A Speckled Bird Part 26

"He sent you here to offer this explanation?"

"Yes, Mrs. Dane, and I can vouch for its truth."

"Mr. Coolidge, you have always treated me with respect and courtesy, and I have no desire to be rude to you, but I am sorry you came to offer so shameful a bargain. I believe in 'unions'; they became necessary when vast consolidations of capital began to strangle small corporations, and laborers learned that only by a united front could they expect living wages. You magnates of 'trusts' are responsible for 'unions'; you set us the example: when capital bands, labor is forced to organize in self-defence. You of the caste of Dives sowed dragon's teeth, and now the abundance of your crop appalls you? We of the Lazarus caste see hope ahead; the day is coming when we shall have an honest and fair and permanent adjustment on the Karl Marx basis of 'plus value,' and then every mechanic in your shops will own an interest in the car he builds in the ratio of the hours he worked on it. Heart and soul I am with your motormen and conductors, your carpenters and machinists. Their cause is just, and, if I can help them, all the bonds and all the gold your company h.o.a.rds in its vaults cannot buy me."

"At least you might persuade Harlberg to consent to arbitrate the differences. The men would have an equal chance with the company."

"Arbitration wolves have left no lambs silly enough to bleat their grievances. Two years ago the strike was settled on a basis almost fair to your employees, and in six months the provisions were nullified by changes made possible when non-union motormen were brought here. Max cut his eye teeth then, and now he has a winning hand."

"You think a strike inevitable?"

"I know it, and rejoice that the company will smart for its grinding, inhuman treatment of men who have endured it for the sake of wives and children looking to them for bread. Because you and Mr. Cathcart and Mr.

Hazleton and your board of directors have ample fortunes, you see no enormity in requiring men with large families to work twelve hours, exposed to rain, sleet, sun, and if, overcome with fatigue, they fail to awake in time to report for duty at the exact minute your schedule demands, they are 'laid off for three days' as punishment. No day of rest to spend at home; nothing to antic.i.p.ate but the ceaseless grind, grind--worse than that of driving wheels and pistons in machinery, which are allowed to stop and cool on Sunday."

"If you return to your desk to-morrow Mr. Cathcart says he will double your salary."

"Tell him to divide the extra pay among the needy grey-beards limping around the cars and shops. I will never work in his office again."

"You are very unwise, Mrs. Dane, and since you sympathize with the men, you ought not to lose the opportunity to prove yourself their friend at court. Moreover, in rejecting a larger salary you are laying up a store of regrets."

"Make no mistake, Mr. Coolidge. You rich often force us poor to suffer severely, but we seldom 'regret,' because that implies error on our part. We are bitter under the pain, but we do not regret the course of duty to ourselves that brought down the lash."

"Is it true that if the railroad men's strike is declared the telegraphers' and typewriters' unions will order a sympathetic strike?

You seem to have begun in advance."

"I think not. Two nights ago, at our meeting, I urged the members to abandon the idea, though Harlberg was present to insist upon it. A 'sympathetic strike' is only sentiment running riot, and special cla.s.s suffering alone justifies revolt. Altruistic theories of reform and abstract justice ought not to tie up public systems and precipitate armed conflicts. I have learned that for us 'strikes' are fearful catastrophes--social earthquakes so far-reaching in consequences that you opulent dwellers on a serene plateau, immune from disaster, can form no adequate estimate of the ghastly wreck wrought in substrata of the laboring cla.s.s. Especially ruinous is the strain on our women. The men are excited, goaded, kept on the _qui vive_, held to the front by magnetic leaders--but the waiting women and children! Cold, hungry, terrified, huddled in helpless idleness, expecting any moment to see husband and father brought in on a shutter--buried in the 'potter's field' if he dies, sent to prison as a 'riotous lawbreaker' if he lives--these are the saddest features of b.l.o.o.d.y struggles that the outside world never sees. Instead of 'sympathetic strikes,' far more useful sympathy should be shown by other unions working full time steadily and sharing their wages with those fighting for violated rights against the encroachments of combined capital. That is what I intend to do."

"Have you accepted another position as typewriter?"

"Not yet; but many ways of earning my bread lie open before me. I never resign from my sewing machine, and I learned embroidery at a convent where royal orders have been filled."

"Making check ap.r.o.ns will not pay room rent."

Gathering the little garments in her arms, she rose, her tall, graceful figure clearly outlined by her mourning dress, and her eyes sparkled.

"Do you remember old Silas Bowen?"

"I do not."

"Your corporation memories, like your consciences, are sieves. One day, while arranging a trolleywire, a tall post behind him, decayed at its base, fell, and crippled him. He lost a leg, and all the fingers of one hand. Your company paid the surgeon's bill, and Bowen was sent adrift without a cent. He sued for damages, and the jury gave him what he asked for. You appealed the case, and a Hungarian pedler, who hated him vindictively, swore that Bowen was so drunk he could not understand warning shouts that the pole was shaking, and that he was falling when the post toppled and struck him. You won, and he lost by perjury. He is able to do little, and has nine children. His wife and oldest daughter launder laces and fine muslins, and these ap.r.o.ns are for the youngest--twins, one of whom has spinal disease and will never walk. Mr.

Coolidge, I have rather liked you, because I found you always a gentleman, but my patience is exhausted, and, as I shall never work again for your company, there is no reason why you should prolong your visit."

"Nothing can change your mind in our favor?"

"Nothing."

"I wish the whole confounded, sickening business could be ended. Of course the company will win. New men will be at the barns and power-houses early to-morrow, prepared to run the cars, and the court will enjoin strikers from active interference. At the first shot the militia will be called out to take a hand, and then the poor devils running around like blind adders will be slaughtered. You women ought to stop it. Some of you firebrands will land in jail."

"Jail sounds dreadful, but after all it is not so bad; has its perquisites that wealth furnishes. I tried it once. The rich, old Jew who arrested me for stealing a Satsuma vase was so terrified when it was found where a negro porter had p.a.w.ned it, that he sent his superb carriage and horses and liveried coachman to carry me from jail to my lodgings. It was my first and last ride on satin cushions. Good-night, Mr. Coolidge."

When the door closed behind him, she counted the spice cakes into a paper bag, placed it in the bundle of ap.r.o.ns, and wrapped the whole in a square of oil cloth. Pushing her hair back from her brow, she drew a black veil closely around her face, tied the ends under her chin, and put on her long waterproof cloak, lifting the cape over her head, where she fastened it with a safety pin. Under the grey overhanging folds of the cape the fair, cold face looked serene as a nun's. Extinguishing the flame of the oil stove, her eyes rested a moment on the picture of Leighton, then she lowered the gas jet at the machine, picked up the bundle, locked the door, and dropped the key in her pocket as she went out to the street.

The snow fall was light and intermittent, but now and then the crystal facets glittered in the vivid bluish glare of quivering electric globes.

Three hours later Father Temple, pa.s.sing through the city on his way south, stood, valise in hand, on a street corner, waiting for a downtown car, and fearful he might miss the train where his sleeping berth had been engaged. No car came from any quarter, and he walked on, hoping to be overtaken. Soon a steady, rapid tread of many feet sounded from the rear, and a squad of police dashed past him.

"What is the matter with the cars?" he shouted to the hurrying column.

One man looked over his shoulder.

"The strike is on. Street car track torn up."

In a marvellously short time the crowded pavement became a dense ma.s.s of men and women struggling slowly forward; then a dull, deep, sullen roar, that shook windows and doors, rolled up to the starless sky where snow feathers fluttered. A woman screamed:

"The brutes are firing cannon into the poor strikers!"

"Not much! Some devilish striker throwing a bomb," answered her husband.

Father Temple, finding progress impeded, stepped down into the street and hurried on. At the end of the next square the hospital ambulance clattered by at emergency speed, and behind it another detachment of police at double-quick step. The street was bare as mid-desert of vehicles, save those from hospitals, and down the double railway track flowed a human stream, panting to reach the fray, eager to witness the struggle as old Romans who fought for places under the _velarium_, and shrieked "_Habet!_" Two officers on horseback galloped by, and then came reports of shots, followed by the wild, thousand-throated whoop and hoot of maddened men drunk with hate and fury. At the intersection of three streets, where a small park lay, the strikers had ma.s.sed the cars from every direction, shut off the current, cut the wires, and taken their stand. Expecting trouble next day, the company had prepared guards and provided extra police protection for their barns and power-houses, where a few non-union men had been secured, but the strikers frustrated these plans by refusing to run as directed to the defended terminus. Where the line of cl.u.s.tered cars ended on both tracks, iron rails had been torn up and piled across the road bed, and here, in front and rear, motormen, conductors, carpenters, machinists, and linemen were ma.s.sed, stubbornly defying all attempts to repair the tracks or move the cars.

A half hour before Father Temple reached the outskirts of the crowd at the square, a woman had elbowed her way to the front car and sprung upon the platform. Just below her Max Harlberg was distributing pistols to a group of men, all gesticulating angrily.

Clapping her hands to arrest attention, Mrs. Dane called:

"Silas Bowen, if you are here, answer. Silas Bowen!"

"Aye, aye! Silas Bowen is here to hurry up Judgment day for the hounds that have dodged it too long."

"You must go to your wife; she needs you. The tenement where you live burned down to-night."

"Let it burn! I hope the old rat hole isn't insured."

"But your wife is frantic, and wants you at once; and one of your children is hurt. Silas, do go to them, I beg of you. I have the helpless boy and the burned girl at my room, and your wife is there."

"I have waited too long for this picnic to turn my back just as the music begins. I am in for my share of the fun to-night, and kindling wood will be cheap to-morrow. When the devil's pay day comes for the boss, I mean to see the count."

Leaning over the dashboard of the car, Mrs. Dane watched for an opportunity, and s.n.a.t.c.hed from Harlberg's hand the pistol reserved for his own use. Holding it above her head, she cried:

"Friends, fellow-workers, listen a moment! You are striking for the right to live like human beings, not beasts of burden; but be careful, be sure you do not put yourselves in the wrong by rash violence. If strife comes, let your oppressors start it. Personal attack is not your privilege, but defence is your right. Stand here quietly, shoulder to shoulder, cool, steady, and keep non-union traitors at arm's length. We who are working will see that the pot boils for your families; but, men, I beg of you, attempt no violence; because, if the first shot comes from us, the end will be we shall all drop from the frying pan into the fire.

The police are bloodhounds wearing the collar of rich corporations, and the courts are butcher pens, where 'fighting strikers' are slaughtered.

When rifles are fired into your ranks and bayonets thrust into your bodies, then--only then--must you remember 'blood washes blood.' Oh, men, be patient! Max Harlberg, don't forget that you are responsible for what may happen now. These men have obeyed you--have followed you like sheep to the edge of a precipice. Don't drive them with the b.u.t.t of a pistol to leap to ruin. Counsel no bloodshed, no rashness, no wreckage."

A feeble cheer rose, smothered by a grumbling growl.

The wind had blown the cape back to her shoulders, and the folds of black veil banding her head slipped down, restraining no longer the ripples of hair curling above her temples. Leaning over the dashboard, one hand clutching the collar of Harlberg's overcoat as she talked rapidly to him, she resembled some gilt-headed figure carved at the prow of a vessel, always first to front tempests.

Just then a solid column of policemen charged the strikers, forcing them back almost upon the pile of rails near the foremost car, and following the line of lifted and revolving clubs, Mr. Cathcart and his superintendent, Hazleton appeared. Hisses, jeers, oaths, and a prolonged howl greeted them, amid which paving stones smote the heavy clubs that swung right and left like flails, and Harlberg sprang to the iron controller, leaped thence to the roof of the car, and shouted his orders to the strikers on the ground. Wounded, bleeding men were trampled by the swaying ma.s.s as it surged forward, staggered back, panting, cursing, hooting; then, in quick succession, three shots rang out.

A moment later Mrs. Dane laid Harlberg's pistol on top of the controller stand, and, as she stepped down from the platform to make her way home, something hurtled through the air and struck between the spot where Mr.