From the Bottom Up Part 22

"Sure--aint you glad?"

"Yes--but----"

"Say, have a cup of hot coffee, won't you?"

"Thank you, I think I will."

His intuition was keen enough to perceive that the trouble was mental and as I took the coffee he said:

"Discouraged a bit, hey?"

Without waiting for a reply he proceeded to tell me how a few words of mine at one of the trolleymen's midnight meetings had changed his life. He went into details and as he went on I saw a look of contentment on his face and as I watched, it changed the look on my own.

I could not drink his coffee but I shared his comradeship and as I went back home I became normal. Hate left my heart. I was beaten, in a way; but the love of mankind was a fundamental thing and the other was a mental storm that pa.s.sed over and left no ill results.

Things took a new turn that morning. We saw a rift in the clouds and were encouraged. It became clear that my work in New Haven was ended.

I took a commission from the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation on West 57th Street to open up meetings in some of the big shops and factories of New York.

Mr. Charles F. Powlison, who is one of the largest minded and n.o.blest hearted men in the a.s.sociation, is special secretary there, and it was through his faith and confidence that the work came to me.

The Interborough Rapid Transit Company gave us permission to hold meetings in several of their largest shops.

I enjoyed the work very much--these big crowds of men in jumpers and overalls had a fascination for me. The work in the Interborough went well for a year. I reviewed great books, I gave the biographies of the world's greatest men, I talked of ethics, science, art and religion.

I taught the truth as I understood it; but it was all utterly unsectarian and universal. In one shop the company cleaned out the junk and replaced it with a restaurant: the superintendent told me it was the result of my work there. My talks were never over fifteen minutes long and seldom over ten. I was always a.s.sisted by a musician of some sort.

The work went well for a year in the big shops; then my part in them came to an abrupt end.

The board of directors at the West Side Y.M.C.A. is composed of representative men of affairs in New York--men of big responsibilities and large wealth; as splendid a set of men as ever governed an inst.i.tution.

This particular Y.M.C.A. was a pioneer inst.i.tution in a big way. It stood for large things when those things were unpopular. It was a heretic in a way. In ten years the procession came up and the inst.i.tution seemed to stand still.

It had given the Y.M.C.A. world a larger outlook in religion and it may be that it will yet become a pioneer in giving it a larger sociology.

I was one of two men to address the board of directors one night and I stated the case at more length than I do here.

"What shall I tell those workingmen you stand for?" I asked. "Do you believe in the right of the workers to organize? If you do, say so, and, as your representative, let me tell them that you do."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Lunch Hour in an Interborough Shop]

The next time I addressed a big shop meeting I gave the musician all the minutes save three. Several hundreds of men stood around me--disorganized, poorly paid men.

"Men," I said, "there is in this city a thing called the Civic Federation. Its leaders are directly the owners of this shop. In it are also leaders of labour, Mitch.e.l.l and Gompers. There are several bishops of various beliefs. Now the Civic Federation tells us--tells the world--that it believes in labour unions. What I want to suggest is this: A dozen of you get together; write a note to your masters and ask them if that belief applies to _you_?"

Of course I knew it didn't apply to them, but I got very tired merely telling the slaves to be good, and ended my service there in that way.

A spy at once informed the superintendent, and I was told--the Y.M.C.A. was told--that I could never enter their shops again. The man who succeeded me as a speaker at that shop, the following week, went much further; he positively advised them to organize, for hardly in the United States could one find greater need of organization.

CHAPTER XIX

I INTRODUCE JACK LONDON TO YALE

The last piece of work in New Haven was a master stroke. It was an inoculation. Jack London was in the East and I persuaded him to pay the comrades in New Haven a visit and make a speech. The theatres were all engaged, so were the halls.

The new Y.M.C.A. hall could not be rented--for London. There was only one hope left--Yale. I knew a student who was a Socialist. We outlined a plan. London was a literary man; Yale had probably heard of him. The Yale Union was canva.s.sed. It was a Freshman debating society.

Certainly; they had read London's books--"The Call of the Wild," "The Sea Wolf," etc.

"Well now, boys, here's your chance. Jack London can be had for a lecture."

The Union had no money and Woolsey Hall cost fifty dollars. "That's easy," I suggested, though I didn't have fifty cents at the time. That seemed fine. "Of course," I said, as I remembered the empty Socialist treasury, "we'll have to charge an admission fee of ten cents." That, too, was all right. In case of frost or failure I promised to make good so that the Union would have no responsibility. I meekly suggested that as compensation for "risk involved" I would take the surplus--if there was any.

"They say Jack London is Socialistically inclined, Doctor," said the youthful president of the Yale Union.

"Yes, he is, rather," I answered.

"Well," he added, "I suppose we will have to take our chances." The chances seemed small then; they loomed up larger later.

He hoped President Hadley would not interfere with him.

"Will you introduce him, Doctor?"

"Certainly."

"What's his topic?"

"He calls it 'The Coming Crisis.'"

"Social, I suppose, eh?"

"Yes, it's a suggested remedy for a lot of our troubles."

The Socialist student had a few rounds with Lee McClung, the Yale treasurer. "Mac" didn't know Irvine from a gate-post but took Billy Phelps's word for it that London was a literary man and let it go at that--let the hall go, I mean.

"Yale," said the brilliant Phelps, "is a university, and not a monastery; besides, Jack London is one of the most distinguished men in America."

When it was decided we could have the hall the advertising began.

Streets, shops and factories were bombarded with printed announcements. Next morning--the morning after securing the hall--Yale official and unofficial awoke to find tacked to every tree on the campus the inscription, "Jack London at Woolsey Hall."

Max Dellfant painted a flaming poster that gripped men by the eyes. In it London appeared in a red sweater and in the background the lurid glare of a great conflagration. Yale and New Haven had never been so thoroughly informed on such short notice. The information was in red letters.

The first thing done was to run down the officers of the Yale Union.

They had previously run each other down. The boys were thoroughly scared, explanations were in order all around.

The wiseacres of Yale got busy and the new Yale took a hand also.

Professor Charles Foster Kent--the Henry Drummond of Yale--and Professor William Lyon Phelps counselled a square deal and fair play.