Bonbright's father had left the office an hour before he and Rangar had
finished their tour of the works. It was always his custom to leave his
business early and to retire to the library in his home, where daily he
devoted two hours to adding to the manuscript of The Philosophical
Biography of Marquis Lafayette. This work was ultimately to appear in
several severe volumes and was being written, not so much to enlighten
the world upon the details of the career of the marquis as it was to
utilize the marquis as a clotheshorse to be dressed in Bonbright Foote
VI's mature reflections on men, events, and humanity at large.
Bonbright VII sat at his desk motionless, studying his career as it lay
circumscribed before him. He did not study it rebelliously, for as yet
rebellion had not occurred to him. The idea that he might assert his
individuality and depart from the family pattern had not ventured to
show its face. For too many years had his ancestors been impressing him
with his duty to the family traditions. He merely studied it, as one
who has no fancy for geometry will study geometry, because it cannot be
helped. The path was there, carefully staked out and bordered; to-day
his feet had been placed on it, and now he must walk. As he sat he
looked ahead for bypaths--none were visible.
The shutting-down whistle aroused him. He walked out through the
rapidly emptying office to the street, and there he stood, interested
by the spectacle of the army that poured out of the employees'
entrances. It was an inundation of men, flooding street from sidewalk
to sidewalk. It jostled and joked and scuffled, sweating, grimy, each
unit of it eager to board waiting, overcrowded street cars, where acute
discomfort would be suffered until distant destinations were reached.
Somehow the sight of that surging, tossing stream of humanity impressed
Bonbright with the magnitude of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, even
more than the circuit of the immense plant had done.
Five thousand men, in a newspaper paragraph, do not affect the
imagination. Five thousand men in the concrete are quite another
matter, especially if you suddenly realize that each of them has a
wife, probably children, and that the whole are dependent upon the
dynasty of which you are a member for their daily bread.
"Father and I," he said to himself, as the sudden shock of the idea
impacted against his consciousness, "are SUPPORTING that whole mob."
It gave him a sense of mightiness. It presented itself to him in that
instant that he was not a mere business man, no mere manufacturer, but
a commander of men--more than that, a lord over the destinies of men.
It was overwhelming. This realization of his potency made him gasp.
Bonbright was very young.
He turned, to be carried on by the current. Presently it was choked. A
stagnant pool of humanity formed around some center, pressing toward it
curiously. This center was a tiny park, about which the street divided,
and the center was a man standing on a barrel by the side of a sign
painted on cloth. The man was speaking in a loud, clear voice, which
was able to make itself perfectly audible even to Bonbright on the
extreme edge of the mass.
"You are helpless as individuals," the man was saying. "If one of you
has a grievance, what can he do?... Nothing. You are a flock of
sheep.... If ALL of you have a grievance, what can you do? You are
still a pack of sheep.... Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, owns you, body
and soul.... Suppose this Foote who does you the favor to let you earn
millions for him--suppose he wants to buy his wife a diamond
necklace.... What's to prevent him lowering your wages next week to pay
for it?... YOU couldn't stop him!... Why can an army beat a mob of
double its numbers? Because the army is ORGANIZED! Because the army
fights as one man for one object!... You are a mob. Capital is
organized against you.... How can you hope to defend yourselves? How
can you force a betterment of your conditions, of your wage?... By
becoming an army--a labor army!... By organizing.... That's why I'm
here, sent by the National Federation--to organize you. To show you how
to resist!... To teach you how to make yourselves irresistible!..."
There were shouts and cheers which blotted out the speaker's words.
Then Bonbright heard him again:
"Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, is entitled to fair interest on the
money it has invested in its plant. It is entitled to a fair profit on
the raw materials it uses in manufacture.... But how much of the final
cost of its axles does raw material represent? A fraction! What gives
the axles the rest of their value?... LABOR! You men are paid two,
three, some of you even four dollars a day--for your labor. Bonbright
Foote, Incorporated, adds a little pig iron to your labor, and gives
you a place to work in, and takes his millions of dollars a year.... Do
you get your fair share?... You do NOT, and you will never get a
respectable fraction of your fair share till you organize--and seize
it."
There was more. Bonbright had never heard the like of it before and it
fascinated him. Here was a point of view that was new to him. What did
it mean? Vaguely he had heard of Socialism, of labor unions, of the
existence of a spirit of suspicion and discord between capital and
labor. Now he saw it, face uncovered starkly.
A moment before he had realized his power over these men; now he
perceived that these men, some of them, realized it even better than
he.... Realized it and resented it; resented it and fought with all the
strength of their souls to undermine it and make it topple in ruin.
His mind was a caldron into which cross currents of thought poured and
tossed. He had no experience to draw on. Here was a thing he was being
plunged into all unprepared. It had taken him unprepared, and shaken
him as he had never been shaken before. He turned away.
Half a dozen feet away he saw the Girl with the Grin--not grinning now,
but tense, pale, listening with her soul in her eyes, and with the
light of enthusiasm glowing beside it.
He walked to her side, touched her shoulder.... It was unpremeditated,
something besides his own will had urged him to speak to her.
"I don't understand it," he said, unsteadily.
"Your class never does," she replied, not sharply, not as a retort, but
merely as one states a fact to give enlightenment.
"My father," she said, "was killed leading the strikers at Homestead.
... The unions educated me."
"What is this man--this speaker--trying to do? Stir up a riot?"
She smiled. "No. He is an organizer sent by the National Federation.
... They're going to try to unionize our plant."
"Unionize?"
"Bonbright Foote, Incorporated," she said, "is a non-union shop."
"I didn't know," said he, after a brief pause. "I'm afraid I don't
understand these things.... I suppose one should know about them if he
is to own a plant like ours." Again he paused while he fumbled for an
idea that was taking shape. "I suppose one should understand about his
employees just as much as he does about his machinery."
She looked at him with a touch of awakened interest. "Do you class men
with machinery?" she asked, well knowing that was not his meaning. He
did not reply. Presently he said:
"Rangar told you you were to be my secretary?"
"Yes, sir," she said, using that respectful form for the first time.
The relation of employer and employee had been re-established by his
words. "Thank you for the promotion."
"You understand what this is all about," he said. "I shall want to ask
you about it.... Perhaps you even know the man who is speaking?"
"He boards with my mother," said she. "That was natural," she added,
"my father being who he was."
Bonbright turned and looked at the speaker with curiosity awakened as
to the man's personality. The man was young--under thirty, and handsome
in a black, curly, quasi-foreign manner.
Bonbright turned his eyes from the man to the girl at his side. "He
looks--" said Bonbright.
"How?" she asked, when it was apparent he was not going to finish.
"As if," he said, musingly, "he wouldn't be the man to call on for a
line smash in the last quarter of a tough game."
Suddenly the speech came to an end, and the crowd poured on.
"Good night," said the girl. "I must find Mr. Dulac. I promised I would
walk home with him."
"Good night," said Bonbright. "His name is Dulac?"
"Yes."
Men like Dulac--the work they were engaged upon--had not fallen within
the circle of Bonbright's experience. Bonbright's training and
instincts had all been aristocratic. At Harvard he had belonged to the
most exclusive clubs and had associated with youths of training similar
to his. In his athletics there had been something democratic, but
nothing to impress him with democracy. Where college broadens some men
by its contacts it had not broadened Bonbright, for his contacts had
been limited to individuals chipped from the same strata as himself....
In his home life, before going to college, this had been even more
marked. As some boys are taught arithmetic and table manners, Bonbright
had been taught veneration for his family, appreciation for his
position in the world, and to look upon himself and the few associates
of his circumscribed world as selected stock, looked upon with especial
favor and graciousness by the Creator of the universe.
Therefore this sudden dip into reality set him shivering more than it
would another who entered the water by degrees. It upset him.... The
man Dulac stirred to life in him something that was deeper than mere
curiosity.
"Miss--" said he, and paused. "I really don't know your name."
"Frazer," she supplied.
"Miss Frazer, I should like to meet this Dulac. Would you be willing?"
She considered. It was an unusual request in unusual circumstances, but
why not? She looked up into his boyish face and smiled. "Why not?" she
said, aloud.
They pressed forward through the crowd until they reached Dulac,
standing beside his barrel, surrounded by a little knot of men. He saw
the girl approaching, and lifted his hand in acknowledgment of her
presence. Presently he came to her, casting a careless glance at
Bonbright.
"Mr. Dulac," she said, "Mr. Foote has been listening to your speech. He
wants to meet you."
"Foote!" said Dulac. "Not--"
"Mr. Bonbright Foote," said the girl.
Evidently the man was nonplussed. He stared at Bonbright, who extended
his hand. Dulac looked at it, took it mechanically.
"I heard what you were saying, Mr. Dulac," said Bonbright. "I had never
heard anything like it before--so I wanted to meet you."
Dulac recovered himself, perceived that here was an opportunity, and
spoke loudly so that the staring, interested workingmen, who now
surrounded them, could hear distinctly.
"I'm glad you were present," said he. "It is not often we workingmen
catch the ear of you employers so readily. You sit apart from your men
in comfortable offices or in luxurious homes, so they get little
opportunity to talk straight from the shoulder to you.... Even if they
had the chance," he said, with a look about him, "they would not dare.
To be respectful and to show no resentment mean their bread and butter."
"Resentment?" said Bonbright. "You see I am new to the business and to
this. What is it they resent?"
"They resent being exploited for the profit of men like yourself....
They resent your having the power of life and death over them...."
The girl stood looking from one man to the other; from Dulac, tall,
picturesquely handsome, flamboyant, conscious of the effect of each
word and gesture, to Bonbright, equally tall, something broader,
boyish, natural in his unease, his curiosity. She saw how like he was
to his slender, aristocratic father. She compared the courtesy of his
manner toward Dulac with Dulac's studied brusqueness, conscious that
the boy was natural, honest, really endeavoring to find out what this
thing was all about; equally conscious that Dulac was exercising the
tricks of the platform and utilizing the situation theatrically. Yet he
was utilizing it for a purpose with which she was heart and soul in
sympathy. It was right he should do so....
"I wish we might sit down and talk about it," said Bonbright. "There
seem to be two sides in the works, mine and father's--and the men. I
don't see why there should be, and I'd like to have you tell me. You
see, this is my first day in the business, so I don't understand my own
side of it, or why I should have a side--much less the side of the men.
I hadn't imagined anything of the sort.... I wish you would tell me all
about it. Will you?"
The boy's tone was so genuine, his demeanor so simple and friendly,
that Dulac's weapons were quite snatched from his hands. A crowd of the
men he was sent to organize was looking on--a girl was looking on. He
felt the situation demanded he should show he was quite as capable of
courtesy as this young sprig of the aristocracy, for he knew
comparisons were being made between them.
"Why," said he, "certainly.... I shall be glad to."
"Thank you," said Bonbright. "Good night." He turned to the girl and
lifted his hat. "Thank YOU," said he, and eyes in which there was no
unfriendliness followed him as he walked away, eyes of men whom Dulac
was recruiting for the army of the "other side" of the social struggle.
He hurried home because he wanted to see his father and to discuss this
thing with him.
"If there is a conflict," he said to himself, "in our business,
workingmen against employer, I suppose I am on the employer's side.
THEY have their reasons. We must have our reasons, too. I must have
father explain it all to me."
His mother called to him as he was ascending the stairs:
"Be as quick as you can, Bonbright. We have guests at dinner to-night."
"Some one I know?"
"I think not," His mother hesitated. "We were not acquainted when you
went to college, but they have become very prominent in the past four
years.... Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Lightener--and their daughter,"
Bonbright noticed the slight pause before the mention of the daughter,
and looked quickly at his mother. She looked as quickly away.
"All right, mother," he said.
He went to his room with another disturbance added to the many that
disquieted him. Just as certainly as if his mother had put it into
words he knew she had selected this Lightener girl to be Mrs. Bonbright
Foote VII--and the mother of Bonbright Foote VIII.
"Confound it," he said, "it's started already.... Dam Bonbright Foote
VIII!"