smell was mingled the sweaty human odor. The room grew densely hot, and a window had to be thrown open. A vapor of smoke filled the atmosphere, shot golden with the lights, and in the smoke the many heads, bent this way and that, leaning forward or tilted up, showed strange and a little unreal. Joe could see faces that fascinated him by their vivid lines, their starting dark eyes and the white eye-balls, their bulging noses and big mouths. Hands fluttered in lively gestures and a storm of Yiddish words broke loose.
Joe arose, lifting his hand for silence. Men pulled each other by the sleeve, and a strident "'Ssh!" ran round the room.
"Silence!" cried Joe. His voice came from the depths of his big chest, and was masterful, ringing with determination.
An expectant hush followed. And then Joe spoke.
"I want to welcome you to this room. It belongs to you as much as to anybody, for in this room is published a paper that works for your good. But I not only want to welcome you: I want to ask your permission to speak at this meeting."
There were cries of: "Speak! Go on! Say it!"
Joe went on. Behind his words was a menace.
"Then I want to say this to you. Your boss, Mr. Marrin, has done a cowardly and treacherous thing. He has made scabs of you all. You are no better than strike-breakers. If you do this work, if you make these cloaks, you are traitors to your fellow-workers, the cloak-makers. You are crippling other workmen. You are selling them to their bosses. But I'm sure you won't stand for this. You are men enough to fight for the cause of all working people. You belong to a race that has been persecuted through the ages, a brave race, a race that has triumphed through hunger and cold and massacres. You are great enough to make this sacrifice. If this is so, I call on you to resist your boss, to refuse to do his dirty work, and I ask you—if he persists in his orders—to lay down your work and strike."
He sat down, and there was a miserable pause. He had not stirred them at all, and felt his failure keenly. It was as if he had not reached over the fence of race. He told himself he must school himself in the future, must broaden out. As a matter of fact, it was the menace in his tone that hushed the meeting. The men rather feared what lay behind Joe's words.
At once, however, one of the men leaped to his feet, and began a fiery speech in Yiddish, speaking gaspingly, passionately, hotly, shaking his fist, fluttering his hands, tearing a passion to tatters. Joe understood not a word, but the burden of the speech was:
"Why should we strike? What for? For the cloak-makers? What have we to do with cloak-makers? We have troubles enough of our own. We have our families to support—our wives and children and relations. Shall they starve for some foolish cloak—makers? Comrades, don't listen to such humbug. Do your work—get done with it. You have good jobs—don't lose them. These revolutionists! They would break up the whole world for their nonsense! It's not they who have to suffer; it's us working people. We do the starving, we do the fighting. Have sense; bethink yourselves; don't make fools out of yourselves!"
A buzz of talk arose with many gesticulations.
"He's right! Why should we strike—Och, Gott, such nonsense!—No more strike talk."
Then Sally arose, pale, eyes blazing. She shook a stanch little fist at the crowd. But how different was her speech from the one in Carnegie Hall—that time when she had been truly inspired.
"Shame on all of you! You're a lot of cowards! You're a lot of traitors! You can't think of anything but your bellies! Shame on you all! Women would never stand for such things—young girls, your sisters or your daughters, would strike at once! Let me tell you what will happen to you. Some day there will be a strike of shirt-waist-makers, and then your boss will go to the cloak-house and say, 'Now you make shirtwaists for me,' and the cloak-makers will make the shirtwaists, saying, 'When we were striking, the shirtwaist-makers made cloaks; now we'll make waists.' And that will ruin your strike, and ruin you all. Working people must unite! Working people must stand by each other! That's your only power. The boss has money, land, machinery, friends. What have you? You only have each other, and if you don't stand by each other, you have nothing at all. Strike! I tell you! Strike and show 'em! Show 'em! Rise and resist! You have the power! You are bound to win! Strike! I tell you!"
Then a man shouted: "Shall a woman tell us what to do?" and tumult broke loose, angry arguments, words flying. The air seemed to tingle with excitement, expectation, and that sharp feeling of human crisis. Joe could feel the circle of human nature fighting about him. He leaned forward, strangely shaken.
Izon had arisen, and was trying to speak. The dark, handsome young man was gesturing eloquently. His voice poured like a fire, swept the crowd, and he reached them with their own language.
