For a long and weary night and a day of balancing doubt, and another dull night, little Ben Bowman lay limp and crumpled on his cot–a broken lump of clay hardly more than animate. Lida Bowman, his mother, all that time sat in the hall of the hospital outside the door of his room. The stream of sorrow that winds through a hospital passed before her unheeded. Her husband came, sat with her silently for a while, went, and came again, many times. But she did not go. In the morning of the second day as she stood peering through the door crack at the child she saw his little body move in a deep sigh, and saw his black eyes open for a second and close as he smiled. Dr. Nesbit, who stood beside her, grasped her hand and led her away.
“I think the worst is over, Lida,” he said, and held her hand as they walked down the hall. He sat with her in the waiting room, into which the earliest tide of visitors had not begun to flow, and promised her that if the child continued to rally from the shock, she might stand by his bed at noon. Then for the first time she wept. He stood by the window looking out at the great pillars of smoke that were smudging the dawn, at the smelter fumes that were staining the sky, at the hurrying crowd of men and women and children going into the mines, the mills, the shops, hurrying to work with the prod of fear ever in their backs–fear of the disgrace of want, fear of the shame of beggary, fear to hear some loved one ask for food or warmth or shelter and to have it not. When the great motherly body had ceased its paroxysms, he went to Mrs. Bowman and touched her shoulder.
“Lida,” he said, “it isn’t much–but I’m glad of one 528thing. My bill is on the statutes to give people who are hurt, as Ben was, their money from the company without going to law and dividing with the lawyers. It is on the books good and tight; referred to the people and approved by them and ground clear through the state supreme court and sustained. It isn’t much, Lida–Heaven knows that–but little Ben will get his money without haggling and that money will help to start him in life.”
She turned a tear-swollen face to him, but again her grief overcame her. He stood with one wrinkled hand upon her broad shoulder, and with the other patted her coarse hair. When she looked up at him, again he said gently:
“I know, Lida, that money isn’t what you mothers want–but–”
“But we’ve got to think of it, Doc Jim–that’s one of the curses of poverty, but, oh, money!–It won’t bring them back strong and whole–who leave us to go to work, and come back all torn and mashed.”
She sat choking down the sobs that came surging up from her great bosom, and weaving to and fro as she fought back her tears. The Doctor sat beside her and took her red unshapely hands unadorned except by the thin gold wedding ring that she had worn in toil for over thirty years.
“Lida, sometimes I think only God and the doctors know how heavy women’s loads are,” said the Doctor.
“Ain’t that so–Doc Jim!” she cried. “Ain’t that the truth? I’ve had a long time to think these two days and nights–and I’ve thought it all over and all out. Here I am nearly fifty and eight times you and I have fought it out with death and brought life into this world. I’m strong–I don’t mind that. I joyed at their coming, and made the others edge over at the table, and snuggle up in the bed, and we’ve been happy. Even the three that are dead–I’m glad they came; I’m thankful for ’em. And Dick he’s been so proud of each one, and cuddled it, and muched it–”
Her voice broke and she sobbed, “Oh, little Ben–little Ben, how pappy made over his hair–he was born with hair–don’t you mind, Doc Jim?”
The Doctor laughed and looked into the past as he piped, “Curliest headed little tyke, and don’t you remember Laura 529gave him Lila’s baby things she’d saved for all those years?”
“Yes, Doc Jim–don’t I? God knows, Doc, she’s been a mother to the whole Valley–when I got up I found I was the twentieth woman up and down the Valley she’d given Lila’s little things to–just to save our pride when she thought we would not take ’em any other way. Don’t I know–all about it–and she’s still doing it–God bless her, and she’s been here every morning, noon and night since–since–she came with a little beef tea, or some of her own wine, or a plate of hot toast in her basket–that she made me eat. Why, if it wasn’t for her and Henry and Violet and Grant–what would God’s poor in this Valley do in trouble–I sure dunno.”
There came an unsteady minute, when the Doctor stroked her hand and piped, “Well, Lida–you folks in the Valley don’t get half the fun out of it that the others get. It’s pie for them.”
The woman folded her hands in her lap and sighed deeply. “Doc Jim,” she began, “eight times I’ve brought life into this world. The three that went, went because we were poor–because we couldn’t buy life for ’em. They went into the mills and the mines with Dick’s muscle. One is at home, waiting till the wheels get hungry for her. Four I’ve fed into the mills that grind up the meat we mothers make.” She stared at him wildly and cried “O God–God, Doc Jim–what justice is there in it? I’ve been a kind of brood-mare bearing burden carriers for Dan Sands, who has sold my blood like cheese in his market. My mother sent three boys to the war who never came back and I’ve heard her cry and thank God He’d let her. But my flesh and blood–the little ones that Dick and me have coddled and petted and babied–they’ve been fed into the wheels to make profits–profits for idlers to squander–profits to lure women to shame and men to death. That’s what I’ve been giving my body and soul for, Doc Jim. Little Ben up there has given his legs and his arms–oh, those soft little arms and the cunning little legs I used to kiss–for what? I’ll tell you–he’s given them so that by saving a day’s work repairing a car, some straw boss could make a showing to a superintendent, and the superintendent could make a record for economy 530to a president, and a president could increase dividends–dividends to be spent by idlers. And idleness makes drunkards who make harlots who make hell–and all my little boy’s arms and legs will go for is for sin and shame.”
