Half a Rogue Part 39

"Let him join the union, then, and there won't be any trouble here. I want justice. This shop is union, and no non-union man can work here.

I want justice, that's all."

"You'll get that all in good time, Mr.--ah--?"

"Morrissy."

"Mr. Morrissy. Mr. Chittenden, are you willing to join the union?"

Bennington smiled as he plied this question.

"Not I! My word, I'd as lief starve as become a union man, and under such a master. I prize my manhood and independence above all things. I have already refused to join. I never take back what I say."

"Neither do I, Mr. Chittenden." Bennington stood up.

"Then out he goes," said Morrissy, recovering his truculence.

"On what authority?" Bennington's voice was growing milder and milder.

"On what authority?" he repeated.

"On mine!" cried Morrissy.

"You are mistaken. I am master here. Mr. Chittenden will remain on the pay-roll."

"Then in ten minutes the men will walk out on my orders. You're making a big mistake, Mr. Bennington."

"That is for me to judge."

"Ten minutes to make up your mind." Morrissy made a gesture toward his watch.

"Don't bother about the time, Mr. Morrissy. We'll spend the ten minutes in the molding-room."

Morrissy turned pale.

"Oh, we shan't come to fisticuffs, Mr. Morrissy. I am a gentleman, and you are not. Not a word!" as Morrissy clenched his fists. "Mr.

Shipley," said Bennington to one of the committee, "will you get all the men together? I have a few words to say to them before this ten minutes is up. I want to give the men a fair show."

"You can have twenty minutes, my English-bred gentleman," snarled Morrissy. At that moment he would have given a thousand dollars for the strength to whip the man whose ruin he believed he was planning.

"I'm kind of anxious myself to hear what you've got to say.

"In fact, I hope you will listen carefully to every word I say,"

replied Bennington, with a nod toward the door.

The committee went out solemnly. Morrissy was next to the last to go down the stairs. Bennington followed closely behind him.

"Some day I'll get a good chance at you, Mr. Morrissy, and the devil take care of you when I do. I shall see to it that the law will be found to fit your case."

Morrissy shifted over to the bal.u.s.trade, looking over his shoulder at the speaker.

"Look here, you can't talk to me that way, Bennington."

"Can't I? I'll proceed. In the first place, you're a d.a.m.n scoundrel.

You've brought about this trouble simply to show that you have power to injure me. Well, you can't injure me, Mr. Morrissy, but you will do irreparable injury to these poor men who put their trust in you and your kind. Chittenden? That's a pretty poor excuse. You've always harbored a grudge against my father, and this seems to be your chance.

You've the idea that you can intimidate me. You can't intimidate me any more than you could my father. More than all this, McQuade is back of this move; and if I can prove that you accepted a bribe from him, I'll have you both in court for conspiracy."

"You're talking big. It won't do you any good."

"Wait. I should be willing to wait ten years to call you a thief and a blackguard in public. But I say to you now, privately, you are both a thief and a blackguard."

Morrissy stepped back, red in the face. But he recognized the disadvantage of his position. He was one step lower than his accuser.

"Go on," said Bennington, his voice now hard and metallic; "go on down. There'll be no rough and tumble here. I won't give you that satisfaction."

"Well, you mark my words, I'll get satisfaction out of you shortly, and then you'll talk on the other side of your mouth. This is business now. When that's done, why, I'll make you eat every one of those words."

Bennington laughed sinisterly. He could crush the life out of this flabby ruffian with one arm, easily.

Nothing more was said, and the way to the great molding-room was traversed silently. Shipley sent out orders, and in a few minutes the men congregated to hear what the boss had to say. It was, to say the least, an unusual proceeding, this of an employer delivering a speech to his men after they had practically declared a strike. Morrissy now regretted that he had given Bennington any grace at all, for it was not to be doubted that there was only a small majority of the men who had voted for a strike. And these were the young men; youth is always so hot-headed and c.o.c.k-sure of itself. The older men, the men who had drawn their pay in the shops for twenty years or more, they were not so confident.

Bennington mounted a pile of molds and raised his hand. The murmur of voices dwindled away into silence. The sun came in through the spreading skylights, and Bennington stood in the center of the radiance. He was a man, every inch of him, and not a man among them could deny it. There are many things that are recognizable even to cra.s.s minds, and one of these is a man. Genius they look upon with contempt, but not strength and resolution; they can not comprehend what is not visible to the eye.

"Fire away, boss!" said a voice from the crowd.

Many of the men smiled, but there was no answering smile on the face of the man on the molds.

"I have but few words to say to you men, and I trust for the sake of your families that you will weigh carefully every word I utter."

Bennington took his father's letter from his pocket and unfolded it.

"You are about to take a step such as you all will live to regret. My father never threatened; he acted. I shall follow his example. You are on the verge of striking. I shall recognize the strike only at the moment you decide to leave the shops. You will strike without cause, without justice, simply because you are commanded to do so by your leader."

"Hold on, Mr. Bennington!" cried one of those nearest him. "We have the right to vote, and we voted against your policy in hiring a non-union man."

"Put it that way if it pleases you," replied Bennington. "I say that you strike simply to show how strong your power is. It is a fine thing to have power, but it is finer by far to use it only when justice makes a cause. But power is a terrible weapon in the hands of those who can not direct it wisely. Let me come to facts. Your wages are the highest in the city, five per cent. above the union scale; your hours are the shortest; there is no Sunday-night shift; you have at your pleasure a gymnasium and a swimming-pool; you are each of you given a week's vacation in the summer on full pay, a thing no other concern of the kind in the state does; all the machinery is flawless, minimizing your chances of danger; in fact, you draw pay fifty-two weeks in the year in the squarest shop in the world. If any man wishes to deny these things, let him stand forth."

But there was neither sound nor movement from the men.

Bennington continued. "Men, you have no grievance. This man Chittenden, the alleged cause of your striking, takes no food or pay from your mouths or your pockets; he interferes with you in no manner whatever. The contrivance he is trying to complete will not limit the output, but will triple it, necessitating the employment of more men.

But your leader says that the present output is wholly sufficient, and you are taking his word for it. Mr. Chittenden represents progress, but you have taken it into your heads that you will have none of it.

He refuses to join the union, and I refuse to discharge him on that ground. I do not say that this shall not be a union shop; I say that I shall employ whom I will for any purpose I see fit. It is your say, so say it; yours is the power; use it. ... Patience, just a little longer. I have shown much of it during the past year."

The men swayed restlessly, and then became still again when they saw that he was going to read something.

"I have here the last letter my father ever wrote me. As I received it after his death, I might say that it is a voice from the grave. I will read that part which affects the shops.

"'And so, my son, I leave you this last request. Day after day, year after year, I have toiled honestly, with the will and the foresight G.o.d gave me. I die prosperous and contented, having acquired my riches without ill to any and without obligation. I have never wronged any man, though often the power to do so has been in my hands. But reason always cools hot blood, and I have always kept a strong curb on all my angry impulses. Some day the men will strike again, what about I know not; but this I do know: it will be without justice. I have bent to them nine out of ten times. Nine of their demands were not wholly unreasonable, but the tenth was. And this demand was that I should have no non-union men in the shops. This strike lasted four months.

You will recall it. I do not know how long it might have gone on, had not the poor devil, who was the cause of it, died. I and the men came together again. We patched up our differences, covertly, so to speak.

The men appeared at the gates one morning, and I let them in without referring by a single word to what had taken place. The principle of unionism is a n.o.ble thing, but ign.o.ble men, like rust in girders, gnaw rapidly into principles and quickly and treacherously nullify their good.

"'The destroyer is everywhere. The apple has its worm, the rose its canker, the steel its rust. It is the ignorant and envious man who misuses power that, rightly directed, moves toward the emanc.i.p.ation of the human race. There are cruel and grasping and dishonest employers, who grind the heart and soul out of men. The banding together of the laboring men was done in self-defense; it was a case of survive or perish. The man who inaugurated unionism was a great philanthropist.

The unions began well; that is because their leaders were honest, and because there was no wolf in the fold to recognize the extent of power. It was an ignorant man who first discovered it, and for the most part ignorance still wears the crown and holds the scepter. The men who put themselves under the guidance of a dishonest labor leader are much to be pitied. The individual laboring man always had my right hand, but I have never had any particular reason to admire the union leader.