The Bennington mills, or shops, were situated just inside the city
limits. Beyond was a beautiful undulating country of pastures and
wheat-fields, dotted frequently with fine country homes. The mills
were somewhat isolated from the general manufacturing settlement, but
had spurs of track that for practical purposes were much nearer the
main line of freight traffic than any of those manufacturing concerns
which posed as its rivals. It was a great quadrangle of brick, partly
surrounded by a prison-like wall. Within this wall was a court,
usually piled high with coke and coal and useless molds. The building
was, by turns, called foundry, mills and shops. The men who toiled
there called it the shops. Day and night, night and day, there was
clangor and rumbling and roaring and flashes of intense light. In the
daytime great volumes of smoke poured from the towering chimneys, and
at night flames shot up to the very walls of heaven, burnishing the
clouds.
The elder Bennington was one of those men who, with a firm standing on
the present, lay admirable plans for the future. He had been in no
great hurry to get rich. He went leisurely about it, tantalizing
fortune, it might be said. His first venture had shown foresight. At
the beginning of the Civil War he had secured an option on many
thousand tons of coal. Without taking an actual penny from his
pockets, he had netted a comfortable fortune. Again, his foresight
recognized that the day would come when the whole continent would gird
itself in steel. With his ready money he bought ground and built a
small mill. This prospered. He borrowed from the banks, and went on
building. Ten years passed. The property was unencumbered; he had paid
both interest and principal. He did not believe in stock-holders. He
sold no stock. Every nail, bolt and screw was his; every brick, stone
and beam. There were no directors to meddle with his plans, no fool's
hand to block his progress, to thwart his vast projects. Slowly he
became rich, for every piece of steel that went out to the purchasers
was honest steel. Sagacity and loyalty overcame all obstacles. Many a
time he might have sold at a handsome profit. But selling wasn't his
idea; he had a son. Besides, this was his life-work, and he detested
the idle rich, which at that time were just coming into evidence.
He never speculated; but he bought government bonds, railroad bonds,
municipal bonds, for he had great faith in his country. He had the
same faith in his native city, too, for he secured all the bank stock
that came his way. Out of every ten dollars he earned he invested
five, saved three, and spent two. He lived well, but not
ostentatiously. He never gave directly to charities, but he gave work
to hundreds, and made men self-reliant and independent, which is a far
nobler charity. He never denied himself a vacation; he believed that
no man should live and die at his desk. There was plenty of time for
work and plenty for play; but neither interfered with the other. He
was an ardent fisherman, a keen hunter, and a lover of horses.
More than all these things, he was one of those rare individuals one
seldom meets--the born father. He made a man of his son and a woman of
his daughter. When he sent the boy to England, he knew that the boy
might change his clothes, but neither his character nor his
patriotism. He voted independently; he was never a party man; thus,
public office was never thrust in his way. Perhaps he was too frankly
honest. He never worried when his son reached the mating age. "Whoever
my boy marries will be the woman he loves, and he is too much his
father's son not to love among his equals." He was a college-bred man
besides, but few knew this. He had an eye for paintings, an ear for
music, and a heart for a good book. It is this kind of man whom nature
allows to be reproduced in his children.
He was gruff, but this gruffness was simply a mask to keep at arm's
length those persons whom he did not desire for friends.
When he died he left a will that was a model of its kind. There were
not a hundred lines in the document. He divided his fortune into three
parts, but he turned the shops over to his son John, without
stipulations, wholly and absolutely, to do with them as he pleased.
But he had written a letter in which he had set forth his desires. It
may be understood at once that these desires readily coincided with
those of the son.
John had not begun in the office. On the contrary, during school
vacations he worked as a puddler's apprentice, as a molder's
apprentice, in the rail-shop, in the sheet-and wire-shops. He worked
with his hands, too, and drew his envelope on Saturday nights like the
rest of them. There was never any talk about John's joining the union;
the men looked upon his efforts good-naturedly and as a joke. The
father, with wisdom always at his elbow, never let the fishing trips
go by. John had his play. At the age of twenty he knew as much about
the manufacture of steel as the next one. He loved the night shifts,
when the whole place seethed and glowed like an inferno. This manual
education had done something else, too. It had broadened his
shoulders, deepened his chest, and flattened his back. Many a time the
old man used to steal out and watch the young Hercules, stripped to
the waist, drag rails to the cooling-room. When John entered college
athletics he was not closely confined to the training-tables.
Under the guidance of such a father, then, there could not be as a
result anything less than a thorough man.
On the following Monday morning succeeding the encounter with Bolles,
John boarded a car and went out to the shops as usual. He found
nothing changed. The clerks in the office were busy with huge ledgers,
though it is true that many a hand was less firm than on ordinary
days. Rumors were flying about, from clerk to clerk, but none knew
what the boss intended to do. From the shops themselves came the
roaring and hammering that had gone on these thirty years or more.
Bennington opened his mail and read each letter carefully. There were
orders for rails, wire rope and sheets for boilers. The business of
the concern always passed through his hands first. Even when he was
out of town, duplicates of all orders were sent to him. He laid each
letter in the flat basket; but this morning there was no "O. K.--J.
B." scrawled across the tops. There would be time enough for that
later. He rose and went to the window and looked down into the court.
His heart beat heavily. There was something besides the possibility of
a strike on his mind. But he flung this thought aside and returned to
the strike. Was it right or was it wrong? Should he follow out his
father's request, letter for letter? To punish two or three who were
guilty, would it be right to punish several hundred who were not? And
those clerks and assistants yonder, upon whom families depended, who
had nothing to do with unionism, one way or the other, what about
them? Fate strikes blindly; the innocent fall with the guilty. The
analysis of his own desires was quick enough. Surrender? Not much! Not
an inch, not a tenth part of an inch, would he move. If men permitted
themselves to be sheep in the hands of an unscrupulous man, so much
the worse. He promised himself this much: all those who appealed to
him honestly, for these he would find employment elsewhere. There were
other mills and shops in town that would be glad enough to employ a
Bennington man, which signified capability.
"Mr. Bennington?"
John turned. Chittenden, the young English inventor, stood
respectfully just within the door.
"Good morning, Mr. Chittenden. How's the invention going? Did you get
that special pulley from Pittsburgh yet?"
"The invention is going very well, sir. But it is not of that I wish
to speak."
"Have you joined the union, then?" asked Bennington, with a shade of
irony which did not escape the keen-eyed Englishman.
"No!" This was not spoken; it was more like a shout. "I have joined no
union, and my brain may rot before I do. The truth is, sir, I hear
that if the men go out you'll tear down the shops." He hesitated.
"Go on."
"Well, I do not want this to happen on my account. I am young; I can
wait; I'll take my tinkering elsewhere. You've been very good to me
sir, and I should hate to see you troubled."
"Chittenden, you can't leave me now. If you do, I shall never forgive
you. You are a valuable piece of property just now. You are to be my
test case, as the lawyers say. If you go now the men will think I
weakened and forced you out. You gave me your word that you would stay
here till _I_ told you to go."
"There's nothing more to be said, sir. You may depend upon me."
"Thanks. The day you perfect your machine, on that day I shall find
the capital to promote it. Good morning."
"The committee was coming up after me, sir," was the reply.
"Ah!" Bennington's eyes flashed. "Then remain to hear what I have to
say to them."
All this while the girl at the typewriter never paused.
Clickity-click! clickity-click! Suddenly all noises ceased, all but
the noise of the typewriter. The two men looked at each other quickly
and comprehensively. There was a tramping of feet on the stairs, and
presently a knock on the door. Clickity-click!
"You may go," said Bennington to the girl.
The girl gathered up her notes and passed into the main office.
Again came the knock, more aggressive this time.
"Come in."
The committee, headed by Morrissy, entered with shuffling feet.
Morrissy saw the Englishman and scowled.
"Well, gentlemen?" said Bennington, sitting on his desk and resting a
foot on his chair.
"We have come to learn what you intend to do about this Britisher,"
began Morrissy.
"I don't recollect your face," replied Bennington thoughtfully. "How
long have you been in the shops?"
"I'm not in your shops," returned Morrissy blusteringly.
"In that case," said Bennington mildly, "there's the door. I do not
see how this matter concerns you."
"Well, it does concern me, as you'll find soon," cried Morrissy,
choking with sudden rage.
"I'll give you one minute to make the foot of the stairs. If you're
not there at the end of that time, I'll take you by the collar and
help you." Bennington drew out his watch.
"He's the head of our union, Mr. Bennington," interposed one of the
men, shifting his feet uneasily.
"Oh! Then he's the man who is really making all this trouble?"
Bennington nodded as if he had just arrived at a solution.
"I'm here to see that my men have their rights." Morrissy failed to
understand this mild young man. "And it'll take a bigger man than you
to throw me out of here. This Britisher either joins the union or he
goes."
"If he joins the union he'll be permitted to continue the perfecting
of his invention?"
"His invention is not necessary at present. The output as it is meets
the demand."
"Look here, Mr. Morrissy, I'll make you a proposition."
"What?"
"You and I will go down to the molding-room and have it out with our
fists. If you win, Chittenden goes; if I win, he stays and the men
return to work."
"This isn't no kid's play, Mr. Bennington. You've got a big strike
looking you in the face."
Bennington laughed. "I'm afraid you're a coward. So Mr. Chittenden
must join the union or go. It isn't a question of wage scale or hours;
it simply revolves around Mr. Chittenden. Supposing he joins the
union, what will you give him to do?" Bennington's voice was that of a
man who wishes to know all sides of the question.
"Well, he'll have to learn where they all started from."
"Mr. Chittenden is an expert machinist."
"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 balustrade, 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 damn 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 cock-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
crass 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
God 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 noble thing, but ignoble 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 emancipation 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.
"'There were two hundred and twelve strikes last year, of which only
six had cause. The others were brought about by politicians and greedy
unions. Dishonesty finds the line of least resistance in greed. Now, I
have studied the strike problem from beginning to end. There can be no
strike at the Bennington shops for a just cause. Had I lived long
enough, the shops would have been open-shop. My son, never surrender
once to injustice, for if you do you will establish a precedent, and
you will go on surrendering to the end of time. I leave the shops to
you. There is but one thing I demand, and that is that you shall never
sell the shops; Bennington or nothing. If you have difficulties with
the men, weigh them on the smallest scales. You will be master
there--you alone. It is a big responsibility, but I have the greatest
confidence in you. When the time comes, show that you are master, even
to the tearing down of every brick and stone that took me so long to
erect. I shall be where such disasters will not worry me in the
least.'"
Bennington refolded the letter slowly. The men stood absolutely
motionless, waiting.
"Men, if you go out this day, not one of you will ever find employment
here again. My sense of justice is large, and nothing but that shall
dictate to me. I shall employ and discharge whom I will; no man or
organization of men shall say to me that this or that shall be done
here. I am master, but perhaps you will understand this too late. Stay
or go; that is as you please. If you stay, nothing more will be said
on my part; if you go ... Well, I shall tear down these walls and sell
the machinery for scrap-iron!"
For the first time he showed emotion. He brought his hands strongly
together, as a man puts the final blow to the nail, then buttoned up
his coat and stood erect, his chin aggressive and his mouth stern.
"Well, which is it to be?" he demanded.
"You are determined to keep Chittenden?"
"Positively determined."
"We'll go out, Mr. Bennington," said Shipley.
"And what's more," added Morrissy, "we'll see that nobody else comes
in."
He lighted a cigar, shoved his hands into his trousers pockets and
walked insolently toward the exit. The majority of the men were
grinning. Tear down this place? Kill the goose that laid the golden
egg? It was preposterous. Why, no man had ever done a thing like that.
It was to cut off one's nose to spite one's face. It was a case of
bluff, pure and simple. Winter was nearly three months off. By that
time this smart young man would be brought to his senses. So they
began filing out in twos and threes, their blouses and dinner-pails
tucked under their arms. Many were whistling lightly, many were
smoking their pipes, but there were some who passed forth silent and
grave. If this young man was a chip of the old block, they had best
start out at once in search of a new job.
Bennington jumped down from his impromptu platform and closed the
ponderous doors. Then he hurried to the main office, where he notified
the clerks what had happened. He returned to his private office. He
arranged his papers methodically, closed the desk, and sat down. His
gaze wandered to the blue hills and rolling pastures, and his eyes
sparkled; but he forced back what had caused it, and presently his
eyes became dry and hard.
"'You and your actress and her lover'," he murmured softly. "My God, I
am very unhappy!"