The Doctor returned to the window and she cried bitterly: “Oh, you know that’s the truth–the God’s truth, Doc Jim. Where’s my Jean? She went into the glass factory–worked twelve hours a day on a job that would have crippled her for life in another year, and then went away with that Austrian blower–and when he threw her out, she was ashamed to write–and for a long time now I’ve read the city papers of them women who kill themselves–hoping to find she was dead. And Mugs–you know what South Harvey’s made of him–”
She rose and walked to the window. Standing beside him she cried:
“I tell you, Doc Jim–I hate it.” She pointed to the great black mills and mine shafts and the piles of brick and lumber and sheet iron that stretched before her for a mile. “I hate it, and I’m going to hit it once before I die. Don’t talk peace to me. I’ve got a right to hit it and hit it hard–and if my time ever comes–”
A visitor was shown into the room, and Mrs. Bowman ceased speaking. She was calm when the Doctor left her and at noon she stood beside the cot, and saw little Ben smile at her. Then she went away in tears. As she passed out of the door of the hospital into the street, she met Grant Adams coming in to inquire about little Ben.
“He knows me now,” she said. “I suppose he’ll get well–without legs–and with only one arm–I’ve seen them on the street selling pencils–oh, little Ben!” she cried. Then she turned on Grant in anger. “Grant Adams–go on with your revolution. I’m for it–and the quicker the better–but don’t come around talking peace to me. Us mothers want to fight.”
“Fighting, in the long run, will do no good, Mrs. Bowman,” said Grant. “It will hurt the cause.
“But it will do us good,” she answered.
“Force against force and we lose–they have the guns,” he persisted.
531“Well, I’d rather feed my babies to good merciful guns than to wheels,” she replied, and then softened as she took his hand.
“I guess I’m mad to-day, Grant. Go on up. Maybe they’ll let you look at him. He smiled at me–just as he did when Doctor Nesbit showed him to me the day he was born.”
She kept back her tears with an effort, and added, “Only the Doc tried to tell me that babies don’t smile. But I know better, Ben smiled–just like the one to-day.”
“Well, Mrs. Bowman,” rejoined Grant, “there’s one comfort. Dr. Nesbit’s law makes it possible for you to get your damages without going to law and dividing with some lawyer. However the Doctor and I may differ–we down here in the mines and mills must thank him for that.”
“Oh, Doc Jim’s all right, Grant,” answered Mrs. Bowman, relapsing into her lifetime silence.
It was nearly three months later and spring was at its full, before they discharged little Ben from the hospital. But the last fortnight of his stay they had let him visit outside the hospital for a few hours daily. And to the joy of a great crowd in the Hot Dog saloon, he sat on the bar and sang his little heart out. They took him down to Belgian hall at noon, and he sang the “Marseillaise” to the crowd that gathered there. In the hospital, wherever they would let him, after he had visited the Hot Dog, he sang–sang in the big ward where he sat by a window, sang in the corridors, whenever the patients could hear him, and sang Gospel hymns in his cot at bedtime.
He was an odd little bundle, that Henry Fenn carried into the offices of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company one afternoon in early June, with Dick Bowman following proudly, as they made the proof of the claim for compensation for the accident. The people in the offices were kind and tenderly polite to the little fellow. Henry saw that all the papers were properly made out, and the clerk in the office told Dick and Henry to call for the check next day but one–which was pay day.
So they carried little Ben away and Mrs. Bowman–though it was barely five o’clock–began fixing Ben up for 532the wedding of Jasper Adams and Ruth Morton. It was the first public appearance as a singer that little Ben had made in Harvey. His appearance was due largely to the notion of Captain Morton, supported and abetted by George Brotherton. So little Ben Bowman was smuggled behind a palm in the choir loft and permitted to sing “O Promise Me” during the services.
“Not,” explained the Captain to Mr. Brotherton in the barn where he was smoking, the afternoon before the ceremony, “not that I cared a whoop in Texas about Ben–though ’y gory, the boy sings like a canary; but it was the only excuse I could find for slipping a hundred dollars to the Bowman family, without making Dick and Lida think it was charity–eh?”
The wedding made a dull evening for Grant. He carried little Ben in his arms out of the crowd at the church, and gathering up the Bowmans and his father, went home without stopping for the reception or for the dance or for any of the subsidiary attractions of the ceremony which Jasper and the Captain, each delighting in tableaux and parades, had arranged for. Little Ben’s arm was clinging to Grant’s neck as he piloted his party to the street car. They passed the Van Dorn house and saw old Daniel Sands come tottering down the walk from the Van Dorn home, between Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin. Daniel Sands stumbled as he shuffled past Amos Adams and Amos put out an arm to catch Daniel. He regained his balance and without recognizing who had helped him, cackled:
“Tom’s a man of his word, boys–when he promises–that settles it. Tom never lies.” And his senile voice shrilled in a laugh. Then the old banker recognized Amos Adams with Grant in the moonlight. “Hi, old spook chaser,” he chirped feebly, still holding to Amos Adams’s arm; “sorry I couldn’t get to my nevvy’s wedding–Morty went–Morty’s our social man,” he laughed again. “But I had some other important matters–business–very important business.”