"Comrades! Comrades! Comrades!" and then his voice rose and stilled the tumult, and all leaned forward, hanging on his words. "You must"—he was appealing to them with arms outstretched—"you must! You will strike; you will not be cowards! Not for yourselves, O comrades, but for your children—your children! Do I not know you? Do I not know how you toil and slave and go hungry and wear out your bodies and souls? Have I not toiled with you? Have I not shared your struggles and your pain? Do I not know that you are doing all, all for your children—that the little ones may grow up to a better life than yours—that your little ones may be happier, and healthier, and richer, and finer? Have I not seen it a thousand times? But what sort of a world will your children find when they grow up if you do not fight these battles for them? If you let the bosses enslave you—if you are cowards and slaves—will not your children be slaves? Oh, we that belong to Israel, have we not fought for freedom these bloody thousand years? Are we to cease now? Can't you see? Can't you open your hearts and minds?" His voice came with a passionate sob. "Won't you see that this is a fight for the future—a fight for all who work for wages—a fight for freedom? Not care for the cloak-makers? They are your brothers. Care for them, lest the day come when you are uncared for! Strike! You must—you must! Strike, comrades! We will hang by each other! We will suffer together! And it will not be the first time! No, not the first time—or the last!"
He sank exhausted on his chair, crumpled up. Sweat was running down his white face. There was a moment's hush—snuffling, and a few coarse sobs—and then a young man arose, and spoke in trembling voice:
"I move—we send Jacob Izon to-morrow to our boss—and tell him—either no cloaks, or—we strike!"
"Second! Second!"
Joe put the motion.
"All in favor, say aye."
There was a wild shout of ayes. The motion was carried. Then the air was charged with excitement, with fiery talk, with denunciation and ardor.
"Now we're in for it!" said Joe, as the room was emptied, and the aroused groups trudged east on the crunching snow.
And so it was. Next morning, when Theodore Marrin made the rounds of the vast loft where two hundred girls and forty-five men were busily working—the machines racing—the air pulsing with noise—Jacob Izon arose, trembling, and confronted him.
"Well, Jacob!"
"I want to tell you something."
"Go ahead."
"The men have asked me to ask you not to have us make the cloaks."
Marrin's red face seemed to grow redder.
"So, that's it!" he snapped. "Well, here's my answer. Go back to your work!"
The men had stopped working and were listening. The air was electric, ominous.
Izon spoke tremblingly.
"I am very sorry then. I must announce that the men have struck!"
Marrin glared at him.
"Very well! And get out—quick!"
He turned and walked away, flaming with rage. The men quickly put their work away, got their hats and coats, and followed Izon. When they reached the street—a strange spectacle on flashing, brilliant Fifth Avenue—Izon suggested that they go down to Tenth Street, for they stood about like a lot of lost sheep.
"No," cried one of the men, "we've had enough of Tenth Street. There's a hall we can use right over on Eighteenth Street. Come on."
The rest followed. Izon reported to Joe, and Joe asked:
"Do you think they'll fight it out?"
"I don't know!" Izon shrugged his shoulders.
This doubt was justifiable, for he soon found that he was leading a forlorn hope. As morning after morning the men assembled in the dark meeting-room behind a saloon, and sat about in their overcoats complaining and whining, quoting their wives and relatives, more and more they grew disconsolate and discouraged. There were murmurs of rebellion, words of antagonism. Finally on the fifth morning a messenger arrived with a letter. Izon took it.
"It's from Marrin," he murmured.
"Read it! Read it out loud!"
He opened it and read:
TO MY MEN,—I have thought matters over. I do not like to sever connections with men who have been so long in my employ. If you return to work this morning, you may go on at the old salaries, and we will consider the matter closed. If, however, you listen to advice calculated to ruin your future, and do not return, please remember that I will not be responsible. I shall then secure new men, and your places will be occupied by others.
Yours faithfully,
THEODORE MARRIN.
P.S.—Naturally, it is understood that under no circumstance will your leader—Jacob Izon—the cause of this trouble between us—be re-employed. Such men are a disgrace to the world.
Izon's cheeks flushed hot. He looked up.
"Shall I write to him that we will not consider his offer, and tell him we refuse to compromise?"
There was a silence a little while, and then one of the older men shuffled to his feet.
"Tell you what we do—we get up a collection for Izon. Then everything will be all right!"
Izon's eyes blazed.
"Charity? Not for me! I don't want you to think of me! I want you to think of what this strike means!"
Then some one muttered:
"We've listened long enough to Izon."
