CHAPTER V.
AN UNQUIET DAY AT HAZLETON.
Nearly two months have passed, and a mantle of snow covers the ground. The rigorous December weather has come and is causing widespread distress among the mining population of Pennsylvania. Forty per cent of the operatives of the Paradise Coal Company have been laid off, as Purdy declared they would be. This means that starvation is the grim spectre in six thousand homes.
The anomaly of miners in one town working at full time, and those of an adjacent town shut out, must be explained as one of the insidious methods of the Trust to create an artificial coal famine.
Gorman Purdy, whose word is law in the Paradise Company, had determined to exact an advance of twenty-five cents a ton from the retail coal dealers. To do this he had to make it appear that the supply of coal was scarce. This led him to close the mines in Hazleton. The miners in the town sought to force the opening of the mines by bringing about a sympathetic strike in the neighboring towns. To prevent this, the Coal and Iron Police have been brought to Hazleton to intimidate the miners and to suppress them by force if they make any concerted move looking toward bringing on a strike.
Preliminary to enforcing the order that debars such an army of men of the means of support, the Coal Magnates, at Purdy's suggestion, have massed three hundred of the Coal and Iron Police in the town of Hazleton. This mercenary force occupies the armory, built two years before by the benevolent multi-millionaire Iron King of Pennsylvania, whose immense mills and foundries are situated some two hundred miles distant.
Sheriff Marlin is in command of the Coal and Iron Police. He has sworn them in as deputies, and each bears on his breast the badge of authority.
The propinquity of Woodward and the other small towns to Wilkes-Barre saved them from suffering the effects of a close-down. The Magnates did not desire to have the scenes of distress brought too near their own homes. So Hazleton and the outlying districts were selected to be sacrificed to the arbitrary coal famine. Day after day the idle miners congregate in the Town Hall to discuss their situation and to devise some means of relieving the starving families. These meetings are under the strict surveillance of Sheriff Marlin. Every letter that is sent from the hall is subjected to his scrutiny.
There will be no incendiary appeals addressed to the miners of other districts.
The newspaper correspondents, though they send accurate stories of the awful condition of the miners and their families, are disappointed to receive copies of their respective papers with their articles revamped, and the essential points expurgated, to meet the approval of the "conservative reader."
"The committee on rations reports that the allowance for each miner and his family must henceforth be reduced to two loaves of black bread a day. As some of the miners have eight and ten children, an idea of the actual need of relief from some source may be formed."
Paragraphs like the above never reach the printed page of a newspaper that has sworn allegiance to or is bound to support the Magnates.
It is now December twentieth. The miners resolve to make a final appeal to the Paradise Coal Company to at least start the mines on half time. If the company grants this appeal, there will be joy in the miners' homes for Christmas.
Christmas is no more to the Magnates than any other calender day. The necessary time for the creation of the coal famine has not elapsed, and until it has there will not be another ton of coal taken from the pits.
Harvey Trueman is expected to confer with the leaders in the afternoon.
He will deliver the appeal to the company, and the following day,
Sunday, the miners will know if they are to go back to work.
"In the event of Purdy, the final arbiter, refusing to start up on half time," says Metz, who is now the leader of the Miner's Union, "we can go to Latimer and Harleigh, to-morrow. The mines will be closed; they are only working them six days a week now. We will appeal to the men to quit work unless the Paradise Company gives us a chance to earn our bread."
"If the Harleigh men won't go out, they will at least give us some food for a Christmas dinner," says a miner whose hollow cheeks tell of long fasting.
"Peter Gick died last night," a miner states as he enters the hall. "He went to the ash dumps to pick a basket of cinders; on his way back to his house he fell. He was so weak that he could not get up. The snow is two feet deep on the road, and it was drifting then; it soon covered him up. This morning his son, Ernst, found him. Of course he was frozen stiff."
"Where is his body?" Metz asks.
"Sheriff ordered it buried by the police."
"A public funeral might prove dangerous to the Magnates," observes Metz.
"Our modern rulers have profited by the experience of the ancients."
Promptly at two o'clock Trueman arrives at the hall.
The committee on resolutions present him with their petition.
"I shall do all that I can to make the Company appreciate the condition in which you are placed. You may depend upon it, there will be work for you before Christmas," Trueman assures them at parting.
"We shall want an answer by to-morrow morning at ten o'clock," the miners urge in chorus.
Harvey Trueman leaves for Wilkes-Barre on the mission of appealing to the humanity of the Coal Magnates.
Miners' wives and children stream to the Town Hall, to receive their bread and rations.
It is at such times as these, where the miners are ruthlessly shut out of the mines, that the highest value of the Miner's Union is demonstrated. From the slender treasury, which is enriched only by the pennies of the miners during their weeks of employment, the money is drawn to purchase the rations that must be had to keep the miners and their families from actually starving when they can no longer buy from the company store.
To supplement the rations distributed by the Union, the Hazleton miners have a small supply of medicine. This is as important as food. The medicine chest was given them by Sister Martha, the ministering angel of the mines.
Martha Densmore was the daughter of Hiram Densmore, who had owned great tracts of the coal lands. He had been forced out of the industry by refusing to enter the combine which resulted in the formation of the Coal Trust. At the time of his death, of all his fortune there remained but a small part. Mrs. Densmore had not survived her husband a year. Martha was left an orphan.
She has an income of $6000, and could live a life of idleness did she so desire. But it was her purpose from girlhood to be always on missions of charity. She had loved Harvey Trueman. They had been schoolmates, and would undoubtedly have wed had not the wreck of Densmore's fortune been accomplished just as Trueman was leaving college. Gorman Purdy had been quick to perceive the calibre of the young man and had brought him into the Paradise Company. With father and mother dead, and with her heart's longing unappeased, Martha determined to join a sisterhood, and devote her entire time to ministering to the poor and the sick.
The suffering of the miners of Hazleton attracts her sympathy and she has come to the town from Wilkes-Barre.
It is her presence in the town hall that makes even Sheriff Marlin curb his blasphemous tongue.
Her calm face, which wears an expression of contentment, if not of happiness, is a solace to the miserable men and women who come to ask for medicine. She always has a word of cheer.
The life she has led for eight years has not aged her, and to judge from her manner she would not be taken for a woman more than thirty. She is, however, six and thirty; her natal day being in the month of March, the same as Trueman's. And they are both the same age. In the school days they celebrated their birthdays together.