The Sands’ party was moving toward the Sands’ limousine, which stood purring at the curb. Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin boosted the trembling old man into the car, and 533Ahab Wright slipped back and returned to the wedding reception, from which he had stolen away. Ahab was obviously embarrassed at being caught in the conference with Sands and Van Dorn, but Daniel Sands as he climbed into the car, sinking cautiously among the cushions and being swathed in robes by the chauffeur, was garrulous. He kept carping at Amos Adams who stood by with his son and the Bowmans, waiting for the street car.
“Lost your only sane son, Amos,” he said. “The fool takes after you, and the fiddler after his mother–but Jap–he’s real Sands–he’s like me.”
He laughed at his joke, and when his breath came back he went on.
“There’s Morty–he’s like both the fool and the fiddler–both the fool and the fiddler–and not a bit like me.”
“Morty isn’t very well, Daniel,” said Amos Adams, ignoring all that the old man had said. “Don’t you think, Daniel, you’re letting that disease get too deep a hold on Morty? With all your money, Dan, I think you’d–”
“With all my money–with all my money, Amos,” cried the old man, shaking his hands, “with all my money–I can just stand and wait. Amos–he’s a fool, I know–but he’s the only boy I’ve got–the only boy. And with all my money–what good will it do me? Anne won’t have it–and Morty’s all I’ve got and he’s going before I do. Amos–Amos–tell me, Amos–what have I done to deserve this of God? Haven’t I done as I ort? Why is this put on me?” He sat panting and blinking and shaking his ever-denying, palsied head. Amos did not reply. The chauffeur was taking his seat in the car. “Ain’t I paid my share in the church? Ain’t I give parks to the city? Ain’t I had family prayers for fifty years? Ain’t I been a praying member all my life nearly? Ain’t I supported missions? Why,” he panted, “is it put on me to die without a son to bear my name and take care of my property? I made over two millions to him the other day. But why, Amos,” the old man’s voice was broken and he whimpered, “has the Lord sent this to Morty?”
Amos did not reply, but the big voice of Grant spoke very softly: “Uncle Dan, Morty’s got tuberculosis–you know 534that. Tuberculosis has made you twenty per cent. interest for twenty years–those hothouses for consumption of yours in the Valley. But it’s cost the poor scores and scores of lives. Morty has it.” Grant’s voice rose solemnly. “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay. You’ve got your interest, and the Lord has taken his toll.”
The old man showed his colorless gums as he opened a raging mouth.
“You–you–eh, you blasphemer!” He shook as with a chill and screamed, “But we’ve got you now–we’ll fix you!”
The car for Harvey came, and the Adamses climbed in.
Amos Adams, sitting on the hard seat of the street car looking into the moonlight, considered seriously his brother-in-law, and his low estate. That he had to be helped into his limousine, that he had to be wrapped up like a baby, that his head was palsied and his hands fluttering, seemed strange and rather inexplicable to Amos. He counted Daniel a young man, four years his junior, barely seventy-nine; a man who should be in his prime. Amos did not realize that his legs had been kept supple by climbing on and off a high printer’s stool hourly for fifty years, and that his body had buffeted the winds of the world unprotected all those years and had kept fit. But Daniel Sands’s sad case seemed pathetic to the elder Adams and he cut into some rising stream of conversation from Grant and the Bowmans inadvertently with: “Poor Daniel–Morty doomed, and Daniel himself looking like the breaking up of a hard winter–poor Daniel! He doesn’t seem to have got the hang of things in this world; he can’t seem to get on some way. I’m sorry for Daniel, Grant; he might have made quite a man if he’d not been fooled by money.”
Clearly Amos was meditating aloud; no one replied and the talk flowed on. But the old man looked into the moonlight and dreamed dreams.
The next day was Grant’s day at his carpenter’s bench, and when he came to his office with his kit in his hands at five o’clock in the afternoon, he found Violet Hogan waiting with the letters he was to sign, and with the mail opened and sorted. As he was signing his letters Violet gave him the news of the day:
535“Dick Bowman ran in at noon and asked me to see if I could get Dr. Nesbit and George Brotherton and Henry Fenn down here this evening to talk over his investment of little Ben’s money. The check will come to-morrow.” Grant looked up from his desk, but before he could ask a question Violet answered: “They’ll be down at eight. The Doctor is that proud! And Mr. Brotherton is cutting lodge–the Shriners, themselves–to come down.”