And another: "I'm going to work!"
"So am I! So am I!"
They began to rise, to shamefacedly shamble toward the door. Izon rose to his feet, tried to intercept them, stretched out his arms to them.
"For God's sake," he cried, "leave me out, but get something. Don't go back like this! Get something! Don't you see that Marrin is ready to give in? Are you going back like weak slaves?"
They did not heed him; but one old man paused and put a hand on his shoulder.
"This will teach you not to be so rash next time. You will learn yet."
And they were gone. Izon was dazed, heart-broken. He hurried home to his wife and wept upon her shoulder.
Late that afternoon Joe and Sally were again alone in the office, their lights lit, their pens scratching, working in a sweet unspoken sympathy in the quiet, shadowy place. There was a turning of the knob, and Izon came in. Joe and Sally arose and faced him. He came slowly, his face drawn and haggard.
"Joe! Joe!"
"What is it?" Joe drew the boy near.
"They've gone back—the men have gone back!"
"Gone back?" cried Joe.
"Read this letter!"
Joe read it, and spoke angrily.
"Then I'll do something!"
Izon pleaded with him.
"Be careful, Joe—don't do anything foolish for my sake. I'll get along—"
"But your wife! How does she take it?"
Izon's face brightened.
"Oh, she's a Comrade! That's why I married her!"
"Good!" said Joe. "Then I'll go ahead. I'll speak my mind!"
"Not for me, though," cried Izon. "I'll get something else."
"Are you sure of that?" asked Joe.
"Why not?"
"Are you sure," Joe went on, "that you won't be blacklisted?"
Izon stared at him.
"Well—I suppose—I will."
"You'll have to leave the city, Jacob."
"I can't. I'm right in my course of engineering. I can't go."
"Well, we'll see!" Joe's voice softened. "Now you go home and rest.
There's a good fellow. And everything will be all right!"
And he saw Izon out.
Joe began again to feel the tragic undercurrents of life, the first time since the dark days following the fire. He came back, and stood brooding, his homely face darkened with sorrow. Sally stood watching him, her pale face flushing, her eyes darting sympathy and daring.
"Mr. Joe."
"Yes, Miss Sally."
"I want to do something."
"What?"
"I want to go up to Marrin's to-morrow and get the girls out on strike."
"What's that?"
"I've done it before; I can do it again."
Joe laughed softly.
"Miss Sally, what would I do without you? I'd go stale on life, I think."
She made an impulsive movement toward him.
"Mr. Joe."
"Yes?"
"I want to help you—every way."
"I know you do." His voice was a little husky, and he looked up and met her fine, clear eyes.
Then she turned away, sadly.
"You'll let me do it?"
"Oh, no!" he said firmly. "The idea's appealing, but you mustn't think of it, Miss Sally. It will only stir up trouble."
"We ought to."
"Not for this."
"But the shirtwaist-makers are working in intolerable conditions; they're just ready to strike; a spark would blow 'em all up."
He shook his head.
"Wait—wait till we see what my next number does!"
Sally said no more; but her heart nursed her desire until it grew to an overmastering passion. She left for the night, and Joe sat down, burning with the fires of righteousness. And he wrote an editorial that altered the current of his life. He wrote:
FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN
Theodore Marrin and the forty-four who went back to work for him:
Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship.
Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade.
Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees.
You forty-four men, you have betrayed yourselves and your leader.
And so it went, sharp, incisive, plain-spoken—words that were hot brands and burned.
He was sitting at this task (twice his mother had called him to supper and he had waved her away) when an exquisite black-eyed little woman came in.
"Mr. Blaine?"
"Yes."
"I'm Mrs. Izon."
Joe wheeled about and seized her hand.
"Tell me to do something for you! You and your brave husband!"
Mrs. Izon spoke quietly:
"I came here because Jacob is so worried. He is afraid you will harm yourself for us."
Joe laughed softly.
"Tell him not to worry any longer. It's you who are suffering—not I. I?
I am only having fun."
She was not satisfied.
"We oughtn't to get others mixed up in our troubles."
"It's hard for you, isn't it?" Joe murmured.
"Yes." She smiled sadly. "I suppose it isn't right when you are in the struggle to get married. Not right to the children."
Joe spoke courageously.
"Never you mind, Mrs. Izon—but just wait. Wait three—four days. We'll see!"
They did wait, and they did see.