There is not a miner or one of his family who would not give up their life, if such a sacrifice were necessary, to keep Sister Martha from being injured. They have seen her enter a mine where an explosion had occurred, when even the bravest of the rescuing party hesitated. They have seen her in their own hovels, bending over the forms of their sick and dying children. The yellow flag of pestilence never makes her hesitate.
By her practical acts of charity and humanity, she has come to exert a wonderful influence over the humble citizens of Luzerne County. In this present crisis Sister Martha is the central figure.
In the Armory the Coal and Iron Police are playing cards and enjoying themselves as men always can in comfortable barracks.
So the winter night closes. The hearths of the miners are cold, their larders empty; but the armory is warm, the police are well fed.
"The Company refused to open the mines. They will, however, send thirty barrels of flour to be distributed for Christmas." This is the message returned by Trueman, on Sunday morning.
There are sixty miners in the Hall. They decide to go at once to
Harleigh, to exert "moral suasion" on their fellow miners there.
They start from the Hall unarmed, walking two by two. At the head of the line of sixty men, one carries the Stars and Stripes; another a white flag. There is nothing revolutionary about the procession. It is a sharp contrast to the armed force of the Culpepper Minute Men, who, under the leadership of Patrick Henry, marched to Williamsburg, Virginia, to demand instant restoration of powder to an old magazine, or payment for it by the Colonial Governor, Dunmore. The Minute Men carried as their standard a flag bearing the celebrated rattlesnake, and the inscription "Liberty or Death: Don't tread on me."
The route to Harleigh is in an opposite direction to the armory. The little column passes out of the town of Hazleton and is a mile distant when the Coal and Iron Police learn of their departure.
Instantly there is a bustle in the armory.
"Form your company, Captain Grout," the sheriff orders.
"Give each man twenty rounds. Tell them not to fire until I give the order. When they do open fire, have them shoot to kill."
The company is formed on the floor of the armory. It receives the orders; one-third of the force is left to guard the armory.
In column of fours the main body marches out, Captain Grout and Sheriff
Marlin in the lead.
To catch up with the miners the column marches in route step.
"We will head them off at the cross roads this side of Harleigh," the sheriff explains. "There is a cut in the road there, and we can put our men on either side. When the miners come within range I shall challenge them. If they do not turn back, it will be your duty to compel them to do so."
Unconscious of the approach of the sheriff and his posse, the miners march on. The road is heavy and they are so much run down by long weeks of short rations that they cannot make rapid headway.
Sheriff Marlin and his men are now at the cut near the cross roads.
Captain Grout stations his men to command either side of the road. The banks of the cut are fringed with brush, which affords a complete cover for the men.
"You keep out of sight, too, Captain," Sheriff Marlin orders. "I will stop the miners. If they see you and the Coal and Iron Police they may scatter, and some of them reach Harleigh."
The ambuscade is complete. Five minutes passes. There is no sign of the miners.
"Can they have been told of our plan to head them off?" asks the sheriff.
At this moment the head of the procession of miners turns the corner of the road. The American Flag and the White Flag are still in the van.
The sheriff takes up a position on the side of the road. As the miners come up to him, he calls them to "halt."
"Where are you going?" he demands.
"To Harleigh," replies Metz.
"Who gave you permission to parade?"
"We are exercising our rights as freemen."
"Well, you cannot march in a body on the highways of Pennsylvania."
"Then we can break up our procession and walk individually."
"In the direction of Hazelton," Sheriff Marlin says, significantly. "I know what you are up to; do you think that I am going to let you cause a sympathetic strike in Harleigh because you are locked out? Not if I know myself."
When the miners come to a halt, the men in advance cluster about Metz and the sheriff.
Now thirty men surround the sheriff.
Some of them are, of course, in advance of him.
"Get back to Hazleton," Sheriff Marlin cries, at the same time raising his arms above his head and waving them.
He pushes his way through the crowd of miners to the edge of the road.
Off comes his hat
It is the signal which Captain Grout has been expecting.
"Company, attention!"
Two hundred Coal and Iron Police jump to their feet.
"Get back to Hazleton or I'll take you prisoners," shouts the sheriff.
But his words are lost. The miners are terror-stricken. The sight of the police, armed with deadly rifles, has made the miners insensible to every thought and impulse but that of self-preservation.
They scatter up and down the road.
"Don't let them escape to Harleigh," shouts the sheriff. Taking this as an order, the police open fire on the men who have passed the sheriff.
Crack! crack! go the rifles.
Each shot fells a miner. They are practically at the muzzles of the weapons.
A miner rushes up the bank on the left to get out of the range of the police on that side. He is riddled by the bullets from the opposite side.
Another dives into a snow bank; it affords him no protection. "Pot that woodchuck," shouts Captain Grout to one of his men.
A bullet is sent into the hole. The miner springs to his feet; then drops dead.
The line of carnage is now stretched out for two hundred yards.
There is no return fire. So the armed police come out from cover and pursue their victims.
The police have lost all self-control. Each man is acting on his own responsibility.
Of the ten miners who run toward Harleigh, not one is spared. Three lie in the road; the snow about them tinged with their life's blood. Another is clinging with a death grip to a stunted tree, which he caught as he staggered forward, with three bullets in the back.
"Mercy! mercy!" cry several of the miners. But their wail is lost on the ears of the Coal and Iron Police. The police are there to kill, not to grant mercy.
Now a miner falls on his knees and prays to God for protection.
This attitude of submission is not heeded; a bullet topples him over.
With their hands above their head, some of the men walk deliberately toward the deputies. Indians will recognize this as the sign of surrender, and will give quarter. But the deputies, with unerring aim, shoot down the voluntary captive.
It would not be so terrible if the miners were returning the fire, if they were offering any resistance. But they are absolutely unarmed. Their mission has been to present a petition to the miners of Harleigh. The slaves of the South had enjoyed the right of petition. How could these twentieth century miners anticipate that the sheriff would massacre them on the highway for seeking to present a petition?
"Have you shot any one?" asks one of the deputies of his nearest companion.
"Shot any one! Well, I should think I had. I've seen four drop. Here goes a fifth."
To stand, to run, to fall to the ground, all are equally futile as means of escape. Extermination is all that will stay the fire of the police.
Sheriff Marlin and Captain Grout stand in the middle of the road. Metz,
O'Connor, and Nevins, a mine foreman, are standing beside them.
O'Connor carries the white flag; Nevins the National emblem.
"Disarm those men," Marlin directs the Captain.
"Disarm them?" Captain Grout repeats, inquiringly.
"Certainly. They have sticks in their hands."
Two deputies, who have exhausted their supply of cartridges in their magazine rifles, stop reloading and rush upon Nevins. They beat him over the head with their rifle butts. The flag is snatched out of his hands.
O'Connor is dealt a blow an instant later.
The subjugation of the unarmed miners is accomplished.
One by one the Coal and Iron Police return.
Some of them bring in captives who have escaped death, but who still have felt the sting of the bullets.
Of the sixty miners, twenty-three are killed outright; ten are mortally wounded; twenty-one have less serious wounds.
Six have run the gauntlet and are fleeing back to Hazleton.
The triumphant march of the police to Hazleton is begun.
"We will carry the wounded," says the sheriff. "They might get through to Harleigh and Latimer."
"We will round up the six who escaped," Captain Grout assures the sheriff. He then details ten men to run down the miners who have eluded capture.
This is an easy matter, as the footprints of the miners are perfectly distinct in the soft snow. On the six trails the men set off, as a pack of hounds on the scent of game.
This man-hunt results in an addition of six to the list of the slain.
Gorman Purdy's orders have been carried out.
His police have been sworn in as deputies; they have met the miners and have "fired first."
The sanctity of the law enveloped their act. They shot as Deputies.
They dispersed a band of miners who were on the highway, armed, according to the sheriff's version, "with sticks," and bent on creating trouble in Harleigh.
Did it matter that the "sticks" were flag staffs on which were displayed the White Flag of truce, and the Emblem of Liberty?
CHAPTER VI.
A STAND FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE.
News of the massacre on the highway can not be suppressed. A wave of indignation sweeps over the country. Newspapers, clergymen, statesmen, ordinary citizens are of one opinion, that the sheriff and his deputies should be made to suffer for their dastardly acts. The result of the agitation is a call for trial for a case of murder. The Grand Jury of Luzerne County find an indictment against Sheriff Marlin and Captain Grout. These men are placed on trial.
Gorman Purdy at first is highly elated over the result of the sheriff's summary action against the miners. "It has taught the miners a good lesson," he asserts openly.
The morning after the Grand Jury returns its indictment, Purdy enters
Harvey Trueman's office.
The relationship between Purdy and Trueman is no longer strained. In three months time Harvey will marry Ethel. He is to live at the Purdy mansion until his own house can be built.
"You have read the papers this morning?" Purdy asks.
"Yes. It begins to look serious for the sheriff and Grout. I understand that they are to be imprisoned to-day."
"Now I want to have a talk with you about defending them."
"Defending them!" exclaims Trueman. "You want me to defend them?"
"It was in our interests that they acted," says Purdy, "and the least we can do is to defend them."
"It was not in my interests, nor was it at my suggestion that the Coal and Iron Police were sent to Hazleton. You must remember that I deprecated that step."
"Well, we won't go over that matter anew, Harvey; the defense of the
Sheriff and Captain Grout is essential to the interests of the Paradise
Coal Company. You are the chief counsel of the Company, and I look to
you to secure their acquittal."
"But you cannot want me to defend two men who are guilty of cold blooded murder," protests Trueman. "I am the last man in the world to ignore the sanctity of the law. When I see the highest law of the land trodden under foot by an ignorant and arrogant sheriff, I wish to see the law enforced against him as it should be against the commonest offender."
"It's all very well to have high ideals of law and justice," Purdy observes, with a cynical smile, "but you cannot be guided by them when a commercial interest is involved. The conviction of the sheriff would lay us open to the violence of the mob."
"You can find a more capable man than I to defend the prisoners."
"There is no one who is as familiar with the mining life as you are; I have thought the matter over carefully before broaching it to you. There is no way out of it, Harvey, you must take the case in hand. It is not the company's request. I make it personal. I want you to do your best to get these men off."
"Mr. Purdy, I cannot comply with your request."
"You refuse to oblige me?"
"I refuse to defend men who I believe have committed murder."
"I am an older man than you, Harvey Trueman, and I caution you to think twice before you refuse to obey the request of the man who has made you what you are." Purdy is white with rage, for he feels that Trueman will remain obdurate.
"It may seem an act of ingratitude, but I cannot suffer my conscience to be outraged by defending the perpetrators of an atrocious crime."
"Your conscience will cost you dear. If you do not defend this case you may consider your connection with the Paradise Coal Company at an end. You sever all bonds that have united us, and your marriage to my daughter will be impossible. Is the gratification of a supersensitive conscience to be bought at such a price?"
"There must be something back of your demand," Trueman declares.
"There is only the just claim that I have on you to work for my interests."
"Mr. Purdy, I was a man before I met you. I am indebted to you for my present position; yet I am not willing to pay for its retention by forfeiting my honor. If you insist on me defending the case, I tell you I would sooner pay the penalty you name."
Trueman's voice is tremulous. He realizes that his decision has cost him not alone a position of great value, but all chance of wedding Ethel Purdy.
"You will live to regret this day, Harvey Trueman," Purdy cries menacingly. "Whatever is due you from the Paradise Coal Company will be paid you to-day. Henceforth you will find office room elsewhere. Remember, sir, I forbid you to have any communication with my daughter."
With these words Purdy walks out of Trueman's office.
"It may be better for me to get out of this damnable atmosphere while I still have a spark of manhood left," Trueman muses, as he sits at his desk. "If I remained here many years more I should be as heartless as Purdy himself.
"I wonder how Ethel will act in this crisis? She loves me, that I would swear to with my life, but can she sacrifice her fortune to marry me? I cannot expect her to do so. No, it would be too much. I have money enough to live but I could not support her in the style to which she has been accustomed from her birth."
For an hour he sits intently thinking. He reviews the past. At the recollection of his school days and the first love he had experienced for Martha Densmore, a sigh escapes his lips.
"I might have been happy, had I married her," he says to himself.
"But then I should not have become a lawyer. What good have I done in the law? I have been the buffer for a heartless corporation. The president of the corporation demands of me to do an act that is against my manhood. I refuse and I am turned out like a worthless old horse.
"I shall henceforth use my talents to some good. The Paradise Coal Company and every other concern that is waxing rich at the expense of the people will find that I can be as formidable an antagonist as I have been defender. How could I have been blind to my duty so long?"
Trueman arises and walks from his office. A thought is forming in his mind.
"I'll do it," he says aloud, as he reaches the elevator.
"The miners have no one who is capable of prosecuting the case of the people. The District Attorney and his staff have been bought off. Any one of the injured miners has standing in the court, and can be represented by counsel. Yes, there is O'Connor, I shall be his counsel."
Trueman hurries to the east side of the town and hunts up the quarters of Patrick O'Connor. The miner is still in bed; the fractured skull he had received by the blow from the rifle barrel nearly proved fatal.
In a few words Trueman explains how he had been driven to leave the Paradise Coal Company; and how he is now determined to be the champion of the people.
"I believe you, sir," says O'Connor, feebly, "for you have always been kind to me. But the rest of the miners think you are to blame for all of their troubles; especially when they face you in court."
"You will tell them to put faith in me, won't you, O'Connor?"
"Indeed I will, sir."
The door opens to admit Sister Martha.
Harvey Trueman has not been face to face with Martha for eight years.
"You here, Martha!" he exclaims.
"I am here every day. My duty brings me among the sick."
The two playmates of the happy school days walk over to the window and talk in low tones for half an hour. Trueman tells of his determination to be an antagonist of the Magnates, one of whom has attempted to buy his soul for the sordid interests of a corporation.
"You may be sure I shall be pleased to help you all I can," Sister Martha assures him. "And I have many friends among the miners. It will be some time before they will accept your protestations in good faith. You must know that your masterful knowledge of the law has kept many of them from winning their suit for damages against the Paradise Company. If you do something to prove your sincerity it will win you many friends."
"If I appear as the counsel of one of the miners and prosecute the Sheriff of Luzerne County, will that be sufficient to demonstrate my sincerity?" Trueman asks.
"It will make you their champion."
"Well, you may tell the miners of Wilkes-Barre that I am to appear as counsel for Patrick O'Connor in the coming trial. We will meet often now, I hope?" Harvey asks as he leaves the room.
"Whenever you come to this quarter of the city you will be able to find me," Sister Martha responds.
Events move rapidly. The trial is set for February first. Between the day Harvey Trueman left the employ of the Paradise Company and the opening of the trial he wins the name of "Miner's Friend." Eight damage suits against the Paradise Coal Company are won for miners by his sagacity and eloquence.
He has been able to learn of the effect of the break in the friendship between the Purdy's and himself. Ethel had been prostrated by the event. For many days she had been actually ill. As soon as her health permitted she had been sent abroad. She is now in the south of France.
At the trial of Sheriff Marlin and his lieutenants, Trueman distinguishes himself by the searching line of questions he puts to the sheriff's deputies and two lieutenants, who are placed on the witness stand. In cross-examination he succeeds in eliciting the fact that the only "weapons" carried by the miners were the two flag staffs.
He brings to court as witnesses men who had been shot in the back as they had run to escape the deadly fire of the deputies.
One of these men, carried to the court room on a cot, testifies that he ran up the embankment and had fallen at the feet of one of the deputies.
"I begged of him to spare my life; that I had a wife and six children. He stepped back a pace and pointing his rifle at my head, fired. The bullet grazed my temple. I rolled over. He thought I was dead. I lay there motionless for several minutes. Then I was struck in the shoulder by another bullet."
This testimony causes a tremendous sensation.
The defendants counsel asks for the recall of the witness the following day. He is brought to court and answers two questions. Then with a groan he turns on his side and dies in the presence of the crowded court and before the very eyes of his assassin.
The trial is a travesty on justice. The jury is composed of men known to be in sympathy with the prisoners. The deputies are in court each day fully armed. They make no pretext to conceal their pistols. This is done to influence the jury to believe that the deputies had shot in self-defense. Both Sheriff Marlin and Captain Grout are acquitted; but they are not vindicated in the eyes of the people of the United States or of Wilkes-Barre.
Trueman emerges from the trial as the recognized champion of the people.
It has taken twelve weeks to try the case. The cost of this victory for the Coal Barons is one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
Sister Martha and Harvey meet frequently. She is a great aid to him in getting information from the miners. She is inspired by the grand results that Trueman realizes for the poor miners whose cases he handles. She hears him mentioned as the candidate for some office, and asks him if he would accept it.
"I do not wish to mix in local politics," Trueman tells her. "I might accept the office of Congressman; but it is impossible to elect a candidate of the miners in Pennsylvania."
Early in May a call is sent out through the several States for delegates to attend an Anti-Trust Conference in Chicago. This Conference is deemed urgent as the outgrowth of an atrocious move on the part of the Magnates who seek to vitiate the laws of the United States as applied to capital.
Martha asks Trueman if he will accept the appointment as a delegate from the State of Pennsylvania. He signifies his willingness to do so; but doubts if the miners outside of Wilkes-Barre hold him in high enough esteem to so honor him.
"I have not done enough yet to redeem myself for the years that I stood as the barrier to the poor getting their deserts," he declares.
But the election shows that he is recognized as a faithful friend of the people. At the Conference it is believed he will win recognition for the claims of the miners, for justice, and for the Federal enforcement of the laws of common safety in the mines.
The ten months that have passed since the afternoon he won the case against the Magyar's widow, have been the most momentous in his life. They have taken him out of the service of a soulless Company and put him in the position of leader of a million miners.
BOOK II.
The Syndicate Incorporates.
CHAPTER VII.
AN ANTI-TRUST CONFERENCE.
From the hour that Trueman was selected as a delegate to the great Anti-Trust Conference to convene in the city of Chicago, he has devoted his hours, day and night, to study. In making his advent in the conference, he enters the arena of national politics; he means to go prepared. Martha has prevailed upon him to accept the nomination as a candidate for the State of Pennsylvania, and he has been elected by the unanimous vote of the Unions. This exhibition of confidence on the part of the toilers of the state has made a deep impression on him, and has fixed his resolve to do something that will be worthy of his constituents.
The sudden transition he has undergone from being the staunch supporter of the coal barons, to becoming their bitterest opponent, has left many of the opinion that he is working some deep scheme for the undoing of the unionists. Nor is this opinion confined to any small number. "He changed his views too quickly," is the general sentiment in the ranks of the small unions where Trueman is not personally known. This lurking suspicion was what had operated strongly at first against securing Trueman's consent to be a candidate. Martha has worked quietly, assiduously, among the men she knew, and who placed absolute faith in her advice. She has been the direct means of bringing about his election.
Now he is to leave her, and must face the supreme opportunity of his life.
It is not without a pang that he bids her farewell. She has come to be a source of great comfort to him since his enlistment in the ranks of the humble. The schoolday acquaintance has been renewed. He has learned to appreciate the fact that he was the cause of her having donned the dress of the sisterhood. His ambition to rise in the world made it impossible for him to yield to the dictates of his heart and the mental vista that opened before him at the close of his college course, did not have her in it. The woman he saw there must be the favorite of fortune. He had selfishly abandoned certain love for possible fortune and in the active life to which he was at once introduced, all thoughts of Martha had been driven from his mind.
But Martha had had no counteractant to soften or obliterate the thoughts of her blasted hopes. The refuge of the convent appealed to her as the one remaining avenue by which she might escape from her youth and its recollections.
It is impossible for Trueman and Martha Densmore to ever again be lovers; the inexorable ban of the church is between them. Yet they can be friends. And Trueman feels that in Martha he has found his firmest friend and advisor.
"You will hear from me from time to time," she says as they part. "I am confident that you will do your duty; that you will awaken the finer instincts in the delegates. With the scenes that have surrounded you in Wilkes-Barre, you cannot be an advocate of violence as a means of settling the struggle for the restoration of the rights of the people."
"It shall be my untiring labor to avert the adoption of any measure that entails an appeal to force," Trueman assures her.
On his arrival at Chicago he finds the convention already in session. An hour in the hall convinces him that the result will be nugatory. The radicals are in the majority and the proposals they make are temporary expedients that look only to appeasing the demand of the masses for action against the usurpers of the public rights.
With a view to defeating the objects of the conference, the Magnates have contrived to send a number of their hirelings as delegates. These are among the loudest in demanding impossible remedies. It is not long before Trueman discovers who these spies are, and he loses no time in exposing them in open conference.
This action brings him into prominence.
"Who is this delegate from Pennsylvania?" asks Professor Talbot, a venerable scholar sent by the Governor of Missouri to represent that state, of Nevins, a neighboring delegate.
"He is a convert to the cause of the people," comes the quick reply.
"A tool of the Coal Barons, you mean," observes a New Yorker. "I knew him three years ago when he was the attorney for the Paradise Coal Company," he continues, "and a more relentless man to the miners never was known in Pennsylvania."
"Yes, I know. He was once a counsel for the Paradise Company," assents the champion of Trueman. "I know his record from A to Z. You can't find a straighter man in this conference. He has come out for the people and I believe he is sincere."
"Whoever he is, or whatever he has been," says the Professor, "it is evident that he has the power of reading character. He was not here two hours before he detected the presence of the goats in our fold."
"Would you like to meet him?" asks Nevins.
"Indeed, I should be pleased to do so."
Professor Talbot and the friendly delegate approach Trueman.
For an hour or more the three are engrossed in animated conversation. Professor Talbot is delighted to find that Trueman is conversant with the most complex questions of the hour.
"I shall make it a point to have the chairman call upon you for an address," he assures Trueman at parting.
For three days the sessions of the conference are devoted to partisan discourses. There seems to be no hope of reaching middle ground. The newspapers ridicule the utterances of the speakers as the vaporings of demagogues. And they are little else.
On the fourth day, true to his promise, Professor Talbot gets the chairman to call upon Trueman for a fifteen-minute speech.
From his first words Trueman wins the attention of the audience. His voice is full and far-reaching; his language simple, and it is possible for every one to grasp his meaning instantly. He chooses to win the delegates to his way of reasoning by force of the truth he utters rather than by appealing to their senses by a display of forensic and oratorical ability.
In the few minutes allotted to him, he reviews the industrial conditions of a decade and shows where the insidious principle of class legislation has undermined the prosperity of the people to bestow it upon the few. In an unanswerable argument he pleads for the restoration of the rights of the majority; by a rapid review of the causes that have led to the downfall of the nations of the past, he shows that the unjust distribution of the fruits of labor must inevitably lead to the disintegration of the state.
His peroration is a fervent appeal to the delegates to reaffirm the equality of man; it calls upon them to adopt resolutions advocating the government control of all avenues of transportation and communication, and for the strict regulation of all industries that affect the common necessities of life.
"There is no law above that of the Creator. He did not fashion some of his children to be damned with the brand of perpetual servitude; He did not anoint some with omnipotence to place them as rulers over the many. When He made mankind in His image, it was to have them live in fraternal relationship. There should be no competition for the mere right to live. Until God's design is declared to be wrong, I shall never cease to counsel my brothers to live true to the Divine principles of liberty, equality and fraternity."
With these words he closes his address.
There is no means for measuring the exact effect of his words. The plaudits of an audience are an uncertain criterion.
In the final vote that is taken, after three other delegates have spoken, a resolution is adopted calling for the appointment of a standing committee of three to continue the investigation of the Trust question until another year.
This result is not satisfactory to the radicals, yet they make no open objection. To Trueman it is a source of gratification to know that the heretical proposals of some of the delegates have been voted down.
The conference is on the point of closing when Delegate William Nevins moves that the chairman of the special committee be empowered to increase the number of the committee to forty at his own discretion. This motion is adopted.
The conference ends. It has exemplified the old adage of the convention of the mice to discuss the advisability of putting a bell on the cat. All agreed that it would be for the good of micedom; yet no mouse had a feasible method to advance for affixing the bell. The papers in every city tell of the failure of the Anti-Trust conference to agree upon a plan of action.
The millions of toilers bend lower under their burdens; the Magnates tighten their grasp on the throat of labor.
In all the United States there is but one man who holds a solution of the problem of emancipating mankind from commercial servitude. This man has been a delegate. He has spoken but a few words; he has been present as an auditor.
His hour for action is soon to come.
CHAPTER VIII.
A STARTLING PROPOSAL.
The special committee has been directed to hold meetings at intervals of
a month and to have a report ready by the first of the following
January. Thirty-seven of the most intelligent and earnest of the
Anti-Trust members have been placed on this committee by its chairman.
The meetings are now secret.
The first meeting is held in the hall that had been used for the big meetings of the conference. After this the meetings are clandestine.
The comment that was provoked by the conference of the radical leaders of the Trust opposition died out in the usual way, and then the interest in the efforts of the special committee was confined to the few people who realized the earnestness of the men who had decided to take the Trust problem up and bring it to a speedy settlement.
Day by day the members of the committee met to discuss the phases of the all absorbing question.
The managers of some of the largest corporations are warned of these secret deliberations and institute a vigorous investigation. The aid of the police is secured, and the officers of a dozen of the shrewdest private detective bureaus are put in possession of the few facts that have been ascertained. In a hundred directions public and private sleuths are set in motion. But their untiring efforts are unavailing. They have to combat a more adroit, more nervy and more intelligent force than they have ever before been brought in contact with.
The Committee of Forty has its ever watchful sentinels on guard, and every move of the detectives is anticipated and provided against.
Thus matters progress until on the night of June tenth a startling climax is brought about by the report of the secretary of the committee.
At this memorable meeting there is a full attendance. The chairman, in his call for the meeting, has intimated that very important business will be transacted. He has in mind the discussion of a plan for awakening the interest of the wage-earners in the effete Eastern States, and the reading of a report.
What actually transpires is a surprise to him, as it is to all but three of the committee.
When the routine of business has been gone through with, the chairman announces that the meeting will proceed to the consideration of new business, if there is any.
William Nevins, the man who had carried the Stars and Stripes at Hazleton, now a committeeman who has always taken a subordinate part in the work, asks to be heard.
Supposing that he is to speak on the one subject uppermost in the minds of the committee, the chair recognizes him. Rising from his seat in the back of the room Nevins walks to the front of the hall, and standing before the chairman, half turns so as to face the men in the assembly.
From his first words it is apparent that he has a matter of grave concern to impart. The attention of all is engaged.
"Mr. Chairman," he begins, "I am unaccustomed to speech-making; yet on this occasion I feel that I am capable of expressing myself in a manner that will be clear and forceful. I am to tell you a few truths, and in uttering the truth there is no need of depending on rhetoric or oratory.
"As you all know, I am a poor man. How I came to be reduced to a position little better than beggary is not known by any of you, for I have studiously avoided airing my troubles to any one. To-day I intend to tell the story. It will cast some light on the subject that we will be called upon to discuss later.
"We have no time to hear the life-story of any one," sententiously observes a man in the front seat.
"But you will have to take time to hear me," retorts Nevins, and he continues.
"I was a graduate of Yale, in the class of 1884. My name was not Nevins, then. After a year spent in travel in Europe I returned to the United States and began to practice my profession of a civil engineer, in the city of New York. My father had died when I was a child and had left my mother a fortune of about $40,000. From this sum she derived an income of $2000 a year. She gave me an allowance of $800 up to the time that I began to work as an engineer.
"Two years after I had entered the office of a leading railroad I planned an extensive change in the working of the road and submitted it to the president. He approved of the suggested changes and put the matter before the board of directors. Shortly afterward I was informed that I could proceed with the work. The work was accomplished and the officials were more than pleased. They made me chief engineer of the road and a stockholder. I soon had a considerable block of stock. Then a great Magnate looked at the road with covetous eyes, and ruin came upon us.
"The stock of the road was depreciated and borne down on the Exchange until the road became insolvent. All my money was in the road, and when the crisis came I found myself stranded. The King of the Rail Road Trust, Jacob L. Vosbeck, bought up the stock and then raised it to even a higher figure than it had ever before attained.
"Ill-luck followed me and I have gone down, down, until I can scarce make a living as a draughtsman in a shop. The curse of monopoly has caused my ruin. I did not succumb to fair competition. I am now enlisted in a fight against the usurpers of the free rights of the people, and I declare to you all, that I am in this fight in dead earnest. By an appeal to justice we can gain nothing.
"I was one of the sixty miners who were attacked on the highway at
Hazleton by the High Sheriff of Luzerne County. I witnessed the mock
trial in Wilkes-Barre. I have thought of all the possible means the
Trusts have left to us, and find that there is but one available.
"They have all the money and all the agencies of the law; they have intimidated the humble and ignorant workingmen until these poor creatures are no better than serfs, and to be assured of bread, they work as voluntary slaves.
"What is there for us to do but to fight the magnates with their own weapons? Intimidation is their deadliest method. The horrible picture of a starving family is held up before the wage-earner, and he is asked if he will vote to put his wife and children on the street. He is told that if he will accept starvation wages, the Trust will let him make such wages. In desperation he accepts the terms.
"What I propose is to intimidate the criminal aggressors so that they will fear to make their fortunes at the expense of the honest, hard working and credulous people.
"How shall it be done? Ah! it is a simple matter."
Here the voice of the speaker becomes husky, and he turns to face the chairman of the committee. In almost a whisper he exclaims: "I propose to give them an object lesson. They have given many to us." Again he resumes his normal voice.
"Have you not seen mills closed before election time so as to coerce men to vote as the mill owners directed? Has not this suspension of work brought distress, starvation, death, to thousands of homes? Is it not murder for men of wealth to resort to such means to win an election in a free country?
"Well, I now propose to form a syndicate—a Syndicate of Annihilation!"
"Mr. Chairman," cry half a dozen voices. "Mr. Chairman, Point of order!
Point of order!"
Before the chair can recognize any of the speakers a general commotion ensues. Men begin discussing with one another excitedly; there is a perfect bedlam.
All the while Nevins remains standing as if awaiting an opportunity to resume his speech.
At the expiration of some minutes order is restored so that his voice can be heard. "Permit me to explain," he cries.
The committeemen, as if acting by a common impulse, cease to squabble, and are attentive again.
"I propose to hear the circumstances under which each of you has been brought to the condition that leads you to combine against the Trust; and if there is sufficient ground for belief that you will be zealous workers in my syndicate, I will admit you to membership. No man who has not had a more serious grievance against the Robber Barons than I have outlined, will be eligible. I have told you but one incident of my case.
"The work that I shall outline to you after hearing your stories, will require stout hearts to carry it into execution.
"It cannot be accomplished by fanatics. It requires the concerted efforts of men of sound judgment; men of courage. The assassin is a coward at heart—the political martyr must be valiant."
The novelty of the suggestion that has just been made is the first thing that appeals to the minds of the committee. They begin to realize the horrid character of the proposition. Much discussion follows. Men want to know what Nevins means by a Syndicate of Annihilation. Whom does he intend to murder? Annihilation and murder are considered synonymous.
To all questions Nevins replies that the details will be given as soon as the men recite their grievances.
Professor Talbot and Hendrick Stahl, the two men who are in the secret with Nevins, advise the members of the committee to comply with the demands.
Then begins the strange, startling recital of the stories of human distress. Of the forty men of varying professions and trades, there are those who tell of their efforts to stand up under the weight of the yoke of commercial despotism. Each man is of impressing character and strong individuality.
The chairman, Albert Chadwick, is the first to tell his story. It is the prelude to the concerted cry of the oppressed—the cry which has sounded through the ages as the one never varying note in the music of the universe; the dread inharmonic monotone that marks the limitation of humanity, exhibiting man's inability to convert the world into a paradise.
CHAPTER IX.
ARRAIGNMENT OF THE TRANSGRESSORS.
Standing upon the little platform which serves as a rostrum, Chadwick, a man of fifty, seared and bent, lifts his hand to command the attention of the committee.
He is a figure that would do credit to the brush of a great artist. His appearance is that of a man who has been deprived of the power of looking at the world as a place of rest; he is a bundle of nerves, and at the slightest provocation bursts into a storm of irascibility. A tortured spirit lurks in his soul and is visible in his stern, tense features.
As he begins the recital of his grievances against the Trust, it is apparent that he means to give the audience an embittered story. So the attention of all is centered upon him.
"Human liberty is the boon which man has sought since the dawn of creation; it has furnished the incentive for his struggle to reclaim the earth from the domination of brute force; it is the inherent idea that the founders of this Republic sought to embody in the Constitution. But Liberty must have as a complement unhampered opportunity," are his opening words.
"The man who is dependent upon another for his livelihood is not capable of enjoying real liberty, or of attaining happiness. When the men of a nation are debased to a position of minor importance, where they can only act as servants, they lose the stamina necessary to make them good citizens. This condition now prevails in the United States.
"My own experience will exemplify this statement.
"Forty years ago I attained my majority. I was a citizen of the state of Pennsylvania, and considered that I was a freeman. By the death of my father I had come into a fortune of fifty thousand dollars. I lived in the oil region, and sought to engage in the oil industry. To this end I purchased land contiguous to a railroad. On my holdings a well was located which yielded three hundred barrels of oil a day.
"No sooner had I begun to operate my well than the agents of the Oil Trust, which had then but recently sprung into existence as a menace to individual refining, came to me with a proposition to incorporate my well in the Trust's system. The well was capable of earning a net profit of seventy thousand dollars a year. The Trust offered me a paltry two hundred and thirty thousand dollars for my plant. This I refused to accept, for the actual value was one million dollars.
"Then by crafty insinuation the agents of the Trust intimated that unless I sold my property and accepted inflated stock in the Trust and allowed my well to be absorbed in the system, I would find myself opposed by the mighty consolidation. Still I refused to abrogate my right to conduct an independent business.
"Failing to allure me by their offers, which would have proved valueless in the end; or of intimidating me by their threats, the agents reported to the office of the Trust that I was obdurate and must be disciplined.
"Accordingly pressure was brought to bear on the railroad over which I sent my product to a market. The railroad discriminated against me; it gave the Trust a rebate on all oil shipped over the road and made me pay the full schedule rates. Even against this detrimental condition I was able to sell my oil at a small profit.
"I might have survived the unequal struggle had not the 'pipe line' system been introduced. By this the Oil Trust transports its oil to the sea-board at a cost that enables it to undersell all competitors. And for a time the price of oil was reduced, and all the minor competitors were driven into bankruptcy or forced to sell out to the Trust at a ridiculously low figure.
"Owing to my well being centrally located I was able to hold out longer than many others.
"John D. Savage, the Oil King, realized that some more potent means had to be devised to crush me. This means was found in the expedient of 'Sacrifice' sales. At every depot where I sold, the agents of the Trust offered to sell oil at figures lower than I could possibly sell it. I lost my trade. In an effort to retrench, my fortune was consumed, and from a position of affluence I descended to beggary, and had to join the ranks as an employee. So bitter was the animosity of the Trust that it sought to rob me even of the opportunity to earn a living. I have been hounded from post to pillar; my life has been made miserable. I have seen my family want for bread.
"And all because I withstood the assault of the Oil King.
"As an American I protest against the existence of a corporation that can set at naught the mandates of the law; a corporation that can, with utter impunity, resort to arson as a final means of gaining its illegal end, as the oil Trust has done, again and again.
"I thank God that I still possess my fore-fathers' spirit of resistance against oppression. There are few men who are in want, or in actual dread of being thrown out of employment, however unremunerative, who will assert their right. A nation composed of such men is not free, no matter what its form of government may be.
"I am ready to do anything that will restore the right to the individual citizen to engage in business; I am ready to make a stand against the few plutocrats who now usurp the avenues of human activity; and I believe that we will be able to enlist men in support of the idea that the rights of the majority transcend the aggressions of the oligarchy of American capitalists."
As Chadwick concludes his statement, Hiram Goodel, a delegate from New
Hampshire, obtains the floor.
"Coercion is the word that epitomizes my grievance against the Trusts," he begins. "It was by the exercise of coercion that I was driven out of business. I conducted a retail tobacco store in Concord, in my native state. My business sufficed to insure me a decent living, and a comfortable margin to be husbanded as a safeguard for my declining years. I had a wife and three sons. My sons were all under age, and I kept them at school to provide them with good educations.
"There was competition in my business; such natural competition as is met with in all pursuits. It did not, however, prevent my making a success of my business.
"Then came the Tobacco Trust. It set out to control the retail trade. This was to be effected by the inauguration of a system of "consigning" goods to the retail stores with strict provisos that the retailer would not handle the product of any concern out of the Tobacco Combine. In order to ingratiate themselves with the store-keepers, the Trust managers at first offered terms that were so far below the current prices that a majority of the stores bound themselves to handle the Trust goods exclusively.
"Three years passed, in which the independent tobacco manufacturers strove to hold out against the ring. Then came a crash.
"I had opposed the innovation of binding myself to buy from one concern; for I felt intuitively that as soon as the Trust was all-powerful it would begin to exercise dictatorial sway over the retailer.
"My fears were soon justified.
"The Trust advanced the price of its goods to the retailer, and compelled the trade to sell at the same retail figures.
"When this system of extortion was successfully launched the Trust determined to reward its patrons, as a means of pacifying them for reduced profits.
"The reward came in the shape of discriminating against the store-keepers who still handled the goods made by the fast vanishing opposition concerns.
"I was informed that unless I signed an agreement to use only the Trust brands of cigarettes and tobacco no more goods would be sold to me. As the Trust embraced all of the leading brands, that meant that I must go out of business.
"My puritan blood boiled at the thought that I must submit to the tyranny of a band of robbers. I determined to fight to the last. Four years of business at a net loss, drove me into insolvency; then a mortgage was placed upon my freehold, to be followed by foreclosure. I still struggled on, under the delusion that I was in a free land and that the Trust iniquities would not be permitted to crush the individual citizen forever. The decision of the courts of the several states where the Tobacco Trust was arraigned, upholding the Trust, disillusioned me. But it was too late, I was a ruined man.
"My sons were forced to work in the cigar factory of the local branch of the Trust; and I was obliged to apply for a patrimony from the Government, as a veteran of the war for the emancipation of man from slavery. On this slender pension I now live.
"Can anyone blame me for being a volunteer in the crusade against the most insidious and dangerous foe that has ever assailed a land; a foe that seeks to entrench itself by emasculating the citizens and degrading them to a position of servants of mighty and intolerant masters?"
There is a pause. The aged speaker trembles with emotion.
"I am an old man, over seventy years of age, yet whatever vigor remains in me will be expended in my last battle with the destroyers of free government.
"What right has Amos Tweed, the Tobacco King, to tax me?
"I was born a free man; I fought to free an inferior race. Alas, I have lived to see the shackles placed upon the wrists of my own sons. So help me God, I shall strike a blow to make them free once more."
Overcome with the exertion of delivering his fervent speech, Hiram Goodel totters. He would fall, did not the strong arms of Carl Metz support him.
"Where is the man who can view this picture of patriarchal devotion, and hesitate to give significance to the prayer that freedom may again be the inheritance of the youth of America," demands Nevins in thrilling tones.
It is apparent that the recital of the grievances of the members of the committee is making a deep impression on every man.
Horace Turner, a farmer from Wisconsin, who had migrated to that state when it was in its infancy, preferring its fertile plains to the rocky hillside homestead in Vermont, is the next to speak. He is sixty years of age, well preserved, temperate and fairly well educated.
"I can quote no higher authority than the Holy Bible," are his opening words. "If in that book we can find authority for complaining against tyrants; if we can find a prayer that has come down from age to age, shall we not be justified in uttering it?
"Are these words from the Psalms meaningless? 'Deliver me from the oppression of Man; so will I keep thy precepts.'
"There is vitality in this cry from the oppressed; because the oppressor exists. You and I are both victims of oppression.
"I am a producer of wheat, the great staple of this country. You are all consumers of my product. When I cannot make a living by producing wheat, and you cannot purchase it without paying tribute to a band of speculators, there must be in operation a damnable system of oppression to bring about this condition, for it is not natural.
"The Wheat Trust determines what price I shall receive for my wheat; it sets the price at which you shall buy it in the form of bread.
"Whether there is a bounteous crop or a short one, the Trust still controls the wheat and flour and arbitrarily fixes their price.
"When the newspapers assert that the farmers enjoy the advance of the price of a season's crop, they state an absolute falsehood.
"By the system that prevails in this country to-day, as a result of the Wheat Trust, crops are sold a year in advance. There are never two years of exceptionally large crops; so the benefit of the advance of one year does not go over to the next.
"The farmers of this country are compelled, by the present system, to pledge their next year's crop to the local wheat factors who control the elevators. The purchase price is determined by the factor. The farmer receives a certain number of bushels of 'seed' wheat from the factor, agreeing to repay him with two or two and a half bushels of the coming crop; a large percentage of the remainder of the crop is pledged to the local store-keeper for the goods that the farmer must have to do his work and to live upon.
"Wheat is the medium of exchange. The Trust's price is the measure of value. Why? Because the farmer cannot sell to any one except to an agent of the Trusts, as the Trust has arranged traffic rates with every railroad; and the wheat, if bought by any one outside of the Trust, could not be transported to a market and sold at a profit. This statement is indisputable.
"The Wheat King, David Leach, depresses the market when the crop is to be sold, and so gives a semblance of reason for the inadequate price he allows the farmer.
"It is the farmer who does the planting; he has to run the risk of the loss of the crop by drought, or excessive rain; he has to do the harvesting. Yet he does not share in the just profits of the sale of his product.
"And the consumer is made to pay exorbitantly for the bread that keeps life in his body.
"If there were no Wheat Trust, no speculation in wheat and no discriminating traffic rates, bread could be sold at a fair profit for three cents a loaf, and the farmer would still be able to get a higher price than he averages now.
"I have toiled as a farmer for two score years, and all I have in this world is a farm of two hundred acres, valued at thirty-six hundred dollars, on which there is a two thousand dollar mortgage at six per cent. When the interest is paid and my yearly expenses are defrayed, I am lucky to have one hundred dollars to my credit in the bank. For the past six years I have been obliged to send whatever I had remaining to my son, who has married and who is struggling to live in Milwaukee. He is engaged as a brakeman on the railroad that exacts thirty per cent. of the value of every bushel of wheat I raise.
"I am not one of the discontented, homeless vagabonds who the Plutocrats declare are alone demanding the destruction of Monopoly. I am a citizen who can foresee the inevitable result that will come from a perpetuation of Commercial Despotism. I am not afraid to assert my opinions, nor will I fear to act on any suggestion, that will insure independence to the farmer and to all the citizens of the Republic."
Donald Harrington, a delegate accredited to Maryland, now begins his arraignment: