Book: Helen of the Old House

H >> Harold Bell Wright >> Helen of the Old House




The people with anxious eyes watched for the storm to break and made
such hurried preparations as they could. They heard the dull, muttering
sound of its heavy voice and looked at one another in silent dread or
talked, neighbor to neighbor, in low tones. A strange hush was over
this community of American citizens. In their work, in their pleasures,
in their home life, in their love and happiness, in their very sorrows,
they felt the deadening presence of this dread thing that was sweeping
upon them from somewhere beyond the borders of their native land. And
against this death that filled the air they seemingly knew not how to
defend themselves.

This, to the Interpreter, was the almost unbelievable tragedy--that the
people should not know what to do; that they should not have given more
thought to making the structure of their citizenship stormproof.


"The great trouble is that the people don't line up right," said
Captain Charlie to John and the Interpreter one evening as the workman
and the general manager were sitting with the old basket maker on the
balcony porch.

"Just what do you mean by that, Charlie?" asked John. The man in the
wheel chair was nodding his assent to the union man's remark.

"I mean," Charlie explained, "that the people consider only capital and
labor, or workmen and business men. They put loyal American workmen and
imperialist workmen all together on one side and loyal American
business men and imperialist business men all together on the other.
They line up _all_ employees against _all_ employers. For example, as
the people see it, you and I are enemies and the Mill is our battle
ground. The fact is that the imperialist manual workman is as much my
enemy as he is yours. The imperialist business man is as much your
enemy as he is mine."

"You are exactly right, Charlie," said the Interpreter. "And that is
the first thing that the Big Idea applied to our industries will do--it
will line up the great body of loyal American workmen that you
represent with the great body of loyal American business men that John
represents against the McIvers of capital and the Jake Vodells of
labor. And that new line-up alone would practically insure victory.
Nine tenths of our industrial troubles are due to the fact that
employers and employees alike fail to recognize their real enemies and
so fight their friends as often as they fight their foes.

"The people must learn to call an industrial slacker a slacker, whether
he loafs on a park bench or loafs on the veranda of the country club
house. They have to recognize that a traitor to the industries is a
traitor to the nation and that he is a traitor whether he works at a
bench or runs a bank. They have to say to the imperialist of business
and to the imperialist of labor alike, 'The industries of this country
are not for you or your class alone, they are for all because the very
life of the nation is in them and is dependent upon them.' When the
people of this country learn to draw the lines of class where they
really belong there will be an end to our industrial wars and to all
the suffering that they cause."

"If only the people could be lined up and made to declare themselves
openly," said John, "Jake Vodell would have about as much chance to
make trouble among us as the German Crown Prince would have had among
the French Blue Devils."

Charlie laughed.

"Which means, I suppose," said the Interpreter, "that there would be a
riot to see who could lay hands on him first."

* * * * *

The storm broke at McIver's factory. It was as Jake Vodell had told the
Interpreter it would be--"easy to find a grievance."

McIver declared that before he would yield to the demands of his
workmen, his factory should stand idle until the buildings rotted to
the ground.

The agitator answered that before his men would yield they would make
Millsburgh as a city of the dead.

Two or three of the other smaller unions supported McIver's employees
with sympathetic strikes. But the success or failure of Jake Vodell's
campaign quickly turned on the action of the powerful Mill workers'
union. The commander-in-chief of the striking forces must win John
Ward's employees to his cause or suffer defeat. He bent every effort to
that end.

Sam Whaley and a few like him walked out. But that was expected by
everybody, for Sam Whaley had identified himself from the day of
Vodell's arrival in Millsburgh as the agitator's devoted follower and
right-hand man. But this unstable, whining weakling and his fellows
from the Flats carried little influence with the majority of the
sturdy, clearer-visioned workmen.

At a meeting of the Millsburgh Manufacturing Association, McIver
endeavored to pledge the organization to a concerted effort against the
various unions of their workmen.

John Ward refused to enter into any such alliance against the workmen,
and branded McIver's plan as being in spirit and purpose identical with
the schemes of Jake Vodell. John argued that while the heads of the
various related mills and factories possessed the legal right to
maintain their organization for the purpose of furthering such business
interests as were common to them all, they could not, as loyal
citizens, attempt to deprive their fellow workmen citizens of that same
right. Any such effort to array class against class, he declared, was
nothing less than sheer imperialism, and antagonistic to every
principle of American citizenship.

When McIver characterized Vodell as an anarchist and stated that the
unions were back of him and his schemes against the government, John
retorted warmly that the statement was false and an insult to many of
the most loyal citizens in Millsburgh. There were individual members of
the unions who were followers of Jake Vodell, certainly. But
comparatively few of the union men who were led by the agitator to
strike realized the larger plans of their leader, while the unions as a
whole no more endorsed anarchy than did the Manufacturing Association.

McIver then drew for his fellow manufacturers a very true picture of
the industrial troubles throughout the country, and pointed out clearly
and convincingly the national dangers that lay in the threatening
conditions. Millsburgh was in no way different from thousands of other
communities. If the employers could not defend themselves by an
organized effort against their employees, he would like Mr. Ward to
explain who would defend them.

To all of which John answered that it was not a question of employers
defending themselves against their employees. The owners had no more at
stake in the situation than did their workmen, for the lives of all
were equally dependent upon the industries that were threatened with
destruction. In the revolution that Jake Vodell's brotherhood was
fomenting the American employers could lose no more than would the
American employees. The question was, How could American industries be
protected against both the imperialistic employer and the imperialistic
employee? The answer was, By the united strength of the loyal American
employers and employees, openly arrayed against the teachings and
leadership of Jake Vodell, on the one hand, and equally against all
such principles and actions as had been proposed by Mr. McIver, on the
other.

When the meeting closed, McIver had failed to gain the support of the
association.

Realizing that without the Mill he could never succeed in his plans,
the factory owner appealed to Adam Ward himself.

The old Mill owner, in full accord with McIver, attempted to force John
into line. But the younger man refused to enlist in any class war
against his loyal fellow workmen.

Adam stormed and threatened and predicted utter ruin. John calmly
offered to resign. The father refused to listen to this, on the ground
that his ill health did not permit him to assume again the management
of the business, and that he would never consent to the Mill's being
operated by any one outside the family.

When Helen returned to her home in the early evening, she found her
father in a state of mind bordering on insanity.

Striding here and there about the rooms with uncontrollable nervous
energy, he roared, as he always did on such occasions, about his sole
ownership of the Mill--the legality of the patents that gave him
possession of the new process--how it was his genius and hard work
alone that had built up the Mill--that no one should take his
possessions from him--waving his arms and shaking his fists in violent,
meaningless gestures. With his face twitching and working and his eyes
blazing with excitement and rage, his voice rose almost to a scream:
"Let them try to take anything away from me! I know what they are going
to do, but they can't do it. I've had the best lawyers that I could
hire and I've got it all tied up so tight that no one can touch it.

"I could have thrown Pete Martin out of the Mill any time I wanted. He
has no claim on me that any court in the world would recognize. Let him
try anything he dares. I'll starve him to death--I'll turn him into the
streets--he hasn't a thing in the world that he didn't get by working
for me. I made him--I will ruin him. You all think that I am sick--you
think that I am crazy--that I don't know what I am talking about. I'll
show you--you'll see what will happen if they start any thing--"

The piteous exhibition ended as usual. As if driven by some invisible
fiend, the man rushed from the presence of those whom he most loved to
the dreadful company of his own fearful and monstrous thoughts.

And the room where the wife and children of Adam Ward sat was filled
with the presence of that hidden thing of which they dared not speak.

* * * * *

Everywhere throughout the city the people were discussing John Ward's
opposition to McIver.

The community, tense with feeling, waited for an answer to the vital
question, What would the Mill workers' union do? Upon the answer of
John Ward's employees to the demands of the agitator for a sympathetic
strike depended the success or failure of Jake Vodell's Millsburgh
campaign.




CHAPTER XIX

ADAM WARD'S WORK


It was evening. The Interpreter was sitting in his wheel chair on the
balcony porch with silent Billy not far away. Beyond the hills on the
west the sky was faintly glowing in the last of the sun's light. The
Flats were deep in gloomy shadows out of which the grim stacks of the
Mill rose toward the smoky darkness of their overhanging cloud. Here
and there among the poor homes of the workers a lighted window or a
lonely street lamp shone in the murky dusk. But the lights of the
business section of the city gleamed and sparkled like clusters and
strings of jewels, while the residence districts on the hillside were
marked by hundreds of twinkling, starlike points.

The quiet was rudely broken by a voice at the outer doorway of the hut.
The tone was that of boisterous familiarity. "Hello! hello there!
Anybody home?"

"Here," answered the Interpreter. "Come in. Or, I should say, come
out," he added, as his visitor found his way through the darkness of
the living room. "A night like this is altogether too fine to spend
under a roof."

"Why in thunder don't you have a light?" said the visitor, with a loud
freedom carefully calculated to give the effect of old and privileged
comradeship. But the laugh of hearty good fellowship which followed his
next remark was a trifle overdone "Ain't afraid of bombs, are you?
Don't you know that the war is over yet?"

The Interpreter obligingly laughed at the merry witticism, as he
answered, "There is light enough out here under the stars to think by.
How are you, Adam Ward?"

From where he stood in the doorway, Adam could see the dim figure of
the Interpreter's companion at the farther end of the porch. "Who is
that with you?" demanded the Mill owner suspiciously.

"Only Billy Rand," replied the man in the wheel chair reassuringly.
"Won't you sit down?"

Before accepting the invitation to be seated, Adam advanced upon the
man in the wheel chair with outstretched hands, as if eagerly meeting a
most intimate friend whose regard he prized above all other
relationships of life. Seizing the Interpreter's hand, he clung to it
in an excess of cordiality, all the while pouring out between short
laughs of pretended gladness, a hurried volume of excuses for having so
long delayed calling upon his dear old friend. To any one at all
acquainted with the man, it would have been very clear that he wanted
something.

"It seems ages since I saw you," he declared, as he seated himself at
last. "It's a shame for a man to neglect an old friend as I have
neglected you."

The Interpreter returned, calmly, "The last time you called was just
before your son enlisted. You wanted me to help you keep him at home."

It was too dark to see Adam's face. "So it was, I remember now." There
was a suggestion of nervousness in the laugh which followed his words.

"The time before that," said the Interpreter evenly, "was when Tom
Blair was killed in the Mill. You wanted me to persuade Tom's widow
that you were in no way liable for the accident."

The barometer of Adam's friendliness dropped another degree. "That
affair was finally settled at five thousand," he said, and this time he
did not laugh.

"The time before that," said the Interpreter, "was when your old friend
Peter Martin's wife died. You wanted me to explain to the workmen who
attended the funeral how necessary it was for you to take that hour out
of their pay checks."

"You have a good memory," said the visitor, coldly, as he stirred
uneasily in the dusk.

"I have," agreed the man in the wheel chair; "I find it a great
blessing at times. It is the only thing that preserves my sense of
humor. It is not always easy to preserve one's sense of humor, is it,
Adam Ward?"

When the Mill owner answered, his voice, more than his words, told how
determined he was to hold his ground of pleasant, friendly comradeship,
at least until he had gained the object of his visit.

"Don't you ever get lonesome up here? Sort of gloomy, ain't
it--especially at nights?"

"Oh, no," returned the Interpreter; "I have many interesting callers;
there are always my work and my books and always, night and day, I have
our Mill over there."

"Heh! What! _Our_ Mill! Where? Oh, I see--yes--_our_ Mill--that's good!
_Our_ Mill!"

"Surely you will admit that I have some small interest in the Mill
where we once worked side by side, will you not, Adam?"

"Oh, yes," laughed Adam, helping on the jest. "But let me see--I don't
exactly recall the amount of your investment--what was it you put in?"

"Two good legs, Adam Ward, two good legs," returned the old basket
maker.

Again Adam Ward was at a loss for an answer. In the shadowy presence of
that old man in the wheel chair the Mill owner was as a wayward child
embarrassed before a kindly master.

When the Interpreter spoke again his deep voice was colored with gentle
patience.

"Why have you come to me like this, Adam Ward? What is it that you
want?"

Adam moved uneasily. "Why--nothing particular--I just thought I would
call--happened to be going by and saw your light."

There had been no light in the hut that evening. The Interpreter
waited. The surrounding darkness of the night seemed filled with
warring spirits from the gloomy Flats, the mighty Mill, the glittering
streets and stores and the cheerfully lighted homes.

Adam tried to make his voice sound casual, but he could not altogether
cover the nervous intensity of his interest, as he asked the question
that was so vital to the entire community. "Will the Mill workers'
union go out on a sympathetic strike?"

"No."

The Mill owner drew a long breath of relief. "I judged you would know."

The Interpreter did not answer.

Adam spoke with more confidence. "I suppose you know this agitator Jake
Vodell?"

"I know who he is," replied the Interpreter. "He is a well-known
representative of a foreign society that is seeking, through the
working people of this country, to extend its influence and strengthen
its power."

"The unions are going too far," said Adam. "The people won't stand for
their bringing in a man like Vodell to preach anarchy and stir up all
kinds of trouble."

The Interpreter spoke strongly. "Jake Vodell no more represents the
great body of American union men than you, Adam Ward, represent the
great body of American employers."

"He works with the unions, doesn't he?"

"Yes, but that does not make him a representative of the union men as a
whole, any more than the fact that your work with the great body of
American business men makes you their representative."

"I should like to know why I am not a representative American business
man." It was evident from the tone of his voice that the Mill owner
controlled himself with an effort.

The Interpreter answered, without a trace of personal feeling, "You do
not represent them, Adam Ward, because the spirit and purpose of your
personal business career is not the spirit and purpose of our business
men as a whole--just as the spirit and purpose of such men as Jake
Vodell is not the spirit and purpose of our union men as a whole."

"But," asserted the Mill owner, "it is men like me who have built up
this country. Look at our railroads, our great manufacturing plants,
our industries of all kinds! Look what I have done for Millsburgh! You
know what the town was when you first came here. Look at it now!"

"The new process has indeed wrought great changes in Millsburgh,"
suggested the Interpreter.

"The new process! You mean that _I_ have wrought great changes in
Millsburgh. What would the new process have amounted to if it had not
been for me? Why, even the poor old fools who owned the Mill at that
time couldn't have done anything with it. I had to force it on them.
And then when I had managed to get it installed and had proved what it
would do, I made them increase their capitalization and give me a half
interest--told them if they didn't I would take my process to their
competitors and put them out of business. Later I managed to gain the
control and after that it was easy." His voice changed to a tone of
arrogant, triumphant boasting. "I may not be a representative business
man in _your_ estimation, but my work stands just the same. No man who
knows anything about business will deny that I built up the Mill to
what it is to-day."

"And that," returned the Interpreter, "is exactly what Vodell says for
the men who work with their hands in cooeperation with men like you who
work with their brains. You say that you built the Mill because you
thought and planned and directed its building. Jake Vodell says the men
whose physical strength materialized your thoughts, the men who carried
out your plans and toiled under your direction built the Mill. And you
and Jake are both right to exactly the same degree. The truth is that
you have _all together_ built the Mill. You have no more right to think
or to say that you did it than Pete Martin has to think or to say that
he did it."

When Adam Ward found no answer to this the Interpreter continued.
"Consider a great building: The idea of the structure has come down
through the ages from the first habitation of primitive man. The mental
strength represented in the structure in its every detail is the
composite thought of every generation of man since the days when human
beings dwelt in rocky caves and in huts of mud. But listen: The
capitalist who furnished the money says he did it; the architect says
he did it; the stone mason says he did it; the carpenter says he did
it; the mountains that gave the stone say they did it; the forests that
grew the timber say they did it; the hills that gave the metal say they
did it.

"The truth is that all did it--that each individual worker, whether he
toiled with his hands or with his brain, was dependent upon all the
others as all were dependent upon those who lived and labored in the
ages that have gone before, as all are dependent at the last upon the
forces of nature that through the ages have labored for all. And this
also is true, sir, whether you like to admit it or not; just as we--you
and I and Pete Martin and the others--all together built the Mill, so
we all together built it for all. You, Adam Ward, can no more keep for
yourself alone the fruits of your labor than you alone and
single-handed could have built the Mill."

The Interpreter paused as if for an answer.

Adam Ward did not speak.

A flare of light from, the stacks of the Mill, where the night shift
was sweating at its work, drew their eyes. Through the darkness came
the steady song of industry--a song that was charged with the life of
millions. And they saw the lights of the business district, where Jake
Vodell was preaching to a throng of idle workmen his doctrine of class
hatred and destruction.

The Interpreter's manner was in no way aggressive when he broke the
silence. There was, indeed, in his deep voice an undertone of sorrow,
and yet he spoke as with authority. "You were driven here to-night by
your fear, Adam Ward. You recognize the menace to this community and to
our nation in the influence and teaching of men like Jake Vodell. Most
of all, you fear for yourself and your material possessions. And you
have reason to be afraid of this danger that you yourself have brought
upon Millsburgh."

"What!" cried the Mill owner. "You say that I am responsible?--that I
brought this anarchist agitator here?"

The Interpreter answered, solemnly, "I say that but for you and such
men as you, Adam Ward, Jake Vodell could never gain a hearing in any
American city."

Adam Ward laughed harshly.

But the old basket maker continued as if he had not heard. "Every act
of your business career, sir, has been a refusal to recognize those who
have worked with you. Your whole life has been an over assertion of
your personal independence and a denial of the greatest of all
laws--the law of _dependence_, which is the vital principle of life
itself. And so you have, through these years, upheld and exemplified to
the working people the very selfishness to which Jake Vodell appeals
now with such sad effectiveness. It is the class pride and intolerance
which you have fostered in yourself and family that have begotten the
class hatred which makes Vodell's plans against our government a
dangerous possibility. Your fathers fought in a great war for
independence, Adam Ward. Your son must now fight for a recognition of
that _dependence_ without which the _independence_ won by your father
will surely perish from the earth."

At the mention of his son, the Mill owner moved impatiently and spoke
with bitter resentment. "A fine mess you are making of things with your
'dependence.'"

"It is a fine mess that you have made of things, Adam Ward, with your
'_in_dependence,'" returned the Interpreter, sternly.

"I can tell you one thing," said Adam. "Your unions will never
straighten anything out with the help of Jake Vodell and his gang of
murdering anarchists."

"You are exactly right," agreed the Interpreter. "And I can tell you a
thing to match the truth of your statement. Your combinations of
employers will never straighten anything out with the help of such men
as McIver and his hired gunmen and his talk about driving men to work
at the point of the bayonet. But McIver and his principles are not
endorsed by our American employers," continued the Interpreter, "any
more than Jake Vodell and his methods are endorsed by our American
union employees. The fact is that the great body of loyal American
employers and employees, which is, indeed, the body of our nation
itself, is fast coming to recognize the truth that our industries must
somehow be saved from the destruction that is threatened by both the
McIvers of capital and the Vodells of labor. Our Mill, Adam Ward, that
you and Pete Martin and I built together and that, whether you admit it
or not, we built for all mankind, our Mill must be protected against
both employers and employees. It must be protected, not because the
ownership, under our laws, happens to be vested in you as an individual
citizen, but because of that larger ownership which, under the
universal laws of humanity, is vested in the people whose lives are
dependent upon that Mill as an essential industry. The Mill must be
saved, indeed, for the very people who would destroy it."

"Very fine!" sneered Adam; "and perhaps you will tell me who is to save
my Mill that is not my Mill for the very people who own it and who
would destroy it?"

The voice of the Interpreter was colored with the fire of prophecy as
he answered, "In the name of humanity, the sons of the men who built
the Mill will save it for humanity. Your boy John, Adam Ward, and Pete
Martin's boy Charlie represent the united armies of American employers
and employees that stand in common loyalty against the forces that are,
through the destruction of our industries, seeking to bring about the
downfall of our nation."

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