It was a grave and solemn council that sat by Grant Adams’s desk that evening discussing the disposal of little Ben’s five thousand. Excepting Mr. Brotherton, no one there had ever handled that much money at one time. For though the Doctor was a man of affairs the money he handled in politics came easy and went easy, and the money he earned Mrs. Nesbit always had invested for him. So he and Lida Bowman sat rather apart while Dick and Brotherton considered the safety of bonds and mortgages and time deposits and other staple methods of investing the vast sum which was about to be paid to them for Ben’s accident. They also considered plans for his education–whether he should learn telegraphy or should cultivate his voice, or go to college or what not. In this part of the council the Doctor took a hand. But Lida Bowman kept her wonted silence. The money could not take the bitterness from her loss; though it did relieve her despair. While they talked, as a mere incident of the conversation, some one spoke of having seen Joe Calvin come down to the Wahoo Fuel Company’s offices that day in his automobile. Doctor Nesbit recalled having seen Calvin conferring with Tom Van Dorn and Daniel Sands in Van Dorn’s office that afternoon. Then Dick Bowman craning his neck asked for the third time when Henry Fenn would show up; and for the third time it was explained that Henry had taken the Hogan children to the High School building in Harvey to behold the spectacle of Janice Hogan graduating from the eighth grade into the High School. Then Dick explained:
“Well, I just thought Henry would know about this paper I got to-day from the constable. It’s a legal document, and probably has something to do with getting Benny’s money or something. I couldn’t make it out so I thought I’d just let 536Henry figure on it and tell me what to do.” And when a few minutes later Fenn came in, with a sense of duty to the Hogans well done, Dick handed Fenn the paper and asked with all the assurance of a man who expects the reassurance of an affirmative answer:
“Well, Henry–she’s all right, ain’t she? Just some legal formality to go through, I suppose?”
Henry Fenn took the document from Bowman’s hand. Henry stood under the electric, read it and sat thinking for a few seconds, with widely furious eyes.
“Well,” he said, “they’ve played their trump, boys. Doc Jim–your law’s been attacked in the federal court–under Tom Van Dorn–damn him!”
The group barked a common question in many voices. Fenn replied: “As I make it out, they got a New York stockholder of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company to ask for an injunction against paying little Ben his money to-morrow, and the temporary injunction has been granted with the hearing set for June 16.”
“And won’t they pay us without a suit?” asked Bowman. “Why, I don’t see how that can be–they’ve been paying for accidents for a year now.”
“Why, the law’s through all the courts!” queried Brotherton.
“The state courts–yes,” answered Fenn, “but they didn’t own the federal court until they got Tom in.”
Bowman’s jaw began to tremble. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a cork, and no one spoke. Finally Dr. Nesbit spoke in his high-keyed voice: “I presume legal verbiage is all they talk in hell!” and sat pondering.
“Is there no way to beat it?” asked Brotherton.
“Not in this court, George,” replied Fenn, “that’s why they brought suit in this court.”
“That means a long fight–a big law suit, Henry?” asked Bowman.
“Unless they compromise or wear you out,” replied the lawyer.
“And can’t a jury decide?”
“No–it’s an injunction. It’s up to the court, and the court is Tom Van Dorn,” said Fenn.
537Then Dick Bowman spoke: “And there goes little Ben’s school and a chance to make something out of what’s left of him. Why, it don’t look right when the legislature’s passed it, and the people’s confirmed it and nine lawyers in all the state courts have said it’s law,–for the attorney for the company holding a job as judge to turn over all them forms of law. Can’t we do something?”
“Yes,” spoke the big voice of Grant Adams for the first time since Fenn made his announcement, “we can strike–that’s one thing we can do. Why,” he continued, full of emotion, “I could no more hold those men down there against a strike when they hear this than I could fly. They’ll have to fight for this right, gentlemen!”
“Be calm now, Grant,” piped the Doctor; “don’t go off half cocked.”
Grant’s eyes flared–his nose dilated and the muscles of his heavy jaw worked and knotted. He answered in a harsh voice:
“Oh, I’ll be calm all right, Doctor. I’m going down in the morning and plead for peace. But I know my people. I can’t hold ’em.”
Those in the room stood for a moment in dazed silence; then the Doctor and Brotherton, realizing the importance of further discussion that night, soon withdrew from the room, leaving Dick voluble in his grief and Lida, his wife, stony and speechless beside him. She shook no sympathizing hand, not even Grant’s, as the Bowmans left for home. But she climbed out of the chair and down the stairs on tired, heavy feet.
In the morning there was turmoil in the Valley. In the TimesJared Thurston, with the fatuous blundering which characterizes all editors of papers like his, printed the news that little Ben Bowman would be denied his rights, as a glorious victory over the reformers. In an editorial, written in old Joe Calvin’s best style, the community was congratulated upon having one judge at last who would put an end to the socialistic foolishness that had been written by demagogues on the state statute books, and hinting rather broadly that the social labor program adopted by the people at the last election through the direct vote would go the way of the 538 fool statute under which the Bowman lad hoped to cheat the courts of due process of law.
In vain did Grant Adams try to rally carpenters to the trocha. He pleaded with the men to raise a special fund to take little Ben’s case through the federal courts; but he failed.
The Wahoo Valley saw in the case of little Ben Bowman the drama of greed throttling poverty, all set forth in stark, grim terms that no one could question. The story appealed directly to the passions of the Valley and the Valley’s voice rose in the demand to resort to its last weapon of defense. The workers felt that they must strike or forfeit their self-respect. And day by day the Times, gloating at the coming downfall in Van Dorn’s program of labor-repression, threw oil on the flaming passions of the Valley, so labor raged and went white hot. The council of the Wahoo Valley Trades Workers came together to vote on the strike. Every unit of seven was asked to meet and vote. Grant sat in his office with the executive committee a day and a night counting the slowly returning votes. Grant had influence enough to make them declare emphatically for a peaceful strike. But the voice of the Valley was for a strike. The spring was at its full. The little garden plots were blooming. The men felt confident. A conference of the officials of the council was called to formulate the demands. Grant managed to put off the strike until the hearing on the temporary injunction, June 16, was held. But the men drew up their demands and were ready for the court decision which they felt would be finally against them.
The Wahoo Valley was stirred deeply by the premonitions of the coming strike. It was proud of its record for industrial peace, and the prospect of war in the Valley overturned all its traditions.
Market Street had its profound reaction, too. Market Street and the Valley, each in its own way, felt the dreaded turmoil coming, knew what commercial disaster the struggle meant, but Market Street was timid and powerless and panic-stricken. Yet life went on. In the Valley there were births and deaths and marriages, and on the hill in Harvey, Mrs. Bedelia Nesbit was working out her plans to make over 539the Nesbit house, while Lila, her granddaughter, was fluttering about in the seventh Heaven, for she was living under the same sky and sun and stars that bent over Kenyon, her lover, home from Boston for the Morton-Adams wedding. He might be hailed as a passing ship once or twice a day, if she managed to time her visits to Market Street properly, or he might be seen from the east veranda of her home at the proper hour, and there was a throb of joy that blotted out all the rest of the pale world. There was one time; two times indeed they were, and a hope of a third, when slipping out from under the shadow of her grandmother’s belligerent plumes, Lila had known the actual fleeting touch of hands; the actual feasting of eyes and the quick rapture of meeting lips at a tryst. And when Mrs. Nesbit left for Minneapolis to consult an architect, and to be gone two weeks–Harvey and the Valley and the strike slipped so far below the sky-line of the two lovers that they were scarcely aware that such things were in the universe.
Kenyon could not see even the grim cast of decision mantling Grant’s face. Day by day, while the votes assembled which ordered the strike, the deep abiding purpose of Grant Adams’s soul rose and stood ready to master him. He and the men seemed to be coming to their decision together. As the votes indicated by a growing majority their determination, in a score of ways Grant made it evident to those about him, that for him time had fruited; the day was ready and the hour at hand for his life plans to unfold. Those nearest him knew that the season of debate for Grant Adams had passed. He was like one whose sails of destiny are set and who longs to put out into the deep and let down his nets. So he passed the long days impatiently until the hearing of the injunction in little Ben’s suit arrived, and every day burned some heavier line into his face that recorded the presence of the quenchless fire of purpose in his heart.
A smiling, affable man was Judge Thomas Van Dorn in his court the morning of June 16. He had his ticket bought for Chicago and a seat in the great convention of his party assured. He walked through the court room, rather dapperly. He put his high silk hat on the bench beside him, by way of adding a certain air of easy informality to the proceedings. 540His red necktie brought out every thin wrinkle in his burnished brown face and upon the pink brow threaded by a chain lightning of a scar. The old mushy, emotional voice of his youth and maturity had thickened, and he talked loudly. He listened to arguments of counsel. Young Joe Calvin, representing the Fuel Company, was particularly eloquent. Henry Fenn knew that his case was hopeless, but made such reply as he could.
“Well,” cut in the court before Fenn was off his feet at the close of his argument, “there’s nothing to your contention. The court is familiar with those cases, cited by counsel. Either the constitution means what it says or it doesn’t. This court is willing to subscribe to a fund to pay this Bowman child a just compensation. This is a case for charity and the company is always generous in its benevolence. The Socialists may have the state courts, and the people are doubtless crazy–but this court will uphold the constitution. The injunction is made permanent. The court stands adjourned.”
The crowd of laborers in the court room laughed in the Judge’s face. They followed Grant Adams, who with head bowed in thought walked slowly to the street car. “Well, fellows,” said Grant, “here’s the end. As it stands now, the law considers steel and iron in machinery more sacred than flesh and blood. The court would have allowed them to appropriate money for machines without due process of law; but it enjoins them from appropriating money for flesh and blood.” He was talking to the members of the Valley Labor Council as they stood waiting for a car. “We may as well miss a car and present our demands to the Calvins. The sooner we get this thing moving, the better.”
Ten minutes later the Council walked into the office of Calvin and Calvin. There sat Joseph Calvin, the elder, a ratty little man still, with a thin stringy neck and with a bald head. His small, mousy eyes blinked at the workmen. He was exceedingly polite. He admitted that he was attorney for the owners’ association in the Valley, that he could if he chose speak for them in any negotiations they might desire to make with their employees, but that he was authorized to say that the owners were not ready to consider or even to receive any communication from the men upon 541any subject–except as individual employees might desire to confer with superintendents or foremen in the various mines and mills.
So they walked out. At labor headquarters in South Harvey, Nathan Perry came sauntering in.
“Well, boys–let’s have your agreement–I think I know what it is. We’re ready to sign.”
In an hour men were carrying out posters to be distributed throughout the Valley, signed by Grant Adams, chairman of the Wahoo Valley Trades Workers’ Council. It read:
STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE
The managers of our mines and mills in the Wahoo Valley have refused to confer with representatives of the workers about an important matter. Therefore we order a general strike of all workers in the mines and mills in this District. Workers before leaving will see that their machines are carefully oiled, covered, and prepared to rest without injury. For we claim partnership interest in them, and should protect them and all our property in the mines and mills in this Valley. During this strike, we pledge ourselves.
To orderly conduct.
To keep out of the saloons.
To protect our property in the mines and mills.
To use our influence to restrain all violence of speech or conduct. And we make the following demands:
First. That prices of commodities turned out in this district shall not be increased to the public as a result of concessions to us in this strike, and to that end we demand.
Second. That we be allowed to have a representative in the offices of all concerns interested, said representative to have access to all books and accounts, guaranteeing to labor such increases in wages as shall be evidently just, allowing 8 per cent. dividends on stock, the payment of interest on bonds, and such sums for upkeep, maintenance, and repairs as shall not include the creation of a surplus or fund for extensions.
Third, we demand that the companies concerned shall obey all laws enacted by the state or nation to improve conditions of industry until such laws have been passed upon by the supreme courts of the state and of the United States.
Fourth, we demand that all negotiations between the employers and the workers arising out of the demands shall be conducted on behalf of the workers by the Trades Workers’ Council of the Wahoo Valley or their accredited representatives.
During this strike we promise to the public righteous peace; after the strike we promise to the managers of the mines and mills efficient labor, and to the workers always justice.
STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE
542At two o’clock that June afternoon the whistle of the big engine in the smelter in South Harvey, the whistle in the glass factory at Magnus, and the siren in the cement mill at Foley blew, and gradually the wheels stopped, the machines were covered, the fires drawn, the engines wiped and covered with oil, and the men marched out of all the mills and mines and shops in the district. There was no uproar, no rioting, but in an hour all the garden patches in the Valley were black with men. The big strike of the Wahoo Valley was on.
A war, being an acute stage of discussion about the ownership of property, is a war even though “the lead striker calls it a strike,” and even though he proposes to conduct the acute stage of the discussion on high moral grounds. The gentleman who is being relieved of what he considers at the moment his property, has no notion of giving it up without a struggle, no matter how courteously he is addressed, nor upon what exalted grounds the discussion is ranging. It is a world-old mistake of the Have-nots to discount the value which the Haves put upon their property. The Have-nots, generally speaking, hold the property under discussion in low esteem. They have not had the property in question. They don’t know what a good thing it is–except in theory. But the Haves have had the property and they will fight for it, displaying a degree of feeling that always surprises the Have-nots, and naturally weakens their regard for the high motives and disinterested citizenship of the Haves.
Now Grant Adams in the great strike in the Wahoo Valley was making the world-old mistake. He was relying upon the moral force of his argument to separate the Haves from their property. He had cared little for the property. The poor never care much for property–otherwise they would not be poor. So Grant and his followers in the Valley–and all over the world for that matter,–(for they are of the great cult who believe in a more equitable distribution of property, through a restatement of the actual values of various servants to society), went into their demands for partnership rights in the industrial property around them, in a sublime and beautiful but untenable faith that the righteousness of their 544cause would win it. The afternoon when the men walked out of the mines and mills and shops, placards covered the dead walls of the Valley and the hired billboards in Harvey setting forth the claims of the men. They bought and paid for twenty thousand copies of Amos Adams’s Tribune, and distributed it in every home in the district, setting forth their reasons for striking. Great posters were spread over the town and in the Valley declaring “the rule of this strike is to be square, and to be square means that the strikers will do as they would be done by. There will be no violence.”
Now it would seem that coming to the discussion with these obviously high motives, and such fair promises, the strikers would have been met by similarly altruistic methods. But instead, the next morning at half past six, when a thousand strikers appeared bearing large white badges inscribed with the words, “We stand for peace and law and order,” and when the strikers appeared before the entrance to the shaft houses and the gates and doors of the smelters and mills, to beg men and women not to fill the vacant places at the mills and mines, the white-badged brigade was met with five hundred policemen who rudely ordered the strikers to move on.
The Haves were exhibiting feeling in the matter. But the mines and mills did not open; not enough strike-breakers appeared. So that afternoon, a great procession of white-badged men and white-clad women and children, formed in South Harvey, and, headed by the Foley Brass Band, marched through Market Street and for five miles through the streets of Harvey singing. Upon a platform carried by eight white-clad mothers, sat little Ben Bowman swathed in white, waving a white flag in his hand, and leading the singing. Over the chair on which he sat were these words on a great banner. “For his legal rights and for all such as he we demand that the law be enforced.”
For two hours the procession wormed through Harvey. The streets were crowded to watch it. It made its impression on the town. The elder Calvin watched it with Mayor Ahab Wright, in festal side whiskers, from the office of Calvin & Calvin. Young Joe Calvin from time to time came and looked over their shoulders. But he was for the most part too busily engaged, making out commissions for deputy sheriffs and 545extra policemen, to watch the parade. As the parade came back headed for South Harvey, the ear of the young man caught a familiar tune. He watched Ahab Wright and his father to see if they recognized it. The placid face of the Mayor betrayed no more consciousness of the air than did his immaculate white necktie. The elder Calvin’s face showed no appreciative wrinkles. The band passed down the street roaring the battle hymn of labor that has become so familiar all over the world. The great procession paused uncovered in the street, while Little Ben waved his flag and raised his clear, boyish voice with its clarion note and sang, as the procession waved back. And at the spectacle of the crippled child, waving his one little arm, and lifting his voice in a lusty strain, the sidewalk crowd cheered and those who knew the tune joined.
Young Joe Calvin stood with his hands on the shoulders of the two sitting men. “Mr. Mayor, do you know that tune?” said Young Joe.
Mr. Mayor, whose only secular tune was “Yankee Doodle,” confessed his ignorance. “Listen to the words,” suggested Young Joe. Old Joe put his hand to his right ear. Ahab Wright leaned forward, and the words of the old, old cry of the Reds of the Midi came surging up:
“To arms! to arms!–ye brave!
The avenging
sword unsheathe!
March on! March on! all hearts resolved
On victory or death.”
When Ahab Wright caught the words he was open mouthed with astonishment. “Why–why,” he cried, “that–why, that is sedition. They’re advocating murder!”
Young Joe Calvin’s face did not betray him, and he nodded a warning head. Old Joe looked the genuine consternation which he felt.
“We can’t have this, Ahab–this won’t do–a few days of this and we’ll have bloodshed.”
It did not occur to Ahab Wright that he had been singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and “I Am a Soldier of the Cross,” and “I’ll Be Washed in the Blood of the Lamb,” all of his pious life, without ever meaning anything particularly 546sanguinary. He heard the war song of the revolution, and being a literal and peth-headed man, prepared to defend the flag with all the ardor that had burned in John Kollander’s heart for fifty years.
“I tell you, Mr. Mayor, we need the troops. The Sheriff agrees with me–now you hear that,” said young Joe. “Will you wait until some one is killed or worse, until a mine is flooded, before sending for them?”
“You know, Ahab,” put in old Joe, “the Governor said on the phone this morning, not to let this situation get away from you.”
The crowd was joining the singing. The words–the inspiring words of the labor chant had caught the people on the sidewalk, and a great diapason was rising:
“March on! March on!–all hearts resolved
On
victory or death.”
“Hear that–hear that, Ahab!” cried old Joe. “Why, the decent people up town here are going crazy–they’re all singing it–and that little devil is waving a red flag with the white one!”
Ahab Wright looked and was aghast. “Doesn’t that mean rebellion–anarchy–and bloodshed?” he gasped.
“It means socialism,” quoth young Joe, laconically, “which is the same thing.”
“Well, well! my! my! Dear me,” fretted Ahab, “we mustn’t let this go on.”
“Shall I get the Governor on the phone–you know we have the Sheriff’s order here–just waiting for you to join him?” asked young Joe.
The Haves were moving the realm of the discussion about their property from pure reason to the baser emotions.
“Look, look!” cried the Mayor. “Grant Adams is standing on that platform–and those women have to hold him up–it’s shameful. Listen!”
“I want to say to my old neighbors and friends here in Harvey,” cried Grant, “that in this strike we shall try with all our might, with all our hearts’ best endeavors, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Our property in the mines and mills in this Valley, we shall protect, just as 547sacredly as our partners on Wall Street would protect it. It is our property–we are the legatees of the laborers who have piled it up. You men of Harvey know that these mines represent little new capital. They were dug with the profits from the first few shafts. The smelters rose from the profits of the first smelters in the district. Where capital has builded with fresh investment–we make no specific claim, but where capital has builded here in this district from profits made in the district–profits made by reason of cheating the crippled and the killed, profits made by long deadly hours of labor, profits made by cooking men’s lungs on the slag dump, profits made by choking men to death, unrequited, in cement dust, profits sweated out of the men at the glass furnaces–where capital has appropriated unjustly, we expect to appropriate justly. We shall take nothing that we do not own. This is the beginning of the rise of the Democracy of Labor–the dawn of the new day.” He waved his arm and his steel claw and chanted:
“March on!–March on!–all hearts resolved,”
And in a wave of song the response came
“To victory or death.”
Grant Adams flaunted his black slouch hat; then he sprang from the platform, and hurried to the front of the procession. The band struck up a lively tune and the long trail of white-clad women and white-badged men became animate.
“Well, Ahab–you heard that? That is rebellion,” said old Joe, squinting his mole-like eyes. “What are you going to do about that–as the chief priest of law and order in this community?”
Five minutes later Ahab Wright, greatly impressed with the dignity of his position, and with the fact that he was talking to so superior a person as a governor, was saying:
“Yes, your excellency–yes, I wanted to tell you of our conditions here in the Valley. It’s serious–quite serious.” To the Governor’s question the Mayor replied:
“No–no–not yet, but we want to prevent it. This man Adams–Grant Adams, you’ve heard about him–”
548And then an instant later he continued, “Yes–that’s the man, Governor–Dr. Nesbit’s friend. Well, this man Adams has no respect for authority, nor for property rights, and he’s stirring up the people.”
Young Joe Calvin winked at his father and said during the pause,
“That’s the stuff–the old man’s coming across like a top.”
Ahab went on: “Exactly–‘false and seditious doctrines,’ and I’m afraid, Governor, that it will be wise to send us some troops.”
The Calvins exchanged approving nods, and young Joe, having the enthusiasm of youth in his blood, beat his desk in joyous approval of the trend of events.
“Oh, I don’t know as to that,” continued Ahab, answering the Governor. “We have about four thousand men–perhaps a few more out. You know how many troops can handle them.”
“Tell him we’ll quarter them in the various plants, Ahab,” cut in old Joe, and Ahab nodded as he listened.
“Well, don’t wait for the tents,” he said. “Our people will quarter the men in the buildings in the centers of the disturbance. Our merchants can supply your quartermaster with everything. We have about a thousand policemen and deputy sheriffs–”
While the Mayor was listening to the Governor, Calvin senior said to his son, “Probably we’d better punch him up with that promise about the provo marshal,” and young Joe interrupted:
“And, Mr. Mayor, don’t forget to remind him of the promise he made to Tom Van Dorn,–about me.”
Ahab nodded and listened. “Wait,” he said, putting his hand over the telephone receiver, and added in a low voice to those in the room: “He was just talking about that and thinks he will not proclaim martial law until there is actual violence–which he feels will follow the coming of the troops, when the men see he is determined. He said then that he expected Captain Calvin of the Harvey Company to take charge, and the Governor will speak to the other officers 549about it.” Ahab paused a moment for further orders. “Well,” said the elder Calvin, “I believe that’s all.”
“Will there be anything else to-day, Joe?” asked Ahab, unconsciously assuming his counter manner to young Joe Calvin, who replied without a smile:
“Well–no–not to-day, thank you,” and Ahab went back to the Governor and ended the parley.
The Times the next morning with flaring headlines announced that the Governor had decided to send troops to the Wahoo Valley to protect the property in the mines and mills for the rightful owners and to prevent any further incendiary speaking and rioting such as had disgraced Market Street the day before. In an editorial the Governor was advised to proclaim martial law, as only the strictest repression would prevent the rise of anarchy and open rebellion to the authorities.
The troops came on the early morning trains, and filed into the sheds occupied by the workmen before the strike. The young militiamen immediately began pervading South Harvey, Foley and Magnus, and when the strikers lined up before the gates and doors of their former working places at seven o’clock that morning they met a brown line of youths–devil-may-care young fellows out for a lark, who liked to prod the workmen with their bayonets and who laughingly ordered the strikers to stop trying to keep the strike-breakers from going to work. The strikers were bound by their pledges to the Trades Council not to touch the strike-breakers under any circumstances. The strikers–white-badged and earnest-faced–made their campaign by lining up five on each side of a walk or path through which the strike-breakers would have to pass to their work, and crying:
“Help us, and we’ll help you. Don’t scab on us–keep out of the works, and we’ll see that you are provided for. Join us–don’t turn your backs on your fellow workers.”
They would stretch out their arms in mute appeal when words failed, and they brought dozens of strike-breakers away from their work. And on the second morning of the strike not a wheel turned in the district.
All morning Grant Adams moved among the men. He 550was a marked figure–with his steel claw–and he realized that he was regarded by the militiamen as an ogre. A young militiaman had hurt a boy in Magnus–pricked him in the leg and cut an artery. Grant tried to see the Colonel of the company to protest. But the soldier had been to the officer with his story, and Grant was told that the boy attacked the militiaman–which, considering that the boy was a child in his early teens and the man was armed and in his twenties, was unlikely. But Grant saw that his protests would not avail. He issued a statement, gave it to the press correspondents who came flocking in with the troops, and sent it to the Governor, who naturally transferred it back to the militiamen.
In the afternoon the parade started again–the women and children in white, and the men in white coats and white working caps. It formed on a common between Harvey and South Harvey, and instead of going into Harvey turned down into the Valley where it marched silently around the quiet mills and shafts and to the few tenements where the strike-breakers were lodged. A number of them were sitting at the windows and on the steps and when the strikers saw the men in the tenements, they raised their arms in mute appeal, but spoke no word. Down the Valley the procession hurried and in every town repeated this performance. The troops had gathered in Harvey and were waiting, and it was not until after three o’clock that they started after the strikers. A troop of cavalry overtook the column in Foley, and rode through the line a few times, but no one spoke, and the cavalrymen rode along the line but did not try to break it. So the third day passed without a fire in a furnace in the district.
That night Grant Adams addressed the strikers in Belgian Hall in South Harvey, in Fraternity Hall in Magnus and on a common in Foley. The burden of his message was this: “Stick–stick to the strike and to our method. If we can demonstrate the fact that we have the brains to organize, to abandon force, to maintain ourselves financially, to put our cause before our fellow workers so clearly that they will join us–we can win, we can enter into the partnership in these mills that is ours by right. The Democracy of Labor is a 551Democracy of Peace–only in peace, only by using the higher arts of peace under great provocation may we establish that Democracy and come into our own. Stick–stick–stick to the strike and stick to the ways of peace. Let them rally to their Colonels and their tin soldiers–and we shall not fear–for we are gathered about the Prince of Peace.”
The workmen always rose to this appeal and in Foley where the Letts had worked in the slag-dump, one of them, who did not quite understand the association of words implied by the term the Prince of Peace, cried:
“Hurrah for Grant, he is the Prince of Peace,” and the good natured crowd laughed and cheered the man’s mistake.
But the Times the next morning contained this head: